Burning Darkness (15 page)

Westerfield narrowed his eyes. “How in the hell do you do that?”

He waved his hand with a snapping motion, and she went flying into Eric. Their bodies collided, sending them both to the ground. Eric gave her a fierce look. It said,
We’re not going to make it.

She gave him one back.
Yes, we are.

The roar of the airplane engine filled the air. Except Westerfield wasn’t in it. He was directing it, at them. Eric jumped to his feet, yanking her up with him. Westerfield was smiling, a satisfied smile that pissed her off. Eric, too, to judge by the snarl on his face.

“I’m going to distract him,” she said. “Do as much damage as you can.”

The plane was moving closer. She felt the suck of the air, the whining roar of the engine. She closed her eyes and projected herself behind Westerfield. Tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around, and Eric rushed him.

He threw Westerfield to the ground, his hands around his throat. The men struggled, and she raced toward them just as the plane moved up behind her. Run for the gun? No time. She had to distract Westerfield so he wouldn’t do his wicked mind thing. Eric had a stranglehold on him, but Westerfield was moving enough to gasp for air and keep his strength.

She grabbed at his arms, digging her nails into his skin. The plane was behind them, the engine noise a hum in her brain now, the same sound as when she was projecting. Westerfield gasped, as though losing the battle. She didn’t believe it, though.

She looked up. The plane was coming right at them. He was still controlling it. She felt her body lift, a crazy weightless sensation. Eric tilted backward. Westerfield pushed them toward the blur of the blades.

Can’t win. No, can’t give up!

He reared his arm back, as though to throw a ball at them. No, to give them a final, fatal push. Her feet left the ground. She felt the air sucking at her, pulling her in. Felt the vibration of the engine. Her body bumped Eric’s. He grabbed her hand.

Stop. Time.

The engine stopped. Westerfield froze, his hand out toward them. She and Eric dropped to the ground. She blinked as he stared at the frozen blades.

“You’re not frozen,” she said.

“Move.” Eric pulled her out from in front of the propeller. He faced Westerfield’s still form and concentrated.

“Can’t burn him, even now,” he said, frustration grinding his voice to a fine point. “Get on the plane. I’ll run him down like he tried to run us down.”

The plane’s engine came back to life as they climbed into the small cabin. Several silver canisters sat inside, with lines coming from them.

“Do you know how to fly?” she asked. “Or . . . drive?”

He’d jumped into the seat, and now took hold of the steering wheel. “I know enough to make me dangerous. A couple of years ago I had a friend who took me up in his plane a few times.”

Westerfield scrambled out of the way as Eric aimed for him. “Can you freeze him again?”

She focused, but nothing happened. “I must be tapped out.” She needed to learn how to hold the freeze longer.

“Where’d he go?” Eric’s voice pitched higher as he strained to see where Westerfield had ducked. He turned in time to see him jump into the open doorway of the plane. But before Westerfield could do anything, Eric shot him. Westerfield fell backward into the plane’s cargo area from the impact. Blood gushed from the bullet wound, but he was already holding his hand over it.

“Let’s get out of here.” Eric raced past him, grabbing her hand and jumping out of the plane and onto the tarmac with him.

The plane, now under no one’s control, kept moving forward.

“Stay under it,” he called out, tugging her beneath the moving body. “If he can’t see us, he can’t nail us.”

“But the plane might,” she said, eyeing the wheels. She’d learned to be quick on her feet long ago, though, and kept up with the movement.

“Stand behind me,” he said, ducking in an attempt, it seemed, to stay in the plane’s blind spot.

Westerfield was apparently more focused on taking off than finishing them off, because the plane turned, the engine whined louder, and then it started down the rutted and cracked runway. Eric stared, and a tree burst into flame near the end of the runway. Her heart started at the ferocity of the flames that licked into the sky, and potentially into the plane’s path. It veered to the left, and Eric set another tree on fire, too. The wheel on the left went through it, but it didn’t stop the plane’s forward momentum. In seconds it was a speck in the sky.

He looked over at her. “You all right?”

She twisted her arm and grimaced at the scrape. “Funny how it hurts more when you look at it. I’m fine. You?”

“Pissed. How are we going to kill that son of a bitch? We’d better get out of here. He might be on the phone now with whoever he was talking to earlier, and I don’t feel like another foray into the woods.”

“What about the fire?”

“I’ll call it in so they can stop it before it spreads.”

“Well, at least you’re a responsible arsonist.”

He didn’t look amused by her sort-of compliment. “I wasn’t always. And yet, I hate when people throw their cigarette butts out the window of their car.” He glanced back once more into the sky. The plane was out of sight, the sound of its engine fading in the distance. “I want to know what was on that plane, and why it was more important to him than wiping us.”

She looked at the now empty sky, but her gaze went to the trees. A terrible weight settled into her chest. “Whatever he’s up to, people are going to die.”

O
ut in the Wal-Mart parking lot, Eric opened the tube of antibiotic, and Fonda stretched out her scraped-up arm. He held her wrist and gently rubbed on the salve. Her wrist was so small, everything about her was small, but she wasn’t delicate. She was strong, brave, and vulnerable. Even in danger, walking that thin plank around the water tank, she had the grace of a cat. Her dichotomies twisted him, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Bothersome, yes, but not unpleasant.

She sucked in a breath but let out nothing more than that.

They’d done a mini clean-up in the restrooms. He had bought some mousse, and for the first time in days actually did something with his hair. Her hair looked soft, and the pink stripe caught the sunlight. He wondered if her nearly white-blond hair was natural.

There are ways to find out . . 
.

He remembered that she’d told Magnus it was. He now wondered if her pubic hair was that color, too. He pushed that thought out, because it took next to nothing to get him hard under normal circumstances, and being with Fonda was nowhere near normal. Besides, he didn’t want her to think he was getting off treating her scrape.

She had bought a tank top and a pair of jeans, and obviously some makeup. Her eyes were smoky, her lips pink, and at the moment they were in a tight line.

He focused on her arm, the fine hairs against her skin that the sunlight made golden. And those scars. “The cuts that left these scars must have hurt.” They bugged him, mostly because she wouldn’t tell him about them.

“Yes, they did,” she said, but didn’t sound upset.

“How were they made?”

Her jaw tensed. “It’s none of your business.”

It was, somehow, though he couldn’t figure out just how. He would find out, but he sensed now was not the time to push.

“Any other injuries?” he asked, surveying what he could see of her. His gaze zeroed in on a speck of blood at her earlobe. “Your earring’s missing.” He reached out to touch the soft skin, but her fingers were faster, inspecting her lobe.

“Whew. No rip.”

He leaned closer to get a better look. “Just a scratch where it tore out.”

She turned, finding him only an inch away, and turned her head to remove the other earring. “I tore my belly button ring once, out dancing, and that hurt like hell. Took three weeks to heal, and it was another month before I could put a ring in it.”

She had a belly button ring. And tattoos in private places. He knew he would see them, all of them. The knowing settled hard and deep in his gut, and lower. Wanting her was no surprise. It was the other things he felt that tangled up his insides, because he’d never felt them before. Wanting to protect her, to make things right.

Calling her “little girl” wasn’t his way of demeaning her, even though she obviously took it that way. It was an endearment that slipped out.

“I think I’ve got a scrape back here,” she said, lifting her shirt to expose creamy pale skin at her waist marred by a road burn slashing at an angle.

“Yeah.” He wished he were Petra, where he could wave his hand and take it away. He rubbed more salve on that, the best he could do. His fingers spread, touching the skin around the scrape. He didn’t want to stop touching her.

“You had a scrape on your back, from Sayre,” she said, turning toward him and moving out of his reach. She took the tube.

“It’s okay,” he said, even though it was damned nice of her to remember.

She pinned him with a look and twirled her finger. He turned around, lifting his shirt.

She didn’t do anything for a second, and he thought it must be pretty bad. Infected, maybe. Then he felt her touch, one finger lightly rubbing across a tender place midway up his back. It was the first time they’d touched each other, he realized, other than the necessary, in-the-moment kind of touching when they were running for their lives.

She took her time, and he closed his eyes and savored the touch, even through the pain. How long since a woman had touched him? He heard her soft breathing, felt her fingers sliding against places where he wasn’t scraped, as he’d done with her. When he was intimate with a woman, most of them focused on his penis, as though it was his only erogenous zone. But Fonda’s touch on his back, the least e-zone he could think of, still rocked.

“You’ve got a bunch of little scrapes across your back,” she said, her voice light and airy. She rubbed the salve on various spots, taking her time. Her other hand came to rest against his lower back, as though to brace him. He sank into her touch, her fingers rubbing slowly over the same areas, over and over, no pain, just the feel of her, warm, sensual, and before he could stop it, a low moan escaped his mouth.

She backed up with a jerk, and when he dropped his shirt and turned around, she was fumbling with the cap. She wasn’t looking anywhere but at that cap. “That should help.”

“Thanks. It felt good.” No need to skirt the issue. “What was that eighties song, something about a fine line between pleasure and pain?”

“The Divinyls,” she said, opening the passenger door for the truck and leaning in to put away the tube.

He got in the driver’s seat. She was digging around in her duffel bag. She’d gotten as caught up in touching him as he had with her. Was she going to shoot him now?

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

“I thought I had another pair of earrings in here. I feel naked without them.”

“You’ve got twenty others in your ear.” He gestured to the row of tiny hoops on the upper edge of her ear.

“Not twenty. Ten.” She gave him a smirk. “I like big ones that dangle.”

“Ya do, huh?” He lifted an eyebrow at the provocative tone in his voice, and when she realized the double entendre, her cheeks pinkened.

She swiveled back to the duffel. Two pictures fell out when she pulled out a smaller bag, one of Jerryl, and another of her and Jerryl with their cheeks pressed together. She was grinning, he wasn’t. He didn’t get to see much more because she grabbed them and tossed them back into the bag.

His chest felt heavy at the sight of them. She was still in love with the guy, or at least the idea of loving him. Even though they had gotten past the anger, he couldn’t imagine she would ever forgive him for killing her lover. Jerryl would always be the ghost between them. Not that there was a them, he reminded himself.

She said, “I know where we could go for tonight. I spent a month there after . . . the fire at the estate, when everything fell apart and I needed to escape for a while. Westerfield couldn’t find me there, apparently. It was only when I returned to my apartment that he was waiting for me. My father’s house.”

His body tightened. “The man who didn’t believe you when one of his buddies tried to assault you? The guy who didn’t protect you?” Maybe the man who’d cut her.

“I don’t need his protection anymore. I didn’t go there to be comforted. I went to hibernate in one of the bedrooms.”

“Is this in a bad part of the city?”

“He moved out of the worst area a couple of years ago. It’s not the best section but it’s not terrible. My stepmother isn’t supposed to get out of jail until next week. She did time for drug possession. My dad, he’s supposedly clean. I didn’t see him using while I was there, but I stayed to myself, so I can’t be sure. It’ll give us a place to crash, and you look wiped.”

He
felt
wiped, as though his energy was slowly draining down to his feet and out his toes. The wave hit him hard. More so since using his pyrokinesis. “I just need some sleep.” But he wasn’t sleeping, and the lack of it was taking a toll.

“I’ll drive,” Fonda said. “I know the way, and you can close your eyes. Before you object—which I see you’re going to—there’s nothing unmasculine about being in the passenger seat.” She got out, walked around to the driver’s side, and opened his door.

He wanted to argue, but honestly, he couldn’t think of a good angle. He was tired enough that his reflexes could be compromised, and he didn’t want to endanger her because of his pigheadedness. He’d done that enough times in his life.

He got out and climbed in on the other side. He did close his eyes, for a few minutes at a time, but never dozed. “What part of D.C. does your father live in? I don’t want to be too far away from Annapolis.”

“It’s on the east side. But I want to go into D.C. first.”

“Not to where you live.”

“No, I want to go by where I worked before I left to work for Darkwell.”

“They probably know your employment history.”

“I haven’t been back there, other than for short visits, since I started working for Darkwell. They won’t be watching the place.”

He hated sitting there doing nothing, and in general felt plain ornery. He checked in with the Rogues and gave them the latest. It gave him something to focus on instead of Fonda.

Lucas said, “You all right? You sound tense, and that’s saying a lot when it comes to you.”

He scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “I’m antsy, like I have little electrical shocks running through me.” Which reminded him, and he’d much rather talk about someone else than himself anyway . . . “How are you feeling, bro?”

“I have more energy than I’ve had for a while. And no storms of images, even with all the stuff you’ve got going on. It’s frustrating, because I can’t warn you.”

“Yeah, but you’re not dying, either.”

“Well, there’s that. I can’t get into anyone’s dreams, even Sayre’s.”

“Hopefully he’s on my case now. I’ll take care of him.”

“Like you don’t have enough going on.”

He glanced at Fonda, who looked his way. He didn’t like that she was involved in the Sayre business. “I can handle it. How are things with you and Amy?”

“I have nothing to say on the subject.”

She must be in the area, and by the hard tone in Lucas’s voice, things weren’t good. “Remember, she did it out of love.”

“Eric Aruda is not giving me advice about love. Right? Now I know you’re an imposter, trying to elicit information from me.”

“I’m just saying . . . you didn’t see the look on her face watching you bleed. She was terrified.”

“You didn’t stop her.”

“Lucas, you were dying. That woman loves you like nothing else. If I had stopped her, and you died, she would have killed me. Cut her out of your life and you’ll cut out part of yourself.”

Where was this coming from? He glanced at Fonda, who was probably listening to every word.

“What’s going on with you and Fonda Raine?” Lucas asked. “ ’Cause if how you’re talking is any indication—”

“Nothing. We’re just trying to stay alive. I’ll check in with you later.”

He signed off, paying attention to their surroundings as she drove into the city. He liked to know where things were, like hiding places and alleyways. Paranoia worked for him these days.

The area wasn’t bad, a mix of ethnic restaurants and multiuse brick buildings. Chinese food sounded good about then. They’d grabbed a sandwich, but he was ravenous again.

Fonda had a wistful expression as she looked around. “My apartment is down that street,” she said, pointing across him. “It was so good to be back that one day. I thought . . . I had hoped that I could come back to my life after . . .” She glanced at him, a sheepish look on her face. “ . . . well, after killing you. But I wasn’t sure I could. I wasn’t sure what I would be.”

She pulled up alongside the curb in front of a grouping of buildings, one stacked right up next to another but each retaining its own style. A whimsical pink sign announced PASTIMES: VINTAGE CLOTHING. She took it in, along with a deep breath before getting out.

He scanned the area as he too got out. He wished he knew what the guy working with Westerfield looked like. “Know Your Enemy” was one of his favorite Green Day songs, and now it had even more meaning. “Tell me again why we’re stopping here.”

“I want to get some clothes that feel comfortable for me. And, well, just in case . . . things don’t go well, I’d like to see the store and my coworkers one more time.” She’d been looking at the storefront, but now turned to him. “I told them the truth, that I was being tapped for a government program that I couldn’t tell them about.”

She pushed open the door before he could reach it, and a bell dinged. A redheaded woman in her fifties was unpacking a box. She looked up, and a warm smile broke out on her face. “Fonda!” She got to her feet and swept Fonda into her arms. “Are you back? I told you I’d keep a spot open for you, and I meant it.”

The gratitude on Fonda’s face softened the hard edges. Her smile, though, was tempered by the truth. “I’m afraid not, Marion. We don’t have a lot of time, but I wanted to stop by and say hi. I’ve got a few more things to take care of jobwise. Hopefully soon.”

Marion leaned back and took locks of Fonda’s hair in her fingers. “What have you done to your hair? It looked so soft and pretty last time I saw you.”

“I needed a change.”

Marion nodded toward a large picture of a cute blonde in a pink dress, and Eric realized with a start that it was Fonda. “I liked you better when you looked like that.”

Soft, without the dark smudgy makeup around her eyes, posing with her finger at her chin. Fonda before Darkwell and Jerryl and him. There were other blown-up pictures of her on the walls and columns, her blond hair tied back, lashes thick and dark. In one she wore a fringed dress, like something out of the sixties. In another, a two-piece short set with a crop top.