Silence (14 page)

Almost as if he’d been shocked, he jerked back. The whole
moment snapped apart. “Go home and get on with your life,” he said. “Do that, and you’ll be safe.”

With his blunt brush-off, I felt tears spring to my eyes. He saw them and shook his head in apology. “Look, Nora,” he tried again, resting his hands on my shoulders.

I stiffened in his embrace. “How do you know my name?”

The moon broke briefly through the clouds, allowing me a glimpse of his eyes. The soft velvet was gone, replaced by a hard and hooded black. His were the kind of eyes that held secrets. The kind that lied without flinching. The kind that once you looked into them, it was hard to break away.

We were both damp from the exertion of our earlier escape, and what I assumed was the lingering scent of his shower gel hung between us. It held the slightest trace of mint and black pepper, and the memory of it rushed through me so fast I was left dizzy. I had no way to trace it, but I knew the scent. Even more unsettling, I
knew
I knew Jev. Somehow, whether it was in a trivial way, or something much larger and therefore much more disconcerting, Jev had been a part of my life. There was no other way to explain the searing flashbacks that came from being near him.

It crossed my mind that maybe he was my kidnapper, but the idea didn’t have a lot of conviction behind it. I didn’t believe it. Maybe because I didn’t want to.

“We knew each other, didn’t we?” I said, my extremities tingling. “Tonight isn’t the first time we’ve met.”

When Jev stayed quiet, I was pretty sure I had my answer. “Do you know about my amnesia? Do you know I can’t remember the last five months? Is that why you thought you could get away with pretending not to know me?”

“Yes,” he said wearily.

My heart beat faster. “Why?”

“I didn’t want to pin a target on your back. If Gabe thought we had a connection, he could use you to hurt me.”

Fine. He’d answered that question. But I didn’t want to talk about Gabe. “How did we know each other? And after we left Gabe behind, why did you still pretend not to know me? What are you keeping from me?” I waited restlessly. “Are you going to fill in the gaps?”

“No.”

“No?”

He merely looked at me.

“Then you’re a selfish jerk.” The accusation flew out before I could stop it. But I wasn’t going to take it back. He may have saved my life, but if he knew something about those missing five months, and refused to tell me, anything he’d done to redeem himself was lost in my eyes.

“If I had anything good to tell you, trust me, I’d start talking.”

“I can handle bad news,” I said curtly.

He shook his head and sidestepped me, heading back to the driver’s side. I grabbed his arm. His eyes dropped to my hand, but he didn’t pull free.

“Tell me what you know,” I said. “What happened to me? Who did this to me? Why can’t I remember those five months? What was so bad that I’m choosing to forget?”

His face was a mask, all emotion compartmentalized away. The only sign that he heard me was a muscle flexing in his jaw. “I’m going to give you some advice, and for once, I want you to take it. Go back to your life and move on. Start over if you have to. Do whatever it takes to leave this all behind. This will end badly if you keep looking back.”

“This? I don’t even know what
this
is! I can’t move on. I want to know what happened to me! Do you know who kidnapped me? Do you know where they took me and why?”

“Does it matter?”

“How dare you,” I said, not bothering to swallow away the choked-up quality of my voice. “How dare you stand here and make light of what I’ve been through.”

“If you find out who took you, is it going to help? Will it be the closure you need to pick yourself up and start living again? No,” he answered for me.

“Yes, it will.” What Jev didn’t understand was that anything was better than nothing. Half-full was better than empty. Ignorance was the lowest form of humiliation and suffering.

He let go of a troubled sigh, raking his fingers through his hair. “We knew each other,” he relented. “We met five months ago, and I was bad news from the moment you laid eyes on me. I used you
and hurt you. Fortunately, you had the good sense to kick me out of your life before I could come back for round two. The last time we spoke, you swore that if you ever saw me again, you’d do your best to kill me. Maybe you meant it, maybe not. Either way, there was a lot of strong emotion behind it. Is that what you were looking for?” he finished.

I blinked. I couldn’t imagine myself making such a malicious threat. The closest I’d ever come to hating someone was Marcie Millar, and even then, I’d never fantasized about her death. I was human, but I wasn’t heartless. “Why would I say that? What did you do that was so horrible?”

“I tried to kill you.”

I met his eyes sharply. The line of his mouth, grim but steady, told me he wasn’t in the slightest way joking.

“You wanted the truth,” he said. “Deal with it, Angel.”

“Deal with it? It doesn’t make any sense. Why did you want to kill me?”

“For fun, because I was bored, does it matter? I tried to
kill
you.”

No. Something wasn’t right. “If you wanted to kill me back then, why did you help me tonight?”

“You’re missing the point. I could have ended your life. Do yourself a favor and run as far and as fast from me as you can.” He turned away with a dismissive gesture, signaling for me to walk in the opposite direction. This was the last we’d see of each other.

“You’re a liar.”

He turned around, his black eyes snapping. “I’m also a thief, a gambler, a cheat, and a murderer. But this happens to be one of the rare times when I’m telling the truth. Go home. Consider yourself lucky. You’ve got a chance to start fresh. Not everyone can say the same.”

I’d wanted the truth, but I was more confused than ever. How had I, a straitlaced, straight-A student,
ever
crossed paths with him? What could we possibly have had in common? He was abominable … and the most alluring, tortured soul I’d ever met. Even now, I could feel a war brewing inside me. He was nothing like me, quick and caustic and dangerous. Maybe even a little scary. But from the moment he’d stepped out of the Tahoe tonight, my heart hadn’t been able to find a steady rhythm. In his presence, every last nerve ending in my body felt wired with electricity.

“One last thing,” he said. “Stop looking for me.”

“I’m not looking for you.” I scoffed.

He touched his index finger to my forehead, my skin absurdly warming under his touch. It didn’t escape me that he couldn’t seem to stop finding reasons to touch me. Nor did I miss that I didn’t want him to stop. “Under all the layers, a part of you remembers. It’s that part that came looking for me tonight. It’s that part that’s going to get you killed, if you’re not careful.”

We stood face-to-face, both of us breathing hard. The sirens were so close now.

“What am I supposed to tell the police?” I said.

“You’re not going to talk to the police.”

“Oh, really? Funny, because I plan on telling them
exactly
how you rammed that tire iron into Gabe’s back. Unless you answer my questions.”

He gave an ironic snort. “Blackmail? You’ve changed, Angel.”

Another strategic stab to my blind side, making me feel even more unsure and self-conscious. I would have squeezed my memory, trying to place him one last time, but I knew it was wrung dry. Since I couldn’t rely on my memory, I’d just have to cast my nets elsewhere and hope for the best.

I said, “If you know me as well as you claim to, you know I’m not going to stop looking for whoever it was who kidnapped me until I either find them, or hit rock bottom.”

“And let me tell you where rock bottom will be,” he returned with a gravelly edge. “Your grave. A shallow backwoods grave where no one will find you. No one will come to your gravesite and mourn for you. As far as humanity is concerned, you’ll vanish off the grid. It will wear on your mom. That constant menacing sense of the unknown. It will peck away at her, driving her closer to the edge until it shoves her over. And instead of being buried in some green-lawned cemetery beside you, where loved ones can visit you until the end of time, she’ll be alone. And so will you. For eternity.”

I stood taller, determined to show him I wasn’t going to be scared off that easily, but I felt a queasy little flutter of premonition in my belly. “Tell me, or I’ll rat you out to the cops, that’s a promise. I want to know where I’ve been. And I want to know who took me.”

He dragged a hand down his mouth, laughing to himself. It was a tense, tired sound.

“Who kidnapped me?” I snapped, running out of patience. I wasn’t moving from this spot until he confessed what he knew. I suddenly resented him for saving my life earlier. I wanted to view him with nothing short of hot contempt and hatred. I’d point him out to the police without a moment’s hesitation if he refused to tell me what he knew.

He raised those impenetrable eyes to mine, his mouth crooking down on one side. Not a frown. Something infinitely more bewildering and frightening.

“You’re not supposed to be in this anymore. Even I can’t keep you safe.”

Then he walked away, having said all he was going to, but I couldn’t accept it. This was my one chance to make sense of the part of my life that was missing.

I stomped after him and grabbed the back of his shirt so hard it tore. I didn’t care. I had bigger things to worry about. I said, “What am I not supposed to be involved in anymore?”

Only the words didn’t come out right. They were sucked away from me at the exact same time that a hook seemed to latch behind my stomach and yank me inside out. I felt myself being hurled through the air, and every muscle in my body tensed, bracing for the unknown.

The last thing I remembered was the roar of air past my ears and the world crashing to black.

W
HEN I OPENED MY EYES, I WASN’T ON THE
street anymore. The Tahoe, the cornfields, the starry night—it was all gone. I stood inside a concrete building that smelled of sawdust and something slightly metallic, like rust. I was shivering, but not from cold.

I’d grabbed Jev’s shirt. I’d heard fabric ripping. I might have touched his back. And now … I was in what appeared to be a vacant warehouse.

Ahead, I saw two figures. Jev and Hank Millar. Relieved that I wasn’t in this place alone, I strode toward them, hoping they could tell me where I was, and how I’d gotten here.

“Jev!” I called out.

Neither one so much as looked in my direction, but surely they’d heard me. In this vast space, voices carried.

I was about to open my mouth a second time, when I came to a startled halt. Behind them, the evenly spaced bars of a cage peeked out from under a canvas. In a great wave, it all came back to me. The cage. The girl with icy-black hair. The high school bathroom. When I’d blacked out momentarily. My palms tingled with sweat. It could mean only one thing. I was hallucinating.

Again.

“You brought me here to show me this?” Jev told Hank with quiet disgust. “Do you understand the risk I take every time we meet? Don’t call me here to chat. Don’t call me here for a shoulder to cry on. Don’t
ever
call me here to show off your latest conquest.”

“Patience, boy. I showed you the archangel because I need your help. Obviously we both have questions.” He looked meaningfully at the cage. “Well, she has answers.”

“My curiosity for that life died a long time ago.”

“Whether you want it or not, this life is still yours. I’ve tried everything to persuade her to talk, but she’s cagey, pardon the pun.” He smiled mildly. “Get her to tell me what I need to know, and I’ll turn
her over to you. I doubt I need to remind you the trouble the archangels have caused for you. If there were a way to seek revenge … well, surely I don’t need to say more.”

“How have you managed to keep her caged?” Jev asked coolly.

Hank’s mouth twisted with amusement. “Sawed off her wings. Just because I can’t see them doesn’t mean I don’t have a pretty good idea where they are. You put the idea in my head. Before you, I never would have imagined a Nephil could un-wing an angel.”

Something dark stirred in Jev’s eyes. “An ordinary saw couldn’t cut through her wings.”

“I didn’t use an ordinary saw.”

“Whatever you’re messed up in, Hank, I’d advise you to get out. Fast.”

“If you knew what I was messed up in, you’d beg me to let you in on it. The archangels’ empire won’t last forever. There are powers out there that surpass even theirs. Powers waiting to be harnessed, if you know where to look,” he said cryptically.

With a disgusted gesture, Jev turned to go.

“Our agreement, boy,” Hank called after him.

“This wasn’t part of it.”

“Perhaps we can come to a new arrangement, then. Rumor has it you haven’t forced a Nephil to swear fealty. Cheshvan is only weeks away… .” He let the sentence hang.

Jev stopped. “You’d offer me one of your own men?”

“For the greater good, yes.” Hank spread his hands, chuckling
softly. “You’d have your pick. Am I making this offer too good to refuse yet?”

“I wonder what your men would think if they knew you were selling them off to the highest bidder.”

“Swallow your pride. Pushing my buttons won’t settle the score. Let me tell you why I’ve made it as far as I have in this life. I don’t take things personally. You shouldn’t either. Don’t let this be about you and me, and past differences. We both have something to gain. Help me, and I’ll help you. It’s as simple as that.”

He paused, giving Jev time to think.

“Last time you walked away from an offer of mine, it ended disastrously,” Hank added with a certain curl of his lips.

“I’m done making deals with you,” Jev answered in measured tones. “But I’ll give you some advice. Let her go. The archangels are going to notice she’s missing. Kidnapping might be your strong suit, but this time you’re pushing your luck. We both know how this is going to end. The archangels don’t lose.”