Snap, Crackle ...

by Dale Mayer

  “What about your new compound?”

  He looked at him and gave a crafty smile. “What about it?”

  “Why hasn’t she taken me there?”

  “Well, if she didn’t tell you, I won’t,” he said, “but at least everything that comes out of your mouth tells me that she’s for real again. And that she’s making sense.”

  “Now if only you were,” Hunter muttered.

  The stranger laughed. “Yeah, it’s confusing if you don’t have all the answers, but believe me. You don’t want all the answers, and I don’t dare give them to you.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Easy. You’ll be dead before you know it.”

  “And you’re saying that she’ll be the one who kills me.”

  “Of course,” he said, shaking his head. “Everybody always gives me that same disbelief.”

  At the term everybody Hunter frowned. Why was anyone else involved in this? She hadn’t mentioned anything about it. “How many other people are involved in this?” he murmured.

  “Not many now,” he said, and then he laughed. “In many ways, she just killed them all.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m not listening to that garbage.”

  “No, of course not,” he said, with a smile. “She’s got you firmly wrapped around her finger.”

  “No,” he said, “but I understand lies and deception, and that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re lying.”

  The guy laughed. “In some things, absolutely I am,” he said, “but don’t doubt that it’s for your own good.”

  “The last time somebody told me, It’s for my own good, they were trying to shoot me,” Hunter said.

  “Well, look at that,” the stranger said, lifting his weapon. “History repeats itself.”

  And he fired into the darkness, only Hunter was no longer there.

  Chapter 25

  Beth heard the shot cut through the silence of the night, like an arrow of pain hitting her heart. She didn’t want to be responsible for Hunter’s death. She reminded herself that she trusted in his ability to evade a gunman like that and, even better, hopefully turn it around and make him pay. She sat here in the boat, cradling herself, burying her face in her hands, as she wondered what to do.

  When the boat gently nudged against the opposite shore, she turned and, grabbing the backpack, slipped into the water and out onto the land. She had no idea how this intruder had arrived, but she suspected she would find a getaway vehicle of some kind. And she and Hunter could use it; otherwise she was doomed to the back of a motorcycle.

  Which, in a way, had its own exhilarating feeling, but, at the same time, it hadn’t given her the sense of control that she had wanted. If anything, riding a motorcycle was like being on the back of a firecracker shot into the air, with no idea where she would land or what the landing would be like. As she hunted through the darkness, she found a path that led up to the highway, and there sat a small old pickup truck. She nodded when she saw it; this would be it.

  She opened the driver’s door, surprised that it wasn’t locked. As she hopped in, she found no keys in the ignition. Of course not. But she would do what she could, and she hunted high and low; yet she still had the backpack, and the keys were likely in there. She turned on the interior light, dug through the backpack, and found them. She quickly turned off the light and started the engine.

  Then she sat here, wondering what she should do. Was it safe to go back to Hunter’s place, or should she go somewhere else? She didn’t have a clue where to go at this point. Only one person who she could ask. “Stefan?” she asked out loud.

  Yes, Stefan said, his voice distracted, almost muffled in her head.

  “Is Hunter okay? I heard a shot.”

  He’s okay.

  “Well, thank God for that,” she said.

  A note of humor was in his voice when he said, Glad to know you care.

  “I don’t want to care,” she said passionately. “When you care, you lose. Everybody gets hurt. Everybody leaves. Everybody goes away and does something on their own, and it doesn’t seem to matter who and what you are. You just don’t matter to them, and you’re left alone.”

  Being alone is not a guarantee in life, he said, unless you do what you’ve been doing, which is hiding.

  “I had a reason to hide,” she said harshly.

  Absolutely, and you still do because, even now, this gunman is after you.

  “Do you know anything about him?”

  Nope. And I can’t get very much of reading at all. Just a cloudy darkness all around him.

  “Hmm,” she murmured. “I don’t recognize his energy or his voice or anything.”

  Which is interesting because he seems to know an awful lot about you.

  “Interesting,” she said, “because I don’t recognize anything about him at all. At least nothing I can understand. But Hunter’s okay?”

  He is for the moment, yes, Stefan said. You need to stay out of the way. Otherwise he’ll have to split his energy, worrying about you.

  “He probably already has,” she said. “I went across the lake and found this guy’s vehicle. But now I’m sitting inside it, wondering what to do.”

  Stay where you are, Stefan said.

  “Well, if this guy comes back for it, I don’t want him to find me here,” she snapped. “Not to mention I’m soaking wet.”

  Stefan thought about it for a long moment. Do you have another place to go?

  “Not right now,” she said. “I don’t even know what time it is. I think it’s like eleven o’clock at night.”

  Right.

  “I also don’t want to leave Hunter alone or for him to get hurt.”

  I’ll keep track of Hunter, but he shuts off when he’s out there, so that no energy can be traced to him.

  “I get that,” she said, shivering in the cool night air, “but I’m chilled because I came across the lake, and now I wish I were back home, with a change of clothes.”

  Well, you could try that, Stefan said cautiously, but I wouldn’t suggest it.

  “No. Well, maybe I’ll search the truck,” she said. “I’ll also move it so, if he comes back, he doesn’t find it where he expects it to be.”

  Good idea, Stefan said, but please don’t do anything stupid.

  “You mean, any stupider than I already have?” she said sadly.

  You don’t even know what you’ve done, he murmured. That’s the thing. This guy does seem to have answers, and I trust Hunter to capture him.

  “In that case,” she said, “I’ll see if I can find a towel or some clothing to get changed into. And then I’ll go help Hunter.”

  And, with that, she was gone. She could still hear Stefan sputtering in the ethers. Even though she didn’t have a phone, she had talked to him that way and had still managed to cut him off. She shook her head. “What the hell is wrong with me?” she murmured. “Hunter and Stefan are just trying to help me.”

  But then that’s what this guy supposedly had told Hunter. She frowned. How did she know that? She closed her eyes and heard the gunman’s whispers. Just bits and pieces in the ethers.

  I’ll help her. I don’t want to hurt her.

  She didn’t believe him. Because, of course, all she did remember was the pain, the hurts of the long time she had been held at the compound. Was there any chance he was telling the truth? Not much. At least she didn’t dare risk it. She checked the vehicle and found a couple towels and a change of clothes. She didn’t want to wear his clothes, but she grabbed the towel and gave herself a good scrub down, hoping that that would be enough to get her warmed up. She put the heat on inside the truck, hoping she could dry off faster, and then drove up past the driveway to Hunter’s cabin and pulled off into the brush. No way was she giving the truck up to this guy, and, at the same time, she didn’t dare get caught by him either.

  She shivered as the cold overcame her body. The heater was not doing enough to help warm her, but she also knew that, given certain
times of stress, the cold would take over, and it would completely make her incapable of doing anything. She shuddered as she worked toward warming up, scrubbing her arms, trying hard to dry off with the towels and the heat. She wasn’t that cold; she shouldn’t have been. But nothing like a little bit of a shock to her system to freeze her inside. Just so much she could do. She sat and waited, and, the longer she waited, the more panicky she got.

  Finally she hopped from the truck, grabbed everything that was useful and stuffed it into the same backpack, including the insurance registration papers, then slipped into the darkness around her. She couldn’t handle that weird sense of being followed. She raced into the woods, still cold and shivering. Calling on Nocturne to give her a hand, it wasn’t long before she calmed her breathing some.

  She shifted to a large tree and climbed up to the top. She sat there, hugging the branches, waiting for the sensation of being caught to pass. She wasn’t caught; she wasn’t prey. She was here. She was free. Somewhere out there was Hunter, and maybe that sensation was getting to her.

  She didn’t know, but she did her best to shake off such an eerie feeling. And just when she thought she had calmed down, she heard a gentle meow. She smiled and reached out a hand to feel Nocturne, who was walking down the branch toward her. “You found me, didn’t you, buddy? I’m so glad,” she murmured gently in his ear, cuddling him close. “Is it safe out there?”

  Of course it didn’t feel safe; nothing felt safe right now. But that was part of the craziness of her life. She desperately wanted to go into the cabin and to have a shower and clean up, but no way to do that when Hunter was in trouble. And then the sensation of being followed had stopped, but now it shifted to a pressing danger—but not for her, for Hunter. She swore, then slipped down the tree, and, with Nocturne at her side, she raced in the direction of Hunter.

  She couldn’t even explain that weird sensation inside her. But she knew without a doubt that he was in trouble and that he didn’t know it. Somehow she did. She didn’t even know where that sense came from, but it was there, and it was strong, and she would not ignore it. She’d spent a lifetime listening to it. Even more important to listen to it now.

  How invaluable to have somebody like Hunter in her life. She had no way to know if he would even survive with her help or not. But she would do everything she could to give him his chance to survive in whatever way he wanted. He’d helped her, and she could do no less.

  *

  Remember, Lizzy called out again, desperate for Beth to listen for once. Remember.

  But, no, Beth had no intention of remembering.

  Remember. Remember. Remember.

  *

  Hunter shifted once more in the darkness, searching for the energy around him. This guy had skills, as in mad skills, some Hunter had never seen before. It made him question so many things about his life right now. Hunter thought that he’d understood and that he knew all the tricks that could happen, but this guy had showed him time and time again that Hunter didn’t know it all.

  This wasn’t the time to be shocked or surprised. Far from it. This wasn’t the time to find out that you weren’t as good as you thought you were. But, of course, that is exactly when things like that happened. When people were tested and found out that there was more to life than what they thought. Still, he hunkered down and waited. In his experience, most people grew impatient and needed to move or to take that extra action because they couldn’t just be still.

  “You can’t hide from me,” the other man said. “I can see your energy.”

  The trouble was that didn’t mean anything because Hunter saw his too. Although not as clearly now as he’d like to, which he didn’t understand. Something was going on here that he’d never seen before. If Stefan had learned any lesson in his illustrious career, it was that there always was some asshole out there with a skill set that nobody could be prepared for. And it looked like Hunter had just found yet another one. “You still haven’t said why you want her,” he said, throwing his voice from another direction.

  “I have told you. You just don’t want to listen.”

  Hunter wondered why such fatigue was in the man’s voice. If she were dangerous, why had she been a captive under his control? “You lost her, didn’t you?” He felt the anger resonating around him. “This is all about you making up for losing her.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “She’s dangerous.”

  “But is she dangerous to you or to other people? Because I’m not too bothered if she’s a danger to you. You’re the asshole who kept her locked up.”

  “She had to be locked up,” he stated. “I’ve told you that she’s a danger.”

  “Yeah, but you never give any details to support those claims. Most people don’t like listening to that BS, unless it changes the song.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you believe me or not,” he said, his voice suddenly deadly. “I’m not leaving without her. I’ve spent years hunting her down.”

  “It’s that hunting part that I don’t get. You say that she’s a danger and that you want her alive. But now you’re hunting her and make no bones about the fact that, as far as you’re concerned, she’s yours for the taking. With no consideration for what she wants.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “You don’t understand.”

  “No, I sure don’t,” he said. “Explain it.”

  “I can’t,” he said simply.

  “Can’t or won’t?” Hunter asked. He got silence again, and he nodded. “Won’t. Got it. So, you’re keeping secrets about your intentions for this young woman. Intentions that will never go down well with anybody.”

  “They always do,” he said. “You just have to find the right people.”

  Hunter didn’t quite understand that, but what an interesting thought. He frowned, as he looked out at the darkness. “Why don’t we go inside and talk about it?” he said.

  The other man laughed. “Nothing to talk about. And you don’t have anything to offer me.”

  “I thought you wanted her.”

  “Yeah, but she’s gone,” he said. “She’s on the other side of the lake right now, probably stealing my damn truck,” he said, completely nonchalant.

  “And that doesn’t seem to bother you.”

  “Nah, it doesn’t,” he said. “It’s not mine anyway.”

  “If you’re planning on keeping her as a captive again, no way I’ll condone that.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “I was hoping to avoid more bloodshed, but none of you ever listen.” And, with that, more shots were fired and peppered the ground all around Hunter. Swearing under his breath, Hunter shifted and moved yet again. This guy tracked him in unknown ways. He sent out a message to Stefan. How is he doing this?

  I think he’s following her energy to you.

  Hunter froze at that thought. But it made sense. He stopped still and made a very deliberate attempt to shed any of her energy that may or may not have been cloaked in his aura. With or without your permission, when you spent time with each other, your two energies link automatically. And, if this guy knew how to read her energy, then he was following that right to Hunter. He quickly shifted, cutting ties, dislodging hooks, and cleaning his aura with a speed that he’d never expected. But, when done, he shifted, changing his position yet again.

  “I’m getting tired of this,” the other man said. “Show yourself.”

  “Why would I do that?” Hunter said, tossing his voice to where he had been standing.

  “Because this needs to end,” he roared. And he filled the air with gunfire, shattering the spot where Hunter had been standing moments ago.

  But the good news was that Hunter was no longer there, and now he understood how he was being tracked. He came up behind the man, just as the gunman emptied the magazine, and, with a heavy blow, Hunter hit the gunman on the temple and dropped him to the ground.

  Hunter had caught his prey.

  Chapter 26

  Beth slipped throu
gh the trees in the darkness, racing toward the cabin, as soundlessly as possible, not an easy thing to do. She was pulling on her skills, but she was tired, cold, and her fragmented energy had dissipated again. She’d been healing and coming on so much stronger, to the point that she had managed to rebuild as much of herself as she could, but each time that had quickly dissipated with the next challenge.

  Nocturne raced at her side, staying close, always wary, always sending out alarms, if she needed to be aware of anything. Finally she came beside the cabin and slipped down into the trees. She saw no sign of life inside the cabin, no lights on, nothing. But she heard voices. She crept a little closer, peering through the darkness.

  “Lizzy, where are you, you bitch?” she muttered to herself.

  Mocking laughter rippled through her mind. Remember.

  “I can’t remember anything, damn it. I don’t want to remember anything. You and I are the only ones who know how bad the compound was. Why would you even want to make me remember?” she cried out softly. But there was no answer, never any answer. Lizzy only ever wanted Beth to say and to do what Lizzy wanted. How did one ever come back from something like that? They didn’t. They went crazy or insane, except for people like Lizzy—Lizzy, who seemed to have absolutely no problem, no remorse, no conscience.

  “How did we end up so different?” Beth murmured.

  And this time Lizzy did answer, with more mocking laughter in her voice. We’re not different at all. You just don’t want to acknowledge it.

  Beth shook her head, refusing to listen to that drivel again. She’d heard too much of it before, and she wouldn’t get sucked in again. She’d spent a long time protecting herself from her old friend. Some friends one should never have, and, if one were unlucky enough to have them, they should do everything they could to split off from them. And, of course, saying that didn’t change anything.

  Beth slipped closer to the dark cabin, down toward the voices, wondering who and what was going on, petrified to get caught by this man and wondering why she was even here. Self-preservation said she should be far away from here, and she was pretty sure Hunter would agree. Even Stefan had made a point of her staying away. But what was she supposed to do? This guy had come after Hunter, and Hunter was here for her.