She let go of Angel’s wrist and Angel, thrown off balance, ended up on her butt on the cold, hard concrete. But she didn’t notice, her head too busy spinning, too busy trying to make sense of whatever she was being told.
Dead was dead.
“Fuck me…” It was a soft, disgusted mutter and something about it made Angel look from Kel’s still face to the girl’s. While the sound of Ness’s voice hadn’t changed, the tone of it, the rhythm of it had. Her accent was bit more slurred, not so clear and crisp. “Lad, ‘e done worked you up good. ’Ealing up, though, aren’t you?”
She pulled away Kel’s tattered, bloodied shirt and instinctively, Angel went to knock her hands away. But then she looked—
And what she saw was something her mind was totally unprepared for. This was no trick of light. There was no way she could have mistaken the seriousness of the injury. What it was, she couldn’t say, other than the plain, undeniable fact that the gaping, ugly hole in Kel’s upper chest had been grotesque and large, larger than a child’s fist and deep. A wound like that should be fatal. It hadn’t struck the heart but it had to have gotten the lung. The loss of blood alone would have probably been fatal.
But now? There was reddened tissue, almost like scar tissue, surrounding the open part of the wound and with every passing second, that scar tissue paled out, smoothed out. The wound was shrinking, easily half the size it had been a few hours ago.
Like the floor under her had suddenly grown scorching hot, Angel surged to her feet. She swallowed the knot in her throat as she stared at Kel’s chest. “What’s going on?”
She might as well have addressed her question to the wall, because the girl had this spaced-out expression on her face and didn’t blink when Angel shouted a repeat of her question in her broken, frog croak of a voice.
All Ness did was systematically work shreds of Kel’s shirt out of the wound and once she’d done that, she eased the torn shirt away from the wound, leaving it tangled around his torso.
Angel made herself look at him, really look. There had been other injuries on Kel, ragged gashes that made her think of something clawing at his flesh. Bruises, scrapes and abrasions.
Now, save for the ever-shrinking wound in his chest, his body was perfect. Unmarred.
Part of her wanted to hope.
Part of her wanted to believe.
With that gift of yours, you should understand well enough that there are many, many things in this world that cannot be rationally explained, that things aren’t always as they appear.
But hope, belief wouldn’t soften the blow when she finally accepted the cold and ugly reality. Angel’s reality was already desolate enough. She didn’t need the added burden of shattered hope.
The logical part of her mind demanded she get out of the basement and away from the girl with the split-personality thing going on. Demanded she call the cops. Demanded she call the doctor and get a psych referral. Because none of what she was seeing was possible, because she couldn’t be trapped in the basement with a dead body and two crazy people and because she’d questioned her sanity a lot of times in her life, but never so much as now.
She did none of that.
What Angel did was settle on the foot of the stairs and watch. When Ness stood up and left in silence, Angel watched. When the girl reappeared a few minutes later with Angel’s big yellow popcorn bowl filled with water, Angel watched. As Ness cleaned the blood away, as she bodily hauled him a little away from the still-sleeping blond, Angel watched.
The woman worked in silence and once Kel was cleaned up, she knelt by the other man, washing away blood and dirt with a practiced ease. If Angel had let herself think, she might have been thrown by that calm, unaffected manner.
But she wouldn’t let herself think—couldn’t.
Even when Ness gathered up the bowl, the bloodied water, the torn bits of Kel’s shirt and the scissors, all Angel did was sit and watch.
Time passed, the day crawled on by and Angel knew she was alone in the house again. Or almost alone.
Although she didn’t sleep, her mind went into a state of semi-shut down, cluttered with vague, surreal thoughts. Caught in a state of dim awareness, she wasn’t prepared when somebody brushed past her. Instinct, driven by the night of sheer hell, guided her and Angel swung out, caught the person by the back of the legs and sent her flying.
Only a natural eerie grace and speed kept Ness from plunging face first into the concrete. She caught herself with her hands, tucked her head and rolled with the momentum, coming back onto her feet with a cat’s grace. She rose and turned, glaring at Angel. “What the…”
But her words faded when she saw Angel’s face. “You didn’t hear me come in.”
Mute, all Angel could do was stare.
Ness sighed and reached up, rubbed the back of her neck. “Maybe I should wear a bell?” Then she shook her head. “No. No need for that. Not staying. I’ve brought some clothes for them. I’m not really needed now.”
That was when Angel noticed Ness’s black duffel. The woman dropped it to the floor and then headed back towards the steps, keeping a careful distance between herself and Angel.
“Where are you going?” Angel rasped. It hurt so much to force the words from her abused throat, it almost brought tears to her eyes.
Ness paused on the step just above Angel. “You cried yourself raw,” she murmured. She reached out a hand.
Angel would have jerked away, but there was something on the girl’s face that was completely enthralling. Utterly compelling. This time, no mistake about it, her blue eyes did glow.
Her hand touched Angel’s throat and there was warmth—warmth that quickly became heat and heat became fiery pain—but then the pain flared, exploded…and slowly faded.
“Better?”
Angel jerked back as the woman’s hand fell to her side. “Is what better… Oh. Oh, shit!” She brought up her hand, touching the heated, tingling skin along her throat. Her very much free-from-pain throat. Hell, even the vicious headache brewing behind her eyes had disappeared. “What did you do?”
A grin flirted with the corners of Ness’s mouth and she replied, “Nothing much…just a little friendly magick, sweet.”
Without another word, she jogged up the stairs. Angel sent a glance towards Kel’s still body but then she tore up the stairs, determined to get some answers.
But the house, even the yard, was empty and when Angel lowered her shields to search physically, she found nothing. She leaned back against the wall, smacking her head into it and groaning. That she was able to do it without pain only added to her frustration.
She couldn’t go from crying herself raw to just fine in two blinks of an eye.
But it had happened. Confused, and still so achingly tired, she flopped down onto the couch. Rufus appeared and jumped up to lay half between, half on her legs, his big head resting on her hip.
Absently, she reached down and scratched him behind the ears and closed her eyes. If this really was happening, then she needed to try and make sense out of it. If it wasn’t happening, then maybe she could just lay here, be still, and this hallucination or whatever would just end.
But her chaotic mind had no desire to let her make sense out of anything. Her thoughts leaped from one memory to the next, from one bit of impossible information and then onto another. She probably spent a good hour laying there, trying to make sense of it, but it wasn’t going to happen unless somebody explained.
Angel gritted her teeth. “I want to know what in the hell is going on.”
A low, grumbling voice came from off to the side. “I might be able to help a little.”
Angel yelped and tried to roll off the couch. She ended up falling on her ass because Rufus wouldn’t untangle his massive weight from her legs. Shoving to her feet, she immediately backed away before she recognized the voice. The blond. Of weirdness and speed and a body that healed far too quick. He stood before her naked—completely naked, and completely unaffected by it,
and it allowed her to see without a doubt none of the injuries he’d acquired earlier were visible.
Not even the ugly-ass wound on his torso, the one that had been leaking blood all over him. The blood. Unable to help herself, she looked down at the floor and saw the blood trail he’d left behind earlier.
But there was no sign of an injury on his nude body. The only imperfection that she could see at all was a mark low on his belly, bright red. And shit—fading, disappearing like his body was absorbing even that faint imperfection.
She watched, unable to move for a full minute, and by the time she could tear her gaze away, it was gone.
Blood rushed to her cheeks as she looked up and found him staring at her, a faint smile on his mouth.
“If Kel saw you looking at me like that, he’d gut me.” He grimaced and rubbed a hand over his flat belly, lingering where Angel had glimpsed that weird reddened area. “I’ve had that experience and then some. Don’t want a repeat.”
He frowned and glanced down. When he looked up, a crooked grin appeared on his face. “Don’t suppose you have anything that might fit me, would you?”
“Ahhhh… Uh…” Angel blinked, remembered the black duffel. “There was a girl here. Ness. She brought a bag.”
“Ness? You probably mean Nessa.” He nodded and glanced around.
“Whatever. Some short, bossy, blonde little brat.”
A grin curved his lips and abruptly, he started to laugh. “Yeah, that would be Nessa and damn, but I love hearing her described like that.”
“So you know her.” Crossing her arms over her chest, Angel scowled. “Then maybe you can tell me how in the hell she ended up here, what in the hell she wanted, or even who in the hell she is.”
He shrugged. “Complicated answers. She’s a friend of mine, an old friend and she was here because she knew we needed her.” Glancing around, he asked, “You said she brought a bag? Where is it?”
She blinked, opened her mouth to answer. But couldn’t. The words were locked in her throat. Downstairs. Downstairs with Kel.
Again, the girl’s words… Things aren’t always as they appear. Angel wanted to believe that.
Desperately.
Violently.
His eyes narrowed as he studied her thoughtfully. “Downstairs, right?” He glanced behind him towards the door in the kitchen and then he held out a hand. “Come on.”
She jerked away, shaking her head furiously. She couldn’t go down there—
Silent screams echoed in her mind. She wanted to shout her fury to the skies, the uncaring God that had done this to her…placed Kel back in her life only have him die right in front of her. But she couldn’t do anything but stare at the stranger in front of her and shake her head.
He sighed. A look crossed over his face and then he muttered, “Fuck it.”
That was all the warning she had. He moved towards her, too fast, way too fast, and grabbed her. When she tried to pull away, he simply lifted her body and threw her over his shoulder. His grip over her thighs held her firmly in place and if he was at all bothered by her fighting, he never showed it. As he carried her down into the basement, she jerked at his hair, bit whatever body part she could reach and dug her nails into his flesh.
Down in the dark, cool confines, he lowered her to her feet and although his face was impassive when he looked at her, his eyes weren’t. They glittered with some suppressed emotion. She’d like to think he was pissed, but her instinct, fueled by her gift, told her that he was laughing at her.
“You’re a little cat, aren’t you?”
Angel didn’t bother answering. She whirled around, rushing for the stairs, all without once looking at Kel. She couldn’t look at him. Not right now. Not yet. Not until her mind processed that it really was him, that he was dead, that whatever the girl had done to make her hope otherwise had been a trick.
She made it two steps before a hard, strong hand closed around her elbow. “You’re not leaving just yet, sugar.” He forced her to turn around and face him and she could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t give a damn about anything else but keeping her down here, for whatever reason.
He guided her away from the door and then grabbed the bag. When he went to pull on a pair of jeans he found inside, Angel sent another look towards the steps. He stilled, caught her eye and shook his head. “I’ll just chase you down, sugar. I’m good at it, believe me.”
Clenching her teeth, she gritted out, “Damn it, what in the hell do you want?”
He glanced towards the window set high in the wall. Fading sunlight just barely filtered through and the horizon was painted with shades of gold and pink. Abruptly, Angel realized the day was gone. She’d passed the whole day mostly existing in a fog of denial.
Sunset. You’ll see. It’s okay. ’sall okay.
Sunset—shit, what had he meant?
She looked back at his face and that weird, secretive smile appeared on his lips. He tugged on his jeans and then held out a hand. “Come on, sugar. Ask yourself this… How can things get any worse?”
Her eyes sought out Kel and she knew, without a doubt, nothing would be worse than seeing him laying dead at her feet. Not even the twelve years she’d spent thinking he was already dead. “What’s the point of this?” she asked wearily as she reached out and laid her hand in his.
As though escorting her into a formal affair, he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and guided her to Kel’s side. “The point, sugar, is that not everything is as it seems.” He knelt down, and because he still held her hand, she had to kneel with him.
They sat like that for a few seconds, him staring at her and Angel staring everywhere but at Kel or the man. “Toronto—the girl called you Toronto. Is that seriously your name?”
He shrugged. “Seriously, no. But it’s the only one I’ve ever gone by.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw his hand, saw him lifting it to touch her face. She braced herself, and still, when he touched her, she flinched. Even through her shields, she could feel the rush within his mind. Indistinct words, thoughts, emotions, all of it a blur. If she lowered her shields, she knew she’d likely pick up more, but she didn’t want more.
Angel had taken in far too much over the past twenty-four hours and she felt like she was going to crack.
His hand cupped her cheek and guided her face around until their gazes met. “He never stopped thinking about you. Never once stopped loving you. When he realized there was a danger coming your way, he thought of nothing but protecting you.”
Tears burned her eyes but she blinked them away. Crying now wasn’t an option. Once she started, she knew it would take a long time to stop and she’d rather not fall apart around a stranger twice in one day. “Already figured that much out for myself, thanks,” she said, her voice harsh, her tone purposely derisive.
Toronto crooked a grin at her and murmured, “Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. I am a little thrown that you aren’t asking where he’s been, why he stayed gone…?”
Damn it, the tears were trying to slip free anyway. “Does it really matter?”
His only response was a loose, restless shrug. “Maybe. Maybe not. One thing that does matter though… He never stopped loving you. Nothing could change that. But what about you? You still love him? Anything gonna change that? Because the answer to that matters quite a bit.”
In a voice gone tight with emotion, Angel rasped, “I never stopped loving him…not even thinking he was dead all this time could change that. Nothing ever could.”
“Good.” Then he let go of her arm, reached for something outside her line of sight.
She didn’t see what it was at first. But then she saw it, the silver surface reflecting the dim light back at her. A knife. A wickedly mean, serious-looking knife.
Shit—so much for things not getting worse.
But he didn’t bring that shiny silver blade within a foot of her. He wasn’t looking at her at all. He slashed it along his wrist, then, as blood welle
d, laid it on the floor at his side. Sparing her a quick glance, he said, “‘Nothing ever could,’ you said.”
He lifted Kel’s upper body, braced him with one arm.
Angel’s eyes went wide as Toronto lifted his wrist to Kel’s mouth. “Come on, kid. It’s wake-up time.”
Whatever Angel had been expecting, it hadn’t been this.
Whatever Angel thought that freaky girl from earlier might have meant, it wasn’t this.
Whatever weird thing could cause a body to so rapidly heal from injury, it wasn’t this.
This was scientifically impossible.
But as she watched, Kel’s lashes fluttered. He groaned, low in his throat and then, like a baby rooting for milk, he turned his head towards Toronto’s bleeding wrist. His lips parted and she caught a glimpse of something white—then, he struck.
Feeding.
The silence in the room stretched out. Ten seconds passed. Twenty. Thirty. When his eyes abruptly opened, a startled hiss escaped Angel’s lips. He didn’t see her—something about the glassy, glittery look in those green depths made her think he couldn’t see her.
It made it a bit easier, actually. Made it easier to focus on the fact that his pale skin was no longer that deathly white. Made it easier for her to shift around a bit until she could look at his upper chest and shoulder.
The sun had set, taking with it the soft golden light that had shone through the windows. Now the light came from three naked bulbs hanging from the beams in the ceiling and their bright light was harsh, unforgiving—and it allowed nothing to hide.
That bloodied, ugly hole was gone. All that remained was a wound that looked almost innocuous, something that might need a few stitches, but not something that could make a man bleed to death before help arrived. And with every past heartbeat, that wound grew smaller and smaller, the flesh knitting together in a smooth, seamless fashion.
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