Recalled (27 page)

Without thought I reached toward her. Noting the thick glove on my hand, I used my teeth to pull it off, then reached toward her again to brush my fingers across her cheek.

“You’re fingers are warm,” she said with a sigh.

I got a little bolder and cupped my palm around her jaw. Her eyes closed, but she didn’t jerk away so I left my hand against her skin.

Moments later, through the dark, she whispered, “Sometimes you’re like two different people.”

I stilled. “What do you mean?”

She was quiet a moment and I felt her shake her head beneath my hand. “Never mind.”

“Tell me,” I said, ignoring the way my heart beat faster.

“I can’t explain it. Sometimes I just feel two different people when I’m around you.”

“And yet the two people you feel in me can’t compete with the one you lost.”

Her eyes opened and she looked at me. If she was shocked, she didn’t show it. “You feel like you’re competing for me?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted, turning my body so I was also on my side, facing her. In more ways than she knew. I was competing against my old body, the guy she viewed as a hero. I was competing against this new body as it tried to carry out my job… and then there was the other side of me… the side that didn’t want to hurt her at all.

That was the side I tried to hide from most of all. I couldn’t understand that part of me. I mean, really, what did I care if this one girl lived or died?

I pulled my hand away from her cheek and the frigid air immediately blew away the warmth that was left behind on my palm.

“I never meant to make you feel that way,” she said, still looking at me. “I never really meant to get close to you at all. I just…” Her voice fell away.

“Just what?” I urged.

“I just couldn’t figure you out. You’re the one person in my life that I’ve never been able to figure out.”

“You got everybody else’s number, huh?” I said, trying to lighten the conversation and ignore the way my stomach flopped.

“Their addresses too,” she quipped.

“And how do you manage that?” I asked, wondering if this had to do with whatever ability Charming wanted.

She paused and then said, “It’s not that hard, if you really pay attention.”

“I don’t think that’s it.” I pressed. “What’s your secret?”

“My secret?” she asked, and I felt her retreat ever so slightly.

“Yeah.” I flashed a grin, trying to pull her back in. “You’re secret to reading people.” Before she responded, I quickly added, “Or you can just tell me any of your other secrets.”

She laughed lightly. “Who says I have secrets?”

“Everyone has secrets.”

“Do you?”

“Maybe. Most likely.”

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” she sang lightly.

“I like to sleep naked,” I lied.

She laughed. “Not tonight you don’t.”

“Oh come on. I’ll be on the couch; you won’t have to see.”

“You are so wrong,” she said, turning her face away to look back up at the sky.

I only joked because I felt like she was getting too close, because part of me wanted to tell her my secrets, but I knew I couldn’t. I hadn’t wanted to lose the moment.

“Hey,” I said, reaching out my hand to her. She caught it in hers and fit our fingers together. Her gloved hand against my bare one.

“Look,” she said quietly. “They’re fading.”

I glanced up at the sky at the vanishing northern lights. We both rolled so we were once again on our backs, staring up at the endless sky. Except this time our bodies were closer; this time we were pressed together and our hands intertwined. We watched the colors until they were barely a memory, until they were almost completely faded away.

Something in me felt lonely watching them go… like the disappearing lights represented the loss of something more. Something important.

We lay there long after the sky turned black and we could see the stars. Eventually, we got up, our hands no longer touching. And as we walked away I realized what I lost.

This moment.

This chance.

Maybe if I’d said something more, admitted just one of my secrets, something might have changed.

But I hadn’t and now it was gone.

Nothing had changed.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Secret -
Something kept hidden from others or known only to oneself or to a few.”

Piper

He wanted to know my secrets. I almost told him. I almost told him everything. Lying out there in the Alaskan snow hadn’t been cold. It was warm. We’d never been that close before. Sure, I always felt a little pull between us, but tonight it seemed stronger. I felt like I might get a glimpse of the man he seemed to hide.

I almost admitted my secrets. I thought about it. But I knew in that moment I wouldn’t be able to stop at one. They all would’ve come tumbling out of my mouth. The way he looked at me through the dark… I could feel his stare. And even though my hands were gloved, I swear I could feel the heat of his skin against mine.

For a moment, when he touched my cheek, I thought he might kiss me, lay his lips upon mine, and that the northern lights would’ve become just background to the show of colors and feelings swirling within me.

But something held him back. Just as something held me back.

I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but I wanted to find it. I wanted to erase it so the only thing between us was the beating of our hearts and the barrier of our skin.

I knew what held me back was the missing pieces of the puzzle that was Dex, but the more I got to know him, the harder it was to remember I was trying to piece him together. I was beginning not to care about the things I didn’t know. I was beginning to only think about the things I did know.

He said he felt as if he were competing with the man who died. That might have been true in the beginning, but now the tides were turning. What Dex didn’t seem to realize was that everything else was beginning to have to compete with him.

And he was winning.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“Asphyxiation -
the condition of being deprived of oxygen (as by having breathing stopped).”

Dex

That night I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t because I was in a new place. I’d slept in far worse places before. It was because of her. She was one room away, nothing separating us but drywall and paint. Her light went out hours ago and I knew she was sound asleep, but still, her presence unsettled me.

How could one girl have so effectively tied me up in knots? Never in all my life had anyone gotten under my skin like this. And that’s where she was. Somehow she wiggled her way beneath the surface; she wormed her way into my mind.

I couldn’t allow that. I had a job to do, a debt to fulfill. It should’ve been an easy job, but it was proving to be much harder. I got up and paced the room in the dark, back and forth across the rug, trying to make sense of it all. And then something struck me. A single word that whispered ever so quietly through my mind.

I stopped mid-stride, halting with the force of the thought.

Love.

Even as I heard the word, I shook my head, denying it. This wasn’t love. It couldn’t be. It was sick and twisted and probably somehow part of G.R.’s trial assignment before making me an official Death Escort.

Besides, I’d never been in love before. I hadn’t even loved my own mother. The day I turned fourteen I walked out of her apartment and never looked back. I couldn’t care less where she was today and she was the only family I had. Sure, I had friends, people that shared the street, guys that I sometimes worked with, but no one I wouldn’t have sold out for the right price. A guy like me didn’t know how to love. He only knew how to survive.

And this girl was making it hard to survive.

On impulse I grabbed up the white pillow off the couch and made my way to her room. I wanted to stomp with determination. I wanted to shout with pride, but I didn’t.

I moved silently, stealthily, and with purpose.

The door to the bedroom was slightly ajar, and I pushed it lightly, testing to see if it would creak. It didn’t so I pushed it open some more. The room was darkened, but I could still make out the basic shapes in the room, the bed in the center. I crept closer, gripping the pillow close to my chest.

She lay on her side, facing me, and the covers were pulled up under her chin. Her dark hair was a mere shadow against the white of her pillow and her body was completely relaxed into the mattress.

Do it now,
part of me whispered. The part that was programmed to do my job.

The pillow twisted in my grip and I knew this was probably the easiest way to do it. All I had to do was reach out, mere inches, and cover her head with my pillow. All I had to do was smother her in her sleep and it would be over. She might not even know what was happening. If she did, it would be very brief and confusing and then she’d be gone.

And with the pillow covering her face, I wouldn’t have to watch her die. I wouldn’t see the panic on her face—the fear. I would completely avoid seeing the light in her eyes go out, or face the realization that I was the one betraying her.

I pulled the pillow away from my body and held it out, lowering it toward her still, sleeping form.

Do it now.

My heart was beating so hard in my chest that I thought the sound would surely wake her and then my secret would be exposed. That she would know what a monster I truly was.

I took a shuddering breath and looked down, ready to complete my act… She looked smaller in sleep, more fragile somehow.

I dropped the pillow. It hit the side of the bed on its way to the floor.

What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I do this one thing?

I hunched forward to pick up the pillow and then slowly backed toward the door. I couldn’t do this. Not right now. I would find another way. Tomorrow. Things would seem easier in the daylight.

“Dex?” I heard from the darkness. Her voice was sleepy and low. “Is that you?”

“Yeah,” I said, hoarse. “I couldn’t sleep. I was just checking on you.”

“That couch is probably uncomfortable,” she said, her voice still heavy. “The fabric is itchy.”

“No, its fine. Go back to sleep.”

“Does your head hurt?”

My head? Then I remembered the stitches. I’d only got them that morning, but it seemed like days ago. “My head doesn’t hurt.”

I thought that would be the end of the conversation. It wasn’t.

“You could sleep with me.”

I stopped cold in my tracks, wondering if I was hearing things. She couldn’t possibly have offered to share her bed with me.

“Dex? There’s no use in you being uncomfortable. You paid for this room.”

“I don’t care about the money,” I said, realizing it was true. Money didn’t seem important like it used to.

“I won’t be able to sleep until I know you can.”

I let out a sigh and went back into the room, going to the opposite side of the bed. I left my flannel pants and shirt on and lifted the corner of the covers.

“Are you sure?” I asked again.