I struggled into my shirt, shouldered my backpack and went out the door. The thought of leaving weighed on my heart, but I did my best to ignore it. The urge to scrub myself raw threatened to overwhelm me. My skin still tingled from the dream, from his touch, from his breath across my lips.
The horizon blushed—the late September air held a hint of winter. My spine itched, sending my gaze into a frantic sweep of the surrounding forest. The jagged line of trees leading up the sides of the valley greeted me. Silence continued to drown the space around me. Serenity usually meant a whole heap of trouble would soon explode in my face.
Adrenaline sent me sprinting across the yard, my survival instinct compelling me to get as far away as I could before the sun went down. The Glass Man would come then—he only came out at night.
A screech tore open the silence. A jolt of fright tightened my stomach as I glanced behind for the source of the sound and kept running. I crashed into a warm body, his scent swirling around me. My momentum took him to the ground with me.
“Jesus H.,” Liam shouted. “Where the hell’s the fire?”
I scrambled to my feet. My voice shook. “I have to go.” Why is he outside so early?
Eyes squinted at my face. Liam stood and leaned closer. He reached out and lifted something from my cheek.
I smacked his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”
“You’re cryin’. If I didn’t see it for myself, I wouldn’t believe it.”
“I’m not crying. I never cry.” I scrubbed at my cheeks and came away with wetness. What’s wrong with me?
A flash of anger morphed his face into a terrifying mask. “Which one of them hurt you? I’ll fuckin’ kill him!”
“Nobody hurt me.” I tried to push past him, but he caught me across the front of my shoulders with his arm.
“Look, just talk to me for a bit.” His voice softened into a sweet lullaby. “When you come down from being all worked up, I’ll give you some cash, help you get on your way, whatever you want.” He centered himself in front of me. I couldn’t meet his eyes. “Please,” he whispered.
Something in that word reached through my towering walls. His nearness weakened my knees, flooded me with endorphins. I shook myself. Did the previous days’ visitors feel me and come back? No, that wasn’t it.
“What’s happening to me?” I stared into Liam’s shoulder. “What is it about this place? My mental compass is going haywire, and I don’t know which way is proper north anymore.” The world was a cold, empty room, and he was the fire in the hearth, the warmth on my face. I couldn’t help but draw closer to him. I met his gaze as I wiped a few more tears from my cheeks. Why did I want to stay and feel his arms around me?
“Seems like you been on your own a long time. We all need a little human contact. It’s only natural.”
“But it’s not natural.” I backed up a step, held my fists close to my chest so they wouldn’t wander. “At least not for me. I can’t. It’s not safe.”
Liam closed the distance and pushed the pack from my shoulders. With his fingers, he lifted my chin. “Tell me.”
The tenderness in his eyes brought years of loneliness and sorrow crashing to the surface, stealing my breath away.
“No,” I whimpered.
“Why not?”
“Distance will keep them safe.” I whispered the words, barely audible—an echo of my mother’s warnings from so long ago, studying his eyes, warm enough to wander into them and get lost in his comfort. “What do you want from me?” I swayed on my feet, wanting to reach out, to run my fingers over his shoulders and through his hair. To taste his lips. No! I couldn’t let him get any closer, for his own sake.
“Nothin’, I swear. Nothin’ but to take that look out of your eyes before it tears my heart out.”
“Nobody ever wants to touch me without wanting something: sex mostly, money, the clothes off my back.” I shook my head, rubbed my arms to flatten the hairs standing on end. “If I let you hold me, it might feel nice.” A shiver rumbled from head to toe. “I don’t want it to feel nice.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I have to leave.” A laugh burst out, but it changed into racking sobs.
Liam stroked my cheek, his body close to mine. “Hush, now. It’ll be all right.”
“I don’t like pretty lies.” I dug fingernails into my palms until the tears stopped.
“Then how about I’m here with you right now, and I wanna help you.” He edged closer still, stroked his fingers over my hair.
His touch opened something in me—a door to a secret place where I found everything I’d ever wanted. Home. This is what home should feel like. I wanted to be close to him, to lay down somewhere together and bask in his warmth, to drown in the kindness in his eyes. How could I want that with a stranger? After the dream, how could I think about that at all?
The urge to touch him took over. I pushed down the fear, erased my doubts and drew up next to him. I yanked his black T-shirt out of his jeans and pressed my hands against the muscular ridges of his stomach.
The instant I touched him, the world slowed. Pleasure didn’t describe the sensation of his skin under my hands or his on mine. Something intense and raw, comforting and exciting at the same time, urged me on. I played my fingers along the course hairs running down his midline and the smooth skin around it.
His ran up my back.
My eyes fluttered closed.
A low moan escaped from him.
I slipped my hands over the swell of his chest, his muscles flexing and bulging beneath. No matter how much I touched, it didn’t quench my primal hunger. I could have crawled inside his body, and I wouldn’t have been close enough.
I had no idea how long we stood there, our hands roaming along every plane. I raised my gaze to his face, the sweetness of his breath falling across my face like a silk caress. Mesmerized by the depth of his stare, I didn’t notice when he leaned closer, his lips pressing forward toward the contact I craved.
He hesitated for a moment before melting against my mouth and tangling his fingers into my hair.
I strained to inhale oxygen into starving lungs. The growing ache to climb him like a jungle gym consumed me. I pushed him away.
He stumbled back and rubbed his chest. “What’d I do now?”
I swallowed the cotton from my mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t meant to push you that hard. I just—” God, what am I doing?
“I won’t tell nobody I saw you cryin’. And you didn’t tell me no, or move away, you know. Don’t need to break my ribs next time. Just say enough, and I’ll back off.”
“There won’t be a next time.” I folded my arms together. “And I said I was sorry.”
Hands on his hips, he stared until I squirmed. “You’re not even gonna tell me what’s wrong, are you?”
“Look, I’m just confused. I don’t understand. I feel …” I pressed my fingers, still tingling from the touch of his skin, against my lips, “… strange.” Is he doing something to me?
“It’s called attraction. Nothin’ to be ashamed of, ’less you’re married. Been a long time since I felt it, too.”
No, not just attraction. Compulsion. Had he emitted some sort of energy? Did he mean to? It didn’t matter. “I need to go. It’s not safe for me to stay here.”
“You keep sayin’ that, but you don’t say why. Did someone threaten you?”
“It’s not me I’m afraid for.” I winced. Shouldn’t have said that.
He nodded as though he understood more than I’d said. “Just think on it a bit. At least go on up to the house and help yourself to a shower. I got some chores in the barn, and then I’ll cook you some breakfast.” Liam heaved out a sigh. “If you still want to go after that, I won’t stop you.”
A boom cracked the silence and echoed against the hill. Liam and I dropped to the gravel. My chest hurt as if I’d left my heart and lungs up where I’d been standing.
Liam unwrapped his arms from his head. “Jesus H. Chri
st, Clancy! You best hope you didn’t just shoot at me, or I’m gonna kick your ass.”
“You stand up now, the both of you.” Clancy’s finger trembled over the trigger of his rifle.
Liam stood first, his hands thrust into the air. I followed after, keeping my gaze fixed on the twitching man in front of us.
“We can work this out, now, Clancy.” Liam lowered his hands a little but kept them out to his sides. “You still sore ’bout last night? None of us meant no harm.”
“She’s the devil’s whore come to kill us all, boss.” Clancy eyed me along the sights of his gun. “I won’t let her get her claws into us. I won’t.”
“I am no man’s whore,” I said. “And I don’t believe in devils, only evil men and women. Are you evil, Clancy?” Energy surged beneath my skin as if readying to escape my grasp and explode that gun in his face, but I held on to it with a death grip. I’d healed gunshot wounds before but really didn’t want to have to do it again. I needed to keep his attention on me.
“You shut your fucking mouth. Don’t go sticking your forked tongue in my ear.” Clancy motioned toward the bent gate with his head. “Go on up to the house now, boss.”
“What’s gotten into you?” Liam took a step forward.
Clancy swung the gun so it pointed at him.
Liam put his hands up higher. “Whoa, now. Easy.” He shot me a glance that tightened my chest.
“No.” I shook my head. “Just go. I’ll be fine.” I begged him with my eyes to listen but he didn’t move. “Go.”
“I’m not leavin’.”
My thoughts paced back and forth. I refused to kill, at least not on purpose, so that limited my options. I could fold the gun, but if Clancy pulled the trigger I risked killing him. I could knock him out, but if the gun went off and it hit Liam, I might have to heal him. If it hit him in the head or the heart, though, I wouldn’t be able to do anything. I could make Liam leave, but if Clancy caught on, he might shoot us both, and I couldn’t heal two of us. Fuck! Why did my options always boil down to bad and worse?
“Fine, Boss. I’ll just have to do you first.” Stillness fell over Clancy’s body.
I lunged at him, thinking I’d either wrestle the gun away, or he’d shoot me.
Liam must have had other ideas. He pounced on me as Clancy swung the gun in my direction and squeezed the trigger.
Another boom rattled through the hills.
Gravel bit into my back when I fell. Liam’s stomach landed on my face, and his knees struck my abdomen. For a second, I couldn’t breathe and flailed beneath him. I stopped when I realized he wasn’t moving.
Gasping, I wrapped my arms around his waist and rolled him over. His face had already gone pale, and a rosette of blood bloomed in the middle of his torso. Copper overwhelmed my senses.
“Liam! Goddamn it, Liam!” My shaking hands hovered above the wound as I screamed into the sky. How many times had I been there, standing above the ones I couldn’t save? How many times had the sticky warmth of their life escaped around my fingers before I could heal them? Too many. No. NO! I would not lose another.
My mind retreated to the place I went to survive. The still place. The white place where pain didn’t exist, and I had only logical, rational thought—the place where my ghosts couldn’t reach me. Where the sounds of death fell silent. Where the scent of blood faded, and the ache in my soul eased. I’d been there before, and I would survive—and so help me, so would Liam.
Footfalls crunched behind me.
A deadly grin bowed my lips.
I rose to my feet, my body calm, my mind a primal, instinctual predator. I turned to stare into the black soul of a paranoid zombie—one of thousands I’d stared into since I’d left home.
“Let the world be rid of the likes of you.” Clancy stared at me through the sight of his gun.
“Do it. I dare you.” I raised my arms to the sky.
Dark slate clouds boiled in above me from the west. The wind breathed against me from all directions, swirling, filling me with static. The trees around the rim of the valley leaned inward, reaching their spindly arms toward my plight. The grass whipped around my feet, and a cloud of dust billowed up from the driveway. The sky sent shadows across the barn and the house but not me. My skin morphed into its natural golden cream as I dropped my illusion. A subtle glow came from beneath, my own personal sun shining an aura of light so bright I could barely see around it. The air shivered and pulsed with a heart of its own.
I ripped the lid off the well of my mind.
Clancy dropped the gun, babbling something unintelligible as he ran.
I placed my hands together in a prayer position, knelt and shoved them into the ground. The surface spread open like butter under a hot knife. A rumble spread out before me. The earth opened beneath Clancy’s feet with a crack, much louder than the gunshot had been. He fell in to his chest, wedged so tight he couldn’t move.
With my hair still whipping around my head, I strode to the gun and snatched it from the ground. Clancy watched as I bent the barrel into a misshapen ‘s’ with a mere thought. I cracked him against the jaw with the butt of it.
“I’ll deal with you later,” I said in a dead voice.
His bleeding head lolled to the side. Faint whimpers rattled in his throat. He blinked a few times as if trying to fight off unconsciousness.
“Sleep,” I said.
His eyes closed, and his head tipped forward.
7
Blood pooled in the gravel beneath Liam’s motionless body. I ripped his shirt open, pressed one hand flat against his mid-section where his heart stumbled within, and the other against his clammy forehead. My eyes closed, and the wind picked up again. I forced all thought and emotion deeper into me as I put out a call upon the breath of the earth.
Moments later, the silence shattered beneath the shrieking of thousands of birds. The whap-whapping of their wings drummed against the air above me. A symphony of crickets began a crescendo, yips and howls bellowed from the forest all around, and the screeching of an owl came last. I’d never had so many answer my plea.
The air quivered as I soaked up energy from every bird, every furred creature that wandered the woods, every blade of grass, every insect. The heartbeat of the earth reached up through my body and joined with mine as I opened my mind to the man before me. I searched for the wound with my energy. The bullet had nicked his gallbladder and ripped open his liver. Imagining his body healed and his heart beating strongly, I forced my will down my arms and into the fading body in my grasp.
A gurgling scream burst from Liam’s lips. His spine bowed as my mind wrapped itself around his wound and knitted his flesh back together.
Ruby patches of blood remained on Liam’s chest, but the bullet hole had disappeared. The wind fell silent as the well of energy emptied. The ones who had answered my call faded into the forest.
It had taken over five minutes, though it seemed like it had happened in a blink. He’d be sore, and he’d be terrified of me, but he’d live.
Why then did my heart burn as if it had been crushed?
I fell back on the gravel, my energy spent, hot tears trailing down my cheeks, and faced the sky until all went black.
When I opened them again, the sun had risen farther into the pale blue sky.
Clancy still slumped over his earthen prison a few yards away.
Where were the other guys? They must have heard the gunshots and my yelling. Had Clancy killed them first?
Please, no. Not Garret. He’s just a boy. My heart raced.
I turned and shook Liam.
He sobbed with his eyes crimped shut as my own tears fell again.
Why the tears?
“You’re okay now.” I tugged him into a sitting position. “We need to go into the house. Come on, help me.” I pulled his right arm across my shoulders and heaved him up.
We stumbled through the bent gate and up the front steps to the house. I laid him out on the sofa, covered him in a gold afgha
n and kissed him on the forehead.
“You should have listened to me, you stubborn ass. Sleep now.”
• • •
I wiped the steam from the mirror with the corner of a ratty towel. Usually, I bathed in rivers, but once in a while, I’d break into a house and have a quick shower with real soap. It had been months since I’d done that. I’d forgotten how good it felt to be clean.
Standing in front of the mirror, I pulled my fingers through the sopping bird’s nest on my head. My reflection made me jump. Even through my illusion, exhaustion decorated my skin, purple bruises took hold beneath my tired, bloodshot eyes. Nice. I look like the walking dead. At least my outside matched my inside. I closed my eyes and grabbed onto the sides of the sink, grinding my teeth.
“I should never have come here.” I pounded my palm down on the porcelain.
With a grunt of frustration, I turned away from my reflection and rifled through my bag to avoid the coming war in my head. I had to leave, so why did I want to stay?
Something about this place.
Something about Liam, but what?
I needed to protect him. Maybe he was the first good person I’d run into. Does he know what I am? No. I could sniff out liars the way a shark could sense blood in the water.
The idea of leaving made my stomach churn, but I couldn’t stay. Liam would be terrified of me, and I’d put all of the men in danger—if they were still alive. Nope, I’d get a bit to eat from the fridge and get away before he woke up.
The only spare underwear I owned caught on the zipper as I pulled them from the bottom of my pack. The once tiny hole in the bum tore across the cotton from seam to seam. The terrible ripping sound made me jump.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Put on sweat-soaked ones again, clean ones with the entire ass ripped out, or go commando—not great options when hiking through the bush in jeans.
The Glass Man Page 5
