Mixed Feelings (Empathy in the PPNW Book 1)

by Olivia R. Burton

  Pity nudged against me and Chloe tapped my temple. “You have but three skills and eating cake and napping aren’t going to help here.”

  With a wink, Chloe hopped out of the car and headed toward the hotel. I watched her go, the entire plan she’d laid out suddenly becoming clear.

  “What the hell does she think she’s doing? What if something’s out there, waiting for her? What if she gets hurt?”

  “She brought her guns.”

  “This isn’t target practice!” A dozen awful scenarios ran through my mind, not all of them involving Chloe being the only one to get hurt. “What if she accidentally shoots a maid?”

  “Come on, let’s go figure out where these kids are.” Mel climbed out, not waiting for me to answer or argue.

  I had a spastic little fit in the passenger’s seat, swearing and flailing before forcing myself to remember what was at stake. It wasn’t only the kids in danger anymore. The kidnappers knew what we looked like and if Chloe was going to throw herself into danger with us, I needed to get out and do my damnedest to make sure she didn’t get knocked around like I had. I couldn’t just hide in the car; I had to protect my best friend. And Mel, though I didn’t feel he needed it as much as Chloe.

  No matter how much I wanted to find a bed and hide under it until this all blew over, I had to be brave and do everything I could to make sure everyone made it out of this alive.

  Being mature sucks.

  Mel caught the back of my jacket as I stormed past him, determined steam coming out of my ears.

  “Be cool,” he murmured.

  “I hate you,” I said. He laughed under his breath and jerked his thumb at the first door we came to.

  “Do your thing.”

  My determination petered out, leaving me staring at the scuffed and dirty door. Yes, I wanted to find these kids and keep Chloe safe, but courage was harder to call up in the moment. Back in the car I hadn’t been seconds away from possible doom. Now there was nothing stopping me from focusing my empathy on an unseen hotel room that might contain a demon that had climbed into my head twice before and scrambled my brain.

  “If I faint, get me the hell out of here.”

  Mel just shrugged noncommittally and I snarled, whacking him in the belly with the back of my hand. He grinned and I got the feeling he was amping up the attitude for my benefit. I actually appreciated it for once.

  It was easier to be mad at Mel than scared of the unknown.

  After a calming breath, I lowered my gaze to the ground, concentrated on reaching outward with my sixth sense. To my relief, there was no one inside. We moved on to the next room, and the next, all the way down the line of the first floor. Most rooms were empty, a few were occupied, none were suspicious.

  Four rooms into the second floor, though, I found what we were looking for: three sleeping people, likely children, definitely enchanted and under extreme stress from the feel of it. The kids were alone, their emotions clumped together like they were all sleeping practically on top of one another. I used my keen powers of deduction to decide this was the room we wanted. And Mel had said I was dumber than a dung beetle.

  “This is it!” I cried, not quite managing the whisper I was trying for. Mel tipped his head, listened to the door for a second, and nodded.

  “Gotcha.” Without hesitation, he took a step back, lifted his leg, and kicked in the motel door. I yelled wordlessly as it bounced off the wall, rebounding back toward him. He caught it easily and I hopped back, shocked.

  “Mel!”

  Ignoring my outburst, he leaned in, looking cautiously around the room before leaning back to check the rooms on either side. The one to the left was empty and a quick psychic poke into the one on the right revealed that whomever was in there was no threat. I could tell from the soupy mess of pleasant intoxication that unless I sent Mel inside to get shirtless and sing “Hotel California,” we weren’t in any danger of being noticed.

  For the first time since we’d gotten wrapped up in this mess, we’d gotten lucky.

  “Stay out here for a second,” Mel said quietly. “I’m going to check it out real quick.”

  “Careful,” I whispered back, watching him. He was thorough, checking under the beds and in the narrow closet. He even opened the cabinets under the sink at the back of the room and then went in to check the bathroom. I took a look around the lot for Chloe, but couldn’t see her. I hoped she was okay.

  When Mel stepped back out and nodded the all clear, I went inside, feeling along the wall for the light switch. I found it right as I felt a familiar sort of gooiness seep over my limbs, latching on and making me let out a small whine. I flipped the light on just before jerking to the side, twisting to see Blondie step around the corner and into the room.

  “We meet again,” he said, his eyes on me.

  “Crap!” I squeaked, trying my best to back up as far as I could. Panic was yelling at me to run and hide in the empty cabinet under the sink but my legs were ignoring the orders. Blondie grinned, revealing fangs that weren’t hidden by shadow this time. They were real and they were deadly.

  Panic made way for terror and its voice was louder, convincing my legs it was time to move. I scrambled back maybe three steps before my calves hit the bed and my ankle smashed against the metal frame. Pain squeaked through my lips and Blondie laughed before rolling his gaze past me to the back of the room.

  “Mel, it’s been awhile,” he said, smugness scalding along my skin like I’d spilled a pan of hot oil down my front. I whimpered and twitched as if I’d find escape if I just tried once more.

  “Dirk?” The shock in Mel’s voice pulled my gaze toward him and hope started to murmur beneath the terror still gibbering in my mind. Mel didn’t look sure, but if this was in fact the vampire he’d spoken fondly about at The Bouncing Bunny, maybe we weren’t in trouble after all.

  “In the flesh,” Blondie said, the smugness I’d felt before boiling along my skin as it congealed into what I could only guess was envy. “You’ve been quite a pain in my ass this week.”

  “Imagine how we feel.”

  I whipped around and found Chloe crouched low at the edge of the doorway, a small gun aimed at Dirk’s head, hiding as much of her body behind the doorjamb as she could. I looked back to the vampire and flinched at the sizzle of annoyance that splashed out of him.

  “What the hell, Dirk?” Mel asked.

  “What the hell what?” Dirk wasn’t watching Mel; he was staring at Chloe’s gun but the envy still seared my limbs, refusing to give way to worry or fear. My eyes darted twice to the weapon and I wondered how he was unbothered. Chloe’s my best friend and I trust her more than nearly anyone, but if she’d aimed a gun my way and made that face, I would have at least been concerned.

  “What the hell, 'why am I not a walking germ bag?'“ Dirk continued, turning back to Mel to give a small smile. The envy warped again, disdain spewing forth like a burst water main. “I made a new friend. And here she is.”

  Dirk didn’t gesture but I felt a spike of shock from Chloe and looked over just in time to see a girl close in on her like a snake. Gun still in hand, Chloe reacted impressively fast, her shock burning away in a flash of anger as she was forced to block and deflect the girl’s attacks.

  My hope that we weren’t in trouble was gone, squashed to bits by the gibbering terror. Confusion wedged itself at the edge of my mind, too, mumbling small questions about Chloe and her impressive fighting moves. I knew she could wrestle me to the ground before I raided her fridge for a chocolate-filled vegan croissant but I’m not exactly Chun-Li.

  This was a whole other level of skill that I’d never seen outside of an action movie.

  A growl drew my attention back to the other end of the room and I caught sight of Mel before he charged forward, teeth bared. Dirk tensed, readying himself for the attack, but he needn’t have bothered.

  “Debilus!” the demon yelled, her voice strained. Mel’s attack slowed to a crawl but he didn’t seem to notice. Hi
s movements, while extremely lagged, remained determined, his expression dangerous. Dirk’s tension melted away and his emotions cooled to a pleasant, bubbling warmth as he laughed at Mel’s predicament. We both watched Mel move like cooled molasses and after a few seconds I felt frustration burble through Dirk. Sick of waiting, he stepped forward, balled up his fist, and punched the bigger man square in the jaw.

  Mel dropped to the floor at the same time Chloe’s gun went off and I gasped, whipping around expecting to see Chloe standing triumphantly over the girl-shaped demon. I saw only her feet instead, the rest of her out of sight on the ground outside. The demon stood over her, Chloe’s gun in her hand.

  “Chloe!” I yelped, the threat of losing my best friend breaking my paralysis. Dirk got to me before I could make it even a step, grabbing my hand and yanking me close like a dance. I bumped against his chest and, while my instinct was to struggle, he wouldn’t let me. His arm locked around my back, forcing the air out of my lungs, and when I tried again to fight, he just smiled his sharp smile and bent close.

  “This worked out well for us.”

  I managed to squeak out my last bit of breath before he nudged my face to the side. His dizzy pleasure swamped my psyche, doing its best to drown my manic anxiety as I felt the heat of his breath against my skin. Little seeds of panic sprouted in my stomach and, as I felt the pressure of Dirk’s fangs, a beanstalk of terror grew out of them. With incredible speed, it speared its way into my internal organs, wrapped its razor-sharp leaves through my screaming lungs, and stabbed its thorny branches into my heart. I felt cold.

  When his fangs pierced my skin, the pressure on my chest let up and I felt air suck into my bruised ribcage. I took two great breaths before I let out a sound that might have been a call for help. I was losing my voice, my vision, my hearing. Sluggishness swept over my body and I was becoming less and less aware of anything outside of the two of us. All I felt was the icy stab of the terror inside and the wound at my neck.

  Dirk loosened his grip on me so the last thing I saw was his face and my blood on his lips.

  Chapter Seventeen

  My body was in paralyzing pain, though my mind still frolicked through a bloody, sharp dreamscape. My limbs felt bent at all the wrong angles and tiny wounds dotted my skin. Distantly, I could feel patches of dried blood and scabs on my stomach, along my arms and legs. The sound of a voice ordering me to wake pulled me closer to consciousness, out of one nightmare and into another.

  When I finally fluttered opened my eyelids, I could see darkness and the corona of a bare bulb. Before I had consciously decided to do so, I was pulling and kicking against the bands of pressure holding me in place.

  If my mind was a factory and my thoughts were its workers, every one of them was slacking off, getting high by the water cooler instead of pulling levers and answering phones. I couldn’t entirely tell why, but I knew my struggling was accomplishing nothing.

  “She’s awake!”

  The voice was high, young, and excited like a teen set free with a credit card in a trendy clothing store.

  Shock and terror pulled through my lips in a quick shriek. After another attempt at pulling out of my bonds, I discovered I could only move my head. Wildly, I looked left, right, letting out another cry when I noticed a needle of terrifying size sticking out of the inside of my elbow. A dark red cord was trailing off the side of the cross-shaped table, channeling my blood out of my body and out of sight.

  “Up you go!” The voice sang from behind me just before I heard metal scream. The world flew by and then I was upright, my head spinning as my slacker thoughts stumbled against each other and tumbled around in my head like drunken astronauts.

  Dirk stood across from me. He had no expression on his face but the young woman who stepped into my field of view held enough excitement on her own for the both of them. I recognized her expression, the smile and the wide eyes, but it was meaner than any excitement I’d seen before. This wasn’t just glee, this was a bully advancing on the scrawniest kid on the schoolyard because he knows who’s got the most lunch money.

  “Welcome!” she announced. I struggled against the straps again, sure despite my weakness that I could make headway this time. The girl shook her head, her eyes darting to my right arm as I tried to fight. “Nice try, dummy. He’s got you well and truly tucked.”

  Dirk caught my attention by baring his fangs, tilting his head as if he knew the exact angle to make them appear their most menacing. Her slang was odd, not entirely descriptive on its own, but Dirk made the point for her. Even with a head full of lazy thoughts, I could put together that the weakness holding me back and Dirk’s fangs were related.

  The girl—the demon—looked about my height, with brown hair and solid, inhumanly black eyes like Laurel’s. She was wearing jeans, ripped at the knee, and a plain black t-shirt. She seemed young, early twenties at most, and her nails were painted a chipped baby pink. Her features were average, her nose a little too bulbous to be beautiful, though her full lips tried to make up for it.

  She jabbed me in the kidney with a hard left and I grunted, swore, and tried again to fight. When I lowered my gaze to measure my progress, I realized I was worse off than I’d previously assumed. When I tried to pull my left arm out of the straps, nothing happened—nothing at all. Despite screaming orders for my muscles to move, I couldn’t even manage to flex my bicep or pop a vein. My pinky finger twitched a bit but my arm lay otherwise dead.

  “I think she’s gotten it, D,” the girl said.

  “She isn’t too bright.”

  “Hey,” I said, more out of habit than actual offense. Having my intelligence insulted was the least of my problems, but it was something I heard so often I argued without thinking.

  “You’ll be fun to keep around, I think. Not to mention useful!” She bounced forward and lifted her hands to my face. I felt her fingertips on my skin and she met my eyes. Wooziness flooded through me before a brick cracked my skull right between my eyes.

  My lashes fluttered open after what could have been minutes or days and I found myself staring down at the top of her head. She’d tucked her hands up into my hair, pressing her palms to my temples as she rested her head on my chest. I wasn’t bleeding and I didn’t feel any more battered than I had before she’d touched me, but it was clear that whatever she’d done hadn’t been as passive as it appeared.

  “You have potential, but it’s wasted,” she said, her tone distracted. I felt the pressure of her fingers change slightly as if she’d give me a scalp massage and it sent a wave of fear through me. I didn’t want to lose consciousness again, to be left completely at their mercy. I couldn’t fight, thanks to Dirk’s paralyzing bites and the aged leather pinning me to the table, but that didn’t beat back the fear of oblivion.

  “Get off me!” I tried to struggle again, not because I hoped it would help but because terror had found my rational mind and socked it right in the face. “Get away, get away!”

  The girl laughed, rolling her head up so she could meet my eyes with her chin on my chest. She watched me for a few moments, as if trying to decide if she wanted to take my order, before she shook her head.

  “I can feel your real abilities, thick like sludge below the surface of your sanity,” she said, her voice much too young, much too casual for the content. “You’re more than you will ever be, but such is the problem with so many humans. You waste what you’ve got, ignoring it rather than calling it forth and using your true power.”

  “Speaking of below the surface, may I?” Dirk asked, though he didn’t gesture or advance. The demon stayed pressed close, her eyes still on mine. Seconds passed before her expression twitched toward irritation.

  “It’s half the reason we brought her here, isn’t it?” Backing away from me, she flicked her wrist in a “go ahead” gesture. “Make it fast.”

  Dirk stepped wide around us both to crouch down by the side of the table out of view. The girl watched him for a moment before a tremor of impat
ience ran through her and she began to tap her foot. I struggled to see what Dirk was doing but my neck wouldn’t bend that far. Despite the fact that he wasn’t hurting me, that he seemed to be concentrating on something on the floor rather than planning to slit my throat, I let out a whimper. When Dirk stood abruptly and spoke, the sight of a bag of my blood in his hand turned my whimpering into a long whine.

  “Do you need me to—”

  “Get out,” the girl snapped, stomping her foot. I saw the rumblings of a tantrum in her—even though I’m usually the one throwing them, I can recognize the signs in others—though I couldn’t feel anything to back it up. I wasn’t sure if my empathy was being repressed in some way or if I just couldn’t read her.

  I racked my brain at the realization, trying to remember what I’d felt at the hotel. Had I sensed her then? I couldn’t remember. My other senses were still having trouble fighting off disorientation and I couldn’t be sure what I was or wasn’t feeling. It was rather like wondering if you’ve gone colorblind in a black and white room. I wasn’t sure if my brain was to be trusted, considering my situation.

  Dirk didn’t need to be told twice and had fled the second the first syllable was free of her lips. I heard a door open and shut and I tried to see where he’d gone, but I couldn’t strain my neck enough. Dirk was gone, I didn’t know where, and I was alone with the demon.

  I didn’t want to look at her. I wanted to shut my eyes and click my heels together and murmur, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home,” and find myself in Chloe’s bed again. I’d even take being assaulted by her cake-destroying cat over sitting here and discussing my empathy with a demon.

  Something familiar slithered through my brain, bumping a slippery shoulder against my thoughts before weaving back into the darkness. I turned to the girl, my eyes wide as the moon as I realized why I recognized the feeling.

  “Did you miss me?” she asked. “I wasn’t completely gone, but the witch was only as thorough as can be expected.”