by Kirk, A
Because that always worked with deranged killers ready to blow your head off.
Ayden yelled some weird word as he raced in and threw himself between me and the double-death barrels of doom.
I breathed a little easier when I saw who had me in their sights.
The elderly, surprisingly fit, silver-haired couple holding the guns relaxed their stance but didn’t lower their weapons.
“I’m so sorry,” I gushed from behind Ayden’s back, keeping my hands high because elderly or not, Tristan’s grandparents were scary. “I should never have just come in your home like that. So late. Without announcing myself. Or asking permission from you lovely folk. I was rude and you have every right to threaten me with deadly weapons, but maybe you could find it in your generous hearts not to splatter my guts and brain matter around your lovely abode.” I stuttered a weak smile into the tense silence.
Mrs. Grant glanced at her husband. “She’s always so fidgety. Like a canary.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “I hate canaries.”
I squeaked again. But not like a canary. I hoped.
Their serious faces suddenly burst into laughter.
Mr. Grant said to his wife in his faint southern accent, “Sugar, you have got to quit scaring the child.”
“She makes it too easy. But he’s right.” Mrs. Grant lowered her shotgun and smiled at me. “Did you miss curfew again?”
“By less than fifteen minutes this time,” Ayden said.
“Pssh,” Mr. Grant snorted. “That’s nothing. Get going.”
They headed back into the living room which was scattered with rope, backpacks, sleeping bags, and general, heavy duty, cold weather camping equipment, if you didn’t count the handguns. And rifles. And very lethal looking knives.
Tristan claimed his grandparents were a quiet couple puttering through retirement. So why were they armed to the teeth and dressed in camouflage?
Ayden pushed me upstairs.
“They aren’t going to rat me out, are they?” I took the stairs two at a time.
“Not since your parents referred to base-jumping as suicide.” Ayden laughed.
“Base-jumping is suicide.”
I shouldered open the door to Tristan’s bedroom. Otherwise known as nerd-vana.
Posters of spacey-looking weirdos covered the walls. Shelves overflowed with video games, action figures, and comic books—sorry, graphic novels. His closet doors were painted blue and decorated like an old-fashioned London police box.
That took effort.
On the floor, bits of electronic parts and tools were scattered everywhere as if a computer had exploded. Over a desk was a computer screen bigger than the enormous windows in his room.
I staggered to a stop because there was a new edition to the nerd’s room.
Ayden thumped into my back. “Wha—? Whoa.”
Pictures of a woman in her thirties were tacked on the wall next to the computer as well as displayed on the massive screen. While the scene behind her differed from photograph to photograph, she never did. Pale, ash blonde hair securely wound in a tight French twist, she wore a crisply ironed button-down shirt over a dark skirt. Sharp rectangular glasses framed calculating ice green eyes.
Oh, and she was seven months pregnant.
I walked to the wall. “Why is Tristan stalking my aunt?”
There were documents taped up between all the pictures, lines of yarn networking them all together. I started taking it down.
Tristan stumbled out of his closet pulling on a sweater. “Hey!” He tried blocking me from his stalker wall.
I swatted Tristan’s head with a fan of pictures. “What is this?”
“You know her aunt is married, right?” Ayden said.
“Gross!” Tristan scrambled to pick up everything I was tearing down. “I’m just…”
“Obsessed?” Ayden smirked.
“Yes. No! Not like that.” Tristan ran his hands through his hair. “I’ve been telling you, technically, she doesn’t exist. On paper, the Internet. Anywhere. And it’s not just her!” He started typing furiously on his keyboard. “Neither does her husband— your dad’s brother. And your grandparents.” He pointed at the very official looking documents that popped up across the screen, his eyes wilder than the ocean during a hurricane. “I even found some death certificates that say they died eighteen years ago!”
“Oh my God!” I gripped Tristan’s shoulder in mock horror. “I must be able to see ghosts too! But they felt so real when I hugged them a few months ago.”
Ayden chuckled. Tristan did not.
I ignored his grim expression and gestured at the computer. “I don’t know about all this, but I’ve known my uncle all my life and my mom’s parents died twenty-some years ago, so maybe you got things mixed up.”
Tristan shook his head. “You don’t think it’s weird you don’t know your aunt’s first name?”
“Of course I think it’s weird. Nothing about her is not weird.” I shrugged. “But she runs some international security firm and thinks governments worldwide want to torture her for her super-important clients’ secrets. She already told us that she went a little overboard making sure no one could trace her back to us.”
Ayden raised a brow. “A little?”
Tristan punched at his keyboard. “But there’s no website for M-terprises International — what kind of name is that? — or record of her company anywhere.”
I spread my hands. “I think that’s how clandestine operations work.”
Tristan grabbed my shoulders and gave me a shake. “But we’re Mandatum. No one can scrub their existence, digital or otherwise, so well that we can’t find them. It’s just not possible.”
“Oookay.” Ayden guided Tristan out of the bedroom. “New topic. Your grandparents, certifiably alive, are gearing up for a mission.”
“What?!” the blond bolted downstairs. “You guys swore you retired!”
“Thanks a lot, Ayden!” Mr. Grant shouted.
“You saying we’re too old?” Mrs. Grant snapped.
“You’re ancient! And if you think I’m letting you go off and risk …” Tristan’s screeching faded the farther away he got.
I sighed and kept ripping pictures off the wall.
“Deal with it later.” Ayden put a hand on my arm. “Let’s get you home.”
“Not yet.” I shrugged out of my jacket and used it like a basket to catch all the crazy coming off the wall. “I don’t want my family involved in any of this. I know he’s trying to help, but this is too creepy.”
Ayden caught my chin with gentle fingers and lifted my face to his narrowed eyes. “What happened to your nose? Matthias swore he didn’t hit you.”
“He didn’t.” I dropped my jacket and gingerly touched my nose. “That was me. Headbutt gone wrong.”
He smiled. “Yeah, not your strong suit. We’ll have to work on that.”
“How bad does it look?” I said, giving in to vanity.
“A little swollen, but not terrible. Just more of you to lo— Uh.” He took a step back, cleared his throat. “Look. I’m, uh, sorry I wasn’t there tonight.”
“You already said that.” A bajillion times. But I didn’t mind hearing it again. “It’s okay. I blame Matthias because he deserves it. Not you.”
“Thanks.” He turned my body to face his, hands caressing up my arms, his expression serious. “But I want you to know that I mean it. I know things have been,” he breathed deep, tracing his knuckles down my cheek, “kind of strange and I wanted tonight to be…different. If I’d known what was going to happen I would’ve never,” he leaned in closer, “never left you alone.”
“I know.” I rested my hands on his solid chest, feeling his heart start to beat faster against my palms.
When I looked up, his gaze trapped me. It was full of sincerity and a desperate, deep need to make me understand. The intensity of his look prickled my skin. My eyes dropped, running from the emotions building between us. I was so confused and unsure. About
myself. About him.
I heard him sigh. His fingers tipped up my chin, and his tone lightened. “Not that you needed any help, Lady Croft.”
I smirked. “Yeah, I might have overstated how that whole battle thing went down.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. Between the demons and Matthias you kicked some serious boo-tay.” His grin was devilish. “Nothing hotter.”
I laughed. “If you ruffle my hair, I’ll seriously kick your boo-tay.”
Being in his arms eliminated any ounce of cold. But I absolutely had chills.
His voice lowered to a husky purr. “No, tonight I definitely had something else in mind. We just got sidetracked. But maybe now…”
Ayden trailed his fingers over my cheek, watching me closely, studying my reaction. Waiting. His fingers slowly slipped back into my hair. His touch radiated through me, chasing away fears and lighting nerve endings to delicious attention. When my lips parted, his eyes were drawn to my mouth.
His body went very still. He licked his lips. Swallowed. Warm air swirled around us. My breathing hitched. My entire body seemed to hold its breath, waiting for the pleasure of his touch to bring it to life. Then the corner of his mouth twitched upward, and his head lowered.
His lips, full and sensuous, touched mine, playing a delightful rhythm. Fast then slow. A game of touch and go where he pulled away, then came back with renewed hunger. Hard and demanding, then soft, inviting, his mouth molding against mine, caressing with rising desire. A slow burn traveled across my skin, seeping into my muscles, and I relaxed against him, enjoying the languid sensation. One hand slipped around his neck, pulling his mouth harder onto mine.
His arm around my waist tightened, pressing me closer as my other hand moved over his shoulder. The muscles rippled beneath my fingers. He moved deeper, his mouth never letting go, tasting every inch. Coming up for air was not on his agenda.
Or mine.
The kiss was heady and hot, a delicious and welcome change from chaste pecks I’d been getting. This was more like that time when he’d nibbled my neck just before he’d shut that down to go off to another mysterious meeting, and it felt like…my body’s own Fourth of July party. I wasn’t complaining. I reveled. Like firecrackers bursting under my skin, nerves exploded, hot and tingling, awakening my body to glorious sensations.
His chest pressed against mine, I felt his heart jackhammer in a rhythm matching my own. His hand around my waist moved up, kneading my back, my shoulder, then cupping my neck and cradling the back of my head, to crush our lips closer and—
“Ow!” I jerked back.
He jumped away, his arms flying out to the side. He looked terrified. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!”
He reached for me, then caught himself and backed away, staring at his hands in horror. One of them was smeared with red.
“You’re bleeding! How’d I do that?” He went to rake his fingers through his hair. Stopped. Stared at his hands again. Clenched them. Shook them in the air.
Was he having a seizure? It didn’t look like he was breathing.
“Ayden.” When I reached for him he spun away.
“How ba—?” He choked on the word. Turned back to me. Swallowed hard. Blood drained from his face. “How bad did I burn you?”
My forehead creased as I touched softly around the wound on my head.
“It’s a gash. From the wolf demon. I’m okay. Are you okay?”
“Wolf?” He breathed. Finally. “Oh. The thing that’s like a hellhound but isn’t. I’m not sure what it was, because hellhounds don’t have spikes. Or silver eyes.”
“Whatever it is got a swipe at me. Like I said, I might have oversold my Lara Croftiness. It was more dumb luck.” And a Divinicus vision, but he didn’t need the details.
“So I didn’t do anything to…hurt you?” Some color seeped back into his cheeks.
“No. Of course not. You just touched it by accident.” I grinned. “Because I’m so boo-tay-licious.”
He didn’t laugh. Just blinked like he was coming off a concussion-level blow to the head. So much for my comedic career.
“Okay, what’s going on?” I took his hand and wiped off the blood. “Since when do you get so freaked out over a little blood?”
“Nothing. Let me see.”
Then his hands were all over me. And not in the kind of way you hope the super-hot guy puts his hands all over you. No, he was more like a mother ape picking through my hair for fleas and ticks.
I winced. “Ow.”
“Sorry. But hold still. This doesn’t look good.”
“It’s no big deal.”
As I started to push him away, I caught a glimpse of Tristan’s stalker wall and froze. There was something new. When I’d pulled off his piles of paranoid paperwork, I must have partially uncovered another picture which had been hiding underneath. I recognized this face too, but in a very different context.
Last time we met, this someone had tried to kill me.
Chapter Twelve
I reached past Ayden and snatched the photo, ripping the paper and sending the pushpin flying.
My hands shook. My stomach lurched, sloshing bile up my throat. I swallowed it down but couldn’t stop the memory of that stupid college field trip, the party gone wrong, and me walking back to the dorm, alone, in the dark, where things had gone…fatal.
At least for parts of me. Like my appendix. Not that I needed it anyway.
But trust? Yeah, that one I’d like to have back.
“Where are they?” I seethed. “Where are the pictures of the rest of them?” In a wild burst of energy I clawed at the papers still pinned on the wall.
“Stop!” Ayden held me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides. He spoke close to my ear. “There’s no more. Only Heather.”
I fought hard, but his muscles overcame my desperation, and I finally stilled. My chest heaved rattling breaths through clenched teeth. I choked on the words a few times before I could create a sentence.
“Why does he have a picture of Heather? How do you know her?” My hair tangled in a red mess across my eyes. “I’ve never mentioned her. Or any of them. I don’t ever talk about them, don’t ever want think about them. Ever.”
My eyes burned. I ground my teeth and bullied back the tears that threatened, refusing to shed any more over the maniacal group of people who had delivered the most horrifying living nightmare of my life. And the way my life had been going, that was saying something.
Ayden turned me around and smoothed back my hair. He smiled, dark chocolate eyes shimmering with compassion.
“Listen.” He held my face in his warm hands, thumbs gently wiping the tears from beneath my eyes as he gave my forehead a soft kiss. “Fiskick said that your friends attacked you because a Hallucinator controlled their minds and manipulated them into…” His voice trailed off.
I gave him a pained smile. “Beating the crap out of me?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Yes. So we decided to track them down.”
“And get all the gory details? Jayden has the police report for that.”
“No.” He smoothed his hands over my shoulders. “But we wanted to check a theory which…Tristan found was true.”
I breathed deep. “What?”
“Tristan can get into a person’s mind.” Ayden ducked his head to catch my gaze. “He can tell if another Hallucinator has done something to mess with their brain. It leaves a sort of,” he glanced sideways, thinking, “he calls it a signature. Anyway, the kids Tristan talked to who were involved can’t remember the attack on you at all, but he confirmed that each of their minds had been manipulated. And by the same Hallucinator.”
I let this sink in. It felt too heavy. My knees buckled. Ayden caught me in his arms and pulled me to his chest, holding me upright when I would’ve fallen into a pathetic heap.
This night…had just been too much. I felt drained and broken.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I put my arms around him, hands under his ja
cket, feeling the strong, solid body through his T-shirt, listening to the steady beat of his heart. The photo was still in my hand. I crumpled it up. “Why does he still have Heather’s photo?”
Ayden tensed.
So did I.
“What’s wrong?” I leaned my head back to look at him. “Ayden?”
His lips rolled in and out of his mouth. “She’s missing.”
“Missing?” I pulled away and this time he let me go, freeing me to pace around Tristan’s room. “Missing like she escaped detention and is wandering around with a screwed up mind and going to find me and go all psycho again?”
“No.” Ayden raised his palms at my freaked out look. “Missing like someone went to the trouble to forge documents to transfer her from the detention center, and then effectively hide her without a trace.” He paused. “Or…”
“Or what?”
Ayden looked uncomfortable. “Maybe she knew something they wanted to keep quiet, and they…”
I felt cold. “Killed her? Would they do that? The Hallucinator? The Mandatum?”
“We don’t know. We’ll keep looking. She could still be alive. And if we can find her, we can get answers.”
“If she’s alive.”
I scrubbed my face with my hands. It was a never-ending nightmare. Heather dead because of me. Some girl in hell because of me. Who was next?
My gut bubbled acid.
“Aurora.”
Ayden reached for me. I rested my forehead on his shoulder, but only for a moment. This romantic evening had taken one too many fatal blows to be salvageable. I needed time alone.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be okay.” I hoped it was the truth.
I opened the window and climbed out onto the gnarled branches of the old oak between Tristan’s house and mine. Cold mountain air tackled the heat ravaging my skin.
Mother Nature’s earthy scents filled the night, but either a chainsaw or power drill screamed from my garage. Joining the cacophony was a baby’s wail, an angsty teenager’s doom and gloom music cranked on high, and my mother screeching for silence.
Couldn’t wait to wade into that.
I straddled the branch and started to make my way across to my bedroom window.