Penumbra

by Keri Arthur

  And that was terrifying.

  Sam rose. “Let’s continue this Friday, then.”

  “Gabriel, perhaps you’d better escort—”

  She held up her hand, halting Karl before he could finish. “I’m a big girl now. I don’t need a nanny.”

  “But the storm—”

  “Is just a storm, like a thousand other storms I’ve walked through before without harm.” Something clunked at her feet, and she looked down to see her phone had somehow fallen out of her pocket. As she reached down to pick it up, she noted the tiny sparks leaping from finger to finger. As if the storm’s energy had filled her to overflowing.

  She wrapped her hand around the phone, hiding her fingertips in the process. Maybe it was a stupid reaction since she was here to discover answers, but right now, she just wanted out. Wanted time to contemplate everything she’d been told—the worst of which was not the fact that she was something other than human, but rather that she could be eternally tied to a man who—no matter what his sister might think—wanted nothing to do with her.

  She straightened and gave the watching scientists a tight smile. “I’ll see you all Friday.”

  “Be careful,” Karl said. “If you are a walker and the storm is your element, you could find yourself lost in its power without even realizing it was happening.”

  “The walker gene might appear dominant, Karl, but it is only one part,” O’Hearn said. “Don’t you think the nonhuman mix might mute its force?”

  Karl shrugged. “Until we do more tests, we don’t know.”

  “So, I’ll be careful.” Sam glanced at Gabriel. He didn’t say anything, just looked at her with an annoyed light in his eyes. Yeah, he was really pleased with the turn of events—and Jessie, for all her clairvoyance, had to have been mistaken. She turned and walked out the door.

  It wasn’t until she stood outside the building that she remembered she hadn’t asked Finley about the tests on Wetherton’s would-be assassin. She half-turned to go back inside, then stopped and took a long, shuddering breath. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t face them all again. Not yet. She could ring Finley later, or send him an email or something. Right now, she desperately needed time alone to absorb everything she’d been told.

  God, that was so not the result she’d been expecting.

  It was finally confirmed. She wasn’t human. She was something else. Something created in a lab somewhere and brought up in clinical surroundings. But to what end? That was the question she had to seek an answer to, though her last dream was perhaps an indicator. Hopeworth had been playing in the genetic and psychic sandbox for some time, trying to create the perfect soldier, the perfect weapon. And her dreams indicated that she’d begun training to control her abilities at a very young age.

  But if her walker genes were the strongest, did that mean she wasn’t a product of Hopeworth? Her birth certificate—her real one, not the fake one that had been placed into the system the day she’d appeared on the steps of the State Care center for orphaned kids—gave the names of the eight people who were her “parents.” None of them were walkers, but shifters and psychics.

  So if she was a product of the Penumbra project, as they were all presuming, where in hell did the walker strain come from?

  The “real” certificate could be a fake, of course. But she had confirmation of both the project and the people involved from a man and a woman who were at Hopeworth at the time of Penumbra. She even had confirmation, albeit from a woman with memory problems, about her presence there. But that same project had been totally—and perhaps a little conveniently—destroyed by fire, so there were no records available to confirm anything they were told.

  The one person who might be able to shed some light on her confusion was the mysterious Joe. Every discussion she’d ever had with him had taken her just a little bit further along her path of remembering. But how much could she really trust him? She knew even less about him than she did about herself.

  As she stood there, contemplating whether she should try and contact him, the heavens opened up. Big, fat, heavy drops of rain began to splatter across the pavement, quickly darkening the concrete inches away from her feet. Thunder rumbled, the sound so loud it seemed to rattle the air itself. Two seconds later, lightning split the sky, briefly turning the night as bright as day. The energy of that flash burned across her senses, as warm as the sun and as sharp as glass.

  A tremor ran through her, but it wasn’t fear. It was something far worse.

  Excitement.

  Pleasure.

  As if part of her soul rejoiced in the storm’s energy.

  She rubbed her arms and warily stared at the skies. Maybe Karl was right. Maybe she should have an escort to Wetherton’s…

  Damn it, no. She’d been touched by the power of the storms before and had drawn it deep into her body. This storm was no fiercer than the one she’d used to help find Gabriel, and she’d walked away from that with nothing more than a brief bout of shakiness and exhaustion. If it hadn’t affected her then, why was she acting like a Nervous Nelly now?

  She wasn’t sure. Maybe it was just Karl’s warning. Or maybe it was the growing sensation—or rather, the expectation—that something was about to happen.

  Something that needed to happen. Which made no sense at all.

  She stared into the storm-locked night for a few seconds longer, then resolutely dashed out into the thickness of it. The wind tore at her as she ran, making her stagger like a drunkard, and the rain fell so heavily that visibility was almost impossible. Her pants became plastered to her legs in an instant and her shirt clung like a second skin. Only in Melbourne could a day whose weather had started off so nice do a complete one-eighty and become a bitch.

  And, of course, the closest parking spot she’d been able to find near O’Hearn’s office was a block and a half down the street. Wetherton’s office wasn’t that much farther beyond that. She might as well run all the way, because by the time she got to her car, she’d be soaked anyway. Besides, she wasn’t likely to find parking any closer to Wetherton’s office at this hour. There was too much traffic.

  She ran down the street, jumping over puddles and barely avoiding the other madly dashing pedestrians. Another flash of lightning lit across the stormy evening, and the power within it skipped across her skin, crackling like slivers of fire between her fingertips. Every breath she took sucked that energy inside her, until it felt as if it were surging through every pore, every fiber. Her whole body seemed more alive than it ever had been before.

  It scared her. Terrified her.

  And the fact that it felt so right made her fear it even more.

  Overhead, thunder rumbled again. The power of it echoed through her, a force that filled her to breaking, completing her in a way she couldn’t even begin to understand.

  Then the lightning hit.

  It felt like a gigantic hammer, smashing into her head, driving through her body, snatching her breath, her strength, even as it knocked her to the pavement. Her knees hit the concrete with a sickening crunch, but she felt no pain, had no awareness of anything going on around her, because everything had become white. It was as if she’d stepped beyond this world into a place of fierce brightness, in which nothing else existed but that light and the power within it—and within her. The air itself burned with the intensity of that light, but not half as much as her skin.

  And it felt good.

  So very good.

  Without thinking, she flung her arms wide, accepting the power burning around her, drawing it in even more. Flesh and bone seemed to burn away, until she was nothing more than a creature of energy, a being at one with the storm and the night and the intense heat of the lightning. And it called to her, that energy, wanted her, reaching for her like a lover might welcome a much-missed partner.

  She raised her face to the skies she couldn’t see, torn by the need to answer that call and the growing knowledge that something was wrong, that this wasn’t good, no matter h
ow good it actually felt.

  “Samantha!”

  The call ran around her—through her mind and past her ears. Yet it wasn’t one voice, but two.

  Samantha! You must resist. You are not grounded and will be lost. You cannot do this yet.

  The internal voice was one she recognized. Joe. Always there when she needed help the most.

  But the storm called her name, and the thought fled. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the caress of the power as she raised her arms a little more.

  No! You cannot lose yourself to the storm. It would kill us both.

  His fear vibrated through her, briefly stalling the flow of energy swirling around her. But it was a voice, a real voice, hard and loud, that shook her more.

  “Sam!” Hands appeared through the maelstrom of energy, their flesh almost black compared to the brightness of the lightning-fed power. They grabbed her arm, her hand, and a shock more explosive than the storm ran through her. Suddenly she could feel the chill of the wind, the splatter of rain across her face, the throbbing in her knees and the ache in her mind.

  And with that, the energy leapt away and returned to the heavens. The feeling of oneness was gone, the light was gone, and all that was left was weakness. Complete and utter weakness.

  She fell forward into arms that were warm and solid and real, and she knew without looking that it was Gabriel. She didn’t ask how he was there, or why he was there, and she didn’t particularly care. She simply rested in the security of his touch as her body trembled and she gasped for breath.

  His grip tightened slightly, as if he’d felt her need for closeness. His warmth began to seep into her, heating her skin, leaching away the last vestiges of energy and making her feel real again, rather than a creature of the storm. She closed her eyes, listening to the steady beat of his heart, feeling her own begin to echo its rhythm.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, after a while. His breath caressed warmth across the top of her head and a tremor of desire ran through her.

  Not a feeling she needed right now.

  She nodded in answer to his question and pulled back. His grip moved to her shoulders, holding her steady and preventing her from drawing away. His gaze searched hers, the green in those hazel depths glowing like emerald fire, as if the storm had somehow empowered him, too.

  “What the hell just happened?” he asked.

  She gave a shaky laugh and wiped a hand across her wet face—a useless gesture given the rain. “I now understand what Karl meant with his warning. And he was right.”

  He raised a hand and gently brushed bedraggled strands of hair from her cheek. She didn’t see the point since the wind and the rain just flung them back, but she wasn’t about to object, either. His touch was too comforting. Too good.

  “Then you called the storm to you?”

  She shook her head. “It called me.” She hesitated. “It felt so right, so pleasurable, like I was coming home. It would have been very easy to get lost in that feeling, as Karl warned.”

  Gabriel frowned. “So what brought you back?”

  “You did.” She paused. “And Joe.”

  She’d half-expected her answer to annoy or anger him, but he merely raised his eyes. “Both of us?”

  “Yes. Joe contacted me, briefly halting the call of the storm. And then you touched me, loosening the storm’s grip and bringing me back.”

  He studied her for a moment, then said, “That would suggest that this mysterious Joe and I might both play a part in being your base. And yet, according to Karl, a walker has only one base.”

  She blew out a breath, her gaze searching his. “You know, I thought you’d be pissed off about that—about being my base, that is.”

  “I am, but there’s no use raging against something I can do nothing about.” He hesitated. “Besides, we still know very little about walkers as a race. Karl’s journal may have proven useful so far, but it isn’t as in-depth as we need it to be. Even if your dominant genes are walker, we’ll still be uncovering information as we run through our trials and experiments. And it is by no means certain that I or this Joe are your base. Nor is it certain that you actually need one.”

  If what had just happened was any indication, she did. But he knew that as much as she did. “But if it is true, you could end up tied to me. And we both know you don’t want that.”

  “I don’t need that, true.” He brushed his thumb down her cheek, lightly touching the corner of her mouth. Another tremor ran through her and, like before, it had nothing to do with the night or the rain or the fact that she was drenched. He half-smiled and added, “But if I have to be stuck with someone, then I guess I could do worse.”

  “Well, gee,” she said dryly, glad the tremor running through her limbs wasn’t evident in her voice, “that is such an overwhelmingly sentimental statement that I might just cry.”

  He chuckled softly and dropped his hand to her shoulder again. “Look, I’ve been a bastard the last few months, and I will undoubtedly be a bastard again in the future. I don’t want a partner, be it you or the idiot they’ve saddled me with now. I play solo. I have to. It’s not personal.”

  “None of which is answering my original concern.”

  “I know.” His touch left her shoulders as he sat back on his heels, and the night suddenly felt colder. “It’s not that I don’t want any sort of connection with you—”

  “It’s just that you’re afraid of it,” she finished for him.

  A wry smile touched his lips. “Not afraid, just wary. The more people in my life that I care about, the more targets I give my enemies.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.” Nor did it mean he cared about her. Damn it, she wasn’t even sure if he was physically attracted. His touch tonight might have been nothing more than concern for a workmate. And she couldn’t take his sister’s words as gospel, either. After all, most families weren’t above a bit of matchmaking if they felt the mix was right.

  Not that she had firsthand experience of families and their habits, having never had a family herself. But she’d seen it often enough in her years as a cop, observing from the sidelines.

  Gabriel rose to his feet in one smooth, almost elegant, gesture and held out his hand. “I think we’d better get out of this storm.”

  Which was a neat way of avoiding her question and not committing himself one way or another.

  “We’re drowned rats anyway, so it doesn’t much matter whether we stay here or not.” But she grasped his warm fingers and let him help her up.

  Pain slithered up her legs as she rose. She glanced down and saw the rents in her pants and the scrapes on her knees. She must have hit the concrete harder than she’d thought. “Oh great. This is going to make such a wonderful first impression on Wetherton.”

  “As far as first impressions go, you can’t get much better than saving the man’s ass last night. Even if you weren’t supposed to be there.”

  “If I hadn’t been, all of Stephan’s carefully laid plans would have been blown to hell.” She plucked material from the wound on her left knee. Though the worse of the two, the wound wasn’t deep, just nasty looking. “And besides, Wetherton was out cold when his ass was hauled from that car, so I doubt he’s even aware of my involvement. Especially since Briggs handled all the follow-up interviews.” Mainly because she’d been getting raked over the coals by Stephan for shooting their suspect.

  “What time were you supposed to be at Wetherton’s?” he asked.

  She grimaced and glanced at her watch. “I start at six thirty, but I’d like to get there just after six and look around.”

  “Which leaves just enough time to buy a change of clothes.”

  “Sounds good. Wetherton doesn’t seem the type to be impressed by drowned rats.”

  He grinned as he took her arm and began guiding her down the street. “Wetherton is the type to be impressed with anything that has breasts and a figure. Even drowned, I think you’d qualify.”

  She rais
ed an eyebrow and looked up at him. “Have you had a personality transplant or something?”

  His grin faded into a grimace. “No, but I saw that lightning hit you, and I guess I’m just relieved to see you’re unharmed.”

  “I bet it hurt admitting that.”

  “I’m not an ogre, despite what my behavior may have made you believe.”

  “So you’re saying the ogre actually does have feelings?”

  “Very occasionally.” He gave her a half-smile, but there was a seriousness in his eyes that suggested his words were more a warning. “It doesn’t mean that you—or anyone else—will see the other side all that often. I will never get more than casually involved with someone again.”

  “Sounds like you’re setting yourself up for a very lonely old age, Assistant Director.”

  “If I make it to old age, I’ll worry about it then.” He paused. “What can you tell me about this Joe?”

  Meaning the subjects of his emotions and his life were officially closed—for now, at least. She shrugged. “He’s been around for a while. He mostly used to talk to me in dreams, but lately we’ve been in contact through direct telepathic thought. He seems to know a lot about my past.”

  “And have you questioned him about his identity?”

  “Of course. He’s more than a little cagey.” She hesitated. “There is a connection between us, a bond that goes beyond telepathy. I just don’t know what that is as yet.”

  “Could he be another of Hopeworth’s rejects?”

  She glanced at him. “We’re not actually sure that I’m a reject yet.”

  “No.” He paused. “Is he military?”

  She remembered the time they’d had coffee. Remembered the way he walked, the military-like alertness. “If he isn’t now, I’d say he has been.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Brown eyes, big build, about your height. Very scruffy and very hairy.” She shrugged. “He reminded me somewhat of a bear.”