Pn1 (9 page)

layers, growing bigger, black-flaked ashes falling into her eyes and

making her see things only little girls with hair bows feared.

Her jacket vibrated, making her find a way to walk with no feet on

the ground. She winced as she came down, angering her ankle by

keeping her body upright on only the outside rim of her sneakers. On

the second jolt from her pocket, she remembered her cell phone was

set to vibrate.

Gillian let the phone flounder. The smell of fish was strong enough

she was sure the phone wasn't the only thing flopping around and

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waiting to die. Getting to the phone meant releasing the choke hold

on her thumbs and delaying getting to the door of the warehouse.

Once inside, she could barricade herself behind the door and refuse to

come out until morning or if a helicopter landed on the roof and

offered to deposit her right into her bed where a teddy bear and

comforter waited along with a nice bottle of white wine cooling in the

refrigerator.

True she wasn't going to look at her watch which meant showing

stark white skin against the night; but, taking into account how long

the bus normally took and the faster than normal walking pace, it

couldn't be later than 9:30. Her stomach didn't care about the math

and let all the blood go straight to her legs as instantaneous fuel.

Her mind wasn't the slightest bit helpful and recollected the last

three police blotters in the local paper, tallying the average time for

person on person attacks. Yep, just as her stomach was trying to tell

her. She was statistically in the window of potential threat, and

proving her parents right in telling her math was useful in daily life.

Sure, useful to the sales of Xanax and alcohol, not to the improvement

of sanity.

She took a deep breath and let her nerves fill her ears with

pounding so she couldn't latch on to the odd swish of the grass behind

her. Vacationing on a farm growing up, she knew the sound a farm

cat made lurking in the grass, but she wasn't on the farm nor were

there farm cats here.

Pounding blood was the better alternative, and Gillian was grateful

her heart fluttered. The extra warmth from palpitations provided a

barrier against the dankness creeping up her legs with every step on

the mildewed planks. She broke into a run when the shaky planks

ended, dashing the few hundred feet necessary to the warehouse's

fusion lights.

Watering eyes served no handicap in thrusting her hand into her

pocket in extracting the key she had at the ready. Blinking, she

jiggled the key into the lock and ratcheted the door open, slamming it

behind her in a solid, gratifying thud and throwing the bolt in place.

The warehouse lights were already on.

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This time the throbbing in her temples did nothing to conceal the

steady thump of approaching feet. Her nerves must have turned up

the amplitude of hearing, because the creature coming around the

bend sounded ten feet tall and made of molten steel solidified into

bipedal form.

She pressed her back into the door, trying to merge with the paper

thin metal. Gillian wanted to curl into a little ball with her arms and

legs clutched into her torso, but she was afraid to take her eyes off the

doorway opposite her that lead into the main warehouse.

It was 9:30ish. Who the heck was here at this unholy hour? For

that matter why in the world did she feel a need to be here? Maybe her

sister was right about being overly committed, or was that

committable? Any more time in this place after dark and she was

going to commit herself for the padded cell protection against the

dark.

The lights of the warehouse weren't doing much for her sense of

safety. Garish on the outside, the lights gave shadows too much

leniency in being seductively evil in looking like places to hide.

No one stayed late even on pickup nights. The drivers had the

combination to the delivery bays and all the boxes were clearly

delineated by destination, day staff was unnecessary. It didn't matter

that she was here against her own reasoning. No one else should be

here and drivers didn't go this far into the building.

Drivers came in pairs and only one set of feet approached. Oh,

God, this was a burglary and one of the drivers was coming to find

and get rid of her before she could call the police; which meant, the

noises outside had been a henchman on patrol. This was a trap.

Gillian stuffed her heart back into her chest and wet her throat

enough to formulate a scream. Her chest labored to get enough

oxygen pent up for a riotous explosion of sound when her throat

seized midway into creating raucous noise.

The doorway was blotted out or was that filled to capacity with a

man-like form?

Gillian's throat overcame the shock and went for a full blast of

screams that left her huffing and panting for breath. Even bent over,

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she couldn't take her eyes off the thing moving into the room, past the

doorway, coming closer, and closer to her.

A door behind the monster slammed, making them both leap into

each other. "No one's outside. Drivers long gone, we're safe to

leave," a deep voice reverberated that could have done bass in the

opera.

Gillian raised her head as she'd seen people on TV do, and head

butted the thing's chin as she jumped up, but its humongous hands

grabbed her by the collar and held her, almost dangling her, in the air.

"Ooph." The hands around her collar shook her like a fish from a

seagull's mouth. "Who are you and why are you playing with me?"

Gillian looked up into golden eyes with her huge, Disney-like eyes.

It took a second for them standing under the same light source for

Gillian to realize the large mass of muscles holding her was a guy, a

very large and towering guy, with long two-toned brown and amber

hair bristling up against the back of his neck. Her mouth fell open

automatically to taste the air around him, no cologne or aftershave

masked the raw identity that he filled the air with.

Her tongue wavered, but no sound came out this time through gulps

of air.

"You aren't that brittle. No one who screams that loud breaks

easily." He set her down, his arms bracing her shoulders until she

proved capable of standing.

"Patryk where are you?"

The voice filled Gillian's ears and made her ears ache from over

working to pick up every vibration.

"Just checking on the office area and making sure everything's

locked up, Sebastian. I'll be right in."

The man blocked Gillian from seeing around him, bending towards

her to obliterate any sight. She tried to crane her head around him, but

her efforts ended in a nose and mouthful of his shirt, the fabric

sticking to the end of her tongue, making her breath stutter from the

impact of his aroma.

Gillian squeezed her eyes and closed her lips, prying them back

from his musk that seemed to invade her nostrils with tendrils snaking

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up her nose and wrapping around her brain with an overriding

supremacy that gave him control of her body.

She gulped back her tongue and forced it to work at something

besides choking her. Those names were familiar. She rammed a palm

into the side of her head to jumpstart thinking.
Patryk and Sebastian
.

"Wait, Patryk and Sebastian ... as in the warehouse owners?"

Patryk gave her a stare that made her feel naked, devoid of so much

as nail polish. She pulled her coat closer against her body to seal in as

much air as she could to act as a buffer.

He pulled his hands away from her. "You'd be the new girl."

His voice lowered to below deep, to a sound that she felt more than

heard, a sound that both made her want to flee to and from him.

It was an oddly perplexing clash of survival and something more.

This was ludicrous. She shook her head up and down not sure of

herself to do much else.

"You owe me an explanation." He turned around, giving her a long

look over his shoulder, leaving the light with her so that the last thing

she saw was his wide shoulders fading into shadows, leaving only the

tell-tale sound of his heavy boots.

"What were you doing in there? I heard you talking?"

Gillian waited for Patryk's answer, causing her breath to stutter to a

halt.

"Drivers called to confirm what time the plane leaves for Africa

with the supplies."

They had to be back in the inner warehouse now, but her ears

picked up every word they spoke. The only thing she was sure of was

that Sebastian's voice made her want to open the door and take the

creaking wood and darkness over the chance of meeting him. Her

skin prickled as if touched by a flame that could easily consume her

and spit her out as ashes for a burial at sea. The sea was only a few

hundred feet away once the measly door was out of the equation.

The reaction to Sebastian was about survival, but Patryk? It had to

be adrenaline coursing through her system making her go loopy. A

grown woman imagining monsters and wanting to know if the

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monster's lips were coarse or soft had to be a definition of instability.

If it wasn't a definition yet, it certainly should be.

Her sister was going to have a field day. No, this was not about

being overly committed to work; it was about lack of sleep on starting

a new job and doing what it took to impress the bosses.

So much for the later. Everyone suffered on their first week, no

matter what the job; clearly she suffered a bit more than normal,

nothing to worry about. Getting out of here was the thing to do before

taking a sleeping pill or ten once safely home.

What should she do? If she turned the bolt and fled, she had no

doubt Sebastian would hear. Her shoulder's cringed at the concept,

because then he'd know Patryk had lied, meaning they'd both come

this time, not only Patryk. The murky recesses of her brain told her

that would be a very, very bad idea. The kind of bad idea horror films

were based on.

"So you confident about this place? Happy now?"

Her legs locked and her spine went rigid save the contours

necessary to try merging with the door. Gillian grimaced at

Sebastian's words; they were so guttural and harsh, and it brought up

images of nature shows were wild hyenas ripped apart a kill before the

lions could steal it.

"Stop talking and let's get out of here. You spout off too much.

Didn't you want to check out the neighborhood?"

Gillian eased back into breathing with Patryk's jab. She recognized

the sound of Patryk's boots. Sebastian couldn't be wearing any,

because his footsteps were oddly silent, even though she had heard

him talking. But there was the clear punch of Patryk hitting the

cement floor as he got farther and farther from her. Which was good,

right, hopefully that meant Sebastian was with him.

At the sound of a reluctant door whining open then shutting with

the seal of metal crushed against metal she wilted into her own door,

sliding onto the floor in a shaking heap. Now her breathing had

returned, so loud she wasn't sure she'd hear Patryk return.

Shakily, she managed to get her hand around the cell phone and

drag it to her ear. Angry at herself for doing so, she dialed her sister,

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cringing at the deafening sound of the phone ringing on the other end.

She promised herself after tonight she would remove the number from

speed dial. Calling Liz was only a tad more comfortable than dealing

with Patryk.

"You had better be at the ER, dying, and needing a blood

transfusion. And there had better be no other donors." Her sister

answered on the fourth extended ring.

"Liz..."

"No. I just got my popcorn ready, the DVD is in the player, and for

the first time in months the kids are at a sleep over, and Brad got

someone to cover his shift, so don't Liz me unless the ER part is

right."

"I need you to come get me." Gillian's lips began to tremble with

her arms and hands. Keeping her phone and ear together didn't come

easy, but she tried muffling the ear piece to keep from spooking the

shadows into lashing out.