Zero to Love (9 page)

For once she didn’t gush desire when he told her this. Instead her gaze flashed to his lip, and she drew another deep breath.

He tried not to stumble when he put distance between them. No, that honey belonged to him. And how did she know about it anyway? The urge to get to Magda as quickly as possible made his synapses snap.

Poking a finger at Elise, he said, “Find out everything they say about the target.”

“And what?” Hips rocking, she sashayed forward on high-heeled black boots. She was gorgeous, and she knew it. But Monroe could only see a head of flaming hair and white limbs.

“And I’ll let you come around me, Elise.”

Her head fell back at his words. She issued a ragged sigh, then turned and started down the sidewalk away from him. “Back into the dark streets I go, Monroe. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”

“Maybe sooner.” He watched her walk away.

What Elise had provided was a small crumb of information—not enough to find out why they wanted Magda, and not where they were meeting to talk about taking over the city. But the Free Wills were definitely recruiting, and apparently Mindchangers were moving to the enemy lines.

Chapter Six

When Magda entered her house, the rich cherry scent of a cigar greeted her. Ordinarily it would give her a fuzzy feeling associated with her father. But right now it brought back all the things Monroe had told her.

I’ve been cleaned out in a Free Will attack, and my family hid it from me.

Closing the heavy wooden front door, she called, “Daddy?”

No reply, so she crossed the gleaming hardwood, weaving around antique furniture to the study door. The main living space was dotted with more bouquets of flowers than usual. Tall urns bulging with daffodils, gerbera daisies in myriads of color in squat vases.

She pressed a hand against the study door and found it unlatched as always. It swung inward.

Her father sat behind his walnut desk, glasses too far down on his nose as he stared at a document. He glanced up at her, a smile on his lips. But it faltered the more he looked at her.

Setting the paper aside, he stood. “What’s wrong? And why do you look disheveled?” His voice rose sharply in volume, ending on a bark.

She’d smoothed her hair and clothes before leaving Monroe’s apartment, but after spending hours in the throes of bliss, she probably could use some taming.

Drawing a deep breath, she entered the study and closed the door behind her.

“Magda, what’s going on?” He came around his desk, salt-and-pepper hair loose around his face, and his dark eyes seeing too much.

“I want to know about the Free Wills.”

The color drained from his face, and he swayed on his feet. She opened her mouth to say more, but he recovered and gripped her upper arm hard enough to leave fingerprints.

“You’re hurting me.” Her voice was a hot whisper.

“I don’t know where you heard that name and who you were with”—he wrinkled his nose as if catching an odor of rotting meat—“but we will not hold this discussion here.”

Before she could process his words, he dragged her from the study. She tagged behind him to the base of the stairs. Her father tossed a glance over his shoulder, then wrenched her upward.

“What are you doing? Stop it,” she cried.

But he continued to yank her until she tripped and fell at the top of the stairs. He set off for her bedroom, his hand a vise biting into her flesh.

Monroe wouldn’t like these bruises. A tremor of concern slithered down her spine.

Her father shoved her into her bedroom and slammed them inside. With his back against the door he breathed heavily. For a moment she worried about his purple-red face and the way a vein in his neck throbbed. Was he going to have a stroke? She’d never seen him so upset, not even during his heated discussions with her uncle Vincent.

Suddenly her mouth grew as desiccated as a desert. She licked her lips, but no moisture wet them. She swallowed hard, fear a knot in her throat, adding to the extreme need to drink.

After crossing to her bedside table, she grabbed a bottle of soda she hadn’t finished the night before. When she uncapped it, the bottle only made a low hiss—no longer fizzy. She tipped it to her lips and gulped the remainder in a few swallows.

Her father watched her, still plastered against the door, arms splayed as if to stop her from getting out. Or someone from coming in.

“Where did you hear that term, Magda?”

“What term?” she asked coolly.

His color darkened. “You know what I’m talking about. Don’t play dumb with me. We both know your intelligence is more advanced than mi—than most.” His face was clean shaven, but a strand of his hair clung to a rough patch on his chin. He swiped it away.

She tossed the empty bottle in the trash and turned to him fully. “The Free Wills, Daddy. They attacked me when I was little. It’s why I have so few memories of my childhood. Why I can’t remember M-Mom.”

At the mention of her mother, his face paled once more, turning a pasty white that surely echoed the condition of his heart under the stress of this conversation. Remorse flooded her.

A long silence crash-landed between them, fraught with thick and sticky threads of some emotion she didn’t understand. His gaze darted to the lamp in the corner. Magda followed his line of sight, her attention snared by the intricate metal curls and fine glass. As fine as cotton candy. As light as a wisp of thought.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice was choked.

He wiped the corner of his eye. “It killed me that they took that away from you, Magda. Memories that could never be replaced.”

“But you didn’t help me replace them. You won’t talk about her—never have. There isn’t a picture in this house. I don’t even know what she…looked like.” Tears clotted her throat, and she blinked to keep the drops from falling from her lashes.

Her father wiped his other eye. “She looked much like Elijah. But you have her mouth.”

She twisted to face away, unable to hear more. The urge to dig into his mind and yank out his visions of her mother burned in Magda’s gut. Her mother didn’t look like her but like Elijah. Deep down, she’d always hoped that her mother was fair and red-haired like her.

Wringing her hands together, Magda stepped toward the lamp, drawn to the golden glow. “My earliest memory is of sitting on a set of steps, holding Elijah’s hand.”

“Yes. It was shortly after we lost your mother.”

“What about the Free Wills? When did it happen—where? Why have you kept this information from me?” She whirled to face him again, and her heart clenched at the sight of him openly crying.

In the past she would have gone to him and slipped her arms around his shoulders. But not today. Today she was a woman needing answers.

“They came upon you on the street when you were walking home from school. Your mother and I never felt comfortable allowing you and Elijah to walk the two blocks alone, but we live in a safe area, and it was during the day.”

Magda chewed at a sore spot on her lower lip—a reminder of Monroe’s rough thoroughness with her today. Her thirst returned with a vengeance. Casting a look around the room, she didn’t find a pitcher of water or half-drunk soda.

“Why didn’t they steal from Elijah? Why only me?”

Her father looked at the thick, cream-colored carpet.

“Daddy.”

Instead of looking at her, he lifted his gaze to the ceiling. It was slightly domed, cut into small squares and gilded to reflect light. She loved lying on her bed and watching the reflections play over her, giving the illusion she was underwater.

“I don’t know why, daughter. It was a horrific event that weighs on me daily. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but there is a risk…”

She took a hasty step toward him. “Of what?”

“That they’ll come back for you. Once they touch your mind, they will always come after more. It’s why Elijah and I won’t let you go around town on your own.”

Too late. They’ve found me, and they want the rest of my mind.

She shuddered.

Her father met her gaze, his watery. “I’m sorry. I’d hoped to keep it from you forever. Do you see I did it to protect you?”

“Yes. But it wasn’t a Mindchanger who did this to me—”

At the mention of the supernaturals, his face mottled purple again. His eyes blazed. “They’re all the same, stealing from us, giving us thoughts and memories not our own.”

She shook her head. “Not all are greedy parasites. I know one—”

Rage bloomed into hectic spots of color on his cheeks. “You
know
one?”

“Yes.”

He looked wildly around the room. “Where is Elijah? Who brought you home? Why are you traveling the city alone?”

“I was safe,” she said, a smile teasing the corner of her lips at the thought of Monroe.

Her father spun and grappled with the door handle. “Don’t you leave this room, Magda Brunelli. I need Vincent. I need to talk to Vincent!”

He whipped open the door and slammed it behind him.

Fury slicked her insides, but her mouth was drier than it had ever been. She needed a drink—now. And while he’d ordered her to remain in her room, she was a grown woman. He had no control over her.

Still, she had no desire to go into the kitchen for a drink and overhear her father’s phone conversation with Uncle Vincent.

She stormed into her adjoining bathroom and grabbed a cup. She filled it five times and drank it off, but it did nothing to slake her thirst. What she needed was something sweet. Juice.

I need Monroe.

* * * *

“Monroe,” Keefe growled into his ear through the cell phone.

“Yeah?” Before the word left his lips, he read Keefe. From clear across the city, through millions of thoughts clouding the atmosphere, he saw the words in Keefe’s mind.

“You’re hurting me.” Monroe won’t like these bruises.

“Fuck. Where is she?”

“Must be upstairs with the thought catcher. I’ve never encountered one before. Why didn’t you tell me?” Keefe asked.

Standing in the seedy back alley, Monroe waited for his friend Hale to bring him more information on the Free Wills. He knew a sense of powerlessness bigger than he’d ever experienced.

Whirling, he smashed his knuckles into the wooden door cut into the building. The same door the drunk had stumbled out of. If the alcohol-soaked man spilled from the door now, would Monroe have enough willpower not to feed from him as Keefe had? Anger pulsed in his temples.

“Your job is to keep her from leaving.”

“I’ve done that. I can’t hear a whisper from her, so she has to be with the thought catcher.”

Monroe closed his eyes and concentrated hard on the Hill District where Magda lived. He flew past dozens of people, skimmed over her father. Yes, Magda was silent to him.

Monroe’s mind snapped back to her father. He’d never bothered to probe Mr. Brunelli’s mind before, but now he saw something similar to Magda’s—holes. Empty corners. Too much fog.

He shook himself and released the man.

“Stay with her, Keefe. I’m coming.”

His SUV waited for him on the corner. In seconds he was speeding through town. As his muscles tensed, his leather shirt creaked. Each breath felt blackened, his anger polluting the air.

Her father had hurt her. In Monroe’s mind, he saw the man’s fingers digging into his daughter’s arm. He’d seen humans hurt their own blood much worse, but no one was going to lay a hand on Magda.

Mine.

Locking his boot to the gas, he flew through two consecutive red lights. He could make them turn green for him, but what was the point? He’d drive through them no matter what the color.

Numbers and stray thoughts whirred past, but he ignored them. Not even Treason could stop him from reaching Magda—now or ever.

When he reached the Hill District, the food source changed. The violence up here in the nicer section of town still clotted the air, but it was different. Domestic violence and addiction were concealed behind the doors of upscale houses.

Monroe gazed at Magda’s home. An older structure with a lot of charm. From here he caught the overwhelming scent of flowers, almost as strong as that coming from a funeral home.

Giovanni was in his study, head in hands. When Monroe looked into Giovanni’s brain to see why he surrounded himself with flowers, Monroe found nothing.

Keefe paced the front of the house below Magda’s bedroom window, clinging to the shadows to avoid suspicion as only a Mindchanger could.

“She hasn’t left. I can’t hear her at all. It’s driving me crazy.” Keefe raked his hands through his long black hair. The leather shirt he wore had no sleeves and was skintight, revealing that he was packing several knives and a handgun. His left arm was tattooed from shoulder to wrist, and the colors undulated as if the images were alive.

“Tell me about it.” Monroe looked up at the window. Darkness shrouded the street, which was good because there was no nosy neighbor who might see Mindchangers in the area and alert Giovanni. Monroe didn’t want to involve the man. He might have housed Magda for a lifetime, but now she belonged with Monroe.

“We’re going in and taking her,” Keefe said, a grin stretching on his face.

“Yes, we are.”

“I thought you’d never fucking ask.”

“You make sure the old man doesn’t see us. If he does, wipe it out.”

“Never thought I’d hear you say that, man.”

“Yeah, well, things are changing.” Monroe walked up to the front door and probed the lock with his mind:
2982
. He rearranged the numerals to align correctly, and the lock sprang.

“Don’t take anything unnecessarily,” he cautioned Keefe. If Giovanni walked out, Keefe, who was not so controlled as Monroe, would lock gazes with the man and feed.

“I hear ya. You’re not any fun, but I hear ya.” Keefe entered the house behind him.

The space was filled with low numbers. Wood, cotton, linen. Some stone and a bit of glass—but only the purest kind. Though the antique furniture and fancy decor weren’t the perfect backdrop for Mindchangers in black leather, it was calming to their minds.

Monroe took the stairs as swiftly and silently as possible while Keefe stood guard at the base. When Monroe reached her room, excitement barreled through his core. He’d been parted from her just a few hours, but seeing her again would be like coming home.