Closer: A Novella (5 page)

No one
called her Caroline, and certainly not the way he did.

Earlier that evening, Carrie had been watering the ferns on her patio, watching the nine-year-old next door blowing bubbles onto the street from her balcony. The couple that lived there fought constantly, so Carrie would leave small gifts inside the empty flowerpot for Jesse—their little girl. It was a short reach through the bars with only a foot between balconies.

The sidewalk chalk was a mistake. When the mother saw a garden of beautiful flowers drawn on the concrete, she made her daughter scrub them away. After that, Carrie left simple things like bubbles and freshly baked cookies, and only when the babysitter was in the living room blaring her heavy metal music. Jesse never spoke, but she would smile sometimes and peek at Carrie through the railing. She was a shy little thing.

There was just enough light in the sky to make it to the diner and back home before it became too dark to walk the streets alone. One of those flame broiled hamburgers with fries sounded fantastic. The guy behind the counter had a crush on her and usually threw in a free vanilla milkshake with three fresh cherries. He knew that it would keep her there a little longer, because Carrie would sit at the counter and eat them before she headed out. He was nice, but a little young for her taste. Still, she loved how his eyes would light up when she walked through the door, and maybe that was one reason that she stopped in once a week and flirted with him through small talk.

He never did ask her out; maybe he was too shy. Carrie always liked a take-charge guy, so it was probably for the better. She was a softy when it came to the romance movies—not the ones in modern times where they meet in a bar and a tumultuous relationship ensues, but the ones with knights and men of honor. However, the bigger issue with the guy at the diner had nothing to do with his personality. He was a human, and that was a big no-no.

Carrie had dated a few Sensors, but once they found out about her defect, they left nothing but skid marks. Most of the men approached marriage like an arrangement, selecting a woman with the best skills. Where’s the romance when they’re appraising you like a car on the showroom floor? And her engine wasn’t a six cylinder, but only a four. No one wanted a disabled child, so men were selective when choosing a partner. Then there was the whole sex thing. Sensors all but demanded transference in the bedroom—it heightened the experience like nothing else. She could receive just fine, but they couldn’t.

That was
always
the deal-breaker.

On the way home from the diner, Carrie crossed the dimly lit street, sipping on her vanilla shake. A stray dog’s toenails clicked on the sidewalk behind her and alarm ran up her spine. He might have just been hungry for the burger in her sack, but it wasn’t easy to distinguish Shifters when they were in animal form. Wolves and dogs were particularly troublesome because they ran in packs. In any case, it wasn’t on her agenda to get rabies, so she cut through a corridor, hoping to shave off some time.

The deliciously cold milkshake numbed her lips and she curled the warm paper bag against her chest, staring at the chain link fence that blocked her inside the vacant parking lot.

“Lovely,” she muttered, turning on her heel. A pebble rolled inside her sandal and she tapped her toe on the broken concrete to shake it out. The sun had already set and she was anxious to get home before her favorite show came on.

Carrie cautiously glanced around and blew out a breath when she noticed the dog was nowhere in sight. As she headed back toward the corridor, a white sedan crept around the corner from a back entrance on her left. She was alone and felt acutely aware of the slow speed of the car. Her heart ticked nervously against her chest when a bald man cranked the tinted window down. He was stocky and sweating profusely.

“Need a ride?”

She dumbly shook her head, the paper sack growing heavy in her arms. The engine shut off and he opened the door to get out. The car blocked the exit and her eyes darted around the empty lot. Carrie was breathing faster, feeling the adrenaline pour into her veins.

As he stepped around the car and approached her, Carrie sensed malice. His emotions were blazing like a forest fire. Dark intent dripped from him like honey, and the second her milkshake splashed on the concrete, Carrie was on the run.

Dry, dusty air burned her lungs.
Not fast enough
, she thought, hearing him closing in behind her. She kicked up pebbles with every step; there was no chance of outrunning this man in her sandals so she leapt on the fence to jump over it.

He gripped her ankle, pulling off her shoe as she desperately kicked him until he let go. Carrie lost momentum and twisted over the fence; her dress snagged and ripped at the end as she fell on the hard ground. An open field of wild daisies and tall weeds stood between her and a row of buildings on the far side. The fence rattled as the man began scaling it, and that’s when she took off again. Halfway across the field, a sharp rock pinched her heel and she fell down hard on her elbow.

Before Carrie could move, a knee rammed into her lower back and a strong hand brutally shoved her face into the dirt.

“Think you can get away?” he mocked. “Nope. Nobody gets away from me, you little tease.”

“Please, don’t,” she tried to say. But the press of his knee cut off her breath and she cried out.

This couldn’t be happening.
Someone
had to see what he was doing. Her eyes pleadingly skimmed up to the buildings, searching for a face in the dark windows as pain lanced up her side.

His strong arm hooked around her waist and he covered her mouth with his calloused hand as they stood up. That was the moment when she realized that he wasn’t going to assault her in that open field. He was
taking
her, and that’s when she knew she was going to die.

Not like this. Not like this
, she thought.

Carrie bit into his hand and clawed at his arms like a feral animal.

“Goddammit!” he growled in her ear, shaking her like a rag doll.

Fear iced through her veins. She could only breathe through her nose and Carrie was panting so hard that not enough air could get in. Her heart pounded with such intensity that it felt like it was going to explode. The attacker had no hair to pull, so she reached back and scratched his face with her short nails. That’s when he threw her on the ground and kicked her hard in the stomach. She curled up, gasping for breath.

The heart-shaped ring she always wore was lying in the dirt and Carrie slipped it back on her finger before he noticed. It was just a trinket, but one that she never took off because the ring had been a gift from her father.

Dirt muddied her tears as the flavor of his intentions leaked from his pores.

She tried screaming, but it came out ragged and pained—her stomach tightened and she wanted to throw up. He was mumbling to himself when he picked Carrie up and dragged her through the gate. Her other shoe fell off as her feet left long trails in the dirt.

Her eyes went wide when she saw the open trunk and Carrie sank her teeth into his arm, deep enough to draw blood. She stumbled when he let go, and without warning, he backhanded her. Carrie hit the ground behind the bumper and looked over her right shoulder, too numb to feel the scrapes on her arms and legs. That’s when he lifted the tire iron from the trunk.

As he raised his arm, a single word trembled on her lips, barely anything but a cry through the sobbing that left a trail of tears down her dirty cheeks.

“
Daddy
.”

Years had passed since she’d seen her father, but Carrie needed him to hold her in that final moment and tell her that everything was going to be okay.
Please God, I don’t want to die.

The first swing landed on her back, and the second one she couldn’t remember.

The memory lingered as fresh as a raw wound while she gazed through the empty window. She was a prisoner in her own mind, and probably for the better. God knows what that man was doing to her body, so maybe it was a blessing that she remained unconscious.

When Kane first appeared, it startled her because he wasn’t a figment of her memory or imagination. A striking set of hazel eyes and furrowed brows stared past her as his fingers touched her neck.

It scared her that someone could get inside the safest place—the only place—she had left. Not to mention he had his hands on her. The second time he returned, she had a surprise waiting for him. Kane may not have meant her any harm, but how could she have known that, when every time he appeared, he was touching her?

“
Caroline
,” he whispered. “That’s pretty.”

While sitting on the cold floor holding hands with a stranger, Carrie distinctly felt Kane’s beautiful eyes drinking her in. He wasn’t the sort of guy that ever gave a girl like her a second glance either. Hearing her full name roll off his tongue brought a heat to her cheeks; it was intimate, and she liked the idea of someone calling her by a name that no one else used. When the blush faded, Carrie met his riveting gaze head-on.

She hesitated. “What did he do to me?” The thought of being raped crossed her mind and terrorized her even more than the beating. “Was I… did he…”

“No,” he said in a firm voice. His dark brows slanted sharply. “It looked like he was just getting started when I found you in the trunk.”

“Good,” she said in a trembling exhale. “The last thing that I can remember is him trying to get me into the car. Then he hit me with that metal thing.” She instinctively winced.

Kane lifted his arm and tried to touch his ear before dropping their hands on his lap. “I took care of him. Look, we both know that I can’t take you to a human hospital. Give me a number of someone to call. Maybe a Relic could help, but I don’t know any. Do you?”

She shook her head. Carrie’s father had once consulted a Relic when she was a little girl and they found out about her problem, but the Relic merely stated there was nothing he could do.
It happens
.

Kane seemed keenly interested in their hands. Between their short conversations, he would look down and slightly turn them, as if contact was something that he wasn’t used to. What an odd reaction from a Sensor. Maybe he didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t feel anything from her. She was insecure about her defect, not because it mattered much to her, but because it did to everyone else. Enough that it altered her chances of having a family and children. Carrie loved life, but there were sacrifices that she had learned to accept.

Her mind drifted back to her grandma’s kitchen, a place where she’d always felt at home because Grandma was the only mother Carrie had ever known. She clung to the memories in order to stay grounded, because part of her was feeling adrift.

A strong aroma of peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies filled the air and Kane’s nose twitched again. His tongue slid out, running along his lower lip and lingering at the corner. She squeezed his hands without even realizing it and he smirked.

Kane was savagely handsome. He was the sort of man with smoldering bedroom eyes that her coworkers would have called
smoking hot
. Not a guy who needed to approach women because his aloofness and wolfish grin was all the bait he needed. Whenever he bent his arm a little, his toned bicep would flex and she stole glimpses when he wasn’t paying attention.

Carrie had never dated a man so nicely built and as sexual as Kane. Her dates were usually smart, well-dressed guys with boring office jobs. They were the kind of men who were in search of a wife, not a lover.

Compared to his warm tan, Carrie felt like an Irish albino. He encased her small hands with his large ones, and his skin was so deliciously hot. Kane’s thin, black T-shirt was a snug fit and his jeans were tattered with a few rips. The fact that she was physically attracted to the man kindled her irritation.

“Exactly how is it that you’re able to get inside my head? Mind explaining that, Mr. Houdini?”

“Only if you explain how these battle wounds are showing up on my real body,” he said, lifting his bruised knuckles.

Was he serious? That was impossible
.

“You’re only saying that to make me feel guilty. I just had a man try to murder me, so forgive me if I’m not rolling out the welcome mat.”

A red carpet rolled across the floor and she blinked it away in embarrassment.

His eye
did
look swollen, and a quick glance at his knuckles revealed a small cut. How was it possible? He could smell her grandmother’s cookies and that was only something she was thinking about. Kane’s connection was so unique that fear and excitement shared a little dance before going their separate ways.

“Kane, I want you to wake me up.”

He chewed on his lip for a second before answering. “Give me a number.”

“There is none.” She made a frustrated sound. “I don’t have any family.”

Carrie was an only child, raised by her father. He’d disappeared when she was fifteen, and after that, life had been temporary housing with other kids her age until she was old enough to find work. That’s how Sensors ran things. They had a small Council, but they only stepped in when it was their duty. Carrie enjoyed the freedom of living alone, even though she had a few sleepless nights wondering what had happened to her father.
Did he abandon her, or was he involved in something illegal?
The most difficult questions in life are always the ones without an answer.