Wasn’t she supposed to be doing something? Leaving. Yes, she was supposed to be leaving. She screwed on her impassive face and stretched out her limbs. They were stiff but fine except for the aching. The ache that centered in her chest and spread through her whole body. It had to be from sitting tied the way she was. And struggling to get free. That was the only explanation. Her skin was not screaming for his touch.
Not at all. And she wanted to be free. Of him.
She felt the pain because there were no bruises. There were never any bruises and the pain would be gone in a few hours. Her head felt much better too. Good, she was back in business. Back in control. She looked across to where her um, er captor sat and tried to figure out why he looked so… hurt.
Four
Looking for a man shouldn’t have been this hard. After all, men were everywhere. Iya went from bar to lounge and even tried to hit a 25-and-over club in her search for a good older man for her best friend. At first, she thought she found some winners. They were all smart, good-looking and well mannered. At first glance, the criteria should have been enough.
But this was Dae. Iya’s best friend, her family she should say, and Dae deserved the best. If Iya was into older men, any of the candidates she pre-selected would have been great. But, again, this was Dae.
Candidate number 1: Jeremy, 34, tallish –about 5 9’ in her guesstimation– tan but clearly Caucasian. Smart but not the know it all type, warm green eyes behind intelligent looking spectacles. He had a handsome face, with a lightly toned body. Unfortunately, Iya had to guess what kind of frame Dae liked in a man; the girl never showed interest in any, from the lean to the buff. He had a calm soothing voice that made a person want to relax and take it easy.
He was her first choice; she could actually see Dae with him –for about 10 minutes.
Then Iya saw what Dae would see: tall, boring, normal, dumb as a sign post because he wasn’t fooling anybody that that tan came from somewhere other than the salon. It was still lounging on the cold side for a Michigan May even though the day had been warm enough for shorts. And that’s saying something.
If there was one thing the great state of Michigan did well, it was cold. She knew Dae would notice that immediately. Jersey shore cracks would ensue. ‘GTL’ and ‘cabs are here’ shouts would be the just the beginning, Maybe Dae would even fist pump. Then she’d go for the Harry Potter-esc frames. No, Dae didn’t have anything against people with vision problems specifically –only if they didn’t go away when she wanted them to go away– but if you picked your frames out to resemble the young wizard’s, she’d go after you like a bloodhound with a scent. She would abruptly shout ‘brilliant’ or ‘blimey’ in a British accent or point at random people swearing that ‘He who must not be named’ was after him and he needed to ‘run Harry!’. And then Jeremy would run.
Candidate number 2: Seymore, 36, average height, just over Dae’s 5 feet 5 inches, with a caramel complexion –Iya wanted to say he was Spanish but with a name like Seymore… Also smart, funny, dark brown eyes, pretty face –but not too pretty– with a dimple in his chin, muscled with a broad chest, with a severely deep gravelly voice. Then Iya looked again and saw what Dae would see: somebody to pick on. Dae wouldn’t be interested in him whatsoever once she heard his name. Once she heard him say his name. Dae’s initial reaction would be ‘Smoke much?’. Dae would bypass the good looks, great personality and body. Iya could picture Dae, asking him repeatedly ‘What’s your name again?’ so he could say ‘Seymore’. ‘Butz’ or ‘Balls’ would come fast after. If he was a good sport, he’d laugh but Dae wouldn’t give up until he was running far away from her. Dae could be really mean when she wanted to be, which was most of the time.
If it was only Dae being childish, Iya could work with that. But she knew Dae wasn’t childish. She didn’t think her best friend had even tried to be a child, would have even tried if there was someone to give her the chance. Iya knew Dae’s scars were deep and festering. She saw it in every shift of Dae’s body when someone got casually close or when they were in a crowd. The girl measured every possibility for attack, no matter where they went. Iya saw it in the way she scanned places for contingency plans to escape. She tried to help her friend without allowing Dae to know she was trying to help her.
Smart, Iya thought. Later, Iya realized how stupid that plan was.
She brought Dae to church, hoping Dae would feel the love and protection Iya always felt inside those blessed walls. The closeness to the Lord. That was the first time she ever got her to go and the only time she ever went. After she forcibly dragged Dae to a pew while she went on and on about the ridiculousness of having no windows, the catholic hypocrisy of the persecutions of homosexuals, the homosexuals who hide behind the cassock, the probability that the Holy Mother wasn’t as full of virtue as ‘they’d’ like everyone to believe… Let’s just say Father Morrigan didn’t appreciate Dae’s comments, especially since they echoed around to the whole congregation. Iya didn’t think Father Morrigan would forgive her anytime soon.
Dae was very smug when they were asked to leave. In fact, the girl was practically spitting sunshine once they were out of there. She wished it was due to how close Dae felt to the Lord, but Iya knew better. Dae was happy to be out the church because, in her opinion, there weren’t enough ways to escape.
She wondered what her friend, her sister, felt the need to escape from. She’d never asked her; never made a point to let Dae know she saw the little things Dae did. If Dae had something to say, she would talk. She was just like that. No matter how bad and loud the nightmares got for Dae, in the morning she pushed forward without a word as if it was just another day. Iya admired her strength. She just wished one day that her friend wouldn’t have to lug around that suit of armor all the time.
Iya dismissed the other candidates just as quickly. She was getting good at the ‘What would Dae do?’ scenarios. She sighed. She didn’t know if that should have made her worried or pleased.
Her seat at the bar gave her a full view of the entire room behind her through the mirror on the wall. Dae liked places like those. Dae wasn’t a party girl, but when she did go out, she made sure they went to places that were ‘good’. It took Iya a while to realize ‘good’ didn’t mean popular or appealing, it meant having multiple exits, few booths, and for some odd reason multiple pool tables. Iya couldn’t figure out why having multiple pool tables would make a difference, but there were many things that boggled the mind where her friend was concerned.
Iya was still nursing the same beer she had a half hour ago, which wasn’t unusual because she wasn’t a drinker. The only reason Iya had ordered a beer was because she couldn’t sit at the bar without ordering something to drink. And drinking something non-alcoholic would have made the whole ‘picking up guys’ for her best friend much harder. Some people find it strange to see someone sitting at the bar not getting plastered.
Although there were never many propositions when she was at the Roadhouse. Men seemed to give her –and Dae– a wide berth. Sometimes Iya thought that was strange but life was strange. Iya still had to live no matter how odd things might be.
She shrugged her shoulders at that thought and rolled her neck to loosen the kinks.
Through the mirror she saw two guys sitting in one of the booths along the back in the corner. One had his back to her, his shoulders the only part not blocked out by the booth seat, and the other sat on the opposing side, allowing him the whole room to view. That guy –number two– was seated leaning back with his arms over the back of the booth. Iya didn’t know why they caught her eye, out of everybody there. The bar was pretty crowded so, really, she shouldn’t have noticed them. She shouldn’t have felt the start of fear in her stomach as she concentrated on number two’s face in the mirror.
She realized she had seen him before and not in a recognizing ‘hey, I know that guy from campus’ kind of way. She saw him in the ‘he’s been everywhere I’ve been’ kind of way. Tonight especially.
He was at the last two bars and was even in line at the 25-and-over spot she couldn’t get into because she was only 22. It could be a coincidence. Maybe they were bar hoppers, looking for the best place to have a good time and leaving before they got bored. It was possible.
If Dae could have heard her now, she’d kick Iya for being so naïve. ‘It’s a slippery slope from acknowledging coincidence to being an oblivious ass’ Dae would say. Dae was the conspiracy theorist; she looked at coincidence with careful speculation. She would say ‘if it looks like shit, and smells like shit, it ain’t no freaking duck.’ Lord, her friend said many strange things that just started making sense to her at that moment.
First, she had to stop staring at the guy she knew hadn’t taken his eyes off her back since she sat. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. She was in a public place, which meant she was safe enough. The safety would be gone if she hightailed it out of there. Number two would notice and since she had no idea what number one looked like, she could be herded right into his lap.
Bad metaphor, bad scary metaphor!
Iya took another deep breath. She could call a cab from her seat.
Thank the Lord in Heaven for Dae’s silver-tongue, Iya thought. Iya would have never committed to a cell phone if she wasn’t sure they could afford it but Dae had a way of talking her into things she normally wouldn’t do otherwise.
Outside was full of smokers, as most bars were since the legislation was passed that banned smoking inside, so she wouldn’t be alone. Somebody would notice if she was taken. A simple plan. It could work, if it wasn’t crazier than that cross-eyed man who tried to feed sticks to possums. The plan hinged on the possibility that the bad guys would care if anyone saw her being taken, that there were people outside the bar to see her being taken, and that the people outside weren’t so drunk that they would actually care that she was taken. The odds did not seem to be in her favor enough for her to take any of those chances.
She kept glancing at the spot on the mirror to see if her new stalker friends had moved. They didn’t. Number two was still sitting there, watching her. Great. She’d wished this was an overreaction, that in the time it took to come up with one crappy plan that he wouldn’t be staring at her any longer. She wished the panic wasn’t setting in, telling her to run. She wished that in honoring her parents’ wishes she wasn’t left vulnerable. She’d also wished that she knew jujitsu or taekwondo so she could kick their butts if they tried anything.
And most of all she wished she had believed Dae earlier. Lord, Dae said the strangest things sometimes. How could she tell when Dae was being serious or just setting her up for some insane joke?
A whispering bounced around her head like a bad check. And unfortunately for her it wasn’t a multiple personality; it was one of the gifts her parents gave her. They had had many gifts they passed down to her, most of which made Iya feel special so she cherished them. To Iya they were little bits of her parents that she could hold on to when she feared she would forget how much they loved her. She didn’t use all of them, didn’t try to master them as she aged into adulthood either. She abided by her parents wishes, using only the ones they decided were ‘safe’ so she didn’t expose herself… No matter how much she may disagree after all these years.
Some she had been ignoring so long it was like they were turned off. She wasn’t even sure if she could remember how to turn them back on again.
But there were gifts she couldn’t turn off. And she tried.
*Waiting…*
This particular gift? Iya wouldn’t hesitate selling and would throw in a Magic Bullet for free. The whispering in her head –which she called her stupid-sense– always came at the strangest times and never made a lick of sense. It walked around her brain like a slinky going down the stairs until it tired itself out. It was vague and unclear 99.99999% of the time. The few times it was comprehensible, it came too late to do any good. She was lucky if it affirmed her own suspicions. Most of the time it left her more confused than she was before its intrusions.
Sort of like now. Was she supposed to be waiting for something or were Number One and Number Two waiting for her? There were many different scenarios running through her mind besides the gift that made her want to pull out her hair, all of them almost wholly reliant on ‘what if’s’ and ‘maybe’s’. She thought about telling the bartender and possibly the police, but that would have been a bad idea. Her creepy stalker friends didn’t do anything at all but sit, and last time she checked, sitting in a bar was not an arrest able offence. Plus the bartender –who was not Raphael tonight and who didn’t like her all that much– and police would think she was a lunatic and her stalker friends could then disappear. As much as she wanted them to vanish from reality altogether, that would also be a bad, bad thing. At least she could see where they were now. That could work in her favor. That meant that while she could see them sitting, watching her, they weren’t lurking in the shadows where she least expected it.
Good luck happens when preparedness meets opportunity. At least that’s what one of her professors had said during a lecture. Dae said he was full of bull-crap. Iya had never put his theory to test.
Crap, she didn’t want to now!
Oh God in Heaven, as she was there, worrying about what she was going to do, she hadn’t even thought about what Dae was doing. She popped out her cell and hit the speed dial.
Ringing, ringing, ringing… She heard a click and got so excited she almost fell off the stool! That was until she heard the ‘voicemail lady’ telling her to leave a message. For the love of all that’s Holy!
She hoped Dae was safe at home, just ignoring her calls because Dae was mad. That was definitely something Dae would do, that girl could hold a grudge like Atlas held up the sky.
She tried to call a few more times but got the ‘voicemail lady’ again. Man, if there ever was a voice to hate… She scrolled her contact list. During the morning while she signed up for classes, she made sure to program everybody’s number in her new phone. She was hitting the M’s when she came across a number that had her halt.
She wasn’t supposed to have this number. He’d slipped it to her while she was dragging Dae away. He knew Dae hated him, but he still came around and put up with all the insults just to talk to Iya.
Iya thought that took backbone. A lesser men would have given up. Not him. He was persistent and Iya really liked that in a man. She really liked him, period. Dae was right before, Iya wouldn’t use him for a booty call. But she could be careful. Careful could have been Iya’s middle name.
If she was really careful, he might not take her heart. Iya was super careful as she called the really good-looking, muscular man to pick her up at the bar to bring her home. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed that her stalker friends hadn’t budged from their seat. She dialed and waited for her knight in shining Abercrombie to pick up. He would pick up. She felt it.
“Hello?”
Koda felt his body scream for her. It screamed for him to keep touching her, to get those really short shorts off her and take her. She was his mate. His mate. Somehow she was his; her and her wolf. His wolf growled at the absence of what he considered his. The man wanted to rub her body all over him. Or the man growled at the absence of what he considered his and the wolf wanted to rub her all over him. He could no longer decipher who wanted what.
She did that to him. She made the man and the wolf agree. There’d never been such a complete agreement between the two. The wolf was instinctual, a hunter. He thought in the present, the future was lost to him. Only the needs and urges of the now mattered. The man was logical. He had to think about the present and the future. Always planning. The man had to be in control. The wolf could be as rabid as any wild wolf and he would be a danger if let loose. If he’d let his wolf have his way, he would be claiming her into next week. The wolf screamed with a savage need for his mate. The man echoed the need but knew that first he had to win her over.
She feared him. Koda had to
get her to trust him, to open up to him. He needed her. He knew it wouldn’t be easy but he couldn’t do anything else but fight for her. She was too important. The sun and the moon no longer held meaning for him. All there was, all there would ever be, was her. He’d just have to get her to understand that.
Koda sent a prayer to the Great Creator… Ga li `e li `ga, I am thankful.
Her wolf knew who they were to each other, but the woman was another story. She needed to be in control as much as the man did. But something was off inside, her wolf was strangled, so much strangled he could barely smell her underneath the woman. He wondered what could have happened to do that. Hybrids, though not as common place as they were after the Great War, could shift. They smelled like shifters. They tended to be smaller wolves, but it hadn’t made a difference.
None of the Tribe could say they had no human in them. Before the Great War, they only mated with other shifters. As their race grew in number, the human mating stopped. Or so his Tribe thought. She was proof, had to be proof, of otherwise. He wondered about her parents…
She stood up and stretched out slowly. He couldn’t help stare at her as her arms rose over her head, her tank top sliding up an inch, exposing the vulnerable skin of her stomach.
“So, this has been…” she paused and looked at the ropes she was bound with a few seconds before she continued, “Pretty fucked up. Can’t say I want to do it again.” She walked backwards towards the door.
“Wait, let me walk you home.” He was already up and next to her in the time it took her to glare at his right ear. Not his eyes. She hadn’t looked in his eyes again. That was bugging him. He liked when she looked at him.
“No.” It was said with such finality he had to fight to not snarl back at her. That wouldn’t help him. Only logic would.
“No? I saved you from being attacked; it’s not safe for a woman to walk alone at night–”
Lost & Found (A Lost Ones Novel Book 1) Page 7