Chosen by Fate (15 page)

“Tell you what. I have no interest in hauling you anywhere. We can figure this out. It doesn’t have to get dirty.” She realized as she spoke that she was applying some of Felicia’s verbal judo techniques. The hostage negotiator had once taught Wraith a humiliating lesson about the benefits of using intellect as opposed to force in certain situations. At the time, Wraith had felt disdain for the human female’s philosophies. Today, she’d applied Felicia’s lesson without thought. Imagine that.

Holding her weapon in front of her, Wraith cautiously entered the alley, taking care to scope out any places the man could be hiding before moving forward. She heard some thuds and screams in the distance, telling her that Caleb had caught up with the man’s companion.

“You hear that? Looks like your buddy is being taken down. My partner will be here soon, and then you’ll have to face the both of us. You won’t like that, I promise.”

He didn’t respond. Wraith was halfway down the alley when a door suddenly opened behind her. Wraith flinched toward the sound, just for a second, but it was long enough for the man to get a drop on her, a gun in his hand. He alternated his aim between her and the person who’d opened the door—a young, wide-eyed human kid, maybe about sixteen, dressed in stained overalls.

“Whoa. Whoa.” She didn’t know who she was talking to, the boy, the man, herself, or all of them. “Look. Don’t do this. Like I said, I’m not here to—”

“Shut up.” From the way his gun was shaking, Wraith suspected the guy was high enough on adrenaline to actually pull the trigger.

“Drop the gun or I’m gonna shoot him! Now, bitch.”

On the outside, she remained calm. On the inside, because of the kid, her nerves were as jumpy as his.

“Put your gun down or I’ll shoot!”

She jolted as he yelled the words. Slowly relaxing her stance, she lowered her arm, pointing her gun toward the ground but held on to the grip. The man immediately walked up to her and pushed the barrel of his gun to her head. The barrel skipped erratically against her temple as his hand continued to shake.

He was hyped up on something. Meth, probably.

She watched him as his gaze skittered nervously between her and the kid.

“Let him go. You don’t need him. You don’t need me.”

“He said you’d be tricky,” he mumbled.

“Who? Who said that?” She immediately thought of Joanna and her male companion, Michel. Had he sent someone for her after all? But she couldn’t imagine Michel sending this junkie. He was too amateur. He actually thought he was going to get the best of her. If it weren’t for the kid, she’d have taken him down already. Besides, Michel seemed like someone who would come after her himself.

The man glanced at her nervously. “Drop the gun first.”

She nodded. Slowly bent her knees until she could place the gun on the ground.

As she straightened, she said, “Now let him go. Please.”

“Go on. Get out of here,” he shouted to the kid. The kid ran from the alley as if it were on fire.

Shifting her right leg slightly behind her, she held up both her hands. “So, you going to tell me who you’re working for? Seeing as how you’re going to kill me and all.”

“I’m not supposed to kill you. We was just supposed to—”

Wraith sprung, swinging herself out of the line of fire and elbowing him in the face. Almost simultaneously, she grabbed the gun with both hands and performed a
C
move with her right leg, sweeping it 180 degrees. She violently pushed the gun toward him, and he screamed as she dislocated his trigger finger. He fired the gun, and shards of heat grazed her face. Taking advantage of his pain-induced weakness, Wraith twisted the gun so that she could control him with a reverse wristlock. With his arm locked straight, she applied enough pressure to dislocate his elbow and drive him to the ground.

She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and looked up. Caleb stood there, breathing hard, his face pale and sweaty. His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear him. The side of her face felt like someone had splashed it with gasoline and lit it on fire. Her ears were ringing from the gun being fired so close to her head. She shook her head to let him know she couldn’t hear him, but almost immediately she felt her skin cooling. Her hearing corrected, but sounds were still fuzzy.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’m fine.” Glaring down at the man, who even now was whimpering and crying as he clutched his arm, Wraith said, “Are you still more afraid of him than you are me? Because if that’s the case, I’d reconsider your options really fast. Who sent you?”

He didn’t say anything, but Wraith narrowed her eyes and bent closer, whispering in his ear, “Did you know wraiths live their whole lives in pain? It gives us an advantage when it comes to administering it.”

If possible, he paled even more.

“Not both of you,” he said. “Just you. The ghost who left the Vamp Dome.”

Again, Wraith thought of Joanna and Michel. But then a thought occurred to her. She grabbed the man by his shirt. “I wasn’t the only wraith at the Vamp Dome that night,” she said, immediately sensing the way Caleb stiffened.

The man looked scared, then looked away. Panicked, she grabbed the man’s hair and yanked his head back so he whimpered.

“Wraith . . .” Caleb said softly.

“Did you hurt her?”

“No . . . she and the man fought back. They killed one of my men.”

So whoever had hired him had sent three men after her. He’d underestimated her. “How did you know
she
wasn’t the right one?”

“She didn’t know how to fight. Only he did.”

“Bastards,” Wraith spit out. “Did you hurt her? Did you?”

“No. The guy with her . . . I told you, he could fight. He protected her.”

Wraith released his hair. Good. She just might like Michel after all.

“What were you looking for on the bike?” Caleb asked harshly.

“We wanted to be sure we had the right one this time. We were looking for credentials. FBI badge—”

Hissing, Wraith extracted her knife from its sheath and flipped it in her hand.

“This is the last time I’m going to ask. Who sent you?”

“I don’t know!”

“I don’t believe you.” Wraith raised the knife, but Caleb grabbed her arm, stopping her.

“Don’t, Wraith,” he warned.

Her eyes widened with disbelief. “He was sent to get me. Do you think I’m going to let him live without telling me the truth about who sent him?”

“He’s an idiot. Someone’s using him. Besides, he’s telling the truth. At least I think so. But I’ll confirm it.”

She wrenched her arm away from him. “And how are you going to do that?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he walked up to the man who stared fearfully up at him. “What’s your name?”

When he remained silent, Caleb sighed. “Look, in case you didn’t notice, I’m trying to save you some pain here. If you’d rather, I can let my friend loose and let her do whatever she wants to you.”

“Doug,” the man said quickly.

“Right. Doug. And your friend is Emmett.”

Doug nodded frantically.

“Emmett doesn’t know the name of the person giving you your orders,” Caleb said. “But I need to confirm you don’t know his name, either. So I’m going to lay my hands on you, and I don’t want you to move a muscle, otherwise my friend here is going to gut you with her not-so-little knife and I’m going to let her. Understand, Doug?”

“Yes,” he squeaked out. “I understand.”

“Good.” Caleb laid his hands on Doug’s temples. “Ask him again,” he said to Wraith. “And ask him what he knows about the feline situation and whatever else you need to know.”

Unsure what was happening, Wraith hesitated, then asked, “Do you know the name of the person who ordered you to capture me?”

“No,” Doug replied.

Wraith proceeded to ask him more questions: “Do you know about felines being raped? About a drug being used to rape felines? Did you hurt the wraith you followed from the Dome or her male companion? How long have you been following me? When did you get your orders? Do you know who I am? Do you know who I was before I was a wraith?”

Doug denied knowledge of the drug rapes or Wraith’s identity, and he denied hurting Joanna or Michel. He said he’d gotten the call about her just after Knox’s wedding. The message had been passed along anonymously, after he’d received five hundred dollars on his front stoop with the promise of five hundred more.

“Five hundred dollars?” Wraith asked in disbelief. “For a total of one grand?” She glared at Doug. “I’m insulted.”

“Ask the same questions again,” Caleb said.

Wraith repeated the questions. Doug repeated the answers. This continued approximately ten times. In the meantime, Wraith watched Caleb. He’d closed his eyes and his body had relaxed. His breathing evened. His color returned to normal. He looked utterly at peace. More precisely, he looked zoned out. As if he’d left his body and gone someplace else.

She didn’t like it. It scared her.

“Caleb?” She prodded him for what had to be the fifth time.

He didn’t answer.

She grabbed his arm and shook him. “Caleb. Caleb!”

Doug’s eyes were bouncing back and forth between them, and Wraith spared a glance for him when she sensed his muscles stiffen. “Don’t. Remember what he said about me and my knife.”

He immediately looked down at the ground and remained still.

“Caleb—” When she turned back to him, she gasped.

His eyes were open. He was breathing hard. He released Doug and stepped back. “He’s telling the truth, Wraith. I promise. He’s told us everything he does know. He knows nothing about the feline situation. He and his friend are hired muscle. Sent to track you down and immobilize you. Killing you wasn’t on the program because whoever hired them knows you can’t be killed. But you can be contained, and that’s what he wanted. Now we need to go. Let the police deal with him.”

It was only then that she heard the sirens wailing in the background, distant but getting closer. Caleb must have called them. She swallowed hard, trying to get over the shock of seeing Caleb go into some kind of truth detector trance. That hadn’t been in his files under the heading of “special gifts,” but she didn’t doubt he had the gift. If he said Doug was telling the truth, Wraith believed him.

Caleb was watching her carefully, in particular the hand that held her knife. What, did he think she was still going to use it now that there was no reason to? Is that what he thought? That she killed because she liked it?

With a flurry of questions beating at her and making her feel disoriented, she sheathed her knife, noting Caleb’s almost-imperceptible sigh of relief as she did so. Doug made one, too.

They both pissed her off.

She looked down at Doug and said, “Guess you’re going back to jail after all, Doug. Dream of me while you’re there, okay? And next time you talk to your boss, tell him I’m going to see him really soon.”

F
or Wraith, returning to Los Angeles was a lot like returning to prison after twenty years of incarceration followed by one short month on parole—equal parts depressing and comforting.

She knew this town. Knew what to expect. How to maneuver. The best places to go to hide out. The few places she could go for help or a quiet moment of peace.

Driving along Franklin Avenue made her feel like she’d returned home—only home was an insane asylum where she not only believed the other patients were trying to kill her, but that the medical staff was, too. Everyone was a threat as far as she was concerned.

It was no wonder she jumped when Caleb gently pulled on her jacket sleeve.

“We’re here,” he said quietly.

She nodded and opened her door to step onto the sidewalk outside their hotel. It was a step up from the rat-infested apartments she’d rented while she’d lived here, but it wasn’t exactly luxury living, either. “You’d think as a former boyfriend of the feline princess, you’d warrant enough clout to at least get us into an Embassy Suites,” she said nastily.

Caleb pressed his lips together but didn’t reply.

She didn’t blame him, but it still pissed her off.

After their run-in with Doug and Emmett, she’d had tons of questions about Caleb’s ability to discern the truth and if he had other abilities she didn’t know about. But he’d shut down and hadn’t wanted to talk, no matter how often she’d tried to get a rise out of him. That had included making several nasty allusions to his former relationship with Natia, the feline he’d danced with at Knox’s wedding. Every time she acknowledged the existence of that previous relationship, however, she only ended up hurting herself.

Absently, she wondered if that’s why she kept doing it.

“Dex and Mahone are going to meet us at the Bureau’s local headquarters. I need to shower and get a meal first. How much time do you need?”

“You know I don’t eat, Caleb. Are you implying I need to bathe?” she asked mildly. “Or was that an invitation to join you for either of those activities?”

He tensed, stopped, then turned to face her. The expression on his face actually made her take a step back. “Careful, Wraith. It’s been a long day. Don’t push me unless you want me to push back.”

She glanced away and swallowed hard. “I can leave in twenty.”

“I’ll need closer to forty-five. Then we can share a cab—”

“You know, why don’t I meet you there? I have some things to do. People to see.”

“Would those things and people have anything to do with Ramsey Monroe?”

She smiled thinly. “Heard about him already, have you? So I guess it was Mahone who wanted me to come back, and not you, after all?”

“Do you really want me to answer that, Wraith?”

“No. Do you really expect me to tell you who I’m going to see? Or is there some other reason behind the third degree? You obviously thought I was willing to kill old Doug in cold blood. Are you afraid I’m an accessory to the feline rapes somehow? That I’ll tip Ramsey off? Because—”