Dark Creations: Dark Ending (Part 6) (19 page)

Blinding, white-hot pain rocketed through his manhood in agonizing waves.  But when they ended, Terzini no longer saw an attractive object of lust before him. 
He saw a target.

She had made it halfway to the door when he dove at her and grabbed her ankle.  His act threw her off balance and she fell to the floor.  He pulled her, dragging her closer to him as a swell of wrath and adrenaline aided his strength.  In one swift motion, he jerked her entire body beside him.  He immediately straddled her with one of his legs on either side of her hips, careful to pin her hands beneath them.  She squirmed and struggled, but he would not allow his desire for her to divert him, not anymore.  He no longer desired her. 

She narrowed her eyes at him and he felt the feeble dam that held his wrath at bay break.  He raised his hand high and brought it crashing against the side of her head.  He hit her again and again.  Blood poured from her nose and her lip had been split.  But he did not stop.  She sobbed pathetically, begging in a garbled voice for mercy.  Little did she know, he knew of no such word.  He was devoid of mercy.  He continued to beat her, openhanded and with his fist, only stopping when he’d exhausted himself. 

With sweat dripping from his brow and streaming down his back, he climbed from her.  She lay still and he wondered whether life had escaped her.  He pressed his index and middle finger to the side of her neck and felt for her pulse.  A faint throb beat beneath his fingertips, proof positive that she lived, for now. 

He turned to leave her, enervated, when a faint whisper caused him to spin.

“Gabriel will kill you for this,” she murmured between swollen, bloodied lips.

Her words should have borne the weight of frothy wisps billowing in a breeze, but they raced across his skin like spindly spider legs.  Terzini snorted and forced a laugh he did not feel then turned on his heels and left her there. 

As he marched back down the hall toward his private quarters, thunder boomed and sounded like a cannon blast.  He jumped and felt the fine hairs on his body rise and quiver.  For reasons he could not explain, Lord Franklin Terzini no longer felt as confident as he had earlier.

Chapter 15

Kyle sat silently in the passenger seat of the
car.  With his arms folded across his chest and his brow furrowed, he looked much older than his eighteen years.  Amber stole glimpses of him at every chance that presented itself, but they were few and far between.  The storm had settled over the area and she needed to keep her eyes on the road ahead of her. 

Veins of lightning pulsed through the night sky and growls of thunder shook the earth. 
The heavens hemorrhaged fat, windswept raindrops that bled against the windshield, pelting and drumming against it like a fitful heartbeat.  The windshield wipers struggled to clear the flow, but Amber did not allow the weather to slow her pace.  She hastened their speed, in fact, and tested the engine of Jack’s sports car as she made her way through county after county, driving directly into the blackened soul of the storm. 

She passed a slow-moving car in their lane, whizzing past it against a set of solid, yellow lines again and drew a comment from Kyle.

“Oh God,” he muttered and she barely heard him over the pounding rain.  “You’re going to get us killed.”

She assumed he was referring to the fact that she continued to exceed the speed limits posted and
wondered why he had not adjusted to it yet, why he did not trust her still.  She was a skilled and competent driver, yet he continued to worry. 

“We’ll be in Manhattan before you know it.  Just a
little while,” she said with optimism and ignored his comment. 

“Is that even pos
sible?” he asked and turned to face her.  She wanted nothing more than to turn her body toward him, to stare into his eyes.  She knew it would be too dark to see the kaleidoscope of earthy colors there, but had memorized them.  She would be content to rely on her memory.  “Well, I suppose with how fast you’re driving it’s possible,” he added.

“All right, enough with the smartass remarks, okay?  I’m a good driver and you need to trust me.  You are lucky I am behind the wheel.”

“Lucky?” he asked and his voice pitched up an octave.  “Are you kidding me?” his hand grazed her shoulder as he gestured to punctuate his point and his voice returned to normal.  Amber felt her pulse rate spike.  “So far, you nearly got us killed once.  Remember the pickup truck from earlier?” he jogged her mind.  “Then we saw a woman whose face had been beaten to a pulp just a little while ago, and did I forget to mention that we’re trailing a maniac tapped to deliver a plague that will kill off humanity?”

“You forgot the part about me not wanting you to come in the first place,” she replied and watched in horror as his sly smile collapsed.  She wished she could rewind time and unsay what she’d said, wished she could tell him, instead, that she wanted to keep him safe, that she’d never wanted him to see the pickup truck narrowly miss the front of the car, or the woman with the caved in face.  She did not want any of this for him, any of the jumbled mess of her sad excuse of a life to
affect him.  But it had.  And now her words had made it worse.  She wanted to go back in time and make it right.  She knew such a phenomenon was not possible, but would do just about anything to return his features to the way they’d been.  “Kyle, I’m sorry,” she said and hated herself for blurting what she had.  “That’s not what I meant to say,” she started but he interrupted her.

“Yeah, whatever,” he huffed and turned away from her.  “I get it.  You didn’t want me here.”

“No, Kyle, that’s not what I meant,” she pleaded.

“But that is what you said,” he snapped and leveled her with his gaze.

“I know that’s what I said, and I did not mean it like that.  It’s just that, well,” she fumbled.

“Well what?” he pushed her.

“I was worried about you, okay!  I didn’t want anything to happen to you.  I did not want you to come because I wanted you to be safe and as far from this madness as possible.”

Kyle watched her again.  She did not turn to look at him, did not trust that the darkness of night would conceal the scarlet glow undoubtedly touching her cheeks and neck, but felt his eyes on her.  She could feel the weight of his gaze penetrating her defenses. 

“You were worried about me?” he asked softly, his voice nearly lost on the wind and rain whipping the car.

“Yes, I was, and am,” she admitted.

“Oh,” he said and lowered his voice.  Her heart plummeted along with it.  He sounded disappointed to hear of her concern.  Hurt combined with embarrassment and made her shoulders sag.  “Look, Amber, if you’re worried about my safety, the least you could do is ease up on the gas pedal a bit, and maybe, I don’t know, try to obey the basic laws of the road,” he said sheepishly then covered his face with his forearms dramatically and said, “Please don’t be mad!  I know you have a need for speed.”  He peeked from behind his arms and smiled broadly.

“Ha, ha,” she said and made every effort to sound
humorless.  “Very funny,” she allowed herself a thin smile.  “Your comment has been noted.  And for the record, laws are not an issue at the moment.  This police scanner of Jack’s is a lifesaver,” she said and pointed to the portable radar detector mounted on the dashboard. 

“Yeah, I can see why it would be for you,” Kyle said and rolled his eyes exaggeratedly.  Amber smacked his arm playfully.  “Hey, two hands on the wheel, girl!”

He gently guided her hand back to the steering wheel and when he did, his fingertips slid down the exposed skin of her arm to her hand.  His touch was warm and pleasant and sent shivers racing across her flesh.  She was so taken by the feel of it that she only glanced at the roadside truck stop they’d just passed.  She’d almost missed the cargo van tucked neatly between two eighteen-wheelers. 

Amber stomped down hard on the brake pedal and caused the Mustang
to protest, skidding before gaining traction and stopping.

“What the hell, Amber!  What’re you doing?” Kyle exclaimed. 

She did not answer Kyle.  Rather, she slammed the gearshift into reverse and began driving backward on the highway.

“
Oh my God,” Kyle cried.  “Now you’re driving in reverse on the highway!”

“Just hold on,” Amber told him calmly as she directed the car up the onramp leading from the truck stop to the highway.

“Ahhh!” Kyle shouted most of the way, and while she would have appreciated silence over his yelling, she did not say a word to shush him, not after before.  Instead, she tuned him out and backed effortlessly into a parking spot in front of a restaurant with a flashing neon sign.

“Are we dead?” Kyle asked and
Amber noticed that his head dangled between his knees.

“Nope,” she replied casually.  “Not dead, not yet, at least,” she added and offered him a half smile. 

Kyle raised his head and quirked a brow at her before half his mouth curved into a small smile.  He turned in his seat and saw the blinking sign.  “You must be
really
hungry,” he said when he turned back to her.

Amber shot him the sternest look of disapproval she could muster and watched as he cradled his head in his hands.  Then she said, “Hardly” before she set about looking all around her, scanning the parking lot for the cargo van she’d caught sight of seconds earlier.  Trucks in every color lined the parking spaces.  Trucks and more trucks were further than the eye could see.  She was about to question her vision, and perhaps her sanity, when a light colored van jumped out at her.  “There!” she called out and Kyle’s head rocketed up.

“What?  What’s there?” he asked.  Tufts of hair stood up on end and looked fashionably mussed rather than ridiculous. 

“Your
hair looks so cute,” she slipped and said, her mouth speaking ahead of her brain.  She lowered her eyes to her lap immediately after stealing a glance at Kyle.  He pursed his lips to one side embarrassedly.  “Uh, the van” she said and refused to make eye contact with him.  “The van we’re looking for is here.”

“The van is here?” he asked excitedly.  “Holy shit!  We did it!  What are we waiting for?  Let’s take it and get the hell out of here!”

“It’s not that simple,” she said and hated to get in the way of his excitement.  But the truth of the matter was that they could not simply break into the van and take off.  “The van is rigged.  It’s got to be.  And I don’t want to risk releasing the virus.  We have to get Arnold first.”

“So this Arnold, he is just going to hand over the keys and let us in?” Kyle asked warily.

“No.  As I told you before we left, I will kill him then we will let ourselves in.”

She waited for the gravity of her words to settle over Kyle.  He’d been told of her plan before they’d left, had gone along with her with full knowledge of what would come if or when they found Arnold.  But now that they had, in fact, found Arnold, she wondered whether the actuality of their circumstances was weighing on him.  She realized she’d been holding her breath when Kyle spoke and broke the silence.

“Does Arnold know what you look like?” Kyle began but before she could answer, he touched his hand to his head and said, “What the hell am I even saying?  Regardless of whether he’s seen you before, he’s going to notice you the second you walk in the door.  No one is as pretty as,” he did not finish his sentence and Amber felt warmth swirl in her belly and branch to her limbs in waves.  She wished he would have finished his sentence.  She would have loved to hear him say what she thought he was going to say. 

Either way, her cheeks blazed as she
leaned across him to the glove compartment.  There, she found a pair of prescription glasses she assumed were for driving and belonged to Jack.  She put them on and gathered her long, blonde hair up and fashioned it into a topknot.

“Glasses and a bun,” Kyle raised his brows and nodded.  “Now y
ou’re hideous.”  He chuckled.  She reached out her hand and tapped his arm playfully. 

“Let’s go,” she shook her head and said.  “He should stick out like a sore thumb,” she added and referred to Arnold.

“Why?  Does he look like a model, too?” Kyle asked and she detected a hint of jealousy in his tone, though she did not know why he would be jealous of a man she intended to kill.

“Probably,” she replied offhandedly of her maker’s penchant for physical perfection.  “
That will make it easy to pick him out.”

“Yeah, I’m sure there aren’t that many handsome truckers hanging out at this diner at three in the morning, none that look like models, at least,” Kyle said with that same trace of envy lacing his words.  “So will you be able to do it?” he asked casually as he walked beside her.

“Do what?” she asked and wondered what the hell he was talking about.

“You know, kill him,” he said.  “Will you be able to kill Mr. Good-looking?”

She stopped walking and spun to face him.  “You’re kidding me, right?” she asked heatedly.  “Arnold is an emotionless creation of Terzini’s who was designed to deliver a virus that will wipe out the human species, and you’re asking me if I’ll be able to kill him?”

Kyle shifted his weight uncomfortably from one leg to the next.  “Well, when you put
it like that then no, I’m not,” he said and pressed his lips together in a way she found irresistibly charming.