Soul Thief (Dark Souls) (9 page)

Adrian didn’t show up at Reach the next day, or the day after that. By the third day, Angie was ready to crawl out of her skin. She sat behind one of the desks in the hotline room, staring at the unnaturally quiet phone, listening to her heart break.

The inexplicable sense of loss that gripped her, the desperation she felt deep in her gut to see Adrian’s face one more time, made absolutely no sense. The man was a stranger, just another volunteer. How many people had she known who’d quit after a single day of work at Reach? Adrian’s absence was nothing new, nothing surprising.

Why then did she feel she’d just lost something immeasurably valuable? And she wasn’t just talking about the key to her memories. It was as if a chunk of her soul had been ripped from her chest. Based on the way she was brooding, one would think she’d lost the love of her life or something, which was impossible. A woman didn’t fall in love with a man she’d only known a day. Did she?

Sure, she’d heard of love at first sight but—as romantic as the concept was—she’d never really believed in it. Love wasn’t a bolt of lightning. It was something that grew from a seed of attraction, a bud that needed to be nurtured in order to bloom. And yet here she was, completely flattened by emotions she was helpless to understand.

The shrill ring of the phone rescued her from her contemplative misery. She grabbed the receiver and brought it to her ear. “Reach hotline.”

“You didn’t keep your promise.” The voice on the other end of the line was familiar.

“Excuse me?”

“You told me you’d help my brother, but he’s still sleeping in the subway, curled up in a dark corner like a rat.”

Recollection sparked to life in her mind. “The Green Line, corner of Lexington and 59th Street. You’re Max, right?”

“That’s right. You were supposed to bring my kid brother to that halfway house of yours. I’ve gone to see Ricky, talked to him, but he won’t listen to reason. He ain’t never coming back home. He and my old man, they don’t really see eye to eye. You’re the only hope he’s got.”

She remembered heading to the subway station a few nights ago, searching for the boy. But after that, her memory grew fuzzy. “I didn’t find him.”

“He’s there. Even after the beating the place took. Saw him just last night. I told him about Reach, but he just blew me off.”

“And what makes you think I’ll have better luck?”

The line went silent for several beats. “Because you’ve got no history with him. He’s got no reason to be pigheaded with you. And because you’ve got this way about you. I can hear it in your voice. You always know the right thing to say.”

Angie was flattered, though she had a hard time accepting there was anything special about her. Half the time, she didn’t know if she was coming or going, now more than ever. “I’ll give it another shot. Tonight,” she promised. “If Ricky’s there, I’ll find him.”

Chapter Fourteen

The subway station at Lexington and 59th Street was closed for repairs, following some kind of freak accident. Squeezing past the signs warning passengers to stay out, Angie stepped onto the deserted platform.

Weak, artificial lighting flickered from the tubes overhead, casting a sickly yellow glow throughout the station and making the sight that greeted her all the more surreal. The place looked like it had been struck by a tornado. The platform was a mess. Wooden benches had been reduced to piles of splinters. Unsightly cracks marred the dirty gray-beige tiles. Several metal columns were bent at strange angles, while others had collapsed altogether.

She weaved her way through the debris, fighting an inexplicable onslaught of chills. The image of a flying subway car painted an ugly blur across the blank canvas of her memory. A runaway train could most definitely cause the kind of damage she was witnessing here, which meant there could be more to her flashbacks than she believed.

Buried in a pile of dust, half concealed beneath a handful of wooden fragments, a familiar piece of paper caught her eye. Angie fell on her haunches and yanked it out. As she’d suspected, it was one of her Reach brochures. She rubbed the crumpled paper between her fingers, remembered it slipping from her grasp as Adrian swept her off her feet, seconds before he jumped onto the roof of a passing train.

Insanity. The things she was recalling simply couldn’t be true. A person didn’t just hop onto a train that was hurtling forward at a speed of forty-five miles an hour. And said train didn’t just fly off the tracks to flatten everything in its path.

“What are you doing here?” Adrian’s voice cut through the clutter of her thoughts and jolted her back to reality. An irrational thread of excitement unraveled within her.

Crumpling the brochure and tossing it back where she’d found it, Angie stood and pivoted on her heels. Her shoulders stiffened at the unexpected sight of him even as everything inside her grew hot and molten. “Maybe I should be asking you that question.” She took a hesitant step toward him, then another. When she was close enough to touch him she gazed up at his impossibly beautiful face. “Who are you, Adrian? Really?”

His marble features gave nothing away. He gripped her by the arm and briskly directed her toward the stairwell. “You should go.”

A crazy sense of déjà vu swamped her.

“Hurry. Get as far away from this place as you can.”

“We’ve been here before,” she realized. “We stood in this very spot, and you ordered me to leave. But I came back.”

He made a valiant effort to keep his expression blank, but Angie saw the spidery cracks in his stone armor. “It isn’t safe for you here,” he told her. “The structure has been damaged. The ceiling could cave in at any minute.”

“I’m not leaving until I find the boy.”

“What boy?”

“A runaway. He’s living in the subway station. That’s why I came here the other night, to find him. But then, for some strange reason, I forgot all about him. You wouldn’t by any chance have any idea how that happened?”

A dark scowl, followed by a shrug. “Is there a reason I should?”

She pinned him with a dubious gaze. “You tell me.”

“If I help you find this kid,” he said, changing the subject, “will you promise to leave this place and never come back?”

“That depends.” Growing bold, she squeezed in closer. The air rippled between them as the gap separating their bodies narrowed. Heat spilled off him, warming her skin. The power he exuded was a tangible thing, dark and seductive, caressing her even as it threatened to draw her in so deep she’d never escape.

“On what?” His voice had the quality of burnt honey, sweet and thick and sultry.

“How persuasive you can be.”

A wicked glint came into his eyes. “Oh, I can be very persuasive.” He placed his finger beneath her chin and angled her face toward his.

He’s going to kiss me.

A pleasant thrill lurched through her veins. Her pulse tripped and crashed. She exhaled in short, eager puffs. His head fell forward with excruciating slowness, each small movement making her lips ache with painful anticipation.

His hot, soft mouth brushed hers, and a current of pure energy lanced through her. Her entire body came alive, her pores tingling, her heart ballooning in her chest until she couldn’t breathe. A drugging haze began to descend over her, urging her to surrender.

Angie jolted back, ending the kiss before it truly began, desperate to protect what little memories she had left. “That’s how you did it.” Anger and disbelief cooled the fire in her blood. “That’s how you wiped my mind clean. With a kiss. I remember now.”

Something flickered in his gaze. It looked oddly like guilt. “Listen to yourself, Angie. How could I possibly do that?”

He was trying to shake her confidence, to convince her she was bat-shit crazy. Well, it wouldn’t work. She knew the answer to the question he’d asked her was buried somewhere deep within her consciousness. She just had a little trouble accessing it at the moment.

Adrian suddenly looked behind him, pulling her protectively against his side. “Someone’s here.”

Footsteps echoed in the distance, and Angie tensed. Latent memories unfurled in her mind again—the thunderous boom of a gunshot, a creature with eyes the color of blue ice, an old theater…

A look of deep concentration claimed Adrian’s features. “Come on. I think I found your runaway.”

She followed him across the platform, past the escalators, to a bench that had been hidden from her view by the pile of debris. A tattered old blanket lay in a heap on the floor, next to several discarded wrappers and empty soda cans. A few feet ahead, a teenage boy was making a run for it.

“Stop,” Adrian ordered. To Angie’s surprise, the kid instantly complied.

She approached the runaway, who seemed riveted to the ground by some invisible force. He wore a torn pair of jeans, a faded black T-shirt and a gray fleece jacket that had seen better days. He had a short crop of black hair and his skin was the rich color of caramel. “Are you Ricky?”

He gave her a belligerent shrug. “Who wants to know?”

“My name’s Angie. Your brother, Max, told me I could find you here.”

Defiance flared in his dark brown gaze. “Max has a big mouth.”

“He’s worried about you. It isn’t safe for you to be sleeping here.”

The kid buried his thumbs in his back pockets, slouching. “It’s a hell of a lot safer than where I came from.”

“Come with me.” Compassion softened her voice. “I’ll bring you somewhere better. I promise.” She reached her hand out to him, waited for him to take it, but he didn’t.

“I ain’t going nowhere with you, lady. I like it here just fine. As for Max, tell him to mind his own fucking business.”

“Enough.” Adrian’s command pierced the silence like a bullet. “You’re going to drop the attitude and come with us, now.”

Ricky’s expression glazed over. “Sure. Whatever you say.” He hastened back to the bench, where he gathered his meager possessions. “I’m ready.”

Angie gave Adrian a look ripe with shock and disbelief.

“Mission accomplished.” He flashed one of his trademark grins. “Can we get the hell out of here now?”

Chapter Fifteen

A couple of hours later, they stood across the street from Angie’s building, beneath a mantle of shivering trees. Slowly, dusk had slid into night, and the asphalt glowed with an iridescent gleam.

After they’d gotten the runaway settled at the halfway house, Adrian had insisted that Angie allow him to escort her back to her place. He couldn’t help but worry that one of his uncle’s foot soldiers had seen them and followed them. Angie may have been cloaked, but she wasn’t invisible. Enough black energy hovered around the station, courtesy of their showdown there a few nights ago. That energy could’ve potentially masked the presence of a Kleptopsych lurking in the tunnels or hunkering amidst the debris.

That was the reason he’d gone to the subway station today, to see if Kyros or his men had been scouring the place hoping to pick up Angie’s trail. Unfortunately, he couldn’t say for sure if the lingering energy he’d caught in the air was new or old.

Adrian cursed his stupidity. He never should’ve left Angie unprotected, even with the benefit of Cal’s cloak. He’d been afraid his continued presence in her life would lead Kyros straight to her, but he’d neglected to consider the possibility that Angie would go nose-diving into trouble. By stripping away her memories, he’d essentially robbed her of her defenses, and she’d unwittingly returned to the scene of the crime, exposing herself.

“You’ve got a gift.” She reached out and touched his arm, drawing him out of his dark thoughts. “I don’t know how you convinced that kid to come with us, but it was just plain mind-blowing.” The way she looked at him, with admiration and a glint of wonder, cut him off at the knees. He’d never been anyone’s hero before. It felt good. Too damn good.

“You have to come back to Reach.” She squeezed his biceps. “There’s no one else like you, Adrian. The kids there need you.”

He slid in closer, invading her personal space until her heat enveloped him like a pocket of sunlight. “How about you, Angie? Do you need me?” The words scratched his throat, rough and tender at the same time.

Her body stiffened as her guard went up. She inhaled a sharp breath and quickly withdrew her hand. “This isn’t about me. It’s about all the people you can save.”

Adrian didn’t understand her. She was open and selfless, with an optimism that bordered on naiveté. But there was a stain on her soul, a shadow crouching deep within her that both protected and isolated her. He wished he could read her the way he read others, but he couldn’t. Whenever he tried, he got a sense of who she was, a direct glimpse into her heart. Her thoughts, however, were closed off to him, and it frustrated the hell out of him. “What if the person I want to save is you?”

The pain that knifed across her face only added to his confusion. “I should be getting home.” She turned away from him, prepared to cross the street, but he grabbed her by the arm.

“You’re not afraid of knives or guns or a pile of rubble falling on your head. But you are afraid of something. I can see it in your eyes. Tell me what it is.” His words hung between them like a plea. “Tell me what it is and I’ll make sure it never harms you.” Never before had he felt such a fierce desperation to chase someone’s demons away. Never had he ached to comfort and shelter someone as he did at this moment.