by Natalie Dean
Big mistake.
“And so I reared back a fist, just like you taught me.” Even as Adrianna walked around The Celtic’s apartment, her lips turned up in just the faintest smile. “And socked him right in the kisser!”
Her father hadn’t been mad. Rather the opposite. He had taken her out to ice cream and told her to never, ever, ever give in to the bullies. He told her that she would face bullies and bad people her whole life, and that she couldn’t back down. That she had to defend herself.
He was the reason that she’d gone into the FBI. Back in the apartment, her smile faltered. She missed him. He was everything to her. He was gone too early.
Now she had to get back to focusing on the apartment. David “The Celtic” O’Brien didn’t have any guns or drugs in his quaint, little apartment. For an MMA fighter, he lived like a gentleman. His apartment—no, his home—was obviously well cared for. She almost felt a little out of place, like she was treading on a friend’s home. Perhaps in another world, they even would have been friends.
She liked the way the apartment was set up. She found her stylish side kicking into gear in a way that it normally didn’t. He obviously had some style. It was minimalistic and simple: white walls, recessed lights, all that good stuff. It looked like it was modeled after a Japanese apartment, the kind that has bamboo furniture that gets featured in a modern home magazine, except for the walls, where The Celtic’s 3-year-old daughter had taken to creating her own artwork on the white surfaces with crayons.
She pulled herself together. No, the Celtic wasn’t a man. He was a fugitive, a dangerous one, who had killed. He wasn’t a father. He was just a target. At least that was what her teachings had taught her, but somehow, looking at his daughter’s crooked writing on the walls with a big pink heart around what she could only assume was a picture of The Celtic and her together, it was hard to see him as such a dangerous fugitive.
She focused and put her mind into the room. It was hard to explain, but she simply jumped from her own body and transplanted her consciousness into the ceiling, the walls, the vents, the couches, the dining table, everything.
She saw a whisper of a ghost emerge from the bedroom from days ago. She recognized The Celtic immediately with that swirling tattoo design on his shoulder and his brawny, strong build. He was panicked. Understandable. He was on the run for killing a man. She had no idea where he had gone, but like most criminals, his weakness was his loved ones.
Her powers came in handy. She could touch objects and feel them. Understand them. See what had happened. She usually just caught snippets of conversation, and The Celtic’s face was just a little hard to see, but she could see all she needed.
He kissed his daughter, Ellie, on the forehead as he slung the backpack over his shoulder. “Daddy’s gonna have to go away for a while, sweetie.”
“Where are you going?” Ellie asked in toddler speak, playing with the magnets on the fridge.
“Away,” he said. “People will be coming to care for you, okay? Do whatever they say.” Just a moment of remorse flashed across his eyes. “They’re going to tell you that I’m a bad man. Don’t believe them, okay? And whatever happens to me, remember…” he crouched down and looked her in the eyes. “You’re the most beautiful girl in the world. You can do anything. I love you. Never forget that.”
He brought her into a hug. His arms, so well-known for breaking bones and knocking people into a bloody pulp, cradled her ever so gently… and then he pulled away. The look in his eyes was that of a parent losing a child, hoping that they would remember them in life.
Adrianna pulled out. She had enough of a sense of his soul to track him using her powers. She was back to standing in the apartment with a general feeling of where he had gone. She could feel him. Not much—just a general sense of which direction he went. He was somewhere in the north part of the city.
She blinked, trying to wash off the emotion. She was a soldier. She didn’t get caught up in the lives of murderers. Her job was to bring them in, dead or alive, to receive justice.
But something about that crayon drawing on the wall made her look twice before she left the apartment. She finally left, closing the door with a resounding thud.
Chapter 2
Adrianna followed The Celtic’s aura out of the apartment. He couldn’t hide from her. Nobody could. All that she had known as an innocent little kid was that she was the absolute master of hide and seek. The adult world had weaponized her skill.
He was moving fast, which was pretty common. Wanted men rarely stuck around to wait for someone to catch them. Adrianna had a feeling that he was going to be a tough one to bring in. She had read his bio, like she did with every other criminal.
It hadn’t looked good.
First of all, he was a fighter. As a professional MMA fighter, and as some fans would insist, the best MMA fighter, he could handle himself. She wasn’t eager to get into a tussle with him. Sure, a gun could beat out any fighting style, but she wasn’t eager to try it.
Secondly, he was smart. He’d dabbled in being a cop for a while before becoming a fighter. He wasn’t likely to leave too many trails behind like most runners. That’s why the agency had chosen Adrianna. She had a record of bagging runners most folks would struggle to catch.
She had never told them about her ability. Nah, she’d always just said she had a gut feeling, or simply had a hunch. She didn’t want them to know about her powers. Sure, they valued her as one of their top agents now, but if they figured out what she was capable of…. She just didn’t want that.
The first place she sensed that The Celtic had went was to his motorcycle. Not good. Motorcycles were a lot easier to get rid of, to hide in an abandoned building somewhere than a full-fledged car. She could sense that he had dallied around somewhat—maybe he was having second thoughts?—before leaving.
Luckily for Adrianna, she could still sense him. It was faint, but she could still just barely read it. Funny. It didn’t look like most trails. Some men that she tracked emitted different feelings, different auras than he did. Usually she could tell immediately whether a man had done something purposefully or not. She couldn’t use it in court, of course, but she always knew what kind of person she was looking for. It was handy, really; knowing if she was chasing a madman who wouldn’t hesitate to kill her or someone who was just trying to get out of the country without committing any other crimes, was a cool party trick.
Strangely, though, she couldn’t detect guilt in The Celtic’s aura. Sure, he was guilty about something. That much was immediately clear. He wasn’t a regular church-going kind of man, but at the same time, she didn’t pick up any immediate signs of guilt. Murder tended to stain an aura, but all she got from him was a vaguely… troubled feel.
Weird.
She went back to her own vehicle and followed his trail. As she was driving, her mind flying a million miles faster than the car, she turned on the radio. Music had always soothed her. She just thought better with it playing in the background.
Her thigh vibrated. A phone call. Not too many people had her number. That was the problem with working with the FBI like she did—no relations. No family. No friends. Just work.
Just like she expected, it was headquarters. Agent Stone’s image appeared on the screen, sternly looking down at her as always. She wasn’t too partial towards him. She couldn’t argue with his good results, but she had a strong case against the methods he used.
“Hello?” she answered. “Agent Whetmore speaking.”
Stone’s gruff voice emerged from the other side. His voice was as rough as his name. It sounded like granite, if granite had a sound. “Report.”
“I looked around his apartment.” Adrianna shifted lanes, following the trail of his aura. She waved to the person behind her for letting her in. “I’m tracking him now.”
Stone’s laugh was even gruffer than his voice, like instead of a piece of granite grumbling along, it was two full grown stones smashing up against themselves.
Sometimes, when Stone got into his irritating and all-too-famous lectures, she came up with ways to describe his voice. Not that she’d ever say it to his face, or even aloud. She liked her job, and didn’t want to lose it.
Stone had no idea that Adrianna was coming up with even more creative analogies to describe him, so he kept talking. “How do you do it?”
“Just a gut feeling, sir.”
Stone didn’t really believe her. Nobody did, but nobody was willing to call her out on it because they wanted her to keep doing her job. They didn’t necessarily care how she got her guy, just so long as she didn’t break the law doing it. “Whatever,” he muttered. “Keep me updated.”
“Yes, sir.” And with that, Stone killed the call.
Adrianna cruised along after the aura. She always felt somewhat ridiculous chasing a suspect, like she should be wearing sunglasses with the radio blaring “Bad Boys!” over the speaker system. But she didn’t. She looked like any other gal driving along the interstate. That was part of the training. You didn’t get to be an FBI agent by standing out. You learned to fly beneath the radar. You learned that you were much better off if nobody knew you were coming.
The aura was starting to really trouble her. It didn’t feel like a guilty man. It just felt like the times she’d chased around businesspeople for fun. Guilty of something, sure, but not murder. But then again, everyone’s a little weird inside.
No.
Get over it, Adrianna told herself. He’s just a suspect. It’s not my problem whether he’s guilty or not. I’m supposed to bring him in to the courts and some judge decides. I don’t declare anyone innocent or guilty.
The aura got stronger. She was getting closer. How close? She had no idea, but she’d be willing to bet he was somewhere in the city. When she got closer, she could tell more accurately—you know, what building, what floor, what room the culprit was in—but right then she could only sense that she was closing in.
The aura led her straight out of the city. Not good. Not good at all. She felt her pulse increase. She became acutely aware of all the sounds around her. She hated leaving the city. Usually lots of people around meant protection. Not too many folks would try to put a bullet in her in the middle of a crowded street.
Out in the country, where only a couple people would drive past in worn, old pickup trucks?
The game changed.
Not for the better.
She laid a hand on her gun beside her. To be more specific, she touched her primary gun. She had another little one tucked up against her thigh, but the little gun hardly felt the same as her big one. As her slender fingers ran across the smooth, steel surface, she felt a surge of strength wash through her body, especially as her fingers ran over the part with tiny grooves, where her father had inscribed her name in it.
She flashed back to when he had given it to her for a high school graduation present, only a couple weeks before the accident. She had been wearing that big, goofy, black dress. Or whatever they call it. She still didn’t know the name of it. They’d just finished the graduation practice picture, which basically was so much of a failure that it made the Crusades look like a well-oiled-machine. Everyone kept showing up late, and every time someone came in, the cameraman corralled them all together again to retake the picture. It was irritating. Most of the people coming late came late precisely to avoid the picture, so it wasn’t like they were really enthusiastic. To make matters worse, she’d just had knee surgery and the idiot cameraman had placed the graduating group on the stairs for the picture. She had to awkwardly balance on one good leg to avoid plummeting down the stairs.
So an hour and half later, she wasn’t in that good of a mood.
Her car was in the shop, so her dad had dropped her off and was coming to pick her up. She saw his truck coming up the road, but she wasn’t really paying too much mind to it. She was mostly trying to ignore the aching in her knee and thinking of new and creative ways to curse out the cameraman in her mind.
He came roaring up beside her. She could hear the doors unlock with an oddly satisfying click, and she hopped in. Well, sort of. She could barely hobble from the knee surgery. She didn’t even have a cool story to tell about her injury. She had literally just tripped down the stairs going to school. All the cool stuff she did, all the sports she played, and that’s how she got hurt.
“How’d it go?” her father asked.
“I hate school,” she replied, folding her arms.
Her father pursed his lips. “Well, there is a lot to hate. So it didn’t go well?”
“Noooope.”
“How’s your knee?”
“Oh, it just feels like someone took a baseball bat to it,” she said sweetly.
He grinned. She couldn’t make him mad. None of her sass, none of her attitude ever bothered him. She had seen him mad, of course, but never at her. It gave her a special feeling, like she was exempted from some invisible rule. “I got you something.”
“Thanks,” she said, trying to mean it. She hadn’t inherited his cool head. She was always the emotional one of the family.
“Check the glovebox,” he said.
That was the day she had gotten her 9-millimeter, a nasty, heavy-caliber handgun. It could put a bullet in anything, especially when you loaded it up with a 9-millimeter shotgun shell. But it wasn’t just any gun. It was a custom-made gun with her name inscribed in it. At that time, it was cool to have your name inscribed in anything, much less a gun. She carried it through college and into the FBI. She became a crack shot with it. It was like her baby.
She shook herself out of the stupor. She was driving along, finding a criminal. But she wasn’t as distressed as she had been. She always wondered if her father could see her somewhere up there in the great, blue sky, swooping in like a guardian angel to pluck her worries off her shoulders.
Someone pulled up next to her on a motorcycle. It was a nice one—strong, purring like a big cat, with white-walled tires. Good stuff. It was the sort that Adrianna herself would have ridden happily.
The guy was staring over at her. His helmet looked like something straight out of Mad Max; someone had painted a big, toothed grin across the front. She got a shudder, like something about him just wasn’t quite… right. She couldn’t place it, but behind that blacked out helmet was not the kind of person she wanted to meet. Her powers did that sometimes, just flicked on randomly. Usually she got a pretty solid idea of what she was dealing with. They weren’t always bad.
The person on the bike had a black heart.
He didn’t want to leave her alone. He wasn’t mad. He hadn’t just broken up with his wife and was throwing a little temper tantrum. Just in the quick glance she gave him, she knew instantly that this man knew exactly who she was and wanted to kill her.
Not a good thing.
He zoomed into the other lane, where oncoming traffic would be coming from if they were in the city. She still couldn’t see anyone on the heavily wooded, old road.
She slowed down. There was a tiny, tiny chance that she was wrong, and that the biker wanted to just pass her and go on by.
He eased off the accelerator.
She accelerated.
He accelerated.
Adrianna propped the wheel up with her knees and loaded up her gun. “So that’s how it’s gonna be, huh?” she muttered to nobody in particular. The clip clicked into place neatly.
And then the biker stopped.
She froze, not entirely sure what to do. That guy was supposed to kill her. She knew that he was. She could read him. She twisted in her seat to see him as she drove away. He was still watching her, but he was obviously letting her get away.
He raised up his hand and wiggled his fingers in a childish good-bye as she drove away. Soon, the winding road turned and she left him behind. The last thing that she could see of the mysterious man was him staring at her car through the pine trees… and then he was gone.
As she drove deeper, trying to cleanse her mind of the dark so
ul of the biker, ever narrowing in on The Celtic’s trail somewhere before her, she had a bad feeling that there was something wrong. That someone could still see her. That she was being hunted as much as she was hunting The Celtic.
She placed her gun in her lap and adjusted the mirror only to see nobody behind her. “Come and get me,” she muttered.
Chapter 3
Nobody came to get her that night.
What did come, however, was the rain. She had known that it was going to rain, but she had forgotten with all the details of the case she was trying to balance in her head already. Rain jacked with her senses. She didn’t know why. It didn’t really make sense, but the thicker the rain, the fuzzier the picture she got in her head.
So, senseless and alone, she spent the night in a Motel 6 outside the city. She slept with her gun next to her the whole night. She just couldn’t shake that feeling that someone was outside her door, listening, waiting.
Obviously, she slept terribly. She tossed and turned the entire night. She could’ve sworn that the bed was toying with her. When she slept on the right side, all the cushion ran to the left. When she moved to the left side, all the cushion made a mad dash to the right to make her night miserable. So she spent the whole time in the eerie moonlight cast through the top of the seashell curtains, her ribs rubbing against what she would swear was the bed springs.
And as if she wasn’t messed up enough, her knee decided to lead a revolt against her body. Her joint pain came and went a lot due to atmospheric pressure. After they’d had a pretty dry spell, it took Adrianna’s knee a little while to shift into place.
When she woke up, she had no idea what time of day it was. She stretched and opened her eyes. For just a moment, she had a good feeling about the day. It was still raining, but it felt different.
And then she realized that The Celtic was in the room with her. He was standing at the foot of her bed with her gun in his hand. The color drained out of his face when he realized she was awake.