Clearer in the Night (32 page)

“You’re amazing,” he said. He didn’t sound drunk, but he was definitely intoxicated.

“You’re not half bad yourself,” I said, which was mostly true. “Do you want to go somewhere?”

There was a split second of caution in his eyes, but it was quickly subsumed by the want that was burning through him. “Where?” he asked, his hands hungry on my waist, his breath boiling hot.

“I know a place,” I said. I took his hand and led him away from the music and into the darkness.

“What a view,” he said, gazing out at the moon, reflected on the gently shifting waters of the lake.

“Haven’t you ever been up here before?” We stood in a little circular park that overlooked the bay. Two hundred-plus years ago, it had been a defense point during the Revolutionary War, and cannons—originals, or replicas, I didn’t know—dotted the stone wall that circled the park. I’d never brought anyone here before. I hardly ever came here myself, not since I was a little kid. There were swings, which were hot commodities during the day, but utterly deserted in the darkness of the evening. I sat down on one, and after a moment, Jamie came and sat next to me.

He’d been infected with some awkward fidgeting after we left the club to walk here. He didn’t know where to leave his hands or his eyes. His fingers were clenched together in his lap. “I hardly ever do this,” he blurted out. “I don’t want you to think—that anything—”

I laughed my tinkling laugh that made men melt, and crawled into his lap. With my knees on either side of his hips, I took his face into my hands. “All you need to worry about right now is kissing me. We’ll see what happens next.”

He didn’t believe this was happening. He couldn’t believe his luck. Everything in his body was pushing him forward, but he was still soft and gentle as he ran his fingers down the side of my neck, letting his warm and wonderful lips trace a lightning path behind them. When he came back up to press his lips against mine, I snugged my hips up against his, and he moaned into my mouth. I took advantage, and traced his tongue with mine. His gentleness evaporated, thoughts of luck replaced with thoughts of want, and his hands were everywhere, and I could feel him through his snug jeans, hard and yearning. His hands tangled in my hair, and he yanked my head back to expose my throat. I urged him on, and his mouth and hands came to my breasts, savaging them as if my bra and shirt were nonexistent. The wolf was riding me, riding both of us. Somehow, she was riding him, too, pulling us together. Our hips found a rhythm, and with only my thin panties separating me from the hardness of his jeans, I felt a sweet pressure humming through me and starting to build.

“April,” he sighed, as he came up for air, and everything ran cold. God above, what was I doing? Why was I here, in a deserted park, doing this same dance over again? This wasn’t what I wanted anymore. Strangers, no connection, no trust. I wanted to be somewhere where I was wanted. Where I was better than replaceable.

“Stop,” I said. His fingers slipped between us now, and were rubbing me through my panties, but it just hurt, the pleasure was gone. I grabbed his wrist, meaning to pull his hand away and back off him, but he snarled at me, his arm like steel, clutching me to him. The wolf hadn’t let him go. I pulled against him, expecting to get easily free, but she’d given him strength as well as lust, and he wasn’t letting go. His fingers were trying to slide under the elastic of my panties. Panic curled through my stomach.

It was a movie line that popped into my head, a joke about cognitive recalibration. My hands were busy trying to shove me away from him, and I didn’t have enough distance to punch anyway, but I’d taken a self-defense class in college, and I remembered many more weapons than just my hands. I leaned back, then brought my head forward, cracking him across the bridge of the nose so hard that I saw stars. He roared, his hands coming to his face, blood streaming between his fingers, but I felt the wolf come rushing back, the connection between us fading. He looked at me with horror and disgust, and with disjointed, almost incoherent thoughts, he called me a monster.

Running away was the right thing to do, but he wasn’t dangerous now. He hadn’t been dangerous before, he’d been kind and sweet. This was my fault. I’d done this to him. No, that wasn’t quite right. The wolf inside of me had done this. And if I didn’t get a grip on it, he wouldn’t be the last person I hurt.
 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 9

When the sun came up, I headed towards the church. I was meeting Eli, after all. I’d promised. I might look like a two-bit whore after a serious bender, but I was going to keep my promise.

He was sitting on the steps, exactly where he’d promised to be. The sight of him on those big stone steps, leaning back and watching the sunrise, stirred something deep inside of me. For just a moment, it was like the darkness had passed me by. For a minute, I could feel the sunlight.

When he looked at me, he smiled, and I believed that he meant it. He stood up to greet me as I got close. “I’m glad you came,” he said. “I wasn’t entirely sure you would.”

“I promised.”

Something in his face shifted, and then he smiled, the version that brushed his cold eyes and warmed them. “Let’s go in. I’ll get you a change of clothes, and you can have a shower, if you want.”

I had to smell like a bar. A dirty, sweaty bar. I didn’t even want to think about where my eyeliner might have migrated to. “That would be…okay.”

He reached out a hand. I reached back—but pulled away before our hands gripped. The wolf hadn’t slipped into Jamie’s eyes until we’d started touching. Had it happened because everything was all sexy, or was it just a thing that was going to happen now? “I shouldn’t,” I said, and I kept my eyes focused on his mouth; he was confused, but he didn’t let it show. He knew I’d know, but wanted to frighten me as little as possible.

He stepped back and motioned me past him. I walked up the long, heavy stairs, and we went into the alcove entrance, which led into the sanctuary. He locked the doors behind us, but then, instead of leading me downstairs, he turned to the left, where there was a cluttered closet where the coffee hour supplies were kept. He stepped inside, then glanced at me over his shoulder. I followed. He reached around me to shut the door, then turned around to face the back wall. I could see easily in the light that came in through the cracks around the door frame, but I was surprised that he could reach past all the clutter and start tapping on sections of wall without knocking anything over.

“If you wanted to get me alone in a tight place, you should have just said so,” I quipped.

“Hush,” he said, clearly distracted. I hushed. He found what he was looking for, and tapped out a quick beat. There was a beep, somewhere far away, and then the floor shuddered and began to move. Downwards.

“Seriously?”

He nodded. “This is where the secrets start.”

A secret underground base. It was about a square mile of space, so it was a lot bigger than just the church. Eli gave me a little tour, showing me training rooms, sparring rooms, a cafeteria, some spartan living quarters. I wasn’t being shown everything there was, that was painfully clear, but I didn’t figure that the nickel tour was supposed to include even what he was showing me.

“What is this?” I asked, as he rooted through stacks of workout clothes for something in my size. “Some kind of religious Initiative group?”

“We’re not religiously affiliated,” he said. “Not anymore, anyway. In the 1950s, the church tried to use us to accomplish their own goals. We objected to that.”

“But your secret base is under a church.”

“We have an understanding. But we aren’t knights anymore.”

“Why am I here?”

“Because I want to help you.”

“Isn’t it dangerous? Aren’t I the enemy?”

The smile he gave me was absolutely wicked. “Just don’t lose control, and everything will be fine.” He handed me a stack of clothes. “There’s a couple of options in there. Shower is through that door. Then we can get started.”

I took the clothes and went through the door he pointed at. The room was long, the floor and walls tiled. One side had rows of shower heads, the other shelves, towels, bottles of bathing products. I stripped out of my dirty clothes, and pulled the clip out of my hair and let ittumble down my back.

If I didn’t know where to look for the scars on my belly, I’d never find the thin white traces. I resisted the urge to hide my body behind my hands. There wasn’t anyone else in the room, and even if there was? I’d just be more awkward, trying to hide.

When the hot water blasted down over my skin, the tears came. They erupted out of nowhere and raced for freedom before I could control them. Tears for what I did to Jamie, and tears for what I had turned myself into these past few years. Just another version of my mother, with a different addiction to feed.

When I’d gotten as clean as I could get, I shut off the water. The towels weren’t spa fluffy, but they didn’t shred, and they did dry me off. The clothes Eli gave me were basic. I picked out drawstring pants in a weave that stretched, and a tank top with a built in shelf bra. I pulled a black t-shirt over that; it was unornamented, except for a purple dagger on the left side. It was placed just high enough that it didn’t look like I was being stabbed in the boob, which was nice. I even found a hair tie in the bundle.

When I was dressed, I gathered the detritus of last night into a ball and headed back to the door. Eli sat where I’d left him, studying the wall. He seemed equal parts pleased and surprised to see me again. I wasn’t sure where he thought I’d disappear to. “What should I do with these?” I ask, offering my little bundle.

“Do you want to keep them?”

His tone stayed gently neutral, and that made it easier to say, “No. Burn them.”

“You sure? That’s not figurative. I’ll have them incinerated, if you want.”

I weighed the ridiculous amount that I paid for the outfit against the rising horror I had felt when I couldn’t push him away. “If they’re of some use to someone, fine, but I don’t ever want to see them again.”

“Understood.” He dumped the bundle down a chute in the corner. “Are you rested?”

“I haven’t slept since yesterday.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, with a little eyebrow raise that wondered if I was sorry, too.

“So was he,” I said, before I thought to censor myself. He noticed, but he didn’t say anything about it.

“Let’s get started.” He led me down the hall to one of the training rooms he’d shown me earlier. It felt like a dojo in a movie, with the white walls, and the painted scrolls, and the woven mat on the floor. Eli gestured towards the mats, and I sat down. He turned and bowed at an altar, then sat down facing me.

“What’s the plan?” I asked.

“Have you ever meditated, done yoga, martial arts, anything in that vein?”

“Not really.”

He was disappointed, but not surprised. My stomach started to churn. There was no hope, no hope at all—