Dark Seeker (11 page)

“Who do you think it is?” Janie whispered. She raised her dagger and fist, her feet planted firmly in a side stance, preparing for the new visitors.

Kai removed the metal disk from his jeans pocket. He caught her glance. His mouth twisted into an arrogant smile, making her feel more confident they’d make it out alive.

“Antony,” an angry voice called. “Move out of my way. Where’s Antony?”

Jerome entered the main office area of the row home. Janie pictured the room once being filled with mahogany desks, expensive leather chairs and shelves lined with thick law books. A painted portrait of a man in his sixties or seventies dressed in a dark suit and a crisp white shirt and tie hung crookedly behind Jerome, taking up a large portion of the wall. The gold frame had chipped and split in two, spilling the portrait on the floor. Janie wondered if
 
the old guy was Bower, Reed or an “Associate.”

Four gold chains looped loosely around Jerome’s neck over an oversized red T-shirt, hiding his tall, lanky body. The largest chain read
Jerome
in cursive. A red bandana was tied around his shaved head, just like Janie remembered him at the bonfire. His jeans hung low around his butt, exposing his white boxers.

He glanced past Janie and Kai, to Antony. “I warned you.” Jerome removed a silver-plated dagger from his waist and plunged it into the skull of a young Hispanic girl with plump red lips, towering legs and long, curly black hair. She had been the unfortunate Daychild to answer the door. She’d invited Jerome in. Her skull burst open, discharging a faucet of green. Her body dropped to the ground. “One for one. Like I told you before, you take one of mine, I take one of yours,” Jerome said to Antony.

“Veronica, you killed her.” Sadness and rage exploded in Antony’s deep voice. He moved around Janie and Kai, his black eyes fixed on Jerome. “Don’t come into
my
place killing
my
crew and making threats.”

The Daychildren left their circular formation around Janie and Kai to stand behind their leader.

Jerome scanned the room. “Your place? These streets belong to the vamps. You half-breeds are on our turf.” Jerome glanced behind him. A handful of vampires filtered in through the doorway.

“These streets don’t belong to you,” Antony spat. “They belong to the humans. You’ve become passive. Do you even kill anymore, or do you just drink their blood and let them go on their merry way? You’re pitiful.” He hocked a gooey ball of spit onto Jerome’s pristine white sneakers.

Jerome stepped nose to nose with Antony. “I’ll let that go, for now, but your pudgy ass will pay. You’re done. Do you hear me? No more vamps.”

“You won’t stand in the way of Tavares’s work,” Antony said. “He’ll drive a stake through your dead heart.”

Kai stiffened. He grabbed Janie’s shoulder. “It’s time to go.”

She shook her head to argue. “No, finally the truth is coming out. They’d never tell us all of this to our faces. Jerome’s too angry to even notice we’re here.”

Kai’s hand slid down to her bicep. He forced her closer to him and whispered in her ear. “Trust me, Jerome knows we’re here. We’ve got to go—now.”

“But who’s Tavares?”

Anger and hatred creased Kai’s hard features. His dark green eyes sharpened into black narrow points. “Not now!”

He launched the thin metal disk into the air. Kai’s Harley landed in the middle of the room, splintering the hardwood and knocking an Asian Daychild backward. Kai threw Janie on the bike. The two gangs dispersed faster than Janie could focus, but they were too slow to catch them. They barreled toward the large wooden door. Janie slammed her eyes shut. Her elbows dug into Kai’s ribs and she interlaced her fingers around his abs. She clenched her jaw, waiting for the impact of the motorcycle smashing into the wooden door.

Then, cold air pelted her face. She drew in a long, icy breath. Her eyes flew open. They were shooting down Eastern Avenue at mock speed.
How did we get through the door and on the road—and how are we moving so fast?

The lines of row homes and parked cars smeared into blurs. The forceful blast of air dried out her tear ducts. She closed her eyes again. Rippled waves of flesh threatened to detach from her bones. Janie’s skin felt as if it were peeling away from her skeletal structure. Just when she couldn’t take the scoring of air slicing her lungs, Kai slid to a stop.

She’d clasped her hands together so tightly, her hands had molded into an inflexible weave. Janie unbraided her sore, stiff fingers. The blood from her split lip had dried, tacking her mouth together. Janie tried to open her mouth and groaned. Her lips tugged at the torn flesh as they separated.

She attempted to slide off the bike, but her stiff bones held her in place. Kai dismounted and turned to face her. With an uncharacteristic look of sympathy, he placed his hands under her arms and gently lifted her off the seat. He held her steady until she found her footing. She forced a thankful smile, her throat too dry to speak.

Inside his house, Kai retrieved a bottle of water from his mini-fridge and joined Janie on his leather couch. “You look at little less green.” He unscrewed the cap and handed her the bottle. “Drink this.”

Janie took small careful sips. Her insides felt like a dried-out, cracked desert floor. Kai dabbed a wet washcloth on her lip. “You’re being gentle,” Janie whispered. Even her hushed tone echoed loudly between her ears.

“Don’t get used to it.” The cotton material caught a piece of loose skin. She drew back from the washcloth. “You look like you’ve been in a bar fight,” he said.

Despite herself, Janie let out a laugh. The expulsion of air shot splinters of pain through her ribcage. She recoiled and turned away from Kai. She peeled up her tank and hoodie to check out the bruise the teenager had left along her ribcage when he’d kicked her. As she suspected, her skin was decorated with swirls of red, indicating she’d have a colorful bruise the next day. Over the redness she noticed tiny white dots bubbling up on her skin, resembling tiny fluid-filled blisters. “Kai—” she gasped.

“What’s wrong?” He spun her around. Her eyes widened. She realized her bra was exposed. “It’s the demon blood. It seeped through your clothing. You’ve got to get your clothes off.”

“I
am
not,” she protested. She yanked her top down.

“It’s burning your skin.”

“Then I’ll remove my jacket.” Janie unzipped her hoodie and slid it off, feeling not quite as vulnerable as before, but still vulnerable enough in her black tank. She squirmed. Her flesh burned under her shirt.

Kai looked at her in annoyance from under his blond lashes. “Your skin is burning and you’re being modest right now?” He took the hoodie from her hand and wadded it into a ball. “This is trash.” He lifted her off the couch and placed her feet on the floor.

“What are you doing with me?” She pushed on his chest.

He held her tighter. “I’m helping you up the steps to the bathroom. You need to take a shower and get that demon blood off your skin.”

“I can make it to the bathroom myself.” He loosened his hold and she spun away from him. She hadn’t forgotten what he’d said to her.
We’ll never be that close.
It’s not like she had any expectations about their relationship, but hearing him tell her they’d never be friends after all they’d been through over the last few days was hurtful.

He stepped away from her. “As you wish. Towels and soap are in the bathroom.”

Janie examined her chest in the bathroom mirror. The tiny white bubbles had turned into oozing blisters. She looked like she’d been attacked by a flesh-eating bacteria. She raised her eyes to examine her face. Her eyeliner and black mascara had bled, deepening her already dark purple eye. Kai was right. She did look like she’d been in a bar fight.

Her bottom lip was swollen and split. She popped it out to assess the injury. It wasn’t that bad. She’d had worse. Janie reached up and disentangled the clear plastic band from her hair. Her hair spilled out of the ponytail and streamed down her back. She attempted to comb it with her fingers. Knots stopped the fluid motion of her fingers and jerked at the sensitive hair along her scalp. “Ugh—” she groaned.

In the shower, Janie squeezed Kai’s lavender body wash on to a washcloth and gently removed any traces of demon blood. As she drew Kai’s clean scent into her lungs, a pleasant ripple coursed through her.
He’s one of them
. He was right; they would never be close, at least not as close as she ached for him to be at the present moment, surrounded by his smell and personal products.

After her shower, she wrapped a towel around herself and left the bathroom. She noticed a sweatshirt lying on the floor outside the bathroom door. Janie picked it up and slipped back into the bathroom. She slid her jeans over her legs; they had luckily been spared.
 

She held her breath and lowered Kai’s sweatshirt over her head. She already smelled enough like him after using his body wash. The scent of Kai’s clean cotton surrounding her face battered her senses. She searched under his sink for anything to brush her hair. Beside a stack of magazines, she found a long comb. She used it to separate the knots in her hair. She spun around
 
and examined her hair in the mirror. It looked even longer, straighter and darker when wet, splaying out over the hood. Kai’s hood—Kai’s sweatshirt.
What am I doing?

Janie found Kai in the kitchen, microwaving a burrito. She could smell the spicy cooked-bean concoction upstairs. As she entered the kitchen, his back faced her. Under the recessed lighting, his white highlights streaked through his golden blond waves. “You know, girls pay good money to have hair like yours,” she said.

Kai peered over his shoulder. He already knew she was there. “I can’t help it that I’m so pretty.” He turned back to the microwave to retrieve his burrito. “You look better, well, minus the eye and your lip.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” Janie pulled out one of the two chairs and took a seat at the round table. “How did you get us out of the lair?”

“My motorcycle.”

Janie inhaled and exhaled loudly. “Really. Do we have to? I’m tired and sore. Spare me your ambiguous responses, at least for tonight.”

“Fine.” He joined her at the table. “You’ll just ask me again if I don’t tell you now.” He smirked, a pleasant surprise. She expected more resistance. “I used to be a demon and I was created by a very powerful vampire, so I have an ability.” He extended the burrito to her. She put her hand up, wincing at the thought of any food sliding down her scratchy throat. “I think you know how we got out. What are your thoughts?”

Janie leaned back in the chair. “You’re fast, extremely fast. Even your motorcycle is extraordinarily fast. But that doesn’t explain how we went through the door without taking it off its hinges, busting it or ourselves into pieces.”

“What is a door made of?

“Wood, or metal,” she said, wondering where he was going with his questioning. Couldn’t he just tell her?

“I mean other than the visible materials that are used to make doors. You’ve been in high school twice. Didn’t you take Chemistry?”

“I’ve only actually taken one semester of Chemistry, three years ago. I don’t have it again until next semester.” Janie stared past Kai as if the answer was written on the wall. Her face lit up. She remembered. “Matter.”

“Very good,” he said. “I can use my speed to manipulate the molecules of an object. Therefore, anything that has mass and volume, or otherwise takes up space, such as the door, I can pass through.” Kai rocked back and forth in his chair. “I can break down the electromagnetic force of matter, or something like that,” he dismissed.

Janie stared at him blankly.

“The force that holds objects together.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Nah, I just sound smart. I’m not one hundred percent sure how my ability works. I just know I can do it.”

“So you’re saying we literally drove through the door.”

“Yup.”

“Cool,” Janie said. “So how did you first learn you could do that?”

“I assume I could do it as a demon, even though I can’t remember any of my truly demonic days. Although I don’t think I was a demon for very long.” He sighed. “Not remembering my demonic days is probably not a bad thing. Living with what I did as a Daychild is hard enough.”

Janie realized this was the most vulnerable she’d ever seen Kai. He’d lowered the wall he’d put up to hide his secrets. And he had a lot of secrets. “Earlier, I wondered how you got into my room. The window was closed,” she said.

“I went through your window, just not the way you’d think.” His thin lips curled into a sneaky smile.

“How about your life as a human? Do you remember anything?” Janie focused on Kai’s eyes, waiting for the twitch, indicating he wasn’t going to answer. His green eyes stayed steady and locked on hers.

“Yes. Some of it’s hazy, but for the most part I remember my life as a human.”

“So you’ve been eighteen for awhile.”

He shrugged. “I’m assuming for at least twenty years.”

“We’re kind of alike in that way. I’ve been fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and seventeen twice. I’m still waiting to turn eighteen. I get so close and then, bam—I’m fourteen again. It sucks having a late June birthday and always being the youngest in my class.” She scowled. “Senior year, school’s out and then we move and start all over again.” Janie leaned closer to Kai. “The only good thing is I don’t really age until I leave the Seeker life. It buys me more time on earth. . .if I live that long.” His stare fell heavily on her. She changed the subject. “Finish your story about your ability.”