Awaken the Darkness

by Dianne Duvall

  He tightened his arm around her. “What happened?”

  “I lied. I told them it was all bullshit, that I wasn’t really telepathic. I had just swiped Ted’s cell phone while he was in the shower and found the text messages he had sent his ex. I said I had made up the whole telepathy thing to cover my tracks and manipulate him into thinking I’d know if he ever tried to pull that crap again.”

  “Did they buy it?”

  “Ted did. He was furious.” Such an asshole. “But they didn’t. Not really. They pretended to, but I saw no change in their thoughts. They were still determined to study me in their lab and were racking their brains, trying to think of a way to get me to cooperate.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I told Ted to do several things I still can’t believe I said in public, then left.” She swallowed. “Before I could reach my car, two other men jumped me.”

  Stanislav swore. He wished he could’ve been there to protect Susan.

  “I keep a canister of pepper spray on my key ring,” she continued, “and sprayed them with it. One let me go. The other grazed me with a punch. I think if he hadn’t been rubbing his eyes with his other hand, he would’ve hit me hard enough to knock me out. It hurt like hell. But I managed to stay on my feet and kicked him in the balls.”

  “Good,” he declared, furious that the men had laid their hands on her.

  “When he went down, I ran for my car. And a third man came out of I-don’t-know-where and tackled me.”

  He felt fear swell inside her at the memory and wished he hadn’t promised not to alter her emotions again.

  “The third guy didn’t pull his punches. While I was trapped beneath him, he knocked the wind out of me with a punch to my side, then hit me in the face. Twice.”

  “Son of a bitch,” he growled, wanting to hunt the men down and kill them with his bare hands.

  “They yanked me up and shoved me into the back of an SUV with tinted windows. I was out of it and still trying to catch my breath, so I didn’t struggle. Two of them got in and sat on either side of me. The other stayed behind. To clean up the mess and ditch my car, I guess. I couldn’t focus on their thoughts at first.”

  “Because of the pain.”

  “Yes. I was hearing everyone’s thoughts at once, and there were two men already waiting in the SUV’s front seat—the driver and an older man who had orchestrated the kidnapping. That one…” She shuddered. “His thoughts were the loudest. And he was a monster. He was connected to the professor’s friend. But he had kept his intentions to take me against my will a secret from Ted’s friends, because he knew I would read the impending attack in their minds and get a heads-up.”

  “Do you know his name?” Stanislav would commit it to memory and hunt the bastard down at the first opportunity.

  “No. They just called him sir. And the plans I read in his thoughts shocked and scared me so badly that I didn’t look any deeper.”

  “What were they?”

  “He was going to take me to a facility in Texas.” Again she swallowed. “I wasn’t the first person he had abducted. In his thoughts, I saw another victim. A woman who was different like me. A woman with special gifts.” Her voice thickened. “Whoever this man worked for—I couldn’t tell if it was the government or what—held the woman prisoner in a lab. The older man was some kind of consultant or something… I’m not sure. I was hurting and I couldn’t figure it all out. But the things they did to her, Stan… The things they did to that poor woman were horrible. They tortured her—or as they put it, studied her—and planned to do the same to me.”

  Unable to stand it, Stanislav broke his vow not to manipulate her emotions and took the edge off the fear rising inside her.

  Her heartbeat slowed. Her muscles relaxed. “I didn’t want to suffer like that. Didn’t want to be dissected and tortured. So—as we approached an intersection—I lunged forward, grabbed the driver’s head, and gave it a hard twist.”

  Shock struck. “Did you break the man’s neck?” That took a lot of strength.

  “Yes. No. Well, maybe. I mean, not at first. But he was so surprised by my attack that he stomped on the gas pedal and ran a red light. A truck hit us and I think knocked us into another truck or car. I’m still not clear on what happened next, if we flipped over or spun around or what. I just know I went weightless and my knees hit the roof. The driver was seat-belted in. I wasn’t. So I held on to his head while the SUV flipped or whatever. The guys in back with me weren’t belted in and were flying all over the place and bumping into me. When we hit a building and came to a stop, the guy who punched me in the stomach was half in, half out of the back window and covered with blood. The other guy was missing. I think he might have been thrown out a side window. The older man in the passenger seat was unconscious. And the driver was dead… or looked like he was dead. I think from a broken neck.”

  Good. The fucker deserved it. “And you?”

  “I was cut up from all the broken glass and could barely breathe because of the pain in my chest. One of my legs was hurting pretty badly. I think I blacked out, because the next thing I knew I was in an ambulance headed for the nearest hospital.”

  “Did you tell them you had been kidnapped?”

  She shook her head. “After what had happened, I was afraid to draw any more attention to myself or to my telepathy. Instead, I pretended I couldn’t remember what had happened.”

  He understood now why she hadn’t put up much of a fight when he had asked her not to call the police.

  “A doctor stitched up the worst of my cuts, said my leg was badly bruised but not broken and that I had a couple of cracked ribs. Then he ordered CT scans to confirm the rib thing and to check for head injuries. The other guys in the SUV with me and the drivers of the other vehicles that hit us started pouring in. So I took advantage of the controlled chaos that resulted and slipped away.”

  “You didn’t go home, did you?” Surely they would’ve followed her if they had been able to.

  “Yes,” she admitted. “I didn’t know what else to do. One of the nurses had given me my purse. I don’t know where the hell they found it. I don’t even know who found it. Maybe the paramedics or whoever pulled me from the SUV. But I called a cab, went home, and packed everything I could as fast as I could, booked an early flight to New York out of LAX, then went to a cheap motel and paid for the room with cash. I was so scared I didn’t sleep a wink all night. First thing in the morning, I tucked my hair up under a baseball cap and returned to the apartment complex.”

  “What?” he damned near shouted in dismay.

  “I didn’t go to my apartment,” she hastened to say. “I went to the front office. My lease was up the following month, and I wanted to pay my last month’s rent before I disappeared. I was afraid if I mailed it, they would get their hands on it and know where to look for me.”

  Those monsters had been trying to capture her and turn her into a lab rat, and she’d been concerned about paying her rent?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “But if those men survived the crash and came looking for me, I figured they’d follow the money trail, which was why I booked the flight out of LAX the night before. I had no intention of flying to New York and hoped it would lure those men away.”

  He still thought she shouldn’t have worried about paying her rent but conceded that the plane ticket had been “Smart thinking.”

  “Smarter than I realized,” she countered. “Sherrie—the woman who worked in the apartment complex’s front office—was really nice. She was only a few years older than me. We weren’t close friends or anything, but we had chatted several times. Well, as soon as I walked in and tried to give her a check, she took one look at me, turned the OPEN sign on the door to CLOSED and hustled me into a back room. She motioned to my bruises and asked me if a man had done that. I was so damned tired I started crying and said yes. When she asked if I’d told the police, I told her the police couldn’t help me and that I had to leave
and asked her to please not tell anyone. The next thing I knew, she called someone to come in and cover her shift, then guided me to her SUV. She told me to keep my head down and drove me to her sister’s house. Turns out her sister Erin had been in an abusive relationship with a man who had come very close to killing her before she fled across the country to escape him after a restraining order and the police didn’t help her. The two of them hid me at Erin’s house until my bruises faded, then helped me get out of town.”

  “That was damned kind of them.”

  “It was. They were born and raised in North Carolina and told me about all the tiny towns sprinkled throughout the state.” She shrugged. “I thought maybe I could get lost in one of them if I tried hard enough.”

  “Did the men come looking for you?”

  “It’s been years and they haven’t shown up on my doorstep yet. But Sherrie said two men came by the office and questioned her after I left, wanting to know how well she knew me and who my friends were. She told them all she knew was that I bitched a lot about neighbors making too much noise and was always whining about the dryers not working in the laundry room.”

  He huffed a laugh. “Did you?”

  “No,” she said with a smile. “She just didn’t want them to think she liked me.”

  Sherrie and Erin had saved Susan’s life.

  “I guess those men were like the people you mentioned who always hunt gifted ones. Maybe they found out about the advanced-DNA thing.”

  They most assuredly had, thanks to Ted, whose ass Stanislav intended to kick as soon as he regained his memory and got his life back. He kissed Susan’s shoulder and gave her another hug. “I’m glad you got away.”

  “Me, too. I admit I’ve never understood why they didn’t track me down and follow me here.”

  “They must not have been connected with the government.” Otherwise they could’ve located her easily enough unless she had changed her social security number and used other illegal means to hide her identity. But it sounded as though she hadn’t.

  Though she quieted, he knew sleep didn’t claim her.

  “What is it?” he asked softly. “I can feel your unease.” He also felt her hesitation and knew she questioned the wisdom of speaking whatever was on her mind.

  She drew in a deep breath. “I know you’ve discovered what you call oddities about yourself that you think will frighten me. Things other than your being an empath and having eyes that glow.”

  He stiffened. His heartbeat sped up as alarm pumped through him. “You know what they are? You saw them in my thoughts?” He had been sure they would drive her away from him and had tried to hide them even after opening the rest of his mind up to her.

  “No. I just know they concern you.”

  Relief filled him, though it shouldn’t. He would have to tell her eventually and already dreaded the day. “I just don’t want you to fear me,” he whispered.

  “I know. And I don’t fear you.” She squeezed his hand. “Stan…”

  When she trailed off, he prompted, “Yes?”

  Curiosity replaced her unease. “Is it okay if I call you Stan?”

  She had called him as much once before, and he had liked it. “Well,” he drawled, trying to sound less than enthusiastic, “I guess so. I mean, I’d prefer that you call me Stud Muffin. But Stan will do.”

  She laughed.

  Happy to have lightened her spirits a bit, he squeezed her hand. “Of course you can call me Stan. Now tell me what troubles you.”

  She toyed with his fingers, putting off whatever she wished to say a little longer. “What if men like the ones who tried to kidnap me in California got their hands on you? What if they found out you’re an empath, locked you up in their lab and… experimented on you? You said you didn’t think you were born with some of your differences. What if someone—I don’t know—changed you? Altered you genetically?”

  A chilling thought, but it would explain the oddities she had mentioned. “I suppose it’s possible.” No wonder she felt such sympathy for him. She thought he had suffered what could have happened to her. “Perhaps I acquired the wounds that afflict me while escaping from the lab.” He frowned. “I don’t know how escaping from a lab would’ve landed me in your basement though. Is there one nearby?”

  “I don’t think so. But if it’s as secret as the one I saw in that older man’s thoughts, I doubt it would be common knowledge if there were.”

  Either way, believing he had been genetically altered in a lab was far preferable to believing he was a vampire.

  Stanislav hoped they would soon learn the truth. Without her coming to harm. “Are you from California then?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “Actually, I was born in Seattle. But my parents moved us to the Golden State when I was seven.”

  He smiled. “I can almost see you, a precocious little girl delighting in the sunshine.”

  She laughed.

  “Tell me more,” he urged.

  She did so, patiently answering all of his questions.

  They talked long into the night. And it felt so natural. Lying in bed with her. Bodies coiled together. Toes tangling. Burying his nose in her fragrant hair as they laughed over some anecdote from her past.

  In truth, nice was too mild a word for it. Stanislav wished it could last forever.

  Alas, fatigue strengthened its hold on them until the two reluctantly succumbed to sleep.

  Chapter Seven

  Susan came awake slowly when something squeezed her hand. She didn’t know what time it was, but it felt as though she had only slept for three or four hours.

  Groaning a complaint, she pried her eyes open. The first hint of dawn lit the room, or what she could see of it. A forehead was pressed to hers, a blurry face blocking most of her vision.

  As her gritty eyes brought the man’s features into focus, fear struck.

  Yelping, she yanked her hand away and scrambled backward out of bed. Her feet tangled in the covers, landing her on her ass. But a brief scuffle with them freed her so she could stagger to her feet.

  The man in bed jolted awake at the sound of her cry. Leaping out of bed, he clutched a knife in one hand and held it out before him.

  Susan gaped. “Stanislav?”

  His big body in a crouch, Stanislav swept the room with his brown-eyed gaze in search of an intruder. When he found none, he straightened and lowered the knife. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  She could only stare at him.

  He frowned. “Susan?” Tossing the knife onto the bed, he moved toward her.

  She threw up a hand and backed away. “Don’t.”

  His face paled a bit. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Susan?” he asked, his voice softer, hesitant. “Why do you fear me now?”

  Her mouth hung open for so long it grew dry. Closing it, she swallowed. “I didn’t recognize you.” Her voice emerged a hoarse rasp. After clearing her throat, she tried again. “When I woke up, I didn’t recognize you.”

  He didn’t seem to know what to say to that. Did he really not know?

  “Were you dreaming?”

  She shook her head. “You look like a new man, Stanislav. I mean, you look like a brand-spanking-new man.” The gashes on his face and body were gone. No marks. No scars. No bruises. Just smooth, tanned skin. His cheeks were no longer sunken. His shoulders were broad. Really broad, supporting arms with biceps the size of freaking bowling balls. His chest was no longer as sunken as his cheeks. It now bore impressive pecs above abs that rippled with muscle beneath the T-shirt that had hung loosely on him yesterday and now looked too tight.

  She let her gaze drift lower.

  His hips were slim, but holy crap, his thighs were thick. His calves, too. He had packed on at least eighty pounds of muscle while he slept.

  He glanced down at his arms and legs, then met her stare in silence.

  She tried to read his thoughts but found only Russian mutterings. “How can you look like a new man?” she demanded. “How
can you…?” She motioned to his body. “How can you look like this? Your wounds are gone and… I mean, look at you! You’re huge! You packed on like eighty pounds of muscle overnight! And I have no idea how much someone as tall as you with so much muscle weighs, so it could’ve been a hundred pounds or even more. What the hell?” She hated the shrill note that entered her voice. She hated, too, the way her whole body trembled and her thoughts slammed into each other like bumper cars.

  “Susan,” he said, a certain helplessness entering his expression, “let me calm your fear. Please. Then we can talk.”

  “No.” She didn’t want him using his gift to alter her emotions, didn’t trust him to right now.

  A pained look flitted across his handsome face, letting her know he had picked up on her distrust.

  She tried not to feel bad about that but did. “Tell me how this is possible.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He raked a hand through his hair, biceps bulging, and looked for a moment as if he wanted to throw something. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “I would tell you if I did, but I don’t. I only know it isn’t a result of the advanced DNA I was born with. That gave me the ability to feel and manipulate other people’s emotions. The glowing eyes and the rapid healing come from something else and… Damn it, I can’t remember!” He paced away from her, every movement radiating frustration. “There are other things, too. Other differences I recognize but can’t explain. I know I’m faster than ordinary men and stronger—a lot stronger—but I can’t…” He shook his head, emitting a growl. “Damn it, I can’t remember why!”

  Susan stared at him as he paced back and forth. And as she did, her limbs stopped quaking. Again she found herself wondering if he had been altered in a lab. That woman—the one who had been tortured in the facility Susan’s kidnappers had intended to take her to—had healed quickly, too. If those monsters had gotten their hands on Stanislav and altered his DNA with some of that woman’s…