Craving (27 page)

I didn’t care who saw or heard me. I called to Eve as I headed for the exit and moments later she materialized by my side.

“Kitten is here,” I snapped, “and Josh is on the way, probably with Suki.” A thought blindsided me.
Christ
. “When Giant said it was a journo from the telly, he meant Suki.”

Eve shrugged, but wouldn’t meet my eyes.

A couple of girls stared at me as I strode past, apparently talking to myself.

“Eve, did you know? Why didn’t you tell me Kitten was here?”

“You didn’t ask.”

I halted and blinked, trying very hard to control my anger. “You made a nice job of that posh kid, though.” A mental image of the guy pawing Kitten made me clench my fists. She’d been trying to push him off, but he’d ignored her.

Eve placed an icy finger to my lips. “Don’t say anything.” Her voice was sharp. “You’ve got company.”

Did she mean Josh? I waited, peering down the gloomy corridor, completely unprepared to see the little Asian woman walking toward us. Her flat, dark eyes chilled me, and my stomach began to churn. I clamped my mouth shut and scowled at the small woman, conscious of Eve lurking at my side.

The woman crooked a finger at me. “Come.”

This shit wasn’t going to happen to me again. I’d run before she locked me in that room one more time… and leave without Kitten? Not an option. I swallowed down my fear, convinced my frozen legs to move, and followed her through a secure door into another part of the club.

She held a door open and gestured for me to enter. I blinked and tried to breathe normally, my chest already tight with anxiety. Balling my sweaty hands into fists I lifted my chin and entered the room, the door closing behind us.

She took a position standing by the door, arms folded.

I let out my breath. A different room. This had a single wooden chair in the middle and a glass wall along one side. I pressed my face to the glass but it was just blackness. My heart raced, and I longed for a cigarette.

“What’s going on?”

The Asian ignored me.

Remembering Eve, I glanced at her. She drew patterns on the glass with her fingers, keeping her focus away from me. “I dunno.” She didn’t sound convincing, and my heart hammered a little faster.

I turned to face the Asian. She still hadn’t answered me. “You wouldn’t tell me, anyway. Right?”

No reply.

Any harsh words I’d been about to unleash were silenced. The other side of the glass lit up to show a similar room, empty, one wooden chair in the middle. I had a bad feeling. I looked at Eve and saw that she was staring intently through the glass. My heart stuttered when the opposite door opened and Kitten walked into the empty room. She looked cautious as opposed to scared. In a heartbeat I went from anxious to terrified.

Kitten was followed by two heavy-duty bouncers, and the door closed firmly behind them. I heard their footsteps, the snick of the door catch, and Kitten’s voice.

“Am I in trouble?” Puzzled.

I smacked the glass with the palm of my hand. Kitten didn’t appear to notice. I hammered with both fists. No response.

One of the bouncers asked her to remove her jacket, and as Kitten tugged it tighter, the Asian woman spoke. “She can’t hear or see you. It looks like a plain wall to her.”

I spun around, my fists tight. “For fucks sake, why do you want her? She’s done nothing.”

A horrified cry made me turn back. One bouncer held her wrists, the other dragged her jacket down, ripping it away from her body. I pounded on the glass. “You bastards, leave her alone.” She
had
to hear me, to know I was there.

“Keep your hands off me!”

I’d forgotten that my Kitten was a fighter. I watched, helpless and utterly useless while she wriggled. She let loose with a kick, and then tried to elbow the men.

They grabbed her while she screeched and yelled abuse, but paid her no attention. In less than a minute, she’d been subdued with her hands behind the chair, and her ankles tied to the legs.

I turned to face the Asian and swallowed hard. “Please let her go. Whatever you want, you can have it.”

Eve raised a warning hand, but I ignored her. “You want my Talisman? Fine, but let her go.”

“Dante.” Eve’s voice was like a whip.

I flicked a glance at her and she pointed to Kitten. I followed her finger and saw who’d just entered the room with Kitten.

Alistair
.

13.5 Katherine

Every instinct screamed that the man standing before me was evil. I couldn’t move my arms or legs, and my fingers were already going numb, but none of that mattered. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Tall to the point that it was uncomfortable to stare up at him, I still couldn’t make out his face clearly, even when he stood right in front of me. I blinked and squinted, but he still looked foggy.
He looks like Gabe’s spirit did at the séance.

I shivered. The closer he moved, the colder I felt. I clenched my jaw while I tried to breathe through my nose. It felt as though little icicles were forming around my face, down my neck, and trickling along my arms. I sucked in a harsh breath and tried to speak past the chattering of my teeth. “I want to know why you’re holding me here.”

I think he smiled. There was a flash of teeth and a smell like decaying vegetables and then he spoke.

“Hello, Katherine.”

His voice was a harsh croak as though his throat was raw.
As though he wasn’t used to speaking.

“Who are you?” I was pleased that I managed to sound pissed off rather than petrified. If he came any closer he’d hear my heart galloping along, trying to break out of my rib cage.

“I am Alistair. We have a mutual friend.”
Dante.

“Yessss.” I blinked. I hadn’t said his name out loud.

There was that strange, almost smile again. “I must thank Dante for bringing you to me. He’s going to fetch his brother now. Such a well-trained boy, I have high hopes for him.”

“Dante doesn’t have a b-brother.” My face was stiff with cold, but I couldn’t stay quiet. “You’re just a c-clever c-con man.”

“He didn’t tell you Raphael was his brother?”

I stared. Josh had said something about being known as Raphael. Did he mean that Josh was Dante’s brother?

“I see,” he continued. “There are a few things he didn’t tell you. Like where to find your mother.” He smiled at my sharp intake of breath. “He didn’t tell you he stole from your father.” There was a soft, rustling noise, and his hand appeared, clutching a row of medals.

No. They looked just like the ones from home. This was a trick.

“No trick. Dante stole them and used them to pay his debt. The only reason he wanted you was for your money. He will bleed you dry, Katherine.” He was lying. He had to be.

“What about,” I licked frozen lips. “My m-mother?”

“Let me show you.”

The medals disappeared, and he extended a long, bony finger toward my forehead.

I could hear Dante inside my head, yelling, shouting
No
. What the hell was happening to me?

13.6 Dante

My fucking knees were shaking. At that moment I would do
anything
to get Kitten free. When the little Asian woman told me to go and get Raphael, I went.

13.7 Josh

Suki’s colleagues had one major problem with their planned exposé: a lack of evidence. Everything could be explained away. We sat through a tedious dinner with two sharp-suited lawyers who kept reminding everyone how far the program could go. I left the restaurant feeling at a stalemate.

There was nothing back from Katherine so we headed to
Armageddon
as planned, Suki’s two colleagues making up the group. The line to get in snaked down the street, and one of Suki’s people groaned at the sight. “Can’t we go and get a drink somewhere, and then come back when it’s shorter?”

I leapt at the suggestion. I’d prefer Suki not to be here at all, and this way I could make sure she stayed at a safe distance, at least for the moment. We debated where to go and ended up at a wine bar a block away. I sent a text to Katherine to check if she was okay, but when she didn’t reply I began to feel unsettled.

“I’m going back to check the line.” Suki got up as well, but I shook my head. “Stay here, babe. I won’t be long.”

I trudged back in the drizzle to find there was still a long line of people waiting to get in, and no reply from Katherine. Nothing from Dante either. I paused and considered my limited options. Bribing the door bouncer?

“
Josh
.” Looking up from my phone, I saw Dante jogging toward me, boots slapping on the wet pavement. “Hey, man. You on your own?”

“Yeah, for the minute. I thought we’d find you here.”

He glanced away, up the street and then back at me with a smile that didn’t make his eyes. “Come with me. I can get us in.”

Something didn’t feel right. “Have you seen Katherine?”

“Yeah, we were just talking. She said she was waiting for you.” He looked up and down the street again, shuffled his feet, and scratched his chin. His eyes finally met mine. “Are you coming?”

“Sure.”

A flicker of relief flashed across his face, and was quickly masked. My suspicions grew.

I set off beside him, walking briskly up to the head of the line. He kept his focus on the entrance. “Your phone not working, Dante? I tried to call you.”

“Battery’s fucked.”

We reached the main doorway and the customers waiting to file past the doorman. Dante nodded to him, and he waved us straight in, to the grumbles of the crowd. The roar of the music was loud already, and I could feel the vibrations through my feet. I’d not been inside the club before, and I wanted a moment to get my bearings. A wide staircase led down a short way, corridors branching left and right. Dante set off down the stairs, the thumping beat getting louder with each step. At the bottom, he placed a hand on my arm and held me back.

His eyes looked wide and dark, and I saw a thin trickle of perspiration on his forehead. His fingers gripped me through my fleece. Whatever was wrong, Dante was scared.
Badly
. Doubt churned in my stomach.

“Josh.” He hesitated, opened and closed his mouth as though unsure how to speak. “I’m sorry.”

13.8 Katherine

I wanted to recoil. I couldn’t move. When Alistair’s fingertip pushed my forehead, the breath caught in my throat. It felt more like a hot skewer sliding through the layers of skin and bone, piercing my brain. I whimpered.

Pictures swirled in front of me, revolving and spinning faster than I could make them out. For a second they froze—an image of Dante staring at a pile of silverware in my father’s kitchen. Dante reaching out and taking the medals, slipping them into his pocket.
No
. He wasn’t a thief. That was a lie my father used.

“That’s nothing.” Alistair chuckled in the distance, and the pictures blurred and shifted, pausing to show Dante, standing in a shadowy yard. He was talking to someone, pocketing a bundle of notes and handing over a small cellophane-wrapped package.
Dope
. My heart stuttered.
Dante is a dealer?
I fought for control, to stop this crazy trick he was pulling. It was a hallucination. Or he’d hypnotized me. I wanted it to stop. I wanted…

Dante
. An image of him standing in a dark alley, a vicious knife in his hand. A man lying at his feet. Blood all over the ground. Oh
God
,
no
. He can’t have knifed his friend. I couldn’t believe that.

“That is just as real as this.” Alistair’s whisper crept into my head.

More swirling images. They paused to show me screaming at my mother, the car swerving, the bike crashing into us, the little boy flying over the bonnet, the van about to hit us. Tears sprang to my eyes.
Mum
. The horror on her face. My last sight of her.

Gone
. I saw myself walking down my father’s drive in the rain, darkness closing around me, and the tears on my face mingling with the raindrops, utterly alone and unloved.

“Stop this,” I managed a whisper. “Please make it stop.”

13.9 Dante

I had to warn Josh. Make him aware of what was going down. His face hardened at my words, and I rushed on before he could say anything. “They’ve got Kitten.
Katherine
. Fuckin’ Alistair’s got her.” I swallowed and then sucked in a steadying breath. “He wants the Talismans. He can’t just take them, so he’ll try to persuade you, offer you a deal or something. Try to stall him.”