by D. Laine
“Kyle, Kyle, Kyle,” I tsked as I paced the pine-needle-ridden forest floor in front of him. “You know we’re going to kill you eventually. How long you suffer first is entirely up to you.”
The vessel’s gaze darted to each side of me, as if pleading with the other assassins for mercy. I folded my arms over my chest as I waited for him to get the message. They might not have a personal vendetta against this guy like I did, but they sure as hell weren’t going to help him out.
And I certainly didn’t feel bad for him when his shoulders sagged in defeat.
“Let’s go over it again, Kyle,” I prepped him. “Why are you so interested in Thea?”
He glared at me.
“You can’t be that heartbroken over getting dumped,” I continued. “You don’t have a heart.”
Technically, he did. But vessels didn’t feel normal human emotions. They only felt hate. I knew he didn’t care about Thea in the traditional sense. But why was he so obsessed with her?
“I knew her before I was activated, you entitled piece of—”
“Entitled?” I barked out a laugh. “That’s rich, coming from the guy sporting a two-hundred-dollar pair of Birkenstocks.”
Kyle lurched forward. He moved about three inches before the chains holding him to the thick tree tightened around him.
“I’m going to ask you one last time, Kyle . . .” I lifted the gun in my right hand, then the knife in my left hand—the dullest one we had between the four of us—to remind him that it was his choice how quickly he died tonight. “What do you want with Thea?”
The vessel smiled wickedly. “What do you want with her?”
I restrained a frustrated groan. As much as I hated to admit it, he was good at keeping his mouth shut. Not even Marcus had managed to get anything out of him—and Marcus was a legend in assassins’ circles. He was on standby to have a go at Lucifer’s vessel when he was caught—if he was ever caught.
We had already given up on asking Kyle about the professor’s plans. Now, I was ready to give up on asking him what he wanted with Thea. Maybe it wasn’t anything more than a personal, twisted fascination he had with her. It certainly wasn’t apocalypse related, which Maria’s annoyed expression reminded me.
“Fine.” I shrugged like I didn’t care whether he talked or not as I holstered my gun. “I think I’d rather watch you die slowly anyway.”
Kyle smirked as I approached him with the dull knife. “I should have known you were behind all those deaths.”
“Yeah, you probably should have figured that out a little sooner.” I shrugged innocently while my grip tightened around the handle. “Still wouldn’t have saved you.”
He spat on the ground at my feet, drawing me to a stop a step away from him. “She’s too good for the likes of you.”
“That makes two of us she’s better off without.”
Those were the last words Kyle Davenport heard before I slashed his throat.
With a pleasure that alarmed even me, I watched the blood squirt from his severed carotid and onto the forest floor. I held his weakening gaze as I took a step back and out of the path of the crimson river running toward my shoes.
I wanted him to know, up until the moment his lights flickered out, that it was me that ended his life. I wanted to be the last person he saw before his eyes rolled into the back of his head.
Long after it was over, I stared down at his motionless corpse with smug satisfaction. I didn’t move until Jake’s hand came down on my shoulder. His head tilted toward mine and he lowered his voice for my ears only.
“You’re too involved, Dylan. You need to put a little distance—”
“I know what I’m doing.” I yanked out of his grasp and bypassed a silent Maria and Marcus as I marched toward the parked Hummer.
Behind me, Maria called, “What about the body?”
“Leave it, of course,” I returned over my shoulder.
“What about intel? Acquaintances?”
“I know everything there is to know about that piece of shit,” I answered as I jerked the passenger side door open. I held it open, waiting for my comrades as they slowly made their way toward me.
I should have cared about the wide berth that they gave me, but I didn’t. The weary looks shot in my direction—and the uncomfortable silence that followed us back to Bozeman—should have bothered me, or at the very least made me question my actions, but they didn’t.
Kyle Davenport was dead. Thea was safe. Who the hell cared that my companions thought I’d gone mad making it happen?
DESPITE KNOWING that Kyle was dead and gone, and that Thea didn’t have to worry about him anymore, I still drove by her apartment complex later that night to check on her. I wasn’t surprised to find her car gone.
It was a Friday night, after all. As evidenced by the commotion downtown, half the student body was in any one of the numerous bars that lined the streets surrounding campus. I reminded myself that she was an adult. She could take care of herself . . . in most normal situations.
With only one vessel left in town—the professor—I was assured enough of her safety to get some sleep that night. But when a casual trip to get some greasy takeout the next morning took Jake and me past the apartment complex, and I spotted her still-empty parking spot, a pang of concern settled in my gut. It expanded throughout the day, worsening each time I found an excuse to drive by the complex, only to find her car still gone.
By late afternoon, a little bit of guilt had mixed in there, too. I was plagued by the look on her face the last time I saw her. I still didn’t know what had happened Wednesday night in the parking lot of The Nest. I had wanted to kiss her. I nearly had kissed her. Uncertainty had kicked in at the last second and I’d fucked it all up.
I had never doubted my intentions before. I had never thought twice about taking what a girl offered me. But with Thea, I’d felt . . . guilty. She didn’t know what I was. She didn’t know I would be gone the moment these vessels were eliminated. For once I had thought about someone else’s feelings over my own needs, and it had still backfired on me.
When I wasn’t creeping past Thea’s apartment, I played my role as a geology student. I did the assignments and studied the material. Though the marks I received for the class didn’t matter, I had to convince Professor Thompson I was nothing more than another random student.
Once I finished that, the team kept me busy digging up intel. Though they didn’t know the exact reason for my sour mood, they recognized the need to keep me preoccupied. It helped some, but when the dust settled Sunday evening and Thea’s car was still gone, I whipped myself up into a frenzy.
It was the worst night of sleep I’d had in years, filled with gory images of Thea’s bloody face and Kyle Davenport’s evil smirk. By the next morning, I was convinced that we had acted too late, that he had done something to her before I’d killed him. That guilt was worse than the other.
Thea’s car was still missing from its spot in front of her apartment when I passed on my way to campus for my Monday morning class. This time, instead of driving by like a normal stalker, I whipped the steering wheel, taking a hard turn into the parking lot like an unhinged sociopath. I pulled into the spot usually reserved for Thea’s Metro, and jumped out of the Hummer with the engine still running.
Before I had time to think about what I was doing or what I would say, I knocked on the door to her apartment. I shuffled back and forth impatiently while I waited for someone—anyone—to answer the door. My stomach clenched in anticipation when I heard the lock disengage and I realized I had no excuse ready, no explanation for why I was checking up on her—other than I was a pathetic pussy who had his panties in a bunch after not seeing some girl for nearly seventy hours.
The door cracked open and I peered into the blurry, sleep-heavy eyes of Thea’s roommate. She stared at me for a moment in confusion before recognition settled in. Then she swung the door open to reveal her eyebrow-raising choice in sleeping attire.
There w
as enough skin visible to make my throat run dry and my mouth drop open. I snapped it shut once I remembered the reason I was there.
“Is Thea home?” I croaked.
“No.”
I waited for more explanation. When she lifted her hand to lazily examine her fingernails, I realized she wasn’t going to provide it. Irritation laced my voice. “Do you know where she’s at?”
“No,” the roommate sighed before shifting to press her hip against the doorjamb. “But if you want to come in and wait, I’m sure I could take your mind off of her.”
I retreated a step before her reaching fingers could snag the front of my shirt. My disgust was evident in the scoff that flew from my mouth. “You’re not worried at all about where she could be?”
The roommate shrugged. “Thea’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”
She’d also had a douchebag for an ex-boyfriend up until two and a half days ago.
Realizing I wasn’t going to get anywhere with the roommate—other than into trouble I didn’t really want to get into—I turned to stomp away from the door and her obvious invitation. She called to me as I yanked open the door to the Hummer. My tunnel vision made it easy to ignore her.
With nothing but Thea on my mind, I drove the short distance to campus. I scoured the gym and the coffee shop with no luck before grudgingly accepting that I had class with Professor Thompson in ten minutes.
I was tempted to skip it, in favor of continuing my search for Thea. The problem was I didn’t know where else to look. I hadn’t exactly memorized her schedule. I had already checked the few locations I knew she frequented, and I knew for a fact that she wasn’t scheduled to work at The Nest today—because I had already checked yesterday. That left me with no other options.
Other than canvasing dumpsters and alleys for a body—
No. I refused to believe that something bad had happened to her. I refused to believe that we had eliminated Kyle too late. She would turn up. I had to believe that.
I drifted toward the science building with slow and preoccupied steps. Backpacks and shoulders knocked into me as those a little more invested in their education sped to their morning lectures. On the other side of the quad, another fast moving current of students raced toward the arts building.
At first glance, it appeared I was looking at a mirror image—with one person moving as slowly as I was on the adjacent pathway. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the student being propelled toward the arts building appeared preoccupied with a lengthy text message. Even further assessment confirmed the student was a girl. A brunette.
I stopped to watch her from a distance until she turned away from me. Now moving at a brisk pace, she continued toward the arts building with an overstuffed backpack on her shoulders.
I left all common sense, reasoning, and pride behind me as I took off at a sprint, angling across the grass quad to catch up to the girl that may or may not have been Thea. Not until I was a few short steps away was I certain it was her. My relief was audible in my voice when I called out to her—moments before she slipped through the door into the building.
“Thea!”
She stopped in the doorway and turned a puzzled expression over her shoulder. “Oh, hey Dylan.”
Oh, hey Dylan?
She’d been gone for nearly three days—three days that I’d been panicking as I’d looked for her—and she came at me with a casual “Oh, hey Dylan.” Jesus, what had I done with my balls?
I pulled my shoulders back and did my best to pretend that I hadn’t misplaced them this morning. “Hey, where have you been?”
Her brow furrowed in confusion as she moved out of the way of the rush of students filing into the building. “Why? Did you need—”
“Nah, I just noticed you weren’t around this weekend.” I gripped the back of my neck, suddenly feeling like an idiot. “I may or may not have stopped by your apartment and you weren’t there. Thought maybe you were in trouble or something. You know, with that ex of yours and everything. I tried to text you, but . . .”
I stopped to shake my head. Was I seriously rambling?
I never rambled.
Thea appeased me with a polite smile. “Well, thank you for your concern, but I’m fine. I just went home to visit my parents for the weekend. I don’t get good cell service up there, so I’m sorry I didn’t get your text.”
I blew out of a puff of air. “Oh. Yeah, I guess . . .” I probably should have thought about that.
“Shouldn’t you be on your way to class?” She narrowed her eyes at me.
“Yeah, probably,” I admitted.
She hesitated, then took a step backward, edging through the open door. “I promised Professor Thompson I would have the rest of the photographs from the field study on his desk by the end of the day, so . . .”
“Okay, yeah. I’ll uh . . .” I retreated a step at the same time she did, but I couldn’t bring myself to let her go. After an entire weekend of worrying about her, I wasn’t satisfied with the two minutes she’d spent confirming that she was okay.
I felt the hesitation rolling off of her—just as strong as my own. Finally, she flashed me a warm smile. “Do you want to come with me? See how a darkroom works?”
“A darkroom?” I questioned.
“It’s where I develop the pictures I took,” she explained with a shrug. “I like to keep it old school, unlike most new photography majors. There’s nothing like working in a darkroom.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, but it sounded inviting. Especially if Thea was going to be there. Right about now, I’d go anywhere she was going.
I nodded eagerly. “Sounds like fun.”
13
I didn’t use the word “fun” lightly. It took something extraordinary for me to give it that label. I liked rock climbing and white water rafting—when I had free time. I would even venture to say my one experience with bungee jumping had been fun—once I got over the initial sensation of falling to my death. Killing vessels was fun . . . and sex. Sex was hella fun.
Something I never thought I would add to my extremely picky list of enjoyable activities: school work. But when a hot chick and a cramped, barely lit room were thrown into the mix, it turned out to be surprisingly exciting.
While Thea prepared her film for developing, she told me a little about the process, the equipment that she used, and what the different chemicals were used for. In half an hour, I’d learned more about film development than I’d ever intended to learn in a lifetime . . . and had fun.
Most of all, I learned that I liked to listen to this girl talk. She was eager to share this part of her life with me. Her passion for it was audible in her voice, and visible in her eyes—which I could barely see with this “safe light.”
“How do you manage to not screw everything up?” I asked after bumping into the long and narrow basin in the center of the room for the umpteenth time. “I can barely see where I’m going.”
“You get used to it after a while.” She pushed away from the gadget in the corner of the room that had been used to expose her pictures onto the special printing paper.
Despite what she told me, I didn’t see shit on the blank white paper in her hand. I pointed that out as she moved across the room to the basin. “I thought you said that machine would make the picture.”
“It did.” She smiled at me over her shoulder. “Just watch. It’s like magic.”
I strolled up behind her as she placed the paper into a tray filled with chemicals. Using her hand to rock the tray back and forth, she soaked the paper thoroughly. For a moment, nothing happened. Then a speck of color appeared. Then another. I watched as both spots spread outward, covering the entire paper until a picture materialized.
“I’ll be damned,” I muttered.
“Neat, isn’t it?”
I grunted in agreement. “I think I picked the wrong major.” Not that I’d had a choice. “What do these other ones do?” I pointed to the next two trays filled wi
th different chemicals.
“They finish and seal the pictures so that they look pretty,” she explained with a short laugh.
I watched in fascination as she moved the paper from one tray to another, repeating the process until she was satisfied. Then she moved the fully developed picture to a tub of water placed in the large sink along the wall.
Turning to me, she beamed. “Ready for another one?”
“Hell yeah.”
She laughed as she moved to the machine to expose another picture. This time, when she transported the blank paper to the basin, I was right behind her. And this time, already knowing what to expect, I took the opportunity to study her instead of the image she created.
With her hair pulled up into a loose ponytail, her neck was exposed to me. Even without adequate light, I could see that it was clear of any marks that labeled her as a tag. It had been long enough by now that, if she had been tagged, the mark would be visible.
I pressed against her back, using the excuse that I wanted to see what she was doing better. In reality, I couldn’t seem to get close enough to her. The feel of her warmth against me was the only thing that eased my weekend-long anxiety spurred by her absence. I was finally starting to calm down, while simultaneously working myself into a frenzy of an entirely different nature. Her hair was in my face, and I sniffed to breathe in the subtle coconut scent.
Her chin nudged to the side, showing me the trace of a dimple on her cheek. “Did you just smell my hair?”
“No.” She shifted to peer over her shoulder, and I shrugged. “So what? I like coconuts.”
I glimpsed a smile before she turned to withdraw the now fully developed picture. I moved with her, staying pressed to her back as she inched along the basin to transfer it into the next pool of chemicals. Her breaths grew labored as she rocked the tray back and forth.
“Dylan?” My name rolled off her tongue softly, drawing me forward.
Her hair tickled my nose as I moved from one side of her to the other. I lowered my mouth to her ear. “Hmm?”
