Crystal Whisperer (Spotless Series #3)

by Camilla Monk

  Alex’s voice resounded somewhere to my right. “Baby, Mr. November isn’t doing so great . . . Maybe it’s time to negotiate.”

  In guise of a reply, March fired again. This time I registered movement behind a group of palm trees. Maybe if I could just distract him . . . “I spoke to Erwin,” I said out loud. “He told me about Poppy.”

  March and I exchanged looks. Waiting. But there was only silence. I crawled a few feet away from my hiding spot, revealing myself. Panic registered on March’s face, but I shook my head for him to wait. I was going to ferret Alex out, even if it killed me.

  “Why did you lie to me about her?” I yelled again. “Is that how she lives on? In your bullsh—”

  Boots slammed hard on the marble. I saw a flash of jeans and leather. Holy shit! I hadn’t realized he was that close. From the corner of my eyes, I saw March move in the same moment that Alex lunged at me, way too fast. I tried to run past, but that asshole grabbed my leg and tripped me. I fell and screamed in pain when my left wrist hit the marble hard. “March!”

  Alex’s nails clawed at my calf, digging, drawing blood, before March hauled him back. There was a gunshot before a black semiautomatic spun away on the floor. March had disarmed him, but a powerful kick in his wounded side sent him flying backward before he could finish the job. This time, March too had lost his weapon, and when Alex jumped on him, I saw more blood smeared on the floor around him in a carmine pattern, like wide brush strokes. He could hardly breathe let alone stand up.

  I tried to get back on my feet, but the unbearable pain in my arm stopped me. Long past my earlier efforts to be a superspy. I was spurred by the primal instinct to crawl toward March and stop Alex any way I could. But I wasn’t fast enough, strong enough.

  I saw Alex punch March repeatedly. I screamed hysterically for him to stop. Just as I was losing hope, heavy footsteps stomped past me. There were several suppressed gunshots, and almost instantly Alex’s howl of pain tore through my eardrums. His jeans now covered in blood, he let go of March.

  And the parent of the night award goes to . . . Dries, whose tux still looked impeccable, although a little damp, as he lowered his gun. Alex snarled, his features distorted by a mixture of pain and hate, but before he could move, Dries’s hand clamped around his throat to drag him away from March’s prone body.

  “Look what I found; the only Morgan I haven’t killed yet.” Dries growled, bringing Alex’s face inches from his.

  Alex spit in his face in response. Dries remained still for an instant, stunned or perhaps further enraged. He tucked away his gun and instead, in his hand, a switchblade clicked. “If you survive this, you’re going to carry a message for me.”

  Alex jerked helplessly in his grip. “Fuck you!”

  “I want you to tell Anies that from now on”—he brought the blade close to Alex’s face—“it’s an eye for an eye.”

  I tried to get on my feet to stop him. “Dries, don’t!”

  He couldn’t hear me, not through his rage, and my body had never been heavier as I screamed for him to stop and tried to get up using only my right hand for support.

  From where I sat, it looked like nothing more than a nick. A single flick of the blade across Alex’s face. But the sudden splatter of blood, the inhumane scream that came from Alex . . . they shattered my insides like glass.

  He curled into a ball, holding his face, continuously moaning. Dries didn’t say a word, and all I could do was watch, in a state of shock, as he moved away, his revenge accomplished. Alex went quiet. He lay on his side, still in a fetal position, the occasional tremors shaking his body the only sign he was in fact alive.

  Next to him, March was still clutching the wound on his side, his breath a low hiss. There was no strength left in me, only fear and horror. I just broke and sobbed. “Dries, help him! Please help him!”

  Dries knelt by his favorite disciple. He reached for a small plastic packet inside his jacket, which he tore with his teeth. A syringe. Without further ado, he stabbed the needle in March’s thigh. A low groan rose from his throat, and after a few seconds, he found the strength to take Dries’s proffered hand. Dries helped him up, a sad smile on his lips. “No time to laze around, boy.”

  I didn’t even know how March’s legs could still carry him, but they did. I figured it had something to with whatever Dries had injected in his leg. With a final effort, I too managed to get back on my feet and immediately went to support his left side while Dries supported the right one.

  I buried my face in his chest. “You’re gonna be okay; we’re almost there.”

  His hand squeezed my arm weakly, and he murmured, “Thank you, biscuit . . . thank you.”

  “You’ll thank her later, in ways I refuse to think about. Now hurry up. Erwin’s men are done up there, and I want us gone quickly.”

  As we progressed toward the escalator leading back to the dome’s entrance hall, something weighed in my chest that I couldn’t contain. “Sabina is dead. What took you so long? We could have used your help a little earlier.”

  He drew a heavy sigh. “Poor girl.”

  “Dries, what were you doing?”

  “Chasing ghosts. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize that sneaky piece of shit back in Venice,” he mumbled, seemingly to himself.

  “In Venice?” March ground out.

  “The Georgian,” Dries spat. “You wouldn’t know him. That was years before you.”

  Against me, I felt March stiffen. He looked at Dries, and I think he wanted to say something, but all of a sudden, a sharp sound ricocheted in the mall. Dries fell to his knees with a shout of pain, taking us with him. “Son of a . . .”—he turned to me, and I saw a bloody spot growing fast on his knee—“Island, run! Now!”

  Adrenaline exploded in my veins, revving my heart, but my feet were stuck in place. I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t. March shoved me forward, Dries’s mysterious drug in his system the spark he needed to burn through his final reserves of energy. The second after, I couldn’t believe it, but I was running toward the escalator, and so was he, his hand crushing mine, never letting go.

  I heard another crack behind us. A bullet had just missed us. I panicked at the idea that Dries might be dead, but true to his command, I kept running. My entire being was focused on March’s hand around mine as the escalators took us to the nearest sea-level exit in the mall.

  New gunshots echoed, louder, closer, until something sliced my forearm. I fell forward, taking March with me. I screamed as we both tumbled down the stairs while the escalator kept running downward. Renewed pain tore through my knees and wrist, but I didn’t care: all I could see was the bloodstain on March’s shirt, growing wider by the second.

  He was still holding on to me, his voice a barely audible rasp. “Biscuit . . . stay down; we’re almost there.”

  Under my knees, the metal stairs slid away. We’d reached the sea level. We crawled past a bunch of tiki shops and hid behind one of them. March managed to get up on one knee and raised his gun in the direction the shots were coming from. His eye set on the sights, he hesitated. I couldn’t see anyone, and the only thing I was truly focused on was the sticky red trail on the milky marble floor. New gunshots tore the air, coming from above us; Dries must have managed to move and was trying to get rid of the sniper too.

  I saw it—a movement, or maybe just a reflection, a shadow on the wall. March did too. He struggled to his feet with a growl and shot once. After the burst, there was silence—seconds ticking one after another. Then a single shot.

  March gasped and staggered backward. I clambered to my feet. There was a sound, something building in my throat, that wouldn’t come out. A second red stain was growing fast on his chest. He reached toward me, his lips moving in a silent plea I couldn’t understand. His breath was coming in choked pants, and he looked surprised, desperate. His hands dropped the gun. I lunged for him. I tried so hard, even as I could see him fall to the floor. I called him, begged in vain. In that moment, he was the most impor
tant thing, the only thing in my world, and I wasn’t strong enough to protect him. I tore a large strip of red muslin from my dress and pressed it on his chest, powerless as more hot blood flowed from the second wound.

  His eyes were open. He lay still on a crimson bed, and he wouldn’t give up. He was looking at me, his right hand jerking to reach me. No, to reach . . . past me? I looked over my shoulder and glimpsed an anthracite sleeve, a suppressed sniper rifle. I shielded myself with my arms reflexively, but it only made it easier for my attacker to grab them. My sandals skated uselessly on the bloody floor. My heart was beating so loud and so fast that I wasn’t sure the screams echoing in the deserted mall were mine. They were. The agony as they ripped through my throat told me so. I felt something pricking my neck, plunging into a vein, and the physical pain stopped. Everything stopped, in fact. My voice, my limbs.

  I could see, hear, but my body no longer responded.

  Over the suffocating horror, the din in my brain, a disconnected part of me noted that it was the first time I’d seen Stiles wearing a well-cut suit. There was the usual softness in his eyes as he reached inside my bustier to take Gerone’s phone. Baby blue, like they say. His lips moved, but I didn’t understand the words. He picked me up carefully.

  I didn’t want to go. I couldn’t leave March, but around me, the dome was spinning, and Stiles was taking me away. Past the doors, into the crisp night air. Everything tilted and rolled; water lapped at the hull of a speedboat. I couldn’t close my eyes, so I watched as he pressed his thumb to a fingerprint scanner on Gerone’s phone.

  There were other boats, but to me, they were just blurry, glimmering shapes at the edge of my vision. Voices moaned, shrieked, witnessed in horror as the first cracks appeared on the surface of the bubble. I couldn’t blink away the tears rolling on my face. In a thunder of exploding glass and roaring waves, the Poseidon Dome was slowly collapsing, swallowed back by the dark waters of the Pacific.

  March. Help me. Wake up. Come back!

  Stiles touched my face, closed my eyes. I was lost in the void, his soft drawl the only thread left to hold on to.

  “It’s going to be all right. Try to sleep now. He’s waiting for you.”

  The Spotless series will reach its conclusion with book #4,

  to be released on 5/12/17

  Other books in

  the Spotless series:

  Spotless (Spotless Series 1)

  Beating Ruby (Spotless Series 2)

  Butterfly in Amber (Spotless Series 4)

  To be released on 5/12/17

  Acknowledgments

  This book could never have been made without the help of my fantastic editors, Tiffany Yates Martin and Lindsey Nelson, who put up countless hours of work trying to shape my incoherent rambling into a palatable manuscript.

  Again, I would also like to thank Benoît, my husband, for his unrelenting support of my deplorable literary efforts, and for allowing me to use his beard trimmer to draw a half-finished cross in his chest hair. It gives no sign of growing back, which is a considerable source of concern for both of us, but still, what fun!

  And most of all, thank you, my readers, for putting up with me. Many of you wrote me, stressing the necessity for March to bang Island hard: by now I’m sure you’ve come to understand that I feed from your tears.

  About the Author

  Camilla Monk is a French native who grew up in a Franco-American family. After finishing her studies, she taught English and French in Tokyo before returning to France to work in advertising. Today, she’s a managing partner in a small ad agency, where her job is to handle all things web-related and make silly drawings on the white board when no one is looking. Her writing credits include the English resumes and cover letters of a great many French friends, and some essays as well. She’s also the critically acclaimed author of a few passive aggressive notes pasted in her building’s elevator.

  www.camillamonk.com