29
In Jason’s apartment, lying together in bed the night before, the dark and quiet night had been a time of reflection, of peace. But sitting on a park bench, waiting for dawn to break, the silence was strangling her.
Keila sat, the cold of the early morning biting into her skin, watching the first birds of the day swoop down to the water’s edge and a few brave ducks circle lazily on the water. Soon they would be fully awake and battling for scraps from passersby.
The smart thing to do would have been to go to a hotel and get some sleep, but it would be the first place Jason would check. She was sure he’d been checking in with every down-and-out pay-by-the-hour accommodation in the city. She should leave entirely. That would be the smart thing to do, but she couldn’t do it. Leaving his bed had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, and she didn’t have the strength to leave the city limits, too. And so there she sat, at the duck pond where they’d waited for Zero. The same place where she’d first felt peace in months, first imagined a future with Jason, a future with something other than struggling to survive, and there she was again. Running, hiding, on her own. It was time she accepted that this was her life. It was never going to be any different. She’d had a taste of what life would be like to have a home, a familiar bed at night with someone to keep her warm, and that would have to be enough.
A breeze rustled through a nearby tree, sending leaves floating down to the surface of the pond, where they spun in the water. The sun had not yet begun its ascent, and although she could almost smell the promise of morning in the air, she was alone. A few flowers that hadn’t closed in the cool air of the night sat around the bench, their petals shimmering in the moonlight, the freshly cut grass covered in dew. Despite the memories, or maybe because of them, that place in the park had become one of her favorite memories of Chicago. During the day, the place was a riot of colors and sounds, and she had been instantly drawn there. The sun-collared daisies, vivid purple lilies, orange-tinted hydrangeas, and cotton-candy-pink hyacinths all bloomed nearby. The pathway leading to her oasis was nothing more than compressed dirt, littered with random rocks placed by nature. A picket fence ran along one edge of the trail, protecting saplings that someone had planted. The path itself was moist from the drizzling rain the day before and caused her footing to slip walking down. She hoped it would discourage any early morning joggers from following her down. She couldn’t handle anyone’s friendly wave right then, and she was sure the look on her face would scare off anyone not intent on killing her.
Yeah, that. Maybe she should pay a little more attention to her surroundings, instead of sitting there wallowing. Keila lifted her head. Beyond the pond sat a lonely playground. The brick-red jungle gym was yet to be covered in swarming children battling invisible monsters, their innocence still intact. They hadn’t met the real monsters of the world, and she could only hope they never did. Parts of the structure were covered in a sort of odd creeping brown color, and a few screws had come loose, a bar dangling down. Surely it would only be so long before the entire structure came crashing down. In better repair was the swirl-shaped slide, bright orange with splashes of blue along the outside edges. When Keila closed her eyes, she could almost hear the echoes of children playing, the belly laughs and shrill screams of childhood delights, but when she opened them again, the air was still. No one was there to spin on the merry-go-round, to burst out in laughter, or cry tears when they scraped their knee. No, there was just stillness and silence covering the screams of her heart that felt like it was breaking in her chest.
“Where the hell are you now, Zero?” she asked out into the night air. She’d relish the fight, a chance to stand up rather than run. She wouldn’t win, Keila knew that, but she could go down fighting, protecting Emily, Jason, anyone who didn’t deserve what her world had brought to their doorstep. She doubted she’d feel the blows, anyway. She stood, her limbs tingling with energy and nerves. If she did it, just walked in and gave herself up, would it all be over? Keila paced, a headache growing steadily. A few moments before, it had been little more than a small throb, but it was gaining intensity with every step and she was about to rip her head off from the pain. She grabbed hold of the edge of the bench as the pain surged and the world wobbled in and out of focus. Gripping the sides of her head, she barely managed to hold in the scream as her knees gave way.
It was dark, so dark. As she walked around the dank-smelling room, her eyes quickly adjusted to the limited light that filtered beneath the door. It was her, and yet also not. Her vision was filtered, as if seeing it through something, and her body felt unfamiliar. She wasn’t in control there; she was simply watching as another’s dream played out.
Her eyes roamed the tiny room, almost devoid of any light. The door across the room was flung, and the light blinded her as a shadow walked into the room. Someone threw a bottle of water down the steps and Keila caught a glimpse of the world outside the room before the door slammed shut again.
Whoever she was sharing the head space with had no idea where they were, and yet it felt familiar to Keila. Something about the drab, bare walls. She had been there before, but her memories were scattered there. She couldn’t make any sense of the disjointed thoughts of the terrified woman lying on the bed with her wrist shackled to it. Keila looked down and saw thin arms, almost dainty hands with long fingers. A scrap of dirty blonde hair hung over her shoulders and draped across the drab t-shirt covering her. She—no, the other woman—rattled her arm and Keila felt the vibrations of the bed and the bite of pain as the flexi-cuff locked tightly around her dug into skin. She jumped and shook her arm furiously again, tears sliding down her face, and Keila felt everything.
She didn’t usually feel the other’s pain. She didn’t usually feel anything at all. Was this even a dream?
A free hand came up then, tugging at the t-shirt. The stained, olive-green shirt.
Oh, shit.
Keila knew this girl. She’d seen her in her dreams twice before, and now she was here, sharing her mind. Before she could stop herself, she spoke and her voice echoed out endlessly through both her own mind and the one she was currently sharing.
“Payton?”
The girl thrashing about on the bed stopped moving. Keila tried again.
“Is your name Payton?”
Shared fear coursed through her, but she felt the woman’s head nod.
“I’ll get you out, I promise.”
The door thrust open again, and that time Zero’s boots appeared.
30
Keila jolted back to consciousness, the cold hardness of the concrete beneath her racking her body in shivers. She was freezing, the cold leaching almost right through to her bones. How long had she been lying on the damp ground?
“Oh, sweet Jesus!” she breathed in relief, collapsing again on the bench when she realized just what she’d seen, who she’d seen. Payton! She had to be close for Keila to share her mind; that much she was sure of. But had she been witnessing the nightmares of a terrified girl, or a more terrifying reality? She’d only seen glimpses of the thoughts outside dreams of others before, tidbits here and there, but that had been different. She’d been sharing a consciousness with someone, communicating with them inside their head. That sure as fuck had never happened before, and she was paying for it with the pounding stomping through her head.
Keila groaned and slumped back against the bench, closing her eyes. The scene replayed itself behind her closed eyes. She was so sure the heavy dark boots on the top step had been Zero, but could she really know? He couldn’t be the only psychotic mercenary in the world who wore black boots. Was it really him? Had he become Payton’s personal nightmare, too?
God, the room had felt so damn familiar, and the small look at the house outside the room had prodded hard at her memory. She sat unmoving, her thoughts lost in the vision still swirling through her brain. The whitewashed walls, Spartan decor, the curtains swirling in the breeze when the door . . . holy crap, the curtains! The
billowing curtain with a thousand pleats and enough golden sparkly trim to make it look like a unicorn had thrown up on it. They weren’t exactly fitting with modern design trends of straight lines and neutrals with bold color splashes most people liked, and she’d seen them before. They were at that goddamned house! The same house that she and Jason had followed Zero to.
Keila forced herself up, ignoring the pain in her head, and started jogging through the streets. She’d gone through the small amount of money she carried on her, and there was no time to make a detour to any of her hiding places, and so a cab was out of the question.
Too easy to track, anyway.
Digging around through her pockets, Keila found a handful of coins. Perfect, just enough for bus fare. She’d worry about the rest at the next stop. Picking up speed, she ran, thankful that it was still barely daybreak and the streets were quiet. She just caught the bus before it pulled out of a stop downtown, and Keila threw herself down on a seat near the back. The journey was short, but every mile seemed to be taking a year. She practically had to sit on her hands to stop herself from biting her nails or tapping her fingers on the seat, and every unexpected turn or strange noise made her jolt upright. She was practically the only passenger at that time of day, and it was still just too damn quiet. The bus pulled into the train station, and she was on her feet and running again. She scanned the schedule board, and found the next train leaving for her destination. Keila sauntered up to the gate barrier, trying to look inconspicuous, but the guard standing nearby still looked her way, frowning. Crap, it was too damn early to get lost in the crowd. She walked back outside the station, pacing along the sidewalk. What the hell was she going to do? Every minute longer she took to get to the house was a minute longer that Payton was potentially in Zero’s hands, and even five seconds was too fucking long. Spinning around to face the long wooden fence running alongside the road, she punched it in frustration. Shit, that hurt! Nursing her injured hand, Keila looked down and a piece of paper lying on the ground caught her eye, its corner lifted slightly and moving in the breeze. The logo looked familiar and she scooped it up, ignoring her smarting hand. Keila smiled grimly. Looked like the universe had decided to give the good guys a little help after all. She held a one-day pass, slightly crumpled and wet, but still with several hours left on its time stamp. She turned and rushed back to the turnstile, swiping through and resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at the guard, then jumped on the train.
Sitting at the back of the car, Keila began another trip of shuffling in her seat, wringing her hands, and avoiding looking at any other passengers, until finally the train announced her stop. Ignoring a glare from a fellow passenger as she pushed her way out the door, she ran out of the station and then stopped dead. Shit, where did she go from there?
Listen for her, idiot.
Keila closed her eyes, forcing herself to take a couple of deep breaths, until she felt her heart start to slow and a kind of strange peace come over her. She let her mental beacon loose, imagining it spreading out almost like a blanket over the entire neighborhood. Pieces and snatches of people’s dreams filtered into her consciousness—she really didn’t need to know who Taylor was and what exactly Kristine had in mind with that dream—but she gave them barely a passing glance, her senses focused on Payton’s voice, only hers. There! The voice was quiet, almost a whimper, but it was there. Her eyes snapped open and Keila knew exactly the way to go, the path laid out in her mind almost like a glowing trail. She followed it swiftly and ten minutes later she stood on the sidewalk just down from the old lady’s house.
The neighborhood was quiet except for a strong morning breeze whipping through the trees and blowing Keila’s hair across her face. She stopped again, waiting until the air was still before dashing up the sidewalk and practically throwing herself through Knitting Lady’s bushes. Nearly commando-crawling across her backyard, fortunately that time devoid of any cats, Keila pushed her way through the hedge and sat exactly where she and Jason had hidden before. A wave of sadness washed over her as she remembered the previous time she’d been there. She’d sat exactly there, half in shock as she took in everything she’d overheard. She’d felt as if every nerve ending was firing with unreleased tension, her fight-or-flight instincts screaming at her. She’d still felt Jason, though, through the haze. She’d heard him talking, soft and low, and felt his hands stroking down her face, her arms, then wrapping around her. She closed her eyes again, forcing back the tears that threatened to drop down her cheeks. If only she wasn’t so damn moral, so determined, she could have him there with her again.
No!
Taking a deep breath, Keila reeled in her longing and mentally slapped herself. It was not about her. All that mattered was saving Payton, and stopping the son of a bitch who was doing that to all of them. Man, woman, she didn’t care; if you were as guilty as sin, it didn’t matter what you looked like. She threw out her mental beacon again, hoping that the homing signal likely built in wasn’t real-time, so Zero wouldn’t notice her right away. She thinned her lips. There was nothing she could do about that. She needed to know where in the house Payton was being held. There were multiple people inside the house, two standing at the door, guarding it like some bad cliché in an action movie. She pondered coming back armed, but then dismissed the idea. Too much damn time again, plus it would make a hell of a mess. She knew how to handle a gun, but that didn’t mean she was gunning to kill. There’d been too damn much violence her life already, and she’d do anything to avoid having anyone else’s blood on her hands.
Besides, there was only one demon inside that she had any interest in battling.
“Okay, Zero, let’s play again.”
Continuing her sweep, Zero was nowhere to be found; at least he wasn’t able to be positively identified through a brick wall. She scanned through the entire house, once, twice, but came up blank. Payton had to be in there somewhere! Finally, Keila spotted a small bundle, pushed up against a wall in the basement, hunched down as small as they could make themselves. That had to be her. Keeping low, she snuck around to the back of the house but could find nothing, the entire building locked up tight. The echoes of someone’s footsteps echoed above her head and Keila dove down, pushing herself into the ground.
Hang on, that didn’t sound right.
Keila stayed dead still until the footsteps receded and then she sprung into action, running her hands along what she had thought was a patch of ground covered with leaves. Instead, her hand brushed wood, and then a handle. She closed her eyes in relief. Thank God for Illinois’ wild weather. She feathered her hand along until she found the other handle, and then pulled hard. The door to the storm cellar gave an almighty screech, but opened easily. She could only hope that it connected through to the main house.
Diving through the door, she walked quietly but swiftly through the room below the ground. Thankfully, the room was shrouded in darkness. The door above her might have been covered and long forgotten, but the cellar was complete, and—yes!—had another way out. A creak echoed above her head, but Keila forced herself to keep moving. No doubt it was the owner of the footsteps from before, still circling through a patrol. She made it to the door, then stood waiting, until she could hear nothing on the other side, the pacing having long moved on.
That was it, no point in being tentative. Her lungs felt like they were being squeezed, and she forced another deep breath before pulling open the door. Despite the hour, bright light shined through from the main house, light that outlined a very large shadow standing on the other side of the door. Ice ran through her veins.
“Hello, Keila,” Zero said. “Sneaking in through the rotted storm cellar? My, how far you have fallen from grace.”
31
Jason stood from the table in the diner. “I’m gonna go. I appreciate the help, Emily, but meanwhile, we need boots on the ground.” He stood quickly and grabbed his coat, nodding curtly at Reece. “You know how to get in touch.”
Reece st
ood and followed him to the door, his body turned to keep Emily in sight at all times. Emily caught Reece’s gaze and gave him a little smile, and Jason forced himself to smile, too. It probably hadn’t always been smooth sailing for them, either, he supposed. But God, he envied the ease of their relationship, their support of each other, and the way Emily allowed Reece to protect her, begrudging as it may have been. He actually smiled at that thought. Yeah, he hadn’t missed the glances Emily had shot Reece at times, or the finger in the ribs once. It seemed Emily had the same spirit and fire inside her that Keila did. What had happened between the two of them to bring them to where they were? Jason would give anything to be holding Keila right then, the way Reece had his arms wrapped around Emily that morning.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Reece’s voice broke Jason out of his thoughts. “If Keila’s anything like Emily”—he shot Jason a wry grin—“and if anything, from what I’ve seen, she’s even worse, then she’s not going to listen to any sort of reason. She’ll put herself in danger to save the world. Hell, Emily went back to face a serial killer alone because she thought he was going to kill me.” Reece chuckled. “And I’m the one with the gun. Scary as hell at the time, man. Hell, still gives me nightmares if I think about it too much.”
A puzzle piece Jason hadn’t even known he was missing slid into place. Keila leaving in the middle of the night, leaving him behind after all they’d shared together. He’d felt something shift inside him the moment he’d slid inside her body, and he knew she had, too. It was as if he’d found home, the person who was always meant to be his. Keila had written that she loved him. That was huge, especially for her. There’s no way she would have just walked out.
Not unless she thought she was saving his life.
Jason nodded once at Reece and then made his way back out onto the streets. He took a cab back to his apartment for a quick pit stop, grabbing more cash and a few emergency supplies from his first responder’s kit. Packed into a bag almost the size of a small suitcase, Jason was suddenly very glad of his profession. The first aid kit had nearly everything you could need, and like a lot of firefighters, he also had some EMT training. He hoped to God it wouldn’t be needed, but if Keila was injured, he’d be ready—if he didn’t spank her ass first, that is. On a regular basis, he ran into buildings that were on fire, but he’d never been more scared than in that moment. When he found Keila and made sure she was okay, he was going to have something to say about letting him be there for her. He could almost hear her reply, no doubt peppered with curses, and he smiled grimly. Keila wasn’t anyone’s quiet little princess, but she made his heart surge every time he laid eyes on her, let alone when he touched her. When his naked body had pressed against hers, Jason swore he’d heard the angelic choir. He never thought in a million years that he’d find himself there, feeling like his heart had been torn in two over a woman, but one thought of Keila’s smile and he wouldn’t have it any other way. He’d take her however she’d let him; she was worth it.
Keila (Dreamcatchers Romantic Suspense Series Book 2) Page 15
