Burning Darkness

by Jaime Rush

  “Oh, please. Just because you saw me get weepy, you think I’m vulnerable. Okay, you caught me at a weak moment. But I’m not weak. I told you I’d be okay if you torched Westerfield.”

  “Stubborn . . .” He mumbled the rest of the words.

  “Bossy . . .” She mumbled stuff, too.

  “Look, little girl, this is serious shit here.”

  “No kidding. And would you stop calling me that!”

  His gaze went from her head down to her toes. “You are little. And you are a girl. Unless there’s something I should know—”

  She smacked his arm. “You are such a—”

  “Wonderful—”

  “Overbearing—”

  “Handsome—”

  “Jerk. Sometimes,” she added, because he had a playful gleam in his eyes, and she didn’t want him to think she was taking this seriously. She raised an eyebrow at him. “Would you stay back for any reason?”

  “No.”

  “Remember, I’m like you. Stubborn, yes. So I’m in.”

  He pulled off just before the entrance to the airfield. Another sign said CLOSED, no surprise there. He shut his eyes and, she guessed, remote-viewed the hangar.

  “He’s going through what I’m guessing is a preflight check. The plane looks old. I went up high to see the layout of the area.” He pointed to the tree line on the right. “If we follow that, and stay inside the trees, we can get to the hangar without being seen.”

  “Can’t you get him psychically, without even going to the hangar?”

  “I thought about that, but if I can’t, then he’ll know we’re here. I want to be right on him.”

  “We can’t shoot him, though.”

  “We can shoot him; he just heals fast. It might still buy some time, sap some of his energy. And speaking of—”

  “I won’t forget I can freeze time.”

  “Let’s go. We need to keep our conversation to a minimum. We don’t know what this guy can do. Petra has extraordinary hearing, so he might, too.”

  They crept through the sparse pines, barely a cover at all. No sign of Westerfield, but as they got closer, they heard sounds coming from the hangar. They stalked the large metal building from the rear angle, sliding along the wall toward the opening. They peeked through the grimy window. There he was, standing in front of the plane’s prop. He turned the prop horizontal, grabbed hold of both sides, and pulled the plane toward the opening.

  They ducked down and crept to the side of the opening. The sound of grunting echoed from the cavern of the hangar. The edge of the wing came into view, then the plane, small and old, like Eric had said. Beneath the wings and body was a suspended strip of thin metal. The plane stopped on the tarmac outside the hangar, and Westerfield placed blocks in front of the wheels.

  He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and walked back into the hangar. His voice floated from the hangar. “I’ve got the plane loaded. It would be nice to have some help with this. I’ve spent the whole morning getting this piece of crap ready . . . Yeah, I know, you’ve got more important things to do.” Bitterness seeped into his words. “I do like the killing part, but this isn’t the kind of killing I enjoy. None of these people will die directly by my hand.”

  My God, he was whining about it. She shivered in disgust. And people were going to die. People. More than one.

  He came out again and climbed inside the plane. “I don’t get to see them gasp their last breath, or groan in their death throes. I don’t get to smell their confusion, their shock or fear.”

  She remembered how he’d smelled her fear. She looked at Eric, and he seemed to know what she was thinking: No emotions.

  “It’s almost ready. I’ve still got to check for water in the fuel tanks. I’ll let you know when I’m done.” Westerfield pocketed the phone and climbed back out again. “Forgot to take the chalks out.”

  Eric counted on his fingers. Three. Two. One. He stepped around the side of the building. She followed, ready for anything, holding the gun to her side.

  Westerfield looked up, his eyes wide. They’d taken him by surprise, but their advantage evaporated. She saw the strain on Eric’s face, but Westerfield didn’t go poof. He held out his hand, and Eric flew backward. Then his eyes locked onto her. He pushed her, too, and she hit the asphalt hard, feeling the bite of it on her arm. Her gun skittered several yards away.

  He advanced on them like a robot then. Eric looked for her as he jumped to his feet. Westerfield waved his arm like a symphony conductor, and a long metal rod lying inside the hangar flew off the ground right at Eric. She couldn’t scream fast enough to warn him.

  So she froze time. The metal rod was suspended inches from Eric’s face. She ran toward him and pushed him out of the trajectory. Time resumed, and the rod bounced on the ground several yards behind him.

  Westerfield narrowed his eyes. “How in the hell do you do that?”

  He waved his hand with a snapping motion, and she went flying into Eric. Their bodies collided, sending them both to the ground. Eric gave her a fierce look. It said, We’re not going to make it.

  She gave him one back. Yes, we are.

  The roar of the airplane engine filled the air. Except Westerfield wasn’t in it. He was directing it, at them. Eric jumped to his feet, yanking her up with him. Westerfield was smiling, a satisfied smile that pissed her off. Eric, too, to judge by the snarl on his face.

  “I’m going to distract him,” she said. “Do as much damage as you can.”

  The plane was moving closer. She felt the suck of the air, the whining roar of the engine. She closed her eyes and projected herself behind Westerfield. Tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around, and Eric rushed him.

  He threw Westerfield to the ground, his hands around his throat. The men struggled, and she raced toward them just as the plane moved up behind her. Run for the gun? No time. She had to distract Westerfield so he wouldn’t do his wicked mind thing. Eric had a stranglehold on him, but Westerfield was moving enough to gasp for air and keep his strength.

  She grabbed at his arms, digging her nails into his skin. The plane was behind them, the engine noise a hum in her brain now, the same sound as when she was projecting. Westerfield gasped, as though losing the battle. She didn’t believe it, though.

  She looked up. The plane was coming right at them. He was still controlling it. She felt her body lift, a crazy weightless sensation. Eric tilted backward. Westerfield pushed them toward the blur of the blades.

  Can’t win. No, can’t give up!

  He reared his arm back, as though to throw a ball at them. No, to give them a final, fatal push. Her feet left the ground. She felt the air sucking at her, pulling her in. Felt the vibration of the engine. Her body bumped Eric’s. He grabbed her hand.

  Stop. Time.

  The engine stopped. Westerfield froze, his hand out toward them. She and Eric dropped to the ground. She blinked as he stared at the frozen blades.

  “You’re not frozen,” she said.

  “Move.” Eric pulled her out from in front of the propeller. He faced Westerfield’s still form and concentrated.

  “Can’t burn him, even now,” he said, frustration grinding his voice to a fine point. “Get on the plane. I’ll run him down like he tried to run us down.”

  The plane’s engine came back to life as they climbed into the small cabin. Several silver canisters sat inside, with lines coming from them.

  “Do you know how to fly?” she asked. “Or . . . drive?”

  He’d jumped into the seat, and now took hold of the steering wheel. “I know enough to make me dangerous. A couple of years ago I had a friend who took me up in his plane a few times.”

  Westerfield scrambled out of the way as Eric aimed for him. “Can you freeze him again?”

  She focused, but nothing happened. “I must be tapped out.” She needed to learn how to hold the freeze longer.

  “Where’d he go?” Eric’s voice pitched higher as he strained to see where Westerfield ha
d ducked. He turned in time to see him jump into the open doorway of the plane. But before Westerfield could do anything, Eric shot him. Westerfield fell backward into the plane’s cargo area from the impact. Blood gushed from the bullet wound, but he was already holding his hand over it.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Eric raced past him, grabbing her hand and jumping out of the plane and onto the tarmac with him.

  The plane, now under no one’s control, kept moving forward.

  “Stay under it,” he called out, tugging her beneath the moving body. “If he can’t see us, he can’t nail us.”

  “But the plane might,” she said, eyeing the wheels. She’d learned to be quick on her feet long ago, though, and kept up with the movement.

  “Stand behind me,” he said, ducking in an attempt, it seemed, to stay in the plane’s blind spot.

  Westerfield was apparently more focused on taking off than finishing them off, because the plane turned, the engine whined louder, and then it started down the rutted and cracked runway. Eric stared, and a tree burst into flame near the end of the runway. Her heart started at the ferocity of the flames that licked into the sky, and potentially into the plane’s path. It veered to the left, and Eric set another tree on fire, too. The wheel on the left went through it, but it didn’t stop the plane’s forward momentum. In seconds it was a speck in the sky.

  He looked over at her. “You all right?”

  She twisted her arm and grimaced at the scrape. “Funny how it hurts more when you look at it. I’m fine. You?”

  “Pissed. How are we going to kill that son of a bitch? We’d better get out of here. He might be on the phone now with whoever he was talking to earlier, and I don’t feel like another foray into the woods.”

  “What about the fire?”

  “I’ll call it in so they can stop it before it spreads.”

  “Well, at least you’re a responsible arsonist.”

  He didn’t look amused by her sort-of compliment. “I wasn’t always. And yet, I hate when people throw their cigarette butts out the window of their car.” He glanced back once more into the sky. The plane was out of sight, the sound of its engine fading in the distance. “I want to know what was on that plane, and why it was more important to him than wiping us.”

  She looked at the now empty sky, but her gaze went to the trees. A terrible weight settled into her chest. “Whatever he’s up to, people are going to die.”

  Chapter 14

  Out in the Wal-Mart parking lot, Eric opened the tube of antibiotic, and Fonda stretched out her scraped-up arm. He held her wrist and gently rubbed on the salve. Her wrist was so small, everything about her was small, but she wasn’t delicate. She was strong, brave, and vulnerable. Even in danger, walking that thin plank around the water tank, she had the grace of a cat. Her dichotomies twisted him, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Bothersome, yes, but not unpleasant.

  She sucked in a breath but let out nothing more than that.

  They’d done a mini clean-up in the restrooms. He had bought some mousse, and for the first time in days actually did something with his hair. Her hair looked soft, and the pink stripe caught the sunlight. He wondered if her nearly white-blond hair was natural.

  There are ways to find out . . .

  He remembered that she’d told Magnus it was. He now wondered if her pubic hair was that color, too. He pushed that thought out, because it took next to nothing to get him hard under normal circumstances, and being with Fonda was nowhere near normal. Besides, he didn’t want her to think he was getting off treating her scrape.

  She had bought a tank top and a pair of jeans, and obviously some makeup. Her eyes were smoky, her lips pink, and at the moment they were in a tight line.

  He focused on her arm, the fine hairs against her skin that the sunlight made golden. And those scars. “The cuts that left these scars must have hurt.” They bugged him, mostly because she wouldn’t tell him about them.

  “Yes, they did,” she said, but didn’t sound upset.

  “How were they made?”

  Her jaw tensed. “It’s none of your business.”

  It was, somehow, though he couldn’t figure out just how. He would find out, but he sensed now was not the time to push.

  “Any other injuries?” he asked, surveying what he could see of her. His gaze zeroed in on a speck of blood at her earlobe. “Your earring’s missing.” He reached out to touch the soft skin, but her fingers were faster, inspecting her lobe.

  “Whew. No rip.”

  He leaned closer to get a better look. “Just a scratch where it tore out.”

  She turned, finding him only an inch away, and turned her head to remove the other earring. “I tore my belly button ring once, out dancing, and that hurt like hell. Took three weeks to heal, and it was another month before I could put a ring in it.”

  She had a belly button ring. And tattoos in private places. He knew he would see them, all of them. The knowing settled hard and deep in his gut, and lower. Wanting her was no surprise. It was the other things he felt that tangled up his insides, because he’d never felt them before. Wanting to protect her, to make things right.

  Calling her “little girl” wasn’t his way of demeaning her, even though she obviously took it that way. It was an endearment that slipped out.

  “I think I’ve got a scrape back here,” she said, lifting her shirt to expose creamy pale skin at her waist marred by a road burn slashing at an angle.

  “Yeah.” He wished he were Petra, where he could wave his hand and take it away. He rubbed more salve on that, the best he could do. His fingers spread, touching the skin around the scrape. He didn’t want to stop touching her.

  “You had a scrape on your back, from Sayre,” she said, turning toward him and moving out of his reach. She took the tube.

  “It’s okay,” he said, even though it was damned nice of her to remember.

  She pinned him with a look and twirled her finger. He turned around, lifting his shirt.

  She didn’t do anything for a second, and he thought it must be pretty bad. Infected, maybe. Then he felt her touch, one finger lightly rubbing across a tender place midway up his back. It was the first time they’d touched each other, he realized, other than the necessary, in-the-moment kind of touching when they were running for their lives.

  She took her time, and he closed his eyes and savored the touch, even through the pain. How long since a woman had touched him? He heard her soft breathing, felt her fingers sliding against places where he wasn’t scraped, as he’d done with her. When he was intimate with a woman, most of them focused on his penis, as though it was his only erogenous zone. But Fonda’s touch on his back, the least e-zone he could think of, still rocked.

  “You’ve got a bunch of little scrapes across your back,” she said, her voice light and airy. She rubbed the salve on various spots, taking her time. Her other hand came to rest against his lower back, as though to brace him. He sank into her touch, her fingers rubbing slowly over the same areas, over and over, no pain, just the feel of her, warm, sensual, and before he could stop it, a low moan escaped his mouth.

  She backed up with a jerk, and when he dropped his shirt and turned around, she was fumbling with the cap. She wasn’t looking anywhere but at that cap. “That should help.”

  “Thanks. It felt good.” No need to skirt the issue. “What was that eighties song, something about a fine line between pleasure and pain?”

  “The Divinyls,” she said, opening the passenger door for the truck and leaning in to put away the tube.

  He got in the driver’s seat. She was digging around in her duffel bag. She’d gotten as caught up in touching him as he had with her. Was she going to shoot him now?

  “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  “I thought I had another pair of earrings in here. I feel naked without them.”

  “You’ve got twenty others in your ear.” He gestured to the row of tiny hoops on the upper edge of her ear.

 
“Not twenty. Ten.” She gave him a smirk. “I like big ones that dangle.”

  “Ya do, huh?” He lifted an eyebrow at the provocative tone in his voice, and when she realized the double entendre, her cheeks pinkened.

  She swiveled back to the duffel. Two pictures fell out when she pulled out a smaller bag, one of Jerryl, and another of her and Jerryl with their cheeks pressed together. She was grinning, he wasn’t. He didn’t get to see much more because she grabbed them and tossed them back into the bag.

  His chest felt heavy at the sight of them. She was still in love with the guy, or at least the idea of loving him. Even though they had gotten past the anger, he couldn’t imagine she would ever forgive him for killing her lover. Jerryl would always be the ghost between them. Not that there was a them, he reminded himself.

  She said, “I know where we could go for tonight. I spent a month there after . . . the fire at the estate, when everything fell apart and I needed to escape for a while. Westerfield couldn’t find me there, apparently. It was only when I returned to my apartment that he was waiting for me. My father’s house.”

  His body tightened. “The man who didn’t believe you when one of his buddies tried to assault you? The guy who didn’t protect you?” Maybe the man who’d cut her.

  “I don’t need his protection anymore. I didn’t go there to be comforted. I went to hibernate in one of the bedrooms.”

  “Is this in a bad part of the city?”

  “He moved out of the worst area a couple of years ago. It’s not the best section but it’s not terrible. My stepmother isn’t supposed to get out of jail until next week. She did time for drug possession. My dad, he’s supposedly clean. I didn’t see him using while I was there, but I stayed to myself, so I can’t be sure. It’ll give us a place to crash, and you look wiped.”

  He felt wiped, as though his energy was slowly draining down to his feet and out his toes. The wave hit him hard. More so since using his pyrokinesis. “I just need some sleep.” But he wasn’t sleeping, and the lack of it was taking a toll.