by Sarah Fine
With a quick, desperate prayer and another burst of speed, I flew across the road and into the maze of the outdoor mall. In the distance, a siren wailed. I darted around a corner and peered toward the Super 8, but I couldn’t see the parking lot from my vantage point. I could hear, though. Not screams—but shouts. And the squeal of tires peeling out. Headlights flared as a car zoomed from the back of the motel and headed straight for the mall.
I whirled around and ran past boarded-up windows covered in graffiti. Some of the local kids must have had a fine time in this abandoned place, but I hoped for their sakes none of them were here tonight. Finally, I reached some sort of square with a dry, weedy fountain in the center, deep in the heart of the maze. My chest was tight and pulsing with pain as I held my breath, just long enough to hear pounding footsteps and the crunch of glass beneath boots. I glanced around, knowing I didn’t have much time to get out of sight, and spotted a window where the boards had been pried away. The glass clung to the window frame like jagged rotting teeth in a monster’s mouth, protecting the darkness within. With my pursuers coming closer, I pelted across the square and carefully climbed through, nearly tripping over toppled clothing racks that had been piled along the wall.
Quietly as I could, I wove my way through the desecrated shell, feeling out my path with outstretched hands. I wanted to keep the window in sight, as it offered the only source of light—the bright desert moon and stars, along with a scant glow from the gas station and hotel across the street. But then a dark shadow blocked that out, and I ducked behind an overturned cabinet, praying whoever was out there hadn’t seen me. The silhouette was the wrong shape to be Asa. It didn’t move in the smooth, predatory way he did. Its movements were more sudden. Like the strike of a snake.
Crack, crack, crack, scream. The gunfire erupted outside, only a few shops away. I curled into the fetal position, momentarily forgetting the silhouette outside the store, wishing the needle of pain in my chest would let up for a minute. It throbbed with every kick of my heart.
“Saw you come in here, little reliquary,” said a soft voice from only a few feet away.
My head jerked up, and I found myself staring at a familiar face—it was another of Zhong’s agents, the handsome guy with the slick eyebrows that Asa had downed with dental floss in Chicago. Not knowing if he was Knedas or Strikon, I threw myself to the side as he reached for me. He was quick, though, and as soon as his hands closed around my arms, my body lit up, all at once.
But not with pain. With lust.
My body shook with it, going tight and loose at the same time. Dimly, I was aware of the firefight outside, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was whether he let go. Because I didn’t want him to. Ever.
He pulled me to my feet and pressed me up against the wall. “Where is Asa Ward?” he whispered as he lowered his face to my neck. I arched into him as I felt his tongue on my skin. I stood on my tiptoes, just to bring him closer. My clothes were so inconvenient. “He has the relic, doesn’t he?”
“What?” I breathed, guiding his hand to my waist.
“Asa Ward,” he said, slowly dipping his fingers under the elastic of my shorts.
“I have no idea.” I pushed his fingers lower. God, I felt as if I were going to explode. The only part of me that wasn’t on fire with need was my chest, where pain continued to pulse.
His hand stilled on my belly, firm and resisting as I tried to move it lower. He clucked his tongue, his heartrending smile shining in the dim lights from outside. “Tell me, and I’ll give you what you want. An orgasm that will change you forever.”
Outside, there was still a war going on. I had no idea why there was so much shooting, but a different kind of fight had erupted inside me. I was so close to coming, that point at which you know you have to, at which you can’t think past it. Except—the pain inside me was sharp, and with each throb of it, I remembered my encounter with the Strikon in San Francisco, and the way he had talked to me about what his pain magic would do to my brain. How it would change me forever.
How it would break me.
I blinked up at my handsome Ekstazo captor, his full lips and dark eyes, his bold eyebrows and ebony hair. “Why are you so interested in Asa?”
He canted his hips so I could feel the hard pressure of his erection between my legs, and the rub of it nearly sent me over the edge. “Mr. Zhong wants to punish him,” he said. “And to treasure him. Funny how that works, isn’t it?”
My fingers paused as I realized I had been sliding them through the Ekstazo’s hair. The rope dangling from my wrist rubbed against my newly sensitized skin, clearing the fog inside my head for a moment. “So he wants to make him like Tao.”
The Ekstazo’s fingers slid south, his fingertips just centimeters from the edge of my panties. “He’ll be taken care of. And we’ll take care of you, too. I’ll take care of you personally, in fact.” He grinned and lowered his head to kiss me.
But it was as if his magic were beading on my skin, pulling away from my pores, drying in the heat of my anger, my hurt. I was so tired of being jerked around by magic, of it taking over my body and making it do things I didn’t want it to. And the idea of Mr. Zhong doing the same thing to Asa fanned the flames. My hand slid up my captor’s chest, and I moaned and tilted my head back.
Then I reached up and grabbed the end of the rope tied to my wrist. With a quick jerk, I had it wrapped around the guy’s neck. If Asa could do it with suspenders, I could do it with this. As the Ekstazo wheezed and brought his knee up, hitting me square in the stomach, I clung to that rope, dragging him to the floor, where we wrestled, him punching at me.
Only instead of pain, every impact spread a tingle of ecstasy as he tried to defend himself with his magic, as he tried to steal my purpose. I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, keeping the rope around his throat taut, even as he sank his teeth into my shoulder. And when he broke the skin, my orgasm was instant and mind blowing. My eyes clamped shut and I screamed, undulating against my victim, shaking with pleasure even as I fought to stay alert.
It stole my strength, every ounce of it.
But it was too late for the Ekstazo. His head lolled against my arm as I shuddered with aftershocks, quickly followed by a brutal wave of revulsion. I shoved him off me, the rope uncoiling from his neck. I didn’t know if he was alive or dead, only that I needed to get away from him. I staggered toward the shattered window, creeping along the wall as I listened to yet another smattering of shots. They seemed a little farther away now. Maybe I could make it to the back of the property. I’d seen a jutting ridge of hills as we’d exited the highway, so the interstate had to be close, just over those peaks. If all else failed, if Asa didn’t find me, maybe I could hitch a ride. I was bloody, but damn cute. Surely someone would be willing to pick up a damsel in distress.
I wouldn’t mention that I had just strangled someone.
My hand rose to rub the twinge of pain in my chest. Whatever it was—anxiety, the lingering soreness that came with letting loose such powerful magic—it had kept my mind just sharp enough to allow me to fight back, and in that moment I was grateful for it. I peeked outside the window and didn’t see anyone, and the shooting had really died down. No better time to run than now, especially since a low moan from the back of the store told me that my Ekstazo lover boy wasn’t dead after all.
With the shards of glass snagging at the fabric of my shorts, I climbed through the window and looked around, trying to get my bearings. But then a sudden burst of gunfire to my left made my direction clear, and I ran to the right, staying hunched over, as if that were going to protect me from bullets. I made it back to the edge of the square. Just beyond the fountain, I could see a path that ended in blackness, but beyond the roofs of the buildings lay a dense shadow that blocked out the starlight—the hills that marked my hope for escape. I stepped into the square, but as soon as I did, a bullet hit the wall next to me.
I screamed, the terror streaking through m
e as more bullets crunched through wood and shattered stone, my legs moving like pistons against the ground. I made it through the square, only to see a few dark silhouettes emerge from a store right down the lane where I was intending to bolt. I stopped dead, praying they hadn’t seen me yet.
Too late did I hear the footsteps coming at me from behind, and I grunted as a hard, wet body hit me, arms wrapping like steel around my rib cage. I recognized his scent a split second before he spoke. “Where the hell have you been?” Asa said, his breath coming from him in sharp gasps. The relic necklace clinked between us, the pendant closed. Sweat dripped from his jaw.
“Oh thank God,” I said, running my hands up his arms, needing to reassure myself that he was all right.
“Worship me later, how about?” He hustled me into a corridor. Asa pushed my back against the wall and looked me over, his short hair standing on end. Dark, angry welts stood out on the skin of his throat. He seemed like he was on the verge of collapse. The circles under his eyes were so dark that they looked like bruises.
The sight focused my thoughts and steadied my hands, which rose to pull that poisonous jewelry over his head. He ducked his head and allowed it, bracing his palms against the wall like he was trying to hold himself up. “I thought they’d gotten you,” he said.
“One of them did.”
“Ekstazo.” His nostrils flared. “How the hell did you get away? Did that motherfucker—”
“No.” I put the necklace over my head, glad he couldn’t see the color of my burning cheeks. “Stop underestimating me.”
He smiled, still trying to catch his breath. “You’d think I’d know better by now.”
I touched one of the welts on his neck, and he winced and pulled my fingers away. “Sorry,” I said. “I guess the relic worked, though? Long enough for you to get away.”
“Yep. Gave me enough of a head start.” He grimaced and his back arched abruptly, and I stepped to the side as he retched.
I moved deeper into the corridor, giving him space. “Is it the relic? It didn’t make you that sick before, once you’d stopped wearing it.”
“Not the relic,” he said, doubling over to dry heave. “Reza’s here.”
“What? He’s working for Zhong?”
Asa wiped his mouth on his bloody T-shirt and shook his head. “No. Brindle’s people are all over the fucking place. That’s the shooting—Zhong and Brindle’s people are firing at each other.”
“Hasn’t someone called the police?”
“Sure, but Knedas agents were waiting for them in the parking lot. Anyone who gets close thinks they’re hearing construction sounds.”
“At night?”
“Doesn’t have to make sense for people to believe.”
So we were in the middle of a mob war, and no one was coming to help. “Who’s winning?”
A piercing scream split the night, and Asa groaned and sank to his knees. “One guess.”
Reza’s arrival would have changed things. “Does he need to touch people to hurt them?”
“If he’s close enough, all he has to do is be able to see them.”
But he could hurt Asa without any of that. He was hurting Asa just by being in the vicinity. “You have to get out of here. When they’re done fighting each other, they’ll come for you.”
It didn’t matter which side caught him. He was sunk either way.
Asa pushed himself up to his feet, using the wall for support. “Come on. We’ll head for those hills behind this development.” He stretched out his long arm and grabbed my hand. His grasp was cold and clammy and trembling.
I pulled my hand from his. They were chasing him, but they were also chasing the relic. The thing we’d promised to give Frank Brindle in exchange for Ben’s life. “Asa, this could end here.”
He leaned against the wall, gritting his teeth as another scream rent the air, closer this time. The gunfire had stopped for the time being. Maybe Zhong’s people were too terrified to shoot, scared that it would lead Brindle’s Strikon assassin straight to them.
“This is our chance, Mattie,” Asa said in a tight voice.
“This is your chance. We had a plan. There’s no reason not to stick to it now.”
“You expect me to leave you behind?”
“I expect you to do what we agreed on. I’ll give them the relic. You get as far away from here as you can.” I smiled, though it was really hard. The sharp pain in my chest had been replaced with a terrible ache. My fingers rose to touch his rough cheek. “Go get Gracie. She’ll be so happy to see you.”
Asa cursed and folded his arm over his stomach as a piercing shriek resounded only a few stores down from our hiding place. Reza was getting closer. “We can leave the relic right here for them to find. They’ll let Ben loose. You don’t have to stay.”
“You don’t know that. If I’m here, I can explain what we had to do. I can tell them you said you were on your way to South America or something. Send them in the wrong direction.”
He raised his head and leveled me with the look in his eyes. I’d never seen it before. It was somehow ferocious and pleading at the same time. “Come with me, Mattie. We’re a good team. We can figure this out. Together.”
Together. Suddenly, all my confused, tangled feelings for him pushed their way to the front of my brain, overwhelming and terrifying. I needed to get away from him. “I can’t, Asa.”
Asa’s lips curled into a snarl. “Ben doesn’t deserve you.”
“Stop.”
He swallowed hard. “Mattie.” It looked like he was struggling with his words, like they were as painful as the Strikon magic all around him, like he was trying to summon the will to let them go. “When Ben told you I was jealous of him . . .”
“You said he was wrong.” My heart was thrumming and my stomach was tight, and somehow the assassins all around us seemed much less threatening than what lay between me and Asa.
“That was the truth.” Asa’s jaw clenched. “Until—”
“Good-bye, Asa,” I blurted out, my voice cracking. I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to shut the ache inside the supposedly powerful vault I carried in my chest. If I could hold the most powerful pain magic in existence, why couldn’t I contain this kind of hurt? “Give Gracie a hug for me, okay?”
Asa chuckled, that dark, dry, humorless sound he made only when he was in pain. He caressed my cheek, a quick brush of his calloused fingertips across my skin. “Dammit, Mattie,” he whispered.
And then his touch was gone, and so was he. I listened to his footsteps fading into silence.
I sank to the ground, the relic necklace clinking softly as my chest convulsed with a sob. I pulled my knees up and curled around the ache, covering my head with my arms as tears streamed down my face. I knew I shouldn’t be crying. I was so close to getting exactly what I wanted. But my body thought differently, I guessed.
“Mattie. I’m glad we found you in time.”
My head jerked up. Reza had knelt before me, looking dapper and smooth, as if he’d just been on an evening stroll. His dark eyes were bright. “Are you hurt?”
“N-no,” I said. “I’m not hurt.”
He reached for me, but I cringed back, whimpering, wishing I could control my tears. But it was all too much, all at once, and the pressure and pain in my chest were overwhelming. Reza pulled his hands back. “I won’t hurt you. If I’d wanted to, I could have done it the moment I laid eyes on you. You understand that, don’t you?”
I glanced at his gorgeous face, his wavy black hair slicked back from his forehead, his gaze gentle. “Please let me help you,” he murmured. “That’s what I was sent here to do.” He offered his hand.
I took it. There was no pain. I wondered how hard he was working to control it, but I was grateful for his steadiness as he helped me to my feet. “What happens now?”
He put his arm around me, and his eyes traced the gaudy pendant nestled between my breasts. “I’m going to take you back to Las Vegas, where you will have the
chance to clean yourself up before meeting with Mr. Brindle.” He gave me a hypnotic smile. “And then you will be reunited with Ben, who is desperate for a report on your well-being and safety.”
“What about Asa?” I asked in a broken whisper.
Reza’s eyebrows rose. “What of him?” He made a show of looking around. “It seems Mr. Ward slipped away before I had the chance to greet him.” His smile widened. “Another day, perhaps.”
The predatory glint in his eye sent a chill through me, but it was gone so quickly that I wondered if I’d imagined it. Reza tucked my hand into the crook of his elbow and gestured toward the square. “Shall we?”
I nodded, and he led me out of the corridor and into the dusty, smoky night.
EPILOGUE
It was easier than I’d thought it would be. Frank Brindle was as good as his word. He actually seemed a little hurt that Asa would believe he’d ever intended to take him by force, though I could have sworn his friendly smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. Ben and I left Las Vegas on a first-class flight a few days later, with the assurance that we’d been granted safe passage by Zhong Lei. After the firefight in the desert had killed off dozens of agents on each side, the two bosses had negotiated some kind of truce.
Our return to Sheboygan was triumphant and full of lies. With Frank’s help—and probably serious nudging by some of his Knedas agents, who had been sent forth to “gather” witnesses—a story had been constructed. Ben had been kidnapped after a case of mistaken identity. He’d been locked in a trunk and transported cross-country, where, badly dehydrated and suffering from the removal of his pacemaker, he’d nevertheless managed to escape. He’d awakened in the hospital, where he’d spent several days as a John Doe before the police realized who he was.
As for me, I’d immediately emerged from my self-imposed exile at the spa to fly out to Vegas and be by his side as he recovered. We were all over the news. We smiled for the cameras. We were interviewed on the Today show. Good Morning America, too. We held hands, my engagement ring glittering bright. We didn’t talk much, though. I think both of us knew we were headed for a reckoning, but neither of us felt strong enough to face it just yet.
