Minty (11 page)

“Angela, I am sure I only took one sip.”

Angela looked at her and laughed. “Yep, you took the first sip, and the next and then the whole thing.”

Minty still shook her head no.

“So you haven’t heard from him since?”

“No, and I guess I am glad. Guys like him aren’t interested in women like me. They date the women that are on the front of magazines. I wouldn’t like the feeling of being put in that type of competition.”

“Gee, I think we had this conversation once before. Besides, there is a guy giving you the once over right now.”

Minty looked over her shoulder. A large man at the counter was indeed looking at her. He turned, paid for his coffee, and exited out of the swinging glass doors. Minty had the strange feeling that she had seen him before but she wasn’t sure where. “Angela, I think I have had enough of the soul exposing for one day. Let’s get going, please.”

Within fifteen minutes she was safely locked in her apartment with all the lights. She had the comfort of the TV flickering without sound, even though it was still daylight outside.

Chapter Eleven

Rad had his arms around Misty as she stood in the laboratory and listened to Marco read off the different findings.

“What are you saying, Marco? Are we related or not?”

Marco had his assistants pouring over the latest equipment money could buy. Some of the people working were mortals, some were nightwalkers. A few were servants. All of them were very good. But not one of them had enough information to know the whole story of the sample they were testing.

“She has similar DNA. But your serum is so rare and unusual we are not sure what we are looking at. Hers is just as unusual. There is some similarity. Maybe not sisters, but you are definitely related. Maybe half-sisters, the same mother but different fathers. I am guessing. Her healing powers are as strong as yours, but her building powers are different. It will help some and it won’t affect all. It will seem to affect the spirit more than the body.”

Marco turned and picked up the heavy folder of printouts from the lab table. “I would suggest picking her up and bringing her in. She needs protection just like you, Misty. We need to test her to find out if we can link you two. We are still trying to find out what you are, if you are a new evolution in Rad’s breed.”

Rad turned to lift her. He carried her up through the basement, through the reinforced tunnel that had pumps running to keep the water out from the damp ground in this area. He swept her up into the main house. He was up the stairs into the main bedroom. He had her where he really wanted to keep her, in the big bed.

“Rad, I love you, I love your homecomings, but I would like to take a moment to talk about this woman.”

He raised up from pulling her blouse open. “One moment.” He held up on large finger.

She laughed then got serious. “We need to protect her.”

He rolled over, picked up his phone, and scrolled through the contacts. Finding what he wanted, he hit the one that showed his Lieutenant in Chicago.

“Rex, you know the woman that Alex was interested in?” He pulled another button open on her blouse as he listened.

“Yes, that’s the one
—
this has become an emergency. We need her brought here to New Orleans. We don’t care if she is willing or not. It will be a problem, because Alex told us she is resistant to influence and my Misty is interested, so if you bruise the merchandise Misty will see that you don’t sit down for a month, clear?”

He listened for just a minute longer, allowing him to open two more buttons. “You know the drill and you know the results needed. Get it done.” He punched the disconnect. He then went back to his real business.

Chapter Twelve

Minty was sitting with her feet propped up on the small coffee table, eating Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia right out of the carton, watching a rerun of Law and Order. They were into the court case and it didn’t look good for the prosecutors.

She heard a noise in the hallway and the door was open. She sat in shock
—
she had two locks on that door, it couldn’t be opened, but two large men were coming in. She dropped the carton and scrambled back. But one of them had her already. He only had one arm and in the small room the other one was still behind him. She screamed and kicked at him. Her hand grasped the large metal lamp beside the chair. She just raised it and brought it down as hard as she could in his face.

She knew it hit his eye, but she didn’t wait to see, because he had let go. Her chair tipped over, allowing her scramble away. She headed for the bedroom. She slammed the door behind her but heard the wood splinter as she flew into the bathroom and slammed that door, twisting the lock.

Instantly the door was thrown open as the lock splintered. The door sagged down on one hinge. She threw anything she could get her hands on. A man had her, pulling her out. Then they were in the bedroom with her kicking, scratching and screaming.

Furniture and lamps were flying but she didn’t stop until someone slugged her. She felt grey and unconsciousness settle over her.

The next time she opened her eyes she was in the back seat of a moving car. She was between two large men with two men in the front seat.

She knew she had been kidnapped. It looked like she had been taken by a group of advertisers for Gold’s Gym. There was no talk and her jaw hurt, but it did not match the confusion she felt. She had no money, she had no relatives, she didn’t work at an important job. Why on earth would they want her?

They drove for several hours until they pulled in for gas. They took her over to the men’s bathroom and two went in with her. “If you need to use this, we stay, so make do.” One of the big men leaned back against the door.

She looked around and saw a urinal and a stall without a door. She needed to pee so she had no choice. She backup up, unzipped her jeans, lowered them as fast as possible, finished and covered herself. The entire process was handled as she glared at the men. The men didn’t take their eyes off of her, so evidently they had been warned to watch her very carefully.

They got back in the car and as it headed back onto the road, the passenger in front turned around and handed her a bottle of water along with a wrapped sandwich that he must have bought inside the station. She took the items, squeezed herself back between the two large men and just looked at them.

She held the items in her lap for about an hour. Finally, she realized she might need her strength. She opened the sandwich and ate half, not knowing what it was. She opened the water, drank part of it and carefully put the cap back on. It was getting dark outside, but the vehicles passing them threw a regular flash of light across the faces of the men in the car. She did not feel her panic of dark, because there was enough ambient light. There was even light from the front dashboard.

Her dark panic was nowhere, but her anger was on top and she was sitting quietly waiting for a chance to escape, waiting to find out what was going on.

She was tired and didn’t know when she fell asleep, but she was wedged in between the large men and continued to sit up as she dozed. She woke with a jolt as the car stopped to fill up again. She was pulled roughly from the car.

“Wait, I don’t need the restroom, I just need to stretch.” The man that held her stopped, looked over at the others and stood still. He didn’t make the mistake of letting go of her arm, but he didn’t move forward.

She had no options, so she bent and raised her legs, took in deep breaths to expand her ribs, then raised her other arm over her head. She tilted her head around. Finally he jerked her
—
she guessed their rest stop was over as she was pushed back into the car. The half sandwich and water was pushed into her hands as the car was moving. Dawn was near as the sky was getting lighter. They had driven all night, but she had no idea where they were going. Thinking her stomach didn’t want anything, but she still needed strength, she forced herself to eat the rest of the food, drank more water then sat back to wait.

By midmorning they were on the outskirts of a large city. They drove with the traffic into a warehouse district, stopping at a fairly well maintained storage warehouse that had large overhead doors, one of which was opened so that they could drive right inside. There were offices along one side on the second floor. They hustled her up the stairs, without concern, shoving her into one. The room had a desk, several chairs and nothing else. The front had waist high windows. She could see two men standing guard, looking in at her on a regular basis, but mostly they ignored her.

There was a small lavatory in the corner. The door had been removed. She could use it as need required, but she would have no privacy. She spent the day in this room. She walked, not to pace in anxiety, but to walk for exercise. She felt it would be better to use her muscles and become tired than to sit restlessly. She was trying to think about something she knew nothing about.

Late in the day she was brought a fast food meal from a local hamburger place. She ate the meat, not the bread or the fries. She drank all the shake, needing the calories. She found the last of the water in the bottle. She used the lavatory, forcing herself to forget her shyness.

It got dark but there was light
—
overhead were dirty windows that she could see stars through, as well as the reflection from some outside streetlights. Inside there were lights in the railings. The men turned a light on in her office so they could watch her. She was satisfied, so she lay down on the floor and curled up to sleep.

She woke up in the morning to a very loud scraping sound. She saw her guards had their backs to her, looking down. She got up, approached one of the windows, and saw a large car coming in through the doors on the first level.

Someone got out. Her guards turned around looking at her, then one came in. He walked up to her intending to take her arm, she supposed to take her down the stairway. She was leaning on the back of a metal chair. As he got close she turned, letting her momentum bring up the chair with the swing, taking the full force of it into his chest, sending him backwards through the window and across the railing, out of sight.

But her success was short lived. The second large man was on her. He had her face down on the floor with his entire weight across her back. She felt first the breath knocked out of her, then the inability to draw in more air. She saw black circles forming behind her eyes.

At last he rolled sideways as another entered the room. Between them, each held an arm and wrist and pulled her to her feet. She didn’t fight any more. She just let them drag her down the stairs as she drew much needed oxygen into her lungs.

Two men in very expensive suits were standing with deep frowns as they brought her down. No one was helping the guy who was picking himself up after the fall from the upper railing.

The two men took her over to a metal table and sat her on a metal chair, then pushed her up to the table. One of them stood behind her with his large hands on her shoulders to keep her firmly anchored in the chair.

One of the well-dressed men walked over to her. He stood looking at her for a long time and frowned again. He reached over, grabbed her chin, and forced her to look at him. He leaned closer, looking into her eyes as if he were trying to find something. Evidently he didn’t find it, because he pushed her face away and said something low in a foreign language. The other man stepped forward.

“Your name is Minty Macik. How long have you known the nightwalker Alexander Bider?”

She watched the man as he sat down on the corner of the table. She looked around.
Okay, these guys must be the bosses or something important. How about starting out by co-operating and telling the truth?

“Yes, I am Minty Macik. But you have made some mistake here. I have no idea what a nightwalker is. I don’t know anyone by the name of Alexander Bider.” She looked up at them. She had her hands in her lap. The heavy hands on her shoulders made sure she didn’t move.

“Don’t play games with us. Are you saying you don’t know this male?” He messed with his phone, then turned it around. It had a picture of her and Alex leaning against a car.

She looked at it with shock, then looked up at the man. “I have met this man only twice. I never knew his full name. I only knew him as Alex.”

He looked at her and laughed. “Are you telling us that he didn’t reveal that he was a nightwalker?”

She looked around at each man. “I don’t know the term, and I don’t know what it means. As I said, I only met Alex two times
—
both times was for a short duration and we had very little conversation.”

He looked around at the others in the warehouse. “Where is the male who first saw her? Is he here?”

A man moved forward from those watching. “Sire, I am the one who first started watching the female.”

“The night he was at her apartment, how long were they together?”

The new man looked at her and at the man sitting on the table. “Sire, he was there six hours before he left. During that time the lights were out, but when he left all the lights were back on and the apartment was locked.”

She sucked in her breath and a shudder went through her body. Was it possible?