The Family Cross

by Gabrielle Ash

  I swallowed and finished unlocking the door. Popped Collar was dead. Dead!

  The door swung open, and I hurried inside. Even as the door closed, my heart didn’t stop its frantic beat.

  The squeal of hardwood shattered my thought processes again, but it wasn’t behind me this time.

  It was ahead of me. The living room.

  The tremor in my hands returned. My condo was dark, even with the light of the city pouring in from the balcony window. Shadows jutted out along the floor, and I slowly stepped through the foyer, eyes wide.

  “Hello?” I asked the darkness, voice cracking against the back of my throat. I swallowed again.

  My gaze traced along the edges of my entertainment center and jerked over to observe the balcony. My condo sat ten stories off the ground. My door had been locked while I was gone. Yet I could feel someone there. Eyes were on me. Someone was picking me apart.

  Was I losing my mind?

  “Hello?” I asked again, slowly stepping toward the light switch with my back to the front door. Had I locked it behind me? Should I turn around?

  It turned out not to matter.

  The floor in the shadow of my entertainment center moved.

  My floors were solid. I’d walked all over them and did yoga in my living room. There was nothing fluid about them, yet the longer I stared, the more the shadow stirred like waves along the shore.

  I took a slow step back. The shadow stretched toward the ceiling, a familiar shape emerging where nothing had been before. The silhouette of a person, formed from nothing and something all at once, molded right in front of me. It changed quickly, gaining definition and an unmistakable realness in the darkness, and as a familiar face materialized in the shade, I knew his presence beside Popped Collar’s broken body had been no coincidence.

  My entire body shook, and I continued my hesitant steps back, eyes fixated on the person that now stood in my living room.

  “Hello again.”

  Five

  I couldn’t move. I tried to breathe, and the air got stuck in my chest.

  Farrell stood in my living room. I wasn’t sure how, but he was there in the same police uniform I’d seen him in earlier. He was as solid as I was, yet he’d somehow come out of my floor.

  He took a step forward. I pried my feet from the floor and ran.

  My stilettos slammed against the wood, and I ran toward my kitchen. The clomp-clomp behind me, a lazy pace in sharp contrast to my panicked one, didn’t make me feel better.

  “Small place,” Farrell said, voice shaking the walls. “Nowhere to run, pretty lady.”

  Harsh breaths tore through my lungs as I grabbed the edge of the island and swung myself around the corner to my oven. I reached over the marble counter toward the knife block, gripped the handle of the boning knife, and jerked it from the block.

  “Boo.” Farrell’s breath was hot on my neck.

  I turned around and swung my knife through the air, slicing the slim blade diagonally to the left. My heart cracked when I found no one on the receiving end.

  He wasn’t there.

  My eyes, shaking in their sockets, moved from left to right, searching the empty darkness.

  The shadow. He had come from the shadow.

  I tightened my grip on the knife and dared to look at my feet.

  A shadow billowed around my heels. Fingers pushed through the dark pool on the floor, twisting as a wrist and forearm followed. The hand snapped from its slow dance and snaked around my ankle, nails digging into the soft flesh around my Achilles tendon.

  A shriek left my throat, and I tried to yank my foot away from his grasp. Farrell’s hand jerked to the side from within his shadowy refuge and pulled my legs out from under me. My head hit the wood with a crack that slammed my teeth together. The knife, the only defense I had, slid across the floor and stopped along a baseboard just out of reach.

  The sharp, hot pain radiating from the back of my head down my neck ripped tears from their ducts, and I plunged my fingers into my hair. A loud sob tore through my throat as I curled on my side, only becoming more and more aware that every second I lay still was a second closer to my death.

  “Shhh.” Farrell gripped my calf with his second hand as his head emerged from the shadow on the floor. He climbed up my legs like a rope, slowly pulling himself from the floor, one hand in front of the other. It wasn’t until he sank his fingers into my thigh that I remembered to move.

  “You’ve never stood a chance,” Farrell said as his fingers dug into my waist. I pulled my fingers from my head and tried to crawl away, but his body, heavy against my legs, kept me pinned to the floor.

  My gaze found the knife again, and I threw my hand out to reach for it.

  “Killing you…it’s a waste,” he said, body completely removed from the shadow. He straddled my legs and leaned forward, placing a hand on either side of my face. His breath was hot on my cheek when he laughed, and when he twisted his fingers into my hair, I stretched out for the blade one last time.

  It was too far away.

  “Such a waste,” Farrell repeated as he pulled the diamond clip from my hair and tossed it on the floor.

  He pushed himself up and slammed a heavy boot on either side of my face. Moments later, he had a hand full of my hair again, and he wasted little time in dragging me across the floor.

  I wanted to scream. I wanted to call for help. But every time I opened my mouth, the only thing I could manage were short gasps as my hair was being torn strand by strand from my scalp.

  Farrell pulled me through the living room and to the balcony. I tried to kick around and slow his stride, but the only thing I managed to do was lose a heel by the couch. A burst of warm air swallowed me when he pulled the balcony door open, and the second my toes dragged against the concrete of my balcony, the unmistakable realization that I was about to die crushed my will into tiny pieces.

  Farrell yanked hard on my hair, pulling me to my feet and shoving me toward the balcony balustrade. The metal rod dug into my back, and the force sent the top half of my body backward, my shoulder blades hanging over into the night air.

  “It’s not personal,” he said, body close and hands on my waist as he continued to push me against the railing. I tried to regain my balance and straighten my shoulders, but Farrell’s imposing stance made it impossible. “It’s business. You’re a businesswoman. You understand.”

  All he’d need to do was push me, and I’d fly over the side of the balcony. Just a little. A small push would end me, and he knew it. Farrell’s eyes, emeralds basking in the light of the moon, looked upon my fear with delight. He’d never think about me again. If he felt an ounce of remorse, I’d be surprised.

  He moved his fingers down my thighs and stopped behind my knees. He took a step back, and he started to pull my legs up to flip me over the side.

  “Yeah, this isn’t going to work for me.” A new voice, a familiar voice, broke the silence.

  My palms and knees slammed into the concrete, the sharp bite of the rough ground slicing into flesh shooting up my arms and legs.

  “You’re a miserable bastard,” the new voice said.

  “It’s you,” Farrell said, voice tight.

  Despite the panic gripping my body, I scampered away on my hands and knees from the balustrade. Boots dragging against the roughness of the concrete drowned out the other sounds of a New York night.

  “You’re right—it’s me,” the new voice said. He’d smiled at the end. I could hear it as I crawled as far away as I could manage. “There are no shadows for you to hide in or anyone around that gives a damn if you live, so I’d appreciate some cooperation.”

  When my back hit the sturdy wall of my condominium, I finally found the wherewithal to focus.

  Coat Guy from the café had Farrell pressed against the railing.

  “Now.” Coat Guy had a hand wrapped around Farrell’s throat. His knuckles were white, a sharp contrast to Farrell’s reddening face. A gun was shoved underneath
his rib cage, and even with the thick fabric of his police uniform, I didn’t have a doubt that Farrell felt it. “Who’s trying to kill Fancy Pants?”

  Farrell’s gaze flickered down toward the gun.

  “You don’t know? That’s what Super Douche said too,” Coat Guy said. Had Farrell even said anything? “Where’s your handler?”

  “Dead,” Farrell said against the crushing force of Coat Guy’s fingers. “He’s fucking dead, but you know that!”

  “He was pretty easy to kill, so it’s no real surprise you also suck.” Coat Guy shrugged.

  My mouth fell open, and my chest continued to shake with uneven breaths.

  Coat Guy looked over at me, deep-blue gaze pinned to my face. “How much is her contract?”

  “Fuck you!” Farrell shrieked, gaze back on the gun in his ribs. The barrel had sunk a few inches deeper.

  “A million bucks, huh?” Coat Guy looked away and cocked his head to the side. His haircut was somehow even worse against the light of the moon.

  The pair of them stood in silence. The only sound I heard aside from my own breathing was the long blare of a car horn on the streets below.

  “You’re absolutely worthless to me.” Coat Guy pulled the gun back a little to hover in front of Farrell’s stomach.

  “And you’re a filthy fucking telepath who can’t mind his own business!” Farrell said.

  Then he lunged.

  Farrell stretched his hands toward Coat Guy’s face, but not fast enough. Coat Guy pulled back his arm a bit and popped it forward, ramming the knuckles of his pointer and middle finger right into Farrell’s windpipe. Farrell instinctively gripped his throat—a fatal mistake.

  Coat Guy, moving with an unnatural speed, grabbed Farrell behind the knees and flipped him over the side of the balustrade.

  I wasn’t entirely sure how long I sat there and stared at the place Farrell used to occupy. He had been there one second and gone the next.

  I needed to move, but I couldn’t. My arms and legs shook as I sat in my crumpled heap, unwilling to act despite my brain telling me to move.

  My gaze found Coat Guy again, and I panicked. Come on, Tilly! Move it or you’re next!

  My savior put the hand he’d hit Farrell with in the palm of his other one, and the crack of his knuckles sent a tremor down my back so violent my shoulders twitched.

  “What’d you do?” he asked, still staring off into the night. The breeze tousled his dark hair as he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. Words refused to come out of my mouth, so I watched him pull a cigarette out of the box and put it to his lips instead.

  “I don’t see you doing anything too bad.” Coat Guy brought a lighter out of his pocket. We sat in relative quiet as he lit his cigarette, and it wasn’t until he blew out a steady stream of smoke that he spoke again. “But you are loaded.”

  He squatted down in front of me and balanced on the balls of his feet, elbows resting on his knees. A curl of smoke drifted from the end of his cigarette. He was waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t have a clue what. I’d seen a man with monster teeth and another crawl out of a shadow on my floor. What was I supposed to say?

  I said the first thing that came to mind for a lack of anything better. “Are you going to kill me?”

  While I’d obviously seen him before, I analyzed him with a hyperawareness I wasn’t sure I’d ever experienced until then. His eyes weren’t just blue anymore. They were deep blue. Dark blue. The part of the ocean you could see from a distance, but never really touch.

  He smirked, revealing teeth that, while white, were a little crooked.

  “Nah,” he said eventually before taking another drag of his cigarette. His nose had a defined ridge and sloped a little to the left the more I analyzed him. If he regularly engaged in fighting people, the odds stood that it’d been broken a time or two. “But we need to go.”

  The moisture evaporated from my mouth.

  “Go?” I asked as the cool from the concrete sank through my dress. “Y-You want me…you want me to go with you?”

  He nodded slowly and continued to smoke. The shouts from the street below were getting louder now, and a flurry of sirens echoed throughout the ocean of skyscrapers surrounding us. Had there been a scream when Farrell hit the concrete? Surely there was. Why hadn’t I heard it? Maybe I was losing my mind.

  “Listen, lady,” Coat Guy said and cleared his throat. It was off-putting, to say the least, that he could toss someone from a high-rise and remain calm. “I know you’re scared, but I think you’re smart enough to know that you’re in danger.”

  I took a deep breath and bobbed my head, unwilling to verbally commit to anymore of the insanity that had consumed me in the past twenty-four hours.

  “Do you think it’s over now that the cop is dead?” he asked.

  I swallowed and tried to get ahold of myself. “I imagine not. You mentioned a contract.”

  “Yep.” He stood and dropped his cigarette, crushing it beneath the heel of his boot. “More will come.”

  The thought of more people like Farrell coming to kill me made me want to hurl myself over the railing just to get it over with.

  “How, exactly, are you involved in this mess?” I asked and pushed myself to my feet. He might’ve saved me, but people don’t usually do stuff for free. “Who are you?”

  He stared at me again, but this time it was more along the lines of thinking I’d asked a stupid question. Perhaps names weren’t given often in his line of work. Names were important, after all.

  Dynasties were built on them. Fortunes too.

  “I’ll explain the how after we get out of here,” he said and walked to the partially open glass door leading to my living area. He pulled the handle back and jerked his head toward the opening. “You need to get in there, change clothes, and then we need to go. A cop just fell from the sky, and you best believe they’ll shut this building down to investigate. We need to be gone when they do.”

  It made sense. If anyone interviewed me, there was little doubt I’d blow it. To investigators, Farrell would be a member of the force. He wouldn’t be the murderous, shadow-dwelling jerk that had dragged me through my home by my hair. They wouldn’t believe me for a second if I said he melted into the floor and crawled out of it like a demon. I’d be booked and pitched into a cell before having an opportunity to defend myself.

  An Ashby would be in prison. I’d single-handedly ruin my family.

  “I’ll go with you,” I said after a deep breath. “But tell me your name first.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me.

  “You saved my life and you’re still trying to help me, so I’m willing to bet there’s something you want.” I crossed my arms. The sirens were directly below us now. “I’m not opposed to repayment, but I am opposed to working with someone without a name.”

  He gripped the doorknob with white knuckles, and despite the coat, I could tell his arms were also tight with irritation. He didn’t want to tell me his name.

  The shouts from the street in front of my condominium seemed to make up his mind for him.

  “Samson,” he said. “My name is Samson.”

  Six

  I wasn’t sure what name I had been expecting. I’d never met a man named Samson, and the only time I’d ever heard it used at all was at church. My nanny, Masha, had taken me to church with her in an effort to keep me away from my parents. She didn’t think I noticed her true intentions, but our sudden departures to the cathedral when my father came home weren’t a coincidence.

  “With a name like that, I’m surprised you don’t have superstrength,” I said with a nervous laugh. A hard eye roll was the only commentary I got on the matter.

  “Make it quick, lady. We gotta go,” he said, annoyance lingering in his tense jaw. “I know you spoke with the cop and his partner earlier. There’s a connection between you two…don’t give the police a chance to exploit it.”

  I wrapped my arms around myself, but the shake in m
y limbs had nothing to do with the outside air. If I didn’t play the coming hours just right, I’d ruin everything. My family would be hurt because of this. My family legacy would be destroyed because of this. That was unacceptable.

  “My name is Matilda,” I said and strolled through the open door to my living room. My next thought left me as I bent down to pick up my rogue heel. I’d been so close to death, and it was by sheer luck I didn’t get tossed off my balcony in Farrell’s place.

  I risked a quick glance at Samson, and the reality of that thought sank in. While I didn’t know how Popped Collar met his end by my condominium, witnessing Samson flip Farrell over my balcony balustrade, and their conversation beforehand, left little doubt in my mind that Samson had killed him too. If Samson did kill him, he knew about the teeth. They weren’t something you missed up close and personal like that. Or maybe they were. I hadn’t seen them at the café.

  He knew about Farrell’s shadow thing though. He’d mentioned it right before throwing him over the railing.

  “You okay?”

  My glance had apparently turned into a stare.

  “Am I crazy?” The question left my mouth in a deep whisper, like I was afraid to say it and make myself look like a total nutcase. Richard had completely dismissed my worries about Popped Collar, and he’d been right beside me when Farrell pulled his lip back.

  A monster? Are you listening to yourself?

  Samson stared at me hard, leaving no room for argument with his next word. “No.”

  The festering wound on my ego, that I was losing my mind and seeing things, didn’t hurt so much right then.

  Rehearsed motions were the only thing that could get me out of my condo. My fingers twitched, and my knees locked as I moved into my room, jerky movements I couldn’t control even though the danger had briefly subsided.

  The loud footfalls of Samson that echoed along the floor made me miss the knob on my closet door as I tried to grip it. It was frustrating to be out of control, so consumed by raw fear that simple things like opening a door were almost impossible. After the third attempt, I finally got in my closet.