E
taín stood next to Brianna’s bed with a sense of déjà vu. Cathal’s cousin was curled into a fetal position, whimpering.
“Brianna,” she said, reaching out and lightly touching a shoulder to determine if Brianna slept or was drugged.
Brianna cringed away, but not before leaving an impression of despair so deep there was only one way to escape it. Death.
Etaín opened and closed her hands, the eyes flashing as if they winked. She’d contemplated the morality of using her gift before, and her stomach roiled now despite the lack of physical contact. A warning Eamon had guessed, but to her it seemed a confirmation that the nausea was self-administered punishment, because this was a violation, some would say, a mental rape.
The acknowledgment of it made her cringe, though she didn’t allow herself to turn away from Brianna. She silenced moral and ethical questions by picturing some of the children the captain and Parker had taken her to see in the past. It helped.
“Just do it,” she whispered. “Get it done.” She rubbed slick palms against her jeans before curling her fingers around Brianna’s wrists.
Brianna cried out and began struggling, pouring emotion into Etaín, so thick with suffering it choked her. Eradicated her own sense of self, filling her mind with the desire to die, with the determination to get to one of the guns she knew was in the house.
Only the sensation of writhing, thrashing vines along her forearms jerked Etaín clear of Brianna’s mind. Fear slammed into her at this new twist to her gift.
She backed away from Brianna, Eamon’s words chasing her, an admonition that it was the nature of her gift to want to see everything, to know everything about anyone she touched.
To consume them
, she thought, sweat turning cold on her skin, the vines suddenly seeming like some horror-movie rendition of carnivorous plants.
She forced fear and revulsion away by reminding herself the bands around her wrist had been started by her mother, and the rest had grown from her own dreams. If she lost faith in herself, let panic destroy her confidence or turn her away from the call to ink she wouldn’t survive.
Power of suggestion, that’s all
, she told herself, wondering if the changes that had come since meeting Eamon had come
because
of the things he’d told her.
Ignorance is deadly, Etaín. Never believe otherwise.
“Enough already,” she muttered, refusing to think about Eamon or anything else but getting the task that had brought her here done.
She took Brianna’s wrists, not releasing them as the girl struggled, and the vines felt like living things that didn’t quiet until Brianna lay still, curled once again into a fetal ball as if her mind and body mirrored each other.
Etaín concentrated on where the eyes touched Brianna, making herself ignore the barrier of skin. She focused her will with razor sharp intention.
“Start at the beginning, Brianna, show me what happened the last time you spent the night with Caitlyn.”
She repeated it over and over again. Verbally. Mentally. Not a movie camera, not still-life photos, but a melding, the memories becoming a part of her as they always had, a reality she’d relive over and over again if the barrier between her life and Brianna’s fell away as it did then.
“Come on, Caitlyn. Just for a little while. We can take your mom’s car. We’ll be back before your parents get home. It’s not like we’re going to do anything at the party anyway.”
Caitlyn bit her lip in indecision. Her parents were way strict, totally overprotective, the same way Dad was, and he was worse now than when Mom and Brian were alive.
Guilt and sorrow almost made her back away from the idea of going to the party. She forced herself to ignore them. She didn’t want to think about the last year, or what would happen if her father found out she went without his permission or one of his watchdogs.
“Please, Caitlyn. I just want Adam to see me there so he’ll know I’m not boring.”
Maybe then he’d notice her more often. He was so cute and nice. Everyone liked him and his smile . . .
She touched a hand to her chest. Underneath it her heart was doing flip-flops.
“Just for a few minutes, Caitlyn. I promise.”
“Okay.”
They left Caitlyn’s room and went downstairs. A thrill went through her at watching Caitlyn access the security room and turn off the cameras so there would be no record of the car leaving.
Caitlyn was a total brain who happened to play first chair violin. “I wish I could figure out how to do this at my house. My Dad is totally paranoid when it comes to security.”
“I’d help you, but it’s not like we’re ever really alone there. There’s always someone around.”
“I know. Like I said, Dad’s paranoid. So is Uncle Niall. I think it’s because they spend time in places where kidnapping for ransom is just another way to make money.”
She tried not to talk about Adam the whole time they were driving, but she couldn’t help herself. She kept thinking of things, Tweets and stuff on Facebook. He’d friended her though he didn’t follow her on Twitter.
He would after tonight. She tingled as she imagined dancing with him.
She’d ask him if he didn’t ask her.
Lie
.
The thought of him saying no made her stomach sink. She’d never have the nerve to ask him, not with other people around and watching.
The house came into sight and she saw him. It felt like a bird was trapped in her chest with its wings flapping crazily.
“There’s Adam,” Caitlyn said before she could. “He’s getting in the car with Jordão.”
“Let’s follow them!”
“Okay.”
She knew Caitlyn was relieved not to have to go in to the party. She was kind of glad, too.
They followed Jordão’s car into the Sunset District. She recognized some of the houses and streets, from times she’d been there with Brian.
Ahead of them Jordão stopped in front of a house. There was no place to turn around, but it was dark and it wasn’t like he and Adam knew they were being followed.
She started to hunch over then stopped when Adam’s door opened. Just one little peek . . .
“Slow down,” she said.
Caitlyn did, probably hoping Adam and Jordão would be going up the walkway when they passed.
Adam got out of the car. Seeing him made her ache inside.
It looked like maybe he was arguing with Jordão. She didn’t really like Jordão though he was popular too. A lot of kids she knew had major ‘I’m hot shit’ issues, but he was the worst, probably because he was a diplomat’s son and knew he could do anything, and the only thing bad that might happen to him was being sent back to Brazil by his parents or getting kicked out of the country by the U.S. government.
Jordão turned toward them and waved. Caitlyn gave a little scream and the car sped up.
“Stop! Stop!” she said when Jordão stepped into the street. Her cheeks burned but it would be worse if they raced past and Adam or Jordão ended up telling everyone she and Caitlyn had been following them. How pathetic was that.
Caitlyn stopped the car. Jordão and Adam came over.
“Pretend it’s coincidence,” she whispered to Caitlyn as they both rolled down their windows.
Her heart was going a mile a minute. She thought she might faint when Adam leaned down so his face was only inches away from hers, close enough she could taste the beer on his breath when he said, “You bailed on the party, too, huh.”
She blushed and hoped the darkness in the car hid some of the redness. They must have known all along they were being followed.
“Yeah. We bailed.”
“Our lucky day,” Jordão said from the other side. “Come in with us?”
She sent a pleading glance in Caitlyn’s direction before Caitlyn could say anything. “Please,” she mouthed to Caitlyn. Out loud she said, “We can only stay for a few minutes.”
“A few minutes would be great,” Jordão said. He gave Caitlyn a huge smile. “I’ve been trying to hack into a site. I could use some advice.”
It was the magic thing to say. Caitlyn relaxed totally. She could talk all night about computers.
They parked the car and got out. There was music coming from the house, but it wasn’t blaring.
Inside there were only three guys. Adam introduced them as Mason, Owen, and Carter. One of them, Owen, looked vaguely familiar but she wasn’t interested in knowing him better.
“Party’ll get going soon,” Jordão said. “Get you girls a drink?”
“Sure.”
“Beer? Rum and Coke?”
She didn’t want Adam to be embarrassed hanging out with her. “Beer.”
“Just Coke,” Caitlyn said.
“One beer, one Coke coming up.”
He disappeared along with Adam and the boy named Mason. When they came back, everybody sat on the couch, listening to tunes.
Heaven. It felt like heaven to be sitting next to Adam.
Slow dancing felt even better. She didn’t protest when Adam started touching her. Little sparks of fire burned in her breasts and between her legs even though a part of her said she should make him stop, or at least make him take her somewhere private.
She wanted to be with him. She wanted him to be her first. But not like this.
“Finish your beer,” he told her in between kisses. His lips were incredibly soft.
She finished it, the bottle falling out of her hand and onto the carpet. She wanted to fall, too.
Another beer was pressed into her hand. She watched it lift, a hand covering her hand and couldn’t seem to make herself resist, even when she realized it was Carter’s hand instead of Adam’s.
Confusion filled her. When had she stopped dancing with Adam?
She opened her mouth to say she didn’t want more beer but ended up swallowing it instead. She couldn’t help herself.
And then Carter was leading her to a bedroom. A scream welled up inside her at seeing Caitlyn naked on the bed with Jordão on top of her. This was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Carter pushed her down on the bed next to Caitlyn. She tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. But it was.
Jordão rolled off Caitlyn and Mason got on top of her. She felt her clothes being removed and tried to protest. She thought she said no, even when she saw it was Adam above her, but she couldn’t be sure.
It hurt. Inside and outside.
And when he was done, Carter was there. Then Owen.
She went away in her head and came back—
The scene skipped to the hospital and the abrupt shift was enough to cause Etaín to break the contact.
She swayed. Dizzy. Aware of a ringing in her ears, of her face wet with tears. Nausea building, not guilt but a reaction to what she’d just lived through.
The urge to explode in a fury of violence followed, only calming when she noticed how easily Brianna slept now. Reaching out, she dared to touch her again and found a measure of peace. The guilt was gone, as was the desire to die.
Etaín went to the desk where the sketch pad lay open, the pencils next to it. She hadn’t intended to do this here, but with Denis in possession of the ending scenes, there was no reason to do them elsewhere and every reason to get this behind her.
She sat, distancing herself from Brianna’s reality by drawing, turning the memories into images on paper. And then, when she was done, by forcing them into a mental prison and walling them away, using
will
to do it. Brianna was better off without them.
She glanced one last time at the girl on the bed before leaving the room. Surprise, longing, caution coming from an instinctive need for emotional survival, all slammed into her at seeing Cathal waiting there.
“I’ll get Denis,” the man who’d escorted her into the house said.
The nurse slipped into Brianna’s bedroom, leaving only the two of them in the hallway.
Need ripped through Cathal with proximity to Etaín. When he was away from her, he caught himself wondering if her impact on him could possibly be real. But when he was with her, his cock made sure there was no room for doubt.
“I guessed you might be heading here,” he said, speaking when it became clear she didn’t intend to, finding he didn’t want to dig himself
deeper into the mire of conscience and duty and the acts committed out of protectiveness, with an outright lie.
She shrugged, affecting a casualness at odds with what he’d seen in her face when she’d stepped out of Brianna’s bedroom and found him waiting there. He shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from jerking her to him and delivering a kiss that would force a return to the intimacy they’d shared at her apartment.
“I called you back immediately. All I got was voicemail.”
She glanced away, one of her rare tells, and he knew she’d been aware of at least one of his calls and chosen not to answer it. A tightness formed in his chest, reverberating in his gut as silence stretched like a taut wire between them.
He wondered if she would lie. She shrugged again and said, “There didn’t seem to be any point in talking.”
As he had after the ill-advised breakfast at Aesirs, he tried humor. “I can hardly grovel if you don’t take my calls.”
She met his eyes and he knew she wouldn’t let him off the hook this time. “What was going on with you?”
There it was. And whether he intended it or not, the truth spilled out between them. “Did you go to Eamon last night?”
“Not consciously. Not that it matters. Not that you’ll believe me even. But yes, I ended up with him. I stayed the night with him.”
Why Eamon and not me?
The question howled through Cathal but pride kept him from asking it.
“I’ll stop seeing him when I decide to stop. Not before then and maybe not for a while. Don’t call me if you can’t accept that.”
There was no defiance in the words, no challenge. Only a sense of defeat that helped him control himself though he couldn’t keep the frustration out of his voice when he said, “So that’s it? Your way or no way?”
“I can’t change how it is.”
She started to turn away and panic seized him. He grabbed
her, hands closing around her upper arms. “Make me understand, Etaín.”
Before she could answer Denis appeared at the top of the stairway without his soldier. “I’m not going to let this discussion drop,” Cathal warned, a different worry consuming him as his uncle neared.