A Fall of Silver (34 page)

She gripped the edge of the roof.
This must be how a cat feels when it’s stuffed into a carrier.
With a frustrated sigh, she finally relented.

You can’t save a person who doesn’t want to be saved
.

“S
tay there,” he said between gritted teeth.

“They’re
all around us—can’t you feel them? I know you think I’m nothing more than a psycho, but….” Her voice trailed off when his grim expression didn’t change.
Fine. Then die because you’re too stupid to live.

“There
’ll be no more deaths tonight.”

“Except ours.” She
settled into the seat. The stuffy air inside the car clogged her throat. She couldn’t breathe within the confines of the vehicle, made all the more claustrophobic by the fog blanketing the windows.

“You’re
just hysterical.”

“
No. I’m not hysterical. Besides, I think the word you really want is ‘psychotic.’”

“
Just stay here, will you? Relax.”

She gazed at him
. There was no sympathy in his expression. All she saw was fatigue in the lines around his mouth and maybe a touch of annoyance in his hard eyes.

Then she glanced beyond him
. Her spine tingled as she watched the air thickening at the edge of the parking lot.

“They’re coming.”
The muscles in her arms tightened.

“
Stay where you are.”

“I
—”

“Stay
.”

Sit. Stay.
Good doggie.
She curled her hands and held them beneath her chin like a dog begging, and she yipped. He stared at her, his face unchanging.

Afte
r a fleeting glance into the mist, she leaned back and stared forward at the gray-smeared windshield. Where were they? What were they waiting for? Why didn’t they get it over with and attack?

Kethan glanced over his shoulder
once before walking around the front of the car. His slow, deliberate movements telegraphed nothing but confidence. She could see no trace of fear in either his face or body.

She followed him with her eyes, waiting. You don’t even realize
you’re inches away from death….

Nothing erupted out of the mist
.

He
got to the driver’s door and climbed inside. Then he tried to start the car.

The motor emitted a grinding noise
. It whirred, shrieked, and then just as it sounded like it might catch, it rattled to a stop. He glanced at her, the flush of embarrassment replacing the confidence in his face. He hunched forward and turned the key again. Grind, grind, whir…. The engine caught…nope. It choked.

“We should
’ve taken my motorcycle.” She tried to sound light, teasing, but a desperate edge cut through her voice.

Gripping the dashboard, s
he stared out the window. Moisture streaked the glass in long, silvery trails. The streetlights at the corners of the parking lot created strange fishbowls of gleaming light, surrounded by the pearly-gray mist. She flicked the lock down on her door and shoved her frozen hands between her thighs.

The air grew
cold and getting colder. The car rocked. Something thumped against the passenger’s side, just below her window. The vibration shook her, and she clutched the armrests. At the edge of hearing, she heard a light, almost feminine giggle.

“
I should get out.” She shivered in her seat. The intense chill felt as if all her blood had been drained, leaving her empty. She didn’t even try to hide her fear or the sense of desperation dragging at her. “I—I don’t have any knives. I don’t have anything but the whips. They’re no good at close quarters.” Her voice rose. “I can’t fight them if they get in the car. I—I have to get out.”

“No.”

“The car won’t start—”

“It’ll start.”
He tried again. The engine ground, the deep roar whining,
liar, liar, liar….

“I’d better get out.”

“Stay here. Don’t get out. They’ll go away, soon.”

“How do you know?”

The car shook as something battered it, again. With a fresh stab of terror, she realized the blow felt lower and the car had rocked side-to-side. If they kept this up, they could roll the car over.

They’d be
trapped inside. Hurt. Easy prey.

W
hispering a brief prayer, Kethan made the sign of the cross and turned the key once more. The engine ground, whirred and rattled. The car shook violently. His lips moved in a more urgent prayer as he his hands gripped the steering wheel. The knuckles stood out, stark white, in the dim light from the dash.

The car shimmied
. The passenger side tilted up, lifting away from the ground. She gripped the door handle to keep from falling against Kethan. The moisture icing her palms made her fingers slide over the molded plastic of the armrest. She lost her grip and clutched the seat belt. The nylon bit into her chest and neck, strangling her until she was forced to unsnapped it.

“Get it started,” she said through clenched teeth. “
Please, dear God, hurry!”

“I’m working on it.”

With a roar of protest, the engine finally caught. It sputtered and wheezed, complaining with metallic shrieks when he pressed the gas pedal.

A jarring hit on
the outside of her door threw her against him.

She yelp
ed an apology as she hit his shoulder. “Sorry!”

“Put your seatbelt
back on.” He thrust her back with his elbow, concentrating on driving.

Despite the
sickening, side-to-side roll of the car, it surged forward, righting itself with a thump. He pressed the gas pedal to the floor, grimacing as the vehicle crawled forward. The needle of the speedometer hovered over the mark for a rousing ten miles per hour.

Another thump savaging the rear bumper.
Quicksilver looked over her shoulder, but the dim lights from the dash left her blinking and blind. Vague, black shadows darted toward them, blending into the blue-black night. The car sputtered. Clutching the edge of her seat, Quicksilver leaned forward.

The
engine swallowed enough gas to leap forward. The speedometer read a hair under thirty.

“They alm
ost tipped us over.” She twisted in her seat. Was that shadow a vampire watching from the edge of the woods? She shivered and rubbed her arms, her fingers sticky from perspiration. “Can’t you go any faster? Why don’t you own a decent car? You must have money—your house is fancy enough.”

H
is mouth twisted. “That townhouse has been in the family for years. I don’t see the point in wasting a lot of money on cars.”

“Then don’t waste money
. Just get one that freakin’ starts when you need it to.” She rubbed the moisture off the inside of her window with her sleeve, but it immediately clouded up again when she took another breath.

Who were th
ose creatures? Their shadows raced after the car, clinging to the edge of the woods. Vampires from Mexico?

C
arol and Carlos’s clan? She stared through her cloudy window. Darkness fluttered by. Her mind raced, reliving the horrors she thought were over.

Out of the
corner of her eye she caught Kethan’s quick glance. The concerned look on his face made her cross her arms and resolutely stare forward. When he drew in a deep breath, she cringed inside, her mind racing in circles.

Don’t say anything—please. I can’t do this right now.
Please.

“Y
our hatred of vampires…didn’t it ever strike you as, well, a little extreme?” he asked.

An
immediate, violent emotional reaction exploded from the depths, leaving her incoherent with rage. She stuttered and swallowed as she pressed her crossed arms tighter against her stomach. “Yes, it’s extreme. But you don’t know what it was like. They acted like a pair of damned cats, snagging me with their claws, toying with me.” She swallowed and covered it with an elaborate shrug. “I went crazy. I know that.”

“
Crazy,” he repeated in a neutral voice, sounding remarkably like one of the psychologists who dashed through the orphanage on one of their lightening fast “hear ‘em, reassure ‘em, cure ‘em” crusades.

“I’
m not insane.” She enunciated each word clearly. Use your calm voice, your sane voice. “I’m in control of my emotions.” Most of the time. Probably a good ten percent of the time, at least.

“No, you’re not.”

“So I lost my temper! That’s all.” She pressed her lips together.
Breathe.
She’d been frightened and it made her angry. It was a normal reaction. “It was understandable. They attacked us. Haven’t you ever gotten mad? Been afraid?”

“Of course
., but I try not to kill anyone because of it.”

“I’m not
crazy
.” She lapsed into silence. Her stomach twisted, tightening in knots. What more could she say? What excuse did she have?

S
omething was broken inside of her, she understood that and there was nothing more to say. It was why she didn’t get involved with men. No matter how normal she tried be, men always discovered her craziness. Then the pain began.

Men
always ended up running away, either unable to deal with the horror living inside her or because they tried to fix her and discovered they couldn’t. Men didn’t like to see themselves as failures, particularly when doing the Pygmalion number on a woman.

E
ventually, Kethan would run away, too. He’d have to, or admit there were some things that words simply could not fix.

After an eon of painful silence,
they arrived at Kethan’s townhouse. She slipped inside without breaking the hush. What was the point? She’d heard all the caring, thoughtful words before, droning on like so many bees busily creating their own little cells of honey.

She started up the stairs,
leaving Kethan to lock up the house. She didn’t want to discuss her problems with him or listen to his calm, patronizing words as he tried to get her to admit she was a nut.

Unfortunately
, he was quicker than she expected. He caught up with her on the landing at the top of stairs.

“We need to talk.”

“Not again,” she replied wearily. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

“Did you
recognize any of the vampires?”

She eyed him, flushed, and then glanced away.
“You already asked me that. Why would I recognize any of them?”

“Mexico City.”

Her blush deepened, burning her face and throat. Did he think she lied? Exaggerated? Or did he believe she didn’t finish the job?

“That was
ten
years
ago! I killed the ones—” Uncontrollable emotion broke her voice. She swallowed and cleared her throat. “There weren’t any others. Anyway it’s over. I don’t even know why I told you.” Her trembling hand rubbed her neck until she became conscious of the nervous gesture. She forced her hand down and stared at him with fierce concentration, trying to force him to look away so he couldn’t see the emotions ravaging her face.

Don’t look
at me—just listen
. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said. “And I should never have slept with you.” She raised her hands palms up in a helpless gesture. “This is what I get for breaking my own rules.”

He gra
sped her arm when she turned to escape to her bedroom. “I don’t regret it.”

“Well, I
do!” Her voice rasped through a constricted throat. “You think you know me. You think you have the right to crawl inside my head and tell me what to do and what to feel—what it’s
normal
to feel.” She couldn’t breathe. She sucked in the thin air and shook her arm out of his grip, too tired and on edge to deal with it. “Well, you can’t control me or tell me what to do. No one can.”

He blinked, his expression turning from surprise to deep thoughtfulness.
“What if you’re wrong?”

“Wrong?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t control me or anyone else.
No one can control anyone else.” She hated the uncertainty in her voice.

He shook his head. “Not me. But
there are ways…manipulation, other methods….” His voice drifted off. He frowned. “Have you thought through what happened to you?”

“What do you mean
, ‘what happened?’ What do you think happened? A government brainwashing experiment gone awry?” A ragged laugh escaped her. “I ran into vampires. They tried to kill me and I killed them first. That’s it.”

“Think about it.” He shook her arm.
“You got away from
two
vampires? Before they killed you? At nineteen?”

Her neck ached. “Yeah.
They had a room full of…toys.” The memory of Carlos’s playroom filled with nightmare instruments made her shiver. “I found the whips there and used them. So what?”