Beauty, The Invisible, Episode 1

by Janean Worth

  Chapter Eight

  “You have nothing to fear from me, Bella.”

  Bella looked into the eyes of the man who had spoken, searching his gaze for truth. And it seemed to be there. But, after her experiences the past twenty‑four hours, she really couldn’t even believe her own eyes anymore. She couldn’t trust her instincts either. Everything seemed so off kilter.

  I can’t trust him, she thought.

  “Yes, you can trust me. And few others,” he said.

  How did he know what she was thinking? Was he just good at guessing, or was her expression so transparent that it was obvious?

  He made no threatening moves toward her, and his face, lined with only a few wrinkles and topped with graying brown hair, seemed friendly. His eyes, the irises a blue so light that they looked frosted, were both frightening and very direct. It seemed that she could see into his soul—almost—when she looked into those unusual eyes.

  The man chuckled.

  “That’s nice, but you really can’t see the soul in a person’s eyes, Bella.”

  She gasped, and took several stumbling steps backward.

  He was reading her mind? How could that be? No one could read minds. It was impossible. Her thoughts were supposed to be hers alone, and no one else’s.

  “That’s true too, but you have left your thoughts open for all to read—at least those who are attuned to the spiritual realm.”

  “Stop it,” Bella said, angry despite the man’s friendly appearance and unthreatening manner. She didn’t want anyone reading her mind. It had to be some kind of cheap parlor trick, but she still didn’t like the act. Not one bit.

  “My apologies, but your thoughts are so loud, I cannot help but know them. You are projecting them, allowing your emotions to amplify them. They’re like radio waves, Bella, and your frequency is quite strong.”

  She clenched her teeth and backed away a few more steps. It was crazy. It was just too crazy. He couldn’t be reading her thoughts, and she couldn’t have just lost her job after fainting because she’d seen a shadow with red eyes grab a man’s head and squeeze. She couldn’t have lost her fiancé, and all of her wonderful plans for the future, the night before.

  That all just couldn’t be happening.

  “Bella, I’m sorry that you’re frightened, and I’m sorry that these things have happened to you. If you are already seeing the demons—the shadows—then your abilities are progressing rapidly. I tried to locate you before this happened, and I’m sorry that I was not able to find you sooner so that I could have helped you through this transition.”

  “No, no. I’m not listening to this. I’m sorry, mister, but I’m just going to go back to my apartment, brew a strong cup of coffee, take a few aspirin, and pretend that the last twenty‑four hours never happened. And please don’t try to follow me, or I’ll have to call the police,” Bella huffed out a sigh and moved around the man, setting off along the sidewalk at a fast clip.

  “Going back to your apartment won’t help. The others have already found you. They’re after you. They covet your abilities, and they will not stop until they have acquired you as one of their own.”

  Bella wanted to put her hands up and cover her ears, but instead she just walked faster. What he said sounded like madness, and she didn’t want to hear any more madness that day.

  Had the whole world gone mad, or was it just her? She didn’t know. Perhaps her headache had scrambled her brains.

  The man began to follow her.

  She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, and looked over her shoulder at him.

  “I’ll call them. I mean it. Don’t make me.”

  “I’ve been sent to help you because we have similar abilities, Bella. If you call the police, they will not be able to help you as I can. They cannot protect you from the others.”

  What others? She wanted to shout, but she didn’t. She wouldn’t buy into his madness. She wouldn’t. She had enough of her own to deal with.

  “The others, Bella. The Quislings, they call themselves. They’ve been looking for you as diligently as I have. And it seems that one of them found you even before I did. Your new friend Lucien. He is one of them.”

  “Stop it! Stop flinging my own thoughts back at me! Or whatever you’re doing. I don’t know how you’re doing it, but stop it,” she snarled at him, walking faster.

  She looked down at the face of her phone and contemplated dialing the police. But when they came, what would she tell them? That the man on the sidewalk was talking crazy, and she’d seen red‑eyed shadows, and been fired from her job after being accused of being on drugs and she’d lost her fiancé after a huge fight because she wouldn’t have premarital sex? How did that sound? They’d cart her away to a room with white padded walls, surely.

  She sighed, stuffing the phone back in her pocket.

  “Good choice. Good choice,” the man said. “But, really, I didn’t need to know any of that. TMI, if you know what I mean. Much too much. And, your fiancé is a fool, for what it’s worth.”

  Bella stopped walking, the now‑familiar feeling of foreboding skittering up her spine as another, more unsettling thought occurred to her. She turned to face the man, giving him her full attention.

  “Have you been spying on me?”

  “Well, yes,” he said.

  Shocked at his blatant admission, Bella just stared at him. He admitted that he’d been spying on her? Who did that?

  How long had he been doing it? What else did he know about her?

  She shook her head to try to clear her thoughts, but it only made her head hurt worse. This was truly horrible. She’d never had a stalker before. And, on the worst day of her life, she suddenly picked one up?

  The situation, in fact the whole day, seemed out of her control. She needed help. Extraordinary help.

  Dear God, she prayed silently, please help me.

  The man grinned at her, then, strangely, gave her a thumbs‑up sign.

  She frowned at him and took a few steps, walking backward, away from him.

  “Well, look, um . . . Please stop spying on me and leave me alone,” she said lamely, wondering what she’d do if he didn’t. If she wasn’t going to call the police, then there wasn’t much else she could do, especially if he knew where she lived.

  Over the man’s shoulder, Bella saw Lucien approaching, his face set in an angry scowl.

  She groaned. She didn’t want to deal with him too.

  This day just couldn’t get any worse, could it?

  The man looked over his shoulder.

  “Well, that’s not good. He’s a mean one, that one is. His abilities are young, like yours, but he’s been figuring out how to use them easily enough. And he uses none of them for good. And, what’s worse, I’m afraid that he’s fixated on you, Bella.”

  Fixated on her?

  Bella shook her head. This guy was certifiable. But then, so was she, with the shadows and fainting and screaming and hallucinations lately.

  “He is, you must believe me. We must leave before he gets here. His thoughts are quite dangerous. He feels possessive of you, and wants to know what I’m doing talking to his future wife.”

  Bella gasped, too astounded to remember that she wasn’t trusting this man. “His wife?”

  “His future wife, yes. That’s how the thinks of you.”

  “But, I’m not . . . I’m engaged. I mean I was engaged. I’m not marrying Lucien . . .” she stuttered, stopping once again in the middle of the sidewalk.

  “Well, he’s sure you are. He is thinking that he rid you of your fiancé and that you’ve got no business talking to a man on the sidewalk when you should only be talking to him. He’s thinking that he didn’t go to all that trouble of getting you fired and making you feel vulnerable just so that some old dude—an unflattering opinion of me—can try to pick you up on the street.”

  Bella gaped at him, not caring that her mouth was hanging open. This couldn’t be true. Lucien had gotten rid of her fianc�
� and gotten her fired? But no, that wasn’t possible. Just not possible.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “Well, believe me or not, he has his own plans for you and your budding abilities, and his thoughts toward you are not pure and selfless, but evil and possessive. You are in danger from him. He will surely deliver you to the Quislings as soon as he joins their ranks.”

  The man had moved closer to her while he was speaking. He hovered a few feet away, his manner almost protective.

  Were middle‑aged stalkers supposed to act protective? She had no idea.

  Bella couldn’t take it anymore. She threw her hands in the air and turned around, walking swiftly away.

  Maybe her new stalker and Lucien would take care of each other. She’d had enough.

  “But you can’t go back to . . .”

  The man called after her, and so did Lucien, but she ignored them both and walked faster. When she heard heavy footfalls on the sidewalk behind her, she broke into a run. She just wanted to get back to her apartment. Where it was safe. Beyond accomplishing that, she didn’t know what she was going to do.

  Sprinting, she took a left on Eighth Avenue, which ran right in front of her apartment building, grateful that she only had about a block left to go before she could enter her building, ascend to her apartment like a princess to her safe, high tower, and try to escape the insanity that had seized her day.

  She’d only run a few more steps when a burly man, wearing a full‑length black trench coat, of all things, stepped out of a doorway right in front of her.

  Unable to stop in time, she ran right into him. Her breath whooshed out with the impact, but his arms came up to catch her, gathering her in an unwanted embrace, his reflexive gesture so fast that it almost seemed as if he’d been expecting their collision.

  She hadn’t seen him in the doorway, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t seen her.

  She put her arms out to push away from his too‑close chest, set on apologizing and thanking him for his efforts to prevent her from falling, when she looked up into his face.

  He was smiling. A self-satisfied, wolfish smile.

  Her words of apology died in her throat.

  “Well, hello, Bella,” he said, his voice a smug purr. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  She put her hands up to push against his chest, but before she could do more than that, he reached up a hand to press a folded rag over her mouth and nose, forcing her closer with his other arm.

  She gagged at the stench of it, turning her head away violently. It was wet with some fluid that stung her mouth and nose.

  She tried to hold her breath as she put every ounce of strength that she possessed into trying to get away. She kicked, pushed, punched, wiggled. She screamed behind the cloth, but then realized that only made going without air worse, because she’d emptied her lungs and they ached for oxygen.

  The man held her with ease, one powerful arm locked around her middle, the other hand keeping the cloth pressed tightly over her airways, leering down into her face as he watched her struggle helplessly. She was like a butterfly caught in a web, and he was the spider waiting to devour her when she could no longer struggle against his trap.

  Panic gripped her. Time was running out. Either she’d soon pass out from lack of air or she’d have to draw a breath and suck in the fumes from the cloth. She shook her head wildly from side to side, kicking her feet into his shin, but he was immovable.

  Her lungs were screaming for air. She couldn’t hold out another second. She reached up to try to claw his face, but he turned his face to the side, easily avoiding her fingernails.

  Biology took over then, and she gasped in a breath unwillingly. The fumes burned down her throat, making her eyes water, and almost instantly she felt the effect of them.

  Her vision blurred, her head swam, and she felt the strength go out of her arms. Though her heart still pounded in terror, a strange lethargy took hold of her body.

  As her vision began to go gray at the edges, the man moved her toward the curb. Her arms and legs flopped like a rag-doll with each stride that he took.

  Just before she lost consciousness for the second time that day, he finally removed the cloth from her face, holding her against his chest with one steely arm around her ribcage. She heard him open a vehicle door, and just as her vision faded to black, she felt him stuff her into the back of a dark‑colored van.