by RJ Blain
“No. Of course I’m not happy.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Is this where we have a spectacular fight?” my ex asked in a mild tone.
“Will one make you go away and leave me alone?”
“Probably not. I was stupid, I was hurt, and I knew everything would be different in five years. I shouldn’t have quit you the way I did. That was wrong. You deserved better than that.”
“But you still would have quit.”
“What was I supposed to do? Wait five years? For what? At that point, you’d become someone who’d never be accepted back into society. Horn Lake isn’t that big of a place, and news like that spreads fast. If you had told the truth, everything would have been different.”
I could only see one way out of the discussion I didn’t want, and I faced it down despite the growing tightness in my chest. “Do you think I haven’t already thought of that? Two years, Kennedy. That’s how long I was completely isolated from the world, all because someone—probably my mother—made certain it was recorded I wasn’t fully human and had a sight talent.”
“I had wondered about that. You never told me you had a sight talent. I had no idea until the sentencing.”
“Well, now you know.”
“Not specifically, just that it’s hereditary according to your file.”
“Fine. You want to know the truth? I was glad I killed that asshole. He loved nothing more than listening to women scream when he raped them. That’s what I saw. Maybe I hadn’t meant to kill him like that, but after what I saw what I did, he wasn’t leaving that alley alive. So I’m just as bad as you thought I was then.”
“The testimonies made it rather clear he liked when his victims fought. It’s becoming quite the sensation. A convicted murderer, released after a two-year sentence was deemed cruel and unusual punishment, is exonerated following the testimony of a single witness who reported, with an audience of two angels, that you had taken action in defense of another. Then other victims stepped forward and backed the first woman. The man you killed used to have a good reputation—not anymore. And thus a local villain becomes a hero overnight as the true circumstances of the case are revealed, proving the court system is not, as many like to think, without flaw. The new villains, the ones not being reported in any of the papers, are then left stewing in their own guilt—as they had in silence following the initial release, which had made the local papers, as the cruel and unusual punishment verdict was verified by angels. Why is it there are so many of angelic blood interested in you, Reed?”
With my leg protesting standing on it, I sank to the ground, not caring how muddy I got. I suspected the downed plane would serve as a rain break as soon as someone verified the whole thing wouldn’t go up in a big ball of flame. “What’s this? My file didn’t reveal the secrets of the universe?”
Kennedy sat beside me and hugged her knees to her chest. “You’re human, so it’s considered classified information. I have authorization to look, but I’d rather hear it from you.”
“I’m not quite a third human.” The thunder boomed while the lightning crashed, shaking the ground with its fury, illuminating the field and the plane in its blue-white glow. I blinked the spots from my eyes and muttered a curse at its intensity. Then I chuckled a bit at the absurdity of the situation, right down to having been in a plane crash the third time in my life I’d ever taken a flight anywhere. “If we were wise, we’d go find a ditch to chill out in until the storm passes.”
“In the eyes of the law, you’re still human.” She hesitated a moment, reached over, and gave my sleeve a tug. “Why would you want to go hide in ditch?”
I pointed at the plane. “Tallest object. Lightning likes striking big objects made of metal. Science 101.”
Cursing, Kennedy scrambled to her feet. “Reed, you asshole!”
“What? It’s the truth.”
“Does it look like there’s a ditch anywhere near here?” she hissed.
I glanced in the direction of the other passengers, grateful the storm hid their eyes from mine—and that they couldn’t hear us arguing over the storm. “I was mostly joking. You want to go hide in a ditch now, don’t you?”
“In a word, yes. Getting hit by lightning or exploding plane shrapnel is not my idea of a good time.”
“You’ve been watching disaster films, haven’t you?”
“Reed.”
Pleased at having nettled her, I took a good look around, sighed, and shook my head. “All right. Fine. There’s probably a ditch edging the field somewhere; often is, but it’s not my problem if it’s flooding.”
“I’d rather drown than be struck by lightning or sucked up in a tornado, spit out, and pulverized.”
I thought of the churning clouds overhead and decided it probably wasn’t a wise idea to tell her those kind of clouds could, at nature’s whim, produce twisters. “What about the others?”
“They can find their own ditch if they want one.”
I frowned, risking a glance in her direction. Facing the plane, her expression had turned sour, not from anger but likely fear. In the time I’d known her, I hadn’t thought she feared anything. Then again, we’d both been born and bred in Mississippi, and when storms blew in from the sea, she was among the first to evacuate when the going got rough.
Now I knew why, and it amused a smile at me. Kennedy Young wasn’t as invincible as I’d once thought, and that somehow made the whole absurd idea of being stuck with her a little easier to bear.
Instead of a ditch, I found a gully, one deep enough we’d have trouble getting out of it once we got in. I found a few trees, too, and I gave them a wide berth in case the sky took offense to their existence and blasted them apart with lightning.
“Maybe this was a dumb idea,” Kennedy confessed, creeping a little closer to my side. No matter how many times I’d put a few feet of distance between us, she closed the distance as though afraid I’d get blown away in the next stiff breeze. The wind was more likely to knock me over than blow me away, but without any idea of where we were—or if we were in tornado country—I decided there was a bit of wisdom to sticking close together, especially with night falling.
Indiana wasn’t a hotbed of tornado activity, although we saw a few days a year where nature had a hissy fit and decided the state needed a few to keep things lively. So instead of scooting away from her as I’d done the rest of our walk, I kept an eye on her.
Next time, I’d remember to keep my eyes on the ground, especially when near a gully. My foot slipped, I hit the mud hard, and slid down the slope to splash into stream below, yelping at the intimate introduction to every last rock on the way down. At half a foot deep, I wasn’t at any real risk of drowning, which was a good thing. My duffel bag went down with me, and since I hadn’t tenderized myself enough for its satisfaction, it hit me in the face.
“Reed!” My ex slid her way down on her heels, stumbling the last few steps before splashing to her knees beside me. “You all right?”
“How the hell can you do that in those shoes?” I demanded, pointing at the offensive heels, which by some miracle hadn’t broke and were still on her feet. “What happened to wearing practical sneakers, anyway?”
“I was at a meeting when we got the call you’d been found. Didn’t have time to change before I got on my flight. I’ve been told sneakers aren’t acceptable business appropriate apparel.” She shook her head. “Be serious. You all right?”
“I’ve had better days.” I got my elbows beneath me and shoved upright, groaning as my back protested the motion. “I’m pretty sure this isn’t what the doctor ordered.”
“Plane crashes and subsequent falls into ditches typically aren’t.”
“I’d call this more of a gully or a ravine.”
“Same difference.”
Instead of arguing with her, I got to my feet, dripping rain and mud. I retrieved my bag, glad all of my medications had come in sealed bottles; unless my luck turned really sour, they w
ouldn’t be ruined. “Let’s find a place to wait this out. Ideally, we’ll find a spot with some coverage about halfway up.”
I pointed at the slope. I’d fallen at least twenty feet, although I considered myself fortunate. The flashes of lightning exposed other sections of the ravine with a lot more rocks. If the area was anything like Gypsum Creek, the looser soil would be at risk of crashing down in a mudslide.
“Flash floods,” Kennedy muttered. “We’ve landed in hell.”
“I always thought hell would be a lot dryer, truth be told.” I held my hand out and cast a doubtful look at the stormy sky. “Leaving the crash site was probably stupid.”
“Probably?” Grumbling curses, Kennedy trudged out of the water and followed the shore, examining the slope. “I should have thought that through better. What am I looking for?”
“Rock outcropping should do, with a bit of space beneath it. Enough to keep the rain off—and hail.”
“Hail?” Kennedy squeaked, whirling to face me.
I focused on her chest, which was a mistake. The rain plastered her blouse to her, and in glow of the frequent lightning strikes, I got a good look right through the white material at the lacy bra beneath. I shifted my gaze to her shoulder, which was still covered by her blazer jacket. “Happens during bad storms sometimes.”
“You’re serious.”
Since I couldn’t quite seem to stop sneaking peeks at her chest, I turned so I wouldn’t look at her at all, limping out of the stream to help search for a suitable spot to camp out until the storm passed. “Yeah, I’m serious. Hail’s nasty, and I’d rather not get hit in the head with it.”
“Isn’t hail just like hard snow? It’s just ice pellets, right?”
I decided against telling her hail liked showing up right before a tornado spawned and made a circle with my thumb and finger. “Sure. In a bad blow, they can get this big—or bigger.”
“Holy shit.” Kennedy shook her head. “Nope. I refuse to believe in golf ball sized hail.”
My laugh escaped before I stopped it. “You’re really scared of storms, aren’t you?”
In true Kennedy fashion, the woman stooped down, grabbed a handful of mud, and flung it at me.
Chapter Eight
The outcropping Kennedy found was a recipe for disaster. While it met all of my criteria, one problem stared me in the face. While it would offer a certain amount of shelter from the rain and wind, if we both wanted to benefit from it, we’d have to get close and personal to fit. After three years of whoring myself out to any woman who wanted a fling, I didn’t think too much about naked women.
Kennedy in her soaked business attire reminded me just how beautiful a woman she was, something I had worked hard to forget. Huddling with her in such close quarters meant trouble for me—a lot of it. A panic attack I could deal with—I didn’t like them, but I knew what to expect.
The shelter, such as it was, represented a lot of uncharted waters.
I glared at the sky and its roiling, spinning clouds before trudging my way up the slope. Large rocks offered handholds and better footing than I expected.
Kennedy ducked into the opening, making a pleased sound. “It’s pretty dry under here. Will this do?”
I cursed under my breath and took a closer look at the spot, which was a bit larger than I had initially thought. While we’d have to get a bit cozier with each other than I liked, we wouldn’t be crawling all over each other to fit. “It’ll do,” I confirmed, sliding inside. With a little work, we could even stretch out while waiting for the storm to go by. The angle of the stone kept most of the wind and rain out, too.
Settling into my half of the niche, I closed my eyes and practiced breathing. Pretending Kennedy wasn’t there wouldn’t help for long. She would open her mouth soon enough and remind me of her presence. All I had to do was avoid looking at her until her blouse dried off.
Remembering how attractive I found her hadn’t factored into any of my plans and did a disgustingly good job of short circuiting my anger. I had more reasons than I could readily count to be angry and hurt. Yet one little thunderstorm, a little rain, and a white top undermined me in far too many ways.
“Reed?”
Under no circumstances would I indulge in any form of temptation with my ex. I kept telling myself that until I almost believed it. I couldn’t even blame the plane crash, adrenaline, and the excuse that such things often happened in life or death situations. “What?”
“Rain isn’t supposed to plop,” she whispered.
I listened, and sure enough, instead of the patter and splashes of heavy rainfall, in the lulls between the thunder, something hard smacked into wet, thick mud. I cracked open an eye, leaned forward, and peered down. Sure enough, chunks of hail hammered the ground. “And that would be the hail.”
Hail hurt, and I grimaced at the thought of anyone caught out under it. At least the other passengers, if wise, would take shelter beneath the plane. The plops intensified to a drumming so intense the ground shook from the barrage.
Kennedy pressed close to me, and when she leaned forward for a better look, I slapped my arm against her shoulders and shoved her back. “Not a good idea.”
“Okay. Why not?’
“Don’t stick your head out from the cover of the rock if you’re going to watch.” I showed her, leaning forward as much as I dared without being at risk of being clunked in the head with a hail ball. “One of the larger ones can punch a hole through a windshield.”
“Holy shit.” Kennedy scrambled back. “Curiosity is sated. Why is it hailing?”
“I’m not sure I should answer that question.”
“Reed, why is it hailing?”
“Do you still watch those disaster films you like so much?”
“Maybe.”
I interpreted that to mean yes. “Do the math.”
She was silent for a long moment, then she cursed me, starting tame and working her way through every profanity in English, and when she started rambling nonsense, I rubbed my temples. A headache brewed from a blend of the storm’s incessant thunder and her foul mouth, although I cracked a smile at her suggestion of where she’d shove a unicorn’s horn if given half a chance.
All grinning did was encourage her.
“Forget the horn, I’ll shove the whole damned thing up your smug ass, Reed Hampton Matthews!”
Game over—or on, depending how I looked at it. An entirely unwilling laugh burst out of me. “You’re really scared of thunderstorms.”
“This is not a thunderstorm. It’s a natural disaster. One where we get sucked up into a tornado, spit out, ground to paste, and killed.”
“Tenderized by hail first.”
“Your file lied to me. It claims you have no sense of humor, avoid other humans, and otherwise lay low, with a notation you might spend the weekends away from home. I’m not sure about that, since no one can figure out where your home is. That was something your co-workers said, that you sometimes mentioned you spent the weekends out. No one knows much, though.”
I was starting to dislike the frequent mentions of my file, in part because there never seemed to be anything positive about me in it. “I have a sense of humor.”
“Really, Reed?” Kennedy snorted. “You used to find things amusing, you used to laugh regularly enough, but you’ve never really had a defined sense of humor.”
“I deliberately gave someone I didn’t like my kitten along with instructions on how to feed her. I planned this so the kitten would grace the other end of the office with her rather potent stench. I think that’s evidence I have a sense of humor.”
“What did that poor woman ever do to you anyway? When I saw her, she was puking into a trash can. And yes, I met your kitten, and yes, she truly smells that awful.”
“She was pissy I wasn’t cherry picking the good contracts for her.” I shrugged. “Office politics. She wants to look good for my boss’s boss’s boss, who is the CEO. That means performing well in her cell group, which I m
anage. Since office pranks are frowned upon, I had to get creative. When I discovered my kitten truly wanted to destroy the world through her litter box use, I thought my kitten-loving boss would like meeting her. Then opportunity knocked because Dani liked my kitten. She looked so interested in my kitten. I was just giving her what she wanted.”
“I never thought you’d end up in management in any form. I always thought you’d be crunching numbers in analytics.”
“My doctors thought it’d be good for me to work in negotiations, as it forced me to interact with people.”
“They said solitary confinement had been hard on you.”
I closed my eyes, leaned back against the rock, and sighed. I assumed she meant my doctors, but I wasn’t certain. “Who, exactly, is they?”
“The CDC; their file on you is a bit more complete than the FBI’s, which essentially informed us you were an angel with a bad case of misfortune. Some of your information is sealed, mostly relating to your specific genetics. The CDC’s file is related to your release and the corrections to your criminal record—which has been overturned and classified as a case of accidental death, in case you were curious.”
Kennedy watched me, and I was careful to avoid meeting her gaze. “Perhaps a better question is why the CDC gave you, my ex, that information.”
“I was specifically requested because of our relationship. Since you were refusing to acknowledge any communications, official or otherwise, stamped from Mississippi, the CDC requested individuals who had known you prior to your incarceration. Long story short, I was called in and asked to review your file. I was actually in Indiana investigating a different matter in the same company, but since you aren’t entirely human, you fell under my jurisdiction.” She sighed. “Did you really hide under your boss’s desk to avoid me?”
Damn it. I should have known she had found out about that. “It was either that or have a panic attack and pass out on his floor.”