Find Me in Darkness (2 page)

I let go of his arm, even as his expression crumbles. “God, Jay,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I manage a wobbly smile. “It’s just an expression.”

We both know that’s not true, though. Not for me.

As my best friend since second grade, Brayden is one of the few people who knows how bad it was for me as a kid growing up with a certifiably insane mother, and how much worse it got when I was seventeen and she checked out completely by slicing her own throat with a kitchen knife, leaving me numb and my already invisible father a lost shell of himself.

More than that, Brayden is one of the few people who knows that I’m terrified that I’ll go down that dark path just like she did.

He twines his fingers with mine and squeezes. “Of course I’ll buy you a drink.” His voice is gentle, but not overly so, which I appreciate. “Come on. Let’s get a taxi back to my place. There’s a bar just a few doors down, and I’ve got a thing for one of the waitresses. You can use your feminine intuition and tell me if she’s into me.”

“If you can’t tell, that means she’s not into you.”

“Probably,” he says. “But I’m practicing optimism.”

I cock my head. “How’s that going for you?”

“Ask me after we see how I do with the waitress.”

I shoulder butt him, my mood improving by the second. “What are you doing dating, anyway? I thought med students spent all their time hunched over cadavers or textbooks. Except, of course, on the day when their best friend arrives in town.”

“I never said I wanted to date her.” His grin is wicked. “Some people work out by lifting weights. I have other methods.”

“Hound dog,” I say, but with a laugh.

“True that.” He steps into the street and expertly hails a taxi. “And there are aerobic benefits, too. Give it a try. If you can’t find a pilates class you like, you can just pick up a guy.”

He hops into the taxi that has pulled up beside us before I have time to think of a snappy comeback. I follow, remembering how much I’ve missed him. Brayden and I have never frolicked between the sheets, and that’s fine with me. He’s my best friend, and I’m not interested in him joining the ranks of guys I close myself off from.

Because unlike Brayden, who can fuck around and somehow manage to keep all those women on his Christmas card list, I burn bridges. I go out, maybe even go to bed. Maybe even lather, rinse, repeat. But I don’t get involved.

I told Brayden once that I’d gotten my heart broken too many times, but that is one of the few lies I’ve ever told him. The truth is, I’ve never gotten my heart broken because I never let my heart get engaged. My fear isn’t that it’s going to get broken again, but that it’ll get broken in the first place.

I learned a long time ago that I can’t get close to people. Even people who love you are primed to hurt you. Maybe because that’s just what people do. Or maybe they’ll get close enough to see a hint of the crazy inside me. Either way, people aren’t the kind of risk I take. If I’m going to have big emotional moments, I’ll have them on stage and through someone else’s eyes.

Brayden’s an exception, and that’s only because he snuck into my life when I was too young to know better. Honestly, I’m glad he did. Intellectually, I know I should open up more to the world. Emotionally, I figure so long as I’ve got Brayden then I can skate a little bit longer before the cracks in my thin emotional ice finally give way.

“You know how much I appreciate this, right?” I say to him now, overcome with warm and fuzzy feelings.

“The drinks? Thank me if you want, but even with you fainting all over the city, I wasn’t hard to convince.”

“I’m talking about the whole thing. Letting me stay with you until I get a real job, subsidizing the groceries since my contribution would be pretty much limited to ramen. The whole shebang.”

“I like ramen. And you do have a real job. Playing Juliet at Story Street is huge.”

“Too bad the salary’s not.” The money really does suck. But being cast in a Story Street production is an amazing opportunity. The theater is equity-waiver and so off, off Broadway that it’s in Brooklyn, but it’s gained a reputation over the last five years for putting on high quality shows. And a pretty decent percentage of the actors who cross its stage have gone on to the bright lights of actual Broadway productions.

And that, of course, is my dream. Because the only time I truly feel like myself is when I’m on stage playing a character.

It’s a short drive, and soon enough Bray leans forward to tell the cabbie where to pull over. As soon as we’re out of the taxi, I glance around and am proud of myself for recognizing Brayden’s block. We’re not going to his building, though, but to a small bar with a sandwich board in front advertising five dollar well drinks and half-price appetizers until closing.

I grin. I may be mooching off my best friend, but even I can afford to buy us a couple of drinks tonight.

I’m about to tell him as much, when I see a tall woman step out from the shadows just past the bar. She has a dancer’s body and long blonde hair. I’m certain I’ve never seen her before, and yet there is something familiar about her.

I pause, trying to figure it out, and as I do, a car passes. Its headlights must hit her at an odd angle, because in that moment it looks as though her face is made entirely out of flame—and the illusion turns my blood to ice.

“Jay?”

I realize that I’ve frozen in place. “Sorry. I’m more tired than I thought.” I hope that’s true. Because right then I feel like I did on the plane, when my entire body had lurched as if I’d been punched in the gut. The ground rose up to meet me, and something seemed to be pulling me out of myself. In that moment, I felt as though I was being yanked through a hole in space, molecule by molecule by molecule. And then, dammit, it had seemed as if my whole body exploded.

It wasn’t a nice feeling and not one that I’m keen on repeating, and so I shake myself firmly, then glance back to where I’d seen her only moments before. But no one is there now.

I feel beads of sweat pop along the nape of my neck, and suddenly I want nothing more than to be inside, safe in Brayden’s apartment. “Can we skip the drink after all? Maybe have something at your place and put in a movie? I’m just—”

“Tired.”

“Yes.” I latch gratefully onto the excuse.

“No prob. I’ve got all sorts of mindless crap we can watch. Or you can just crash. Won’t hurt my feelings.” He points ahead, more or less in the direction where I’d seen the flaming female. “I’m just three doors down.”

“Great.” I take his hand, feeling stupid for being scared of what had surely been nothing more than a trick of the light. But then something dark and gray shoots past us and I jump about a mile.

“Just a cat,” Bray says. “In fact, I think it’s Roger.”

“Roger?”

“My neighbor’s spoiled ball of fluff. She’s a sweet old lady with a ground floor flat in the building next to mine. It has a tiny patio, and she insists on letting Roger go out there even though she freaks out every time he scales the wall. Hang on.” He pulls out his phone and uses it as a flashlight, shining it into the small service alley between the bar and the next building over. “Hey, Roger,” he says gently. “Come on, buddy.”

“It’s him?” I’m crouched behind him, my hand resting on his back.

“Yeah. Let me see if I can get him. We’ll call it my good deed for the year.”

The alley is about as wide as a car, and as I follow him past a collection of rather pungent smelling garbage cans, we pass a heavy door that I assume opens to the bar’s kitchen. A single bulb above the door emits a dim light that ostensibly illuminates the alley, but really only makes the shadows deeper.

I hear a rustling behind me and turn, expecting to find Roger. Instead, it’s the flame lady.

The first thing I notice is that her face looks normal.

The second thing is the knife in her hand.

I scream and stumble backward even as the big gray blob of a cat launches itself from the top of a trashcan and connects with her face.

The knife goes flying, but that doesn’t deter the woman, whose fingers close around my upper arm.

In that freakish trick of time, everything seems to slow and the world is suddenly more clear than it has ever been.

I feel the pressure of her fingers.

I see the cat hissing from behind a plastic crate.

I hear Brayden calling my name.

And I see a strange, colorful blade of light slice sideways from behind the woman, neatly lopping off her head to reveal the tall, dark, god of a warrior wielding a sword behind her.

What the fuck
?

Some part of me thinks that I have snapped. That whatever bit of crazy I have inherited from my mother has battled its way to the surface and is all set to drag me back under.

Except I don’t believe that. This doesn’t feel like crazy—which is a ridiculous rationalization, when you get right down to it. I mean, if you are losing your mind, chances are you believe that you’re perfectly sane.

Even so, I am not worried about my sanity. And, frankly, I don’t have time to be concerned about my
laissez-faire
attitude toward these strange goings-on. Time has snapped back into place, and there is a body falling to the ground, and Brayden has my hand and he is yanking me toward the back of the alley where, presumably, there is another way out.

We don’t even make it one step.

The warrior holds up a hand, and the air seems suddenly charged. It rolls toward us in waves, its force knocking us both backward. Me against the brick wall and Braydon to the ground. I see him hit his head, and I cry out, afraid he’s been knocked unconscious, but the air is so thick that the sound can’t even travel.

Then the wave dissipates and I’m left gasping as the warrior approaches me, that strange, sword-like weapon tight in his hand.

I tilt my head back, breathing hard.

I realize with some surprise that I’m not scared. On the contrary, everything seems oddly familiar. Like
deja vu
on steroids.

And in that moment, I am certain that the fierce looking warrior with the sad gray eyes is going to kill me. More than that, I’m certain that he has killed me before, which really makes no sense whatsoever.

I open my mouth to beg him to stop, but that is not the word that comes out.

Instead, I hear myself saying, “Malcolm?”

‡

M
alcolm.

I don’t know how, but I am certain that is the man’s name.

More than that, I am certain that he entered this alley tonight intending to kill me.

I know it the same way that I know that the weapon he still has pressed against my neck is called a fire sword.

How
I know all that, though, is a mystery, and not one that I need to be solving at the moment.

Right now, I just need to stay alive.

“Mal,” I say as my heart pounds wildly. “Please.”

I force myself to stand straight. To face him.

He is taller than me, well over six feet with hair as dark as midnight and gray eyes that glint like silver in the dim light.

Right now, there is heat in those eyes. And something else that I think might be regret.

Other than his eyes, this man is stone, his face chiseled perfection, all hard lines and angles softened only slightly by the dark shadow of beard stubble. My first impression had been of a warrior god, and I’d been right. This is a man who knows power. Who knows control.

This is a man who will do what he wants, take what he wants.

And yet for some inexplicable reason, I am not afraid.

As if in acknowledgment of that perplexing realization, he lowers the blade.

This is my chance
.

I should scream. I should run.

And yet I do neither of those things. I just stand there, feeling a bit like I had on the airplane, as if I’m being drawn atom by atom from one reality into another.

“Do you know your name?” There is a tightness in his voice, as if my answer is the most important thing in the world.

“Of course I do.”
It’s Jaynie
, I think. But that is not what I say. Because that is not my name. Not here. Not with this man. “I’m Christina.”

The sword clatters to the ground as a shudder runs through him.

Once again, I think that I should run. Once again, I don’t.

Instead I stand there, watching the riot of emotion play across his face. Astonishment. Relief.
Fear?

And then those emotions are swept away, replaced by a sensual hunger so powerful that it makes my skin tingle in both anticipation and awareness.

“Christina.” He says my name sweetly, as if it is a prayer, then clutches my arm and pulls me to him.

I gasp. There’s nothing sweet now. This is hard and hot. This is power and demand and the insisting press of his body against mine.

One of his hands finds the small of my back, sliding beneath the thin material of my T-shirt to find the bare skin above the waistband of my skirt.

The touch is electric, and sparks of awareness ricochet through me, like a supernova in my soul. I don’t understand what is happening. All I know is that I want this. That I need it.