Keila (Dreamcatchers Romantic Suspense Series Book 2)

by Jamie Garrett

  “Thanks for the offer, Sweetheart, but I’m taken tonight.”

  Tonight? What happened to I don’t want to let you go, Keila? Okay, she had to be at least tipsy because she wouldn’t normally give a shit about any man’s ramblings, but Keila couldn’t find it in herself to follow that advice. She was pissed.

  Jason caught sight of her over the blonde’s head, and Keila glared at him and turned away, pushing her way through the crowd and back to their table. Jason said something she couldn’t hear to the blonde and then quickly followed her.

  “Quite the ladies man, aren’t you?”

  He smiled at her. “It’s nothing, Keila. I told her I’m not available.”

  Keila scowled. Why the hell was she so damn possessive all of a sudden? Hadn’t she been trying to tell him for the previous two days that it wouldn’t work out? He’d been the one kissing her repeatedly, and then holding her at night.

  I should just punch him again and leave.

  “Is everything all right?” Jason touched her arm, concern on his face.

  Keila opened her mouth to reply, but as she did, something needled her in the back of the neck and a shiver ran through her. She turned her gaze around the room, and then up on the balcony, but she could see nothing but waves of unfamiliar people.

  “I’m not sure.”

  Jason looked around the room, and shrugged. “Come on, Keila. There’s no one there. Forget the world for a moment and dance with me.”

  And therein lay the problem. He could. Jason could go out, flirt with anyone he wanted, have places he went to more than once, friends who knew him. Hell, he could kiss her and lose the world from the intensity of the passion, and it wouldn’t mean a damn thing. It wouldn’t mean his death.

  Everything had fallen away when Jason’s lips met hers outside the bar. A woman had gotten close enough to literally fall over her, and Keila hadn’t noticed until she was on the ground.

  She couldn’t do it. She’d tried. She’d pretended that he was just a regular guy, and she was just a regular girl, out for the night on the town before going home and having drunken sex. But she couldn’t. That wasn’t her world, and the woman at the jukebox had made that abundantly clear.

  Keila slipped off her stool, leaving Jason’s borrowed jacket behind.

  “Keila, wait. What’s wrong?”

  “I have to go.”

  She shook his hand loose and slipped out into the night air. Alone.

  As it should be. No, as it must.

  18

  Keila stalked through the streets, anger infusing her further with every step. Anger over Jason and the stupid women who couldn’t keep their hands off him. He was taken, tonight. She snorted.

  Don’t do me any favors, Fireman.

  So what. She was done. She’d left him behind and she was out on the streets again, on her own and on the move. She should be used to it. But with every step, the unfairness of it all seeped into her soul. Keila hadn’t minded being alone before. Alone was safe. If no one knew who you were, they couldn’t point anyone your way when your desperate uncle asked around town, looking for his niece that had sadly run away from home. Keila had been young, barely out of her teens. She’d only escaped that time because one of the district’s homeless kids had given her a heads up about a scary guy flashing her photo around. It was an old one, taken from her foster parents’ house, but it had still looked enough like her to tip off the locals. After that night, she hadn’t stayed more than a week at a time anywhere. There had been no reason to.

  A vision of Jason’s smiling face entered her mind, and Keila’s jaw tightened. Her body tensed even as heat flooded through her. Her legs trembled and she fumbled a step. Crap! She wasn’t used to feeling like that, and she already didn’t like it. She couldn’t want him, couldn’t feel like that over a man she barely knew. Especially over a man who chose another woman over her that night.

  But he didn’t. He wanted you, but you didn’t give him the chance.

  Keila mentally swatted her subconscious into submission. What did it know, anyway? No matter how sweet he was, or how lovely it was to fall asleep in his arms, it just couldn’t happen. She needed to accept that and move on, pick up Emily and her FBI toyboy and get out of town. Keila stopped walking and took a deep breath. She had to focus—focus on anything other than Jason. Pressure was building up inside her and her head felt like it would explode. Keila shut down her emotions and set her gaze on the street in front of her. The very quiet street. In the middle of downtown Chicago.

  What the hell?

  She took another deep breath of the cool night air, clearing the noise out of her head. She couldn’t sense Jason anymore; she couldn’t sense anyone. An image of Emily entered her mind, and Keila threw her mental beacon out. She wasn’t close to the hotel or the safe house, but she was freaked out enough to check anyway. If Emily was anywhere nearby, she’d sense her.

  Nothing.

  The back of her neck prickled again, just like it had in the bar. Keila left her path and turned swiftly in the opposite direction, ducking behind a parked car and making her way to an alley. Had they tracked her again? Maybe heading back to the hotel wasn’t such a good idea. A shiver fled over her skin again and Keila wasn’t sticking around any longer. She ran, her strides taking her to the edge of a park. There was no way she was walking through that in the dark. There was something in the air thick enough to keep most people off the streets. If she ventured into the park, she would truly be all alone. Skirting around the edge, Keila ducked behind trees and benches wherever possible, counting time off in her head, forcing herself to stay still and wait to see if anyone caught up to her. All the while, her fingers twitched and her feet skittered along the pavement, desperate to be running. Things just didn’t feel right.

  Finally, as she rounded the last corner of the park, the neon glow of a hotel’s vacancy sign winked at her from across the parking lot. Glancing behind her once more to ensure the park was empty, Keila crossed the street, pushed open the door to the grimy hotel reception, and threw a precious fifty at the clerk. Spending it wouldn’t leave her with much, but it was worth it to get off the streets.

  Steadying herself, Keila made her way to her assigned room. She opened the door and wasted no time, locking the door and shedding clothing as she hopped her way to the shower. She spent close to half an hour just letting the hot water run over her body, taking with it the grime of the street and the overwhelming frustration of wanting a man she knew nothing about. When the water finally turned lukewarm, she towel-dried her hair, notched a chair under the doorknob of the room’s entrance, and switched on the TV. An hour later, curled up on the bed watching a couple on late-night TV reunite after two years apart, Keila couldn’t watch it a minute longer. Jason. She couldn’t get him off her mind.

  Fuck it.

  Pulling on her jeans and sneakers, she grabbed her last remaining cash and made her way to the small bar on the side of the hotel. The only person inside was the bartender, who handed her a shot of whiskey in exchange for her last ten dollars. Keila tipped her drink in his direction before walking to the complimentary pool table to play a game alone. The order and systems of the game had always relaxed her before, and she’d take everything she could get.

  “Can’t sleep?” the bartender asked.

  She shook her head and then turned her back and broke. She didn’t want to talk to him, or to anyone. Ripples of something tugged at her beneath her skin, and that, coupled with her unease over the night, had her on edge. It was just too damn quiet! It was giving her too much time to think. Why had she cared if that other woman had wanted Jason? It wasn’t as if Keila could really expect anything to work out between them. Everything about the previous few days had pissed her off, but even more so what had happened with Jason in the bar. What bothered her most was her reaction to it. Keila leaned forward to pot the nine-ball, but scratched, sinking the cue ball when the answer popped unbidden into her head.

  Jealousy? No! Yes,
fuck, she was jealous. Why, she had no idea. She’d learned long ago that personal relationships were just ways to make it easier for people to screw you over. There wasn’t any point to having any, let alone being jealous of someone else’s. Keila had long ago accepted her lot, so why start now. There was no reason—nothing she could accept, anyway. Keila settled for slapping the next ball across the table, taking her frustrations out on the game, wishing with every ball she potted that she could make some sense of her screwed-up night. An hour and two complimentary beers later—the bartender was definitely after something—she was no closer and had no idea where to begin. A split second later she was spared the need.

  Keila heard the crash before she saw what made the noise. The bouncer who had been standing outside the small bar was sliding down the wall, shelves of glass lay cracked around him, and the bottle of whiskey was upended and pooling on the floor. Keila froze. Did she run to him or run away?

  Just a few days before, she would have turned and fled, but images of Jason flooded her mind. Jason lifting the beam from her leg, removing his own breathing apparatus so that she could take a breath of clean air. He fought back against Zero, fought for her, before he even knew her. And there was another innocent, lying injured and bleeding before her, because of her. She couldn’t stay with Jason, but if she could help that man, she would. Keila ran to the man, who had slid farther down onto the floor and was groaning in pain. She found a cloth from the bar lying on the floor and she shook it to clear it of any glass fragments and then pressed it to the largest wound, eliciting another moan of pain. Hey, if it was soaked in alcohol, that was a good as being sterile, right? She could only hope so. The crunch of crushed glass beneath feet made her turn her head as her heart took off. A face appeared around the bar and Keila shrunk against the wall. God, it was just the bartender.

  “Hi, I’m Joe. I’ve called the cops and help is on the way. Are you okay? How’s Kenny?”

  Keila forced herself to breathe, her hands trembling as she pushed down on the cloth currently soaking up Kenny’s blood.

  “I’m fine, I think. What happ—”

  More glass crunching interrupted her and Keila looked up. Two men in suits stood behind Joe. She strained to see their faces from the floor as Joe stood up to greet them.

  “That was quick. Thank heavens you were close. Kenny needs help and I”—he was cut off abruptly as one of the well-dressed men slammed his fist into Joe’s temple, knocking him out cold on the ground. Keila scrambled to her feet, cutting her palms on the glass shards as she bolted around the end of the bar. She saw Kenny struggle to stand, saw his hand coming up as he swung at the face of one of the suits. It was pointless. He was injured, and clearly outmatched. The man swung a single fist again and Kenny crumpled to the floor. The man’s eyes locked onto hers and a jolt of shock ran through her. He was one of the men who had followed her and Jason out of her apartment that morning.

  “Run!” Kenny yelled to her, even as Suit Man Two silenced him with a boot to his chest.

  She turned, her feet sliding across the wet floor. She made it one foot across the floor, then another, before a strong arm wrapped around her neck, tightening under her chin. Keila froze. If she struggled, the man could easily snap her neck. Suit Man turned back toward the other, dragging her with him. Keila saw the bouncer reach out to them. His lips moved but she couldn’t hear the words as the arm around her throat tightened and her vision blurred around the edges. Whatever it was, one of the suits answered by smashing his head against the floor with a wet thunk. The bouncer didn’t move again.

  “The more you run, the more people will die, Little Lamb, and all because of you,” the suit holding her laughed in her ear. He eased the grip on her throat just enough to keep her conscious. No doubt he wanted her to see his friend beat Joe into oblivion. Joe, whose only crime was showing up to work that day and flirting a little with a woman who’d clearly had better days. A tear slid down her cheek with each bloody fist that slammed into his unconscious form. Then, as suddenly as it started, the beating stopped and the pressure at her neck lessened. Keila fell on her knees to the floor, her breath sawing in and out of her damaged lungs. Heavy black boots appeared in front of her blurred vision.

  “Hello again, Keila,” a deep male voice spoke above her as she watched the heavy boots step so close the speaker must have been looming over her. She tried to lift her head, but pain in her neck forced her to stop moving. She pushed herself slowly to her feet, a chuckle ringing from above her.

  “Take all the time you need, my girl. No one’s going anywhere. Not until you tell me where you’re hiding the other one like you.”

  Keila stood, looked forward, and locked her gaze with Zero.

  “Go to hell!”

  His fist slammed into her face and the world was black before she hit the ground.

  19

  “The more you run, the more people will die, Little Lamb, and all because of you,” Jason forced himself to stay hidden, pressed flat against the broken doorway. He’d seen Keila in the distance when he’d run after her at the bar. If she’d seen him, she would no doubt have told him to go to hell, but he couldn’t leave her to wander the streets alone. He’d followed her, staying back just far enough to keep out of sight while still ensuring she was safe. When she’d gotten to the hotel, she should have been tucked away for the night. She should have been safe, damn it.

  The guy who held Keila around her neck tightened his grip, and Jason grabbed on to the brickwork to keep himself in place. He had to wait until the right moment. Then he’d kill them all. He dropped to his hands and knees and poked the top of his head around the corner of the door frame. The bouncer lay on the floor, so close Jason could nearly touch his feet. The man saw him and startled, but Jason held up a finger, motioning at him to stay quiet. The bouncer nodded once, his face grim and contorted with pain.

  “Hello again, Keila.”

  The voice boomed, seemingly filling the entire room. Fuck! Meathead! His fists weren’t going to be enough. Wishing like hell he had his truck with him, Jason retreated and felt around on the ground. His fingers touched metal and he wrapped his hand around it. Pulling it to his face, Jason examined it in the dim light. It was a piece of steel used to reinforce the bar’s door. Thank God for Chicago’s criminals. It wasn’t thick, but it was strong and deadly sharp on one end where it had sheared off when one of the suits had kicked the door in.

  He inched back toward the entrance, carefully placing his feet to minimize noise. He still had his thick-soled work boots on that day and they softened the crunch of glass beneath their rubber soles.

  “No one’s going anywhere. Not until you tell me where you’re hiding the other one like you.”

  Jason dropped back farther and pressed himself against the edge of the bar, following it around the room. Thing 1 and Thing 2 had abandoned the unconscious bouncer at some point and had starting laying into the bartender on the other side of the room, their attentions no longer on Jason’s side of the room.

  Thank God for small mercies.

  He crept forward, inch by inch, his hand wrapped around steel. Five feet, four, two. He was almost close enough to Meathead to grab his legs when the man surged forward and Keila fell to the floor.

  Jason roared at the sight of Keila’s unconscious body hitting the floor. His blood rushed in his ears and he pushed up and forward, his arms pulling back even as he rose. Before Meathead could fully turn, Jason swung the reinforcing steel piece and connected with his chin. Jason swore he could hear Meathead’s teeth rattle as the steel left a jagged cut in its wake. Meathead fell to one knee, holding one large hand up to his chin while gesturing to Thing 1 and 2 with the other.

  “I was lenient before. Now, my friend, you will die.”

  The suits lunged at him, but Jason was ready. He’d long given up his days of bar brawls when he’d joined the squad, but he hadn’t forgotten the lessons. Hands up, strong base, protect your head. He grabbed an abandoned pool cue fro
m the nearby table and slapped one across the back of the head. As he fell, Jason spun to grab an upended whiskey bottle from the bar’s edge and repeated his earlier action against Thing 2’s temple.

  Damn waste of a prime liquor.

  Jason rushed to Keila as the second man fell. He wasn’t worried about the suits. He’d dealt with slime balls like them before. They may talk the talk, but eventually they’d fall. Meathead, on the other hand, was a whole different story. He bent over Keila, protecting her as she started to come around.

  “Stand up, Fireman. I want to look into your eyes as the light leaves them.”

  “Get up, Keila,” he pushed her behind him. Still woozy, for once she didn’t argue with him.

  “Jason?”

  “Run!” He pushed Keila to her feet, wishing he could take long enough to steady her. He knew if he took his eyes off Meathead, things would not end well. Meathead pulled himself along the bar, rolling his neck with an audible crack. So, the steel bar had done some actual damage to the giant man? Good. Jason charged, grabbing Meathead around his waist and slamming them both against the side of the bar. His shoulder took the brunt of the hit and Jason grunted. Meathead met the bar with his skull, but stood up, shaking his head. Jason risked a glance and spotted Keila crouched down behind the pool table.

  “Go, Keila! I’ll find you.”

  She didn’t move. Damn it.

  Meathead’s fist came swinging at him, but the man must have finally been affected by all the knocks to the head. His blow was slow, clumsy, and Jason dodged it before throwing one of his own into the man’s gut. Meathead managed a slap to Jason’s face, and his lip split open. Jason spit the blood out onto the floor before charging again. Meathead’s head bounced off the edge of the bar and he fell again. That time, he stayed down.

  The fight was over but his adrenaline was still surging. Jason’s hands shook as he fought to catch his breath. “Come out, Keila. He’s finally down.”