Flamebound (7 page)

Burning agony explodes through my face, through the whole left side of my head. My ear rings and my eye feels like it's going to pop right out of the socket. I try to hang on to Shelby, to the connection between us, but everything is mixed up. Chaotic. Like I'm three steps behind where I should be and can't quite figure out how to catch up.

Xandra! Xandra! Xan—

And then there's nothing.

I
wake with a start. Alone. Confused. Shivering. Terrified without knowing why. Reaching out an arm, I search for Declan's warmth. But his side of the bed is cold, empty. He's gone.

Not just gone-to-the-bathroom gone or in-the-kitchen-making-coffee gone. But well and truly gone. I can't feel him. He's not here, in my bedroom or in my house.

More confused than ever, I push myself into a sitting position, then immediately wish I hadn't as my whole body protests. It hurts. Goddess, it hurts so much. But why? I don't understand. I was fine when I went to bed, fine—

Xandra!

It's a psychic scream and it grabs me on a visceral level, wraps itself around me and squeezes until my heart feels like it's going to explode. And then my dream comes flooding back. Shelby. Blood. Pain.

Shelby!
Now I'm the one screaming her name—and on a psychic plane I didn't even know I could reach. There's no answer.
Shelby! Shelby! Shelby!

Nothing.

Totally freaked out now, I push the covers back and swing my legs around to the side of the bed. Everything aches. Still, I have to get up. I need my phone, need to call Declan. I don't have a clue what's going on, but he might. Surely he can at least tell me if it's even possible that I connected with Shelby or if it was all just a nightmare brought on by my concern for her.

Before my powers kicked in, I'd never been prone to night terrors, but lately I've been getting them every night. Sometimes two or three times a night. Yet another reason why it's so strange that Declan isn't here. He knows how bad the nightmares get and he never leaves me alone while I'm sleeping, never leaves me to face them by myself. Especially when it's still dark outside. Which it is.

I glance at the clock. It's barely one in the morning. Which means I've been asleep about three hours. I think about my last encounter with Declan, how I was so sure that he had distracted me in an effort to tire me out and get me to stop asking questions. If that's true—and it's hard to imagine that it isn't—what reason would he have to do it? He might be dark, but he has a surprisingly large heart. I can't imagine a lost little girl not touching him.

Shelby
. I call to her again, determined to find out if this is all just a figment of my overactive imagination. There's no answer.

I shove out of bed, determined to find my phone. And I end up falling flat on my ass, my legs completely unwilling to support me.

What the hell?

I grab onto the nightstand and shakily pull myself back up. My head is pounding, my leg throbbing, and the rest of my body is filled with dull aches and pains that weren't there when I went to bed.

I put my hand on my right thigh, start to massage it. Then I pull up short when I feel a long, thick scar stretching all the way down to my knee. Images from my vision tumble through my mind and I start to race to the bathroom. But I manage to take two steps before I'm on the floor again.
Damn it.

Once again, I pull myself up. But the room's spinning around me, the dizziness and nausea from earlier back with a vengeance. Concerned now, I reach an unsteady hand out to the wall. Then I lean on it for support as I make my way slowly, slowly, into my bathroom.

By the time I get there, I'm pale, sweating, and my nausea has reached a critical stage. Dropping to my knees, I vomit the meager contents of my stomach, then continue with dry heaves for long, unpleasant minutes. Finally, it stops. Shoving away from the toilet, I try to get up.

I can't. I'm too weak to even get to my knees. Frustrated, angry, I press my forehead against the cool blue tile of my bathroom floor and wait for this—whatever it is—to pass. I'll try again in a minute or two.

But it turns out, I don't have to wait that long. The bathroom light flips on and I catch a glimpse of cyanide green toenails before I clap a defensive hand over my eyes.

“What the hell, Xan!” Lily crouches down next to me and lays a soft hand on my forehead. “Are you sick?”

“I don't think so,” I croak. “I just—”

“Oh my God! What happened to you?” She helps me into a sitting position, then scoots me over a little so I can rest against the wall. “Did someone die? Did you go to another murder scene?”

“I've been in bed all night.”

“Then what the hell happened to you?” Her eyes narrow. “Did Declan do this?”

“Do what?”

She grinds her teeth even as she fumbles around on the counter for a second. Then she's shoving my small, standing mirror in my face. “That. Did Declan do
that
?”

One glimpse and I suddenly understand her concern. The entire left side of my face is one big bruise and my left eye is nearly swollen shut. “No! Of course he didn't. He would never hurt me.”

I reach a trembling hand up to poke at the bruises, then immediately wish I hadn't. Pain radiates from my temple to my jaw. My stomach sinks as I remember Shelby and the sudden agony of being punched. I pull my nightshirt up a few inches to stare at the long, jagged scar that runs the length of my right thigh. It's pink and raised and looks newly healed, as if the skin has just started to mend itself.

“What the hell is that?” Lily demands, leaning over me. “Dear goddess, Xandra. You're covered in cuts and bruises all over again. Are you sure nobody's dead?”

She's remembering the times I came home covered in injuries after finding Kyle's victims. Part of my gift—or curse, depending on how you think about it—is that I relive what the victim went through. While I don't suffer the broken bones and open wounds that they do, I do get bruises and marks that mimic those injuries.

Except Shelby is still alive. I was connected to her. I heard her cry, listened as she begged for help, felt her pain as it was inflicted. Unless . . . unless all that was posthumous and I just didn't know it.

The nausea's back with a vengeance. I lunge for the toilet, barely making it before the heaving starts all over again.

*   *   *

An hour later, I'm sitting at the kitchen counter, a mug of tea liberally laced with whiskey cupped between my freezing hands.

“Try Declan again,” Lily tells me as she ladles some chicken soup into a bowl for me.

“I just did. Still no answer.”

“That's so weird.”

“You're telling me.” He's been so protective since that last incident with Kyle. I've barely been able to walk from point A to point B without tripping over him. Even when I'm at work, he calls or texts me a few times a day—in addition to stopping by for lunch. So for him to just disappear like this, with no warning, no phone call, nothing, is completely out of character. I'm beginning to think it's my turn to start worrying about him.

Except I already do. All the time. Which is another reason why this absence is freaking me out so much. The only reason for him to go AWOL like this is if he's doing something he knows I won't like. And since I'm a pretty open-minded kind of girl, the list of things I don't tolerate is pretty damn small—it starts and ends with black magic. Well, that and cheating on me. And since I doubt Declan's sleeping with anyone else, I can't help but wonder if what he's doing has something to do with the soul-deep scars and shadows that haunt his every move. I don't know what those scars are, but I know they're there. Just like I know there's a lot about his life before me—before us—that I don't know. That I may never know. I'm trying to be okay with that.

“Okay, then,” Lily says, handing me the soup as she settles across the table from me. “Let's think this thing through.”

“I've been doing nothing but thinking for the last hour,” I tell her as I spoon up some soup. “I'm no closer to finding the answer than I was when you found me.”

“Yes, but you're cleaner and steadier now. And you aren't trying to puke your guts up—all three things help with the advent of rational thought.”

She has a point, so I just shrug. Take another bite of soup. It's not very good, but its heat slowly warms up my frigid center.

“Still no compulsion to go crashing out the front door?” Lily asks.

“None.”

“Well, that's a good thing, right? Because if Shelby was actually dead, shouldn't you be able to feel it since you now have a connection to her?”

“I still don't know how my powers really work. I mean, Austin doesn't have many violent deaths, but there are some. However, I didn't have a compulsion to find that guy who was murdered here the other day.”

“But he was never missing. The killer left his body in his house for his wife to find when she got home from work.”

I think about her words. “You think my powers only kick in when people are lost?”

“It makes sense, right? Otherwise you'd be chasing after a dead body every night, depending on where you lived. But the way it works, how you have to stay with the body until it's not just found, but actually removed from its dump site makes me think the lost thing is a valid theory.”

“Shelby's lost.”

“She is.” Lily nods. “She's lost and alone. She's scared. And she's being hurt. Why wouldn't you be able to sense her?”

“Because that's not what I do.” I push away from the table, carry my half-full bowl of soup to the sink. Suddenly, I'm not very hungry. “I connect with people who have died violently. It's what my magic does, what it is.”

Lily just snorts. “No offense, Xan, but you just said you don't know what your powers do. And how could you? You've had them for all of three weeks.”

“So?”

“So you know as well as I do that magic changes, matures, the more you use it. Add to that your connection with Declan and frankly I'm a little surprised you aren't getting a new talent every day.”

“That's not funny,” I tell her, with a frown.

“It wasn't meant to be. Maybe when your powers first kicked in, you could only sense dead bodies, but things change. You've spent the last three weeks in almost constant contact with Declan freaking Chumomisto—and much of that contact has been pretty damn intimate if the noises I heard coming from your bedroom earlier meant anything.”

“Lily!”

She holds her hands up in mock surrender. “I'm just saying. All that power, all that passion . . . Why wouldn't things start changing for you? It only makes sense. You know as well as I do that magic responds to all different kinds of energy. And sexual energy is one of the most powerful kind.”

“I get it,” I tell her with a mock scowl. “You don't have to keep harping on my sex life, you know.”

“Sorry, I can't help it. We single girls have to get our thrills where we can find them.”

“You've been single for less than twelve hours. I really don't think one day without sex qualifies you as in need of a thrill.”

She snorts. “That's because you have no idea just how bad Brandon was between the sheets. If you did, you'd probably loan Declan to me for a night on purely humanitarian grounds.”

I laugh. “No, I wouldn't.”

“Well, that's not very BFF-like,” she answers, pretending to pout.

“Sure it is. Because if Declan so much as looked at you that way, I'd have to kill you both. This way, I get to keep my BFF alive.”

She thinks about my logic. “Well, when you put it that way . . . Good call.”

“That's what I thought. Though I am sorry about Brandon being such a loser all the way around.”

“Not your fault I picked a dud. But maybe, when the weirdness of your new life settles down a little, you could introduce me to Declan's very sexy brother.”

“You're interested in
Ryder
?”

“You don't have to sound so surprised. He's pretty damn delicious. I wouldn't mind taking a couple of bites out of him.”

“Well, when you put it like that . . . ,” I tease, tossing her words back at her. “I'll make sure to introduce you the next time he's in town.”

“Excellent.”

Suddenly Shelby flashes back into my mind and the last trace of levity drains from me. How could I laugh with Lily—even for a second—when a little girl is out there somewhere, being hurt. Or worse.

Lily notices my shift in mood, and reaches out to squeeze my hand. “She's alive, Xandra.”

“You don't know that.”

“No, I don't. But I believe it. And you need to, too.”

“Why?”

“Because it will break your heart if you don't. And, honestly, I'm not sure how much more heartbreak you can take.”

Again, she has a point. Besides, how could it hurt? Thinking of finding Shelby alive might be the only thing that gets me through the next few days. Because, whether she's dead or alive, after speaking with her the way I did—after feeling her pain and her fear—there's no way I can just turn my back on her. I
am
going to find her. And when I do, I'm going to tell her that she's the bravest little girl I've ever met.

I should have told her that before, when we were talking. A sudden realization hits me, one that makes me believe, really believe, that Shelby actually is alive. “I talked to her.”

“What?” Lily asks, looking up from where she's making another pot of tea.

“I talked to Shelby. It wasn't a dream. Obviously,” I say, gesturing at the damage to my leg. “I never did that with any of the others. I felt their pain, lived through their deaths with them, but I never talked to any of them. I couldn't.”

“Because they were dead.”

“Exactly.” Relief, pure and overwhelming, rushes over me. Because as much as I hate to think of Shelby suffering at the hands of some monster, I hate more to think of her dying alone and terrified. “And she isn't.”

“That's what I like to hear!” Lily settles back down at the table, a big smile on her face. “So what are we going to do to find her?”