“Where are we going?” I walked hesitantly, fearing I’d trip.
“We’re heading to the bar. Why did you decide to come back? Cops no help?” I stumbled slightly, but his hands at my waist steadied me, still guiding me forward. “Keep your arms in. The walls are narrow.”
“I didn’t know where else to go. How can you see?” I asked as he directed my body through several different turns. It felt like an underground maze.
“It’s okay. I know where I’m going.”
Did that mean he could see or not? “How did you know I was there in the alley way?”
“I’ve got surveillance all around the place. Once you started moving a little, one of my guys picked you out on the surveillance cameras. We didn’t see you initially behind the dumpster. I sent one of my guys to get you once you left the police station, but you were already gone before he got there.”
He stopped me, and his arm reached past my shoulder to reach for something. I felt surrounded by his clean masculine scent. I could have stood there breathing him in for hours. He smelled better than any cologne you could buy. Something about this man was awakening every primal sense my body had.
“Another couple of minutes,” he leaned close to say. The timbre of his voice made my senses sing.
“Can they still hear us?” I asked.
“Possibly, but it doesn’t matter as much now. Even if they were, to find this entrance they would have to come through single file, and they would never get past me.”
“They are pretty scary looking.”
“Trust me…..I’m scarier.”
I believed him. Normally, scary is a bad thing, but I was quickly learning to appreciate the trait. I needed to reevaluate desirable attributes in men and update my mental list. I never thought scary would make my top five must haves, but it just goes to show you how quickly your priorities in life can change.
He pushed open the last door, and I found myself in the bar’s basement. My eyes finally had some light, although dim, to adjust to. Caden stepped forward toward the elevator. He was dressed in all black and almost appeared to be a shadow himself in the dim lighting. His profile was beautiful but his energy seemed even a little more volatile if that was possible.
“I knew you were going to be a problem. You’re causing all sorts of issues,” he spoke without looking at me.
I was the problem? I was a victim of a lunatic gang of marauding thugs. How was I causing this? The best thing about being around Caden is that instead of wallowing for too long, I got angry.
“I’m causing problems? Are you kidding?” I said with a slightly raised voice.
“You are and now it’s my problem,” He responded as calm as ever.
“How is any of this my fault?” I asked in utter disbelief that he was pursuing this line of reason.
“You can’t unring a bell. They’ve seen you and they know about you, which was an issue enough. But, instead of just staying here and lying low for a little bit, maybe letting things calm down, you’re either running off to the police, or giving them a merry chase across the city, so that this is now a challenge for them. The more commotion you cause, the more ripples you’re sending out. There are other things that go bump in the night besides them.”
“What was I suppose to do? Give up my life? Sit in your basement for weeks?”
He turned and looked at me, raising his eyebrows, silently asking me what I was doing here now.
“That’s not why I’m here now.”
He didn’t answer. Just smiled smugly and hit the elevator control pad.
“I’m not! I’m here to get answers and that’s it!”
“Answers? You’re so lost you don’t even know the right questions,” he said still not looking at me.
“Then tell me what’s going on?”
“Are you really ready to listen?” He walked into the open elevator. He was going downstairs and it didn’t seem I was going to get an actual invitation this time around. The doors started to close, and I moved to get in before I lost my opportunity.
“Yes.”
“You aren’t human. At least not completely.”
“What do you mean? Yes, I am.”
“No, you aren’t. And neither is Carl or I for that matter.”
“You don’t even know my parents. You have no idea what you are talking about.”
“You think you know what your world is. You have no clue.”
“Give me some logical answers, not this crazy stuff.”
“I’m being completely logical. You just have a very narrow view of what the world is.”
His face looked skeptical. “Tomorrow night. If you want me to prove it to you, then I’ll show you.”
“If you’re going to tell me I’m not human and Carl’s not human, then yes, I’m going to need some sort of proof. How could I possibly believe that? You sound like a nut!” I said the words, but doubts started creeping quickly into my mind. If he was speaking the truth, did I really want to see the proof? If by some small chance I was in denial, did I really want to know? His eyes were staring down at me as chills broke out across my skin.
“Cold?”
“I’m fine.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’m sorry, but it just sounds nuts. How can I possibly believe something like that?”
“It would be a lot easier to just believe me so just remember, you asked for it.”
Chapter Nine
I woke up in the same bedroom but a little later in the day this time. Adrenaline can only keep you going so long until you crash. I guess my subconscious felt safe here even as my conscious mind was still screaming it wanted to go home.
I called my boss with the best make believe sick voice I had. I’d practiced several times and replayed it back to myself from my phone recorder to try and gauge if I was pulling it off or not before I got the nerve to actual call from my now charged cell phone.
It was shocking, but I actually got reception down here. I didn’t even get reception in my apartment building basement when I was doing laundry. Caden had to be some sort of disguised techie because he had an uncountable amount of different types of charging cords too.
When I left my new room, no one was around, but he had left a note on the counter for me.
Lex,
You can get coffee or tea upstairs or make some down here. The elevator will open for you if you place your index finger on it. The bar floor button is the two squiggle lines running parallel. To get back to this floor is the asterisk.
The cabinets and fridge are stocked, so help yourself to whatever you want. Feel free to borrow any of the books in the living room. If you don’t see something there you like, I have another set of bookshelves in my room you can pick from. My cell is stored in your phone. Be back later.
Caden
Looking at my now charged phone, I found his name listed. After I stalked his place last night, he might have thought it was a good idea to give me his number.
After perusing his cabinets and fridge, I realized he had understated when he wrote stocked. He had everything. Every kind of spice you could imagine. He had seven different types of olive oils. Filet mignon, crab legs, whatever you wanted, he had it.
I made some Green Mountain hazelnut coffee and looked over my choices, and I decided a quick cheddar omelet would do the job quite nicely. His stove was another wonder. It was beautiful in stainless steel with a gas range and electric oven for baking. It even had a griddle portion in between the burners.
After I ate, I checked out the wall of bookshelves. You could really tell a lot about someone by what they liked to read. Just look at their books. It could tell you their passions in life. Were they religious? Parenting books. Relationship books. Romance, horror, sci-fi? Self help books are always the most enlightening. Problem with his shelves was he had EVERYTHING! Except self help that is, but nothing surprising there. He probably wasn’t the type to admit to faults.
I was going to be good but he did say
I could check out the books in his room. How could I not go look in there? There are a very small percentage of people that wouldn’t snoop after they got an open invitation to, but I still felt nervous going in anyway.
I listened to make sure he definitely wasn’t around. There is something very personal about being in a man’s room alone with him, and I wasn’t prepared for that type of situation. I pushed the door open slowly still somehow expecting to find him there. The air smelled like him. It was dark and masculine just like you would expect. The whole apartment was masculine but not like this. Heavy carved wood furniture that looked like it came from some distant exotic land. The bed had a navy paisley patterned silk duvet. The floors weren’t wood in here but plush dark carpeting that your feet sunk into. His bookshelves in here were smaller but equally diverse in subject matter.
He had a copy of Dante‘s Inferno. I’d always wanted to read it but never took the time. Now I had nothing but time. I brought it over to the couch with another cup of coffee and settled in for a while.
A few hours later, I was starting to get stir crazy. I wanted actual sunlight and to move around. As beautiful as this apartment was, it didn’t have a single window. It was driving me slightly insane. I needed to get out of here for a while, but I didn’t want to call him. I just didn’t know how to act around him. He was completely aggravating but completely sexy at the same time. What was wrong with me to find someone so arrogant so attractive? I just didn’t know how to process him in my brain. I’d never met a man so masculine in my life. We didn’t know each other at all, and yet he was the closest person to me right now, and more importantly, the only one that had any answers.
I figured I’d try the elevator and see if it worked like he said it would. It slid open and I jumped in it and pressed the button that had the squiggles. Someone had also put a yellow post it next to it that had “up” written in black marker. I pressed it and I was heading up towards some sunlight, hopefully. When I got to the bar, it was completely empty. I wished I had brought a book up. There was a nice booth, right under the window, which looked the perfect spot to cuddle up and finish reading.
I hadn’t even known it was snowing. I loved watching the pretty flakes covering the ground. You could see everything better by the full length, glass door. It made me forget all my problems for a couple of minutes. I even liked the sound of the plow trucks, with that loud hum they make as they sweep all the snow to the side. Everything is calmer when it snows, and life seems to slow down. I often wondered if this was more what life felt like before cars and mountains of technology sped everything up.
“Hey there! I’m Mike.”
I turned to see Caden’s man, the one from the alleyway the other night, heading toward me with a pleasant smile and a head full of blonde curly locks.
“Hi Mike, I’m Lexie.” Even though I didn’t know him, I felt at ease with him. He was just one of those people that had that certain something that made you instantly comfortable. My guess was he didn’t just happen upon me though, more like had been watching for me.
“Got some hot cocoa in the kitchen if you’re interested?”
“That sounds really good. I’ll help you make it,” I offered.
“Nah, you just relax. It will only take a minute.”
I curled back up on the booth by the window. They were older windows, probably original to the building, and you could feel the chill coming through when you put your face close. I tucked my knees up under my long borrowed sweater and wrapped my arms around them.
Mike brought over the cocoa and sat down on the other half of the booth to watch the snow with me. I reached down to take my cocoa and that’s when I saw them out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head quickly to just see a hint of the man ducking back into the alley diagonally across. The same one I had hidden in last night.
“You okay?” He leaned over and looked to where I was looking. “You saw him huh?”
“Yeah. How did you know?” I said it in the softest of voices but he heard it clearly.
“You don’t exactly have a poker face. Don’t worry, they won’t come in here.” I turned to him for reassurance and he read it because he answered without me having to ask. “They know they’d never make it out.” All of a sudden, Mike didn’t seem so sweet and nice. I saw hardness in him that I never would have believed was there, until now that is.
“Mike, what are you guys?”
“Caden will be back around five. He’ll explain it better.” He stood up and headed to the bar. “Right now, I think we could use a little kick to these cocoas.” He walked back over with some whiskey and put it on the table.
“In the cocoa?”
“It’s bloody fantastic!” And as quickly as that, the hard man was gone and the happy carefree boy was back.
Three hours later, with a nice warm fuzzy feeling thanks to three of Mike’s special cocoas, I was back down in Caden’s place. It struck me that he might have done that intentionally. I missed the windows, but I found on the TV remote that there were all different channels hooked up to surveillance cameras outside. I found one that was aimed at the same alley I had hid in last night and that the guy had ducked into and switched that off quickly. I put on a channel that looked like it was aimed directly in the front of the bar and pretended that was my window. It made me feel a little bit better.
I didn’t want to go back upstairs, knowing that those men were lingering, peeking in the windows. I’d rather stay down here for now. Hiding made me feel like a wimp, but I didn’t care at the moment. I just wanted to relax and cook myself a nice early dinner and pretend everything was normal. In my head, I was just visiting a new friend.
I had just finished making some penne vodka with shrimp when Caden strode in. His black leather jacket was damp from the snow, and he pushed his hand through his tawny hair to brush it out of his face. He looked underdressed for the weather, but if last night was any gauge, he didn’t seem to be affected by the cold.
There were no words spoken, just a silent acknowledgement of each other. He took off his jacket and threw it over the chair. The front of his shirt, still damp from the snow, clung to his torso showing off his nicely developed chest. It made me slightly nervous for no logical reason I could think of.
He walked into the kitchen stopped right behind me to peer over my shoulder at what I was making. I could feel the body heat pouring off him, almost as if he was touching me. I concentrated on keeping my breathing even. I didn’t want him to know how he was affecting me physically. This attraction I felt for him was completely embarrassing and I couldn’t even understand where it had come from. It normally took a while for feelings like this to emerge, but with him, I was as hormonal as a teenage girl. If I didn’t watch out, I’d be writing our initials inside of scribbled hearts.
“I made enough for you too, and Mike if he wants some.” My voice was slightly huskier sounding than I would have liked.
“Thanks, but I ate. Mike’s out with the guys.”
He stepped away and I could breathe easier. My body seemed to become more aware of him every time I saw him. Isn’t it normally supposed to go the other way around?
“I’ll be right back. I need to change my shirt.” He strode off down the hall. He just oozed masculinity, and I couldn’t seem to stop noticing. When he came back out, he was wearing a thread bare t-shirt and worn jeans that shouldn’t have looked as sexy as they did, but because he was built so perfectly, everything looked good on him.
“I’ve got to go handle some business. I’ll be back later tonight. Mike picked you up some stuff; he’s going to bring them down when he returns. Make sure you wear something dark.”
Chapter Ten
It was eleven forty-five p.m. as I sat staring at the clock on my phone. I pressed his name but hung up before it went through. Nope, I wasn’t calling. I’d sit here all night if need be. Maybe, he had nothing to show me, and he was just stalling. Maybe he was as crazy as Carl. How could I even really know? Yes, he hadn�
��t attacked me, but who knew what plans he was making. I didn’t know anything about him.
Where else could I go? I was afraid of Amanda’s connection to Carl through Mark, and I’d rather die than possibly bring this sort of trouble near my family. I didn’t feel like I had any choices. I was going to have to ride this out and see where it took me.
Pushing the troubling thoughts from my mind, I lounged on the couch in my new tight black jeans and a snug black sweater, as I flipped through the channels. I found a repeat of “Through the Wormhole” with Morgan Freeman that I’d never seen. I wonder what normal people were doing right now? They were probably sleeping already. In my regular life, on a week night, I would have been.
I missed the mundane day-to-day life already. It was surprising how much I missed the predictability of my life that I had taken for granted, and even sometimes resented. I was starting to think of those adrenaline junkies and wondered how they could stand it. It was like going on a roller coaster ride. It was thrilling at first, but too many back to back and you’re hanging over the garbage can, whining for your mother.
A shadow passed over me, and I looked up from my position to see Caden looming above. It was a bit startling.
“How do you move so quietly? It totally freaks me out. Can’t you make some more noise? It’s very unsettling. ”
I’m not sure how he managed to smile and look so sarcastic at the same time, but he did.
“You ready?”
“Am I?”
“No. Probably not.”
Well, at least we were being honest and straightforward tonight. I guess that’s a good start. He had changed as well, no longer in his faded jeans and t-shirt. He was now in black from head to toe.
“This might be intense for you,” he said, clearly trying to prepare me somewhat.
“I can’t imagine what you are going to be able to show me that is going to make me doubt my own humanity, but let’s go.”
Obsidian Souls (Soul Series) Page 5
