Killing Game (6 page)

Turning on his heel, he clenched his jaw tight and slammed his right fist into the refrigerator. He stared at it as his chest heaved, his brows knit so tightly that his eyes were nothing more than dark slits. As the pain erupted in his fingers and slowly travelled up his arm, he growled low and screwed his face up in frustration.

Looking around, he saw Lily stood in the doorway of the kitchen.

“Shit,” he repeated and removed his hand from the fridge door. He winced as he tried to straighten his throbbing fingers and saw Lily’s eyes move to the refrigerator.

Looking down at it, he saw why she looked so astounded. In the metal door was a large dent. Gaining control of his emotions and his breathing, he turned to face her, keeping his expression blank as he met her eyes and saw half concern, half fear staring back at him.

His hand burned with white-hot pain as they stared at each other, neither of them knowing what to say.

Lily looked down at his hand and silently moved towards him. Opening the icebox, she wrapped a handful of it in the nearest towel. She bit her lip as she tentatively slipped her fingers under his hand and lifted it, lightly pressing her makeshift icepack to it.

Raising her eyes, she caught him watching her with a soft, boyish expression of wonder.

“Something bad?”
Her voice was strained with nerves as she looked at him, trying to act calm when she felt all over the place inside.

“Just work.” Cain caught hold of her hand and took the icepack from her, applying it to his hand with more pressure and hoping it would cool the burning pain that was making his fingers ache. “Something came up and they had to give me a few days off.”

“That’s a bad thing?” She tilted her head to one side and smiled warmly.

“Yeah... guess it isn’t so bad.” He quietly chuckled and then winced as his fingers pulsed with pain.

“They gonna be okay?” She nodded at his hand and then looked at the dent on the fridge again. “You gave the poor thing a pretty bad knock.”

“It’s a fridge, sweetheart. Why do women have to attach feelings to inanimate objects?”

Lily shrugged. “I don’t know... I guess it’s just something we do.”

Shaking his head, he followed her into the living room and sat down on one couch as she sat on the other. He watched her curl up, hugging one of his cushions to her chest as her eyes fixed on the television.

“So, you don’t have to go to work tomorrow?” She turned her head and smiled.

“Nope.”
He smiled back at her as the pain in his hand began to subside. “Here’s a thought. How about we pretty up that place of yours a little and give you a comfort factor?”

Her smile became a grin.
“Really?”

“Yeah, let’s get you kitted out so you can start your shiny new life and your new job.”

“God...” Lily felt suddenly nervous as she remembered about starting her job tomorrow.

“You’ll be fine. He’s a good
bloke,
he’ll go easy on you.”

“This is some crazy week.” She shook her head and tried to grasp the magnitude of the things that had happened to her. She still couldn’t quite believe it all. Most of it seemed as though she was dreaming.

“Remember anything else about last night?” he said.

Lily frowned and thought about it. In the blur of the past day, she’d almost forgotten about the incident in the alleyway.

She shook her head in the negative.

“Not really. Just there was a shot and then there
was
you.” She smiled at him as he took another drag of his cigarette. “I can’t quite believe how radically my life has changed in twenty-four hours. I mean, you go through life doing the same thing every day and then you make one stupid decision and your entire world is different.”

Cain frowned as he considered her words, wondering if she knew just how right she was. You make one decision and it’s like someone switched your life for someone else’s. Taking the icepack away from his hand, he looked down at it. His knuckles were already bruising, his skin red raw from the chill of the ice.

“So...” He raised his head quickly and put effort into sounding light hearted. “Shopping, tomorrow?”

“Shopping is of the goodness,” she said.

“That a yes?” He gave her a confused look.

“Yes.”

Cain pulled his long coat tighter around himself and thrust his hands into his pockets, wincing as his bruised knuckles were jammed into the small space. The clear skies of last night had made the day bitterly cold and, although the sun shone brightly, there was no chance of it getting warm.

Walking a few steps behind Cain, Lily watched the way he moved confidently through the city streets, his stride long and purposeful as they went from shop to shop. She’d first noticed his confident edge in the second shop they had gone into. She’d wanted a few lamps and had gone to ask the assistant if they delivered, only to be ignored. The second Cain had noticed, he’d
strode
over and set things in motion. Two minutes later, she had a delivery confirmation for tomorrow morning.

She couldn’t help wondering how someone got to be so confident. He seemed to walk through the crowds on the streets as though he was some kind of god. They parted before him and she had to scurry close behind him for fear of being lost as they closed in again. She decided confidence was a good thing and she’d soon be trying to get some. If confidence could make her as powerful as Cain seemed to be, then she wanted it.

Cain frowned and lit a cigarette. The heat of it burning his lungs as he inhaled and he took comfort from the warmth it gave him. Reminding
himself
that he wasn’t alone, he looked over his shoulder at Lily and realized she was getting lost behind him. He cursed himself for not thinking about the fact that she couldn’t walk as quickly as he could and paused, waiting for her to catch her up. When she reached him, he frowned at her. Her nose was red and she looked so pale.

He pulled the black leather glove off his left hand and touched her face. She was freezing. He remembered that she came from Los Angeles, city of eternal sunshine. Looking around the streets, he frowned until he spotted what he was searching for and grabbed hold of her hand. Running across the road with her, he held the door to the shop open and flicked his cigarette to the ground before following her in.

Lily smiled as a blast of hot air hit her in the face, instantly warming her numbed body. Opening her eyes, she saw that he’d dragged her into a little shop full of hats, scarves, gloves and accessories in a multitude of colors and designs.

“Something warm, missy, you’re not in Kansas anymore.” Cain chuckled.

She ran her fingers over the rows of hats and gloves.

As she paused and picked up a little pink striped hat, he arched a brow. Clearly, she was going to need assistance.

Cain looked down at his one gloved hand and his other bare one. He was about to pull his other glove off when he thought the better of it. Not only would his knuckles complain but he didn’t want Lily to see how bruised his hand was.

“Earth to Luke Skywalker.”
Lily giggled close by.

He raised his eyes and lowered his hands, frowning at her as he tried to figure out what she was talking about.

“The one glove... Luke Skywalker?” She giggled again as he gave her a look that said he’d finally understood what she meant and then spun on the spot. “So, what do you think?”

Cain looked at the pink blob on her head and shook his in the negative.

Lily pouted.

After ten minutes of shaking his head, he began to get a headache and decided that she definitely needed help. Looking up at the rows of hats, he smiled as he saw the perfect one. It was a little woolen one in varying stripes of creams and light browns. Cain presented it to her with a flourish.

Lily smiled before settling it on her head and looking at herself in the mirror. Admittedly, he seemed to know what suited her better than she did. She turned and gave him a wide smile.

He responded by handing her a pair of matching gloves and wrapping a scarf around her face. Struggling to free herself from the scarf he’d blinded her with, she frowned playfully and then smiled as she spotted something.

“Won’t be a minute.”
She shook the items in her hands, trying to emphasize that she was going to pay for them, and watched him nod and then walk towards the exit.

Lily grabbed the item she’d been looking at and then walked to the counter.

Standing outside in the street, Cain’s head fell backwards and he looked up at the sky. The sun was starting to set, but the heavens above were still clear as crystal. He watched the seagulls wheeling overhead and frowned, trying to remember what his mother had always said about them coming inland. He frowned as his thoughts were interrupted by something prodding him, and he dropped his eyes back to earth, finding Lily smiling mischievously at him, her round cheeks glowing in the cold.

Rummaging in her bag, she pulled out a long black scarf and stretched up on her toes as she wrapped it around his neck, making sure he was well protected against the cold, before coming back to rest on her heels.

“There.” She smiled warmly.

Cain felt as though he couldn’t breathe as her eyes sparkled at him. The fact that she had shown that she cared about him on some level made his heart race. He silently watched her as she pulled the tags off her new gear and wrapped herself up, smiling all the while.

“Lily, you didn’t have to.” He ran his fingers over the scarf around his neck and gave her a gentle look as his stomach heated through, the last of his defenses disappearing.

“I wanted to. You were concerned enough about me getting cold. Besides, it’s nice being able to give something back to you.” She bounced slightly and smiled triumphantly, clearly satisfied with his reaction to her present.

“Thanks,” he mumbled and nodded towards the next shop, hoping she would return her concentration to shopping so he could return his to attempting to patch up his emotions again.

* * *

As they walked out of the final shop, Lily heaved a sigh. The darkness had drawn in, and she was glad to be done with getting everything for her new apartment.

Cain rolled his shoulders and looked up at the scene in front of him. The deep blue sky was scattered with small clouds and bright blue lights reflected off the top of the Empire State Building. He took a deep breath and told himself it was one more night. In a few hours, she’d have to go to work and he probably wouldn’t see her for a while after tomorrow. Instead of his desired reaction of coldness to that thought, he seemed to feel the need to push against it, to tell
himself
that he would see her again.

Lily cocked her head to one side as she looked at Cain. He was staring up at the buildings in front of them, and she couldn’t stop her eyes from moving to see what he was looking at so pensively.

Turning her head, she smiled at the sight of the Empire State Building.

“Fate.”
She smiled.

Cain felt the word hit him hard in the chest and make his heart ache. Fate was certainly having fun now that she had him. Not content to stop at playing with his feelings, she was playing with his world, too, changing his routines and his patterns. Before meeting Lily, he never would’ve openly walked the streets, shopping and doing things that regular people did. His profession meant that he had to keep a low profile, and there was nothing low about spending five hours shopping, five hours in which his competition could have been watching him, could’ve seen her with him. She seemed to have some hold over him, bending him to her will with the slightest of smiles and the tiniest of motions. He was powerless to resist her, and what was worse, he didn’t want to.

He brought his eyes down to meet hers.

“Think we’ve got time.” He tapped his watch and she looked at hers. There were still three hours before she had to go to work.

He crossed the street with her and smiled broadly when he saw her struggling with her bags. He took some of them off her and she gave him a wide smile of gratitude.

He heaved a long sigh, feeling strangely normal as he shared her load and she walked beside him.

* * *

The city stretched out below him, its lights twinkling like a blanket of stars and the noises dim in the clear air. Cain watched his breath turning white like fog.

Lily leaned against the wall beside him, her eyes flitting about the scene as she tried to take it all in. The entirety of Manhattan was laid out below her, and she’d never seen anything like it. It was just like he’d said—she was on top of the world and nothing bad could get her. She felt as though she could reach out and touch the heavens if she wanted to.

Raising her eyes to the sky, she frowned at the sight of the clouds lingering there, fluffy mounds that were tinted yellow by the city lights.

“Sorry. I guess the weather is against us tonight.” Cain lightly touched her shoulder, and she shrugged.

“It just means we have to come up here another night.”

He smiled at her. She wondered if it was because she was being so positive. She would relish the chance to come up here again and watch the world drift by below her feet.

“So, do you think when you come up here or is this the place you come to clear your head?” She stared at the blocks of buildings stretching out in all directions. She’d never gone up any of the tall buildings in Los Angeles. Would it look like this? The view was amazing.

“Clear my head,” Cain said in a flat tone, his eyes trained on the people around them as he turned his back on the city and leaned against the wall.

Lily got the feeling that he wasn’t up for talking and fell silent. She frowned as the downtown district started to disappear from view, the lights becoming obscured.

“Cain?” She turned to look at him and he looked over his shoulder and then smiled down at her. “What is... snow?”

Her eyes went wide when the first flakes drifted down to them, landing softly on Cain’s leather coated shoulders. She reached out and touched the white spots, watching it melt on her gloves.