ENTANGLED (42 page)

“Where the hell are you going, then?” He was already shivering—so, so thin, he had no padding against the bitter weather.

“There is something I want to do while we wait for Nate.”

She stepped out, closing the door firmly behind her, and saw Giles press his face up against the glass to watch her. Her t-shirt was so thin, she might as well be naked against the cold, and her arms felt like they were on fire.

She didn’t care.

She’d dreamed of this day for over a year, since she had gained the focus to lift herself. It may not be a wise use of her energy and time, but she would do it anyway.

She gathered her strength around her, pulling it in so it sat, bright and hot, within her chest.

She put her arms straight out on either side of her body, and leaped, spinning, up and up, like a skater in a pirouette, with the air her element, instead of ice.

She heard the short, sharp squeal of tires as Nate hit the brakes below, caught a glimpse of his head out the window as he watched her.

When the roof of the four story facility flashed past her, she stopped, tipped back her head and looked up at the sky, arms dangling at her sides. It was clear. So open and big. The blazing lights from the building obscured so many stars, but there were still a few to be seen, bright pin pricks of light, twinkling back at her. Enough to give her heart.

She hadn’t seen the open sky for three years. It made her want to keep floating up forever.

Below, she heard Nate drive the car forward again at last. He parked in front of the building and opened the car door, and with a sigh, she dropped, light as a feather, back to the ground.

He stood in front of her, so big, so broad, he blocked out everything. She lifted her face to his, but his expression was impossible to read.

A flicker of movement just over Nate's shoulder drew her gaze and she stepped back, a scream caught in her throat.

Something was crouched on the roof of the car.

He—it—was caped. Black, with red lining, and his face was abnormally pale. He smiled, and she caught the flash of fangs.

Whatever it was raised its arms and leaped. Before she could move, Nate grabbed her and swung them both to the side, as if he had eyes at the back of his head.

There was a thump as the…thing…hit the ground and her eyes went wide.

The creature lay still on the hard asphalt of the parking lot, limbs splayed.

Nate set her down, and Kel turned her head.

Giles stood just outside the door. He lowered his dart gun, and despite the cold, the move was precise.

“Nice aim,” Nate said. He crouched beside the body.

When he pulled its teeth out, the breath rushed out of her, and she fought hysterical laughter.

“It's a Halloween costume.” She was amazed her voice came out as well-modulated as it did.

“You thought it was a real vamp?” Giles' face lost some of its granite edge, and he sent her an amused grin. “You did!”

“He looked the part.” She shuddered.

“It's probably the recalcitrant Larson,” Giles said.

“It is.” Nate flipped closed Larson's wallet. “He'll be sorry for leaving that party.” He stilled suddenly. Lifted a hand for silence. “There is someone...” He shivered, and at that moment, it hit Kel too. A strange, spidery brush of something dark, something hungry.

Something far more frightening than the dress-up vampire at her feet.

She resisted, pushed it away with her mind, and sensed it shudder, break up, at her shove.

“
I just want to tell you something
.” A hiss in her brain, this time. Nothing normal about it.

She finally noticed Nate was gone, and Giles was beside her, pulling the gun from Larson's holster, hidden beneath the cheap satin cape. A real gun. No more tranquilizers.

Giles checked the magazine, his movements cool, efficient. “Looks like Larson wasn't the only person Greenway called.”

“That felt a bit like you.” Giles pulled her a little closer to the cover of the car.

“What?” She stared at him, then looked away again, trying to see if she could pick up where Nate had gone.

“When you push all that power out, you make my head feel funny.” He rubbed his forehead. “Makes me dizzy.”

“And what just happened, it felt the same?” It wasn't a nice thought. That had been creepy.

“The brush of power feels the same, but with you, it's light and almost energizing. This was darker, like it wanted to suck me dry.”

She kept silent, wondering who was out there. She was the one who should be stalking them, though, not Nate.

“Like Nate would go for that.” Giles wasn't looking at her, his eyes searching the night. “Like I would, for that matter.”

She was struck by how much better he looked now than when she’d first seen him. His eyes weren’t as sunken, his skin not as pale. He was shivering though. So was she, she finally noticed. She leaned forward, unclipped Larson's cape and handed it to Giles. He raised an eyebrow.

“You need it more than me, Giles. Don't be an asshole.” She kept her hand out, and he took it, pulled it around his shoulders, his teeth gritted as if taking it caused him pain.

Somewhere, out beyond the dim lights of the parking lot, she felt another pulse of power, and her skin went cold. “Nate.”

And then it came again, reaching, like a hungry black mist, tendrils touching her face, her arms.

Kel stood—to crouch was unthinkable—and Giles rose with her.

“Pretty.”

Kel's head snapped up. A man hovered between her and the building, his feet at shoulder height. He was short and thin, but muscular, like a jockey. He had brown hair with a wave in it—so, so normal, until you looked into his eyes.

She recoiled at what she saw there. That intense focus. She recognized it. Only too well. It looked back at her, sometimes, from the tiny mirror in her cell.

“You're Greenway's little pet.” He watched her with unblinking interest, made her shiver with his intensity. “I was a little worried, but now I've seen you, I realize Greenway just wants into your pants.” He laughed, the sound both delighted and chillingly cold. “Well, that's a relief. Here I thought I'd be up against some stiff competition.”

She slammed everything she had at him, shoving her power to the max and sending him straight into the brick wall above the doors.

He made contact. Hard contact. Dropped to the ground.

The sound of gunfire beside her was loud enough to make her ears ring, and she jerked. Giles had barely lowered the gun when she was off, calling Nate's name.

“Start the car,” she yelled back to Giles. Then focused her attention ahead. “Nate.” She did not care of the target she made. “Nate. Where are you?”

“Here.” His voice was weak, and at the sound of it, she almost tripped with relief. She found him just out of reach of the lights, struggling to stand.

“What did he do?” She offered him a hand, searching his face in the darkness for injuries.

“Must have lifted a branch or piece of wood behind me while I was watching him, hit me on the back of the head.” He gripped her outstretched hand and she helped pull him to his feet. Already his voice was stronger as his body fixed the damage, and something in her relaxed a little.

“Giles should have the car started.” She started tugging him.

“The gunfire?” Nate refused to move, his arm a steel bar keeping her in place.

“Giles took care of him.”

He gave a nod, and let her pull him towards the building at last.

They needed to get moving, before more members of Greenway's little army arrived.

Nate was liking the car. It was quiet, powerful muscle, taking the corners so sweetly, it was as if a hand was holding it down from above.

The road winding tight and fast through the trees was a surprise. He had no memory of his trip to the facility. He'd been drugged, completely out of it. He'd had no idea they were in the middle of nowhere, halfway up a hill surrounded by forest.

It made him furious that even the scent of the pine had not been allowed inside.

A town had to be close, though, unless the orderlies had been planning on partying away Halloween along with the squirrels and bunnies in the wood.

He glanced into the rearview mirror. Nothing behind them. Yet.

Giles was lying across the back seat, so still he could have been asleep, although Nate doubted it. Kel sat beside him, shoulders hunched with tension, staring out the window as if expecting something to come at them any second.

It set him on edge.

He glanced across at her, and saw her lips were moving, like an incantation or something. “What?” He forced his eyes back on the road and when he turned to look at her again, she was giving him all her attention.

That spooky, full-on, don't-mess-with-me look.

“I just want to tell you something,” she said, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose up. His knuckles went white on the steering wheel.

She turned her head suddenly, a whip of a movement, towards the passenger window, and with a terrible, reverberating pop, the glass blew outwards.

She hit the seat belt release, and for a split-second he looked into her eyes, saw the cold death in them, then she lifted her arms and seemed to be sucked out into the night.

“Shi-it.”

Giles flew forward as Nate stood on the brakes, felt the stabilizers and the braking system work double time to keep them from snaking like a fish on a hook.

“You didn't get a hint of that?” Nate hauled at the hand brake, and Giles was already out by the time he opened his door.

“Not a damn thing.”

They both stood still, trying to hear over the tick of the engine as it came to terms with a sudden stop.

“Kel!”

Giles gave Nate a look as he shouted out, but what the hell, anyone out there knew they were here. Squealing tires will do that.

Shards of auto glass glinted red in the light thrown off by the rear lights. Somewhere a little further back down the road, someone stepped on a piece, and it crunched beneath their shoe.

Without speaking, without even a look, he and Giles ducked down, moving to the front of the car, and then made for the side of the road.

Just a couple of hours earlier, he wouldn't have thought they could do it without him half-carrying Giles.

But Giles was with him all the way, and then leaning in, close to his ear. “They're blocking, but they can't keep it up for too long. I'm getting thought-flashes.”

He went silent, and Nate waited it out, heard the faint rustle of someone moving a couple of steps away, on the other side of the tree.

Giles held up four fingers. Then pointed to their location.

“Kel?” Nate mouthed.

Giles shook his head, and a cold burn flared to life in Nate's gut.

What the hell was going on?

What was wrong with her?

Kel crouched on a high branch, one hand out for balance against the massive tree trunk, and tried to think through the numbing cold and the confusion.

She'd heard it again in the car. That sentence, over and over. And Nate had asked…she shivered as she remembered the horror in his eyes as she'd tried to explain, but the moment she spoke it, loud and clear, it was as if the fear-induced fuzziness those words seemed to strike in her had vanished, and in its place was the cold certainty of attack, of a trap just ahead.

She could feel dark power reaching out from the trees, malevolent and tinged with desperation, and she'd gone after it without thought. Without a moment's hesitation. Gone after to kill. Eliminate.

What was wrong with her?

Because even as she'd thrown herself at the threat, ripping through the air faster and stronger than she ever had before, the feeling had vanished.

Making her doubt it had ever been there to begin with.

A twig snapped just below her tree, and she tensed. They were quiet, only one mistake had given them away. And then she sensed it.

The same prying, dark touch as before.

She closed her eyes for a moment in relief. She'd take danger over madness, any day. She
had
felt something earlier.

It felt the same as it had back at the facility, but the man who'd confronted her there was dead. She thought of Giles' steady hand and knew that to be true. So, others. Greenway had to have a supply of them.

He must have mobilized his crew before he'd arrived at the facility. They were here to round her, Nate and Giles up and take them back to hell.