10 Fatal Strike

by Shannon McKenna

  Her Miles.

  Energy tingled up her back. Her hands tightened to tingling fists. That cheap, no account piece of fluff . . . with Miles? As. Fucking. If.

  “Lara.” Nina had that soothe-the-mental-patient tone that was beginning to grate on her nerves. “We don’t want to upset you, but—”

  “I am fine! Stop pussyfooting around me! Yes, I was moping. I admit it. I’m sorry. I’ll stop, okay? The moping is finished!”

  Nina’s mouth hung open. “Uh . . .”

  “Sorry to yell at you, but it pissed me off. To think that alley cat has the nerve to go after him, after she lied to him and cheated on him! And me? What the fuck am I doing here, sitting on my ass? Feeling sorry for myself?”

  “Um . . . healing?” Edie offered gently.

  “I’m healed,” Lara announced. “Halleluia! Can I borrow a car from somebody?”

  There was a nervous silence. “To go where?” Nina asked.

  “To go drive up to this place in the mountains that you guys all evidently know about, but didn’t tell me for fear of upsetting poor Lara in her delicate state,” she said. “To plant the toe of my boot in that cat bitch’s swishy little ass if she even tries getting near my man.”

  Tam’s chuckle broke the stunned silence. A wad of car keys sailed up. Lara snagged them out of the air, one-handed. “Take mine,” Tam said. “Cat bitch ass-kicking is a cause that I always support. Just let me get the kids’ car seats out before you leave.”

  “Lara.” Nina looked worried. “Please, don’t go off on a tear. Just take it easy. You have to take things slow.”

  “No,” Lara said. “There’s times to take things slow, and there are times to make a move. He can turn me down if he wants to. I won’t break. I promise. I’ve been through worse. Much worse. I’ll be fine.” She looked around, and repeated it, more forcefully. “Really. Fine.”

  “Of course you will,” Nina said, sniffing.

  A chorus of reassuring echoes followed that statement.

  Lara turned to Nina. “I need to get my bag out of the trunk of your car,” she said. “I need to change.” She turned to Margot. “Could I borrow a needle and thread from you? And some makeup? And a blow dryer and a round brush?”

  “I’ll go get my sewing kit.” Margot exchanged discreetly delighted glances with the other women in the room. “Use the bathroom off the master bedroom. All my stuff is there. Help yourself.”

  Lara closed herself in the bathroom after Margot had gotten her what she needed, and stared at her reflection. She looked so pale. Fragile. And sick to death of it.

  She was done wafting around, looking wounded and ethereal. If the hell she had gone through had been good for anything, it had to have taught her that much.

  She shrugged her coat off and got down to it.

  The waiting was killing him. Weighing down on him, like a pile of broken rock. It was so hard to breathe.

  The wind off the mountain peaks was below freezing, and burning the hell out of his ears. Miles hunched down into the collar of his coat as he paced the site he’d mapped out for the house, trying to lose himself in pondering the best angle for the big picture windows.

  He’d forgotten a bunch of basic items when he loaded the camper onto the back of his pick-up to drive up here. A warm winter hat was one of them. Damn, it was cold up here. Inside and out. Body and soul, every day that he waited. It was turn-the-knife torture, knowing that Lara perceived his silence as abandonment, but every time he started to give in to the urge to go to her and drop to his knees and beg for mercy, something stony and implacable stopped him. Whispering, wait.

  He couldn’t muddy the waters now. Or he would never know if Greaves’ taunt was true, or if the guy had just been blowing smoke.

  The entire extended McCloud Crowd had been up to chastise him, one after the other, after they’d hacked his location. Probably it was the property purchase that had tipped them off. He certainly hadn’t told anyone, not even his parents. As soon as the Special Task Force types had let him walk out of there, he’d contacted a bunch of realtors. Given them his wish list, his price range. Told them he could pay in cash.

  They’d leaped to accommodate him.

  It hadn’t taken long to find the perfect place. But three days after he’d parked himself and the trailer here, his friends had begun to arrive. An unending procession of lectures about what a shithead he was, how sad and fragile Lara was, how she was losing weight, yada yada. Breaking his balls, breaking his heart. Tam had been the worst. It made her frantic, that he’d finally jettisoned Cindy and found a girl who was worth the effort, and now he was deliberately fucking it up.

  It was impossible to explain. Yeah, he was miserable. Lara was miserable, too. But she was free. Free to make a move herself, if that was what she chose. Free to feel her feelings, whatever they might be. Not a cocktail of drugs, stress, extreme circumstances. Not a result of being locked up inside his mind. No head-texting, shield swallowing, coercion or psi sleight of hand. No dirty tricks, not even plain old guilt or gratefulness, or obligation, God forbid. None of that shit.

  Just her own naked truth. One that she had to come to alone.

  He looked around at the frost-encrusted mud of the building excavation he’d begun the week before. It was the wrong time of year to start building a house. He wouldn’t pour the concrete for the foundation until spring. Even so, he didn’t want to be anywhere but up here. This place represented all his hopes for the future.

  Snowflakes blew sideways in the blustery wind, into his stinging ears. He rubbed them, and caught slight of a flash of headlights.

  He peered through the trees. A green VW Beetle. Oh, God. The last person he wanted to see, on the tail end of a very long list. Cindy.

  She drove up the long, winding driveway, and parked down in the churned, frozen mud next to his trailer. She was a garish pink spot of color in the drab greens, whites, browns, grays of the landscape as she picked her way up the rugged footpath that he was going to have to extensively landscape. Telekinesis might actually come in handy when it came time to manipulate massive stepstones of granite. Only if no one was looking, though. He tried to be rigorous about not using the psi, but every now and then, he cheated. Like with the Task Force types. He’d resisted the urge to the bitter end, but on week seven of the interrogations, he’d begun to delicately nudge those guys into deciding that he was not just harmless, but literally killing them with boredom.

  He wished he could use his psi now. He’d pick Cindy up, waft her back to her car, and spin the Beetle in mid-air until it was pointed in the correct direction. Away from him.

  But he did not do that scary, Greaves-style shit. “Hey, Cin,” he said, resigned.

  She’d just freshened up her lipstick, and her blinding smile was an alarming, shiny candy-apple red. “Hey there, big guy.”

  The flirtatious salute chilled him. She picked her way up the footpath, ankles wobbling. It was so Cindy, to wear spike-heeled dress boots into the mountains. “How’d you find me?” he asked.

  “Connor knew where you were,” she said, scrambling up onto the leveled ground with some effort.

  “And he told you?” Odd, that didn’t sound like Connor’s style.

  Cindy rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding? That guy wouldn’t tell me what time it was if my life depended on it. I snooped in his office when I was babysitting Kevvie and Maddy. There’s a big accordian file on you.”

  “Wow,” he said. “I’m touched.”

  “Yeah, don’t bother trying to keep anything secret from those dudes. They are, like, scary. So anyhow. This is your new place?” She forced enthusiasm into her voice. “Sure is . . . remote.”

  They stared out at the view for many long moments. “Two hours and forty minutes from downtown Seattle,” he said. “Not so remote.”

  “Oh, well. I guess that’s cool. As a country place.”

  “Nope,” he said. “Primary residence. No town place.”

  Cindy hugged herself,
shivering as she stared up at the fluttering snowflakes. “I thought you wanted a townhouse. In Capital Hill, or Queen Anne,” she said. “We’ve been talking about it for years.”

  “Yeah, well. You always had this tendency to confuse what I wanted with what you wanted.”

  Cindy gave him a soulful look. “I’m so sorry if I was selfish. But I’ve changed, Miles. Really.”

  Snow gusted harder. Courtesy demanded that he invite her into the trailer for a hot beverage. Courtesy be damned. Being confined in such close quarters with Cindy was beyond what he could tolerate right now. “I appreciate the apology,” he said. “But I’ve changed, too. And you shouldn’t be here.”

  She gave him that shimmering look that used to melt him, back in that other lifetime. “Miles. We’re good together. You’ve been my best friend since, like, forever.”

  “I know. But you killed it, Cin,” he said quietly. “I’ve moved on. This snow is getting thicker, and it’ll be dark in a couple of hours. You should head back right now. There’s no place for you here.”

  She sniffled. “It’s her, isn’t it? She’s the reason?”

  He didn’t feel like responding to that, so he stayed silent.

  “You’re so cold,” she whispered, forlornly. “When did you get so damned cold?”

  When I was forcibly mutated into a freak with deadly psi abilities. It almost made him laugh. It would be impossible to share what he’d become with someone like Cindy. She’d probably think it was cool, even sexy. Yeah, just ask Greaves. Phenomenal psychic power was way cool, until you went nuts with it. Started killing the people you loved.

  “Actions have consequences,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “I fucked up. No forgiveness?”

  “Of course I forgive you,” he said, more gently. “And now you should go.”

  She sniffed again. “Fine. I get it.” She took a step, caught the heel of her boot on a mud rut, and stumbled.

  He was there in a flash, catching her elbow. He helped her down over the rough part. Stepped back when they got to the straight stretch where her car was parked. That part, he’d let her go alone. Duty done.

  He called out, on impulse, as she pulled her car door open. “Cin!”

  She turned, wiping a rivulet of mascara tears from beneath her eyes. “What?” she demanded, her voice soggy.

  “Get some help,” he said.

  She stared at him. “Who do you think you are, preaching to me?”

  “I’m not preaching. I just want you to be happy.”

  “Happy?” She laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. “Get lost, Miles. You always were a condescending bastard.”

  He thought about Lara. Her regal, unshakable dignity. The thought was a keen, sharp ache in his chest. “So stop letting yourself be condescended to, Cin,” he said. “By anyone.”

  “Okay.” She gave him a tight smile. “I’ll start with you. Goodbye, and go fuck yourself.”

  “Goodbye,” he replied.

  He watched her car vanish into the trees. A knot inside him was loosening. Wow. He hadn’t known that he cared that much.

  And he really did genuinely wish her well. He wasn’t forcing it or faking it. He wished her happiness, fulfilment, peace. Dignity. That wasn’t too much to hope for an old friend, so he’d hope it.

  From a safe distance.

  That encounter had been stressful enough to warrant defrosting his ears and his fingers, so he headed into the trailer, which was not big enough for his six foot almost five inch frame. He had to hunch over like Quasimodo when he moved around the place. He turned on the space heater, put the water on, pulled out a teabag. Wondered, rather dispiritedly, if he’d better start thinking about putting fuel into his system. He’d take the time of a cup of tea to ponder his limited options.

  But the snow swirled thickly, and time dilated. He forgot to drink his tea. Just sat, staring through the small, clouded window, hypnotized by snowflakes. Until the liquid was stone cold, and too bitter to drink. He caught the faint sound of another vehicle. His heart sank. What was the point of a remote mountain lair if everybody kept parading through it to whale on him?

  He peered out the window. Tam’s Mercedes. Fuck. He was still lacerated from her last punishing visit. No time to run and hide. Just please, God, let her vehicle have snow tires, so she could leave when she was done with him. The thought of being stranded in a snowstorm in a trailer with Tam Steele for an extended period of time—well, shit. Soul-shaking dread would not be stating the matter too strongly.

  Man up, dude. He struggled into the coat, hunching down to shimmy his big frame through the door. Crunched heavy boots along the frosty ruts and pine needles to greet his latest uninvited guest—

  And stopped, mouth agape.

  It was Lara. She wore a long, green wool coat that hit her almost at the ankles, giving her an old-fashioned, nineteenth-century look. Pale white hands peeped at the bottom of cuffed sleeves. No gloves, no hat.

  Holy God. He remembered her beautiful, but not this beautiful.

  He stared, openmouthed. She’d done something to her hair, loosening the fuzzy dark waves into swirly silken ringlets. And makeup. That was it. She was wearing a little makeup, and he’d never seen it on her, except in photographs.

  The bottom of his world dropped out. His insides swooshed, in free-fall. He tried to say her name. His throat had thickened into cement. He coughed. “Lara,” he said. “You look beautiful.”

  Her swift, mysterious smile did something intense and uncontrollable to his glands.

  “Thank you,” she said demurely. “I primped.

  “You were always beautiful, but now . . . but wow.”

  She ran, lightfooted and swift, up the footpath in her practical lace-up climbing boots, and stopped a few feet from him. Close enough to smell. Her scent was life itself. Spring, rain, sea foam, and earth—and loam and honey and blooming flowers. And sex.

  “I expected to find Cindy here,” she said.

  It was weirdly discordant to hear Cindy’s name from her lips. Cindy inhabited a whole different layer of earthly existence. “Uh, she was,” he confessed. “Been and gone. What about her?”

  Her beautiful smile flashed again. “Is that so? I’m almost disappointed. To think that I wore my heavy boots up here on purpose.”

  He floundered for the through-line. “Boots? What purpose?”

  “For the ass-kicking,” Lara explained. “Cindy had wicked designs on you. I objected to them. We even had a catfight, in front of all of your friends. Shame you missed it. Ever had two girls fight over you before?”

  “Ah . . . no,” he said, bemused. “Can’t say as I have.”

  “It’s something to see,” she told her. “Tam loved it.”

  “Wow.” A crazy grin was starting to pull at his mouth. “You mean, like, a hair pulling, clawing, screaming kind of catfight?”

  “Yup,” she said. “A total bitch-slapping smackdown.”

  “Jesus.” He blinked, bemused. “I’m surprised she didn’t say anything about it.”

  There was a silence. Twitchy and embarrassed on his part. Sphinx-like, inscrutable calm upon hers.

  “So,” she said finally, taking pity on him. “How are you doing with the psi?”

  He shrugged. “It’s irrelevant. If I had, say, the power to heal the sick, then I might feel called upon to use it for the good of humanity, but coercion and telekinesis? Not so much. I don’t get off on bullying people, and I do okay lifting and throwing stuff with my regular muscles, so I’m mothballing it. I have better things to do with myself.”

  Like spending the rest of my life worshipping you. His eyes moved over her, hungrily.

  “Did you use the coercion when you were proving your innocence?” she asked.

  He hesitated. “I didn’t need it to prove my innocence,” he hedged. “The recording was enough, and Levine and Silva did the rest.”

  “What about Levine and Silva? Did you coerce them?”

  Miles sighed. “
Nah. Not really. I did tell them to tell the truth or else I’d make their eyeballs explode before the cops came, but that was just old-fashioned threatening. I didn’t mind-flog them.”

  “Ah.” She folded her arms over her chest. “And later?”

  “Later,” he said, heavily. “Yeah, I used it a little, later. Sorta kinda. Not a lot. The recording freaked people out. They needed some help to conclude it was just Greaves’ megalomania and crazy talk. That I was just playing along with him. I didn’t do any hard-core coercion, though. I just nudged them a little. You know, to drive home how totally boring and harmless I was.”

  “Right,” she murmured. “You. Harmless.” She took a step closer. Her skin glowed, luminously pale. Pearly. A forest dryad come to beguile and enthrall him. Making him thick and helpless and stupid.

  He struggled to stay sharp. “You are messing with me.”

  “Oh, Miles,” she said softly. “I have not even begun to mess with you.”

  He lost his whole train of thought in her luminous gaze, and had to struggle to recover it. “Should I be afraid?”

  She considered that for a long moment. “It depends on what you say to me in the next few minutes.”

  “Oh, God.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, and when he lifted them she was still there. Still real. “Fine. Okay. Hit me.”

  She crossed her arms across her chest, lifted her chin. “Why did you abandon me?”

  It was a blow right to the chest. He caught his breath, blurted out the first brainless thing that popped into his head. “I was incarcerated?”

  She batted that away, impatient. “Don’t be annoying. I mean after, and you know it. You ran away from me. You kept the Citadel closed. Why?” Her voice rang, clear and challenging. Snowflakes settled on the gleaming swirls of her hair and did not melt. One was poised on the tip of her long eyelashes. She flicked it away, waiting.

  Oh, man. With all the times that he’d been forced to defend his unpopular decisions to the McCloud Crowd, he still hadn’t found adequate words to explain or justify them.