She looked at her feet. She didn’t like talking about her home life. Home life—that was a joke. Home is where your heart is, they say. Well her heart was anywhere but back in the trailer park with Phyllis.
A chill ran through her. Tristan shrugged off this letterman’s jacket and put it over her shoulders.
“Oh, you don’t need to do that I’m fine.” She smiled up at him.
“Nah, it looks good on you. I want you to wear it. I want you to meet my grandparents too.”
Evaine felt her smile slip. She was pretty sure they wouldn’t want their grandson going out with a girl born out of wedlock to an alcoholic mother who didn’t even know who the father was. A girl taken into foster care at the age of seven only to be bounced around for years till she finally found a family who cared enough to want to try and help her. Until Phyllis showed back up clean and sober and whisked her away to Vegas to be with her “new daddy.” Yeah, New Daddy took one look at Evaine and decided he wanted her more than Phyllis. So out walked Daddy and out went Phyllis’s sobriety.
She was pretty sure his grandparents would just love her.
Chapter Six
“You need to wake up.” A male voice spoke in her head.
The picture of Tristan smiling and talking slipped away. Her mind went blank. The gray fog of sleep settled in, and then she heard it again. Someone calling to her.
“You’ve been asleep too long. You need to wake up now.”
Cool fingers touched her skin. She opened her eyes to see Aron’s white face. She sat up so suddenly that the movement made him jump. The memory of what had happened hit her as the smell of clean sheets filled her nostrils. She groaned audibly. Only a minute ago she had felt so safe, so warm, and home. She pressed her hands into her temples, trying to remember her dream, willing the memories to stay. She needed them. But they slipped away further. She let out a cry of frustration.
“Easy. Remember where you are. We aren’t here to hurt you.” The soothing voice flowed through her head. She opened her eyes again. She was in a cell in an underground house. And she was dead.
“She needs some liquids, but I think she’s fine. Just exhausted.” Aron spoke over his shoulder to someone before turning back to her. “You’ve been asleep for a day. How do you feel?”
She shrugged. Her body didn’t buzz as it had before. Her head ached, but she thought maybe it was going away and not coming on.
Aron nodded and got up to leave. “I’ll get her some Isis.”
A man she hadn’t met before sat at the little table. Luca stood behind him, leaning casually against the wall, watching her carefully.
She scratched her head and combed at her hair with her fingers trying to flatten it.
“This is Nate. He’s the head of the Family.” Luca’s voice was calm and soothing, as if talking to a child.
She could feel him again. Concern, frustration, need. She wished he would stop that. She didn’t want to know what he felt. She wondered if she could read his mind as well as send him messages. “Knock it off,” she thought. “I don’t want to feel what you feel.” He looked at her quizzically, but if he heard what she said, he didn’t let on.
“You sure she came back?” Nate’s neat, short, white hair looked like a businessman’s haircut. He wore jeans and a blue button-down shirt. If his skin hadn’t been so pale and his hair so white she would have thought him just another young Wall-Streeter. He appeared so normal. Except that he was dead of course. Just as, somehow, she was dead.
“She’s in there. She’s just scared.” Luca still stared at her.
How did he know that? She didn’t usually show her emotions. She had learned to mask her feelings at a young age. Another memory that made little sense. She looked at both men, adopting the natural blank stare she’d taught herself to do so long ago. Her face obeyed instinctively.
“Well, we need to talk to her, and we need to have her talk back.”
“I can speak for myself.”
“I am Nate Lake, and as Luca said before, you’re safe.”
“Who from?”
“We aren’t sure yet. We are trying to find out. But they’re the same people who did this to all of us.”
“Who is us?”
“We are the Family.”
“You’re a family?”
“In a way, yes. We’ve all been reborn by the same group of people. And we all have some DNA strands that are similar. DNA that shouldn’t be there. But that’s more information than you need right now.”
“And what are we exactly?”
“I thought that Luca and Aron explained this to you before.” He looked at Luca, who shrugged. “We’re undead.”
“Yes, they told me that, but what does it mean?”
“Let’s get to that later.” Nate held a hand up. “I think she came all the way back,” he said under his breath to Luca. “OK, let me ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
She leaned into the large down pillows on her bed and crossed her arms. Her face twitched. Too many people were staring at her.
“Do you remember your name?”
“Evaine Michaels.” She remembered saying it to someone in her dreams.
“Well, that was quick.” Nate raised his brows.
“I wish everything would come back. I’m getting really tired of not remembering anything. And no offense, but I’m still not sure I should be trusting any of you.” She swallowed down the anger rising in her voice.
“Take it easy.” Luca’s voice had an annoyed edge.
She shot him a glare. She couldn’t stand the way he looked at her, continually talking into her mind, making his feelings overly obvious.
“Stop that!” she snapped. “I’m not a baby, and I’m tired of you constantly pushing your thoughts and feelings on me.” Luca had called to her in her head, awakening her from her dream.
He popped his eyes wide and opened his mouth to speak, but shut it again, turning his gaze away.
“No one here is going to hurt you, Evaine. All we want is to help you. But if you can remember anything that might help us—”
“Remember? I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember who I am, where I’m from, and what the hell I was doing strapped to a table in a boarded-up hospital.” The memory of the men in white lab coats flooded into view like a movie in her head. Her eyesight sharpened, and her hearing became more acute.
The camera on the wall buzzed and moved. A camera? They were watching her. Had they watched when she’d taken a shower? When she’d gotten dressed? Her rage rose at a rapid rate, flooding her mind in huge waves, crashing into her, and making her lose all sense of reason. Her stomach growled, and her skin itched as though she were covered in poison ivy.
Luca stiffened where he leaned against the wall. Nate hadn’t stopped talking. She could hear the hum of his voice, but the words were drowned out by a ringing in her ears. Luca moved slowly, infinitesimal even. His muscles flexed as he unfolded his arms and let them hang by his sides. The fact that he was trying to hide his movements made her even angrier.
“Nate, give her a minute.” Luca never let his eyes leave her face. He stepped to the side of Nate’s chair.
Her head throbbed, and her muscles twitched. They were watching her. Probably all standing around the camera, watching when she was in the shower. Like her mom had caught Mark doing before she kicked him out. Shame, betrayal, and anger rushed through her. The fact she’d recovered another memory didn’t even register in her furious state.
“Evaine, calm it down. Whatever is setting you off, let it go. You’ve been poisoned with chemicals that are fighting within your body, causing your brain synapses to fire too rapidly. That’s why you are getting the extreme cravings and rages. You can stop it though, calm it down.”
Talk, talk, talk. She wanted it all to stop, and she wanted to get out of here. She had to get out. The rage took over, and she screamed. Nate had his phone out, trying to call someone. This was his fault. This was his house. He c
ould let her out of here.
She jumped off the bed and leaped at Nate. Luca pushed Nate out of the way and caught her midair. He pinned her to the wall. She thrashed, but he had her, holding her a foot off the floor by her wrists. She wrapped her legs around his waist and squeezed with her thighs. Howling again she gnashed her teeth at him. His eyes were fiery slits. A trickle of sweat ran down his neck. His muscles trembled as he held her at bay. Concern and hunger rolled off of him and hit her with force. She strained her thighs, barely able to lock her ankles around his large torso.
“Stop!” He yelled. Her head throbbed from the sound. “You need to realize we’re here to help you. You can either let us try to help and get through this, or you can end up in the cells. It’s your choice.” This time he was not soft or soothing. He commanded.
He was so close to her. A shiver skittered down her spine at his nearness. No matter what he said, she felt what his body wanted. The emotion she’d been feeling from him earlier finally registered. Lust.
The scents of his body invaded her. His cologne, soap, shampoo. Her wrists tingled where he touched her. Her thighs burned with need, wrapped around his waist. His soft, full lips moved in slow motion when he spoke. She wanted to touch them.
Suddenly, as if he could tell what she was thinking, his eyes began to change. He still watched her, not as an enemy watches an opponent in battle, but as if she were a drink of crystal clear water and he was in the desert. She was sure no one had ever looked at her like that before. Warmth pooled in her belly and spread through her. Her body tingled with anticipation. She wanted him. He slacked his grip on her arms. She extricated her legs from around his waist, and he placed her on the floor. They stood for several minutes locked in an ocular battle.
A cool wetness rolled down her cheeks. The tears flowed down, rage and lust giving way to shock and fear. She couldn’t stop them. Everything they’d told her and all that had happened to her in the last days was more than she could hold in anymore. How could any of it be real? She believed in God and paradise and hell. Was this hell? It sure felt like it. Except for him. The man holding her with his scarred, strong hands. He reached up and brushed the tears from her cheeks.
“I want to go home.” Evaine’s voice came out in a whisper.
Luca let out a long sigh and touched her face again. “You are home.”
“I think that’s enough for today.” Nate stood, his chair scraping back from the table. “We have definitely settled the debate as to whether or not she has come back all the way or not.”
“What does that mean? You guys keep saying that as if I’m not even here.”
“That’s exactly it.” Luca paused. “Whether or not you are here. You. Evaine. All of what made you, you. But most of all, your humanity. That’s what the Forgotten don’t have. They rebirthed without their humanity, or empathy in most cases. It’s what makes us able to do what we do. Which is not to feed on humans and kill them.”
“Then are you so sure about me? I killed that man, didn’t I? And attacked another the first chance I got.”
“Yes, you did. You killed him. But you were a newborn who hadn’t been fed yet and you didn’t know that you could control it. Now you do and next time, you will.”
“So that’s why you have the Forgotten in the cells? They can’t be let out? Ever?”
“They aren’t all here. We have only some of them. The Feeders—”
“Luca.” Nate spoke with a warning tone.
The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Then Luca nodded and turned back to her, letting go of her other wrist. It cooled immediately at the loss of his touch. She rubbed at the spot and wrapped her arms around herself.
His long white hair hung free past his shoulders, and his now ice blue eyes comforted her. Even when he had grabbed her out of the air and thrown her to the wall, she hadn’t been scared of him. Any normal person would’ve been, but she heated up just thinking about it.
Nate cleared his throat. “I’ll meet you outside, Luca.” He left without another word.
Luca stepped back a pace.
“I’ll come for you in a couple of hours.”
Evaine nodded but didn’t speak. She watched him leave the room and then leaned against the yellow wall, rooted to the spot. She tried to hold on to the warmth she’d felt when he touched her. The whole situation was so unreal. She wished that the cameras were just for a reality show.
She tilted her head until it rested on the concrete wall. She needed to learn to control this rage, if for no other reason than that she had to be able to have a full conversation with someone and get some answers without trying to rip their heads off. After giving up staring at the door she lay down and drifted off to sleep to a vision of Luca’s face.
* * *
“You have feelings for her.” It wasn’t a question.
“I’m concerned for her, that’s all.” Luca walked past Nate without making eye contact.
“Many females have come here and stayed with us in the last seven years, and you’ve never shown concern for any of them.”
Luca stopped, but didn’t answer. Nate saw it. What was it about that girl? These feelings were so different than anything he had felt before. The connection between them was more than the normal chemistry. An electricity. Tangible every time they touched. He wanted her with a frenzy. The mere scent of her hair or touch of her skin was enough to make him lose all willpower.
“There’s something about her. I can’t figure out what it is. I think she might be a telepath, but I’m not sure. And when we—” He didn’t want to discuss it. Not even with Nate, who’d been his best friend and his brother for almost a decade. Nate had saved him, finding him in the sewers and bringing him here and back to his humanity.
“Well, I agree with you, there is something different. She’s having rages, but somehow she’s able to stop them by sheer force of will. I’ve not seen that before.”
Luca bit his tongue to stop from telling Nate that he’d been projecting into Evaine’s head to calm her. He wasn’t sure what kept him from being honest with Nate. But until he figured out what was going on between them, it was better that no one knew.
Nate started to walk away and then stopped. “Be careful. For both of your sakes. You know how fragile newborns are.”
Nate left, but his words lingered. The way she had looked at him when he’d pinned her to the wall intoxicated him. He’d never seen a newborn go from rage to composed so quickly.
He walked to her door. He needed to check on her, make sure she was all right. Not because he had feelings for her. He peered through the glass panel and saw her lying still on her bed. No feelings. Right.
Chapter Seven
Tristan Atwater sat down at his computer and turned it on, a cup of weak coffee in his hand. He blew on the hot cup while his PC booted up. He scanned the desk for a coaster. Dirty clothes, papers, and boxes of all of Evaine’s things from her apartment littered his once immaculate penthouse.
He brought up his homepage and glanced at the clock in the corner. Evaine had been missing for two months, a week, and five days. He only had one hundred and nine new hits today and three new messages. The novelty of the site had worn off. When he had started he’d gotten thousands of hits a day.
He tried not to get his hopes up, opening the e-mails one by one. The e-mails alone were enough to throw him over the edge. The anticipation of opening them, praying they would offer the information he so desperately wanted, and then the let down at seeing nothing but junk. Yet every time he saw that little button flashing, letting him know there was a new message, his hopes soared.
All he had been getting for the last month or so was junk. Sightings in Mexico on a beach. A sighting in Vegas as a stripper, and the best one—she had been abducted and forced to perform in a circus act. How could a person simply disappear and never be heard from or seen again?
Tristan had gone to the police, hired private investigators, gone to the media—nothing had worked
. The Web site, with a reward for any leads resulting in her safe return, had been his last option. If she had been kidnapped, surely the money he offered was enough that someone who had seen her or been involved would get a hold of him.
He shut the computer off and rubbed his hands over his face. The stubble on his chin scratched his fingertips. How long had it been since he had shaved? A week? Two?
Yesterday had been his weekly visit to see if the police had found anything new. He hadn’t realized how awful he looked until Det. Naylor mentioned it. In the very ordinary police office, with metal desk, papers and files everywhere, the smell of instant coffee permeating the room. It dawned on him that Det. Naylor had probably seen men like him a hundred times before. Fathers, brothers, boyfriends, husbands—all there for the same reason. They were all trying to make sense of a senselessness disappearance. He knew that the only reason Det. Naylor continued to give him the time of day was because of his money and connections.
There had been no news. “Mr. Atwater,” the detective had said sadly, “it’s been two months. The likelihood that she will be found is less than slim. We’ve had quite a few of these types of cases in the last ten years. Homeless people and college kids go missing. We hear about it a few weeks afterward when someone they worked with or someone who knew them becomes concerned. I am sorry, there really is nothing else we can do. If we have any more leads I’ll call right away.” Naylor had paused for a minute, letting his words sink in. “Mr. Atwater, I don’t mean to pry, but it would seem that you are not doing too well. My suggestion would be that you try to move on. Try to start building a life without her. That’s probably what she’s done.”
The fact that so many college students and the occasional homeless person had been going missing for years was the only new piece of information. But Naylor had been right about the “not doing too well.”
It had been eight days since he’d last shaved. He hadn’t eaten in—what?—over a day at least. He walked into the kitchen, grabbed a piece of bread from the breadbox, and chewed on it absentmindedly. He’d decided to go to the college and see Evaine’s adviser. The idea had come to him in one of his more lucid moments last week.
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