Catch Me When I Fall

by Vicki Leigh

Richard stood at the front of the room next to a thin girl with a pixie cut. She eyed Kayla like a lioness ready to attack her prey. Adelynn.

  “Ah, Nolan. Thanks for bringing her, mate. I hope she wasn’t too much trouble,” Richard said to the boy holding Kayla’s arm.

  Kayla pulled in a deep breath. Since when had her father developed a British accent?

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Nolan replied.

  Kayla snatched her arm out of his grasp. Jerk.

  “Good. Kayla, come stand with me,” Richard said.

  She gripped the hem of her shirt, her legs shaking, and stared at her father. He still had the same comb-over she remembered, his cowlick forcing him to part his hair off center. However, his dark strands were now streaked through with gray, and he had a goatee, something she’d never before seen him wear. She wanted to run to him, to fall into his arms and cry and welcome him home and hear him call her Kayla-Bear. But the way he stared at her, like an obstacle he needed to overcome or destroy, terrified her. Not to mention he was responsible for the deaths of all those Protectors who’d been nothing but kind to her—maybe even Daniel.

  And, from what she’d been told, he wanted her to help him kill even more.

  “Kayla, I will not ask you again. Come here.”

  She glared at him, daring him to make her.

  And he did. Richard nodded to Nolan who pushed her, hard, right between her shoulder blades. She stumbled forward and bent over, winded.

  Richard grabbed her arm and jerked her closer to him. “That’s better. Now, tell me. How did you sleep?”

  “What does it matter to you?”

  “I love you. I want to know if you’re comfortable. If you’re not, I’m sure Nolan can find you a better room.”

  No way. I’d end up in the one next to him so he could cut a hole in the wall and peek in on me while I slept. Or changed.

  “I’m fine.” She snatched her arm out of Richard’s grasp.

  “Good. And the food? Did someone bring you breakfast?”

  “I don’t care about breakfast or whether or not my mattress is comfortable,” Kayla shouted. “You let me cry over you for years, you forced me to leave Mom and my home, and now you have my friends tied up. Tell me right now what I’m doing here, or I’m walking out that door.”

  The kindness in Richard’s eyes died. A chill ran down Kayla’s spine. She tried to appear tough, though her heart raced, and any minute, she was going to throw up all over his shoes. Her dad stood in front of her, but she didn’t even recognize him.

  “Very well,” he said. He shook his head, forcing his features to soften. “You’re here because I want to make the world a better place for you. Kayla Bear, I’ve missed you for so long, and I’m sorry I didn’t call. But I’m here now. Join me, love.” Richard held out a hand to her, like he was escorting her to a ball.

  Kayla rubbed her chest and closed her eyes. She pictured the way he’d been—a kind and gentle man, born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. Eyes that brightened when she entered a room, not squinted in hatred. This was wrong. This wasn’t her father.

  Kayla shook her head as she opened her eyes, glowering through teary eyes at the monster before her. “If you think I’m going to fight alongside you and kill people, you’re crazier than I thought, old man.”

  Nolan chuckled behind her. Kayla’s father shot a look at him that nearly brought her to her knees. Nolan quieted in seconds.

  “Watch it, Kayla. I will not put up with disrespect.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. Her legs felt like jelly, but the last thing she wanted was to show a moment of weakness. After everything he’d done—and was planning to do—he didn’t deserve the satisfaction of seeing her fear.

  Richard’s fists clenched at his sides, then he spoke. “I will ask you one more time, Kayla. Will you join me?”

  Kayla stared right into his eyes, as gold as her own. “No.”

  Margaret’s sudden scream made her jump. It took Kayla a second to realize what was going on. Then she saw the grin on Adelynn’s face.

  Adelynn was torturing Margaret.

  “Stop! You’re hurting her!” Kayla yelled as she stepped past her father to grab Adelynn’s hands. But Richard held her back.

  “Touch her, you die.”

  Kayla wobbled as Margaret continued to scream. She placed her hands over her ears. “Stop it, please!”

  “Then say ‘yes,’ Kayla.”

  “Please. I know you loved me once. Please, for me, stop this!”

  Richard stared into his daughter’s eyes, and for a moment he looked like he wouldn’t give in. But then he nodded at Adelynn. She dropped her hands, and Margaret’s screams ceased.

  He turned to Kayla. “Call this an act of mercy. Tomorrow, if you refuse me again, both of them will scream until you say yes.”

  I tore my hand out of Tabbi’s grasp and paced back and forth across the room, trying to calm my racing heart. Crouching down, I stifled the gag that wanted to escape. Everything Kayla had felt, seen, or heard, I experienced… and this was all my fault. I left her alone. I fucking left her alone.

  “Daniel—” Tabbi started to say.

  Not ready to listen to anyone yet and needing to sort out everything that I’d just experienced, I held a hand up. That guy who touched her… God, if I ever got a chance to meet him, I would punch his jaw so hard it’d shatter. And her father, for what he was doing to Alex and Margaret—for what he was doing to her—I would make him suffer.

  And Kayla, for the first time, said she loved me.

  I cleared my throat before speaking. “They have Kayla in an office building. I’m not sure where. I didn’t get to see much.” My quivering hands ran down my face. “But, we need a new tactic. If we can’t use our abilities to find them, then we do it the old-fashioned way. Everybody grab your things. We’re checking into a hotel.”

  e arrived at a hotel in Alaska minutes later, having chosen the remote location to stay out of the peering eyes of Giovanni’s spies. They could be anywhere. The fewer people who saw us, the better.

  Samantha, Seth, Tabbi and I grabbed the room nearest the back exit then “shopped,” having to resort to stealing the necessities and pre-paid mobile phones. Who knew if Giovanni watched our card transactions, and we needed to be able to stay in contact without worrying about him tapping into our calls. We couldn’t always pop in on each other whenever we had a message to share.

  When we were back in our room, we flicked on the TV. Graphic images of Rome flooded the screen. Buildings collapsed, people fought each other with knives and guns, cars exploded. Bodies lined the streets. Someone leapt from a tall building, covered in flames. Even the Coliseum was flattened. My stomach tightened when I saw when the destruction started happening—the same night our mansion was sieged.

  Whatever apocalypse Richard had been planning had begun.

  “How are you going to track him?” Seth asked, his voice spiritless.

  I turned off the TV. “Using Giovanni.”

  “Daniel, if Giovanni was working with Kayla’s dad, then do you really think we could just evaporate to wherever he is?” Samantha asked. “If it didn’t work with Kayla or Richard, it won’t work with him either.”

  “I don’t plan to track him down. I want to return to Rome and search through his things.”

  Both of their heads tipped to the side, like I’d spoken in some alien language. The mansion was a war zone, and I wanted to go back.

  “Can’t you check the flash drive? There has to be more on there,” Seth said.

  “And what if we can’t make sense of it? Look, right now, Giovanni is our best lead. Are you coming with me or not?”

  Seth and Samantha nodded.

  “Okay. Tabbi, you stay here. Seth, go rally the others. We leave as soon as everyone’s ready.”

  Thirty minutes later, we stood in the middle of the mansion’s grand foyer. The beautiful, crystal chandelier that once illuminated the ornate room now
lay in pieces on the floor. Dead bodies of Nightmares and Protectors alike lined the marble. Red and black blood mixed together on the cream floor like a gothic painting.

  But the eeriest thing about the mansion was the noise. There was none.

  Gripping my daggers tighter in my hands, I swallowed the lump in my throat. This had been my home for two hundred years. Now it was a gravesite.

  “Come on.” I couldn’t linger here any longer.

  Through the decimated room we walked, stepping over and around the bodies. We jogged up the stairs, pausing at every landing to glance down each hall. The last thing we needed was for a swarm of Nightmares to catch us off guard. Or worse—Magus.

  We reached the twelfth floor with no problem and entered Giovanni’s office. Everything sat in perfect place, like this room had remained untouched. I scowled as the bile churned in my stomach. The rest of the building was destroyed and littered with the bodies of Protectors, yet Giovanni’s office was pristine.

  Well, we weren’t going to leave the room so tidy.

  “Search everywhere,” I instructed my team. “I want everything uncovered. Grab anything that might help.”

  Vasin and Hakan stood guard at the entrance while the rest of us split up and ransacked the room. I tossed books off shelves, searching for secret compartments, ripped drawers out of his desk, and broke the pictures on his wall, hoping for some clue as to where Kayla might be held. But I came up empty. I cracked my knuckles as heat flushed through my body.

  “Hey, I think I got something,” Seth said. He held a navy blue book in his hands.

  I looked over his shoulder. A day-planner.

  Seth pointed to a letter ‘R.’ “This comes up a few times in here. But the first time it’s written, two sets of numbers follow it, separated by a comma.”

  “Latitude and longitude,” I replied.

  Seth nodded and flipped through the pages. “Looks like he went there a lot.”

  “Good. Grab the book.”

  Hakan and Vasin burst into flames. Their screams were deafening and shook me to my core. I stepped back and shielded my face from the heat as my stomach dropped to my knees.

  From the doorway came two Magus. The largest one, a dark-skinned man with a scar across his left eye, flung Lizzie across the room when she lunged at him, dagger in hand. She fell to the ground like a rag doll.

  “Go, get out of here!” I yelled at my remaining teammates before running toward where Lizzie lay on the ground, unconscious. Holding out my hand, I planned to evaporate as soon as I touched her. When I’d about reached her, a blast of air slammed me against the wall. I grunted as I hit the floor hard, ass first, and tried to push myself up. But I was stuck in my seated position, like my back was super-glued to the wall.

  “Hello, Daniel,” the dark-skinned warlock said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

  I spat at his feet. His nostrils flared as he brought his hand up, his palm facing toward me. Pain shot through me like lightning. With a shout, I leaned my head back against the wall, breathing deep.

  “Oh, Lord Bartlett will be pleased when I return with you,” he said.

  Lord Bartlett? Really? “Please, take me to him. I’ve been searching for him. You’ll be doing me a favor.”

  The warlock stepped toward me. “You think you’re so high and mighty, being one of the Angels’ chosen. But really, you just have farther to fall. Let’s see how you feel when Lord Bartlett carves into you.”

  “Never going to happen,” Samantha said, appearing behind the warlock. Her knife dug straight through the back of his neck, the tip protruding below his Adam’s apple. His eyes widened in surprise, then Samantha twisted the blade. The warlock fell into a pool of red blood on the ground.

  The pressure against me disappeared. I jumped up, ready to fight, then saw the other Magus fall into a similar position on the ground, her throat slit. Standing over her body was Ivan.

  “Are you all right?” Samantha asked me as Ivan checked on Lizzie.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. Truth was, I had wanted that warlock to take me to Richard. I would’ve been one step closer to finding Kayla.

  And one step closer to killing him.

  We’d lost Vasin, Hakan and Lizzie at the hands of the two Magus. Samantha had tried to resuscitate Lizzie, but her body had been too damaged from the blow she’d taken from the warlock. She never recovered.

  Ivan and I worked together to dispose of Lizzie’s body. It was my responsibility as their leader, and I was shocked when Ivan volunteered to help me. We’d been reduced to burying her, as a large fire would’ve been too noticeable, and I didn’t want to use our mansion’s crematory or sneak in somewhere with the threat of discovery looming over our heads. I hated not giving her a Catcher’s funeral, but what other choice did I have? Giovanni’s spies were everywhere.

  The others stayed back, drained after watching two friends roast alive and another die on my hotel floor. Excluding Tabbi, we’d gone from a team of eleven to a team of five in mere days. My body had never felt so cold.

  “I still hate you, you know,” Ivan said in his thick, Russian accent.

  “Yeah, I know.” I tossed another pile of dirt over Lizzie’s body.

  “But… I will fight for you.”

  Pausing, I regarded him. He purposely avoided eye contact, but to even have said the words took a lot for someone like him, so hell-bent on being the top dog—the Alpha.

  I nodded my thanks, then we finished burying Lizzie in silence.

  When I returned to the hotel, Tabbi waited for me in the hall. Seeing Ivan and I walking toward her, she jumped up and looked me straight in the eye. Her small body was tense.

  “Tabbi, what’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Seth and Sam wanted to sleep, but I had to check in on Kayla.”

  I waved at Ivan to go into the room without me. “What happened?” My heart pounded in my chest.

  “It’s that guy, Nolan. He says he’s on Kayla’s side, our side. He wants to help her escape. He’s going to get her out tonight, at three a.m.”

  “What time is it now?”

  “Two-fifty-five.”

  With a nod, I held my hand out to her. She didn’t have to ask what I wanted her to do. I held my breath and closed my eyes as Tabbi popped me into Kayla’s mind.

  Kayla sat on her bed, ready to run as soon as Nolan appeared. She jumped when someone knocked on her door. Just once. The thump was followed by the sound of a key turning in the lock. Then nothing.

  Is that Nolan? Is this my chance?

  Not wanting to miss her opportunity, Kayla leapt off the bed and sprinted for the door. She grabbed the knob and turned.

  It was unlocked.

  Kayla opened the door just enough to peek into the hall. If Nolan had been letting her out, he was long gone. The hall was empty.

  Okay. You can do this.

  With shaking hands, she nudged the door open farther and dashed down the hall. She ran until she reached the stairwell, closing the door behind her as softly as she could. Then she sprinted down one set of stairs to the main level.

  Kayla glanced at the numbers Nolan had written on her hand earlier—the code to turn off the rear door’s alarm. She had almost reached the keypad when she tripped. Unable to stop herself, Kayla fell into the steel door’s handle, pushing it open.

  An alarm sounded throughout the building.

  Oh no. Nausea filled her stomach. She forced herself to keep going, to not panic, and ran the rest of the way through the exit into the alley behind the building. Her heart raced in her chest. Oh god, oh god, oh god.

  As Kayla was about to exit the alley onto the main road, two men in black outfits rounded the corner, blocking her. They stepped forward, their eyes fixated on her. Then a small ring around their pupils glowed.

  Warlocks.

  Kayla turned around and ran down the alley, praying there would be another exit, but she hadn’t gone far when two more warlocks exited the same office building from whi
ch she had fled.

  She spun around, trying to find an escape route. Tears filled her eyes and sweat ran down the back of her neck.

  She was trapped.

  Kayla held up her hands, trying to signal she meant no harm, but the four warlocks continued to close in. Unwilling to go back, Kayla shot waves of air from her hands at the two who’d rounded the corner, forcing one of the warlocks into the building next to him. The other blocked her attack and countered, sending her flying into the warlocks behind her.

  One of them grabbed her arms and yanked them behind her back. Kayla squealed as the warlock cuffed her wrists together with a plastic tie.

  “No, please,” she begged. But he shoved her into the arms of another who dragged her back into the office building.

  Kayla screamed and fought him the entire way up the stairs. When they dragged her through the entrance to the second floor, Nolan leaned against the wall. His body language portrayed a man who didn’t give a rat’s ass, but his eyes were sad and his jaw tight.

  Kayla fought the urge to yell for him to help her. But the last thing she wanted was to get her ally killed. Especially when it had been her own fault she hadn’t succeeded.

  The warlocks dragged her into one of the rooms and tied her to a steel chair. Her legs shook, and she was going to vomit any minute. But she held her chin high and tried to appear strong.

  Until her father entered the room, followed by two Nightmares.

  He backhanded her so hard she jerked sideways. Kayla shrieked.

  “How dare you disobey me!” Richard yelled. “I have done nothing but treat you with kindness, and this is how you repay me?”

  “Treat me with kindness? Are you crazy? You tortured my friend right in front of me!”

  “That was the price you paid for saying no to me. Her pain is on you.”

  Kayla scowled at him. Hatred filled her heart, and behind her back, her hands balled into fists.

  “Now, because I am the loving father, I will give you one chance.” Richard held up a finger. “Who helped you escape?”

  “Go to hell.”

  Richard frowned, then snapped his fingers. The Nightmares pounced.