by D. Laine
“It would explain why she’s surrounded by them, why she wasn’t tagged by—”
“She’s not a vessel, Jake.”
“Their mark is harder to spot. Are you positive? You said so yourself that she seems to be in the middle of it—”
“She’s not a vessel,” I gritted.
“Did you bother to check?” Maria clipped.
“A few times, actually,” I fired back. “I got a rather in-depth view of her hips on multiple occasions last night.” Shifting my glare to Jake, I added, “And twice again this morning. Any more questions?”
My best friend frowned as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry, Dylan. We just . . . we need to be sure. If you say she’s clear, then I believe you. But that means we still have a vessel out there somewhere actively tagging people.”
“So let’s do what we were trained to do,” I declared. I glanced around the room, holding the gazes of each of my comrades before moving on to the next. “Just as long as you all know, Thea isn’t a part of it.”
WE SPENT the rest of the day crammed into the small hotel room. With each hour that passed, the walls closed in tighter.
Maria had gone out for some food around noon. Now, empty containers littered the floor alongside the many updates that had been pouring in from the agency all day.
They were losing interest in Yellowstone. They hadn’t found anything to support my suspicion. They were fools, and I seemed to be the only one who realized it.
“I need to get out of here,” I declared after I scanned the latest report Jake had handed to me.
All three sets of eyes lifted to stare at me.
I pointed to the stack of hospital records in Marcus’s hands. “We’re not going to find shit locked up in here with our noses in paper. It’s probably someone with a geology connection, like all the others. Let me go do what I do best.”
Maria opened her mouth to protest, but Jake waved a hand to cut her off.
“He’s right,” my partner stated. “He’s better uncovering stuff in the field.”
I smiled smugly at the girl that I’d known for ten years. Even if we had slept together, she was a friend. One that I used to like hanging out with—before we ruined it.
She rolled her eyes in response. “Just go already.”
I snatched the keys from the desk. “You mind if I take the Hummer?”
“Go ahead. I’ll be here all night.” Jake lifted his head out of the computer screen. “Will you be back later?”
“I plan on it.” I shrugged.
“You don’t sound convinced,” Marcus muttered from his corner, his head bowed over the papers in his hand when I turned to him.
I shot him a grin that he didn’t see as I backed out the door. “You never know where the night might lead.”
With any luck, it would lead me somewhere I had never ventured before—back into the bed of a girl I already had.
Thea had a late class. I knew this because I asked before I left her apartment earlier. I wanted to know where she would be at all times, in case the agency discovered something to validate my suspicions about the park. I knew when she would be getting home, and though I hadn’t promised her that I would stop by, I was already thinking about it.
First, I swung by the science building and drifted through the deserted halls of the geology department. I ended up at the lab, but found it empty. Not even David was there in front of the gadgets.
I stared at the wiggled lines that ran across the paper. From what I understood, the small humps were okay. It was the steep spikes that signaled an earthquake. The steeper the spike, the stronger it was.
I flipped through the old papers, finding several of those type of spikes, but they all stayed below the level of four. Not damning. Not damaging. Not catastrophic or apocalyptic.
Maybe I was wrong.
Or maybe this was the quiet before the storm.
THE GEOLOGY WING WAS DEAD—PROBABLY because we had killed off half the students enrolled in it, and their professor. I wasn’t surprised when I ended up at Thea’s minutes after leaving campus.
I would be of no help back at the hotel room. I knew that. It wasn’t just my excuse for going to see Thea. It was the honest-to-goodness truth. There was no hesitation behind my knock on her door.
Nor did I hesitate to show my disappointment when Thea’s roommate greeted me. I couldn’t seem to get away from this girl.
“Wow.” She leaned against the doorjamb with a smirk. “You came back?”
“Yeah.” I smiled smugly. “Thea around?”
Vivian opened the door wider and ushered me inside. “Been in her room all day.”
I spun around. “All day? I thought she had class.”
“She didn’t go.” Vivian shrugged as she retreated, uninterested, to her side of the apartment.
“You didn’t think to check on her?”
I didn’t wait for an answer as I moved past the kitchen and into the short hallway that led to Thea’s room. I stopped outside the closed door and knocked softly.
No answer. My gut clenched as I turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. I stepped inside and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The blinds were pulled shut. Only a dim band of light filtered in from behind me to illuminate a lump on the bed, under a mound of blankets. Unmoving.
“Thea?” I called hesitantly. My voice quivered, and I didn’t like the way it sounded. I cleared my throat as I took a tentative step across the floor, and tried again. “Thea?”
The lump moved and a familiar face materialized from under the blankets. I actually sagged in relief, and that only made me feel like a pussy. I was a dumb fucking pussy . . . because of this girl.
“Jesus, Thea,” I muttered as I walked toward her.
“Close the door,” she whispered hoarsely.
I quickly did as she ordered. Using my hands to lead the way, I shuffled across the dark room to the side of her bed. I could barely see her, but I heard her breathing heavily. I dropped to a knee by her head.
“You okay?”
“I’m sick,” she declared weakly. “I’m sorry, but you’re probably going to get it too.”
I chuckled softly. “Totally worth it if I do.”
It sounded like she tried to laugh, but was too weak to pull it off.
“You been like this all day?” I asked.
“Hit me soon after you left.”
“Yeah?” I placed my hand on her forehead. She was burning up.
The knot in my stomach tightened. I tried to push the troubled thoughts out of my head before they settled, but it didn’t work. My brain went into overdrive as the calculations ran through me.
Kyle had attacked her . . . two weeks ago? Had it been two weeks already? Unless there was something she wasn’t telling me, she should have displayed the mark of a tag at least a week and a half ago. It wouldn’t come out this late.
Would it?
No. No way. Thea couldn’t be one of them. Not now. Now when—
No. It was too soon to tell. If the sickness was hitting her now, the mark would show up within a few days. Then I would know for sure.
I laid a hand on her shoulder. The heat from her body radiated through her shirt, warming my palm. “I’ll be right back.”
Letting myself out, I hurried to the kitchen to find Vivian standing at the sink, rinsing off a plate.
“In case you were wondering,” I told her coolly, “she’s sick. Do you have any medicine around here?”
Vivian’s back straightened as she placed the plate into the dish rack. “She’s sick?”
“Yeah. What do you have? Tylenol? Motrin? Aspirin? She needs something.”
Vivian kept her back to me as she walked out of the kitchen, obviously not interested in answering me.
“Vivian!” I shouted at her back, forcing her to stop. When she turned, I threw my arms out. “Help me out here, will you?”
Her eyes were hard as stone on me. “She keeps some Motrin in h
er bathroom. Above the sink.”
“Thank you.”
In the bathroom, I found the medicine and filled a cup with water. I held both out to Thea when I returned to her side.
“Here. Take this.”
Her fingers plucked the pills from my hand. “Thank you.”
“Do you want anything else? Are you hungry?”
She groaned her displeasure over the thought of food, and I nodded glumly. Did normal humans lose their appetite when they were sick, or was that only tags? I hadn’t been sick since I was a kid, so I couldn’t remember if her response was appropriate or not.
I went with the hope that it was normal. For now, she was still Thea. She was still the same girl I had grown to care about. That was why I didn’t hesitate to crawl into her bed now.
She mumbled incoherently as I settled in behind her and wrapped my arm around her waist. “I don’t want you to get sick too,” she whispered.
My grip tightened around her. “If I’m going to get it, it’s already too late.”
I didn’t tell her that I doubted her fears were valid. I didn’t tell her that my fear was something far worse was happening to her. Something I couldn’t fathom, let alone bring myself to tell her.
18
“Dylan?”
Her soft voice washed over me like a warm sunrise, chasing off the chill that clung to me following yet another unpleasant dream. Once again, my subconscious had been dominated by the smell of smoke and gasoline. Thea’s voice drowned out the waning screams of my sister.
I opened my eyes to find her leaning over me with a smile. A curtain of damp hair framed her face. She smelled like lavender and mint.
“You look much better,” I observed groggily.
“I feel better.” She leaned down to plant a brief kiss to my lips. “You stayed.”
I slipped my arm around her waist to keep her exactly where she was. “I kept waiting for you to wake up in the middle of the night, feverless and horny. Guess I fell asleep waiting.”
Her teeth bit down on her lip when she smiled, drawing my attention to her mouth. The blood rushed from my head and travelled south. Considering the morning wood I’d started the day off with, it didn’t take much for Big Jon to jump to full attention.
Not even the red numbers shining on the digital clock over Thea’s shoulder distracted me from admiring her. Jake would be pissed, but it wouldn’t be the first time.
The only thing that gave me pause was the realization that her illness had lasted twenty-four hours. There was a very real possibility that Thea had been infected after all.
Instead of that suspicion encouraging me to run from this room, it inspired me to kiss her. To appreciate the Thea I had in front of me now . . . because it wouldn’t last. Not if I was right.
I pulled her to me, and then I spent a considerable amount of time that morning doing something else I thought I’d never do.
I took my time. I caressed. I stripped her slowly, savoring her like the precious gift I believed her to be. Then I kissed and licked and tasted every inch of the beautiful girl that straddled me.
For the first time, I made it about the other person. I made it about her, and I gave her what she needed. When she demanded I go faster, I went faster. When my name passed her lips, I basked in the glorious sound. And when I flipped her over, I gave equal attention to the soft skin previously neglected.
I brushed the hair from her neck—not to check for the mark, but to kiss it—while she came apart beneath me. And when I followed, I cradled her to my chest, determined to keep her safe from the future that I feared awaited her.
IT WAS noon before we were pulled from the comfort of Thea’s bed by the pinging of my cell phone. I had several missed messages from Jake, one angry message from Maria, and one from David.
“Everything okay?” Thea asked me from across the room.
I glanced up to find her already dressed and watching me while I stood in my underwear, pants hanging loosely around my knees while I looked down at my phone.
“Yeah,” I lied and finished pulling up my pants. “Just my roommate. Wondering where I’ve been.”
Thea started to nod, then stopped to give me a wide-eyed and panicked stare. “Oh, my God.”
“What?” I darted a look over my shoulder, half expecting to find Lucifer’s vessel with a gun to my head. Nothing but a bookcase stocked to capacity stood behind me. Looking back at Thea, I angled my head.
“You have a girlfriend,” she declared.
“Uh . . .”
“Another guy wouldn’t care if you didn’t come home.” She paced the room in front of me like a lawyer preparing her opening statement. “He would assume you were getting laid, high five you when you finally got home, then buy you a beer to celebrate your triumph. But a girlfriend . . .” She stopped to wag a finger at me. “A girlfriend would text you to find out where you’ve been.”
I tried not to laugh, but a little noise found its way out of my mouth regardless. “Is that what you think guys do?” She stared, unamused. “Well, we don’t . . . buy each other beer for getting laid.” Her lips thinned. Still not amused. I lifted the phone in my hand. “Really. You would understand if you knew my roommate.”
“I don’t even know where you live,” she countered. “You’ve never told me.”
I shrugged. “It never came up.”
She blinked as if to contain the emotion rising up inside of her. “You also haven’t denied having a girlfriend.”
“Uh . . .”
I hadn’t? I assumed my reaction was enough of a denial, but I guessed not. I strode across the room to take Thea’s arms in my hands.
Looking her in the eyes, I said levelly, “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
She squinted like she wasn’t sure she believed me, and I turned my phone around to show her one of the less offensive messages Jake had left me.
With that girl again?
“Jake, my roommate,” I told her. She pulled her lip between her teeth with a shy nod, and I grinned. “So are we done with that nonsense?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I’m not—”
“One of those girls?” I finished for her. I swiped my shirt off the floor and slipped it over my head with a chuckle. “For what it’s worth, I’m not sorry. I kind of like knowing you want me to yourself.”
“I didn’t— That’s not—” She groaned her frustration as my grin grew. “I don’t want to be the other woman. That’s all.”
“That would require the participation of a third party, and I can assure you that I’m only tangoing with you.”
“Tangoing?”
“Yeah. You know . . .” I positioned my hands in front of me and swayed to the music in my head.
“You mean the horizontal tango?” she giggled.
“That’s it.” I jabbed a finger at her as I sat on the edge of the bed to slip my shoes on.
I glanced up to find equally amused, surprised, and satisfied eyes gazing down at me. Good to know I wasn’t the only one surprised. This was the closest I had ever trespassed over the line of monogamy, but the most surprising thing about it was that the mere thought of sleeping with only one woman didn’t cause my balls to shrivel up and die as I had always assumed they would.
“You’re at The Nest again tonight, right?”
She smiled. “You know my schedule?”
“I’m learning it,” I admitted.
“I start at four,” she told me. “I have to close tonight.”
“Okay.” I didn’t want to come across as needy, but dammit, I wanted to see her again. This time, it wasn’t just about following up on a potential tag. This time, it went way beyond that, but I did my best to downplay my eagerness when I rose to my feet and pulled her into my arms. “Maybe I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah, sure.” She nodded casually.
I wasn’t the only one pretending to play it cool.
Knowing she secretly wanted to see me again as badly as I wanted to see her only made me
more determined to make it happen. Though I didn’t confirm anything when I left her apartment, I already knew where I would be later tonight. Jake was just going to have to accept that.
I pulled his number up after I got in the Hummer, set the phone to speaker, and laid it on the seat beside me while it rang. Two rings. Three rings. Four . . .
I punched on the gas the moment I pulled into the street.
Five rings . . . six . . .
“Shit.” I whipped around a slow-moving car in front of me, squealing the tires in my haste to get back to the hotel. Beside me, the call went to voice mail and I picked up the phone to disconnect. “Son of a bitch!”
I would never forgive myself if anything happened to Jake. He was the brother I never had. The sibling I had lost. The only person I had ever allowed myself to genuinely care for in ten years, until recently.
Despite having grown to care for another person in the past couple of weeks, I never would have allowed it to happen if I’d known it would have put Jake in a dangerous position.
He came first. Since the day the agency partnered us up, he had come first.
The tires squealed again when I whipped into the parking lot of the hotel. Breaking to a stop in front of our room, I fished for the pistol that was strapped to the underside of the seat. Bullets—check. Safety off—check. Finger on the trigger, I climbed out of the vehicle and approached the door to our hotel room.
My throat tightened when I saw that it was cracked open. The coffee and bagel I’d consumed earlier at Thea’s were terrifyingly close to meeting the pavement as I toed the door the rest of the way open. My gun led the way into the room.
“Jesus, Dylan!” Maria yelped from the bathroom doorway. She flew into the wall behind her, hand to her chest, as she watched me lower my gun to the floor.
To my right, Marcus squinted. “You alright, man?”
“Where’s Jake?”
“He had something he had to do,” Marcus replied. “He asked us to wait here, in case you came back while he was gone.”
I nodded brusquely and laid the gun on the dresser with a shaky hand. “He didn’t answer his phone.”
Maria turned her back with a scoff and went back into the bathroom. Obviously, she didn’t get it, but Marcus did. He nodded sympathetically.