by Zahra Stone
“I’ll ask again. Who are you?”
“I’m Keri Ridgeway. And this is Doctor Byers.” Both names niggled at me; I’d heard them before, I was sure.
“And I’m at Stillwater Pharmaceuticals, right?”
“Indeed. You and the SIA were getting a little too close for comfort. We were trying to detain your sister, but then you showed up and made it all too easy for us.”
“My sister?” Why did they want Katie? How did they even know about Katie? And the SIA? My head was pounding. Although I now had the drip providing nutrients my body needed, I was nowhere near being one hundred percent. A solid forty at best.
“Well, any fire demon would do.” Ridgeway shrugged, then glanced at her watch. “Do you think she’s strong enough?” she asked the doctor. He examined a panel of displays I hadn’t noticed earlier, and it was then I realized I’d been hooked up to some sort of monitor. Jagged lines danced across the monitor, up and then down, erratic.
“We can try. If she doesn’t make it, we can get another.”
“What?!” I croaked. Get another?
“We know all about you, Paige Shelton. We know about your father, your uncles, your sister and brother, your cousins. All part fire demon. It was convenient that Katie was here in Redmeadows, but she was a little elusive to trap. Next time I’ll send a team out to Maxxan, a quick snatch, and no one would be any the wiser.”
“No!” My shout bounced off the walls, and the bitch laughed. I wanted to kill her, rip her throat out, and send my flame burning down her neck, toasting her from the inside out.
“Yes, good, good.” The Doctor was practically clapping his hands in glee, but I kept my eyes on Ridgeway. This was her plan; she was responsible for all of this.
“Look at her eyes.” Ridgeway was smiling. “The fire in them. So impressive. Okay, Leroy, commence.”
I struggled and pulled at the metal cuffs chaining me to the table at my wrists and ankles. They bit into my already burned flesh, but I ignored the pain. I watched in horror when the doctor approached with the dreaded syringe and its green contents. He slid the needle into the tube running into my arm, and I held my breath as the green liquid flowed down the line of the drip and then into my vein.
It burned. My body convulsed, arching off the table, pushing my neck back until I could see the wall behind me. My jaw was locked shut, so no sound escaped, and then I felt the bone crack, and I screamed and screamed and screamed. Then the wave subsided, and I collapsed, panting, bathed in sweat. I waited for the next wave, the one where my bones would break and protrude through my skin while my body tried to turn into something else, something it wasn’t designed to be. But unlike the others, I didn’t transform. Instead, my nerves caught fire and burned, a low boil at first but growing worse with every breath, every minute. And as much as I’d vowed that I wasn’t dying here, in this place, I knew that I was, with every second, dying a little bit more.
I faded in and out of consciousness. I’d wake up, my body boiling. Ridgeway was no longer in the room, but the doctor was. My head flopped to the side, and I saw the two guards standing outside. How long had I been like this? The torture I’d witnessed had only lasted minutes before the victim had died. It felt like it had been minutes already. Maybe hours. The torment on my nerves was like a blowtorch being applied without respite or mercy. I couldn’t stop the tears streaming silently down my cheeks.
I thought of Nate, how he would be pissed when he found out what they’d done. And Katie. My heart broke for Katie. She may not recover from this. Thoughts were pushed out of my head when another wave hit. Oh God, it hurt.
I was staring up at the ceiling, concentrating on staying alive, when something…changed. A shift in the pressure of the room. Then I felt it, weak at first, but then the whole room was shaking.
“What the hell? What are you doing?” The doctor looked at me in anger as he held onto the edge of my table while the room shook around us.
“Nothing.” It wasn’t me. The guards outside had dropped into a crouch as the building trembled, and a rumble, getting louder, reached our ears. The doctor crossed to the door. “What’s going on?” he demanded, stepping out into the corridor. The door swung closed behind him, and I couldn’t hear their reply.
A loud boom shook the building again, dust and debris fell from the ceiling, and I screwed up my eyes, then risked a peek to see what the hell was going on. I was hoping the cavalry had finally arrived. That would be nice right about now. A plume of dust and smoke rolled with speed down the corridor, hurtling towards the guards and doctor who had all fallen to the floor with the last explosion—for that’s what they were. Explosions. Initially far away, but now closer. Nate was blowing up the building to get to me.
Smoke completely obliterated the corridor from my view. I could hear the guards coughing, imagined they were crawling away, trying to find fresh air to breathe. Then the smoke slithered under the door and quickly filled the room. I was trapped. Tied to a bed with smoke burning my lungs. I coughed and tried to call out, but I was too weak. My eyes were streaming, and my lungs felt like they were full of acid when I saw them, through the smoke, striding down the corridor like vengeful angels. Three bodies, dressed in black, gas masks over their faces. SIA.
“She’s here!” My door burst open. Then my head was being lifted, and a mask slipped over my mouth and nose. Oxygen. Clean, sweet, oxygen. I sucked in a breath, then another, until eventually, the acid in my lungs settled back to the burn I was fast becoming used to.
“Paige?” I looked into the stormy grey eyes of the man I loved and grinned, though he couldn’t see it beneath my mask.
“What kept you?” I croaked.
“Traffic was a bitch,” he replied, turning his attention to the metal cuffs restraining me. In seconds he’d ripped them away, he’d gently removed the drip from my arm, and I was scooped up into his arms. “Got her. Let’s go.”
“Is she okay?” The worried voice belonged to Katie, who was keeping pace by Nate’s side.
“Fine,” I tried to reassure her, but I wasn’t fine. I was still dying. Whatever they’d injected into me was poison, and while I hadn’t transformed into some contorted beast, I was dying just the same. She was going to be so pissed.
More explosions echoed behind us, and Nate picked up the pace. They were going to demolish the entire building, I realized. Not just rescue me but end the evil experiments that were taking place here. I sighed a ragged, rattling sigh.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Nate growled, squeezing me tight. “You hold on. You do not die today, you hear me?”
“If you say so.” My throat was coated with razor blades and my voice as rough as rusty nails. This sucked balls. I’d never given much thought to dying before, but now that I was facing my mortality, I had one strong opinion. I wanted to die in my sleep. This fucking hurt.
I must have blacked out because the next time I opened my eyes, I was in a black room. All of it. Black. Walls, ceiling, floor. Either that or I’d gone blind.
“Easy.” Nate had hold of my hand. “You’re safe. We’re at the SIA. You’re in a fireproof room.”
“I’m dying.” I hated to state the obvious, but he needed to be prepared, needed to know there was no saving me. This was the end.
“Don’t give up. Not now.” The anguish in his voice tore at my heart. If only he’d come a day earlier. One day. Before they’d injected me with the green shit. It took too much effort to reply, so I squeezed his hand, only it wasn’t so much a squeeze as a twitch. I was weak. Breathing was an effort. Keeping my eyes open was an effort, and it would be so, so easy to close them and stop fighting, just let death take me away, end the pain.
“Flame. I need you to flame, Paige.” The words were spoken by my ear. I felt the puff of his breath, yet I barely heard them. I just wanted to sleep and felt myself slip a little further away.
“NO!” Nate’s shout jerked me awake, back to him. “No, goddammit, flame! Fight it, damn you. I know it hurt
s, I know you’re tired, but you can’t leave me, Spitfire.”
I opened my mouth to tell him it was all right. It would be okay. I’d die, and he would move on with his life. But I needed him to take care of Katie. My mouth moved, and I tried to tell him, but the words wouldn’t come. Seeing my struggle, he cupped my face, his eyes swimming with tears, and the sight was so unexpected I blinked in surprise.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I should have told you sooner. Fuck. I thought we had time. Paige, please don’t leave me.”
Words I had never thought I’d hear from his lips. Powerful words. Words I wanted to hear again. Through my clouded mind, I tried to remember what he had asked me to do.
“Flame, Paige. Flame.” He let me go and stepped back. Right. I needed to heal myself with my flame, be consumed by fire. Only it was going to be difficult since I was already incredibly weak. Did I have the strength to call forth my flame? I had to try. I had to try for him and Katie.
Closing my eyes, I concentrated, centering myself. I felt a warmth on my hand, heard him encouraging me.
“Yes, that’s it. Just a little more, and you’ve got it.” But then the shimmer of flame on my hand went out; I lost it. Try again. While the short burst of flame had drained me, it also empowered me. Yin and yang. It was my last shot at survival, and if I wanted to hear those words again, I couldn’t blow it.
Digging deep, I gave it everything I had, pulling from my very core, gasping with my last breath. It hurt. Almost as much as the green liquid when it first hit my veins. This was my dying flame. It erupted over me in a whoosh, and I faintly heard Nate say, “Jesus!” Then I was floating, flames dancing around me, inside and out, up, up, and away. The pain was gone, in its place, euphoria. It was heady and addictive, and I didn’t want it to end, feared it would stop all too soon and I’d either be healed or dead, for I had used my very last essence to draw the flame.
I drifted in and out of consciousness now, all the while burning. I caught a glimpse of the black room, and then I slid away again. I heard voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. I heard begging and pleading, not in words, but the emotion. So much emotion. It called to me, pulled me close, almost to the edge, but then the flame pulled me back into its welcoming embrace, and I succumbed to the fire once more.
Minutes turned into hours, hours into days, days into years, years into decades…then eternity. That was how long I burned. The earth kept turning, and I kept burning. Then all too soon, I was back.
“Welcome back.” The ragged relief in Nate’s voice jolted me awake. He was sitting on a chair by my bedside; my hand clutched in both of his.
“Hey.” I tried to give him a reassuring smile but suspected I didn’t quite pull it off by the frown pulling his brows together.
“I thought I’d lost you.”
“As if it were that easy,” I mocked. “I’m a vampire slayer.”
Before he could reply, the door burst open, ricocheting off the wall. Katie was by my side, hands on hips, fury radiating out from her. “Don’t you EVER do that again!” Then she burst into tears, the anger gone.
“Come here,” I whispered, holding out my arms to her, and she collapsed onto me, her wet face buried in my neck. Wrapping my arms around her, I cried too. We weren’t big criers, the Shelton’s, but when the occasion called for it, we did it with gusto, great big snotty sobs. Nate left only to return with a box of tissues.
Eventually, the emotional storm passed, and Katie pulled away.
“It was you they were after,” I told her, mopping myself up with a tissue.
“What?” Nate and Katie said in unison.
“They know about Katie—about all of us Shelton's being fire demons. They were trying to capture Katie, but then I turned up an easier target.”
As if he couldn’t stand to be apart from me, Nate picked me up, settled himself on the bed, then nestled me between his legs, my back against his chest, his arms curled around me. I didn’t protest.
Pulling up the chair, Katie sat down. “What else can you tell us?” she demanded, all SIA agent.
I told her what I knew, what I’d seen on the first day—the woman, Keri Ridgeway—but paused when Nate sucked in a breath.
“She used to be the director of the SIA. Should have known. She disappeared when we discovered she’d been kidnapping humans and experimenting on them, trying to turn them into some super paranormal hybrid. She failed.”
“Well, she’s still at it.”
“I find it interesting that she hasn’t changed her name or appearance. That’s a whole other level of cockiness. She knew the SIA wanted her, and yet she set up shop—again—right under our noses.”
“Well, we’ve shut her down this time.” Katie crossed her arms and leaned back. “That building is nothing but rubble. Fed the humans the faulty gas line story.”
“Did you get her? Ridgeway? Was she in the building?” I asked. I saw the look Katie gave Nate.
“She wasn’t, was she? Or you can’t account for her. Which means this isn’t over. And what of the doctor… God, what did she say his name was?” I rubbed at my forehead, trying to remember. “I’ve heard it before. I don’t know why I can’t remember it!”
“Because you’ve always been shit with names,” Katie interjected.
“Where do you think you’ve heard it?” Nate prompted. Bless him for trying to help me remember. “Here?”
“No. A while ago. In Maxxan…was it one of the interrogations?” I said more to myself than anyone else.
Nate stiffened behind me. “It wasn’t Leroy Byers, was it?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed. “That’s it.” Then I remembered where I’d heard it. The ghoul we had interrogated, Ian Blackwell, had told us that Leroy Byers was a powerful ghoul, and we’d find him hanging out at a nightclub. The small balding man I’d seen would stand out like dog balls at a nightclub. Ian had only given us half the truth.
I described Leroy’s appearance, how Ian had tried to throw us off track.
“Clever,” Nate muttered, “but now we know what he looks like. Unless he changes skins.”
“Urgh.” My stomach heaved at the thought. “If Ridgeway has started up once, she can do it again, and with Byers able to change appearance at the drop of a hat, how can we possibly stop them? There is still the Stillwater facility in Maxxan. Didn’t you say that’s where they make the drugs, Nate? So that green shit they injected me with, it’s made there. They still have a supply.”
“She’s right,” Nate admitted.
“Right. We need a team in Maxxan. Immediately. And I want a protective detail on my family. All of them,” Katie barked, taking charge, and I couldn’t contain the pride I had for her.
“We’re going to have to pull in extra resources,” Nate replied. “Take the lead, will you, Katie? Jordan and Rae will be redeployed back to Maxxan early. Rae will have to train on the job. As will you.” Nate squeezed me.
“I’m still in? Even though I got myself captured?” It had been humiliatingly easy to kidnap me.
Katie made a snorting noise. “You were in the minute he laid eyes on you.”
“No.” I didn’t believe her. Nate had beaten the ever-living shit out of me when we first met.
“Pft. I’m rarely wrong. Ask him. But”—she held up a warning hand—“on your own time. We’ve got a psychopath to take down.”
“Actually, I think you have four.”
“Explain,” Katie demanded.
“I saw the Gunslinger and the Red Witch while I was being held in their lab. I was mostly out of it, but I swear I saw them both. They were in deep discussion with Ridgeway. I think they’re in this together.”
“This changes everything.” Nate’s voice was stone cold, and he set me away from him. “We already have an AOD out on the Gunslinger.”
“AOD?”
“Apprehend or destroy,” Katie filled in.
“And the Red Witch?”
“AO,” Nate responded. “Apprehend only
. But I’m upgrading it to AOD. Same with Ridgeway and Byers, although it will be tricky to prove his identity. Katie, get the paperwork ready, and I’ll authorize it. Organize a team to head out to Maxxan ASAP. We’ll set up headquarters at your Grandma’s old house. Rae has already given approval, and I checked it out when I was there. It will suit our needs perfectly. I want that cave beneath the house converted into cells. The rest do as you see fit. Swing by my office, and I’ll authorize finance. Get whatever you need.”
Katie hurried out to do his bidding, and I watched, sitting cross-legged on the bed as Nate paced back and forth, lost in thought.
“When are we going home?” I eventually asked, wanting nothing more than a hot shower and change of clothes.
“To Maxxan? We’re not. I’m not risking you. Not again. We stay here, in Redmeadows. I’ll build you a closet as big as your apartment filled with every designer label you can ever imagine if it will persuade you to stay.”
I smiled, slid off the bed, and padded toward him, clad in nothing but a very unattractive hospital-style gown that I suspected gaped open at the back judging by the breeze I felt on my naked ass. Sliding my arms around his neck, I pulled his head down and kissed him.
“I’m going to take you up on the closet, Wilder,” I whispered, “but when I said home, I meant your place. You’re my home.”
“When you say shit like that…” he ground out, his hands clenching on my hips so hard I knew I’d have bruises—and I didn’t care.
“Mmmmm?” I purred. “When I say shit like that…what?”
“How did I get so lucky to have you stumble into my life?” He chuckled, low and rumbling.
“Stumble? Hardly.” My smirk was full of confidence. “I caught you, fair and square.”
He laughed. “Caught me? That’s not how I remember it. We had a deal; winner takes all, remember? And I won.”
“So, take me,” I taunted, tilting my head back, arching my hips against him.
His mouth came down on mine, and no more words were needed. The two of us? We were one. He had my heart, all of it, not the tiny little piece that I’d thought he’d stolen from me, but the entire bloody thing. And I couldn’t be happier. Tomorrow we had a vampire, witch, and ghoul to hunt. But tonight? Tonight, he was all mine, and I didn’t intend to share.
