by Ava Benton
“What?” I fumbled for it, pulled it out so fast I almost dropped it on the floor. There was a message, all right. From an unknown number.
Aunt Cari. If you’re as smart as your nephew says, you’ll act like this was a misunderstanding. You won’t say a word to the cops or the administrators at the school. Just go home and wait for our call.
I had barely finished reading those horrifying words before a second message came through.
We’re watching the school, so don’t even think about calling the cops. Leave. Now.
I kept reading, over and over. The painful truth loomed large. Somebody took him away from me. Somebody might be hurting him. And they were watching me, or so they said. I wasn’t in any position to second guess them.
“Carissa? Who is it?”
I managed to find my voice. “It was a misunderstanding. I forgot that I’d secured a pickup for today—I wasn’t sure what time I’d get out of work.”
Amazing how easy it was to lie. I didn’t have to think about the words before they spilled out. The only way to get my hands to stop visibly shaking and giving me away was to jam them into my pockets.
“Oh. What a relief.” The old woman let out a nervous, fluttery laugh, but her smile never reached her eyes. She was disgusted with me. I had nearly given her a heart attack and had probably upset the handful of kids who were still waiting to be picked up. I had disrupted her day.
She had no idea what it meant to have things disrupted.
“I’m very sorry,” I whispered. I couldn’t hear myself speak. My heart was pounding too hard, my blood rushing too fast and too loud. I stumbled out of the office, down the hall. Past the rows of student artwork lining the wall. One of those pictures was Tommy’s. I had seen it at the Back to School night only a few weeks earlier. He had been so excited to get started, and so proud to show me what he did in art class.
I couldn’t breathe. Something was sitting on my chest, and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I had to get home. They were going to call me. Tommy. What did they want for him? What had I done to get their attention? Images of drug dealers raced through my mind, dealers my sister had stolen from, who wanted their payment through any means necessary. Who wouldn’t stop at anything, even stealing and hurting an innocent little boy? A scream tried to force its way out of my throat as I threw myself behind the wheel of the car.
How was I supposed to get home? I couldn’t remember how to get there. I couldn’t even get my key in the ignition—it kept missing, skittering off to the side. You have to do this. You have to get home and wait for their call, like they said. It was bad enough traffic would be terrible, as it always was anywhere remotely near D.C. I couldn’t afford to lose any more time.
I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then inserted the key into the ignition and turned. One step out of the way. Now, foot on the brake. Put the car in Drive. I talked myself through every step of pulling out from in front of the school, then driving home. My empty home where Tommy’s bed waited. Would he be in it later? I had no idea.
My cell rang the moment I stumbled in the front door. I didn’t even have time to close and lock it behind me before I answered the call. “Yes? Yes? Who is this?”
“The people who have your nephew in their care.” Robotic, like they used one of those modifiers to disguise their voice.
It added another layer to my horror.
“Where is he? Is he all right? Let me talk to him.”
“You’ll speak with him once we’re on the same page, Carissa.”
“Who are you?” I whimpered, leaning against the wall and sliding down until my butt touched the floor. “Please, please, I’ll do anything I can. I just want him back, unharmed. That’s all.”
“You’re asking for quite a lot, Aunt Cari.” The teasing, mocking tone. The gentle laughter. “And don’t worry. You’ll have to do something to get him back.”
“What? What do you want? Money?” I closed my eyes and tried to think of everything I had. If I sold the car and liquidated my 401k…
“No, no. Nothing like that. We’re not barbarians, Carissa.”
My eyes flew open. “What, then?”
“You have something far more valuable than money. I wonder if you know it yet.”
What else did I have? I searched wildly, imagines flying back and forth in my head. I came up blank.
“You started a new job today. Didn’t you?”
I covered my mouth with my hand. No way. How did they know that? How long had they been following me? Did they know Cash? Damn it, I should’ve known better than to get myself mixed up with a shifter. I should’ve turned Mary down, turned Harrison down. I would be cooking spaghetti for my nephew right now if I had, and he’d be finishing up his homework at the table and absentmindedly kicking the legs of his chair until he scuffed them up.
“I’ll take your silence as understanding. You’re starting to understand what it is we’re after.”
“You want him?” I whispered.
“No, no—well, maybe. If that would make things more convenient. What we really want is his blood.”
I thought back to the tubes I had drawn earlier. I had only used a couple of them for analysis and was planning to use the rest for testing once I started devising early antidotes. “I can go get it right now. I have two tubes full. Please, don’t hurt my nephew.”
Silence. I held my breath, waiting. When a soft chuckle reached my ears, I whimpered in dismay.
“You think two tubes is going to do it?” the robot-voiced man asked before chuckling again. “We need a lot more than that.”
“How much?” I could draw it when I got there. He wouldn’t even have to know why I was doing it.
“Much more,” he snapped. “As much as you can get your hands on. We realize it’ll take a little time, since draining him all at once would look… obvious… but we trust you’ll expedite the process as much as possible. You have plenty of motivation.”
“Why are you doing this?” I whispered. I didn’t expect an answer. It didn’t matter why they were doing it, anyway. They had my boy.
Another soft, sinister chuckle. “Do you really want to know?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“How do I know Tommy’s still safe?” I asked.
Tears threatened to choke me. I swallowed them back, swallowed hard, determined not to lose control of myself until I was off the phone. Of course, I’d be heartbroken and devastated and panicked. They had to expect that. But they didn’t need to hear it.
“Would you like to talk to him?”
“Yes! Yes, please, let me hear his voice. Oh, God.” I covered my eyes, weeping openly no matter how hard I tried to hold it in.
My poor little guy. What were they doing to him? I couldn’t let him stay long. They might get impatient, start forcing my hand.
“Aunt Cari?” He sounded doubtful, but healthy. Strong.
“Hey, big guy. How ya doin’?” Keep it light. Keep it normal. Make sure he doesn’t know you’re falling apart.
“I thought you were going to come to get me today,” he murmured.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I wanted to.” Tears streamed down my cheeks. Another promise broken.
“Where are you?”
What should I say? “Still at work, honey. I couldn’t leave you at school forever. I had to have somebody else pick you up. Are you comfortable there?”
“Yeah. They’re nice. How do you know them?”
Just like that, he was gone. “Tommy? Tommy!”
“No, no,” Robot Voice chided. “Sorry, pal, Aunt Cari has to go now.”
I heard Tommy’s disappointed voice in the background, and my heart nearly broke for him. My poor boy.
“Do we understand each other, Aunt Cari?”
I gulped. “What am I supposed to do when I get his blood together? How do I know when enough is enough?”
“We’ll call you and monitor your progress, and let you know when you�
�ve collected enough for our purposes. Sound fair?”
“And Tommy? I want to be sure he’s all right through all of this. You have to take care of him. Please.”
“We will. And to answer your question, he’s very comfortable here.”
A series of beeps indicated the call was over. All I could do was pull the phone from my ear and stare at it, like I’d never seen a phone before. Tears blurred my vision again, and I dropped the thing on the floor before curling up in a ball on my side and screaming behind my hands.
9
Cash
I was never much of a morning person. That was Pierce’s thing. He’d get up before the sun and hit the ground running.
While he never admitted it, I was fairly sure he liked holding it over our heads. Moral superiority and all that. Look what I’ve managed to do in the time it took your lazy ass to get out of bed. Sometimes, when he was feeling especially sanctimonious, he’d make the walk to and from the truck over and over to bring in all the supplies on his own. He had no idea how insufferable that was.
Which was what made it so improbable that I’d get out of bed at the crack of dawn. Not so improbable, however, in light of who I was looking forward to seeing. I was never so glad to be alone, where nobody but me and my dragon knew what Carissa had already done to me. The guys would eat me alive with their ball-busting. Or maybe not, considering what life had already done to Pierce and Smoke.
Not that I was in love. A serious case of lust, perhaps. Lust at first sight. I imagined all the ways I could make her blush and squirm when she came in. Getting stuck with a man would’ve been so much less interesting.
After a hot shower, I went back to the bedroom. A tray full of food was waiting for me on the bedside table. Who prepared it? Who left it? When had they done it? The food was hot, so it couldn’t have been long. Whoever they were, they were as quiet as a mouse. I hadn’t heard so much as a footstep while I showered. Just another layer of intrigue to ponder as I made short work of a steak, eggs, potatoes, and toast. Not a bad breakfast, and decently cooked. Who were these people?
It was around eight o’clock when I heard her come in. Earlier than before. Maybe she couldn’t wait to see me again, I thought with a self-deprecating chuckle. I noticed the way my pulse picked up speed. The smile which spread across my face in spite of my best efforts to control it. The feeling that something good was about to happen.
I had it bad.
“Good morning,” I said as I stepped into the lab to greet her—then stopped in my tracks. It was her, of course, the same girl as before. But so different. When she briefly acknowledged me, I took in the sight of her. What I saw disturbed me.
There was no light in her eyes, not like there was when we first met, and the dark circles beneath them were pronounced. I’d lived with five other dragons for a thousand years, but even I knew better than to tell a woman she looked like shit.
“Are you feeling all right?” I asked instead of asking why she looked like she’d died the night before.
“Sure. Just didn’t sleep well. Or much at all.” She tucked her hair behind her ears as she logged into her machine.
She hadn’t removed her jacket yet, I noted, and her car keys were still in one hand, forcing her to peck with only the forefinger of her right.
What changed? I couldn’t imagine. Something at home, obviously, since she hadn’t spent more than a few hours with me the day before. Otherwise, I’d been in my room.
“Would you rather I leave you alone for a while?” I jerked my thumb in the direction of my room.
“No, no. Please. I need to draw some more blood first.”
I couldn’t help but frown. “Already?”
She frowned, too. Deeper than I did. “Is that a problem? Are you out of blood?”
“Of course not. But you took so much yesterday and haven’t given me anything yet—injections or anything like that.”
“You have no idea how much blood I need to get my work done,” she reminded me. “And if you want to get this finished in a timely manner…”
“I do.” I held up my hands. “You’re right. I have no idea what goes into something like this. My job is to act as your lab rat.”
She half-smiled, shaking her head. “I used to work with rats. They were much easier. They didn’t ask so many questions.”
“I’ll be quiet as one of them,” I promised, miming the act of zipping my lips shut.
That got a begrudging laugh. She had a beautiful laugh, even when her heart wasn’t in it. It was enough to make me wonder what she sounded like when she meant it.
“I shouldn’t snap at you. I’m having a difficult time, is all, but that’s not your fault—or your problem.” She averted her gaze and got the same things together that she’d used to draw blood the first time. The tray shook slightly as she moved it.
This was not the girl I met the day before. I had left that girl flustered, flushed, unsure of herself. She hadn’t been shaky or distracted. Or snappish.
I sat, extending my arm as I had before. What could a girl like her have to worry about? She was smart, beautiful, had a good job—perhaps it was a bit sketchy, all the secrecy, but the pay had to be good. Mary would see to that, and we would see to compensating Mary. Money didn’t only pay for skill. It paid for silence, too.
I watched her even closer than I had the first time, dissecting every move. Both the dragon and I did. He was even more interested than I, for similar reasons. But while I felt genuine concern for her, he only cared inasmuch as he was certain she belonged with us. To us.
If she were ours, we’d see to it that no one would dare harm her, he reminded me. in my mind’s eye, I saw him pacing dangerously, stalking to and fro, caged and brimming over with viciousness. Almost wishing for the opportunity to lash out, to make somebody pay. She deserved better than to jump at the slightest sound, like when I dragged the stool up to the table.
“I’m sorry things are difficult for you at the moment,” I offered. Why did I care? The sane part of me, the human half, warned me to shut up and mind my own business. I had much larger problems than a red-eyed, pale-faced girl, even if that girl had an important role to play.
She nodded, distracted. “Thank you. I can assure you, this will bear no impact on the quality or efficiency of my work.”
“I wasn’t worried. If you weren’t reliable, you wouldn’t be here.”
“Just the same. I thought you should know that.” She finished filling six tubes, and I bent my arm to hold a small patch of gauze in place. Not that I needed it for long—the tiny pinhole left by the needle would heal almost instantly, thanks to my dragon blood. I removed the gauze, and sure enough, there was no evidence of ever being stuck.
She noticed. A very observant girl. “You’d never know I just did that. I mean, it’s a pinprick, but there’s usually a small mark for at least a little bit.” Her eyes met mine. “Is this normal for you?”
“You could say that,” I replied.
She frowned.
“Yes. It’s normal for me,” I amended. She was quite literal and preferred her communication short and to the point. One of many things I needed to keep in mind if we were going to spend time together.
Which reminded me. “Have you any idea how long this might take? I mean, when can I go home?”
She frowned again. It seemed like her expression for the day. “When I’m finished, of course. I need to run tests on you in order to complete the formula for the antidote—and, honestly, it would be best for me to observe the longevity of the antidote, too. I can’t inject you and assume the results will be permanent. What happens if they’re not?”
“Och. I hadn’t thought of that.” It was enough to plant my ass on the stool.
“Och?”
I smiled distractedly. “Sometimes my Scottish comes out. The rest of my family have managed to water down their speech to the point where you’d never know where we came from.”
“So, you’re from Scotland?” She raise
d an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”
“Why? Because I don’t wear a kilt or carry bagpipes?”
She chuckled, and her cheeks flushed. The only color on her chalk-white face. “How long have you been here?”
What would she say if I told her exactly how long it had been? I’d likely have to pick her up off the floor and place her beneath a cold shower. The dragon grunted in approval of the notion. Wetting her down, enjoying the sight of her body as the clothing clung to it…
“Much of my life,” I ventured. Would she press the subject? She didn’t seem inclined to. Too wrapped up in whatever was plaguing her.
“Is it a problem?”
“Is what a problem?”
“Staying here.” Her eyes met mine and held them. There was so much happening in her head.
I wished for a way to break through it, get to what was really bothering her and make it right. She seemed to have aged ten years overnight. At least. Her teeth sank into her lower lip as she waited for my reply.
“No problem at all.”
Nothing in the world could’ve dragged me away.
10
Carissa
I was living in hell.
On the outside, life looked much the same as always. Anybody who didn’t know me, or who’d been absent from my life for the last eight months, wouldn’t have seen a difference in my routine.
I got up, if I’d slept at all, showered and dressed. Gulped coffee like it was air, like I couldn’t live without it. Drove to the lab. Worked well beyond the point where the sky went dark. Left late, drove home—traffic was much more forgiving at that time of night, when everybody else was already home and safe and happy. I assumed they were happy. It was always easy to assume the rest of the world was happy when I was miserable.
It was the same thing the next day. And the next. I slid right back into my workaholic groove. At least it wasn’t foreign to me.
What else was there to do? Rock back and forth in a dark corner, sobbing endlessly? Scream with my face pressed into a pillow until my throat bled? I had already done both, the night Tommy went away. Doing it again—even though I wanted to, I wanted to break down so badly—wouldn’t help him. I couldn’t lock myself away and numb out. I had to keep working, and I had to keep drawing blood.
