a Touch of the Past (An Everly Gray Adventure)

by Charles, L. j.

  A tremor started in my fingers and flashed through my body. "My eyes are wrong. Why didn’t I see it before?"

  "The eyes are good, Belisama. Could be your ancestry is in question, though."

  He had a point. I skimmed through what I knew of Hawaiian history. Missionaries. Recessive genes. Was I recessive? "My father had red hair and green eyes; my mother dark brown hair and the same color eyes as me." I sounded lost. Not a good thing when Pierce filled the back seat with macho vibes, and I was on his current shit list.

  "Loyria Gray’s birth wasn’t registered. I have a rush on the DNA results, so we’ll know soon if Makani Maliu is your grandmother."

  My heart flip-flopped with…oh, damn it all to perdition, was that loneliness? "How do you know all this? Never mind. Stupid question."

  He answered anyway. "My job. Annie’s skill. You’ve got a real problem with your memory. Keep forgetting we’ve got your back."

  The night closed around me. Trust wasn’t my strong point. It probably came from touching too many people and learning they rarely spoke the truth. I shrugged it off for later consideration and focused on the road. A burned-out vapor light made it impossible for me to read the upcoming street sign. "You know where the Sand Island access road is?"

  "Slow down. Up ahead on the right."

  I made the turn. It was a divided highway with lots of industrial, warehouse businesses lining the street. "This doesn’t look like much of a recreational area. Are you sure this is right?"

  The willies danced along my spine. Storage tanks, probably fuel, lined the right side of the road. Looked like pictures I’d seen of New Jersey. Made me nervous, driving by those big vats of unstable chemicals.

  "Yep. I’m sure. So, what’s your plan?" Was there a hint of laughter behind his words?

  Fabric rustled in the back seat, and I met his icy blue gaze in the rearview mirror.

  "How mad are you?"

  "Well." Pierce dragged out the word and it wrapped around me, choking the breath from my lungs. And then he grinned. "I don’t plan on hiring you out as a thief any time soon."

  I would have rolled my eyes, but I needed to concentrate on driving. This had to be the wrong road. We’d passed over a bridge that had a deserted guardhouse smack in the middle of the divided highway. Shadows had chased over the building, and lights from an oncoming car flickered against the boarded up windows. Creepy.

  I flipped through what I’d read about Sand Island for a quick reality check. World War II. Military installation. Of course there had once been an active guardhouse. That was then. This was now. The tightness in my chest eased a smidgen.

  We drove forever, the silence in the Jeep whispering along my nerves. Eventually the road narrowed, and I slowed, driving by a yellow gate that flanked the entrance to the park. "Are we going to be locked in here? I didn’t read anything about open-to-the-public hours."

  "Park closes, but campers are allowed. Pull into that parking lot on your left." Pierce dropped my sneakers on the passenger seat. "Lots of unprotected flat land ahead, and the Jeep would be noticed."

  I parked, turned off the engine, and reached for my Nikes. Sweat popped out along my hairline. "Wait. How’d you know? Oh, damn it all to Mamma Mia. I forgot you were tapping my phone. You probably read the message about Kahuna Aukele before I did."

  "No. Took me a couple minutes to pull it up. Change your shoes and let’s get moving. Got a lot of distance to cover."

  I obeyed his order, locked the Jeep, and tossed him the keys. "You have a plan, Pierce?"

  "Get the bastard."

  I turned in a circle. "Your team? Are they—?"

  "Available. Not visible."

  The air was heavy and smelled industrial, slightly chemical, and moist. Cloying. "I found pictures of the watchtowers on the Internet. I thought I’d hide in one and see who showed up. Maybe get a license plate number for you to trace."

  Pierce’s eyebrows twitched.

  We hiked for a good ten minutes, Pierce doing his thing—watching every direction at once, keeping me in his sight, and his hands loose. My sneakers smacked against the damp grass with a swishy, sucking noise that defined every step. He moved silently and faded into the wind—a wisp of energy that dissolved into the dark, practically nonexistent.

  I spotted a structure that offered a good view of the surrounding area and headed toward it. "There, maybe."

  The wind, scented with the promise of rain, tugged at my hair. I shivered.

  Pierce edged close to me, the front of his body barely touching my back. Warmth seeped across the space between us, and he tapped my shoulder—a signal to stop. "Bad choice. I’ll boost you into that tree."

  Tree? So stupid to have worn shorts. My already scratched legs wouldn’t fare well with tree climbing. I planted my feet. "Why not the watchtower. It would be easy to climb up the support structure, and it has those nifty open slats overlooking—"

  "Crumbling concrete. Unstable and too obvious." Tension radiated through his fingers as they hit the small of my back with a thump. "Move. Now."

  I ran toward the tree, and Pierce had me wedged onto a shoulder-high branch before I caught my breath. "Climb." He pointed to a sturdy niche several feet above me.

  By the time I’d angled into a comfortable position, he’d disappeared into the night.

  Waves washed the deserted shore with a soft, swishy rumble. Ten slow, sleepy minutes passed while I fought to keep my eyes open. My muscles bunched with fatigue from balancing on the tree branch, and from the unaccustomed activity of exiting my room without benefit of an elevator.

  I wiggled. Bark cut into my backside. I rearranged tender body parts and promised myself a long soak in the tub as soon as I got back to my room.

  Where in the bloody hell was the dude who demanded my presence? Least he could do was show up for our date.

  And where was Pierce?

  I shifted my weight back and forth between butt cheeks, pushed the leaves out of the way and did a random check of the beach area.

  In the silence between the waves—humanoid movement. Not fast. Not slow. Bulkier than Pierce.

  I used my forearm to push more leaves aside, and stuck my head between the branches to get a better view of the beach. A man dressed in a dark sweat suit ambled along the shore. Big guy. Observant. And he faded in and out of the night just like Pierce. He circled the watchtower, clinging to the shadows. If I hadn’t seen him outlined against the ocean, I wouldn’t have known anyone was there.

  He turned his head, probably scanning the area. And then he moved under my tree.

  With my pale skin and white sneakers, I couldn’t completely hide in the leaves, but I tried to blend. I closed my eyes, held my breath, and pictured my cells separating slightly, letting a layer of concealing darkness slide between them that would make me invisible. It niggled in the back of my mind, how I knew to do that, but other things were more pressing at the moment—like the cramp in my leg.

  My eyes shot open when pain knotted my calf muscle.

  The big guy was still standing under my tree. Not looking up.

  Look up. Look up. Look up. I needed to see his face, memorize his features.

  A scream bubbled in my throat, caught, and burned a path into my mouth. I held my breath, my body shuddering with the effort. What had happened to my calm, quiet life? Wasn’t it something about not wanting to die with regrets because I’d been hiding from life?

  I tightened my grip on the tree, held still, and slowly let my breath out. Counted to ten. And then pulled in air, trying to ignore the pain shooting through my cramped muscle—to be still like a hungry alligator with tasty prey in reach.

  My foot twitched. An involuntary response to the pain.

  Big guy looked up.

  Shadows hid most of his features.

  My heart pounded with the rush of adrenaline, and my foot itched to kick the hoodie away from his face.

  Big guy smiled.

  At least I think he smiled. All I caught was
a glimpse of white teeth.

  Fear hit my bladder and it spasmed. I’d forever hear about it from Pierce and Annie if I defeated a big, bad guy by peeing on him, so I ground my molars and squeezed my thighs together. Better to kick him in the face if he tried to come after me.

  He moved and a pale ray of light from the Honolulu harbor glistened on a sliver of shiny metal in his hand. A knife?

  Most of my weight was on my right hip, making my leg temporarily useless. How hard could I kick with the cramp knotting my left calf? I practiced tightening and relaxing the muscles, pointing and flexing my foot. The cramp eased some.

  I had the primo position—on top. Options: talk to him, slide down a few feet and kick him in the face, or drop from the tree and smash him flat.

  He must have seen me. But he hadn’t said anything, so maybe he just sensed me, and had slipped the knife into his hand as a precaution. Or maybe this wasn’t the Scuzzbutt threatening my grandfather, but a random punk looking to pocket an easy fistful of cash from my wallet.

  "Everly Gray." His voice sounded like a handful of steel marbles rubbing together. Metallic, unpleasant, and snippy.

  My heartbeat kicked up a notch. Not a random punk. Where the hell was Pierce?

  Lightning flashed, spotlighting Scuzbutt’s horror-movie perfect grin.

  He was insane. Weren’t insane people crazy strong? Not that it mattered. His smile ruled out any possibility of having a discussion. That left smashing his nose with my foot, or squashing him with my dead weight.

  "Time to get out of the tree, Everly Gray." A hoarse chuckle rode on the syllables of my name.

  A momentary spike of fear caught in my chest. Family. My family was being threatened by this disgusting excuse for a human being. Anger, hot and dangerous, burned away my fear.

  There are a whole lot of worse reasons to die, Everly, than taking out the scumbag threatening your grandfather, and who was maybe responsible for your parents’ deaths.

  Kick or drop? The cramp in my muscle made the choice. Dropping would be more effective than a weak kick.

  I gathered my strong leg under me, pictured dropping, aiming my left foot at his face, twisting to avoid his knife hand.

  Three. Breathe in.

  Two. Breathe out.

  One. Breathe in.

  Exhale aannnd—drop. My scream crashed through the silence, chasing another burst of adrenaline into my muscles.

  Yes!

  Strength poured into my legs. My foot skidded over his face and pain slammed through my shoulder when I hit the ground. Searing, sharp. His knife had sliced my upper arm.

  The shriek that tore from my throat was pure hatred.

  "Fucking whore." His breath singed my ear, hot and malicious.

  I sucked in air. Butted my head into his face.

  "Damn, mother fuuuu—"

  Crash. I rammed him again. Grinned. It was so worth a concussion to hear him yelp, feel the warm wet of his blood drip on my hand. Oh, yeah. No way was this sorry excuse for a human going to hurt my family.

  His fingers clamped onto my arms, boring into my muscles. Pain. Tears streaming.

  Anger burned deep in my gut. "Asshole!"

  We tangled. I clawed, caught my nails in the soft skin of his neck.

  He rolled, twisting on top of me, suffocating me with his weight. The heavy smell of industrial oil crawled into my nose, slipped over my skin.

  I gagged, bile climbing into my throat, my mouth.

  He hauled back a fist. I screamed, every ounce the enraged woman.

  His fist didn’t hit.

  A rattling tremor hit his body and Scuzzbutt fled. Gone, leaving me with a fleeting glimpse of blond hair and a mud-caked face.

  Pierce landed next to me, graceful and deadly. "Well, fuck."

  Seventeen

  Pierce’s words slapped my ears. Fury swirled in my head. I bounded to my feet and punched him in the gut—a beautiful, almost choreographed move that sent shudders of pain up my arm. I winced. The man had abs of stone. "Where the bloody hell have you been?"

  "Watching." He grabbed my fist before I could get in another swing.

  A red haze erupted in my gut and I yanked free. "Let me get this straight."

  He turned my wrist over, ran his thumb over my pulse.

  I sucked in some air, tried to calm the anger beating a hole in my chest. "You were strolling around checking things out while I was getting a knife stuck in my arm?" My voice had risen to a screech.

  "Knife?" He tilted his head, running his hands along my arms, stopped when they hit a spot of partly dried, sticky blood.

  My breath caught. Sticky. Blood. I hadn’t thought about it quite that way.

  "Not bad. A scratch." Pierce pulled a folded white square from his pocket, and pressed it against my arm. "Put pressure on it."

  "Guys still carry handkerchiefs, huh?" It so didn’t fit with my image of Pierce.

  He ignored me, fished his cell from a back pocket, punched in some numbers, and listened. "Find him." Threat burned through his words.

  "And I thought I was beyond furiou…" I clamped my mouth shut. It was too dark to see his facial features clearly, but the violence seething inside Pierce vibrated on the air between us.

  Calm him down, Everly. A rabid Pierce is not a good thing.

  I swallowed, giving in to the shudders that threatened to buckle my knees. If Pierce hadn’t wrapped his arms around me, I would have landed on the ground. "He got away, didn’t he?"

  "Not for long." His words were tight with barely leashed violence.

  Instinct had me stepping back. I tried to see his face in the dark. Shadows. No features. Unnerving.

  Sirens closed in, the sound grating over my skin. A thousand tiny goose bumps popped out on my arms and legs. "Someone was hurt? Your team?" My voice shook, then hollowed out around the words.

  "Three are down. No visible wounds." Pain clung to the underside of his voice, raising a well of sympathy and guilt in my chest. If they hadn’t followed me…

  "I’m sorry I punched you."

  Lame, Everly.

  And then it hit me. "No visible wounds? As in something toxic?" Shudders hit my gut and spread—arms, legs, hands. Pierce’s handkerchief slipped from beneath my fingers and dropped to the ground.

  He picked it up by the edge, checked my arm, then pulled a plastic bag from his back pocket and tucked the folded cloth inside. "Don’t know yet. They’re being transported to Tripler Med. And we'll need to get you checked out as well." He shuffled his feet. Not a Pierce move, so I figured maybe he was worried about me. Like I was one of the guys, a real member of his team. But three of them were down.

  Whatever bravado I’d been faking dissolved. "You think the toxin was on his knife? That I’ve been infected?"

  "You’re breathing, talking, and punching, so no. This shit seems to work in minutes, but you need to be checked out. And I want your clothes, body swabs—"

  I nodded, a quick jerk that was a painful reminder I’d just been in an altercation with a bad guy. "I get that. DNA testing, or whatever they do on TV. I scratched him, so there might be cells under my nails. But—"

  Pierce must have had another incoming call, because he punched a button on his phone. "Tripler. Be there in twenty."

  So they were taking me to a military base to be stripped, prodded, probed, and probably questioned. And Mitch would arrive in two hours. Damn inconvenient to be temporarily incarcerated because it would mean an explanation that would…

  Pierce grabbed my right elbow and gently tugged. "Gotta move, Belisama."

  I didn’t shake free. Not with my knees doing their best impression of a top-of-the-line Kitchen Aid mixer set on high speed. But that didn’t stop the questions from churning in my head. "So, where were you while I was having an up close and personal encounter with the Scuzzbutt? I mean, you’re supposed to be guarding my body. Right?"

  A menacing grumble that would have terrified a lesser woman, escaped from his throat. My toes curled an
d dug into my Nikes—preparing to run?

  "Got word three of my team were down. Thought you were in the clear. Bastard couldn’t be two places at once."

  My stomach bottomed out. No way could I fault the man for protecting his team. "Did you get a look at him? Did anyone? They had night vision goggles or whatever, right? And Scuzzbutt had to have gotten close enough to your guys to infect them."

  "They’re unconscious, Everly. Vitals weak. Probably won’t make it. They’re sure as all hell not talking." The air sizzled with his anger, and in that instant I knew whoever did this to Pierce’s team had the black edge of death clouding their auras because he’d already decided on a shoot-first plan.

  "I’m so sorry. I didn’t see his face either. Just a glimpse of white teeth and an insane grin. Nothing I could give to an artist. And Mitch will be here soon."

  Pierce grunted. "Good. We need another set of eyes on you."

  Annie joined me at Tripler, bringing clean clothes and a lecture stern enough to rival Millie the day I’d accidentally set my bedroom on fire. The hospital staff had cleaned my cuts and scratches, bandaged my knife wound, and confiscated the clothes I’d been wearing. After much discussion, and several threats on my part, they’d decided not to keep me. The toxin that infected Pierce’s team had worked fast, so chances were I hadn’t been infected. If I had been, I’d be unconscious, not arguing for my release.

  By the time I’d scrubbed my face, zipped myself into the flirty dress Annie brought, and toed on my dressy slippahs—the ones with tiny jewels embedded in the straps—I was ready to meet Mitch, sort of, and I was definitely done listening to her lecture.

  She flicked the Unlock button on her key fob, and when I spotted the car I interrupted her rant, trying to deflect her attention to something less personally punishing. "Hey, new car." It was a hard-to-miss bright, metallic blue Mazda. Not an Annie vehicle at all.

  "Pierce had the Jeep. Sean and I need transportation." She brushed my observation aside with a flick of her wrist, and then went back to listing my worse-than-stupid decisions, her lips drawing tight around the words.