Taking Root (The Eros Tales Book 1)

by Katherine McIntyre

  “Samantha,” he said, the low monotone so familiar her teeth hurt. “It’s been awhile.”

  “Saw the note you left at my apartment, Kyle,” she said. “Let’s talk.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Adrian had given out a lot of cancer diagnoses through his time in residency.

  Every time, the fear lit their eyes like he drove a car straight for them, no brakes. No matter what way they reacted or how they processed, there was always the initial pause as the gravity of cancer smacked them in the face.

  He’d never been able to understand the moment precisely until now. When Danny’s father stepped inside the abandoned parlor, the pause hit as reality crashed down on him. Adrian had been rolling on adrenaline from the moment Danny told him the truth until he crouched into the booth, and the buzzing in his veins had quieted the thoughts. The fears.

  Yet as he hunched over the ripped vinyl and sat in perfect silence, all those fears surged in like high tide. His palms slicked with sweat as he gripped Danny’s pistol, his finger resting on the trigger while he waited. He’d never even told Mom or Dad what he’d gotten himself into. All Lex and Cal knew was he had headed over to Danny’s to make up with her, but even if they searched her apartment, they wouldn’t find any clues there.

  He’d gotten wrapped up in a recklessness so unlike him, swept into the tempest of Danny’s situation. And now that he slammed the brakes, all the sense he abandoned battered down.

  Adrian watched from the booth, trying to keep his breaths silent. Trying to restrain any movement that could alert Kyle Peterson of his presence.

  “I’ll admit, I was surprised to find your note.” Kyle’s voice echoed through the abandoned room, the sort of calm that chilled Adrian’s bones. “You’ve run for this long, so why confront me now?”

  From Adrian’s vantage point he could see Danny’s hand balled into a fist on the countertop. “Because you’re after me now,” she said. “I figured a one-on-one face-off was the only chance I might get to stick a knife in your chest.”

  The laugh her father followed with chilled him like the dry scrape of a blade on a whetstone. “Going to get started in the family trade?”

  Danny stared at the surface of the counter, but even from where he hid, Adrian could see the turmoil raging in her eyes. He couldn’t imagine living with the impossible weight she’d been burdened by from the moment she discovered her father was a murderer. A serial killer.

  “If you’re hoping to trap me, you’ll be disappointed,” her father stated, as casual as if he asked her to pass the salt shaker at the breakfast table. “I made a clear appearance in North Central, so the Feds will be crawling around the area for a while now.”

  Adrian’s stomach sank. Their entire plan hinged on the Feds rushing to the location Danny texted. But their priority was the capture of psychotic killer Kyle Peterson, not chasing down an errant woman in WitSec. If the Feds weren’t on their way, the two of them would be facing off against a man who’d amassed a body count higher than Michael Myers. After meeting Kyle Peterson in the flesh, Adrian could believe the rumors.

  “Then tell me something,” Danny continued, braver than ever. He couldn’t imagine how she still stood as she faced the man who’d destroyed her childhood, who haunted her for over a decade. The woman was forged steel tempered by flames. “Why are Mom and I your last victims? Why now?”

  Kyle Peterson took a seat on one of the ripped-up barstools, his gaze cool and calculating. Danny could whip out a knife on him then and there, and Adrian doubted the guy would blink. His palm grew slick as his pointed finger drifted along the trigger. His back cramped from the way he hunched, but he couldn’t risk moving an inch. If the Feds weren’t going to back them up, the element of surprise was their last line of defense against Danny’s father.

  “Funny thing about the mind,” Kyle said, leaning forward on the counter. Danny stepped back as if slapped. “I’ve relied on my intellect my entire life. Clever thinking allowed me to pursue my hobbies for years undisturbed.”

  Bile rose in Adrian’s throat. By hobby the man meant butchering other human beings. It was the stark opposite of everything he believed in. He had dedicated his life to saving others while Kyle Peterson snuffed out lives for kicks.

  “So you can imagine my quandary when I was diagnosed with early onset dementia,” the man continued in his slow, level tone. The calm way he stated everything crawled under Adrian’s skin, and his calves burned with the need to move, to run. “My life may not be running out, but I refuse to depart from this world a prisoner in this useless body. I plan on ending my own life. Before that, Abigail’s and your deaths would offer the closure I’m seeking. There’s a beautiful cyclicality in ending the life I brought into the world.”

  What sort of sick fuck said that to his own daughter? Adrian’s blood burned as the fear percolated into rage, a furious one running deeper than the Atlantic. He couldn’t imagine growing up with a man so subzero, who calculated every single move devoid of emotion. If he had a father like Kyle Peterson, he might’ve spent most of his life on the run too.

  His finger never drifted from the trigger, but Christ Almighty he’d never wanted to pull it more.

  “Losing the one thing you ever cared about?” Danny shot back, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Excuse me while I don’t give a damn.”

  “I suppose I should thank you for arranging this,” Kyle Peterson continued, as if the hatred burning in her gaze meant nothing to him. Based on the lifelessness in his eyes, it didn’t. “Rather than dodging around Feds or continuing to track you down, I can end this here and now. Then I’ll find your mother, and that will be my final salvo.”

  Adrian had never met a demon in the flesh. This man defied anything he could’ve dreamt up, the sort of evil that dwelled in nightmares, in prison cells, and in massacres.

  Kyle Peterson reached for his waistband, and Adrian snapped to attention. Let him try pulling a weapon on her. Just let him.

  The man lifted a Smith and Wesson knife, and Adrian pointed the muzzle toward Kyle’s ankle. His finger paused on the trigger. He might’ve fired at the range a thousand times before, but never on a live target, let alone a human. Fuck. Pull the trigger. His finger froze, refusing to listen to his internal commands.

  “This is the knife you’ll be well-acquainted with by the time I leave here,” Kyle Peterson murmured, a sick gleam in his eyes.

  Shoot. Just shoot.

  Danny squared her shoulders, baring her teeth in response. The woman was unrelenting, a thunderstorm force in the face of her greatest nightmare. For a brief moment, her gaze flickered to him like the snap of a Polaroid. Those green eyes filled with terror even as her hand remained out of sight on one of her weapons.

  If anything in the world could galvanize him, she could.

  Adrian squeezed the trigger.

  The bark resounded through the abandoned parlor as the bullet sailed toward Kyle Peterson. Before the man could turn around, the shot burrowed into his calf. Adrian burst out from his crouched position, his legs screaming from being cramped up.

  Instead of keeling over, shouting, or any normal response to being shot, Kyle Peterson grabbed his knife off the counter and lashed out, slicing it toward his daughter’s throat. Adrian’s breath caught, and he stopped in his tracks. Danny didn’t. The moment her father’s blade glinted in the dim light, she launched herself over the top of the counter, pivoting her hip. Her leg flew toward him as she executed a roundhouse kick.

  Adrian continued edging in closer, but he couldn’t line up a good shot. Danny’s kick didn’t land—her father blocked it with his forearm. She leapt onto the ground beside him with a thump and didn’t pause. She became a blur of motion, years of vigilance put to use. Except her father possessed the same instincts and no emotion to cloud his judgment. Adrian’s finger rested on the trigger, but he couldn’t pull. Not with the way they darted around each other. He’d risk hurting her.

  Sweat trickled down his back
. His shoulders ached, and his heart slammed in his chest so hard it might burst. Fuck it. He needed to help her. Adrian tucked the pistol in his waistband and pulled out his Swiss Army knife.

  Danny lobbed a punch, and her father pivoted around the blow. She swung with her other arm to follow, this time the taser in her hand connecting. The man shook from the jolt rushing through him, but his stone-faced expression didn’t shift. He didn’t falter. Not like Danny stopped. She spun around to slam her leg into his side, trying to catch him unprotected. Her father clamped onto her calf with an iron grip, and he yanked forward.

  Adrian was already on his way.

  He bolted toward the two of them, his feet rushing as fast as his mind. Even if they didn’t have the Feds as back-up, she wasn’t alone. She didn’t have to face this monster by herself. Kyle Peterson’s blade flashed, but Danny dropped to the ground before the tip sank in. She rolled out of the way.

  Adrian’s grip tightened around the handle of his Swiss Army knife. He needed to find an opening.

  Danny surged up, wielding her own blade in hand. Except even with his leg oozing crimson onto the floor, her father moved faster.

  Kyle Peterson’s arm swung like an executioner’s blade.

  Adrian couldn’t jump between them, so he did the one thing he could think of. His calves tensed, and with a running start, he launched himself into the man sideways. The breath shuddered from him as he smacked into him and both of them careened.

  He reached forward, grabbing the man as he tried to shift his weight and find his footing. Kyle Peterson’s hand clamped around his wrist like a steel vise. Adrian yanked back to try and get out of it. He swept his foot forward, but the man gripped like a machine.

  Kyle Peterson’s knife flashed toward him.

  Adrian never stood a chance.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The day Danny reconnected with Adrian, this nightmare had flashed in front of her eyes, one that lingered in the recesses of her worst fears. Her father, the butcher, would somehow get him.

  She’d be a helpless bystander as Kyle Peterson took yet another person she cared for out of her life.

  As her father’s knife sank into Adrian’s gut, her world shattered into a thousand pieces. Those sepulchral hazel eyes, her father’s quick precision. The gasp from Adrian as the blade sliced through his shirt and sank into skin. The red, red blood blossoming in its wake.

  The howl of a wounded animal echoed through the room, except the sound came from her.

  Danny charged for her father, the tick-a-tick of her taser buzzing in her hand. No more killing. No more torture. No more. Heat stung her eyes as she focused in on her target with arrowhead precision.

  She was lightning looking for somewhere to strike.

  Danny slammed the taser into her father’s back with the force of a punch. He seized up, his limbs reacting this time as the currents rode through him. Drops of blood pooled on the floor from the gunshot in his calf, but her father was no better than a Terminator, a mindless, robotic machine determined to kill. He whipped around to face her, his blade dripping crimson. With Adrian’s blood. She was going to be sick.

  Before he could swing his arm in her direction, her leg snapped out to thwack his forearm, sending him off balance. He almost dropped the blade. The glazed look in her father’s eyes held a terrifying intensity—desperation. As he lost his mind, fear pushed him to a dangerous brink.

  He pivoted around to slam the handle of his knife into the side of her head. The world spun for a moment, and her vision blanked. The glimmer of silver gave her a single heads up. The blade descended, and only a lifetime of paranoid reflexes saved her. Her hands shot out for her father’s forearm, and she wrenched his arm to the side before dropping to the floor.

  From behind her, Adrian staggered forward, his hands compressed over the wound leaking through his shirt. His fingers were stained crimson, and his breathing came out ragged. Her heart stuttered.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. They didn’t have time for this. Adrian would die if he didn’t get help. Now.

  The blade sought her out again, descending like a guillotine. Danny rolled away from the swing to sweep into a crouch. Her father lunged, his movements growing sloppier with his speed. A bit of drool glistened at his lip from the effects of the taser. Not like the jolt had stopped him. Sweat pricked her forehead, and her heart pounded so hard in her chest she was two seconds away from a heart attack. She tugged out a thinner, faster blade from her waistband.

  Blood for blood.

  His shadow cast her in coldness as the blade loomed overhead. He would drive the tip down. Drive it straight into her throat. But in the moment, she could deliver the same. If she left this world taking him out, her life would have had meaning. She could do one good thing to combat the thousands of sins he’d accumulated.

  She lay on the ground, the knife in her hand ready to sting.

  Her death loomed above her, ready to descend.

  The shattering of glass stopped them still.

  Shards clattered onto the ground, and screeches pounded from outside. Footsteps rolled in like thunder, but Danny couldn’t get a look, not with her father’s blade looming above her. She stared at the point, waiting for the twitch in her father’s arm to signal his next move.

  “FBI. Don’t move.” The shouts came from the entrance.

  Danny had never heard a sweeter sound.

  Her father glanced between her and the Feds, as if weighing which fight to pursue. Danny didn’t give him the chance. The moment his eyes slipped from her, she popped her leg out in a sweeping kick. Her shin slammed into his calves, and he stumbled. That hesitation was all the Feds needed.

  Dave raced up to her father, pointing his pistol straight to the murderer’s skull, and Eve marched around on the other side, brandishing her handcuffs. Kyle Peterson managed a flimsy swing of his blade before Eve clapped his wrist in irons. The knife clattered to the ground. Danny’s chest heaved up and down, but she could barely process the scene before her, one she’d dreamed of on too many nights to count.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” Eve began as three other Feds joined them to haul her father forward. Kyle Peterson glanced to her, dead malevolence in his gaze, the blame already assigned. Danny glared back. The Feds might be the ones hauling him off, but she was the one who sent him to his fate.

  Danny surged off the ground, fumbling for her phone with shaky fingers. By the time she made it over to Adrian, she’d dialed 911. Adrian staggered forward, clutching the wound tight. Lines bracketed his mouth, which pressed tight in pain. The relief, that firework glow of victory vanished upon witnessing the pallor on his face.

  “You have to survive,” she whispered, her voice ragged. The alternative wasn’t an option.

  “I’ll be okay,” he murmured, wincing as he tried to take the steps forward.

  Eve strode up to the two of them, her dark eyes flashing with irritation. Danny braced herself for the guaranteed reaming out. Not like she’d sit and wait for it. She looped an arm around Adrian’s shoulders as they continued toward the front of the building, awaiting the ambulance. Eve followed a step behind.

  “You didn’t listen to orders,” Eve snapped. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

  Danny didn’t have time for this. “I was one of his goals, so we weren’t going to get a better chance than this. I wanted to fight.”

  “And endanger other civilians in the process?” Eve glanced toward Adrian, and Danny’s throat tightened. She had nothing to say. Already, she teetered on a dangerous ledge.

  “You have your criminal,” Danny shot back as Adrian staggered out onto the sidewalk. Her heart lurched in her chest at the sight of him, at his quiet due to the steady drip of blood evacuating his body. “And I’m around as witness. You got what you wanted, so leave me the hell alone.”

  Eve rested a hand on her shoulder, drawing her attention. “We were worried.” Her handler’s hushed tone sent a newfound wave of guilt washing o
ver her. “We’ll make sure he gets attention immediately.”

  “Thank you,” Danny murmured. If she hadn’t trusted Eve, or if Eve hadn’t trusted her, this never would’ve worked. Protocol would’ve dictated to follow the last sighting of her father, not take the detour to Eastside due to a text. But she’d worked with Eve for so many years they’d established something real. Her handler knew she would go rogue for one reason alone, and when the text came through, Eve had somehow convinced everyone to follow the lead.

  Danny’s eyes heated, and her vision blurred as she kept her arm wrapped around Adrian to steady him. The tinny scent of blood made her want to vomit, but she’d hold steady. Nearby, the Feds shoved her father into the backseat of the police car, hauling him in at long last. Her chest squeezed tight. She should be rejoicing right now, pumping her fist into the air and screaming until her lungs went hoarse, but this victory would be hollow if Adrian didn’t pull through.

  Within minutes, the screech of the sirens drew her attention to the road.

  The EMTs rushed out of the ambulance, spotting them at once. As they raced over to Adrian, she surged with them.

  “I’m coming,” she stated, not brooking any argument. The EMT nodded as they propped the doors open, helping Adrian inside. Already, the other EMT brought out their wound care kits, and they helped him over step by careful step. Danny climbed aboard behind him, staying as close as she could without getting in their way.

  The ambulance took off at once, the sirens screaming. The EMT set to work on disinfecting the wound site.

  “He didn’t pierce any organs from what I can tell,” Adrian said to the EMT. “It just needs to be disinfected and stitched. The pallor and shakiness is a result of the blood loss.” His tone shifted to a professional one she expected he used at the hospital. Her heart near exploded with warmth at the sight of him directing his own stitch job.

  The EMT’s mouth quirked in a smile. “Where do you work?”