Angel's Pain (18 page)

Matt thought she was just like a little girl, not like a grown-up at all. And that made him trust her all the more. It even made him feel like maybe he was the one who ought to be taking care of her.

He walked into the bathroom, and grabbed a big towel and the oversize terry bathrobe Derry had been using. “Here. Tuck these under your shirt, and once we get in the car, you can dry off and put the bathrobe on to keep warm. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Matt stood a little straighter when he saw the gratitude in her eyes and pulled up the hood of his coat so he could stay dry. “His car is over this way, Crisa. It's not far. Let's go.”

She nodded and followed. But as she did, she spoke, and for a minute, Matt was startled. “No,” she said. “No, he doesn't want to come to you, and I won't bring him!”

And then she cried out in pain. Matt spun around to see her kneeling in a puddle, clutching her head.

“Fine!” she cried. “Kill me, then. I still won't do it. I can't!”

“Crisa? What's going on?” Matt helped her to her feet, opened the car door and settled her into the passenger side. He put her seat belt around her and buckled it, and then he went to the driver's side, got in and pulled the seat as far forward as it would go.

He started the car, found the headlight switch and turned them on. Then he put the car into gear and drove—very slowly—forward. It wasn't as easy as he'd hoped it would be. Especially since he could barely see over the steering wheel.

“Where's my mom?” he asked.

Holding her head in her hands and rocking back and forth, she whispered, “North Carolina.”

“Ahh, heck.” He looked at the speedometer. He was going about fifteen, and he was scared to go much faster.

“Maybe we'd better find a bus station and see if we can get a ticket. Do you have any money?”

“No.” She squeezed her eyes tighter. He knew she was hurting. His dad was doing that to her.

He could probably rob somebody. God knew she could, if the pain would let up long enough to let her. And then they'd have money for the bus. But what if she died before they got there? What if this pain didn't stop?

She'd made it all the way from North Carolina to get to him, to take him away from Derry, all without a car or any money, or even a decent coat. She was soaked and exhausted. And now she was hurting really bad rather than turn him over to his dad, just because he said he didn't want to go.

He was right to trust her, he thought. She was probably the best person he'd ever met, besides his mom. She told the truth when she talked to him and she cared a whole lot, even though she'd never met him. He could feel how much she cared just pouring out of her. It was real. It made his chest feel kind of tight, and it made him care back.

“Let's just go find a place to rest, Crisa. Let's see if we can figure something out. You need a break. And probably something to—uh—drink.”

She nodded. “But we have to get away from here a little. My friends are chasing me. And your dad is after me, too. Plus I think that guy back at the motel will be coming, too, pretty soon. We've gotta hide really good.”

“We can do that,” Matt promised.

She smiled at him through her pain. “I knew we'd be friends.”

He knew it, too. He didn't know how he knew it, but he did. There was a warm feeling in his belly for her. He guessed it was partly something to do with her being a vampire and him being one of the Chosen, and maybe that stuff Derry had told him about them having a special connection hadn't been totally bogus, either.

It felt good to have someone who cared about him more than anyone else. He hadn't felt this good since he'd been with his mom.

Maybe, when they got back together, his mom would let him keep her. Like a big sister.

He kept driving the car but took one hand off the wheel long enough to tug the towel from where it was sticking out from under her shirt. “You'd better dry off,” he said. “And get warm.”

She looked at him, huge brown eyes searching. “Thanks,” she said. And then she smiled as she rubbed the towel over her hair. “Vampires don't really get cold, you know.”

“Yeah, well, still…” He looked for the heater controls, figured them out and cranked it up for her as he continued driving, slowly, but a little faster than before, along the town's main road.

I
t was nightfall. Briar and Reaper had entered the warehouse, where they'd spent the day, too near to dawn for there to be any opportunity for sex, or for the annoyingly deep and sickeningly emotional conversations he seemed to prefer to have beforehand. And afterward. He would probably try to analyze her
during
sex, too, if she stopped kissing him long enough, she thought.

But it hadn't mattered this morning. This morning, there had been no time. They'd leaped through the window and barely had time to search the place, find a comfortable, dark closet-sized room with a lock on the inside and settle onto the floor before the day sleep had claimed them.

She
hadn't
expected, however, to wake in his arms.

He was sitting semi-upright in a corner, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his back supported by two walls right in the very corner of the tiny room. She remembered sitting down beside him, but not close enough to touch, though. No point touching him if she wasn't going to fuck him, she thought. Anything else was just mush. At any rate, she'd sat down beside him, and she supposed she must have fallen asleep before he did, because she woke snuggled up close beside him, the big jerk. His arm was around her shoulders, cradling her so that her head rested in the crook of his neck.

When she came awake and found herself there, she didn't move right away. She stayed very still, taking stock, smelling him and feeling him. The way his arm tightened just a little bit as he came awake. The way his fingers moved, then stopped, as if he'd been sort of caressing her arm for a moment there, before he'd caught himself.

She lifted her head, looked him in the eyes. “Romantic bullshit doesn't work on me, you know.”

“What romantic bullshit would that be?” he asked.

“The way you held me all day as I slept. The way I woke to find my head on your shoulder, and your hand stroking my arm and your lips close to my hair.
That
romantic bullshit.”

“It wasn't a conscious effort to…work on you.”

“No? What was it, then?”

He shrugged. “Instinct? I don't know. You felt good in my arms. Feeling good is a big deal to vampires.”

She frowned at him, but he broke eye contact and got to his feet, then leaned close to the door to listen, before opening it and stepping quietly out of the tiny room. She followed suit, keeping quiet, being alert. But the place was pretty much empty.

He went straight to the window where they'd come in. “Let's go find Crisa,” he said.

“I'm all for that.” She didn't try, though, to home in on the girl. Not just then. Best to get on the ground before she risked another episode of crippling pain.

Reaper jumped from the window, landed easily on the ground, and rose from a crouch to turn and await her.

She jumped, as well, landing a couple of feet away from him. As soon as she rose and got her balance, she closed her eyes and felt around in her mind in search of Crisa.

The pain came like a blade driving down through the center of her skull.

She didn't drop to her knees on purpose but that was where she found herself. On the ground, kneeling, head bowed, hands pressing against her temples. And then in his arms as he scooped her up and carried her against his chest, through the rain, to the car they'd abandoned the night before. She could only assume he'd scanned the area and found no hint of ambush.

He lowered her onto the front seat and smoothed her hair away from her rain-spattered face. “We'll get to her. We'll fix this, I swear.”

She nodded. “I think we'd better hurry.”

She didn't try to look at him. She couldn't open her eyes just then, and she was fairly certain she knew what he looked like, anyway. His eyes would be worried, searching her face, looking for all the world as if he cared.

It was tough to understand the way those eyes of his could look, sometimes, when they met hers. She knew damn well no one could feel about her the way those eyes seemed to be saying he felt. No way. Not about her. She wasn't the kind of woman to elicit a feeling that…deep. Tender. Powerful.

It couldn't be real. She was glad she hadn't opened her eyes to see it.

A moment later the car was moving. She fumbled for her seat belt, then said the hell with it and left it off.

“We meeting Dwyer now?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

He sounded grim. No wonder, if he was as doubtful about this as she was. It was probably a trap. She needed to buck up and be ready.

“Is it far?” she asked.

“Five minutes. We should stop and give you time to get yourself together before we get there.”

She lifted her head and opened her eyes to meet his, forcing herself to appear normal. But she knew the pain showed. She could see its reflection in his eyes.

He cupped her cheek.

“I'm fine. I'm ready. Let's go.”

He nodded, and then he drove.

Five minutes later they were pulling into the parking lot of a motel that looked even cheaper than the last one she'd seen.

“I want you to wait here,” he said. “In fact, it might be a good idea to take the car and drive a ways a—”

“Bullshit.” She shoved her door open and pushed her hair off her forehead as she got out.

He got out, too, and they met in front of the car, and continued forward. “You're in pain.”

She shrugged. “Doesn't mean I'm going to curl up and shiver while you get your ass killed. I'm a bitch-vampire, not a delicate flower, Reaper.”

He watched her as they walked, but finally sighed and focused ahead.

“Room number?” she asked.

“Sixteen.”

Nodding, she turned her throbbing head and spotted it. “There we go.”

They walked up to the door together. Reaper lifted his hand to knock, but Briar jump-kicked the door right off its hinges before he could rap his knuckles even once. She sprang inside, moving as if she felt like a million bucks, despite the debilitating pain currently ripping her skull apart. She mentally congratulated herself—just before she spotted the mortal.

Reaper was beside her one second, then crouching close to the barely conscious CIA agent the next. “Briar, what did you—”

“Hey, it wasn't me. And it wasn't the door hitting him when I kicked it, either. He was like that when we got here.” She sensed something, wrinkled her nose and turned slowly, no longer paying any attention to Reaper or his backstabbing friend.

“Dwyer, come on. Snap to attention. Tell me what happened,” Reaper was saying. “Who did this to you?”

“Crisa did,” Briar said.

Reaper's head swung around, eyes no longer focused solely on the confused and dazed man on the flood.

“I feel her. She's been here, and recently. And…and someone else.” She lifted her brows. “One of the Chosen.”

“The boy?” Reaper asked.

She'd been trying to shield her mind from Crisa's as much as possible, to prevent the inevitable rush of pain, but she was going to have to open herself to the other woman in order to answer that question.

Or she thought she was, until Dwyer answered it for her.

He lifted his head weakly and said, “How do you know about the boy?”

Reaper's brows arched, and he slanted a quick look Briar's way before returning his attention to Dwyer. She could tell by the slight bend of his brows that he was concentrating hard, trying to read the man's thoughts, and while Dwyer was well-trained in blocking them, Briar rather hoped he would forget or waver, given his injuries and recent trauma.

“We've know about him all along,” Reaper said.

“Crisa thinks he needs her protection. Why do you think that is, Dwyer?”

“I wasn't goin' to hurt him. I swear. Yeah, I threatened to, unless Gregor turned himself in, but I would never have gone through with it.”

“And did it work?” Reaper asked, thinking before speaking.

“No. He wouldn't surrender, not even for his own son.” Reaper's eyes met Briar's quickly and briefly, but Dwyer kept right on talking. “He's huntin' me, I've got no doubt about that. And Crisa, too, now that she has him.”

“Crisa has the boy?” Briar asked.

“Yeah. She took him from me.”

“Where does she want to take him?” Briar went on.

Dwyer shrugged, then pushed himself up straighter against the wall and glanced at Reaper. “Help me up, will you?”

Reaper gripped his forearm and pulled the man's full weight upright. Once Dwyer was standing, he braced an arm on the wall and rubbed the back of his head with the other hand. “The kid wants to go back to his mother. That's all he talks about. You know that bastard told him she was dead?”

His mother. Ilyana.
Briar didn't guard her thoughts, and Reaper heard them clearly. He nodded in confirmation. “You say that as if you think Crisa wants something different.”

“Crisa doesn't know what she wants,” Dwyer said.

“Maybe it's time you told me exactly what's going on with her. I know you know. And I'm pretty sure you're behind it.” Reaper's voice was low and calm, but vibrating with barely contained rage.

Briar wasn't even trying to contain her own, and she was sure Dwyer could read it in her eyes.

Dwyer nodded and made his way to a chair, then sank into it. He sighed. “It's a long and rather complicated story.”

Briar stood over him, close, menacing, and leaned closer. “Give us the short, simplified version.”

He looked up at her, then looked away quickly and nodded. “When you were in Mexico, you had a run-in with my agents. The agents took Topaz captive from that makeshift vampire clinic in order to force you to trade yourself for her.”

“Your agents. Working under your orders,” Reaper said.

Dwyer nodded once. “Look, Reaper, I've been under intense pressure to get you back into the fold. My life was on the line. It still is. If the agency finds out I'm helpin' you, I'm as good as dead.”

“And if you keep stalling, you're
already
dead,” Briar said. “Finish the damn story.”

Dwyer lifted a hand to rub the back of his head. “Your people were tranquilized. So was Crisa. They implanted a microchip into her brain.”

“There wasn't time—” Reaper began.

“It was a simple procedure. The chip is minuscule, the implantation accomplished with a small bore drill and an injection. It only took minutes. The idiots were supposed to put it into one of your people. Seth or Vixen. But they didn't know who was who. It was just dumb luck that you took Crisa with you when you left there.”

“We didn't have a choice. She was bleeding out.”

“She shouldn't have resisted,” Dwyer muttered.

Briar had him by the front of his shirt before he could blink, then lifted him out of the chair and bared her teeth as she stared up at him, her eyes gleaming red.

“Briar,” Reaper snapped.

She hated the CIA bastard with everything in her, but she let go. He landed hard in the chair, grunting in pain.

“Tell me about this chip,” Reaper said. As he spoke, he moved closer to Dwyer, put a hand on Briar's shoulder and moved her a few steps away, effectively putting himself between her and his former boss, an act that irritated her no end.

“It feeds a signal that's picked up by satellite and transmitted to a receiver that feeds into my computer. Through it, I'm able to literally see through her eyes. Hear what she hears. I can communicate with her, tell her what I want her to do. It's extremely difficult for her to refuse.”

“Because pain results when she does?” Reaper asked.

Dwyer slid a quick glance at Briar. “Yes. But that's not the only reason for the pain. There are other things goin' on.” He shook his head. “I didn't understand at first why I kept catchin' glimpses of Gregor's son in her mind. It was as if he was there, too, competin' for her attention. It's like they have a bond, and I think it might mean—”

“That part we understand,” Reaper said. “And you don't need to know any more about it than you already do. Let's stay focused here. So you used this chip to command Crisa to come up here?”

“No. No, I didn't. The extent of my interest was to use her to find out where you were, to track you down. I was goin' to remove the chip just as soon as I caught up to you. I swear it, Reaper.”

“Then what the hell is she doing up here?”

Dwyer lowered his head. “Gregor tricked me, captured me, then went to my place and stole the equipment, the notes, everything. He's in control of her now, and even though she's with Matt and probably wants to do whatever
he
asks of her, she's not goin' to be able to refuse Gregor. Not while he's on the other end of that chip.”