Dark Refuge (20 page)

The man was cute, though, and he smiled at her when she turned and caught his eye. Then, a few minutes later he caught up to them, talking about the stuff in the window, asking where they went to school. The kinds of things another kid would ask, which would have raised a red flag except he looked fairly young and he was so cute and they were so terribly naive.

He glanced down, bent over and came up with a twenty-dollar bill. “Here,” he said. “One of you must have dropped this.”

She’d looked at Phoenix and shrugged, and Phoenix laughed. “Not mine. I didn’t even bring a purse with me. No money.”

“Here,” he said, handing the money to Phoenix. “Why don’t you go and get us all an ice cream?”

“Sure.” Phoenix grabbed the twenty and ran into the shop across the way from the store where they were standing.

As soon as she left, the man grabbed Em’s arm and something poked her in the side. “I have a gun in my jacket pocket,” he said. “I will kill you and your little friend unless you come with me. Now.”

She followed him, and when Phoenix came out of the ice cream shop with three ice cream sandwiches, Em turned to her and forced a smile. “I’ll be right back, Phoenix.” And then she tried to mindspeak, to tell her to get help, but she was so frightened she couldn’t form the thoughts, so she forced herself to get control, to push the terror down where it couldn’t strangle her. By then they’d reached his car, a black van with dark windows, and he shoved her inside and then covered her face with a smelly rag. She felt her gorge rise up, knew she was going to vomit, but then everything faded away. The man was gone, light was gone. She was gone.

Em knew, with a rational part of her mind, that this was a memory, not something happening now, and since she was seeing it through Gabe’s mind, she knew he was right there with her, but it was still so scary her entire body tensed, her muscles tightening, including those in her vagina closing like a fist around Gabe’s cock.

And it was Gabe’s, though now she could remember more. That other man, forcing her, and they were her memories, not Gabe’s. But Gabe was with her now. Protecting her.

It’s okay, Em. If you don’t want to go any further, you can stop right here, right now. I will never ask you to do anything you don’t want to do.

I want to know, Gabe. As long as you’re with me, I’ll be okay. Hold me. Don’t let go of me.

Never. I’ve got you, Em. For always.

He kissed her. Sweet, gentle kisses in time with his slow, easy thrusts between her legs. Loving her, holding her, doing exactly as he’d promised. Keeping her safe. Safe enough to hunt for those lost memories.

And once again, she was there, but the link with Gabe was strong, those memories like an old film she’d not seen in years. The scene had faded out and now it slowly faded in and she was conscious, alone in a dark room with something covering the windows so no light came in except a tiny sliver around the edge of one window. For all she knew, it was the only window in the room, but it told her it was still daylight and she wasn’t starving or thirsty yet, so she couldn’t have been out for too long. For some reason she thought of Gabriel Cheval. She wasn’t sure why, but it was probably because she was naked. She’d had dreams of being with Gabe when she was naked, and she hated the fact that this sick bastard had been the one to take her clothes off her, but at least it meant that if she needed to shift, she wouldn’t have to worry about her clothes being in the way.

She wanted to shift, but one thing they’d been taught as children was that if anyone ever took them, unless shifting would help them escape, they were never to let their captors know they were Chanku. Not only did it turn them into a valuable commodity for criminals, keeping their abilities secret could give them an important edge in case there was a chance to overcome the bad guys. Even children could be deadly predators.

She could mindspeak, though, and call for help. She called out for Anton. If anyone could hear her, it would be Gabe’s dad because he was amazing, and really powerful. Her dad was pretty cool, but Anton was their leader, and there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. She called out to him, over and over, but he didn’t answer. She tried calling her mom. Then her dad.

Nothing.

She tried to reach Annie and Phoenix and even Luci, but no one could hear her and she was so afraid because she didn’t know where she was or what the man was going to do to her, but whatever it was couldn’t be good.

Hours passed, but in her link with Gabe it was mere seconds. The sliver of light in the window was gone when the man came to her room. She asked for her clothes, but he laughed. She really had to pee, so she didn’t complain when he took her to use the bathroom, but then the sick bastard stood in the doorway and watched. Being naked in front of others wasn’t an issue with the pack, so even though she was mad at him, she pretended he was one of the guys she knew, and then she could go. He smiled at her then, like she’d done something special, or maybe it was the fact she’d done what he asked. That really pissed her off, but it was obvious no one was going to rescue her. She had to figure out how to rescue herself.

The place he’d brought her to was built like a prison. There were bars on the windows and a row of locks on the doors in front and in back, including a bar across each of them so no one could break in. She noticed a hatch-like cover in the hallway ceiling in front of the bathroom. It had to lead to a crawl space between the ceiling and the roof, but once she got up there, if she could get up there, she had no idea if there were any vents or openings for her to get out of the attic area. She’d have to be patient.

He took her back to her room, and that was the first time he raped her. She’d had sex before, so it wasn’t like she was a virgin, but she’d never been forced. From the way he acted, she figured he wanted her to be afraid, so she screamed and tried to get away. He liked that, but she wasn’t afraid. She was absolutely furious and she wanted to kill him, but she didn’t want to do it until she had a way to get free so no one would know she’d done it. She knew that killing was wrong, and if any of them did it while they were in their animal forms, it could make a lot of trouble for the pack. That was a lesson that had been drilled into all of them over and over again—don’t do anything to draw bad attention to the pack, unless you had no other recourse, because it could hurt all of them.

She didn’t want to do that. He raped her again that night, more than once, but then he let her have dinner and pretended that he really liked her. That was when she decided he wasn’t just an evil man, he was crazy, too. She wondered if anyone would believe her when she told them the things he made her do, and again she thought of Gabe. Why now, when she was stuck with a madman, did she keep thinking of him? Probably because she knew she’d love doing all these things with Gabe instead of with the idiot who’d kidnapped her. Things that she loved doing with her friends and wished she could do with Gabe, but when the bad guy made her do them she wanted to puke.

It was the second day, and she knew she had to do something to get away. The man was awful. He hadn’t actually hurt her, but she was Chanku. No one should be forced to have sex, but it didn’t have the same taboos for her that it would for human kids. She asked him about that without giving her own nature away, asked him if he’d had other girlfriends, since that’s what he’d started calling her.
His girlfriend.

What he did terrified her, and everything changed. He pulled out a picture album she’d noticed earlier. He’d left it on a table, but she hadn’t looked at it. She was glad then that she hadn’t. It was filled with pictures of little girls and big girls, and even a few young women. Most of them were about her age, and all of them were dead. There were dozens of them, each with a name and a date written in thick, black pen at the bottom of the picture, and they hadn’t been shot or anything. They looked like they were sleeping, except they were naked, and what she first thought were pictures painted on their bodies wasn’t paint at all.

He’d carved things into their skin, and he’d either done it while they were alive and then he’d washed the blood off them, or he’d done it after they were dead and no longer capable of bleeding. She hoped it was the latter, feared it might be the former, and that made her think of the smelly rag. She could smell that same stench again, the one that had knocked her out.

He’d left the room, but now he was coming back.

She heard him moving quietly behind her. She didn’t give it a thought. She shifted where she sat, and instead of choosing her wolf, she went for an even more lethal weapon.

She chose her snow leopard.

The moment she spun out of her chair, changed from compliant young girl to furious snow leopard, the man did two things: he dropped the smelly rag and then he pissed all over himself. He was naked and she wondered if he planned to knock her out and rape her while she was unconscious, and maybe cut her up then, but it didn’t matter. She went for his throat, but she didn’t kill him. She wanted him to know what she was doing, wanted him to suffer for all those little girls and big girls and young women he’d murdered.

She held him in a choke hold so he couldn’t scream and then she disemboweled him. She’d heard her mother say that people were afraid of a leopard’s bite but they forgot about their claws, especially the ones on their back feet. The best part was that he was still alive when she’d ripped him to shreds, so she bit him once more on the throat, crushing his windpipe. That way he couldn’t scream anymore while he died, and that was going to take a while. She wanted him to have time to think about dying, about all those girls he’d killed.

The entire scene within her memories, even knowing Gabe was with her, took on a dream-like quality. She thought about shifting so she could open the front door and walk out of this horrible place, but she didn’t know where her clothes were, so she went back to the hallway, jumped up on a table and shoved at the hatch cover in the ceiling. It popped free and she leapt from the table to the opening. There was a vented window at one end of the attic space and she shoved at it with her shoulder until it popped free.

It was dark again. She’d lost all track of time, but she stared about her, checking out the neighborhood from her perch in the attic, figured out which way the mountains lay, and jumped. It was only about fifteen feet to the ground, and she left the little house and the dying man behind and headed for home.

It was almost dawn when she got there, and for whatever reason she wasn’t sure why she’d been away or why she was covered in blood. She knew, but it was all so ugly, that it was easier to pretend it never happened, so she curled up on Anton and Keisha’s front porch and went to sleep. Gabe wasn’t here—not in her memories. He was away at college, but it was almost as good, sleeping at his house. She knew he liked to tease her, but she also knew he’d take care of her. He always had, hadn’t he?

She wished he’d quit calling her EmyIzzy. Such a stupid name for a grown girl. It was okay for a baby, but she hadn’t been a baby for a long time. And after what had happened to her, Em had a feeling she was never going to be a kid again.

Exhausted, she let the link fade, sent the memories away until she was back in the midst of the blissful present. Gabe lay beside her with one leg across her thighs. She didn’t remember him pulling out, but she still felt connected to him despite the fact they were no longer making love.

“Did I do it to myself? Am I the one who made me forget?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart.” He brushed her hair back from her eyes. “But if you were, it was probably the smartest thing you could have done. That doesn’t account for the fact that no one else seems to know, either. Not Luci, at least. She’s not one to keep any secrets, or at least she wasn’t when she was a kid.” He kissed her again, his mouth so sweet, the kiss so tender she almost cried.

Then she realized it was too late—she’d already been crying and her cheeks were wet from tears, but so were Gabe’s. She brushed them off with her thumbs and kissed him again. “I guess we need to get up, huh?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how long it’s been since Alex asked if we were okay, but I told him to give us time. No idea how much time he’s given us, though.” He sat up and tugged Em upright to sit beside him. “You okay?”

She nodded, surprised at how good she felt. “I feel lighter. I know what happened and it was pretty awful, but seeing it filtered through your mind made it easier to accept. I’m glad I killed him.”

“Me, too. Very effective. I’m guessing that the police found his album.”

“I hope so, though I want to ask my folks. I’m so glad you helped me uncover the memories. I was so angry with my parents.”

“I know. I was pissed at my dad, too.” He laughed. “I’m glad I never said anything, but I still feel like I owe him an apology.”

Laughing, Em stood and caught Gabe’s hand. Dragging him off the bed, she glanced over her shoulder and said, “Well, let’s not go overboard, okay?”

He threw an arm around her shoulders, and both of them were laughing as they headed in to take a shower. Em thought of the night they’d had, the fact they’d not really mated, and decided that was something they had to look forward to. Maybe, with any luck, if it wasn’t too late, they could leave for Montana today.

Chapter 13

Most of Gabe’s bandages fell off in the shower, but Em made a point of replacing the ones on the deepest cuts. He said, “I think I could get used to this,” as she carefully applied a strip to both sides of a particularly deep slash.

She raised her head and cocked one eyebrow. “What? Me trying to gut you?”

He laughed as she went back to her job. “Well, no. Not that. I like the attention, though.”

This time she rolled her eyes and then kissed a spot above the bandage. “That’s because you’re male. If you’re anything like Aaron, you’ll whimper over the small stuff and be brave and stoic with the real booboos.”

He slapped his hand over his heart. “You’re saying these aren’t real?”