by Bonnie Lamer
Now that he mentions it, my chest does hurt. A lot. I thought it was just from the coughing. I still don’t believe I was dead, though. “My vitals must have been suppressed by the deep sleep I was in,” I counter. My voice sounds like sandpaper on flaking paint.
“What, you think the Doc was just trying to cop a feel while you were sleeping?” Brielle says from the front seat. “He’s been in a panic since you fell dead.”
Could I really have been dead? I take in another deep breath of air and my chest screams in protest. Okay, I believe he was doing chest compressions now. I still can’t wrap my mind around this, though. “Why would I have died? I don’t have a fever anymore and my wounds are healing without any trace of infection. I don’t have any history of heart problems and I didn’t have a stroke because I’m too lucid at the moment. So, what could have possibly killed me?”
Roman’s brow furrows. An urge to straighten out the lines marring his beautiful face washes over me, but I keep my hands firmly at my side. The voice from my dream echoes in my head. Roman is not who he seems.
Was it a trick? Did the djinn somehow get in my head and try to plant seeds of doubt in so I’ll push away those who want to help me? That can’t be it because the voice told me to trust Brielle; unless she’s the one leading me into a trap. Maybe she’s psychotic. She has shown some signs. I don’t know what to think now.
The other warning surfaces from the depths of my mind. If it was just a dream or a vision as I was dying, I’m going to feel pretty stupid saying this to Brielle. But deep down, I really feel like it might save our lives. “Um, Brielle.” Her eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “I’m supposed to warn you that we’ve been discovered. They know where we are.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. “And how did you come to this brilliant conclusion?” Clearly, she doesn’t believe me.
I start to answer her but the words become tangled in my throat. I feel the tug of sleep pulling at me again and my vision becomes hazy as the fog begins to roll into my subconscious. Every hair on my body prickles. I try to fight it. Because somehow, I know that whatever wants me in there this time won’t ever let me go. I don’t know how I know that, but I do. I grab Roman’s arms and shout, “Don’t let it take me!”
“Skye, what is it?” Roman asks, not caring that my nails are digging into his flesh.
“What the hell is she freaking out about?” Brielle asks, her voice getting shakier by the syllable.
“I don’t know.”
“Hold me here,” I say desperately to Roman. “Find a way to hold me here! If I go, they won’t let me come back! If I go there again, I will die. For real this time.”
“I couldn’t bring you back last time on my own. Tell me how to do it,” Roman says, gripping my shoulders tightly as if holding me physically will keep my mind in place.
Tears are streaming down my cheeks. “I don’t know.”
His hands move to my tear soaked flesh and he pulls me to him. Roman’s lips are on mine in a bruising, desperate kiss. I open my mouth to scream as the mist pulls harder and he uses the opportunity to deepen the kiss, his tongue gliding across mine, daring it to join his in an erotic exploration of our mouths.
The mist ebbs ever so slightly. Enough to tell me this is working. I push my panic away and I kiss him back. My tongue tangles with his, demanding he kiss me harder. My arms snake around his neck and a low growl emanates from deep within his throat. I close my eyes and will the mist away. It won’t take me this time. I have an anchor to hold me in place.
The kiss is endless. Long after I know the mist is gone, my lips are still pressed against Roman’s. His right hand moves from my cheek and finds my braless breast through the thin shirt I’m wearing. I arch my back, offering myself to him.
“Look, I know you guys have the hots for each other, but I’m not in the mood for watching porn,” Brielle snipes from the driver’s seat.
Roman chuckles as he pulls his lips from mine and his hands fall away from me. But his eyes aren’t laughing. They’re burning with a fire so hot, it just may kill me. I shake my head and wonder where that thought came from. I don’t usually think of passion as a death sentence.
“Are you okay?” Roman asks.
I nod, but I’m not entirely sure. The mist is gone, but it left behind a lot of questions. Questions nobody in this jeep can answer. Not even Brielle, since she’s clueless about what just happened to me.
“How about if I drop you guys off at a motel somewhere so you can get your groove on and I’ll go to the safe house by myself,” Brielle grumbles.
Ignoring her, Roman smoothes my hair back from my face. “Tell me what happened.”
I open my mouth to tell him about the mist when Brielle shouts. “Holy fuck! Where did he come from?”
Chapter 14 - The Message
She slams on the breaks and Roman and I are both thrown against the seats. The jeep fishtails wildly as Brielle tries to avoid whatever is in the road. When we finally come to a stop on the gravel shoulder, I crane my newly whiplashed neck to see what she’s seeing.
A man covered in blood is standing in the middle of the road looking at us. There’s so much blood on him that it’s impossible to tell where it’s all coming from. Roman’s instinct has him going for the jeep door, but Brielle stops him. “It could be a trap. Don’t go out there.”
Roman gives her a hard look. “Not everyone is out to get you.”
While they’re chatting, the man in the road collapses. Since I’m on the side of the jeep now that doesn’t have the child lock on, I open it and put my feet on the ground. Roman grabs my shoulder. “Stay in here,” he says.
I give him a dirty look and shake his hand away. “Not everyone’s out to get me, either,” I reply and start walking slowly towards the injured man. There’s so much blood it’s already pooling around his body.
Roman is right behind me. He takes my right elbow to make sure that I don’t fall down as we both make our way to the man. Roman kneels down next to him.
“If you get killed, it’s because of your own stupidity,” Brielle yells through her open window. Humanitarian she’s not. Roman and I both ignore her.
“Where are you hurt?” Roman asks the man.
The man tries to speak, but blood gurgles from his mouth. “Gross!” Brielle says. She has gotten out of the jeep, but is keeping her distance.
I give her a sour look. “You can watch a djinni’s eyes and ears bleed profusely, but this grosses you out?”
She shrugs. “They’re not human. It’s different.”
Roman has torn the man’s tattered shirt open and found the source of the bleeding. Sources, actually. Taking off his own shirt, which elicits a cat whistle from Brielle, he uses it to wipe some of the blood away. I wish he would have left it there.
Carved into the man’s belly is my name. Skye.
Someone tortured this man just to send me a message. The cuts are so deep that some of his intestines are exposed and I’m guessing some internal organs are damaged. I drop to my knees next to him and place my hand on the bloody mess. I move my scared eyes to Roman and he appears to be in as much in shock as I am.
“Who would do this?” I whisper, pressing down firmly to try to stop the bleeding. But I know it’s useless. There’s no way he can lose this much blood and survive.
“What the fuck did I get myself into with you?” Brielle asks over my shoulder. I look up to respond, but she’s gone. Not disappear gone, but she’s not behind me anymore. She’s walking towards a dark haired, rough looking man almost three times as big as she is and she is pissed. He’s amused.
“The little djinn hunter,” the man scoffs. “You are no match for me. Leave your passengers and you will live to hunt lesser djinn than the one who stands before you.”
“What’s the matter, fatty. Afraid of a little girl?” Brielle asks. It doesn’t seem like antagonizing him is a great idea. He’ll squash her like an annoying mosquito.
“Your last chance,” h
e says. The way his lips curl up into a lopsided, brown toothed grin, it’s obvious he wants her to stay and fight.
Why doesn’t she use her dog whistle? It worked before. I’m about to suggest that when a whip suddenly appears in her hand. It lashes out towards the tall, leather clad djinni and catches a brown tooth. Damn, she’s good.
The djinni howls in pain and grabs the whip before Brielle can pull it back. With a hard yank, he has her within striking distance. He reaches out to slap her, but Brielle lets go of the whip and rolls under his arm. A hard kick in the back of his knee makes him stumble but not fall like she hoped. He’s simply too big for her.
I start running to help her, but Roman grabs me. “No, you stay here.”
The djinni is grabbing for Brielle again when Roman sucker punches him in the side of the head. The djinni staggers, but still doesn’t go down. He turns his attention to Roman, who he assumes is the bigger threat. He throws a punch and Roman tries to duck but it still clips his jaw. That had to hurt.
That doesn’t stop him, though. Roman is throwing punches like a trained boxer, jabbing with both his left and right fists. The djinni finally blocks the punches and backs up. His nose and mouth bleeding after the multiple blows. He wipes the blood on the back of his hand and begins to shift. In seconds, his human form is completely dissolved and he now stands before us in his true form. A demon. It’s Roman’s turn to say, “Oh, fuck.
Chapter 15 – Why?
“It took you long enough, asshole,” Brielle says. She’s crouched down, one knee on the ground and the other supporting her elbow as she points a rifle at the djinni. An orange tipped rifle. What the hell is she doing?
“Your human bullets won’t hurt me in my true form,” he snarls.
“Well duh. That’s why I’m not going to shoot human bullets at you.”
The djinni narrows his blue eyes. “Then you are a fool pointing a useless weapon at me.” He begins to walk towards her.
Roman moves to block his path, but Brielle says, “Get out of the way, Doc. He’s mine now.” Reluctantly, Roman stops. I hope she knows what she’s doing.
There’s only about ten feet between her and the djinni now. When he is close enough to reach for her, she fires the rifle. Repeatedly. The djinni howls in pain and begins to back away from her, his hands covering his face.
I watch in amazement as little pieces of the djinni just disappear with each shot of the rifle. What the hell does she have in those things? I’m guessing they’re specially made. I hope she has lots of them, whatever they’re made of.
Knowing he’s beaten and wanting to preserve as much of his body as possible, the djinni continues backing up, trying to get away from Brielle’s gun. He looks at me with a sneer and says, “There will be more like him. A sea of humans will spill blood in your name until you are where you belong.” Then he’s gone. He escapes into the corn field next to the road. Brielle finally stops firing when she can no longer see him.
“Where does he think I belong?” I ask no one in particular.
“I think it’s pretty safe to say he wasn’t going to bring you to beaches of white sand and sunshine,” Brielle says, rising to her feet. The anger in her eyes has not abated. I back up a step as she approaches me.
“Oh, give me a freakin’ break,” she says, disgusted by my leeriness of her. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have a long time ago. But I do want to know who you are and why the djinn are willing to brutally kill humans to get you. This is not their usual MO.”
I shake my head, dumbfounded. “I’m just me. I work at a gym and I’m in medical school. End of story. How could that make me interesting to the djinn?”
Brielle gives me an assessing stare. “There’s nothing in your past, nothing whatsoever that could have pissed these guys off? Did you run over a few more with your car before this last time?”
I scowl at her. “You make it sound like I’m a serial killer. No, I’ve never run anyone over before.”
She shrugs. “Just throwing out a theory. So, what do we do with the homicidal note the djinn left for you? Shallow grave or just leave him here? Either way, we need to get the hell out of here.”
“There’s nothing more we can do for him,” Roman says.
My mouth drops open. Aghast, I say, “What does that mean?”
His turn to shrug. “The man has bled out. Whatever we do for him at this point significantly decreases our chances of survival.”
“He’s right,” Brielle says.
“Oh. My. Fucking. God. Who are you people? A human being is lying in a pool of his own blood and all you can think about is what a bother he is to us? He didn’t deserve to die. He died because these monsters are after us. He was killed because of us; the least we can do is call the police!”
“Technically, he died because the djinn are after you, not us,” Brielle says.
Roman catches my arm before I can slap her. “Skye, think about this. There is a dead man with your name carved into his abdomen. How are we going to explain that to the police? There’s no evidence that the djinn are responsible. The police would hold us as suspects and that would make us sitting ducks for these guys. We need to leave him. Someone will come along shortly and will call the police. We need to be as far away from here as possible when that happens.”
Leave a dead man’s body in the middle of the road. I hate them both right now. But is Roman wrong? The police would think of us as suspects and they would bring us in for questioning. With my name carved into the dead guy, how could they not think we were involved. And if Brielle’s right, that wouldn’t stop the djinn from coming after us. After me. Not them.
I look at the two people who have put their own lives on the line to save mine and I’m questioning their humanity? I’m being a fucking idiot. I cross my arms over my still aching chest and walk sullenly back to the jeep knowing they’re right behind me. If I want to stay alive, this is the right thing to do. That doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.
Chapter 16 - Turmoil
Roman retrieved his bloody shirt from next to the man’s body and put it in the same box that had Brielle’s wig and the giant stickers. Don’t want to leave a DNA trail. It doesn’t take long for the air in the jeep to take on a distinct metallic smell that can only come from blood. Roman’s naked torso is the only thing distracting me from the smell. To say he works out would be like saying a cat kind of likes catnip. A huge understatement. I am trying not to stare, but my eyes keep darting in that direction, ignoring my inner turmoil.
Mmmm. His chiseled chest and abs are just begging my hands and lips to explore them. Heat shoots to my core every time my eyes slide in his direction. The bastard knows it, too.
I can’t believe I’m thinking about sex after leaving a brutally murdered man, who died because of me no less, in the road for someone else to find. I should be sitting here horrified that I’m not the person I thought I was. If someone had asked me last week what I would do in a situation like this, I would have scoffed at the very idea that I could be so cold and heartless.
But damn, the man looks so good shirtless. There’s a nagging voice at the back of my mind reminding me of the warning in the fog, but my hormones are ready to take it out back and kick its ass if it doesn’t shut up. I even catch Brielle peeking at him in the rearview mirror.
“Nice nips, Doc. Are you cold?” Brielle asks with a smirk. “I could turn up the heat.”
Roman is not self-conscious about his body at all. He stretches his arms up so his hands are behind his head, linking his fingers together. “I’m fine,” he says smugly. “Eventually it would be nice to buy a new shirt since I didn’t get to pack for this excursion.”
“And deprive us from the masterpiece that is your body?” Brielle teases. “What do you do, work out between patients?”
“Only the dying ones,” he says with a wink.
I’m glad they can have cheery banter back and forth. I can’t think of anything I would find funny at the moment. “Can
we talk about something other than dying people? That seems disrespectful at the moment,” I say, my voice sharper than I intended.
Brielle catches my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Look, I’m not any happier than you are about leaving that guy back there. But, I’ve learned that you can’t fight the djinn playing by human rules. They are sneaky, evil bastards who would rip your heart out before saying hi to you on the street. As you’ve already seen, they’ll do anything to get what they want, including trying to make you crazy. As in totally insane. If you give in to their cruelty and let them take your mind, then they’ve already won. We need to keep moving forward. Grieve for the guy if you want, but I highly doubt they’re going to stop killing people if they want you this badly. There will most likely be many more just like him so you better get used to it. So buck up and quit being such a whiny little bitch.”
