Quicksilver Dreams (Dreamwalkers)

by Adele, Danube

  “That, on my toe, is what you were talking about? The metal stuff? That’s mylunate?” I had completely forgotten it was there.

  “Stop the act, Taylor. Tell me the truth, so this doesn’t have to get worse for you.” He lifted something circular and metallic from the box and shut it.

  Were those...handcuffs? Holy shit! What the hell was this? He was going to hold me here? Take away my freedom? Dismissed, disregarded and discounted, yet again. My alarm became full-fledged anger. Someone was trying to kill me. I had no home to go to that was safe, and no one to turn to for help, including him. How stupid I was to put myself in the position of leaning on someone! What the hell was I thinking?

  My eyes burned.

  I faced off with him, my body hot with growing hurt and rage.

  “You son of a bitch!” I snapped through a sheen of tears. “Who the hell do you think you are? You think you can just treat me like shit whenever you feel justified, and believe I’m going to play along like a good little girl? You think you can play hot and cold, lover one minute and monster the next, and that I’m just going to stand here and take it from you?”

  “I know who the hell I am. I’m the guy tracking down a killer through the trails of death and destruction he leaves behind. I don’t know who you are.” He snarled, shoving the handcuffs into his back pocket. “But I’m going to paint a picture for you. I was covered in my cousin’s blood only months ago from the last terrorist attack your network launched on us. She bled out in my arms, pleading with me to save her, and there was nothing...nothing I could do to stop it. When your arm’s been blown off and your body’s been ripped apart by shrapnel, there are only moments left to live. She was eighteen.”

  Grimacing at the image, I said, “I’m sorry for your loss, but I had nothing to do with it!”

  “My aunt survived, barely, but wished for her own death when she saw what had happened to her daughter. She begged the Great Spirits to take her life. Begged. Do you know what it’s like to watch people you love live out their worst fucking nightmares? There’s nothing you can do. Not a fucking thing! I couldn’t save them.”

  Able to picture the scene, but unable to handle seeing the tortured look on Ryder’s face, I blinked hot tears down my cheeks. How could I respond to that? “It sounds horrible. Horrible.” My breath hitched on a dry sob. He opened his mind, and I saw chaos, the dazed look of dawning horror on the faces of the people.

  “Hundreds bloodied and maimed. Sixty died, all families with little children. A bloodbath—”

  “Stop!” It was too raw. It hurt too much. His eyes looked too haunted. He held me responsible for these horrible acts. It wasn’t like he thought I was a bitch; he thought I was inhuman. A monster. “I don’t want to hear any more!”

  “You need to hear it!” He grabbed my arms roughly. “Think about how these were real people before you consider lying to me again.”

  Shoving him away was like trying to move a wall. Angry tears continued to fall as I tried to twist away from him. “Get off me! I can’t believe you’re saying this. You’ve been in my head. You’ve been in my life. You know I’ve been targeted! I’m not responsible!”

  “You aren’t the first Earth-bound human I’ve caught who tried to convince me of their innocence, but you’re the first who made me question my judgment and overlook all the evidence pointing to you—”

  “What evidence? There’s no evidence, because I’m innocent.” I swiped with resentment at the moisture on my cheeks.

  The muscle in his jaw ticked wildly. “Thousands more are likely to be murdered before this is over, and I’m surrounded by liars and traitors—”

  “Wait a minute! Let’s turn this around. The only one here who’s lied and manipulated is you! You think you’re so innocent, but you worked me over in my sleep! How long have you been watching me?”

  His eyes blazed a darker shade of green as he let go of me and snagged the cuffs again, but I didn’t back down. I lifted my chin in silent challenge, daring him to bring it.

  “Long enough to know that you expect to call all the shots. You don’t get to do that with me. Only one of us knows what the hell is going on, and until you convince me that you have nothing to do with this fucking war on my people, you’re a suspect, especially when I find the fucking evidence on your goddamn toe! And you have no way to explain it.”

  “I don’t need to explain anything! I’m an innocent bystander in all this. I’m sorry that you’ve lost family members, but I’ve had nothing to do with this.”

  “There’s only one way you could have gotten that substance legitimately, and that didn’t happen, because only a few of us have access to it, and I sure as shit know I didn’t give any of it to you! If you don’t start talking, you leave me no choice.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I take you to the high-council courthouse, where you get imprisoned and possibly tortured until you start talking.”

  Torture?

  This was totally surreal. Just a few minutes ago, I’d been standing here practically drawing mental hearts with our initials in the middle, and now he was treating me like I was his enemy. If there was ever a time that I felt alone and ready to cry it was now, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction anymore. Even more frightening? From somewhere deep in my soul came the wish that he would suddenly give me a tender look and that this was all some sort of misunderstanding. But it wasn’t.

  I knew how to cut off my heart. It was one of the first lessons I’d learned in life.

  Casually, I offered, “Of course there was a legitimate way I got this, but you don’t get to hear about it. And here I was actually starting to like you. I thought you were one of the good guys, saving me from murderers and all.”

  It would be worth it to go to prison. I was fully willing to shed some light on this tangled situation, but not to him. I opened my mind and blasted him with the fierceness of my anger and the pain of my own hurt feelings. I wanted him to know exactly how I was feeling.

  The rush of emotion hitting him made him pause. He scowled, and a brief look of confusion creased his features, but I wasn’t going to wait around for the outcome. I wanted out. I spun to make a run for it.

  He dove at me, wrapped his arms around my torso and lifted me off the ground effortlessly. The handcuffs clanked to the floor as I battled his imposing strength. I kicked my legs back at him and tried to whip my head up to catch him in the chin, which didn’t seem to faze him. I silently cursed those muscles I’d previously drooled over.

  “Settle down!”

  “Fuck off!”

  “Where did you get it? Just tell me that. Who gave it to you?”

  “I’m not a criminal! And I don’t have to talk to you at all! You can just go suck balls for all I care!”

  “Not my style” was his grim reply as he set my feet back on the ground. “I’m trying to work with you here!”

  “Is that what you call this?”

  “I just want to talk!”

  “Do you usually manhandle women? You’re really good at it!” I resumed trying to work my arms free and was furious that three times now in two days I’d had men restrain me. For the love of God! Really?

  “Stop fighting! Hear me out,” he growled next to my ear.

  “I haven’t heard anything worth listening to yet. According to you, I’m a lying, murdering criminal of some sort. I don’t even know what crime I’ve committed, but in your mind, you have me tried, convicted and going to jail.”

  “I want to believe you,” he said through clenched teeth. “You don’t understand—”

  “I’m done. I don’t need to understand. I need to go home.” I paused in my struggles, breathing heavily from exertion. My head fell forward as I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, not wanting him to get the best of me, yet I couldn’t free myself. I co
uld feel a personal sense of failure taunting me. Helplessness. I hated it. I was at the fair again, and my mom was gone, and I was all on my own the way I’ve always been on my own.

  When was I going to learn? People like me never caught a break. No matter how hard I worked to better myself, no matter how hard I tried to pull myself out of poverty, I was always going to be the dirty little girl who didn’t have a mother, who rarely had enough food, and whom no one cared about.

  “Taylor, I didn’t...didn’t want it to go like this.” His voice had softened marginally, turned gruff. “It doesn’t have to be this way. I just want to talk.” I sensed that was true, but couldn’t get past my feelings of hurt.

  “Screw you, buddy,” I muttered tiredly. What a way to wake up in the morning. Personally, I would have preferred coffee and maybe some eggs or toast or something. It might have been fun to see...I don’t know...how much fun we could have together. He smelled so good. My arms were pinned to my sides. His forearms were wrapped around my abdomen, with one hand splayed high enough that my breast rested on it. I had to admit that all this body touching and being overpowered by him was maybe a little arousing, and that was more shaming than anything, because what did it say about me? That stupid compulsion to soothe him in his upset—to comfort him, to open up to him and solve this—was still fighting within me, and I worked ruthlessly to suppress it.

  He was silent a moment, his own breath coming out in puffs.

  “Dammit, Taylor. We need to figure this out.” He released his pent-up breath with a defeated utterance. He nuzzled my neck with his prickly whiskers as though he couldn’t help himself, which gave me a quick twinge of heat and shivers mixed together. A panting breath that had nothing to do with exertion pushed through my lips.

  “Ryder,” I whispered painfully, his sudden tenderness bittersweet.

  “Work with me,” he whispered against my ear. He bit my lobe gently.

  “No.” I strained away from him, feeling panicked by my own reaction and not wanting to capitulate.

  He sighed heavily, lifting his lips from my neck and letting his forehead rest on the top of my head. “There’s a lot you don’t know. I need your information.”

  “You aren’t acting like it. You could start by asking nicely.” The fight had left me momentarily, but I wiggled once more out of sheer stubbornness, trying to get free. That’s when I came to realize that the more I wiggled my backside trying to get loose, the more I became aware of a growing hardness behind me, which made me stop struggling immediately. I didn’t need any more stimuli. I was already riding a sexual edge that was brand new to me.

  “Let me go.” I stepped away from him, recognizing that he let me do so likely because he didn’t want the sexual distraction either.

  “Talk to me,” he said in a quiet, steady voice.

  Just as calmly, I restated, “You don’t get a free pass to act like a jerk when you feel like it. In fact, this trailer-park girl might just decide she doesn’t want your help.”

  “You don’t get a choice,” he replied firmly.

  “You think not?”

  He shot off, “You don’t have anyone else. No one. I know this.”

  “You’re right. I’ll figure it out,” I said, looking down at my toes and trying not to cry. Because I knew this was true, but having him throw that in my face was humiliating and emotionally overwhelming. The damn mylunate was winking up at me, taunting me. He hadn’t taken it from me, which was strange. I needed to get out of here. Needed to!

  Turning away, I headed for the stairs.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m done with this house of horrors. I want to go home.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere.” He grabbed for me one last time, but just that attempt gave me permission, and I swung back around and shoved him away with a ragged grunt, finally letting my own rage loose physically. Not that it did much good, since it felt like I was trying to shove a building or something. He didn’t move. He did smirk, though.

  It was the proverbial last straw. It was like waving a red flag. I refused to be disregarded or found to be amusing in a patronizing way even one more time!

  “You think I can’t take you?” I cried out. I faced off and got into my fighting stance, yanking the hem of my dress up so my thighs could move more freely. If I’d had a hair band, I’d have gotten really trailer on him and put my hair back, which in my culture signified readiness to fight.

  He made the mistake of showing a trace of real humor in his eyes, mostly because I think he could read my thoughts, which served to create a hot, red haze of tunnel vision. I was tired of feeling out of control and manipulated. I was tired of feeling like there was something beyond me, something more than what I could see, pulling my strings. Angry adrenaline pumped through my system. The next thing I knew, I let out a cry and threw a roundhouse kick and a back kick, which he had to quickly dodge, much to my wickedly delighted eyes.

  “Cut it out,” he snarled, clearly surprised, circling me just out of reach. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

  “Too late!” I threw a front kick that he managed to catch and toss away, but it didn’t keep me down. A side kick caught his hip, and he slapped it away. There wasn’t much room to work, due to the furniture and all, but being the more compact of the two of us, I was doing just fine. I noted this with an evil tilt of my lips, which had his eyes narrowing.

  “This isn’t going to help things,” he growled, getting into his own fighting stance.

  “But it’ll make me feel better!” It was entirely satisfying to note that he felt the need to get into a defensive position.

  I knew he was going to try to rush me. It was in his eyes. They were calculating the distance separating us. As I saw it coming, I did a jumping side kick that tagged him in the kisser, snapping his head back. When he stepped back to catch himself, his foot caught on the leg of his armchair, and he went down with a roar.

  Surprise and dismay at my own success gave me pause, but only for a split second before I spun around to run for the door and found...air. Forgetting the room was slightly raised, I stepped out into nothing and did an ungainly sprawl that landed me on all fours on the beautiful stone. I cried out.

  “Taylor!” Ryder was on me in a flash, kneeling beside me, his hands gently turning me over.

  “Get away from me!” I kicked out at him, just barely missing his ribs, when he tried to pick me up. He immediately sprawled over me to keep my limbs pinned. With my arms shackled by one of his hands and his thighs bracketing mine, I couldn’t move. I struggled briefly, venting the final surge of fury I’d felt. We’d done this before! I’d gone through this already!

  And still, a touch of blood dotted his lip and part of me wanted to wipe it away and apologize for hurting him.

  Thank you sir, may I please I have another? Sick puppy. Me.

  So weird. So dangerous. Needed to get away from him. Needed to save myself. This was going to finish me if I stuck around. Needed to figure something out for myself or I’d get lost in him, and he’d eventually be done with me. I still hadn’t recovered from being left by my mother. I’d loved her so much. She’d meant the world to me, and I knew that didn’t make sense, considering what she’d done. Not really. I couldn’t risk letting Ryder have that kind of power over me.

  “Stop fighting so we can talk,” he growled, his eyes angrily, desperately searching mine. Energy seemed to crackle and snap, the air humming as our emotions spiked.

  “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.” The tears that had been threatening finally gave way. “Just get away from me. I’m tired of this—having to figure out where I stand with you, having to defend myself. I just want to go home. I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want this.”

  After a moment, the anger left his face. With his free hand, he gently wiped at the moisture, leaving wet
trails toward my temples. “I need to know where it came from,” he said firmly. “Face it. You are totally alone. You need my help. I can’t give it to you until you tell me the truth.”

  I turned my face away, slamming my eyes shut, not wanting to look at him. He had all this ammunition he could use against me. He’d been spying on me, but I was being seen as the liar? Might as well just tell him, so I could get away from him.

  So I summarized the facts. I kept up a monotone and refused to look at him throughout my telling.

  “Reggie sent me to do some errand at his house. I was looking for something to write with and on in one of his kitchen drawers, so I could leave a note. This stuff was in his drawer, and it just grabbed onto me when I touched it. It was fascinating, and I started playing with it. It reminded me of the liquid-metal dude in that one movie. Anyway, Frank scared me, coming at me in a crazed sort of way, and I ran out of the house, forgetting that I was still holding the stuff.”

  “Frank?”

  “Reggie’s boyfriend. And I was so sure I was going to get canned for handling the situation like such a dweeb that I kept the thing on, so I would remember to return it to Reggie. I was so sure that even with a big apology, I was going to lose my job, but at the very least, I wanted to return it because I’m not a criminal.” I said that last part pointedly, opening my eyes to look at him as I did. “Then he surprised me with this lunch thing with Paul, and I forgot anyway.”

  I didn’t know if any of this was making sense, but I kept my mind wide-open to him so he could see the truth for himself.

  “Can you work up a mental image of Frank for me?”

  Closing my eyes again, I could more easily focus, thinking of the luncheon the previous day when I shook his hand in greeting.

  “It’s just as I thought.” Ryder let out a breath. “Frank is Ranik Grayson.”

  “He’s the guy you accused me of working for, isn’t he? You thought I was working for Frank.” My voice sounded dull and lifeless to my own ears.