Burning Darkness

by Jaime Rush

Those words, and the apology in her voice, broke his tenuous thread of control He closed the gap between them, pulling her against him, tipping her chin up and kissing her. She was heaven, the taste of her, the feel of her tongue against his, her body moving closer to his. Her hands went around his back. His fingers braced her face, slid into her silky hair, wanting to feel her everywhere. A wave of dizziness swept over him, and he kissed her right through it. She made him dizzy, and she made him things he’d never been, like wanting to take away everything bad in her life, like . . . in love.

  Yeah. In love.

  Holy crap, as Fonda liked to say.

  He’d been hit by a truck, blown away by a tornado. How had this happened? At the moment he didn’t care. He slid his hand down her back, stopping himself from squeezing her ass because he had honor, standing there in the open for everyone to see. He rubbed the indent of her spine, that sweet spot where her back curved in. She sighed and pressed closer.

  Her hands were on his back, holding onto him so hard he could feel the tips of her nails through his shirt.

  “Eric . . .” She breathed his name, not a hint of stop anywhere in the word.

  A catcall whistle from across the street broke him out of the spell. A guy pumped his fist, his white smile stark against his dark skin.

  She stood there, her fingers lightly on her lips, a dazed look on her face. She let her hand drop. “Eric—”

  He put his finger where hers had been. “Don’t say anything.” He didn’t want to hear her tell him not to do that again, and he didn’t think he could handle hearing her tell him to do it again. He was walking a fine edge.

  She spoke anyway. “Are we going to forget this happened, like the thing in the closet?”

  His mouth twisted in a smile. “Yeah, ’cause that worked well.” He looked across the street where the guy was watching them. “Let’s walk.” He took her hand and led her back to her father’s house.

  They reached the small front porch and she sat down on the steps. Streaks of pink lit the sky, giving her skin a warm glow. They sat in silence for a few minutes. That was okay with him. He didn’t know what to say, what to think.

  Fonda braced her hands on the edge of the step and looked at him. “The first time I cut myself, it was an accident. When the guy tried to rape me, there was a razor on the coffee table. I slashed his arm with it. He called me filthy names and tried to grab me, but I ran into my room and locked the door. Later, when I stopped shaking and I knew he’d left, I took the razor and cut my hair really short. I made a decision to get tough. To work out, be strong. And I accidentally cut myself. It bled and hurt but somehow . . . it felt good. It was weird, I knew it was weird, but I realized why I liked it. My mind and body—I had numbed them. I stuffed everything inside me. Feeling physical pain was a safe way to feel. A way I could control.”

  He knelt down in front of her, taking her hand, turning it so he could see the underside of her wrist. “You never tried to kill yourself?”

  “No, it was never about that. Cutting was therapy, that’s what I told myself. My teacher started asking about the cuts, so I cut in places no one could see. I knew on some level it wasn’t healthy, but it felt good, and I started doing it more often. Then it hit me: cutting was a kind of drug, and the thought of doing any kind of drug was bad.”

  He pushed up her sleeve and ran his fingers along those faint scars. “You don’t do it anymore?”

  “Haven’t for years. Sometimes, though, when I accidentally hurt myself, I sink into that feeling.”

  Again he was swamped by the desire to fix her past. If only he could travel back in time like Lachlan and Wallace could . . .

  No, none of them could be fixed. They could only move on. Something else tugged at him, like a lost memory.

  The front door opened and her father stepped out. “I thought you’d left.” His relief at seeing them was plain on his gaunt face. “I’m making breakfast, bacon and eggs.” He went back in the house.

  Eric reached out, and she allowed him to pull her to her feet, which left them only a few inches apart. She was taller in those boots, only about eight inches shorter than him instead of a foot.

  “Thank you for telling me,” he said.

  “I’ve never told anyone. When people ask—the few who have seen the scars—I tell them my parents raised Doberman pinschers and the puppies scratched me. Most people wouldn’t understand.” She tilted her head. “Do you? Or do you think I’m some kind of freak?”

  She’d trusted him. She’d opened up to him. All he could do was kiss her, a soft kiss that took all of his restraint not to deepen. He pressed his forehead against hers, breathing her in. Finally he stepped back. She smiled, and those dimples punched him in the gut.

  “We’d better go in,” he said.

  He watched the tentative connection between her and her father as they put the bacon and eggs on three plates. It gave him a pang of desire to know his real father. He’d peppered Amy with questions, but she didn’t remember a lot about him.

  He thought about Rick Aruda, too, the man who had raised him knowing he wasn’t his biological son. Rick had harbored resentment over the betrayal, no doubt, and that’s what he’d sensed while growing up. Now he could see that Rick had done his best, given the circumstances. Once this was all over, he would pay the man a visit, make peace.

  He watched Fonda. His chest tightened. Now that he’d let himself slip into that abyss, what was he going to do about it?

  Nothing. Remember how getting involved is a bad idea when people are gunning for you. Keep your heads straight.

  The news was on in the living room, and the reporters kept going back to a breaking story: a cult community in northern Maryland had committed mass homicide. Not coerced suicide, like the Jim Jones massacre. No, these people had apparently killed each other in a frenzy. The camera focused on a group of buildings surrounded by yellow crime-scene tape and swarming with people. A procession of stretchers were being carried, the forms on top covered in black tarps. A woman with long scraggly hair stood several yards away from the scene, her arms wrapped around her scrawny body.

  The journalist stepped in front of the camera, her expression passive. “This group is called the Sun Veil, but little is known about them. They have never come under the scrutiny of authorities until now. This was a self-sustaining community, and people in the nearest town said they only came in once in a while and never talked to anyone other than necessary conversation.” She turned to her right. “This woman, who chooses not to be identified, is the only survivor of the massacre. Can you tell us what happened?”

  With a trembling hand, the woman anchored her hair behind her ear. “We’ve been waiting for the Veil to come and take us to our home planet. We were getting the signs that they were coming. Yesterday morning we saw something in the sky. We don’t get any air traffic out here, so we thought it was the mother ship finally coming to take us out of this sick world. The plane came low, spraying something, like one of those farm planes. We thought it was way off course and we went inside ’cause we didn’t want to breathe any chemicals or pesticides—we send the bugs that eat our produce love, and they leave it alone. Then in minutes everyone started acting irritated. I felt it, too, anger, hatred, fear, like I was being bombarded by everything I’ve tried to keep out of my energy field since I moved here.”

  She put her hand to her chest, her voice going hoarse. “The Family started arguing at first, name calling, and then hitting each other, and before I knew it, they were stabbing and strangling . . .” Her voice broke. “Even the children. Even the children were hurting each other, and then the adults killed them. It was hell on earth.”

  “How did you survive this horrible massacre?” the journalist asked.

  “I locked myself in a storage bin. When I came out, after it got quiet, everyone was dead.” Her eyes were haunted.

  A man came over and took the woman’s arm. “Please, ma’am, come with me.”

  The journalist waste
d no time. “Sir, do you have any idea what happened here? Have you found the plane?”

  “We’re working on all leads.” He turned and led the woman away, FBI emblazoned on the back of his jacket.

  Fonda’s face was white, and when a commercial came on, she broke away and looked at him. A plane that sprayed chemicals. She walked toward him, and without a word between them, they stepped outside.

  She gripped his arms as soon as the door closed. “The plane!”

  “I know, I know. It has to be the same one. He sprayed them with something.”

  “That’s what he was talking about, not being able to enjoy killing people. Whatever he sprayed, it made them turn on each other. Even the children, Eric. Children.”

  He gritted his teeth over that. It was the worst part, the most heinous. “We have to stop him. Them.”

  His phone rang, and he pulled it out and looked at the display. “It’s Amy.” He answered.

  “Eric, have you seen the news?” Her voice sounded rushed.

  “The cult massacre?”

  “You said the guy took a crop duster out, right?”

  “It’s got to be the same plane. He had canisters onboard.”

  “The woman who survived, she had a glow.”

  “An Offspring glow?”

  “Not quite, but something like it. Whatever he sprayed on them, it’s related to Blue Moon.”

  “He infected them with it.” It sounded insane. “And it launched those people into a psychotic attack. Hold on a minute.” He turned to Fonda. “Amy sees glows, like auras. Different colors mean different emotions. Offspring have a mixed glow, like static on a television. She said the survivor had a glow something like it. Which means Westerfield is more than just trying to wipe us to cover up the program. He’s using Blue Moon like a weapon.”

  “He probably figured no one would question a cult going crazy. And think about it: that wrestler who went bonkers and killed his family. Last month, the guy with no history of violence shooting his coworkers. There have been several cases of random, senseless violence in the last few months in this area.”

  “She’s right,” Amy said, obviously having heard her. “The question is, why? They’re risking Blue Moon being found in a tox scan.”

  Eric ran his fingers through his hair. “Another question is, who are these people? Not Offspring. Maybe someone in the original program. Westerfield is the right age for that.”

  The day was bright now, people moving about, leaving for work. He wished he were one of them, giving the wifey a kiss goodbye and heading off to the factory.

  No, he didn’t.

  Fonda’s face was tense. “This isn’t just about us anymore,” she said. “It’s about innocent people getting killed and no one knowing why. Children are dying.” She paced the porch. “If they found something unidentifiable in the tox scan they did on the wrestler, on any of those people, they didn’t tell the media.”

  “Maybe it’s not detectable,” Eric said. “Our parents ingested who knows how much of that stuff. Enough to change our DNA and probably theirs, too. But a smaller dose may not show up. Amy,” he said into the phone. “I know you don’t like to do it, but you need to talk to Cyrus. Ask him if there was anyone else in the program we don’t know about.”

  After a moment of silence she said, “Okay. I’ll work on that now. Nicholas wants to talk to you.”

  “Hey. Amy said you mentioned a strange man outside the motel, that he gave you a really weird feeling.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did he have a shaved head? Was he taller than you, with light violet-blue eyes? Did you get a strange feeling, like a current of electricity?”

  Eric sorted through the barrage of questions. “Shaved head, yes. Taller than me, yes, but leaner. I couldn’t see his eyes in the dark, but I did feel something like an electrical current when he looked at me.” It clicked then. “That guy you told us about, the one who worked with Darkwell.”

  “Yeah. Sounds like Pope.”

  “Maybe he’s the one Westerfield was talking to at the airfield.”

  “Except Pope didn’t do anything to us when Olivia and I found the warehouse full of all that strange stuff. That’s always baffled me. He could have easily nailed us. Obviously he knew we were there, because he materialized as though he were a ghost. But he didn’t try to stop us or even question us.”

  “I don’t like it,” Eric said. “It’s much better when people are cut and dried. They’re either trying to kill us or not. Pope’s a wild card, and that makes him dangerous. Put Lucas on for a second.”

  When Lucas came on the line, Eric asked, “What’s the situation there?”

  “Not good. The SWAT team is searching my house again. They obviously know we’re here somewhere. I think they’re on to us.”

  “I can be there in twenty minutes.”

  “You come here storming the place, they’ll nab you and get us anyway.”

  He hated to admit that Lucas’s fears were justified. The old Eric would have stormed in, guns blazing. “I’m not storming anything.”

  “We’re prepared. They won’t take us alive, that’s for sure.”

  “Taking you dead is not a good alternative. We’re going to find Westerfield and take him out. Hopefully his partner will be with him.” He looked at Fonda, who no doubt was trying to make sense of the conversation. “If something happens to me, I’m sending Fonda your way. Once you’re out of there.”

  “Fonda? Seriously? Don’t tell me the hard-assed don’t-get-involved Aruda has fallen for a woman, and a former enemy, no less.”

  “Just bring her in. She needs people like herself. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “I don’t need people,” Fonda said tersely.

  “Yeah, you do. Let’s fly. We’ve got a psycho bastard to find.”

  Neil drove all over the area. Dark emotions bombarded him, as though the residents were pelting him with slimy blobs. His phone rang. Malcolm. What did he want? They had already celebrated their victory. Almost everyone in the cult had succumbed to their own rage. If only he’d been there to witness it, to breathe it in. But he would. More and more people would be exposed to the Essence, creating that delicious chaos he loved so. He answered. “Yeah.”

  “I found exactly where they are, the simplistic way. Fonda’s father lives in the area.” He rattled off an address.

  Neil punched in the address in his GPS. “Two minutes away.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I’m always careful.”

  Malcolm’s voice took on that deadly low tone Neil hated. “A man died four nights ago near Fonda’s apartment. Right around the time you were there. His heart looked like a squashed tomato, according to the medical examiner. They’re baffled.”

  “I don’t have time for gossip. I’ve got people to dispatch.”

  “Neil, I will not allow you to destroy my life here.”

  “I’ll check back when I’ve assessed the situation.” He hung up, feeling a twitch in his cheek.

  A minute later he pulled past the small house. No car in the driveway. No lights on. He called Malcolm and reported that.

  “I had a thought while I was driving around,” he went on. “They found me once. We don’t know if Eric Aruda can project or view, but we know Fonda can. I’ll bet she’ll try again. I’m going to do what we did to Simeon.”

  “Yes, prepare for it. Go to the factory and remain there for a while.”

  Neil gritted his teeth. “That’s what I was going to do.” Damn him, giving orders. Maybe Malcolm did that in his role, but he did not like to take orders. Especially when they kept him from doing what he enjoyed most. He would soon have Fonda. And where Fonda went, Eric Aruda was sure to follow.

  Chapter 17

  Admit it. You think I’m weird because of the cutting.” Fonda leaned against the passenger door, facing him.

  He glanced at her and then back at the road ahead. “I don’t think you’re weird.”

  “You do, just a
little. You won’t hurt my feelings. I expect it, actually.”

  He looked at her, his head tilted. “When you told me why you did it, I finally understood something about myself. Why I was reckless. Why I jumped off roofs and picked fights with guys meaner than me, why I did a lot of the things I did. When I take risks, I feel alive.”

  She could only stare at him. That wasn’t what she’d expected at all. He understood her, related to her oddness. She remembered her words to him . . . Was it only two days ago? I don’t want to like you, Eric Aruda. Don’t make me. Well, he had gone and made her like him. More than like him. Every day, he did something that touched her, breaking down her defenses. The way he’d kissed her, ay carumba! It would have been easier if it was a lustful moment, or like that shut-you-up kiss. No, he’d looked at her in a way that grabbed her heart like a soft glove taking hold, never to let go.

  Oh, puh-lease, cut that out.

  She fiddled with one of her earrings, faux gold chandeliers, tugging it down until she felt pain. Safe. Comfortable. Not scary like feeling something for Eric Aruda.

  “I think that’s the turnoff up there,” he said, nodding ahead.

  To the cemetery that they’d agreed was a good spot to find Westerfield again. A few minutes later they pulled into the small gravel parking lot. She found the same double headstone, husband and wife, Beatrice and Herbert; Beatrice still alive, while her husband was long gone. This time the thought of that tore her heart rather than plucking at it. She stretched out on the ground, her fingers grazing the cold granite.

  He sat beside her. “In and out. You find his location, I’ll go in and nail him. He must have sensed us last time. I still think taking him by surprise is the key. Then he can’t block my abilities. Otherwise I have no idea how to take him out.”

  “Eric, are you up for this? You don’t look well.” He looked as pale and gray as the granite.

  “I’m fine. But first I want to check out the Tomb. That’s what we call our hideout. I need to assess the situation, see how many cops are there.”

  “Don’t push yourself.”