Hearts of the Hunted (6 page)

I held my pose in
invisible silence until realization passed over her face, and then
I grinned and let myself reappear. She snorted in a very unladylike
manner and hit me with the second pillow, which she'd just finished
covering. "That's not fair at all," she said.

I laughed. "Says the woman
who could charm me into doing damn near anything."

"Yeah, well, it's not the
kind of Transformation I would have picked," she said, tossing the
second pillow into its place.

"Oh?" I asked sweetly.
"Were you talking about your Change? I just meant you." She smiled
and didn't resist when I took her by the hands and drew her down
onto the bed beside me. My heart stuttered as I pulled her close
and buried my face in her damp, shining hair. She was beautiful and
strong and maybe a little broken right now, and all I wanted was
her smile. If I didn't know better, I might have had to check to
see if she'd turned the whammy on me.

Knowing she wasn't using
it might have actually been scarier.

I wrapped my top leg
around her, and she let out a happy little sigh that made my
insides quiver. I'd never let myself get attached like this before,
and it was terrifying me to have these feelings for the first time,
even as I wanted to dive into them, and into her.

I drifted off to sleep
still troubled by my new feelings, and woke with the afternoon
sunlight streaming in through the bedroom window. Hannah was
asleep, her face only inches away, and her hair glowed like golden
fire in the light. I reached up to touch it, and her eyes opened
sleepily as I ran my hand down the silky length.
I could wake up like this every morning forever
and be happy
, I thought. It shouldn't have
startled me, but it did.

"I sleep better with you
here," she observed in an almost-echo of my own thoughts on the
matter.

"Mmm," I replied. I leaned
forward to kiss the tip of her nose, and then shifted and kissed my
way down her body to her breasts, where I spent some time indulging
my affections for the full weight of them. She rolled onto her back
and let out a pleased sigh as I tongued her nipples into hard, pink
nubs. I delighted in the slow flush that spread over her chest as I
teased and pleasured her.

I shifted my weight and
moved one hand to her pussy, wanting to explore the wetness there,
but she jumped and shifted away from me as my fingers found her. I
stopped and moved back to look at her face, and she sat up, pulling
her legs into her chest. Her eyes were huge and moist. "I'm sorry,"
she whispered.

I swore softly. "You have
nothing to be sorry for. I wasn't thinking." I reached for her arm,
but she pulled away and stood.

"I'm sorry, Camille," she
said again, and retreated to the bathroom, shutting the door softly
behind her.

My heart felt like it was
going to crack, and I wasn't sure if it was me or her I felt
sorrier for. I picked up my clothes from two days ago, sniffed
them, and made a face. I'd wash them later. In the meantime, I
found a pair of sweats with a drawstring and a tee shirt among her
things, and pulled on my running shoes.

"I'm going for a run," I
said to the closed bathroom door. "I'll be back later." She
apparently needed some space.

Running wasn't something I
had thought much about as a kid, but I'd taken it on ever since I'd
abandoned the idea of escaping across the Canadian border. My main
defense was to be invisible, but getting away isn't a bad skill,
either, and it turned out to be a good way to calm down and
think.

I wasn't familiar with
anything around there but the area that Camille and I had
patrolled, so I jogged through downtown, a little out of place and
not caring. It was different during the day, and I tried to use the
new perspective to find something we might have missed, even
running through the dim alleys and quiet back streets off the
beaten path. But nothing jumped out at me, and my mind remained a
tangle of frustration and pain.

When I finally realized
that I wasn't going to clear my mind by running these fraught
paths, I turned aside and let myself move into a new part of town.
I would always be able to find my way back as long as I had some
small point of reference to point the way.

And then I realized that
the solution to our problem was within our grasp. I picked up the
pace, arriving back at the apartment winded and pleased with
myself. Hannah was dressed and sitting at the kitchen table looking
sad and alone with her cup of coffee.

"Hannah, I think I know
how we can find him," I gasped. Or tried to, but it came out more
like a dying wheeze.

"Your face is like a
tomato," she said. She stood and ran a washcloth under the tap, and
then glanced thoughtfully at me and filled a glass with cool water,
too. I wiped my face down with the former and drank down half of
the latter in a couple of big gulps, and then focused on catching
my breath.

"I know how to find him,"
I said.

This time Hannah's eyes
went wide. "Did you see something on your run?"

"No, it's about
connections! We were trying to use the police, but they don't know
what to do. We have a direct connection to him, and they can't use
it, but we can!"

"You're not making sense,"
she said, sounding frustrated. I shook my head and tried to slow my
spinning thoughts.

"His hair is a part of
him. A direct connection. The police can use that connection to
trace his DNA, but only if they can justify doing it. But I know of
a Transformed woman who can find people if she has something of
theirs. I bet hair qualifies."

"Where is she?" Hannah
said, breathless.

"I don't know, somewhere
in Canada. But I know someone who can get ahold of her."

It took the rest of the
afternoon to get an email response from Riley, confirm that I was
who I claimed to be, and for Riley to track down and forward her
the address we needed. We folded a couple of pieces of paper to pad
the envelope, the hairs tucked neatly into the center, and included
a note with Hannah's cell phone number. Then, we addressed the
envelope and walked it down to the postal box on the
corner.

"Come on," Hannah said. We
were both still staring at the big blue box. "I'll buy you
dinner."

I let her pick where, and
she led me to a Thai place with an unassuming exterior and an
overwhelmingly foreign interior. The proprietress smiled at us as
we came in and left us with a pair of menus and a couple of glasses
of water.

"I have to be honest," I
said, "I have no idea what any of this is."

"I'll order something for
you." She smiled across the table as if she hadn't just run from me
earlier that day. "Do you like spicy food? I want to pick out
something delicious for you."

"You'd better be careful,"
I said, my voice more wounded than I meant it to be, "someone might
think we're a couple."

Hannah's smile shattered,
and she sat watching me with her quiet, sad eyes. I wanted to kick
myself. "I'm sorry that I hurt you," she said.

"That's not what I meant,"
I said, but she only watched me sadly until the owner came back.
She ordered for both of us, and the waitress brought us a spicy,
sweet broth soup. I stared into my little bowl unhappily as Hannah
took dainty sips.

When a plate of noodles
came, I picked at that, too, though it was pretty good. I wanted to
scream or break something by the time we left.

"I'm going out again
tonight," I told her as we walked back to her place. "We fucked up
his schedule, so he might try again."

Hannah nodded. "Are we
going out at the same time?"

"I'm going out alone," I
said, making the extra effort to stay gentle. "I can remain unseen
and maybe whack him over the head if he tries something." She
narrowed her eyes at me and pressed her lips together, but she
unlocked her apartment door and went in without saying another
word.

I thought she was taking
it well until she went into her bedroom and closed the door. "Why
am I always either pissing you off or making you cry?" I muttered
toward the door, but not so loudly that I risked her overhearing
me. I was pissed, not crazy.

Hannah came out as I was
stripping in preparation to leave. "You can let me out so no one
sees the door open and close by itself," I said, my tone moderate.
I vanished and moved to the door, not bothering to move slowly.
Hannah opened it, and I crept out into the night, feeling like a
massive jerk. The door shut harder than strictly necessary behind
me.

I sighed and began my slow
creep toward downtown.

Moving when I'm invisible
is all about taking slow, careful steps. It was cool outside, but
whatever made my skin able to hide in plain sight had also made me
less sensitive to the cold. I wasn't sure whether my feet were
tough from the Change or from my constant barefoot wanderings, but
whatever it was, I was comfortable.

I kept my eyes out for
lone women with light hair, though I didn't actually know if that
was pattern or coincidence, and I peeked down every alley I passed,
wandering into the darkness and out again at random.

I'd been outside for a
couple of hours, patiently stalking downtown, when I saw a woman
move into the mouth of an alley as if in a trance. I hurried after
her, trusting to normal human ignorance that my blurring would be
blinked away and ignored, and I realized as I turned onto the dark
side street that it was the same alley we'd charged into the night
before.

I moved carefully around
the corner and found the rapist pinning the woman against the alley
wall. His body pressed against the length of hers, and his face was
close to her face as he murmured all of the obscene things he would
do to her. I shuddered and glanced slowly around me. There wasn't
much I could use for a weapon, so I chose the lid of an old metal
trash can, careful to lift it as silently as possible.

The woman glanced over his
shoulder and her eyes went wide. "What the
fuck
?" she shouted.

He spun and said,
"Freeze", and there was nothing else for me to do but stand there,
invisible, with a trash can lid lifted over my head.

"How are you doing that?"
the woman asked, approaching me. She wasn't talking to me, so I
didn't answer. I didn't even think I could.

"Party trick, babe. I'm
done," he said, and handed her a couple of folded bills. She
stepped away from him, heels clicking as she stuffed the cash in
her bra.

"Your money," she muttered
as she left.

His lip lifted in a silent
snarl as he watched her saunter away. He turned to me. "Disgusting,
isn't it? Now, show yourself." I fought it, but my body would have
obeyed without any input from my mind at all, and I faded back into
view, naked and vulnerable. He looked me up and down like I was a
piece of furniture he was considering buying. "Not really my type,
are you? You looked better in the dress thing." He gestured just
below his ass, exaggerating the shortness of my skirt from the
night before. "At least then you looked like you had some curves.
But anyway, you ruined my fun, so I've got to teach you a lesson,
don't I?"

He glanced toward the
mouth of the alley and then back at me. "You're a little fucking
conspicuous," he complained. He grabbed my arm and pulled me close.
"Come with me," he said, and I stepped close, following where he
led, not quite sure why I was trailing this man, but pretty sure it
was the right thing to do.

Chapter 6

The man went behind the buildings and to the back of one
across the narrow lane. The door looked locked, but he gave a tug,
and the rusty thing heaved a complaint and opened for us. He shoved
me in ahead of him, and then slammed the door behind us. I heard a
bolt slide home, and then he fumbled for a moment until a beam of
light sliced the room. I took it in as the wedge of light
crisscrossed it, finding myself in an industrial kitchen of some
sort.

He pulled me forward, and
I noticed that it was an empty, dusty industrial kitchen, and he
was moving through it with authority. We finally stopped at a
closed door, and he pulled it open, pushed me inside. A moment
later, I was bathed in the glow of a kerosene lamp. We were in a
pantry or something, though it was almost completely empty now. A
couple of boxes sat on the shelves, and a few scattered cans—things
no one valued enough to take when this place shut down.

There was also a mattress
pad in the middle of the floor. "Lay down," he said.

I did, moving to the pad
and lying on my side, curled up in a ball. He made an impatient
noise. "On your back. Let me look at you." So I rolled over, hands
at my sides, and stared up at the ceiling. Somewhere in the back of
my mind, I was screaming to move, to run, to fight, but it was like
that voice was trapped behind glass, and I didn't really want to
listen to it, anyway, did I? The horror of it made me sick to my
stomach.

The rapist sighed. "You're
really not attractive at all," he said. "Not like that last one.
She had the
best
tits," he said, a smile in his voice.
Hannah
. I squeezed my eyes shut,
hating to think of him with her.