As I walked out of the back section, I saw a thin dark-haired college-aged guy not much taller than me standing in the middle of the aisle. Dim track lighting from the ceiling reflected shadows across the smug look on his face.
My steps slowed to a halt and my stomach knotted as the feeling of being watched from my dream came back to me. “Um, hey.” I thumbed back toward the microfiche machine and gave a nervous laugh. “If you’re looking for the microfiche section, the machine’s all yours. Hopefully you won’t have as much trouble finding what you’re looking for as I did.”
The guy tilted his head and looked me up and down, then snorted. “You’re not much to look at. Such a tiny bird.”
I stiffened. “Not that I was asking for an opinion, but since you’re handing insults out like candy, I wouldn’t even notice you if I passed you on the street.”
He folded his arms against his birdcage chest. “Oh, really? You wouldn’t give me a second look?”
Arrogant much? This had to be the oddest conversation I’d ever had with a stranger. Where the heck had Drystan gone? To the moon? I squared my shoulders. We were practically the same size. If he tried to lay a hand on me, I could take him. “Nope. Now that we’ve shared our mutual disinterest, I’m out of here,” I said before I turned down a bookcase aisle that led to the stairwell.
I’d made it halfway down the aisle when the guy suddenly appeared at the other end. He leaned against the bookcase, dark eyebrows elevated. “This is going to be fun.”
His speed had surprised me, but it was the depth of his laugh that sent a chill rippling through me. As it resonated in the small space, the baritone seemed at odds with his size, like the laugh of a giant coming from an ant. I stopped, clutching the leather journal to my chest. “What do you want?” I’d tried for confident, but my voice shook a little.
He pushed off the bookcase, a lazy smile spreading across his face. “A good fight.”
Chapter Six
Had I been dropped into another person’s life, someone who’d really pissed this guy off? When he took a step forward, my insides quivered. I spun around, then bolted in the opposite direction. As soon as I rounded the bookcase and turned back into the main aisle, he was there, blocking my path.
I screamed, trying to backtrack, but he grabbed my shoulders and slammed me against the end of the bookcase. Sheer delight danced in his dark eyes.
His bony hands were heavier than they looked, biting like claws into my skin through my jacket’s jean material. “Come on. Give me your best shot, my little tweet. You’re not making this any fun.”
I tried to twist free from his grip, but his hold was surprisingly strong. His thin arms didn’t budge against my struggles. “You must think I’m someone else. I don’t want to fight you.”
His narrow face creased in confusion. “You’re just going to let me kill you? Without a fight?” he said, shaking me so hard I lost my grip on the leather book.
When the journal hit the floor, he glanced down and hissed as if his eyes burned. He shut his eyes for a second, then drilled his dark gaze into mine. Wild excitement had replaced his annoyed confusion. He yanked my backpack off my shoulder and held it out, demanding, “Put that book inside your backpack and zip it closed.”
Anger boiled inside me, puffing my chest in defiance. He wanted my journal? No way was I giving up my only connection to Ethan. I jerked my head back and forth and gritted, “Do it yourself!” I didn’t know why he wanted my journal, but he’d have to release me to retrieve it. When he bent to pick it up, I’d knee him in the head, then grab my journal and make a break for the door.
He sounded like a dragon about to expel fire as he shoved me to my knees, ruining my plans for escape. Yanking my jacket, he pressed my face close to the opened journal on the floor. “I said, ‘Pick it up, bitch!’”
“Screw you!” I screamed at the same time I purposefully fell to my side, kicking my legs toward his ankles. I hooked his feet then jerked forward. When his legs went out from underneath him and he went down, I started to crawl to get away, but he recovered quickly, yanking at my ankle with a vise grip.
As soon as I rolled over, he was already standing above me. He lifted me off the ground by my jacket’s collar, then gripped my throat and slammed me against the bookcase once more. My throat burned and terror clogged my chest as he effortlessly slid me up the wood surface until my feet dangled several inches off the ground.
When I clawed at his wrist to relieve some of the pressure on my throat, I expected to see fury in his eyes. Instead, grudging respect flickered in their dark depths.
“Not bad for a fledgling.” His lip twisted in a derisive smile as I struggled to breathe. Just before I lost consciousness, he adjusted his hold upward to my jawbone, giving relief to my airway. Tears filled my eyes from the pressure of my weight on my jaw, but at least I could breathe.
Determination filtered into his expression. “Do as I say and I’ll make sure your death is quick.”
I tried to shake my head, but he growled, “Yes, you will!” His voice had altered with his impatience. It sounded like ground-up glass grating across asphalt. Hundreds of tiny needles pounded against my eardrums. I winced and yanked at the hand holding me with the strength of a WWF wrestler, then rammed my boot into his groin, hard.
He barely flinched, but he let out a vicious growl and shifted his hold back to my throat. As my vision began to spot and then fade, I couldn’t believe I was going to die. Not like this. Tightening my grip on his wrist, I gathered all the strength I could and used the bookcase as leverage to quickly tuck my knees toward my chin on either side of his arm.
With a grunt of anger, I jammed my feet into his chest. My attacker flew backward and I fell too, landing hard on my back. Pain exploded along my spine, making me gasp for air as I rolled to my side and into a crouched position.
I stumbled to my feet and wheezed. My head buzzed, but I didn’t stop. I grabbed the journal, then pressed it close to my chest as I took off as fast as my legs would carry me. A horrific snarl raised the tiny hairs on my arms and the floor shook as the guy’s feet pounded in fast pursuit. When the elevator pinged right before the doors began to slide open, I veered toward them, screaming. “Help me!” Please let someone be there. Someone big and intimidating.
Drystan looked shocked as I flew into him, my momentum drilling us both into the elevator’s back wall.
“Nara? What the ’ell? What’s wrong?” He wrapped his arms around me to keep us from falling to the grimy elevator floor.
I glanced over my shoulder and half-turned, pointing to my pursuer as he pivoted and headed for the exit. “He—he attacked me!”
Drystan quickly set me aside, and I barely had time to register the flash of anger in his green eyes before he took off after the guy.
“Wait!” I screamed, running after him, but Drystan was already through the exit door.
Yanking the door open, I screamed, “He’s stronger than he looks” as Drystan ran down the stairs toward the next level. I’d barely made it to the third floor landing when I saw Drystan grab hold of the metal railing just below me, then vault into the air. Curling up and over the stairwell turn, he shot like a bullet down to the second floor, skipping an entire flight of stairs with his pivoting move.
Astonished, I glanced through the stairwell to see him land in a smooth crouch, as if he’d landed exactly where and how he’d planned. With furious determination hardening his face, he took off from the second floor toward the first floor in a similar fashion. Partway into his swing around the turn in the stairwell, he spread his legs and caught himself against the opposite wall in a fast halt.
I blinked at the show of upper-body strength he’d displayed, hanging for a split second above the stairs, before he pushed off the wall with this other leg. In a backward curling motion worthy of a seasoned gymnast, he swung his body back around, grabbing on to the bend of the stairwell’s railing like parallel bars.
He’d just landed in a cat-lik
e crouch atop the railing’s shoulder-wide turn as the metal chair from the bottom floor clanged up the second floor’s stairwell to slam against the landing’s back wall.
When the chair clattered to the floor in the wake of the heavy metal door banging shut below, Drystan jumped to the landing, his face full of fury.
He gripped the railing and tensed, ready to continue his pursuit, but I called from my position a floor above, “Don’t leave, Drystan. Please!”
With a grunt of frustration, Drystan vaulted back up the stairs, reaching me just as my trembling legs gave out and my butt hit the third floor’s top step hard.
“Ow. That hurt.” My voice shook as I began to button my jean jacket, starting at my waist.
Drystan wrapped an arm around my shoulder, pulling me against his side. He rubbed his hand up and down my jacket sleeve. “I’m here, Nara.”
His hand covered mine, halting my movements. I glanced down at my fingers curled around the buttons halfway back down my jacket. I hadn’t realized I was hyper-obsessing until he stopped me. “Breathe. Just…breathe,” he said in a calming voice. As I took several breaths, he released his hold, yet continued to rub his other hand along my jacket sleeve.
As I met his concerned gaze, my cheeks flooded with heat. With my ability, unexpected events and I rarely collided. Yet hanging with Ethan, whose power literally shifted my dreams to him the moment we touched, I thought I’d gotten better about dealing with not knowing events before they happened. Then again, Ethan made sure to keep me safe from things he saw coming via my dreams. I wish you were here, Ethan.
When I exhaled a deep breath and blinked, his hand stopped moving. “In case I forgot to tell you earlier, you officially have the best timing ever.” My voice rasped as I rubbed my fingers along my sore neck. “Five minutes sooner would’ve been even better.” I paused. “I thought the elevator was broken.”
He lifted my chin and stared at my throat. “Jesus, Nara! I can see red marks.” Pained regret filled his gaze. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t back sooner. I tried to return through the stairwell door, but even though the knob turned, I couldn’t get the door to budge.” He nodded toward the chair in the stairwell. “The bastard must’ve used that to block the door.”
A shudder rippled through me. That meant my attacker knew there was someone in the stack to torment.
Drystan’s hand on my arm tightened. “Since I couldn’t get in, I decided to try the elevator. I was surprised when I pushed the button and it pinged to life right away.”
My eyes widened. “You think it was working the whole time?”
He glared at the stairwell. “I do now. What happened? Did you know him? What did he say to you?”
I rubbed my fingers across my eyes and sighed. “I’ve never seen him before, but the things he said to me…it was like he knew who I was, or thought he knew.”
Drystan released me and rested his forearms on his knees, his brows pulling together. “What exactly did he say?”
I closed my eyes, trying to recall. “He said that he wanted a fight, like he expected me to fight him. He seemed shocked when I said I didn’t want to fight. Isn’t that crazy?”
“He sounds bloody mad.” When I nodded slowly, Drystan frowned. “That’s all the bastard said to you? That he wanted to fight? He didn’t say anything else?”
I considered telling him about the guy’s strange interest in my journal, but he’d wanted to fight me before he’d seen it, so his motive for coming after me was for some other unknown reason. I curled my fingers around the journal against my chest and shook my head. Several seconds of silence passed and my nerves had started to settle. I eyed him, tilting my head. “You were right, by the way.”
He frowned. “Right about what?”
“Parkour needs to be seen to be appreciated. I’m assuming that’s what I just witnessed in the stairwell. Some of those moves seemed impossible.”
Drystan flicked his hand with a snort. “Not if you do it all the time. I was in total chase mode. Didn’t even think about it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is that something you do all the time? Chasing?”
When his open gaze instantly shuttered, I bit my lip to keep my questions to myself. Hidden passages. Where’s a good decoder ring when I need one? I smiled. “It was pretty impressive.”
“Wait ’til I really try to impress you,” he said, flashing a cocky smile. “Are you okay to stand now? I’m assuming they have campus security here?”
I nodded and he grabbed my hand, pulling me to my feet. “Come on then. Let’s go report this bloke and tell them what happened.”
* * *
After my interview with campus police, I was exhausted, but didn’t want to go home to an empty house. Mom was on her date with Mr. Dixon. Dang that sounded weird.
I desperately wanted to call Ethan and tell him what happened, but I didn’t want him to leave Michigan until he was ready. I knew he would the moment he thought I was in danger. I was sore and bruised, but otherwise fine.
I called Aunt Sage. “Inara! I was just getting ready to call you.” A pause. “Oh, I guess you knew that already,” she said, amused.
“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t always know everything,” I said, exhaling a tired sigh.
“What’s wrong, hon?” My aunt instantly sobered. “The only time you don’t know what’s going to happen is if you’ve changed something.”
I tensed. My aunt just recently discovered that I had her brother’s gift. She’s into all the New Agey stuff and is all about preserving the balance of nature, so I’d gotten an earful about not interfering in people’s lives from her already. Ugh!
“I didn’t change anything,” I began, then trailed off, too tired to defend myself. As far as I knew, the only person’s path I’d changed was mine, by bringing Drystan with me to the library. “I just wanted to spend some time with you and the boys.”
“Of course, sweetie,” she said in a breathy voice. “Why don’t you come for coffee now. I’ll see you in a few.”
What? No dinner? Before I could tease her, she hung up, leaving me staring at the phone. It wasn’t like my aunt to be so abrupt. Something was up. Tucking my phone into my backpack, I shoved the worries as to why I’d been that guy’s target at the library to the back of my mind, then pushed harder on the gas pedal, heading to my aunt’s house in Barboursville.
When my aunt’s dogs, Bo, Luke, and Duke, didn’t immediately come flying out the dog door to greet me the moment I drove up, I knew something was off. I quickly turned my car off, then dashed to my aunt’s lighted porch, knocking with more force than I meant to. “Aunt Sage!” I called in a high-pitched voice.
She jerked open her door and she looked at me with wide-eyed worry. “Inara? What’s wrong?” she asked, tugging me into a tight embrace.
I gripped her elbows and leaned into her tall, willowy frame. After a couple of seconds, I realized the material felt wrong. I stared down at the cream cable knit sweater under my fingers. Cable-knit sweater? Where were the loose, silky bohemian dresses she usually wore? I leaned back to take in her entire outfit: sweater, fitted jeans and tall shiny brown boots. I glanced into her concerned gaze and gave a half smile. “You ah, look wonderful. You should wear skinny jeans more often. They suit you. What’s the occasion?”
My compliment softened her expression before she cupped my cheeks, her hazel eyes searching my face. “What is it, Inara? I won’t leave if you need me here.”
Was my anxiety that obvious? I gulped. “You’re leaving?” I didn’t mean for my question to come out as a squeak, but Aunt Sage pulled me through the door and into the living room, her brow creasing.
It was strangely quiet without the dogs. The absence of pastries and incense smells jarred my senses into full alert. Not one of her New Age books sat on the coffee table by the couch. There was usually at least a couple. Instead they were all neatly stacked on her bookshelf. Her usually tidy house was even tidier than normal, and the dogs’ beds were missing.
My heart began to pound. “Where are the boys?” I looked around, panic starting to roll through me all over again.
“They’re at—”
“Where are you going?” I asked as my roving gaze landed on a roller bag sitting near the kitchen doorway. Only one bag. She would’ve packed more if she were leaving for good. A switch inside me released and the dam opened, flooding my tight shoulders with relaxing relief.
“That’s why I was calling.” She nodded, her curly auburn hair bouncing. “I wanted to tell you I’d be gone for a few days. And don’t worry, the boys are with a neighbor down the road.”
Other than an occasional expo in the surrounding counties she attended every so often to gain exposure for her home-based jewelry business, she didn’t venture far. She never stayed overnight. I frowned, confused. “But you never take trips.” As far as I knew my aunt hadn’t taken a trip out of town—I realized with sudden shock—since my dad left twelve years ago. “Where would I go?” she used to say when I’d ask why she didn’t travel. “Virginia has everything I want right here.” And she’d always looked at me with loving, dedicated eyes.
What could possibly drag her away? “Where are you going?” I repeated, then quickly followed with, “How long will you be gone?” What I really wanted to say was, “Please don’t leave. Not right now!” I couldn’t have two important people disappear from my life. I missed Ethan so much. Not her too!
My aunt gave a secret smile. “Wow, you weren’t kidding about not knowing. Guess my last-minute decision to ask you here tonight when you called can make a difference in what you foresee.”
When I scowled at her, she snickered, then hooked her arm in mine. “Let’s have some coffee.”
The familiar routine we’d shared since I was old enough to sit still—sipping coffee and chatting at her kitchen table—eased some of my anxiety. I let her pull me into the inviting kitchen decorated in bright reds, deep teals, and warm yellows. Her kitchen had always felt warm and welcoming.
Lucid, YA Paranormal Romance (Brightest Kind of Darkness Series, Book #2) Page 6