Heart (10 page)

I slammed my hands down on the press-to-open
bar and threw myself into the dingy stairwell. I used the railings
to jump down the first flight of stairs. I felt Ryder right at my
back, pushing me to go faster.

The gigante was seconds behind us. I felt the
negative presence fill the stairwell as soon as my feet hit the
first landing. I sprinted down the next set of stairs as fast as I
could, but it wasn’t fast enough.

“Go, Ivy!” Ryder growled in my ear.
“Faster!”

I jumped down what I could, barely catching
myself on the landing before I was flying down the next set of
stairs. Ryder’s body pushed into mine. His arms stayed wide as if
to block me completely from the goon chasing us.

It wasn’t enough. He was supersized and
dangerous. His legs were disgustingly long beneath a hunched over
torso. His gangly arms swiped at the air behind us and I heard the
swoosh of air beneath his meaty hands.

We had such a long way to go and he was
gaining on us with every step. We weren’t going to make it.

I wondered if Ryder and I could take him out.
But how? He was undoubtedly stronger than us. I chanced a glance
back at Ryder, wondering if he had access to that weird set of
powers he had used with Nix before.

His eyes were narrowed with determination. I
used his strength to fuel my own.

I pushed my body harder, forcing my feet to
move faster. I jumped down to the next landing, but that was where
things went bad. There was a wide puddle on the landing and I
hadn’t taken it into account.

My feet lost their tenuous hold on balance
and I slipped backwards, knocking Ryder back. My arms flailed
trying to catch myself. My palm slapped against the concrete wall,
sending a stinging sensation all the way up to my elbow. Ryder
braced himself against the wall too. Neither of us fell, although
my flip-flop covered feet were now soaked in the mystery liquid
covering the landing.

We were delayed just enough that the gigante
caught up with us. I whirled around in time to see him sneer at me
before he shoved Ryder out of the way and grabbed my shoulders.

“Got you,” he snarled and his awful breath
wafted over me, curling my toes and churning my stomach.

“Get on the steps,” I told Ryder.

“No!” Ryder lunged for the ugly
ogre-like-thing, wrapping his arms around the ugly beast’s waist
and trying to dislodge his hold on me. He landed a solid punch in
his stomach, but the goon barely flinched.

“Ryder, now!” I shouted. The thin layer of
water at my feet started to bubble and foam. Ryder jumped back just
in time. He scrambled up the steps and I let instinct take
over.

I stood in the middle of the puddle. It
wasn’t a lot of water, but I could work with it. The gigante’s toes
were just barely touching the standing liquid; his arms were long
enough that he could hold onto me without having to step all the
way inside.

I had felt a growing connection between the
water and me over the last year. I thought it had been my proximity
to the ocean. I was born of the water, in a metaphorical way, and
so at first I’d expected a natural affinity to the waves and
salt.

However, over the last year, I had begun to
feel something deeper than a casual connection to the sea. It had
been building in me for months and months, this force that felt
uncontrollable and consuming. I felt tiny in the shadow of its
power.

It frightened me honestly.

But I couldn’t think about that now.

It was time to test it out.

I looked up into the dull eyes of the man
intending to ruin my life and take away my freedom. Depravity and
something worse stared back at me. This man had no soul that I
could see. He was a product of the Pantheon, bred for evil and in
service to the god of the sea.

I set my hands on his wrists where he held me
in place and let the energy I’d been ignoring for a year crescendo
inside of me. The water around my feet continued to boil and expand
until it licked at my calves and soaked my skirt. Slowly, but in
the most satisfying way, it spread around the gigante.

I watched his surprised wince as the
supernatural power hit him. I held him in place, keeping him next
to me so the water could do its work.

Power gurgled through me. I felt like a fresh
spring or an erupting geyser. My blood felt alive with the ancient
power, bursting with the intensity of something I still didn’t
understand.

The water didn’t reach beyond the man’s
ankles, but it was enough. I watched the life drain from his eyes
as the primal intensity of my Siren’s curse sunk into his skin and
poisoned him. His grip on my shoulders tightened until I grimaced
from his strength, but then it loosened until his hands went slack
and I finally let go so he could slide to the ground.

His body hit the still-bubbling puddle and
sizzled in the rippling surface. He started convulsing, jerking so
hard that his legs kicked out wildly and his mouth started foaming
and drooling water down his chin.

“Let’s go,” I told Ryder. I had no desire to
stick around and watch the rest of this. I glanced up and caught
Ryder’s horrified stare. His eyes moved slowly to mine and I
flinched from the fear and confusion etched into his
expression.

“Ivy?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I’ve never done
that before.”

“Then how did you-”

“Lucky guess. Now, please, let’s go. I don’t
want to see the rest of this. Or get caught.”

He nodded once, snapping back to survival
mode.

“Don’t step in it.” I moved down to the next
set of stairs, but I didn’t trust the water to be safe yet. The
gigante was still seizing, although his eyes were completely
sightless by now.

Ryder edged around the landing as carefully
as he could and joined me on the step. He looked down at my
dripping feet and back up to my eyes.

“Maybe you should go in front of me,” I
suggested.

“I don’t think it will hurt me.” The
conviction in his voice surprised me.

“Because you have powers too?”

“Because you don’t want to hurt me.”

He was right about that. I didn’t want to
hurt him, but I hadn’t exactly wanted to hurt the gigante either-
at least not consciously. I hadn’t meant to kill him. I just wanted
to escape.

Murder was a byproduct of using this
water-based power. The original Siren myth came back to me: Women
luring sailors to their island and sinking their ships before they
ever reached land.

My mother had never killed anyone that I was
aware of. No Siren in recent history had killed anyone. They hadn’t
needed to. They went after the sick and the dying, men already
sentenced to their death by the cruelty of disease.

This had been intentional. I had used powers
that had never been explained to me. I didn’t know if my mother
even had access to something this sinister, or anything other than
the lure of her looks.

“We should go,” I suggested. “Who knows how
many others are nearby or who else he called.”

“Yeah,” Ryder agreed.

But he didn’t move right away.

Instead, he held out his hand to me. I stared
at it, desperately trying to figure out what he wanted me to
do.

“Ryder,” I pleaded.

“Ivy, I trust you. Take my hand.” I swallowed
against the fierce conviction in his tone. He did trust me. That
was indisputable. But I did not trust myself. “Red.” If he had
stayed strong, I would have resisted. But his voice cracked over my
nickname, the infusion of a plea broke down my willpower.

With trembling fingers, I reached out and let
him take my hand. Deep relief washed over me when nothing happened.
The power stayed firmly wrapped up inside me and Ryder’s skin
remained safe against mine.

He offered me a shaky smile. “See?”

I nodded, “Okay.”

We hurried the rest of the way down and came
out the back part of the lobby. We were partially hidden from the
front doors by a half wall and a decorative plant. We had decided
on caution when we exited the stairwell and thank goodness.

Nix stood in the lobby, just inside the
door.

Ryder and I saw him at the exact same time
and dropped to the floor. The stairwell door hadn’t closed all of
the way yet because it was pressurized. Ryder stuck out his foot to
catch it before it clicked loudly and gave away our position.

It was clear that Nix had just stepped inside
the building. He was flanked by four other gigantes with bulging
muscles and troll-like bodies. He hung up a cell phone and started
speaking quietly to them, giving them instructions because they
were nodding while their eyes darted around the building.

“Shit,” I hissed.

“Wait until they go upstairs,” Ryder
whispered. “We’ll go out the front door.”

I peeked around the corner to see Nix move
toward the elevator. He looked as impeccable as he always did. His
dark gray suit fit his frame perfectly, draping over broad
shoulders and tapering down to his narrow waist. His dark hair was
styled to give him the look of an elegant business man and his jaw
was closely shaved. He was as handsome as I remembered.

And as evil.

A shiver slithered down my spine born from
raw fear. I never wanted to get this close to him again.

As soon as I saw him a weight landed on my
shoulders, pushing me into the ground, making my limbs heavy and
sluggish. It compressed my lungs, making it difficult to breathe,
and squeezed my heart so tightly I thought it would burst in my
chest.

I had blissfully lived without that weight
for almost a year. I had been able to breathe. I had been able to
live without the painful mass tethered to me by his presence.

But now it was back. I slunk back against the
half wall and tipped my head back. I closed my eyes and focused on
breathing evenly. I couldn’t let him do this to me.

I couldn’t let him get to me now or we would
never be able to get out of here.

“There’s no other way out,” Ryder whispered
in my ear, pulling me out of my panic. “We’re going to have to go
for the front door. As soon as he gets in the elevator, we’ll
run.”

I didn’t say anything. The plan had to work,
that was my only option right now.

The elevator landed on this floor and the
doors opened. Nix stepped inside with his goons and Ryder and I
watched the doors close.

We didn’t hesitate. I didn’t even look to see
if the elevator had started moving up floors. I should have, but I
was too anxious to get out of there.

I took off sprinting through the lobby. My
flip flops slapped at my heels. Ryder gripped my hand in his and
pulled me after him. As frantic as we were, we remained silent and
focused.

We were almost to the glass doors of the
lobby. I could feel the heat of the sun through the glass; I could
see Ryder’s Bronco down the drive. We had almost made it.

Ryder put his hand on the push bar and I
breathed a sigh of relief.

It lasted one second.

The elevator doors popped back open and Nix
and his men were ready for us. There was a second where I met Nix’s
furious gaze and thought everything was over. I saw more in that
moment of connection than I ever wanted to. His eyes were black
pools of revenge. I felt the chill they brought with them to my
very core. I would never forget that feeling, the bleak despair
that infected my entire body.

“What the hell?” I hissed under my
breath.

“Get her,” Nix roared at his men.

I had been stunned still, too surprised to
see them again to think of what I should be doing. Ryder didn’t
have that problem. He shoved through the door and pulled me right
along with him.

We didn’t look back, but I needed to see, I
could feel them on our backs. Ryder flew across the long patio and
down the wide steps that took us to the drive. I forced myself to
keep up with him. I hiked up my long, wet skirt and stretched my
legs so I could run as fast as he could.

He didn’t let go of my hand until we reached
his car. We separated but only so we could stay together in the
long run. He unlocked his door and it felt like forever as I waited
for the lock to pop up on mine. I had just climbed in the
passenger’s seat when a huge hand slammed down on the window.

It scared me so much a scream ripped from my
throat. Ryder jammed the keys into the ignition and threw the
Bronco into reverse. He pounded his foot down on the gas and we
ripped out of our parking spot. He hit something, but neither of us
looked to see what it was. The thump-thump under the tire wasn’t
enough to kill a man or stop us from escaping.

Ryder reached out again and grabbed my hand,
squeezing it tight. “Hold on,” he demanded. “I’m going to get us
out of here.”

He took his hand back to hold onto the wheel
and he stepped on the gas, leaving no doubt that he would do
everything he could to outrun Nix.

He peeled onto Farnam without waiting for the
light to change and uncaring of all of the rest of traffic. Horns
blared as he wildly weaved through mid-morning traffic. He roared
through red lights, barely missing the cars headed in different
directions than us.

I held my breath and braced myself for
impact. He swung right and then left, continuing to change up our
direction. He glanced nervously in the rearview mirror and I craned
my neck over my shoulder to see if I could make out anyone
following us.

Sure enough, a block behind us was another
vehicle gunning it through the cluttered traffic we left in our
wake.

At the next stoplight we got stuck behind a
delivery truck. Ryder tried to swerve around it, but a minivan
waited for us on the other side. The light took forever to turn and
all the while I watched Nix in the side mirror.

I wasn’t sure who was driving his SUV, but he
had no problem knocking into cars and running them off the road to
get us.