Stifled (Summoned Book 2)

by Rainy Kaye

  I pull away, shoving open the driver door and stepping out of the car. She follows suit, wiping her lips with her thumb and forefinger as I come around to her side of the vehicle. She turns to open the back door. I pin her up against the car and take her mouth again. My hand slides around to her ass and pulls her pelvis against mine. It's like we haven't fucked in months, not days.

  She struggles out of her shirt, tossing it onto the ground, and goes for mine. I step back, keeping her tight against me, and open the car door.

  She breaks the kiss and gasps, “Get in first.”

  “Vivo para servir,” I whisper with a grin, then obey.

  I finish undoing my pants and work them down as she crawls in after me, already stripped of everything but her black bra. She straddles my lap, pushing down on top of me, and I lull my head back. She rides hard, leaning heavily against me and gasping in my ear. When she cums, I wrap my arms around her waist and urge her to keep going. She does not disappoint.

  We remain in a tight embrace for a few minutes afterward, but my skin prickles from the desert heat coming in from the open door and the reminder that nothing between us has actually been resolved. I kiss her lips, then she parts from me and searches the floorboard for the box of tissues.

  My muscles are tired and loose, and I would like nothing more than to find a hotel and sleep the rest of the day. But we're in the middle of nowhere with a pending retaliation coming for us. So we clean up and dress, and head to Hermosillo. Syd seems rejuvenated and takes the wheel.

  When we near the border, traffic is forced single file to stop at a booth. My heart flutters as patrol asks Syd questions about where we're coming from and where we're going. At least she keeps cool. I would lose it, stomp the gas, and land us in all sorts of unnecessary trouble.

  Instead, they wave us through. Truth be told, we look like we're on winter break from college. No one would guess I have two guns shoved under the passenger seat. Or that I know six ways to kill a man with my bare hands. Or the fact I have tested half of those techniques.

  Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Mexico don't have too much in common besides the name. North of the border looks like any other southern Arizona town: relatively uninteresting. South of the border, the streets are filled with shops selling pottery and hand carved furniture. People stand on the sidewalks with racks of brightly colored ponchos and sombreros. I don't see one damn person wearing either, though. My life is a lie.

  Syd inches the car among the pedestrians and vehicles. I continue to scope out the place. I've never seen so many pharmacies and dental offices in one area. At least a dozen restaurants promise, in English, authentic cuisine. I consider suggesting we stop and try them out, but decide against it. If the tacos really are different than the ones in Phoenix, the betrayal will be too great.

  We keep going. Syd gets us on the Mexico 15 and before long, we're zooming through desert again. Southern Arizona and northern Mexico landscape is pretty much the same. I guess Mother Nature doesn't pay attention to country borders. It's a little disappointing.

  We pass through small towns, pay some tolls and, about three hours later, find ourselves in Hermosillo. The city is far less touristy than Nogales. In fact, it's kind of like Phoenix, but with more signs in Spanish. I like it.

  Of course, we aren't hanging around. Ian's address takes us out of the city and into the countryside.

  Now I want to flee again. Roads aren't clearly marked, if at all. Many haven't been paved, and the ones that have are full of potholes. Syd tries to maneuver around the potholes, but I'm expecting we'll be leaving our engine as a parting gift.

  Syd furrows her brow, concentrating on the road. We take a hill and kick up dirt going back down. I should ask her if we're lost, but I don't want to know. She'll let me know when she has given up.

  Ian has certainly gone out of his way to escape Lyle. Kalila must have a reputation. The thought Ian is living in fear of a jinn makes me warm and fuzzy. If anyone deserves it, he does. Even better, in a few hours, he's going to be peacefully asleep in the backseat while we get him over the border.

  I probably should have brought some benzos. They're great for subduing hostages and keeping down the noise. Maybe one of those pharmacies in Nogales would have hooked it up.

  No matter. I do have a baseball bat that we picked up before heading to the border. Bashing Ian in the head will be cathartic.

  We pass a few remnants of buildings. It takes me a minute to realize people are hanging around them because they live there.

  I turn in my seat. The buildings are burned out houses, missing doors and windows and, for some, the roof. A boy, maybe seven or eight, is playing with an old metal bucket. A couple of scrawny dogs wander around, rooting through bushes and chasing up and down the dirt road.

  “Depressing,” Syd says.

  “Understatement of the decade,” I reply. “Are we almost to Ian's?”

  “Another ten minutes, if we're on the right path.”

  She continues to glance at the GPS. I suppress a groan. Getting lost in the Mexican desert is not on my bucket list.

  Within the next ten minutes, we take another hill.

  Syd parks at the top. “Apparently, we're here.”

  I reach under the seat, pull out a loaded gun, and stuff it into my jacket pocket. Syd grabs her purse from the backseat and shuffles through it, frowning. I guess she forgot to fill it up with rocks.

  I step out and start for the trunk. Then I realize showing up with a baseball bat might give away my intentions. I'll let Ian rat out Lyle first. Afterward, a bullet to the knee and a few solid kicks to the head should prepare him for delivery.

  I look up.

  Syd is standing on the other side of the car, staring at me. “You really want Ian dead, don't you?”

  “Not until he understands the hell he put Hasiba through.”

  We head down the hill together, dirt and fine gravel slipping under our shoes. A house sits at the bottom. It's maybe a thousand square feet and not in great shape, but it has all its fixtures which makes it a mansion in this area.

  As we approach, a woman bursts out of the front door. I stop, Syd right beside me.

  The woman is middle aged, hair pulled tight against her head. She's wearing a long shirt with big sleeves and sky blue pants. A dark-haired toddler is nestled on her hip.

  She points at me. “Jinn!”

  She turns and bolts. I charge after her. She rounds to the back of the house.

  A white sedan whips out from behind the house and takes off.

  I skid and turn back for the hill. Syd follows right after me. I scrabble up the hill, touching my fingers to the ground to keep traction. At the top, I slip into the car, taking the wheel. Syd passes the keys to me from the passenger seat.

  I floor the gas. In seconds, we're on the sedan. She speeds up a little, but losing us isn't going to be easy.

  She veers off the road, then leaves it behind entirely. Brush scrapes the side of the car as we follow after her. Our vehicle isn't meant for off-roading, but neither is hers. She doesn't seem to care.

  Our car bounces along. I hope we don't lose anything important soon, because now even the GPS has no idea where we are. It's frozen on the “calculating” screen.

  Syd turns it off.

  Fifteen minutes later, a building comes into view. It's another rundown house, but with doors and windows and things I never considered lavish before. The sedan pulls in. The woman gets out, then takes the toddler out of the backseat. With a glance at us, she scurries into the building.

  I'm already out, car keys jingling in my hands. Syd's footsteps are a second behind mine.

  I push open the front door, then halt. A dozen small children are playing with blocks, coloring at tables, or running around. Two women—one we followed here—are standing among the chaos, staring at me. The toddler is clomping around on the floor and giggling.

  I just bulldozed into a god damn preschool.

  The woman meets my gaze, and
she appears calm, collected.

  Syd cries out behind me. I'm shoved to the floor. Something catches me in the ribs. It's followed by another kick.

  Pain flashes down my side, then spreads out. I try to push back up. Something pricks me in the back of the neck. Warmth floods my veins.

  I know this feeling.

  I want to fight off my attackers, but the drugs are already setting in. I drop to the ground.

  My gaze fades in and out as it travels up the far wall and comes to rest on a sign: Vivo Para Servir.

  I black out.

  When I come to, my neck hurts. My head has been hanging for a while. I'm sitting on a chair, and my wrists are tied behind my back. Tied. With rope. Not even the courtesy of handcuffs.

  My brain pulses a little from the drugs. I try to lift my head. Every vertebra in my neck lights up.

  I cringe and force myself straight. The rope shifts and my wrists ache with forming burn marks. My eyes take a moment to focus.

  I'm in a small room. A basement, maybe. No windows. Plenty of artificial light. Enough to see three men standing in front of me, like they were waiting for me to wake up. They probably were.

  I recognize two of them. One is Thor, the sledgehammer-wielding blond guy from the first test, when I was sent to collect the laptop.

  The second person I recognize is Kalila's prey, Ian Cook.

  Ian smirks. “You're too easy, Dimitri.”

  I stare up at him, trying to figure out why he's addressing me like old friends. Or, more appropriately, old enemies.

  “You work for Lyle,” I say.

  “I work for myself. My allegiance to Lyle died when he sent his demon after me.”

  “We're not demons.” The words barely make it out of my throat. I can still smell the basement where Hasiba had been confined.

  “Denying it doesn't make it go away,” he says.

  “You mean the way Hasiba denied it?”

  He flinches. “I tried to fix her. Tried to expel the demon, but it was just too powerful.”

  I glare at him. “You killed her.”

  “I lost the master bond,” he snaps. “I lost my place among JiNet. Everything. But I was willing to do that to make her whole.”

  “To make her whole?” I smirk despite the predicament I'm in. “Try telling Kalila that when she shows up.”

  He lunges at me, gripping the back of my chair as he shoves his face in mine. “You should be thankful! I'm the one trying to fix your souls!”

  “Yeah?” I jerk straight. “And what you gonna do—exorcise me, too?”

  “That's the demon—”

  A door behind me opens and closes, and a woman interrupts says, “Ian, we're not doing this.”

  I freeze. That voice lingered in the background of the first twenty-three years of my life. I look up as Eileena comes around to my front.

  “Hello, Dimitri.” She smiles, the most pleasant one I've ever seen on her.

  I'm screwed.

  “You put up quite the chase,” she says, voice warm.

  I'm too stunned to reply.

  Ian backs off but continues to glare at me. She reaches out and brushes the hair out of my eyes. The motion is gentle, loving. It makes my skin crawl.

  I have no idea what she thinks she's doing.

  Her finger hooks under my chin, and she lifts my head. Inspecting me.

  And I'm allowing it.

  I snap away from her hold and sneer up at her. “I should have killed you when I killed Silvia.”

  She raises an eyebrow.

  “Running unrestrained has left you a bit feral, I see.” She glances at the three men behind her. “Knock him down a bit.”

  She steps out of the way. Ian reaches forward and yanks me out of the chair to the floor. My shoulder takes the brunt of the fall.

  A kick lands in my chest. Another in my back. The third in my stomach. I twist, trying to get leverage. They keep going. Each kick sends another thud of pain through my abdomen. I curl up and lose track of where they're hitting. The pangs level out into a steady throbbing. My lungs just stop trying to breathe.

  Eventually, Eileena says, “Ian, get off him.”

  I realize we've been down to one steady kick for a while. I squint to see.

  Ian holds up his hands and says with an edge of insolence, “Got it, got it.”

  His palms have big scars slashed across them. That means something, but I forgot what.

  I'm pulled upright. My brain sloshes. As my senses come together, I notice blood from my nose rolling down my lips and dripping onto my chest. My ears are ringing. Breathing hurts. I wish it wasn't involuntary.

  Two of the men lift me up and set me on the chair. I topple back to the floor with a thunk. I half-expect them to start the beat down again, but they leave me there and mumble amongst themselves.

  “He won't try anything,” Eileena says, coolly.

  Her assuredness pisses me off. Like the thought of me being dangerous is ridiculous. Not like there's much I can do about it at the moment.

  Maybe she's right, after all.

  The men shuffle away. A door shuts. Eileena and I are alone.

  I struggle to look up at her. My body isn't so much for cooperating at the moment.

  I gasp between words. “What do you want?”

  The answer should be obvious—she wants the Walker jinn back, but the master bond never was, and never will be, hers. It goes to the next of kin, by birth. That next of kin wound up being Syd. And Syd freed me.

  Eileena crosses the room and rummages around. I can't see her, and I don't want to waste the energy trying to face her. After a moment, she is in front of me again.

  “Do you recognize this, Dimitri?” She holds up a small vase.

  The one I took from the pottery shop. The one Shadi is looking for.

  “Yeah, of course.” I attempt to shift into a more comfortable position but fail. “You stole it from Fiona?”

  “Correction. Lyle stole it from me.” She lowers the vase. “Well, you did, didn't you? You keep stealing my belongings.”

  I stare at her. The house with the aquarium. The pottery shop. The dance academy.

  “I've been stalking you,” I say with disbelief.

  She smiles down at me. “And the whole time I was looking for you. The situation gets even more twisted.” She sets the vase on the ground at her feet. “See, after the little incident at Karl's mansion when you got away, I hired a team to track you down. Then I joined JiNet. Karl never would. He said he had no use for an organization like that, but I know he was afraid someone would find out the truth. That they would eventually realize you're not a real jinn. Little did he know, none of them really are anymore.”

  Her story still isn't adding up.

  I try to formulate my thoughts, but the blood streaming down my face isn't helping matters. “I ran into one of your guys at the house. . .and there was Ian. . .If they worked for you. . .”

  “That's where it gets twisted,” she says. “I met Ian and his team through JiNet and hired them to do some research for me, and guard it. They had all the ins with the community. But I never told them about you.”

  “So Thor—the blond guy—he was protecting your research?”

  “From Lyle, yes. Lyle figured out Ian and I had a partnership, but we didn't realize he was onto us until he killed Ian's lackeys, Paul and Billy. Then Kalila came after Ian, but someone interrupted.” She looks pleased and saunters over to a sink on the far wall. Water runs as she continues talking. “Ian had no knowledge about my hunt for you, and he never told me any details other than a guy happened into the church.”

  “You probably should hold meetings with all of your employees,” I say. “Would save us all a lot of trouble.”

  She returns to me, washcloth in hand. “Yes, yes it would have. I was busy trying to stay one up on Lyle, and my other team—the one hired to track you down—kept reporting run-ins with you. Eventually it all came together. When we heard what happened at the divan, we sa
w the opportunity to lure you to Mexico.”

  She crouches down and lifts me upright. I manage not to fall over this time.

  She does that thing with my hair again.

  “I would have paid my team to sit outside those houses for decades if that's what it took to find you.” She uses the wet washcloth to dab at the blood on my face. “I would have done anything to bring you home, Dimitri.”

  “How could you. . .How could you work with someone like Ian?”

  Despite how awful the Walkers were, I wouldn't have believed they would bring someone with a repertoire like Ian into their fold. Maybe Karl, but not Eileena.

  Or maybe I just wish evil had limits.

  “Ian gets the job done, despite his paranoia.”

  “Paranoia?” I scoff, my stomach clenching in disgust. “He killed his jinn.”

  She halts, her expression falling. Then she tilts her head. “Killed? Intentionally?”

  “Yes, that's what I was arguing with him about. He killed her.”

  “That's silly.” Eileena shakes her head. “No one in their right mind would kill a jinn. Especially their own. Why would they?”

  “Because he thinks we're demons!”

  Her face contorts with what can only be realization. Horrified realization.

  Then she composes herself. “We'll discuss this more later.”

  She stands up and calls out the door for someone to help me onto a cot. A moment later, Ian enters. As he lifts me up, I notice he's wearing thick leather gardening gloves. Apparently, I'm too evil to touch.

  I lie on my side on the thin mattress, and he steps back to regard me like I'm a slug dredged up from an abyss leading to Hell.

  Eileena squeezes around him and pulls a blanket over me.

  “Just for now,” she says. “When I'm certain you won't attack anyone, I'll undo your wrists.”

  That might be a while.

  I'm too tired to respond so I close my eyes. My body aches from the top of my head down to my knees. My chest and back each have a spot at least as big as a saucer that throb relentlessly, making breathing a punishment.

  Eileena says, “Ian, get him some water and help him drink.”