The Awakening: A Sisterhood of Spirits Novel (16 page)

There. Again. This time to her right. She directed her gaze to look even though she knew she couldn’t see anything. Through the inky blackness she thought she saw a shadow dart around the corner. Her imagination must be playing tricks on her. Jordan took another cautious step, then another, working her way to the stairwell and exit. It felt as if she’d been down there forever, but she knew it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. A small breeze circled her, and Jordan caught a trace of flowers in the air.

Just as she registered Sunny’s scent, she ran into a warm body. Instinct had Jordan striking out before she could catch herself, but she had enough time to alter the direction of her fist and connected instead with the cement wall. Pain traveled up her arm to her shoulder and she gasped. “Motherfucker.”

Sunny cried out in alarm. “Jordan?”

“Uh.”

“What are you doing?” Sunny’s breath was sweet on her cheek and her hands found Jordan’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“Just dandy.” She cradled her hand against her stomach and hoped she hadn’t broken any bones. “Why did you turn off the lights?”

“I thought you did.”

“Do you have a flashlight?” Jordan asked.

“It’s dead.”

“Didn’t you check them when you started?”

Sunny chuckled. “Spirits can drain the batteries for energy. It happens to us all the time.”

“Okay, here’s a stupid question,” Jordan said. “What do they do with it?”

A heavy metal door slammed somewhere behind them, causing them both to jump. “Answer your question?” Sunny asked.

Jordan was aware of every square inch of Sunny’s body pressed against her, and heat blossomed under her skin at the contact. Fear had jump-started her adrenaline, but Sunny’s nearness kept the blood pounding. Without the lights, the darkness that surrounded them acted like a cocoon for Jordan, making it a safe and enclosed space where only their attraction existed instead of their differences. She could do all sorts of interesting things in the dark.

Jordan brushed a kiss over Sunny’s mouth. She was totally unprepared for the body rush that slammed through her at the contact. Heat licked her ankles and burned up her legs like a fuse that had been lit to set her core on fire.

She pinned Sunny against the wall, holding her wrists above her head and pressing their bodies tightly together. Sunny’s hips pushed forward to meet hers. Jordan kissed her with an explosion of fierce searching, tasting, tongues battling and sucking. The whimpering sounds Sunny made in the back of her throat drove her crazy.

Another door slammed. The lights came on, flickered, and went back off.

“I want to touch you,” Sunny said, helpless to move with her wrists still pinned. Instead, she wrapped her legs around Jordan’s waist, grinding her center against Jordan.

Sunny thrust her hips instinctively and Jordan matched her. The air was so thick between them, her blood so hot, she found it difficult to breathe.

“Yes,” Jordan whispered, nipping at Sunny’s bottom lip. She felt the first wave start at her toes and race to her clitoris, igniting her orgasm and setting her nerves on fire. Her back arched and she cried out, tightening her legs around Jordan and riding out the wave of desire.

Jordan released her wrists and Sunny gripped her shoulders for support as she unwrapped her legs from Jordan’s waist. Tears prickled the back of her eyes and she didn’t know if it was from embarrassment or because it had been so very long since she’d felt her body react this way. Jordan’s kiss gentled until she pulled away slightly, panting against her cheek.

Jordan took a step back to put some space between their bodies, but rested her forehead against Sunny’s. “I’m so sorry.”

Sorry? For what?
“Why?”

She felt Jordan’s hesitation in the dark. “Attacking you that way, here. I don’t know, Christ—you smell so good. I didn’t even think. Something came over me. I just had to touch you.”

Dread trickled into Sunny’s chest. Was it even Jordan’s impulse? Or had something else forced her to act? She opened her senses and searched for the presence of
other.
A raspy growl pierced the quiet, and the sound fisted in Sunny’s stomach, and ice washed over her heated skin.

“What the fuck was that?” Jordan hissed. Sunny felt her turn and knew that Jordan had placed her own body in front of Sunny’s protectively.

Before Sunny could answer, boot steps pounded in the stairwell and the metal exit door opened, filling the hall with light. Sunny turned to look at Jordan’s face and saw regret in her expression. She’d thrown herself at Jordan, and although this time she’d taken Sunny up on it, she didn’t look happy about it.

Shade stood framed in the doorway. “What happened? I’ve been trying to reach you on the radio. I thought you were going to set the camera up?”

Oh, sweet Josephine.
She forgot the camera.

“I have to get out of this place.” Jordan grabbed Sunny’s hand and headed to the exit.

Sunny noticed and felt the pained expression that crossed Shade’s face before she quickly masked it. She wished she could help Shade through her jealousy, she really did, and she would give anything not to hurt her again. But their relationship had ended years ago, and she couldn’t stop living her life because Shade refused to let her go.

Sunny was tired. The investigation, wandering in a decidedly haunted basement, and her mind-blowing orgasm in the hallway suddenly combined, leaving her exhausted. Her face grew warm and she dropped Jordan’s hand. “You go on ahead. We’ll be along in a minute.”

Jordan looked at her and then at Shade. “Fine.” She stomped up the stairs and Sunny felt something inside herself crumble.

*

When Jordan reached the first floor, she turned left into the parking lot instead of the courtyard. She needed some air and some time to process what just happened. She sifted through the sequence of events in an attempt to find the evidence, but she couldn’t get past Sunny’s taste on her lips or the way her body reacted when Jordan kissed her.

She was beginning to question her beliefs and it was uncomfortable. Her powerful paradigm of what she thought life was and what was possible started to shift. Jordan hated to feel uncertain about anything.

Her phone vibrated and she pulled it out of her pocket. “Lawson.”

“Hey.” It was her partner, Vince. “Meet me at the convenience store by your house.”

A slight chill washed over her. It was eerily similar to the call she’d received the night she’d been shot, and it instantly made her suspicious. “Why?”

“Our tweaker buddy, Jack, says he has some information on our missing girl.”

“On my way.” Jordan ran to her truck and sped out of the parking lot.

The convenience store was flanked on one side by an old brick warehouse, and she spotted Vince near the back of it. It wasn’t until she got out and approached him that she saw Jack. If anything, he looked worse than the first time she’d met him.

It was clear he was out of drugs. He had that desperate air around him she recognized. It was a state her mother had been in often. She ignored him and turned to Vince. “What do we have?”

“Jackie here says he knows where our M.P. is.”

“Let’s go, then.”

“Well, here’s the problem. Jackie says he wants money for the information. His mother is sick and needs medicine.”

Jordan looked back at Jack and something in that wheedling, selfish, and
lying
expression caused her to snap. She spun and grabbed his lapels before slamming him into the bricks. “Listen here, you fucking junkie weasel. If you know where this girl is, you better tell us now before I snap your pathetic neck.”

Vince put a hand on her arm, but she hardly registered it. “Lawson.”

She tightened her grip. “Now give me the address.”

Jack’s eyes appeared to bug out further, and he frantically looked around for a way out before he slumped. “Okay, okay.”

Jordan let go. “Talk.”

“There’s an abandoned house in the woods behind Riddell Road. I heard a guy bragging about the new flesh they picked up and how much money they were getting for her.”

“I know the place,” Vince said. “It’s a known drug den. We chase them out and board it up and they keep going back.”

“How come you didn’t tell us sooner?” Jordan asked.

“I just heard about it and saw the flyer posted in the store here.”

“And you hoped to get your next fix. God, you disgust me.” She turned her back to him and walked a few steps away. Jordan was so mad she was shaking. She heard a rustle of bills and the sound of running footsteps.

“We’ll take my car,” Vince said. “Call it in.”

“Officer?” Jack’s voice came from the shadows behind the building. “They’re moving her to Seattle tonight. You better hurry.” Vince jogged back and handed him some more bills.

Jordan didn’t know how much and couldn’t care less. She waited impatiently for him to unlock the door while she called dispatch for backup.

Vince jumped into the Charger and they sped to the east side of town. Jordan’s adrenaline increased with each block. “My gun is at home.”

“I have mine.” He flipped open the glove box and handed her a small revolver. “And this one.” He turned onto a small dirt road and turned off his lights. Tree branches scraped along the sides of the car.

“We’ll have to walk in from here. There’s an extra flashlight under the seat, but I don’t want them to see us coming. Follow me.”

They’d gone approximately a hundred yards when Jordan saw a yellow glow up ahead.

“Oil lamps. I’m surprised they haven’t burned the place down yet.”

Jordan crept closer and a stick snapped under her feet. She froze and strained to hear. Something crashed up ahead in the bushes, and she heard someone yelling.

“It’s the fucking cops!”

Jordan heard at least three more distinct voices. “Freeze!” she yelled. The woods were silent around her. “Police! Come out with your hands up.”

Vince stood. “I think they’re gone.”

When they received no answer, they cautiously made their way to the front porch. Vince motioned for her to go low through the door.

“Clear.” Jordan heard Vince in the back of the house. “Ah, Christ.”

She sprinted down the hall to the back room where Vince stood looking at the small figure huddled on a filthy mattress and covered with a sheet.

Jordan tried to take it in but was struck with another feeling of synchronicity and the brutal scene from one of her nightmares.

Long, dirty hair covered the girl’s face, a pale hand exposed with blood red fingernails.
No. Not again.
She rushed to the bed. “Call an ambulance.”

Time slowed to a crawl and all sound faded away until Jordan was aware only of her heart thumping in her chest. She watched her hand reach slowly to move the matted hair while the other reached to pull the dirty sheet away.

Not her mother.

The girl’s face was battered and swollen, her lips cracked and bloody. She was naked and obviously beaten. Through the purple bruises on her pale skin, Jordan could see needle marks. “The bastards drugged her.” She gently continued to pull away the sheet.

When she saw the pools of old and fresh blood under her hips, she stopped and closed her eyes. Her mind desperately searched for the image on the photograph her parents had given them when this child had been smiling and happy.

She placed two fingers on her throat. After a moment, she felt a very faint pulse. “She’s alive!” Jordan knelt on the filthy floor littered with used hypodermic needles and beer cans. Vince ran out to meet the officers arriving on the scene.

“We’ve got you. You’re safe now.” She held the girl’s hand gently. “We’ve got you.”

The EMTs rushed in and Jordan backed off. After an emotional call to the girl’s parents, she told them to meet her at the hospital. Jordan would stay with her on the short ride to Harrison Memorial.

She nodded to Vince before the back doors of the ambulance slammed. The sirens screamed and Jordan wanted to throw up while the medic was attempting to assess the damage of her brutal ordeal. She refused to look away. She would be a silent witness to this girl’s pain and the horror she endured.

They pulled into the emergency entrance where a trauma team waited to take the teenager away. They tried to get Jordan to wait outside, but she refused to budge until a front desk nurse approached her to tell her that the parents were waiting to talk to her.

*

Sunny carried her gear to the van and handed it to Shade. Tiffany waved before pulling out.

She felt hollow, not the normal drained feeling she usually had after an active investigation, but literally empty. It was foreign to her, this ache that she couldn’t place or blame on someone else’s emotions.

“We done here?” Shade asked before hopping out the back.

Sunny looked to the dark windows of the third-floor apartment. “Yep. We’re done here,” she answered sadly. Jordan couldn’t wait to run away from her and hadn’t come to Agnes’s apartment to say good-bye. When they went to get the camera from her apartment, it was clear she hadn’t even stuck around to see what they were doing. She was gone. Why had she hoped that inviting Jordan to the investigation would change her skepticism about the paranormal? Instead, it appeared that Jordan had chosen to keep her distance. Sunny was at somewhat of a loss because she’d never been in this position before. How could she be the person Jordan wanted if she couldn’t read her feelings?

“See you tomorrow, princess.”

“What? Oh. See you tomorrow, buddy.” She went to her own car and drove home. When she got there, she grabbed the evidence box and took the stairs slowly, feeling like every minute of the day’s events weighed on her shoulders. She noticed that Shade had followed her in the van but drove away before she was fully inside. Shade must really be upset, since she usually waited until Sunny was inside with the lights on. It was just another emotional piece in a puzzle weighing her down.

After she locked the box in the safe, Sunny was halfway to the kitchen to get some water when the doorbell rang. It had to be Shade, making sure she was safe after all. She hoped she wouldn’t have to make too many excuses because she was too tired to think of them, and she certainly didn’t want to discuss Jordan with her.