by Natalie Dean
“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 soul 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.
“Hey!” Adrianna yelled, scrambling out of the bed. She didn’t know why she said hey, but it was too late to take it back, so she just rolled with it.
She jumped from the bed, caught her foot on some of the sheets, and wiped out. She scrambled up with a knife that she’d left on the nightstand.
“Whoa!” he shouted. “Cool it!”
She brandished the knife like a pro. “Drop your gun!”
He didn’t drop it, but he lowered it, backing away from her like she might spring at him at any time. “I just want to talk.” He gave her just the slightest smirk. “I’m the one with the gun. Calm down.”
He raised up the tip of the gun, pointing it at her. If his finger twitched, he’d shoot her in the leg. Not lethal, but it still had plenty of incentive. Slowly, she sat down on the bed. The mattress depressed ever so slightly under her weight. She had been an idiot. She had no idea how he’d managed to sneak into her hotel room. The door was locked. Maybe he knew how to pick locks? He’d been a cop for a while….
“Okay,” she said. “What do you want to talk about?”
He was smaller in person. She had read his stats, but for some reason, she had assumed he’d be bigger than her. Not so. She was very tall for a woman anyway, standing at about six feet, but he didn’t look all that much taller than her. He was brawny all right. He was built like a bull—laden with powerful muscle without it being too much to slow him down. That was his thing in the ring: fast and very, very strong.
At the moment, he was wearing worn, old jeans and a T-shirt, like a regular guy walking out of the grocery store. He didn’t look like a man wanted for murder.
“I’m innocent, Agent Whetmore,” he told her.
“How do you know my name?” She didn’t even care. She was looking for a way to get him busted. She could see her phone in her pants over by the dresser where she’d stripped down. Even dumber. She felt like a complete idiot wearing sheer sleepwear, her gun in the hand of the man she was tracking.
If Agent Stone could see her now, he’d break into his granite laugh. “Sure are fine and mighty, ain’t you?” he’d bark. “Some agent you are. Put your clothes on, woman, before you make a complete mockery of the force. Leaving your gun....”
“I knew who they would put on me,” he said. “I’ve seen you on TV before.”
“You wanna give me my gun?” she asked. It felt like one of those dreams where you’re naked in school. She felt hot color rising to her cheeks. It was a million times more embarrassing, and just a little bit exciting. But that was weird,
so she tried to focus. It was like dragging a boulder through sand to focus and get herself together. First of all, the rain outside was jacking with her senses, so she kept catching glimpses of his aura all over the room, as though her head had a faulty wire. Second of all, none of her training had prepared her for the simultaneous firing of senses, making her hesitant to do or try anything.
“I can’t give you your gun back just yet.” He looked her up and down. “Sorry to startle you. I mean you no harm.”
“Really? ‘Cause you’re kinda pointing a gun at me.”
His motions were a little slowed as he lowered her gun. For the first time, she noticed the darkness under his eyes, and the tired way he stooped over. He was coping, but he was obviously tired.
“I don’t plan on hurting you,” he said. “Just… hear me out.” He met her gaze firmly. His eyes were gentle and strong, and sent Adrianna’s heart a-flutter for some idiotic reason. “Please.”
She crossed her arms to cover her chest. It helped a little. She still felt her cheeks burning, but it was starting to fade as the embarrassment of the situation sunk in.
So much for instilling a sense of dominance, she thought to herself. “Sure,” she said out loud. “I’m your captive audience.” She tried to fake a confident smile and failed miserably. She had always been bad at acting. She had wanted to either be an actor or an FBI agent as a kid. After several horrible performances, she’d turned to the FBI.
He met her eyes and dropped into a cheap chair by the mobile air conditioner. “It’s a long story. You might wanna get comfortable.”
Sure. Get comfortable. She tried and, once again, failed.
“Tell me what you think I did,” he said. Oddly, he said it like a request, not like an order. He certainly could have just ordered her to talk. The rain was starting to slow, but she still couldn’t pick up any signs of guilt in his aura.
“You killed George Ortiz,” she said. “Shot him at his own house. You then ran away, and the FBI put me on you. Fast forward to here.”
He frowned. “How’d you even find me?’
“Can’t explain it,” she said, like she’d told people half a million times before. “Just a gut feeling.”
“You… tracked me down into the middle of nowhere… on a gut feeling?”
“Um… yes.”
“Wow. I’m impressed.”
“Weren’t you trying to prove you were innocent or something?”
He smiled faintly, but his exhaustion spilled through. “Right. Thanks. I’m innocent. I didn’t kill George. He was my friend.”
“Oh,” she said sarcastically. “Great! I guess I’ll just call up HQ and tell them that you’re totally innocent. I’m sure it’ll hold up in court.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“No,” she said. “I do believe you.” Oddly, she was telling the truth. She still couldn’t pick up any trails of guilt from murder on his aura. Her signal was still jacked up with the rain. Admittedly, it was getting better. “It doesn’t matter whether I believe you or not. I’m still supposed to bring you in. The courts decide your guilt. And believe it or not? If you run from me, it really doesn’t help your case.”
“I’m not running from you.”
“Oh, you just happened to go out for a random vacation across the country right after you were accused of murder?”
“It’s not like that. Someone is trying to kill me.”
“Let me just take you in. Give me my gun and I’ll take you in,” she assured. “The FBI will keep you safe.”
“Not from him.”
It was getting a little ridiculous. She was tired of sitting on the bed, half naked, while he had her gun. “Give me my gun,” she said. “And we can work this out.”
“Can’t do that.”
“Give me my gun, please?”
“No.”
“Pretty please?”
“The physical appearance of the please doesn’t matter,” he said. Just for a second, his real side shined through—a gentle, funny heart. “It appears that we’re at an impasse, Agent Whetmore. You cannot take the gun, and I cannot give it to you.”
“I don’t really see it that way,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because….” She’d been reaching for her spare gun on her leg the whole time. He hadn’t seen it. Not too many people sleep with a gun on their leg, and when he’d broken in, he hadn’t seen her leg. It had been covered by a sheet. Finally, she got ahold of it and had it up before he could blink.
She squeezed the trigger once, hard. Bang! The bullet streaked into his leg. It wasn’t bad. He wouldn’t die. The small-caliber bullet would hurt, but there was no chance that it would cause any bad damage.
He made a strangled yelp and grabbed at his leg. Partly too startled to move, he tumbled to the ground.
Before he could pick up her chrome handgun from the floor where he’d dropped it accidentally, she scooped it up.
“You shot me!”
“Good observation. You’ll be fine. I’ll patch you up. Room service will be here shortly.”
Sure enough, after about fifteen seconds of her standing over him, gun in hand, the door burst open with two frightened hotel employees rushing in. “What happened?” yelled one, obviously not well trained for such scenarios. “Oh god! Oh god!”
“Calm down,” she said. “My name is Agent Adrianna Whetmore, and I work for the FBI.” She reached to her wallet and handed it to them. Inside was her license card, which really doesn’t mean that you can shoot someone in public and get away with it, but most people didn’t question it. They just complied.
“Ohhh,” one said, staring down at the red strain growing on The Celtic’s thigh. “C-can we… can we help you?”
“I think you should probably get some bandages before he loses too much blood,” she said calmly. “I know how to apply them.”
“You shot me!” contributed The Celtic.
She didn’t really know what to do. She’d bagged criminals before—lots of times, in fact—but she’d never had to worry about what she was wearing. Keeping her gun trained on him in case he tried anything, she slipped into her clothes.
“I’m an innocent man,” The Celtic urged. “He was hunting me! I had to get out before he hurt my daughter!”
“Who is the guy you keep talking about?” she asked. The employees returned with arms full of bandages, like they were trying to patch a large dam, not patch a man who had been shot in the leg.
“I don’t know his real name. He goes by The Owl.”
“Boy, you guys sure like your names.”
“The Owl isn’t a fighter. He’s a broker.” He winced. The Celtic was tough. A lot of guys would have been crying. That was the first evidence she’d seen that he even felt the wound. She supposed you really didn’t get into professional fighting without being able to ignore some pain. “George and I backed out of a deal with him. He killed George. He was coming for me.”
“He can’t get you if you’re with us.”
“He will in prison; he’s got guys everywhere.”
She didn’t have an answer for him, so she set to fixing up his leg. It was easy. She could have done it in her sleep. The bullet had just clipped his thigh. It hadn’t stuck in his leg, which is when it would have gotten him into real trouble. He was strong. His leg was a veritable sculpture, like one of the ones from ancient Greece, with rippling musculature.
“Sorry, but I had to shoot you,” she told him.
“Yeah,” he muttered. He had that look in his eye that made her nervous. He wasn’t going to be easy to contain. A professional fighter with the same knowledge of police work that she had. Great.
“Can you stand up?”
He stood up. Okay, maybe she was wrong. He was taller than her. Not by a lot, but he was. “I’ve been through worse.”
Mental note: The Celtic could apparently take a gunshot to the leg and feel fine a moment later. Not a guy she wanted to mess with too much.
&
nbsp; “You should know that he’s going to kill me before I testify,” he told her as she steered him towards her car.
“I’ll protect you.”
He snorted in sad amusement. “There was a reason I was running. I suggest you drive quickly.”
She was starting to get a better sense of the aura of her surroundings as the rain cleared even more. There was something around them, some dark aura, but she couldn’t quite get a fix on it. Somewhere, though, something was setting her mental alarm off like crazy. As she led him out to her car, the sense exploded. Someone was watching them.
She twisted. There, in the parking lot, was the biker from earlier, still with his helmet on. He was just in the very corner, hidden under the shade thrown by the building itself. Silently, he bowed his head just the smallest bit, as if to say I see you.
She shook it off. When she shut the door on The Celtic, he was still watching.
She had him in the passenger seat. She didn’t want him behind her. Even handcuffed, she wasn’t willing to give him the opportunity. She figured that he would be just fine in the backseat, but if she pegged him wrong, it wasn’t too hard to believe that he could wrap the chain of the cuffs around her throat and strangle her.
Did she peg him as the kind of guy that would do that? No.
But if she was wrong?
Not something she wanted to confront in the middle of driving.
“Is your gun loaded?” he asked.
“Yup.”
“Good,” he said. It was funny. Most of the times people said that, they were trying to be threatening. Not him. He was almost saying it like he was relieved that it might come in handy.
The drive went about as well as it could have. He was mostly silent, staring at the pine trees that zipped past the car window. Not even once did he look like he might consider breaking out, but he looked her over once or twice. It was a different sort of look: mildly interested, but mostly curious.
“What have you done with my daughter?” he finally said. His voice was so soft that she at first didn’t even register that he was speaking to her. His voice was cool to listen to—like a cello being gently stroked. Strong, deep, and soothing.