Scorched (7 page)

Hey, how about this, huh? He’s the one who always said to never leave his sight
, she mused. She climbed out from the tent and straightened her posture. Suddenly, she needed to go to the bathroom. Her bladder didn’t want to compromise. She’d had too much to drink during dinner.

She flicked the lighter again and carefully threaded through the small path toward the pool. Her thumb felt hot from holding it too close to the flame. She wished she didn’t need to use the lighter, but the path around her was pitch dark. She wasn’t like others who could see in the dark. As an eldritch, she was as useless as a male nipple when it came to the power department.

The wind blew rather hard.

The trees rustled around her, whispering like a seductive lover.

She noticed that she wasn’t afraid at all. In fact, she felt like she belonged in nature. Maybe the dragon part of her was taking over. Normally, she didn’t like nature. She hated bugs, reptiles and all manner of creepy crawlies that one encountered when hiking in the mountains. So far, nothing had bothered her—not even a mosquito or crickets. It seemed the lesser creatures of the animal kingdom had gone into hiding and didn’t dare make a sound. Maybe because the Big Hunt was on right now.

She looked around, and loneliness weighed on her out of nowhere.
Where’s Tristan?
she asked herself again.

The rendezvous point remained silent and unoccupied.
Where’s everybody?
They were supposed to meet up here. They probably hadn’t caught David yet. Or David’s henchman. Yeah. David wouldn’t do these things himself. He didn’t have the stamina to run around the town, spreading terror in his wake.

Molly let go with her thumb and the surroundings became dark. She walked blindly for a few seconds. Too bad a flashlight wouldn’t work on the mountain. A flashlight used a battery, and that kind of thing wouldn’t work in this lonely place.

Something was in her path, and before she realized it, she tumbled down epically.

What the hell?

Groaning, Molly flicked the lighter with a trembling hand. The stupid thing wouldn’t light right away. Her thumb blistered. When it finally lit up, she got the shock of a lifetime.

She’d stumbled over Tristan’s body.

“Tristan!” Molly crouched over him and checked his body. Tristan had been shot in the chest. Twice. “Tristan! Tristan!” She tried to wake him, but he only growled quietly.

Oh God, no. What do I do?

Blood soaked his shirt. She decided to tear it open and check his wound. She brought the lighter close to his chest, examining his wounds.

“Tristan! Tristan! Do you hear me? Wake up, damn it!” Desperation and dread filled her to the brim.

Molly placed her hand on his carotid artery, checking his pulse. It was weak but steady. The blood on his wound was also congealing. Tristan was pureblooded, and he had great regeneration abilities. Maybe if she tended him, he’d recover by himself.

Ugh.
She wished her cell worked so she could call for help.

Where are the others? Aren’t they supposed to gather in this place?

She had to do something. She tore off a piece of her own shirt to put compression on Tristan’s wounds to stop the bleeding. Maybe she should got get some water and clean them so they wouldn’t get infected.

The lighter in her hand flickered out. She scrambled up.

“Don’t move,” someone whispered from behind her. She felt a cold metal cylinder pressed on the back of her neck. The Zippo fell from her hand.

Her heart froze in her chest.

That voice. She was so panicking about Tristan she’d forgotten she wasn’t out of the woods. Her stalker was still after her blood. “W-what?”

“I said don’t fucking move!”

That voice again. It sounded familiar. Where had she heard it? “I’m not moving. Who are you?”

There was a harsh laugh. “You don’t remember me, do you? Of course you don’t. As if you would.”

She squirmed.

“Don’t move!”

She stilled. “What do you want?”

“You, of course. It’s always been you, Molly. But you don’t ever notice me.” The man’s voice sounded bitter and angry.

She racked her brain, trying to remember who he was. In the midst of panic like this, she couldn’t recall anything. She was worried about Tristan. She had to get him medical help. If she lost Tristan, she wouldn’t know what to do. She’d go insane.

“Listen,” she tried to reason with the man, “I’ll do anything you want, but let me get help for him first.”

The man whacked the side of her head with the butt of his gun, sending her tumbling down next to Tristan’s body. The pain registered a heartbeat later. It felt like someone had dropped a flowerpot from a sky-scraper. Sticky, warm liquid dripped down her neck, shoulder and arm.

She whimpered in pain. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“You don’t even remember me!” The man stormed out a curse. “Now, get up. Get the fuck up!”

“Okay, okay. Calm down.”

“Don’t you fucking tell me to calm down!”

“All right.” Molly heaved herself up, standing on shaky legs. She was lightheaded from the blow. Now that she was facing him, she could make out the outline of her assailant, but it was too dark to see his face. The man before her was a little taller than she was with a rather thin figure.

And he wasn’t David.

“Now, turn around.”

She obeyed immediately.

“Walk ahead. Follow this path.”

“But it’s too dark. I can’t see shit.”

“You’ll live. Get moving. We haven’t got all night.”

Molly trudged along the path. She really couldn’t see anything but a jumble of shadows before her. .She stuck out one foot at a time to feel the ground and moved like a blind rat.

A few times she stumbled, but the man behind her always gladly gave her a nasty shove.

“Where are we going?” she dared herself to ask. The silence was killing her. She racked her brain over and over, but she still couldn’t remember who he was. She’d heard that voice before. If she could see his face, she’d know. If she recognized him, maybe she could plead with him and ask him why he hated her so much. There were so many questions in her mind that she didn’t know how to start. What was his involvement with David? Did he do all this on his own? What had she done to this man to make him so pissed? She rarely got close to somebody while she was living with David—he made sure of that. So she couldn’t have wronged this person so much that he was hell-bent on stalking her and raising hell.

Her assailant only nudged her with the barrel of his gun. “Soon, you’ll find out.”

Molly shambled along the path. The moonlight had squeezed through the dark cloud and some of the light fell through a crack in the thick forest canopy. Everything wasn’t so dark anymore, and she could see the narrow line before her. It was the same path that she and Tristan had taken on their hike earlier.

Her thoughts drifted to Tristan again. Anger simmered in the pit of her gut.
He’s hurting because of me.
Her hands trembled. Her own pain was forgotten. If he died, she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself.

Chapter Eight

Tristan came out of his unconsciousness because something was licking his face. Dog. Ugh. It had garlic breath. Son of a bitch! He opened his eyes and saw a huge grey wolf slobbering all over his face. Instinctively, he pushed the wolf away. “Get off me, Esposito!”

His second instinct was to grope his chest where he’d been shot earlier.

Images came flooding into his memory. He’d been awakened by faint footsteps and gone out to investigate. He was a fool. The sex, Molly’s irresistible scent and the afterglow had messed his mind up and made him careless. He’d let down his guard. He’d walked some hundred feet from the tent and been confronted by a man.

It was only a split second.

But that was all it took.

That man pulled out his piece and put a couple of slugs into his chest.

Tristan didn’t even hear the gun go off.

Of course, a silencer.

He found some bullet fragments inside his shirt. The shot must have missed his vital organs. He wasn’t indestructible; he could die if a bullet pulverized his heart. But as a pureblood, his body was built differently than normal humans. His veins and organs were constructed a lot tougher for the purpose of shifting.

Tristan swallowed hard; his throat was parched. The smell of blood overwhelmed him, especially when he caught a whiff of blood that wasn’t his own.

It was Molly.

Molly had been hurt.

The realization made him jump up immediately.

You okay, buddy? Seems like you took quite a beating there,
Raffe. in his wolf form, said in mindspeak.

There was growling from left and right, and two more wolves came into sight. They were members of Raffe’s pack.

“I was ambushed. I need to save Molly.” Tristan was still weak after his body regenerated, but there wasn’t time to sit idle. He had to find her.

Wolf Raffe sniffed the ground and walked around in a circle.
I think I caught his scent. And your woman’s scent.

The other wolves barked furiously.

“How did that guy escape the hunt?” Tristan couldn’t help asking. With all the eldritch hunters in the town, one man couldn’t possibly elude that many predators at once.

Oh, we did catch the ones who like to play with explosives. But we aren’t dealing with just one perpetrator. The hunters caught two and then we ran here to notify you. And that’s when I found you like this,
said Raffe.

“Three men,” Tristan said bitterly. He sniffed the air, trying to get a lock on her scent, but for some reason, he couldn’t. Her blood was mixed with his, making him unable to distinguish it. “Esposito, find Molly for me. I’ll give you a big bone if you do.”

Raffe glared as fiercely as a wolf possibly could.
If this weren’t a serious situation, I’d already be chewing on your ass.

The two wolves of his pack howled in laughter.

Molly dragged her feet; her legs felt like lead, and her head ached furiously. It was like they’d been walking for hours, but she knew they hadn’t. Her stalker continued to jab the barrel of his gun in her back when she slowed her gait. She tried to focus her thoughts on the man’s identity. If she could remember who he was, she could negotiate with him. Maybe she could even save Tristan’s life.

“Are you David’s friend?”

Another jab in the back was his answer.

“Did David pay you to do this?” Molly braved herself for another hard butt. No pain, and no knowledge gained.

To her surprise, the man gave out an outlandish laugh. It was stained with desperation and anger. “He’d never pay me enough to do his dirty work.”

“Are you after money? Do you really want to do this? Have you thought about the consequences?” Molly stopped in her tracks and turned around to face the stalker.

She drew a sharp breath. “It’s you!”

The cluster of trees weren’t as thick in this area, and the light from the moon was enough to reveal the man’s identity.

No wonder she hadn’t recognized this man. As long as she’d known him, he’d barely spoken a few words to her.

The person before her was a lanky man in his mid-thirties, clad in black and white military fatigues. He looked like he’d been put through the wringer and survived. He was disheveled and dirty, caked with mud, grime and bits of grass. His longish curly hair was plastered to his face from perspiration. His face was youthful looking, but his eyes blazed with vengeance.

“Doug?” Molly called uncertainly. “Douglas Higginbottom?”

His lips peeled into a sneer. “Now you remember me.”

Doug was one of the employees in David’s record company. Doug was Stardust’s best studio engineer. He was known as a silent type. He was also a mild-mannered man, kind of geeky and soft-spoken. How in the world was Doug able to carry out such a diabolical terror spree? As she recalled, she’d had nothing but a good working relationship with Doug. He recorded her demo tape and complemented her on her improving vocal skill.

What the hell had she done to him to make him snap like this?

“Why?” she couldn’t wrap her head around the question. “Why did you do this?”

Doug seemed take offense at this. “Why?” he enraged. “Isn’t it obvious? I’ve always loved you, but you… you whore! Slut!”

Molly bristled. “How am I a slut? I’ve done nothing wrong to you.”

“David might pay me to harass you in L.A. Threaten you a little so you’d come running back to him. But I know you. Least, I know you enough that you would never take him back. This was my chance to win your heart,” Doug spat. “But once you returned home, you easily hooked up with some random guy. A cop at that! You disappoint me, Margaret.”

“You followed me to Oak Hollow?” Molly muttered to herself. She looked up. “You sent me that dead rabbit. How is that love, you sick freak?”

“Don’t you see?” Doug’s eyes widened in crazed ecstasy. “The rabbit’s heart belongs to me. You’re the rabbit. David always called you that. And I wanted you to see.” He laughed then, a quick burst of crying, and he scared the bejesus out of her. Molly was convinced that Doug was mentally unstable. No, he was batshit insane.

“That day… the day you left David, you came into the studio to retrieve your original demo tape, and you said I was a good guy. You’d date me if you hadn’t met David first. Hell, you’d even marry me.” His expression turned sour. “You lied! Of course you lied. I should have known. All women are liars.”

Molly would have slapped her forehead with her palm if the situation wasn’t this serious. She remembered what Doug was talking about. She was humoring him when she’d asked for the master tape back. When she left David, she didn’t take anything but that demo tape with her. The tape was a professionally recorded studio session, and it was her most precious possession from her years with David. She wanted the master tape as a memento. David stored it in the studio, and none of his employees were inclined to give it to her without checking with David first. Everything regarding her had to be run past David first—everyone knew that, or they faced David’s nasty wrath.