Storm Warning

by Sydney Somers

  He was quiet a moment, then, “Like a really nasty dagger cut you open.”

  Her gaze flew to his face at the odd tone. “What’s wrong?”

  “You need to rest.” He carefully secured the bandage and adjusted her gown. “And I need to let you.”

  By the time she’d rolled back over, she was beginning to think he was right about the rest part. Her eyes had grown heavy. “Stay with me until I fall asleep?”

  “Yeah.” He laced their fingers together.

  She let her eyes drift shut, and pulled in a deep breath.

  “Blair? What were you doing outside at three in the morning?”

  “Going to meet a source.” A moment passed. “Drew?”

  “Yeah?”

  “This conversation isn’t over,” she said sleepily.

  He brushed his mouth across her cheek. “I know.”

  “Figured you’d pop back up.”

  He tensed, hearing Braxton behind him. Drew turned slowly from where he stood in front of Blair’s closed door. He would have spent all night in the chair next to her bed if he thought he wouldn’t get grief from Braxton for it. Avoiding the other agent wasn’t hard, not when it spared Blair from the added tension.

  They couldn’t avoid the subject forever, but he wasn’t in the mood for confrontation. The brief visit with Blair left his gut churning with the force of a brewing tornado—dark, raw, unpredictable. It wouldn’t take much to provoke him into taking a swing at his friend.

  The thought was sobering.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Do you really want to get into this now?”

  Brax gave him a hard look that slowly eased as he rocked back on his heels. He shook his head tiredly.

  Grateful for another day’s reprieve, Drew headed down the hall, his stride heavy. Braxton fell into step with him. When they reached the far end of the corridor, the other agent stopped.

  Drew glanced in the direction of the clinic’s main lobby. He wasn’t ready to explain or defend his feelings for Blair, but he couldn’t walk away saying nothing. “She’s holding up pretty good.”

  “Too good.” Braxton dragged both hands through his hair.

  “Did you know she carried the gene too?” It was the only explanation for her improved state. Not even potent drugs and first-rate medical care could explain her quick recovery.

  “No. I knew there was a slight chance. The gene came from one of our parents, but I never thought it would come to this.”

  “Her scar is already healing.” He’d been taken aback to discover just how quickly the wound was repairing itself. Not at the rate Gage or Jordan were capable of healing, but quickly enough the wound would have drawn too much attention from doctors and nurses in a regular hospital.

  Braxton closed his eyes and let out a deep breath.

  Drew paused, wondering how much Rae had passed on since their meeting earlier. “It was a storm demon, Brax.”

  His friend’s turbulent gaze snapped to his, and Drew saw his friend’s worry magnify a thousand times over. “You’re sure?”

  He wished like hell he wasn’t. Few people survived storm demon attacks to begin with, and even fewer survived their genes being mutated by one. “Yeah.”

  Without a word, Braxton walked away.

  “I’m ready to go home,” Blair told the nurse who checked her vitals for the twentieth time in the last two hours.

  With each visit the nurse had appeared more edgy, and Blair more impatient. The older woman had jumped during the last check when some of the monitoring equipment they insisted on keeping her connected to suffered some kind of short circuit. The crackle of a circuit blowing before the machine blinked and came back online earned her a wide-eyed look from the nurse. After that Blair had barely been able to keep up with the other woman as she flew through the rest of the brief exam and scurried for the door.

  “I’ll let the doctor know.” The nurse offered the same reply as the last five times Blair had tried explaining she was feeling much better.

  For a private clinic, the staff didn’t seem to be any more attentive to a patient’s wishes than a regular hospital. Two days in the clinic was enough. She could move without much discomfort and could take it easy in her own apartment.

  A cold shiver swept over her at the thought of going home. She doubted she’d be able to walk through the back parking lot without reliving what happened. Had her attacker known which apartment she lived in? If he wanted to finish the job, he’d be able to find out. Anyone with access to directory assistance or the Internet could find the information easily enough.

  She shut off that train of thought before paranoia set in. The rest of the details of that night had only grown sharper in her mind. The rational part of her brain argued against the images rattling around in her head, but she couldn’t—wouldn’t—dismiss them. She knew what she’d seen, as crazy as it all seemed.

  Distracted, Blair scratched the inside of her palm. She’d already asked if the soft itch that came and went, buzzing under her skin, was a side effect of the medication she’d stopped taking yesterday. The staff seemed interested in the development and noted it in the chart, but no one offered any explanation.

  Just one more question in a long line of them. None of which Braxton or Drew were stepping up to answer since they sure as hell were avoiding her. More often than not, Drew dropped by when she was sleeping. Her feelings might have been hurt by his absence if she wasn’t certain he’d rather count ceiling tiles while she napped than have to talk about what happened.

  Braxton continued to keep his visits brief and always managed to be saved from having to answer her pointed questions by the ring of his cell phone or another family member dropping by to check on her. The fact that both men seemed particularly edgy when they were around, scrutinizing her every move, only added to her suspicion they were keeping something from her.

  “Do you know when the doctor will be by?” Blair asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. Any more bed rest and she’d turn into a vegetable.

  “Soon.”

  Another familiar reply. Blair scowled, her frustration level spiking. How long could a doctor possibly take to do rounds in a small private clinic?

  She crossed her arms. “I don’t need the doctor’s permission to leave.” They’d gone against doctors’ orders when Braxton had her moved to the clinic in the first place.

  To her credit, the nurse only shifted uncomfortably at Blair’s persistent tone. “Can I get you anything?” The nurse took her blood pressure. Again.

  “My clothes.” She needed something familiar, comfortable. Every other brush of the hospital gown made goose bumps erupt across her skin. Another side effect of the drugs they’d given her?

  The nurse kept her gaze trained over Blair’s shoulder. “I think you’ll be more comfortable as you are.”

  “I don’t think so.” The first tendrils of tension bunched and coiled under her ribs.

  “I’ll mention it to the doctor.”

  “Right.” Outside it started to rain. Blair stared at the drops tapping against the window, transfixed by each trail of water splattered across the glass.

  The nurse frowned at the rain, then put her fingers against the inside of Blair’s wrist.

  “I’d like my cell phone,” she requested. She’d already checked the drawers in her room, but had no idea where her personal belongings were being stored.

  “Against clinic policy.”

  “Clinic? Don’t you mean prison?” She knew she was being unreasonable, but couldn’t leash her frustration. “What about my brother, is he around?”

  “He’s in a meeting.”

  Here? Blair knew the private security company Brax worked for owned the clinic. Her brother did seem to be a bit of a workaholic, but she couldn’t imagine him working from here.

  “I need to talk to him.”

  “Soon.”

  A rush of anger slammed though her and outside a boom of thunder was followed quickly by a burst of lightn
ing that slashed to the ground outside the window.

  The nurse’s composure shattered. She backed up, glanced nervously between Blair and the window.

  Blair’s anger retreated at the fearful accusation in the other woman’s eyes.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she promised, sparing another glance at the window, then fled the room.

  Closing her fist around the itch that arced back and forth across her palm, Blair stared out the window. The rain no longer beat ruthlessly at the glass. No more thunder. No more lightning.

  Nothing but the foreign surge of something she couldn’t name that thumped in her veins.

  Drew fiddled with the flowers he carried. He absently brushed the petals, wondering if he should have gone with something a little more unique than the pink and white roses. Would she care? Maybe she wouldn’t give them a thought before tossing them in the trash.

  He’d gone with the roses after Molly had listed all the names of the flowers in his mother’s backyard that morning and explained how pretty flowers always make people feel better. Spending last night at his parents’ had been a last minute decision and one he’d almost regretted after staring at the ceiling most of the night, trying hard not to imagine a demon going after Molly.

  By now Braxton would have explained a few things to Blair, and assuming she wanted Drew anywhere near her, he’d do what he could to help her to adjust. Aside from some questionable glitches with machinery, she didn’t seem to be demonstrating any other abilities as a result of the dakorum that mutated her DNA. But then, with the exception of his hearing, his other abilities had been slower to emerge.

  He paused outside the door, his heart racing. Having heard the truth by now, would she blame him for leaving her? Had he stayed that night, she wouldn’t have left her apartment in the middle of the night, at least not alone. Did she hold him responsible for the changes within her, changes that quickly lost their appeal if a person didn’t learn to adjust and adapt?

  He gave the roses another critical pass, and stepped into Blair’s room.

  An empty room.

  Drew frowned at the bed with the covers thrown back.

  “Blair?” He checked the bathroom. Empty too.

  A sinking feeling started in the pit of his stomach.

  “Blair,” he called her name again, but knew she wasn’t close. Was she even in the building?

  He reached for his cell phone, stopped. He opened his mind, projecting his thoughts the way he’d learned to do since working with a telepath. “Brax?”

  A few seconds, then, “Yeah?”

  “Is Blair with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m in her room and she’s not.”

  Chapter Seven

  Braxton burst through the door. “I just checked with her nurse. They didn’t send her for any testing.”Drew cocked his head, concentrating on the threads of conversation from down the hall. “I think she borrowed a sweater from someone.”

  “Why would she take off?”

  “Maybe she freaked out after hearing the truth.” About being attacked, knowing something had changed her. It was a lot to process even without anyone telling her how volatile her emerging abilities could be.

  At the blank look on Braxton’s face, Drew added, “You did talk to her, right?”

  “I was waiting for the right time.”

  “Like you did with Quinn?” he snapped.

  “Don’t,” Braxton warned. “Mine and Quinn’s relationship has nothing to do with this.”

  Drew headed for the door. He’d kept his visits brief to give Braxton time to tell Blair the truth, certain she’d take it better if it came from her brother. Instead Brax had left a woman who made a living asking questions to spin her wheels with no feedback. Was it really a surprise she’d taken off? If it had been Drew, and there were no answers forthcoming, he wouldn’t have stuck around either.

  “Wait,” Braxton called out.

  He shook his head. “This isn’t an assignment, Brax. I don’t need your approval.”

  “She’s my sister, Drew. She didn’t need to be dragged into any of this, not by you. Whatever you started with her needs to end here. She’s going to need time to adjust, more than any of us.”

  “That’s exactly why I won’t back off now.” He’d been going through the archives at the field office. Few people initiated by storm demons learned how to control the abilities heavily influenced by the dark magik passed on through the demon’s essence. He wouldn’t leave her to face it alone when he shouldn’t have allowed this to happen to her in the first place.

  Braxton looked anything but thrilled at the reminder. “If you find her first…just let me know, okay?”

  He nodded grimly and left. After checking with the staff to see how long it had been since anyone had checked on Blair, he searched the clinic, relying on his senses to be certain she wasn’t in the building.

  How far could she have gotten? And where would she go? Back to her apartment seemed like the mostly likely place to start. He also knew that was where Braxton would begin to look for her. There, and with her friends or maybe where she worked.

  Drew crossed the parking lot toward his Jeep. Was Brax right? Would it be better to give her space when he found her? Could he? His need to be with her at the clinic had blindsided him, shaken him. He’d been stupid enough to try to blame it on guilt, that he was partly responsible for this happening to her. When the hours dragged by and he resorted to trying to goad Gage into sparring with him again and again, he realized his feelings ran far deeper than he expected.

  Deeper than they should when one of his friends wanted him to keep his distance.

  He paused, his fingers on the handle of the Jeep as annoyance gave way quickly to relief. He slipped behind the wheel and drove out of the lot. “You can come out now.”

  Blair straightened up, looking first over her shoulder to confirm they were headed away from the clinic before crawling into the front seat. “People rarely keep their car doors unlocked anymore.”

  “Lucky for you, huh?”

  She searched his face. “No arguments? No insisting I go back?”

  Drew maneuvered through the mid-afternoon traffic. “Is that what you want?”

  “What I want is for someone to tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “How have you been feeling?” At the red light he gave her a quick once-over.

  “You know what? I’m sick and tired of talking about getting stabbed. I want to talk about why my brother had me moved to that clinic. Why I clearly remember you decapitating that guy but no one found a body. And why, when lightning flashed outside my window, the nurse actually looked like I was making her nervous.”

  “You can be a little intimidating.”

  She gave him a dry look. “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Where were you headed anyway? A sweater over a hospital gown—not exactly inconspicuous.”

  At the reminder, she tugged at the hem of the gown, covering more of her long legs. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. When I spotted you getting out of your car, I just went with it.”

  “We need to get you some clothes from your place.” He was far from a saint. Reminding himself she’d been attacked would only keep him from thinking about the ultra-thin gown constantly riding up her thighs and held together by a couple of strings, for so long.

  “Brax will be looking for me.”

  “He needs to know you’re safe.”

  She glanced out the window. “I know.”

  “How long do you plan on avoiding him?” It would be good to know how much time he needed to buy.

  “Until I know why he’s been holding out on me.” She turned in her seat to face him.

  “If you’re afraid of going home…” he trailed off quietly.

  “Because of what happened? Wouldn’t you be?” She laughed doubtfully. “Probably not, huh?” She said nothing for a long moment, then, “He got away.”

  Drew wanted to rea
ssure her that the storm demon wouldn’t be back, but the last few months had taught him there was nothing predictable about Shadow Demons. “We’ll keep it quick. Just long enough to gather some of your stuff.”

  “You and Braxton and the others…you do something more than private security, don’t you?”

  He kept his attention on the road. “Sort of.”

  “So what are we talking about here? CIA, NSA, FBI? Some black ops outfit?” Her voice took on a sharper edge with every possibility.

  “Not exactly.”

  Exasperation tightened her face. “Why did Braxton have me moved to the clinic? And don’t give me some bullshit about better services. They watched me like a hawk.”

  “The staff at the clinic routinely sees injuries like yours.” He leaned forward. The sky above darkened to an angry gray much too quickly. Rain sprinkled the windshield.

  He watched Blair from the corner of his eye. Her pulse raced and she rubbed her hand absently over her knee. So much for emerging abilities only causing glitches in medical equipment.

  “But that’s not the only reason, is it?” Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “They monitored me like I’d been exposed to the Ebola virus.”

  “They’re thorough?” he offered. It was a wonder she had been patient for this long. How in the hell had Braxton gotten away with putting her off until now? He could see the wheels turning in Blair’s head, replaying the details, puzzling it out.

  “Don’t play with me, Drew.” She jerked around to face forward. “Why can’t someone be honest with me for fuck’s sake?”

  Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “If you’re not going to answer any of my questions, you might as well pull over now and let me out.”

  That would certainly be less complicated. “No.” He watched the sky. A soft hum, like having a television on but muted, echoed beneath the pounding of her heart.

  “I’ve had all I can take of people deciding what I should know.”