She scoffed, throwing him an annoyed glance. “That’s what she said too.”
Lor clasped his hands behind his back. “I will not enter your mind without permission, but this is in your best interest.”
Elias brushed past Lor and sat next to Roxie on the narrow bunk. He tried not to crowd her but the confines of the room made it impossible. “How much do you know about your parents?”
Her brow furrowed and she scooted back far enough to bring her bent knee onto the bunk between them. Okay, maybe he wasn’t as much a reassurance as he’d thought. “What do my parents have to do with anything?”
“Were you raised by your biological parents?” Lor asked.
“I don’t have to talk to you about this.”
Elias leaned back against the wall in a futile attempt at appearing relaxed. “You don’t have to talk to us about anything, but you’re not going home until we figure out why Sevrin wants you so badly. Answering our questions and allowing this scan could bring you closer to going home.”
“Fine.” She huffed. “Scan me.”
The questions had been meant to secure her permission for the scan, so he allowed the evasion. He motioned Lor forward, but the Mystic just smiled. Elias should have realized a Master-level Mage didn’t need to touch someone to scan them.
She is definitely a hybrid, but her origins are murky. I sense Rodyte strongly. The other components are less clear. Lor’s gaze narrowed as he pushed deeper or scanned more broadly. “I sense something—” Suddenly he rushed forward and pressed his hands to either side of Roxie’s head.
She grabbed his wrists, trying to force his hands away. “Stop it! What are you—” She screamed and Elias jumped up, prepared to drag Lor off her.
The Mystic turned her loose and straightened. “There was a nano-tracker. I disabled it.”
Elias whispered a curse under his breath. “But she’s been here for hours.”
“The signal wasn’t strong. It couldn’t have penetrated the shields.”
“Morgan still needs to know. This is technically a breach in security.”
Lor nodded. “I’m heading back in that direction. I can inform her if you prefer.”
Elias took one look at Roxie’s pale face and wide uncertain eyes and returned Lor’s nod. “Please do.”
“Wait.” She came alive suddenly, scooting to the edge of the bunk. “Did you sense anything else? Was my brain damaged by the infusion or that tracker thing?”
“I sensed no damage and the nano-tracker was the only anomaly.” Lor offered her a belated smile. “You’re fine.”
Elias waited until Lor left to speak again. “Would you like to go for a walk? I’m sure you’re sick of this room by now.”
“Walks generally lead back to where they started. Are you going to lock me up again as soon as you’re finished walking me?”
He smiled. Her spirit was much easier to deal with than her depression. At least it was for him. When she turned fearful and uncertain, he wanted to wrap his arms around her and comfort her in completely unprofessional ways. “That’s the offer. Take it or leave it.”
“Oh, I’ll take it.” She hopped up off the bunk as if it were electrified. “Anything’s better than staying here.”
They were in the middle of the dinner hour, so the mess hall would be packed and he couldn’t take her outside without revealing clues about their location. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. The compound was in the middle of nowhere. It might do her good to realize any escape attempt would be pointless.
He scanned open the door and motioned her out into the hallway. Her steps were quick and purposeful, yet she took in her surroundings with obvious interest. There wasn’t really much to see in this section of the complex, well-lit corridors leading to offices and store rooms. All the good stuff was kept in the high-security zones.
She didn’t hesitate until she reached the first intersection. Then she glanced up at him and asked, “Where to?”
Left was a more direct route to the main elevators, but the corridor also led past the mess hall. If Roxie caused a scene, Morgan would insist she stay locked up. He turned right, his fingers lightly brushing the small of her back, which was left bare by her cropped tank top. She looked up again as awareness pulsed between them, alive with tension and electricity.
She allowed his touch, neither twisting away from nor pressing into the light contact. “Why did you ask about my parents?” She shifted her gaze back to the hallway ahead of them, but the awareness lingered.
Her skin was soft and warm, beckoning further exploration. He wanted to venture under her shirt, caress her back and shoulders as he pushed the fabric higher. But he resisted temptation, stubbornly keeping his hand at the small of her back. “I think you know why.”
“You think I’m an alien.”
“No.” He paused for a smile. “I think one of your parents was. Tell me about them.”
She hesitated, obviously uncomfortable with the subject. “I was raised by my maternal aunt. I know nothing about my father.”
He quickly guided her past the living quarters and into the lesser used corridors. Their steps echoed off the walls, making the area seem abandoned. “What happened to your mother?”
“Hit and run. The police told us the driver was likely drunk, but Aunt Shelia never believed them.”
Pain rippled through her words and he nearly let the subject drop. But his assignment was to compile a detailed background on Roxie and they had barely begun. “What did your aunt think happened?”
Roxie glanced up at him and then away. “She thought it was deliberate, that Mom was murdered.”
Her tone hinted at skepticism. All he saw in her eyes was grief. “Did your mother have enemies, someone who benefited from her death?”
Anxious energy sped her steps, taking her body just out of reach. “I was only six when it happened and Aunt Shelia was a mess. She pulled it together enough to take care of me, but she was never the same.”
They reached the secondary elevators and Elias summoned a car. Without physical contact she felt very far away. Still, she was too tense now for Elias to risk touching her again. He kept his questions conversational. They were just two strangers getting to know each other. Hopefully, Roxie wouldn’t figure out that she was still being questioned. “What was your aunt like before your mother’s death?”
“Fun-loving and happy.” She followed him into the elevator, staying just out of reach. “After Mom died, she never smiled and seemed really paranoid. We moved at least once a year and never kept the same phone number. She was convinced someone was after us, that the people who murdered Mom were going to get us too.”
They stepped out of the elevator and he hurried her away from the transport hangers. Keys to all of the vehicles were kept under guard, but he wouldn’t put it past Roxie to know how to hotwire a car. Unless her appearance and demeanor were a total façade, but that didn’t seem likely. “Except for continually moving you around, did she provide for the rest of your needs?”
“I was clothed and fed, but she completely checked out as I became more self-sufficient.”
Despite his determination to remain objective, his gut clenched. They’d barely scratched the surface of her past and already he could sense a creeping darkness, a foreshadowing of the horrors to come. “That couldn’t have been healthy. Many adolescents require more supervision than children.”
Her lips curved into a smile, but regret shadowed her gaze. “I was a regular hell-raiser during my teens, but Aunt Shelia had nothing to do with it. I have no one to blame but myself for all the crap I went through.”
Her insistence revealed more than she realized. She obviously felt guilty about the choices she’d made, yet some part of her still longed for her aunt’s attention. “Is she still alive?”
She shook her head, but offered no other information.
He peeled back the emotions and reviewed the facts as he led her out a side door of the small above-ground building. Her
mother had died under suspicious circumstances and her aunt never again felt safe. “Did your mother and Shelia share both parents?”
“Same mother, different fathers.” Even in the shade created by the structure, the desert setting was oppressively hot. Roxie stood beside him and looked around, taking in the endless arid vista with a combination of wonder and dread. “Are there even roads out here?” She crossed her arms over her chest and pressed her back against the side of the building as if she were trying to hide from the heat.
“SUVs are advisable, but there are dirt roads. Did you ever meet any of your grandparents?”
She shot him an annoyed look and shook her head. “Why is my genealogy so fascinating to you?”
“During one of our raids, we recovered a notebook with information on the women the Shadow Assassins are targeting.” It was bait. He’d reveal a little to gain a whole lot more.
Her eyes rounded and she turned toward him, her shoulder pressed against the wall. “Am I in the notebook?”
“No, but the women who are have one thing in common.”
“They’re all part alien?”
“We call them hybrids, and yes, when Lor scanned you just now, he confirmed our suspicion that you’re more than human.”
“Could he tell what sort of alien…” She shook her head and pushed off the wall. “This is too weird.” She walked to the corner of the building and stared out into nothingness. “My mother slept with an alien.”
The utter disbelief in her tone made him smile. Considering all they’d thrown at her, she was coping remarkably well. “It’s possible she had no idea what he was. As you’ve seen, they can be pretty damn convincing when they want to appear human.”
She turned as he approached, her eyes wide and shimmering. “Was Aunt Sheila right? Have they been chasing me my entire life?”
“I don’t know.” Very slowly, he placed his hand on her upper arm. She didn’t flinch or turn away and his pulse sped up.
“I was so relieved when Sevrin told me they were leaving. I just want this to be over.” Gradually, she seemed to melt into him, pressing her forehead against his shoulder while only allowing the merest hint of contact with the rest of his body.
“You’re safe now,” he whispered, gently stroking her hair. “We’ll make sure no one can harm you.”
“I found her, you know. She was in the bathtub, water running, but the radio wasn’t on. She always turned on the radio when she showered. I know it was staged.”
It took him a minute to realize she was talking about Sheila. Her mother had been hit by a car, so she had to be talking about her aunt. “Did you tell the cops?”
Her head shifted back and forth, but she didn’t look at him. “I’d just turned fifteen and was decked out in Goth makeup. They didn’t believe a word I said.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist and slowly pulled her against him. She tensed, shivered, then relaxed into the embrace, and Elias could hardly breathe. She felt so tiny pressed against him, small, yet soft and warm.
The last thing he wanted was to continue his questioning. He wanted to comfort her, drive away the painful memories, not rub her face in them. But this was his mission, his obligation, and it was important that they understand Roxie’s connection to the enemy.
He swallowed past the sudden dryness in his throat and forced out the next question. “Where did you go? Did you have any other relatives?”
“Group home,” she whispered. “I stayed eleven days then realized I didn’t need that sort of bullshit.” She kept her face pressed against his throat, but he made out every heart-rending word. “This hallelujah couple ran the place and did their best to maintain order, but most of those kids had been in the system all their lives. They knew nothing but intimidation and violence.”
It didn’t take a clairvoyant to figure out where this story led. He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to think about Roxie being harmed in any way. But it was obvious she needed to talk and needed someone to listen. That rational was easier than admitting he was still doing his job. “Why did you leave?”
Her arms tightened around him and her breath shuddered out against his skin. “The two oldest boys cornered me in a shed and told me I had to blow them or they’d beat the shit out of me. I opted for the beating, but two days later they came after me again.”
She didn’t elaborate and his hands clenched into fists. It was too easy to picture a younger, more rebellious Roxie trying to fight off two older boys. He had to work hard to keep his embrace supportive. His anger would only add to her pain. “Did you tell anyone what they’d done?”
“What they tried to do.” Her voice was stronger now, though her hair concealed her face. “I went sort of crazy the second time and gave even better than I got. I left them both dazed and bleeding on the floor of the garage and didn’t look back. I stuffed my things into a backpack, ‘borrowed’ some money from the hallelujah woman’s purse, then hit the road. Aunt Shelia had taught me how to avoid attention and how not to leave a trail.”
He eased her back, needing to see her face. “You’ve been on your own since you were fifteen?”
She blinked back tears though miraculously her cheeks remained dry. He shouldn’t be surprised by her composure. She’d had many years to learn how to suppress emotion and focus only on survival. “Life on my own wasn’t that much different. Like I said, Aunt Sheila checked out long before she died.”
“But where did you stay? What did you do for money?”
“Do you really need to hear it?” She pushed against his chest and twisted out of his arms. “Street kids only have two options.”
“Drugs or p-rostitution?” He stumbled over the last word. It was a common enough story. It had just never felt personal before. They weren’t speaking in abstracts, describing the unfortunate reality no one could seem to change. This was Roxie’s life, what she’d endured, how she’d survived.
“I wasn’t about to sell myself, but I had to eat.” She stood beside him again, leaning back against the wall. And with each word she retreated deeper into a protective indifference. “I started out as a courier and pretended I didn’t know what I was delivering. Then one of the dealers, a guy named Smoke, noticed me. And it wasn’t the sort of attention I wanted to attract.”
He braced himself for the worst. Stories like this never had happy endings. “What did you do?”
“I was about to take off again. I wasn’t willing to whore myself for anyone. But he had a girlfriend named Jodi. She was literally a swimsuit model. I couldn’t figure out why he’d want a skinny, foulmouthed, street rat when he had someone like her. One day I got brave and told her that Smoke had been eyeing me for weeks. She laughed and promised me that his interest wasn’t sexual.”
“Then what did he want?”
“He wanted a street-smart girl with the sort of face and figure that would allow her to stroll into high-class clubs and exclusive parties without raising an eyebrow. Jodi had done the job for a while, but he didn’t want her directly involved with the drugs anymore.”
“But he had no problem with you being involved?”
She shrugged away his concern. “I was already involved. Besides, I wasn’t sleeping with him.”
“Expensive nightclubs and private parties sound like a huge step up from the streets.”
“No kidding. They cleaned me up and refined my speech until I could pass for a rich party girl. I was still a courier, but now I drove a Mercedes and traveled with a body guard.”
The pieces were starting to fit together, so he tried to steer the conversation back toward the present. “How did you go from being a high class courier to owning Unique Ink?”
Chapter Four
The past pulled at Roxie like a silent vacuum. She’d made so many mistakes, so many bad decisions, and yet she’d survived. She’d staggered out of the darkness with her soul mostly intact. Wasn’t that an accomplishment to be celebrated?
“I broke the first rule of surviving
as part of a drug ring.” Why was she telling Elias all of this? He wanted to know about her connection to the Shadow Assassins, not her misspent youth.
“What rule is that?”
“Never use the product.” She looked up at him and sighed. How could such an intimidating man be so easy to talk to? He was solid muscle from head to toe, yet his eyes were kind, patient. Maybe he’d slipped something into her coffee that made her talkative. She’d known Jett and Tess for months before she told them about any of this.
“Is that even possible? That would be like working for a rock band and not liking music.”
“I never stayed at the parties after the package was delivered and most deliveries were made before the real partying started. I avoided it all whenever possible.”
“Then why did you start using?” There was no condemnation in his tone, just calm curiosity.
That was part of the reason she kept talking. Elias didn’t judge, didn’t make her feel ashamed or foolish. Still, she wasn’t completely blind to what he was doing. This wasn’t a first date. He didn’t want to know her better. He was trying to figure out why Sevrin had targeted her. And Roxie wanted to know too. Maybe an outsider would see something in her past that she was too emotional to understand. “A particularly nasty customer insisted that I sample the goods and I wasn’t in a position to refuse. My body guard got me out of there before any real harm was done, but I liked the way the drugs made me feel. I really liked it.”
“Are we talking cocaine or something worse?”
“The deliveries were usually a mixture of substances, so I tried all sorts of things. I’d seen what crack and meth can do, so I never went near either. My poison of choice was good old-fashioned cocaine. Well, I was pretty fond of ecstasy too.” She shook her head and pushed away from the wall. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this. It has nothing to do with the alien invasion.”
He lightly caught her arm and drew her gaze to his. “You can’t stop in the middle of the story. The aliens aren’t going anywhere.” He was so damn appealing with his green-gold eyes and teasing smile. The distinct waves in his dark hair made her want to run her fingers through the soft-looking strands. How could anyone resist his lazy charm? “How’d ya get out? Once you’re in that deep, it’s harder than hell to make a clean break.” When he relaxed and become engrossed in the conversation, his Texas roots crept back into his speech. She’d always thought the accent sort of annoying, but Elias made it sound sexy.
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