Ignited (34 page)

Prepared to act?
Wouldn’t that include kissing, which we have already done? “You mean, more than you already have?” I couldn’t help the trace of sarcasm in my tone. It was in my nature after all.

“Yeah.” He gripped the back of his neck as he shifted uncomfortably. “I got carried away. I shouldn’t have...”

Oh, no. He regretted kissing me? It was the worst feeling in the world, the worst news I had ever received—aside from the revelation that I was a Skotadi. I wondered if he could hear my heart breaking into a million pieces. Surely, he saw the devastation on my face before I dropped my head.

“Kris?” He lifted my chin with his hand. After struggling to find the right words, he ended up saying nothing.

“I like you,” I said with a shrug, somehow managing to choke back the tears. “A lot.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “How about some time?” he finally offered. “Time for both of us to figure some things out. Because we both have a lot to figure out.”

Yeah—my feelings for two guys and his girlfriend’s return from the dead. To say that we both had some baggage was an understatement. In the wake of realizing that, all I could manage to say was a pathetic, “Yeah, I guess we do.”

“Kris?” He waited until I looked up at him before he continued, “Just because I’m not ready to act on my feelings doesn’t change how I feel about you. That’s there, and it’s not going anywhere. I just...”

“Need to think?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I get it.” And I did. We both had some thinking to do. But, like he said, the feelings weren’t going to go anywhere as we took some time figuring them out. I even managed to smile despite the dull ache in my heart. “I guess that means you’re not going to leave?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he confirmed with a chuckle.

“You know what else this means, right?”

He tilted his head. “What?”

My smile grew. “You’re going to have to work with Alec.”

Nathan closed his eyes with a groan, like he had forgotten that unfortunate detail. When he looked at me again, I saw the answer to one of my earlier questions written all over his face.

“You’re jealous!” I exclaimed. “That’s why you don’t like Alec!”

“No,” he replied automatically, paused, and then shrugged as if to say,
well, maybe a little.

I tried to mask my teasing smile, but it was hard to pull off. It was just too funny that, considering all the reasons for Nathan to dislike Alec, jealousy topped the list. “You’re going to have to get over that,” I said. “You two are going to be seeing a lot more of each other.”

“Can’t wait,” he grumbled.

As if on cue, Callie opened the front door and entered the apartment, carrying a brown bag with grease stains on the bottom. Alec followed with four cups of steaming hot coffee. Nathan stepped back and helped me down from my perch on the railing before either of them saw us. He started for the door, and then turned back to me.

“You’re sure about this?” he asked.

Through the window, I watched as Alec scanned the empty apartment, and met his eyes when they eventually shifted to the porch. “I’m positive,” I said.

Nathan gave an only slightly reluctant nod—I considered that an improvement—and opened the door for me to enter ahead of him. Alec’s eyes were glued on me as we approached, like he somehow knew what had transpired between Nathan and me on the porch. I started to smile encouragingly—or maybe it was apologetically—when I heard Nathan address Alec from behind me.

“You’re here to help?” he asked, voice clipped.

Alec never took his eyes from mine as he nodded his answer to Nathan.

“I’m going to be keeping an eye on you,” Nathan warned.

Finally, Alec shifted his attention to Nathan. “Likewise.”

I groaned. “Alright, enough. You guys don’t like each other. I get it. But I trust you both.” I gave them each a stern glare, ending with Nathan. “So deal with it.”

Alec shrugged at the same time Nathan mumbled, “Okay.”

They acted like a couple of kids that I had just scolded for fighting on the playground. I nearly laughed, but held it back, not wanting to give them the impression that their behavior was acceptable. There was a stretch of silence as I let them both sulk that was eventually broken by Callie’s voice of reason.

“Don’t want to be a downer in the midst of this beautiful bonding moment, but does anyone have a plan?”

Another quiet stretch followed before Nathan spoke up. “I think determining what happened to Lillian is key. I’m sure she’s not the only one they turned. Somebody knows something. We just have to find them.”

Alec nodded thoughtfully, surprisingly in agreement. “I know where a few of the higher-up Skotadi can be found. We can get them alone and use our powers of persuasion to get the information we need.” A slow grin spread on his face. “I think I’m going to like this part.”

“We’re going to find and torture Skotadi for information?” I felt sick. Not at the thought of torture, but at the improbability of this plan. It wasn’t a very good one. It also sounded dangerous.

Unexpectedly, Nathan was the one to side with Alec. “We’ve got to start somewhere.”

“And I’m going to do what I can to help,” Callie volunteered.

“We’ll find a way,” Nathan added with far more confidence than I felt.

I looked back and forth between the guys—the two that I have put all of my trust in, the two that shared the same treasured spot in my heart, and the two that I knew would not let me down. No matter how impossible their plan was.

At least they agreed on it.

And, well, I was just glad they weren’t trying to kill each other. Because even if they were natural enemies, hated each other with a passion, and would butt heads every step of the way, there were no two other people on earth I would rather have by my side through what awaited me.

I had a feeling we were in for one hell of an uphill battle. One that there was a good chance wouldn’t work, or that would get us all killed. But, then, what else was new?

That was the life I now knew.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

It was a clear night, and the moon was full, providing Callie and I with enough light to see our surroundings. Unfortunately, it also meant others could see us, where we leaned against the side of our rusty old Tahoe, which was parked in the driveway of a sprawling ranch home in a quiet neighborhood.

Every time we did this, I was nervous. Tonight, more so than usual. The moon was to blame. I preferred to be unseen.

“Is it just me, or are they taking longer than usual?” Callie mused from beside me.

“Definitely longer,” I agreed.

“Think they’re okay?”

I lifted the walky-talky in my hand. It had been a good twenty minutes since they’d reported that they had found their target and were beginning the interrogation. 

Interrogation
. That was what they called it, however, I imagined something far more ominous unfolding inside the house. Even though they were taking longer with this one—their third Skotadi hijacking—I had all the confidence in the world that they were okay. Actually, they were probably rather enjoying themselves.

Despite their strained and reluctant partnership, I was surprised by how well Alec and Nathan worked together. It was kind of scary, really, how similar they were when it came to making decisions and executing them. And, even if they have yet to uncover any significant intel, I had faith that they would. Eventually.

Maybe even tonight? Maybe that was why they were taking longer—maybe they were on to something?

“They’re fine,” I told Callie.

She sighed loudly, clearly not seeing the potential positives that might come from them taking longer. “So,” she said conversationally, “anything new in the dream department?”

After we had fled Alec’s apartment three weeks ago, I had made the decision to not keep anything from Callie again. She knew everything—from my long history with Nathan, to what I have discovered about myself and what I was, and even the strange dreams I have yet to decipher.

“Still the same,” I told her.

The boy in white had returned to my dreams on a nightly basis, which I took to mean that he was no longer on the run from the Skotadi. Every night, the black void between us got smaller, I got closer to seeing his face, and the voice inside the dream got louder and clearer. It was him, I now knew, and he needed to tell me something.

Whatever it was began with an ‘S’ and sounded like the name of a person or a place. That was all I had so far, but every night, I was getting closer to understanding it, and was growing more and more hopeful.

Because, even if he was supposed to be my enemy, I knew that was not the case. If anything, I got a sense of security from him, like he was a friend, an ally. I realized how crazy that sounded, but I knew it to be true. Though I didn’t yet understand how, I knew that he was a vital piece of the puzzle. 

Or I was just that gullible.

“You say anything to Nathan about them yet?” Callie asked me.

“Tell him that I’m having dreams about another guy? Uh, no. He’s already weird enough as it is.”

While Alec was not shy about voicing his feelings, Nathan was sticking to his decision to not act on his. Since that kiss on the porch, he has kept his distance, thoroughly frustrating me in the process. I didn’t think that telling him about the boy in white would help my cause.

“It’s probably just being around Alec,” Callie offered.

“And let’s not forget the part about me going crazy and turning evil,” I added. Making light of my doomed fate was the only way I knew how to deal with it.

Even though my uncertain future worried Callie, she went along with my desire to not dwell on it. “That is quite the mood breaker,” she laughed along with me, and then sobered. “But seriously, I’ve seen the way Nathan looks at you.”

Her tone grabbed my full attention and I turned to look at her expectantly.

“He’s crazy about you.”

Even if only briefly, her words made me smile.

“And we all know Alec is,” she continued with a giggle.

“It’s not funny, Callie,” I scolded. Really, being stuck between two guys sucked. I sure wasn’t enjoying it. Not like Callie was.

“It’s a little funny,” she insisted.

The look I gave Callie effectively communicated my desire to be done with this conversation. The smile on Callie’s face faded and she turned away from me, to observe the house once again.

“So,” she began slowly, drawing the word out, “should we interrupt their fun, or what?”

I eyed the house reluctantly. Going in there was not something I really wanted to do. Some things—like what they did to convince the Skotadi to dish on top secret information—were better left unknown. But then, the shadows on the street were growing darker and closer the longer Callie and I stood there.

I didn’t want to run the risk of anyone spotting us either.

I brought the walky-talky to my mouth. “Hey, guys?” I spoke into it, and waited.

And waited. Long enough that my stomach started to feel hollow with concern. Callie met my eyes, and I saw that she felt it too.

Maybe they weren’t okay after all.

“Everything okay in there?” I called into the speaker, and was answered by silence on the other end.

“Maybe they’re on another channel,” Callie suggested softly.

“Maybe,” I said, though I doubted it. We had set the channels before they went in. I handed the walky-talky to Callie. “I’m going to go find them.”

Callie’s eyes swept nervously up and down the dark street.

“Will you be okay for a few minutes?” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she said. “Just hurry back with the guys so we can get the hell out of here.”

I nodded in agreement before starting across the yard, in the direction of the front door. I was about half way there when a static voice called out behind me, “Roger. Copy that. Mission complete. On our way out. Over.”

Alec. Being Alec. He loved playing on the walky-talkies. I turned and flashed Callie a smile as she returned, “Hurry the hell up. Over.”

About that time, the guys emerged from the house, looking disheveled, but unharmed. Actually, they seemed in good spirits, and I swore I saw a smile on Nathan’s face. Either he was laughing at Alec joking around—and I highly doubted that—or they had found something worth smiling about.

My pulse jumped, but I held it in check. The inevitable disappointment hurt so much more when I got my hopes up.

But this time, something
was
different.

Nathan looked at me and my stomach flip-flopped like it did every time I met his eyes, but then, he gave me something else to be excited about.

“We got the name of a town,” he said after he had drawn close enough for me to hear. “Supposedly, there’s a warehouse there that the Skotadi have been working out of and experimenting on changing Kala for years.”