by Gillian Zane
“You have that smell again…”
“I showered this morning.” I crossed my arms over my chest. Why did he always have to comment on how I smelled?
“It’s not a bad smell. What did you just do? Did you spray on perfume?”
“No, I loaded my bags in the back. Maybe it’s my sweat. I’ve been told my natural aroma could be bottled it’s so good.” It was my turn to smirk.
“You’ve been told,” he repeated.
“Yes, a few people, actually,” I lied.
“Interesting,” he replied as he started the engine and backed out of his spot, having to go out the back entrance since the texting girl was blocking the main path.
“You really didn’t do anything? Or spray something?”
“No, really, why?”
“You smell, I don’t know. The only thing I can compare it to is the reivku. You smell just like that.”
We lapsed into an uncomfortable silence when he pulled onto the interstate. I was keenly aware of the wary glances he shot my way every now and again. I didn’t know where to put my hands, or what to do with my legs. I wanted to kick off my shoes and fold my legs underneath me, but in my skirt, that would be inappropriate.
As the miles stretched behind us, the silence was almost a living entity between us. It swirled and eddied around us. I could feel the tension emanating off him. And while the vibe between us was uncomfortable, it was also charged and exciting. I couldn’t process it. I was aware of every movement he made. Each squeeze of the steering wheel I watched as his knuckles whitened and I saw the shift of his legs in his seat as his slacks stretched over his thighs.
I pulled out my phone and glanced at the time, only thirty minutes had passed. This was going to be the longest trip in the world. I wished he would turn on the radio or something. I reached for the radio just as he did the same and our hands came in contact, my fingers trailing over the back of his hand. He sucked in an audible breath. I felt a pull as if our energies were mixing together.
He looked at me in shock, he had felt it too. His cheeks were flushed and the look in his eyes did not promote platonic feelings.
I slapped at the on button on the radio controller and hip-hop blared out of the speakers at top volume. Drake fumbled with the volume controls until it was a bearable decibel and we both laughed nervously. Hell of an ice breaker.
“Guess I’m statically charged,” I covered for the weird energy exchange, even though it didn’t feel like static electricity. And I was pretty sure Drake didn't think so either.
“You should probably avoid power lines,” he added as he fell in line with the cover-up.
“You know, it might be hard, but I’ll try.” And like that, the tension faded. Nothing like a little casual denial to tamp down the awkwardness. It also helped that my nervousness led to the urge to blab, and with the issue of Lori Kay weighing on my mind, I had something I could blab about. So I began to tell Drake all about what happened to me as an employee of the Butterfield Agency.
“You don’t have a good track record with jobs. You’re going to have to let me find you your next job. I think it was a good idea to walk out. If I were you, I wouldn't have returned after the Phillip incident. If I could get my hands around that guy's neck, the damage I would do.”
“I can only imagine the job you would hook me up with,” I laughed, ignoring his violent comment. Would he do that because Philip hurt me, or just in general?
“What does that mean?” He glanced at me before returning his eyes to the road.
“You seem…whatever, never mind.” I was flustered thinking about Drake coming to my rescue in an epic act of vengeance.
“Now I’m going to have to find a new job for you, challenge accepted.” I shook my head in response and slipped my shoes off, getting comfortable in my seat. The leather really was comfy. This could be the last time I spent time with Drake since when I went back to Afterlife I would probably have to get a new identity. Cassidy Hail was all used up. I didn't know what to think of that. I had gotten used to Drake and was enjoying his company. Who would I be next? What case had Persephone lined up for me? Would I change more than my name? Would I look different? I didn’t even want to think about it. The cases took so much out of me. I didn’t know what she had planned with working us so hard. Was there a quota we were trying to meet?
I didn’t want to think about Persephone or the job. I had to take care of myself and to do that I had to know who exactly I was. What type of person was I? Had I been killed by my boyfriend because I was cheating on him? Or had it been some other kind of random act of violence and Pete’s disappearance was a coincidence?
I didn’t believe in coincidences.
“What do you think really happened to Cassandra?” I asked, changing the subject.
He frowned before he replied to my question.
“The person who killed her…well, there were some really strong feelings. Even after death, she was stabbed repeatedly. Her killer knew her and hated her. You usually only see these types of crimes with significant others or spurned lovers or stalkers.”
“Pete.”
“His disappearance right after is too much of a coincidence.”
“I was just thinking that.” I glanced out the window. We had left the city and suburbs and were now passing through farmland and the occasional small business, diner, or antique shop.
“I don’t know, though. He would have contacted someone in the last year. There would be some hint of his whereabouts if he would have gone on the lamb. The police never issued a warrant. He’s only a person of interest. There was no reason for him to stay away. He’s got a lot of family in the city. After the police made no moves to arrest, he would have come back. Or at least called someone.”
“His family could be lying about hearing from him,” I mused.
“No, his mother offered to hire me to find him.”
“Did you take her on?”
“No. Conflict of interest. But, I told her I would find him.”
“You could have taken the money to cover costs since I’m not paying you.”
“I don’t work that way.”
“Independently wealthy?” I scoffed.
“Morals.”
I huffed out a breath. Someone had a case of white-knight syndrome.
“Have a thing against morals?”
“No. I have a thing against people using morality to pass judgment.”
“Tough critic,” Drake smiled. “What gets you out of bed in the morning, if it isn’t a moral compass?”
“Indentured servitude,” I grumped and Drake gave me a questioning look.
We lapsed into silence again, but this time it was comfortable. Drake concentrated on the road, which was now on an uphill trek and I slouched down in the seat and zoned out to the music.
16
Black Soul
The SUV came to a halt and I blinked away the sleep that sucked at my consciousness. I had fallen asleep, and I was lucky I didn’t coma-out like my last fall into unconsciousness. That would have been weird to explain to Drake why I played dead for forty-eight hours and he had to cart my comatose body around the state. Not like the rest of me was anything normal. Drake and I had acknowledged that we were both off, and to just pretend that it wasn’t there. It was a weird relationship, but it worked.
The sun was low in the sky. Hours must have passed.
“Where are we?”
“State-line, I’m stopping at a rest stop. I need to use the facilities.”
“Who says that?”
“What?” he asked.
“Use the facilities? That’s like something a grandmother says.”
“Would ‘I have to piss’ work better for your non-moral sensibilities?” He didn’t even hint at a smile.
“I have to piss too,” I responded as I threw open the door and stepped onto the blacktop, realizing too late that I didn’t have shoes on. “Crap.” I reached back and grabbed for my shoes, but by then my fee
t were covered in grit. I glanced around to see if Drake was paying attention. He wasn’t, so I manifested flip-flops and clean feet. I threw my heels back into the SUV and looked up in time to see Drake looking at me with curiosity. Had he seen? He couldn’t have. I was on the other side of the vehicle and I only changed my shoes, which were hidden by the wheels, and curb, and grass.
He didn’t say anything, just engaged the alarm when I closed the door and walked off in the direction of the visitor’s center main building. I followed but broke off from the path to head to the women’s area, which was near a large playground for small children.
Outside of the bathroom, my eyes were drawn to a man leaning against the wall, looking in the direction of the playground. He was clean-cut, dressed nicely, with a look of contentment on his face. If I hadn’t noticed his aura I would have thought he was a dad watching one of the few children that were playing in the play area. I would have ignored him and moved on, there was nothing unusual about him. Nothing unusual about anything that could be seen by the normal human eye, yet underneath the surface his aura was blacker than anything I’d ever seen. There was barely a trace of other colors.
He looked up and our eyes met for a brief second. I shivered as the cold of his gaze washed over me. There was nothing in his eyes. Only darkness. He was the blackest soul I had encountered. I wondered what choices people like this were given after they died. There would be no rehabilitation for this man. There was only one way to classify him: evil.
I didn’t want to, but I zoned in on his dark aura, his crimes playing like a movie in my head. I didn’t want to see it. There was blood. So much blood. And the children. I pressed my hand to my head and stumbled, catching myself on the wall of the restroom building. Scene after scene played out in my head, one child after another. It was a compulsion for him. An addiction. A need to kill, to torture, to stamp out the life of the innocent. He had no qualms about what he did. He accepted that he was a killer. Born that way. He enjoyed it. He slept like a baby every night, reenacting his kills in his dreams as if reliving his happiest memories.
I rushed into the bathroom and if there had been anything in my stomach, I would have puked for the second time that day. Instead, I hyperventilated over the sink, splashing water on my face when I had finally banished the last macabre image from my head. I tried to conjure up every happy memory I could remember to replace the darkness that I had witnessed.
I had to do something. I had to stop this man. He was beyond karma. He was destined for the deepest circles of hell, but I couldn’t let him hurt anyone else. He was on the hunt right now. He liked to snatch and grab them while their parents were distracted, fighting over directions or maybe sleeping in the parking lot. He loved rest stops as a hunting ground, it was as easy as taking candy from a baby. He would watch all day, sometimes days at a time, looking for the perfect prey. He was a patient man, he had to be.
He was targeting a young girl at the moment. She was beautiful, her hair pulled back in matching braids. He had been watching her for the last hour, but he wasn’t sure quite yet. I looked for her family and saw the mom was distracted on the phone. I didn’t see the father, if there was a father. I did notice a few men standing off by the picnic benches, casually glancing to the playground on occasion. Their auras pulsed with protective blues that matched. I wondered if couples auras would match the longer they spent together and then realization hit me. I smiled.
I focused in on the mother. She had the same blue tones as the men by the picnic tables and what I had first mistaken for negligence, I saw for what it was. She was paying attention but pretending not to notice. There was another man that was near the parking lot that had the same blue tones in his aura. All of these casual looking people were trying to look as if they weren’t paying attention, but on careful inspection they were all very aware of the playground and the one little girl with braids.
Two other blonde girls had gone missing from this visitor’s center in the last five years. Five other children from visitor’s centers across the state. The man worked like clockwork. He stalked certain areas at certain times of the year, and the Feds had worked out a pattern. He had become predictable. All they needed now was to identify him.
They were prepared to stalk this visitor center day and night if it meant catching this child killer. There were teams like this one at all the visitor’s centers on the state line. I wanted to help them get their man.
I focused in on the man and the organized and macabre thoughts playing over him like a disease.
He had to have the child. Had to have her. She was the most beautiful child he had ever seen. Her mother wasn’t watching. He could grab her and be gone. In the wind, like all the other times. She was perfect. He had to have her.
He moved. He reached for the child. The girl had been coached. Over and over again they had reiterated what to do when the man tried to grab her. She screamed. She ran for the woman. The man chased after her at first, but when he noticed the men coming toward him, he turned and fled. The men who were not meant to be seen came out of their hidden spots and gave chase as well. They took him down at the forest line. He put up a fight, but so did the undercover agents. So much negative energy hit me that I stumbled and fell to my knees, rocked by the sensation. My stomach clenched and I began to hiccup a giddy, drunken hiccup. The other times I had delivered karma had been child’s play compared to this.
The darkness swirled around me as if alive and the man still had plenty to spare. I couldn’t take even a fraction of it, his soul as black as night, but I absorbed a good bit. If I could describe the sensation, it would be like comparing an ice cream headache to falling in a snow drift and getting a mouthful of the stuff, while being tipsy on too much tequila. It was overwhelming and all consuming, but fleeting. I took a deep breath and got to my feet, my head still buzzing, but my limbs now under control.
I floated back to the SUV, my feet barely touching the ground. Drake waited patiently by his vehicle. He was on the phone and wasn’t looking toward the commotion on the other side of the visitor center. I looked over my shoulder; most of the action was blocked by gazebos and trees. I breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing I needed was Drake seeing me caught up in the middle of another bit of drama.
How would I explain that?
He got off the phone when he saw I was walking back. I wanted to stretch my feet more, not ready to get into the vehicle and drive two more hours. I was on overload with all the dark energy. It coursed through me. My hands were shaking I was so saturated. I wanted to run around, do jumping jacks, something, anything to expel this high, but I didn’t want Drake to see what was happening.
I also wanted to get out of this skirt. I kicked myself for not changing in the bathroom. I needed to check my bag and see what I had; maybe I could pull something on under my skirt and still stay modest. Maybe he wouldn’t notice if I ducked behind a tree and manifested into some leggings?
I looked up and knew that was out of the question. Drake’s eyes were on me and they weren’t looking away. There was also something strange about the way he was watching me. His eyes were huge as if surprised to see me. Was there something wrong? Toilet paper on my shoe? I glanced down, slid my hand over my skirt to make sure I hadn't tucked it into my panties. Nothing. Drake being weird? I should be used to it by now. I walked past him and he did that nostril flare thing that creeped me out and spoke to my inner animal at the same time. I looked over and smiled - then froze. Fuck. Drake’s own inner animal wasn’t on the inner side of him anymore. If looks could tear you open and eat you, Drake’s look would be chomping on my large intestines.
“What is it?” I asked. Not actually wanting to know what his issue was.
“What did you do? Why do you buzz again?”
“Buzz?” I asked stupidly.
“You reek of it, you’re buzzing with the smell…” He shook his head. “Feel.” He stepped closer and placed his palm on my bicep, wrapping his fingers around it in what fe
lt like slow motion. We both hissed when the energy pulsed back and forth between us. Drake’s eyes glazed over and he took a long deep breath. When his eyes cleared, there was no mistaking the hunger that simmered in them. I inhaled a shaky breath when his need radiated around me, addictive, calling to the part of me that was alive with the feel of the dark energy from the killer.
He pulled me to him. I lost my footing and fell across his chest, my hands splayed on the large muscled expanse. I knew he was fit, but this was ridiculous. Greek god ridiculous. He pressed his face into my neck and breathed in again. The sensation had me shivering.
“Drake,” I whispered his name, not knowing what I wanted to convey. Did I want more from him or less? Was it a plea or a warning? My head was so muddled I couldn’t tell what was right or wrong. My fight or flight instincts were battling with my baser needs and wants.
He took it as a plea. Strong hands gripped my face, angling my head to match his like a missing puzzle piece. His mouth descended on mine and the world froze. Drake didn’t kiss. He conquered. He took everything. Our weird energy exchange ramped up as the kiss intensified, thrilling sparks channeling through us everywhere our bodies touched. The dark energy began to swirl around us, like it had on the path. If I wasn’t mistaken it fueled the passion between us. Urging me to take things to the next level. To take what I wanted. And right now the only thing I wanted was Drake. I had been kidding myself, I needed this.
He spun us around until I was the one with my back to the SUV. His hands left my face and found their way to my hips. He pressed his body against mine, pulling my hips to match his own, dragging my awareness from my lips to my now aching crotch which was in contact with something very large and hard.
I wanted to find out more about that long and hard thing pressed up against me. I wanted to touch more of him, taste him, and explore his body until I knew every part of it.
If this continued I would lose everything to Drake. My mind. My body. And maybe something much worse. I didn’t care. I didn’t care who I was, what I was, all that mattered was now. Him. Me. This.