Edge Walkers

by Shannon Donnelly

  She fought to peel his clothes from his skin and to tug hers free. It wasn’t anything pretty or nice, but it’d get her through this, and she had one leg bared and his jeans dropped and his hand caught her leg, lifted to wrap her calf and thigh around him.

  Her breath rasped raw in her throat because this still wasn’t enough skin and hadn’t taken away the emptiness she wanted obliterated. She was alive, dammit. She was, and this was real and she wanted his heart beating against hers, and to have good reasons for her tears.

  She wanted his scent—something like wood smoke and earth—around her. She wanted the taste of him in her mouth, salt and good things remembered. Leaning into all of that, she opened to him, her back arching.

  “Yes,” she said, voice so low a growl she didn’t know it. She wanted to curse and to cry and maybe scream, but she didn’t because what she really wanted was to hide from all that she had seen outside and everything she didn’t remember. She wanted to crawl into him.

  She did when he rocked into her.

  She shuddered and her body burned into white cinders, vanished into a place where she forgot what was her and what was him. She gave and took and lost the rest of herself. The sizzle shot up her spine as she came, came alive with heat. He followed her with a sharp, fast, startled gasp, sounding surprised and amazed as he trembled in her arms.

  Clinging to him, to that fracture of time that didn’t exist anywhere but between two sweating bodies, she tried to stay there, wanted to keep clawing into him. Impossible, she knew.

  But still she wanted.

  Only her brain had started up again, had started to howl. This was more than insane. She wouldn’t get pregnant. She’d made sure of that back when she’d had a working mind, what seemed long years ago. But there were worse things she could get without any protection and they hadn’t used anything—god, she really had lost it.

  Slowly, her breathing eased. His skin still tasted of salt—she knew because she’d taken a lick from his neck. He had a taste she thought might be his own—a taste she’d liked and she knew she shouldn’t, like strong whiskey.

  She knew she was in even more trouble when—with bodies still tangled and clothes a disaster—he kissed the pulse on her neck and on her temple and whispered in her ear, “I’m sorry...I...ah, I’m not. Not for this, but you probably are. Please, it’s...well, nothing’s okay. But that wasn’t...oh, sweet mercy, it was.”

  His arms tightened, closed around her, and he tucked her against him, cradled her as if she were precious. She came apart then and let sorrow flow.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  There’s nothing like straying too near death to make you feel utterly alive. But you can also get accustomed to anything—even to living too close to the bone. — Excerpt Carrie Brody’s Journal

  Carrie burrowed into him. His robes had been pulled off—she could remember doing that—and his shirt smelled of something spicy. Her tears streamed, slid silent and strong. But she wouldn’t whimper. She’d grown stronger than that. And she started the litany she’d learned in her heart.

  Tears weren’t anything of reason, just a science of emotional release. This was stress coming out. Sexual relief. But that hadn’t been just sex—they’d bonded. She knew it in her body even as her mind scoffed, but there was science there, too. A chemical release of oxytocin. The body’s answer to encourage pair bonding, and endorphins to feel good, and that had been more than good, which made the bonds stronger, with muscles eased and tension taken and reason stripped.

  She decided she’d encourage her other delusions a little longer, because it had been good. Still was because he held and muttered soft words. Kind words. Assurances he couldn’t possibly mean. But that voice wrapped around her better than his arms, and he didn’t sound crazy, so maybe she really was the lunatic here.

  Oh, god, it could be true. This could be her going mental with delusions of apocalypse and other worlds in some warped fantasy. The side effects of something gone very wrong in her lab. That thought forced her eyes open—and she had to admit the truth.

  She was lost amid the ruins of stone, her clothes half abandoned, any kind of sense even further gone, and still hot under her skin. The blush hit, flamed, but she’d done worse in her youth when she’d brought home any guy the old man would hate. She’d thought she’d left the self-destructive streak behind. But the same ol’ Carrie still lived under her skin. She had to get herself under control—she was more rational than this. She knew where it led if you let emotions lead, and she wasn’t doing that.

  She twitched, couldn’t stop that instant of withdrawing, and Gideon seemed to know what that meant.

  He kept one hand wrapped around her wrist, but he moved the length of his body away. It felt like losing religion. He let go of her to pull up his jeans. Fumbling, she got her clothes back on, which went fast since she’d only shucked her trousers from one leg. She had lost a shoe. And her lab coat.

  Twisting, she looked for the coat in the faint light. She had a vague memory of Gideon’s hands trailing over her arms, stripping away the coat. When she looked at him, he held her lab coat out to her. She stared at it, finally looked up to meet his gaze. “Okay, who’s mad here? You with your Voodoo dolls, or me for—?”

  She broke off the words, swiped the back of her hand across damp eyes. Pushing off the stone pillar, she faced him. He stood only a few inches taller and she noticed the fatigue etching deeper lines around his mouth and eyes. His shoulders slumped and he looked like he needed a stiff drink or a long night’s sleep or both.

  He kept hold of her coat and tried a smile that wobbled and charmed and went straight to her belly like that good shot of whiskey you always wanted. “I know. I…I don’t want the world to be what it is, either.”

  She nodded. Patched memories tightened her throat, filled her chest. “There was an overload of the main circuit—a power surge that shouldn’t have happened. Do you think I could be unconscious and my mind’s making this up?”

  His mouth quirked. “I used to think this a fever dream. I wanted it to be that. Oh, and they aren’t dolls. Well, I guess they are, but not for Voodoo. Or...at least, not the way you think. It’s a memorial in a way and what they do here to give the dead and dying some prayer of peace, but you probably don’t want to hear about that right now, do you?”

  He sounded hopeful about that. Shivering, she took her coat. She wanted to burn it along with her most recent set of memories. But she hadn’t been lying about being cold. Gideon had taken care of the chill for a time, but the glow from her blood pumping hard was already slowing. Shrugging into the thin cotton, she pulled it tight.

  The gesture pulled something dark to Gideon’s eyes, made him look away. He bent, straightened with her shoe in one hand now. “Come on. You are cold.”

  He kept her shoe and took her wrist again, his long fingers circling her bones. She frowned at how his touch stirred something inside again. She tried to make that something she could analyze. But she remembered how there’d been a time when she’d never backed down from a dare, or from trouble, which had led to the tattoo on the inside of her thigh and that three-day motorcycle trip to El Paso that still wasn’t more than a haze. It was, however, hard to do without the need for touch. The years had taught her that as well.

  Gideon pulled her closer, and she leaned into him even though she told herself she could stand on her own. If he noticed the drag in her step as he walked her forward, he pretended otherwise. He kept tugging on her, so she went since her brain had checked out on any other bright ideas. But it came up with one and she choked on a strangled laugh that grief sharpened.

  Glancing at her, his head tipped. She shrugged, figured why not say what had popped into her head. “Just thinking—unsafe sex. Very unsafe.”

  His smile flashed, bright and unexpected, startled her into not moving for an instant. It vanished in the next breath and he said, “Everything here’s unsafe. Except—well, the water’s good. I can make sure of that.”

&nbs
p; And it was.

  He led her to a font in the shadows. A place that might have once been for blessings. Dipping his cupped hands into the water, he drank before offering his hands to her. God only knew where the stone bowl he’d given her had gone. She couldn’t remember. And she didn’t know why drinking sweet, cool water from his hands should be more erotic that what they’d just done. But it was.

  The touch of her lips to his skin, that faint taste of salt and him, jolted whatever was left of her brain, seared through her body. Far too intimate to put her mouth on the edge of his hand like this, but the water went down easy and filled her stomach. And Gideon looked like he was trying not to think about what her lips felt like on him as she drank from his fingers. Or maybe it was her touching the back of his hands to guide them to her mouth that blew his pupils wide with what looked like interest stirring.

  Her own sparked, a quick flash of heat over her skin, but she put her mind on other things. Being a military brat at least taught you about hitting life with your back straight and your eyed locked on the road ahead—the old man had drilled that into them before she and her brothers had gotten old enough to scatter like recruits to new assignments. That left her thinking again.

  Wiping the last drops of water from her mouth, she asked, “Can you help me get back home?”

  Turning, he stared at her. He moved slow, as if he’d aged a hundred years with that question. Uncupping his hands, he shook off the damp, looked away.

  She side-stepped, put herself in his view again. “Look, I don’t know where we are. But I do need you to take me back to my lab, or to where you found me. Or, if you’d rather…Listen, I don’t know how this works, but if you are going to kill me like you said you had to with...with one of my guys, I’d rather get it over with. Kind of like we...”

  She waved a hand, couldn’t bring herself to say more. Energy ticked out of her, left her shaking and hollow. She had put everything into flight and struggle, into trying to crawl into him. Her tears had stained her face, left her cheeks sticky. But she wasn’t going to talk about that. She folded her arms and braced her feet wider.

  Lifting his hand, he rubbed his temple with a thumb and dropped his hand again. “You can be a little impulsive, can’t you?”

  “What? That?” She nodded to where he’d held her against stone. “It’s…unusual circumstances, I’d say.”

  “Shock?”

  “I could use it as an excuse,” she admitted. She wasn’t going to add anything about the temptation he was still offering.

  She’d pushed herself past the stage where bad boys got under her skin—but that had been before Gideon. And before this. It seemed stupid, as well, to worry about the tug of attraction she still felt for him, like locking the barn door after the STDs might have gotten in. But maybe this was like Stockholm syndrome on steroids. She was relating too much to him, only she’d been with him what—a few hours, with most of that spent unconscious? He also wasn’t much of a captor since he didn’t seem to know what to do with her.

  He rubbed his palm across his chest, and he shook his head as if he didn’t like his own thoughts. “Can we make a deal? Right now I’ve got to get some sleep, and if I do, you’ll leave and get yourself...well, that’s not going to happen, so I’m going to tie you up, and you’re going to have to sleep with me or at least lie down with me and you’re not going to trust me at all after this.”

  He sounded unhappy and she hated that, so she gave a small shrug, forced an awkward smile. Exhaustion was already filling her, seeping into her muscles, the aftermath of what they’d done, and everything else, and she skirted thinking about her lab and her guys.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t say I trusted you before, did I. But…just, don’t make the knots tight enough to cut off my circulation. And, no offense, but I’m really going to hope I wake up in a hospital.”

  He reached out and brushed his thumb across her chin, his skin still damp. Still warm. He didn’t smile, but his lips lifted. His eyes, however, filled with sad. “I hope you do, too. And in the morning...before we decide anything, we’ll have to wait until Temple gets back.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Is Temple your name, or what Gideon calls you? [silence] Okay, let’s try it this way, you’re from what Gideon calls…the other side? [silence] He said you came through the Rift with him, traveled from…an alternate reality? [silence, followed by feedback] What the hell…shut that…[recording ends] — Transcript of Interview with Person Known as “Temple”

  Temple turned out to be nothing like anything Carrie had expected. But neither was what passed for morning here, or the rest of the night.

  As he’d said, Gideon had tied her. He’d led her to the bedding by the altar, had told her to lie down. She had because what else was she going to do—run again? A shiver had taken her at that thought, arrived with the physical recall of stone on her back and Gideon pressed against her, sweat slicking their bodies. He seemed too busy to notice her reaction.

  He tore strips from the bedding and wrapped them around her wrists. He worked with care, tied double-knots that she couldn’t reach because she had her hands pressed together as if for prayers. He sat behind her, tied her left ankle to his before curling himself around her. He tucked her against him, his chest warming her back. He smelled of dust and sex and a musky tang from his own skin.

  Three deep breaths later, his breathing evened and small puffs of air brushed her ear, tickling. Of all things, he snored. A comforting sound you’d expect from someone you’d slept with for years.

  She’d wanted to dig an elbow into his side to get him to turn and stop that rasping. But she didn’t. Because he was warm and she wasn’t. And the sound made him more human. Flawed. Vulnerable. That soft breath on her skin also meant he wasn’t dead like those who’d been in the lab. But maybe the others…maybe they weren’t all dead. She clung to that, wanted a thread of hope. Be alive, dammit. Someone else had to have survived.

  She shivered again and Gideon stirred, pulled her closer. She gave up trying to stay alert and aware. His body gave off relaxed heat, and she wanted to pull more of that over her because a chill had settled on her face and her hands and any part not covered by Gideon. She didn’t think she could sleep. But she did.

  She woke with a start, unpleasant dreams echoing—Thompson’s scream and Chand’s skin sparking. She shuddered and deep breaths brought her back to the moment. One hip ached from the pressure of too much stone. Her body had thinned the padding of whatever springy stuff they lay on—it wasn’t leaves or anything like a real mattress. But she’d take the physical aches over the emotional ones. She was also going to keep telling herself that someone from her team had to have survived. And she thought about the Voodoo doll that looked like Chand—the dolls Gideon had said were for the dead. Her hand closed and tightened on Gideon’s arm, where the blood pulsed in even, slow beats.

  Gideon hadn’t loosened his hold. He lay heavy across her, as if claimed by exhaustion. It was oddly comforting. There wasn’t much else that was. She let him sleep and watched day break around them.

  Faint light drifted in through the holes in the roof. Blinking, she squinted into the gloom. She was glad to have anyone’s arm around when a long shaft of light fell over the guy sitting a couple of meters in front of the altar.

  Cross-legged on the floor, large and dark, he tilted his head to watch them. Or he was watching Gideon sleep—he was watching her stare back at him now. The guy shifted and she gave an involuntary gasp and that woke Gideon.

  Rolling upright, Gideon’s leg jerked her ankle at the tie. But he stayed close enough that she felt the tension ease from him. Standing, Gideon stretched, joints popping. Sleep blurred his words as he made introductions as if this was the usual start to any day.

  “Ah, Temple. This is...what did you say...oh, Carrie. This is Carrie.”

  Temple said nothing. He kept staring at her with inky dark eyes. Did he get his name from this place, or from looking about as big as thes
e stone pillars?

  With him sitting, she couldn’t judge his exact height, but everything looked epic. Muscular chest and arms under an open robe like Gideon’s; a lot of skin showing, all of it about the same shade as a good French Roast coffee. More of the dirt-cloth wrapped his waist and legs in something that could be ragged pants. A muddy-green pouch, big as a messenger bag, lay at his hip, slung across his chest by a wide strap.

  He watched her from under a tangle of black dreads that cascaded over wide shoulders, and his face reminded her of Olmec statues from Central America; high cheekbones, a prominent nose and lips, a few centuries worn into his expression. Going by the look in his eyes, she’d guess he’d seen a lot, not much of it pleasant.

  What did you say to someone like that? ‘Hi, nice to meet you?’ It wasn’t, so she twisted and glanced up at Gideon. “Now what?”

  Gideon looked down at her. He almost smiled again—at least the lines around his eyes crinkled, and she remembered the weight of his body and how good he’d felt. She started to want him wrapped around her again. She also started to wish this was a church—confession sounded necessary to save her soul about now. But maybe it was better to just shut the memory of sin into a lockbox where she’d buried so much of her past.

  Looking away, she pretended a yawn. Gideon hunkered next to her.

  Reaching down to his calf, he pulled out a knife from some sort of sheath where it had been tucked. He took hold of the ties around her wrists and a neat snick later he’d sliced the cloth. She stared at the curved steel on display, noted the blade wasn’t anything to be found on a civilized table. Okay, so if he’d wanted her dead, he could have done that last night. That was almost the best news she’d come by to date.

  Despite circumstances and clothes and sleep-rumpled hair, Gideon looked good enough for her to have picked up in a bar last night, if she ever got out for that these days. He moved down her body to cut the cloth between their ankles, his hand traveling over her hip and thigh, an unconscious, possessive gesture. He frowned as he worked. In the light, she could see faint lines of fatigue still framing his mouth, and a fine network of white scarring covered both well-muscled arms.