Playing With Fire (5 page)

My eyes rounded. “You’re saying I’ll have powers? Superpowers?” No way. Now I
knew
he was lying to me.

“No.” He gave one jerky shake of his head. “I’m saying you
do
have superpowers.”

I rubbed my temple, trying to subdue a sudden ache. “I hope you realize how insane you sound. Superpowers are for movies. Superpowers are for comic books. They are
not
for real life or average girls who can’t hold on to a job.”

“Tell that to your superpowers,” he said drily. “And FYI, you’re not average anymore.” As he spoke, he shifted in the chair.

I scrambled backward. Not that I got far.

“Whoa. Easy.” Slowly he lifted his hands, showing me he held nothing. “I was just getting more comfortable.”

I relaxed against the mattress again, saying weakly, “I don’t want you to get comfortable. I want you to leave. You’ve overstayed your welcome.”

“Sorry.” Amusement dripped from his tone. “You’re stuck with me.”

“Because you have to neutralize me?”

“Yes.”

I’d expected him to deny it, and that he hadn’t, that he’d flat-out admitted he still planned to neutralize (kill?) me, should have panicked me. It didn’t. He hadn’t hurt me yet, and I wasn’t going to allow myself to worry until he came at me again.

Besides, I did not want to believe him; I
couldn’t
believe him. That would mean I had superpowers. That would mean
I
had erected that air shield. That would mean something terrible truly had been done to me.

“I wish I could give you an antidote,” he said, “but we don’t have one. Yet.” At least he sounded genuinely apologetic this time.

“There’s no need to hurt me. Honest, I’m not a threat to anyone.”

He snorted. “Very soon there’s every possibility you’ll be able to control the weather. You’ll be able to start fires without any provocation. Cause floods, tornadoes. How is that not a threat?”

“I’m not going to do any of those things,” I ground out.

“You will. You won’t be able to help yourself.”

“How do you know that for sure?” I had to make him realize exactly how foolish he sounded. “You said it was an experimental formula. That means you can’t be one hundred percent sure of anything.”

“Let’s just say I’ve spent a lot of time with human lab rats and I know when trouble is coming.” He paused, his eyes growing dark. “The man who has done everything in his power to control the formula will want to experiment on you when he discovers you actually drank it.”

“Is he your boss?” Was he talking about Pretty Boy, as I’d suspected? “Because if he is, you can tell him I didn’t drink a formula, I don’t have powers and I need to be left alone.”

“Hell, no, he’s not my boss. And I can’t ‘tell’ him anything. He runs OASS, Observation and Application of Supernatural Sciences, a nongovernment agency that’s PSI’s biggest rival. Just so you know, PSI is the home of the good guys.” His brows quirked, and he grinned slowly. “Well, the better guys, at least.”

If I’d had the energy to throw my hands in the air, I would have. I had to be the last sane person in the universe. “This is crazy!” I said. “You’re an ass, he’s an
O
-ASS. You’re all asses!”

“Time will prove the truth of my words,” he said with utter confidence.

A tremor slithered along my spine. His unshakable assurance did more to convince me than anything else had. Time
would
reveal the truth, and whether I totally believed his claim or not, I needed to be prepared for whatever was revealed. I might not believe this one hundred percent, but
he
certainly did.

“What—what kind of experiments are we talking about here?” I asked.

“Let’s see. He’s skinned people so he could later coat their bodies with metal, making them impenetrable. He’s cut off their arms and replaced them with weapons. He’s injected people with poison, hoping their bodily fluids would contain those poisons and kill anyone they kiss, anyone they screw. Oh, here’s one you might enjoy—he’s even fed people an experimental formula to give them powers over the four elements. Everyone—but one—who’s taken it has either frozen to death or burst into flames.”

God. Was he trying to warn me that I, too, would either freeze or burn? “I don’t want to die,” I told him. “And I don’t want to be a human lab rat. I’m a person.”

There was a brief flash of guilt in his eyes, then nothing. No emotion. “That’s not for me to decide.”

My chin trembled, and my eyes burned with moisture. “Why are you telling me all of this? If you had stuck with the CDC story, I might have cooperated with you.”

“You deserve the truth,” he said gently. “Or at least as much of it as I can tell you.” His features softened, completely at odds with the underlying meaning of his words. I deserved the truth, but he was still going to hurt me.

So much for not worrying until he came at me. I tried to stand, tried to push myself up and run, but every ounce of my being protested and I ended up slumped over again. Fear beat through me. There had to be—ohmygod. My gaze was focused on my hands, which were folded in my lap. My eyes widened, becoming impossibly round. No. No, no, no. I blinked, but there was no change.

Ice crystals had just formed on the tips of my fingers. I’d watched them, watched the crystals form out of nothing, simply crystallizing from my skin. The cold didn’t bother me, didn’t affect me at all.

In that moment, I believed him. I believed everything he’d said, without any hint of doubt. I would control the weather, he’d said. Rain, snow…sleet. I would cause floods, fires and tornadoes, he’d said. People wanted to experiment on me, he’d said.
Ohmygod!

“What’s your name?” I gasped, hoping to drown out thoughts of ice and experiments. I rubbed my hands together for warmth and managed to melt the ice. I didn’t tell him what had just happened.

“That’s not important.”

“I disagree. I like to know the names of the men who want to kill me. It’s one of my little quirks.”

His lips twitched. “Rome. My name is Rome.”

An exotic name for an exotic-looking man. I frowned. Considering the reason he was here, I had no business thinking of him as “exotic.”

“I don’t want superpowers, Rome. I don’t want to be in this situation,” I added desperately. “Help me get my normal life back. Please.”

“I can’t. I told you that. The scientist who created the formula, maybe…” He shook his head. “Even then it’s doubtful.”

“I’m willing to try.”

“Too bad. Dr. Roberts is missing and no one has been able to find the crafty bastard.”

Dr. Roberts—I committed the name to memory. That harmless-looking man in the lab coat was the one ultimately responsible for my predicament.
He
deserved a horde of killers chasing him. “Tell me something. If you and your boss are the good guys, how can either of you consider hurting me? Destroying me?”

His lips lifted in a smile completely devoid of humor. “We do what we must to keep the world safe. That’s our job. Sometimes good people do bad things, even unintentionally, and they must be stopped. If you’re left on your own, you could cause one disaster after another. Hurt millions of people. Destroy—”

“I told you,” I interrupted, determined to make him believe me. “I would never do those things.”

“You wouldn’t mean to, but…” He left the rest unsaid.

“What’s more, you could end up in the wrong hands. Enemy hands, and you could be used against us.”

My eyes closed briefly, opened, then closed again, opened, and I stared at the carpet. My remaining strength (not that there had been much) abandoned me with lightning speed. Black stars winked over my vision, interlocking and slowly weaving together to form a solid wall I couldn’t penetrate.

He’d won. Rome had won. Any moment now I would sink into total oblivion. He’d be able to do whatever he wanted to me then. Kill me.
Neutralize
me. I tried to fight the seductive call of sleep, but it proved increasingly potent. How could I do this? How could I fall asleep amid such danger?

If he possessed any type of remorse, any guilt, any hesitation in doing his job, I had to bring that into focus now. Before it was too late.

“Rome,” I said, the word nearly undetectable. “Please don’t hurt me. You won’t only kill me, you’ll kill my father. I’m all he’s got. I pay his bills. He’s too weak to work. Without me, he’ll lose everything, will be destitute. Homeless…dead. Have you ever had anyone depend on you for their survival?”

Something almost tender flashed over his face, as if he
was
thinking of someone.

Maybe I imagined it, maybe I didn’t. Either way, I didn’t have time to think about it. Darkness consumed me in the next instant.

I
SNAKED IN AND OUT
of turbulent dreams—dreams that were hauntingly vivid. A knife flashed through my mind, its sharp tip glistening silver, then crimson. A huge black cat growled from the corner of my bedroom before leaping and attacking—me? Did it attack me?

Panic was beyond my grasp. At least I felt no pain.

The images were disjointed, seeming to happen all at once, yet an eternity apart.

I struggled against the violence, determined to tamp it out, but I had no control over the situation. I was completely vulnerable. Utterly helpless.

Rome’s rugged face suddenly loomed over me, hazy, blurred. He appeared resolute and a little sad. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice penetrating and chasing away some of the darkness.

“Don’t hurt me,” I pleaded.

“If I don’t, someone else will and they won’t be merciful.”

“Please.”

“I must.”

“No.”

Pause.

He lifted tendrils of my hair and sifted it through his fingers. “You’re as innocent as Sunny,” he said gently. He sighed.

“Who’s—” I felt a sharp sting in my arm and jerked. A burning river entered my bloodstream, racing through me. A drugging peace followed the burn, settling over me, infusing every part of my body.

Down, down I sank into another realm of darkness, a spiraling void. There were no solid anchors. No sense of time or place. Thankfully, the dreams were held at bay, evaporating as if they’d never existed. I floated over a blanket of clouds.

Then…nothing. Yet…everything.

How much time passed, I didn’t know. I only knew pricks of light soon began to invade my mind. With the light came strength, and my eyelids fought to open. I needed to wake up; I knew I did. Something called to me. Beckoned. I stretched my arms over my head. My back arched, popping each vertebra of my spine. It felt good to move.

The scents of frying bacon and scrambled eggs blended with the sugary sweet fragrance of syrup, wafting to me like a summoning finger that promised to lead me straight into paradise. My mouth watered.

As I forced myself to full wakefulness, I gazed around the bedroom. Confusion seeped slowly into my consciousness. I don’t know what I expected to see, but what I saw wasn’t it.

A faux marble armoire rested against the far white wall. But…I didn’t own an armoire. Sheer dark blue curtains draped the only window, curtains that should have been green. The old, ratty quilt I’d bought at a garage sale swathed the bed in a multihued sea of colors, but this mattress was different, softer than mine. Overhead, a ceiling fan whirled slowly, providing a light but welcome breeze.

I didn’t have a ceiling fan in my room.

Where was I? In the last glimpse I’d had of my bedroom, black, ashy smudges had layered the carpet and walls. These walls were bare, peeling but clean. I shook my head, and my gaze landed on a junglelike corner of thriving plants, brilliant green and dewy. My plants were dry, nearing death.

Obviously I’d been moved. The man, the one who’d wanted to neutralize me, had brought me here. Yes. Rome was his name, and that’s what he’d done. Too bad he hadn’t been a dream. His harsh, savagely sensual face was too vivid in my mind; his threats still rang in my ears. My fingers still trembled from having held him off.

Shouldn’t I be dead? I glanced down at my hands, turning them in the light. At the very least, shouldn’t I have awakened in a laboratory, strapped to a table, with evil scientists doing things to my body they wouldn’t do to farm animals? Instead, I felt well-rested and clean. I even tasted mint, as if someone had recently brushed my teeth. My hair and skin smelled fragrant, like jasmine body wash. I did
not
want to contemplate what that meant.

Get up, Jamison. Get out of here before Rome returns.
Yes, yes. That’s exactly what I needed to do. I threw a leg over the side of the bed.

“Good. You’re awake,” a cold, hard voice said from the doorway. “Not trying to escape, are you?”

Gasping, I whipped my head toward the speaker, my leg dangling guiltily in front of me. Rome filled the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. He wore another black shirt, the sleeves rolled up, the button at his collar undone. Black slacks hugged lean legs.

He could have been a businessman if it hadn’t been for his I’ve-seen-the-worst-the-world-has-to-offer eyes, with those taut, determined lines around them. The gun holster hooked to his shoulder didn’t help the image, either.

“Me?” I gulped. “Try and escape? Never.”

“Liar,” he said, yet there was no heat in his tone. “Now that you’re up, we’re going to eat breakfast and talk.”

Eat? Talk? But…“Why aren’t I dead?” My blood chilled. “Ohmygod, you’re one of those crazy people who enjoys fear. You’ll probably tell me all the ways you want to hurt me, making me scream and squirm for mercy, before you render the final blow.”

He frowned, the action so menacing it propelled a shiver down my spine. “Don’t scream. Don’t even think about screaming. I’ll have to knock you out,
then
knock out the neighbors.”

I gulped at his fierceness. There was a silver lining, though. He’d said “neighbors”—that meant other people were around.

“You have five minutes to get your sexy ass in the kitchen,” he said, turning.

Sexy? I nearly gasped. My mouth did fall open. He thought I was sexy when he’d only seen me at my worst? I quickly quashed the surge of pleasure that knowledge brought, and cursed myself for being a sex-starved idiot. “Did you take advantage of me while I was sleeping?”

He paused and flashed an are-you-kidding-me look over his shoulder. Then he strode away, disappearing down the hall and leaving me alone in the room. “Five minutes,” he called.

Or what?
I wanted to shout, but I was having trouble catching my breath. “Damn sickness,” I muttered, because I refused—refused!—to blame my breathlessness on Rome.

I would
not
be attracted to the man who wanted to kill me.

Even I had standards.

Escape, dummy. Escape!
He’d left me alone, the idiot. Well, not alone, but close enough. If I could get out of the apartment/house/wherever I was, I could get help from one of the neighbors. I scrambled from the bed, a little shaky, but stronger than I’d been since getting sick. I wore a tank top and panties (different ones than before, damn it!), which meant the neutralizing bastard had changed my clothes yet again.

First stop: bathroom. I found it easily, since it branched directly from the bedroom, and I took care of urgent business. After that, I raced to the closet. The opportunity to escape ticked like a time bomb in my brain as I grabbed the first pair of jeans I found and tugged them on. They were mine, obviously brought from my home. Actually, several items from my closet hung on the hangers.

As I hastily jerked a T-shirt over my head, my stomach growled. How long had it been since I’d eaten? The bacon-scented air smelled
so
good. I hated to admit it, but that smell nearly tempted me to forget about something as minor as my own impending murder, and stroll into the kitchen, sit down, and gobble up breakfast.

Why did Rome want me to eat, anyway? To poison me? “Most likely, the diabolical fiend.” Or maybe he didn’t plan to let me eat at all. Maybe the food was for him, and I was supposed to watch him eat it.

The man was an enigma, that was for sure, and I didn’t know what to think of him or his actions. Past, present or future. He hadn’t killed me when he’d had the chance. He hadn’t done anything damaging—that I knew of.

“Three minutes,” Rome called from the kitchen.

“Go fuck yourself,” I whispered. I grabbed the tennis shoes that rested on the shoe rack and tugged them on. They were mine, so they fit perfectly. I sprinted to the window, pushed away the curtain and took stock.

Okay, so. I was inside a tall, red brick building. Another red brick structure was right across from it. I glanced down, saw that the fire escape had a workable ladder, and grinned with relief. When I noticed people strolling on the street below, I almost clapped. Excitement rushed through me. Once I got outside, I could scream for help.

My fingers curled over the bottom of the window frame and shoved upward. Except…the window refused to open.
“Amph.”
I put all my muscle into lifting the glass. Nothing happened. “What the hell?” I growled softly.

“I secured the lock,” I heard. “Same with the rest of the windows. Same with the front door.”

I bit the inside of my cheek, tamping down a scream of fury. His tone was laced with humor and held a splash of smug superiority. How had he known what I was doing, anyway? He couldn’t see me. Did he consider me so lame that he didn’t even have to check on me? Well, I’d show him.

Maybe I could throw something at the glass, shattering it, then leap outside. I only needed a few seconds, just long enough to get someone’s attention so they could call the police.

“If you’re thinking about breaking the glass,” he called, “you should know it’s thicker than normal and requires major force to render the slightest crack. If you’re thinking about waving to someone below or across from us, you should know the glass has a film on the outside that prevents anyone from seeing in.”

I didn’t doubt the truth of his words. At closer inspection, I could see the density of the glass and the glint of a shade. “Thanks for the news flash,” I said between clenched teeth.

“You’re welcome.”

Bastard.
Come on, Jamison. Think!
There had to be something I could do.

You have power over the four elements,
he’d said. I didn’t feel any different, didn’t feel like a powerful being. But I’d already seen the proof. I’d caused ice to form on my fingers. I’d held the man at bay with some sort of air shield. Did I still possess those abilities?

Not knowing what else to do, I backtracked several feet from the window and held out my arms. I’d show that bastard what happened when he messed with a pissed-off woman. (I hoped.) I’d blow the whole freaking wall off,
then
climb down. (I hoped.)

“Wind,” I said softly, not wanting to snag Rome’s attention. “I summon you.”

A few seconds passed. Nothing happened. Not even a slight breeze.

“Wind,” I repeated with a little more volume. “I summon thee to thy master.” A little dramatic, but…shit. Again, nothing. “I command wind to blow through that fucking wall!”

Once more, my efforts were not rewarded. Why wasn’t this working? It had worked before. When I realized what I was doing, thinking, I shook my head. God, here I was, accepting the fact that I had powers. Who’d have thought
I
would ever end up in this situation? Ordinary Belle Jamison?

“You won’t be able to do it.” Rome’s voice flowed like warm honey from directly behind me.

I drew in a sharp breath and stiffened. He’d moved so silently, I hadn’t heard him approach. Now his warm exhalations caressed the back of my neck. He was so close I could feel the heat of his body seeping through my clothes.

I gulped but didn’t turn to look at him. Probably lack of courage on my part, but I chose to think of it as prudence. “If you strike me from behind,” I told him, “you’re nothing more than a coward.”

“For the last time, if I had wanted to hurt you, I would have done so already. Now, put your arms down and we’ll go into the kitchen to have our chat.”

“Hell, no.” Maybe I should have tried to run away just then. Maybe I should have turned around and kneed his balls into his throat. Oh, wait. That wasn’t a bad idea. I spun, raising my knee.

Rome gripped my shoulders, twisting me back to the window before I could do any damage. He pinned me in place. “I don’t think so. I didn’t hurt you, so you’re not going to hurt me. Understand?”

My gaze narrowed on the glass. “Why
didn’t
you hurt me?”

He ignored my question. “You ready to eat?”

“No, I’m ready to leave you.” At my sides, I shook my hands, increasing their blood flow. Wind, come on!

“Fine.” He sighed. “Keep trying. Failure will be good for you.” He released the pressure on my shoulders, and I was able to hold my palms out in front of me. “You’ll realize that you can’t get away from me, no matter how hard you try, and we can get down to business.”

My eyelids squeezed tightly, and I visualized what I wanted: a gusting, torrential wind. Hard, pounding. Several seconds passed as I waited for something, anything. Was a slight breeze too much to ask for? Obviously. I got zilch. Nada.

“I told you.” He tsked with his tongue.

“I hate when people say that.” Irritation swam through me. Irritation and powerlessness, frustration and humming thrums of awareness of him—which only increased my irritation. “I wouldn’t be standing here trying to blow this window to smithereens with my bare hands if it weren’t for you.”

He chuckled, a tender purr at odds with everything I’d come to think about him. “Stubborn,” he said.

“Determined.” How dare he laugh at me? Tendrils of fury began to replace my other emotions, burning them away.

“Look, I’ve been threatened, taken against my will to an unfamiliar apartment and infected with some sort of formula. And there’s no end in sight! I’ll try to escape if I damn well—” My fingers caught fire and I screamed.

“Wonderful,” he said drily.

“I’m on fire. I’m on fire!” Panicked, I waved my hands through the air. The flames only intensified. If I hadn’t already been convinced I had powers, I would have believed it then.

Rome sighed. “Stop wiggling and take stock. Does it burn you?”

His words penetrated my mind, and I stilled. The panic receded (slightly), as did the flames. The dying fire produced heat on my skin, I realized, but somehow not enough to burn me. “No,” I said, shocked.

He reached around me, running his fingers down my arms to my now-extinguished hands, then tracing a fingertip over each nail bed. A delicious shiver stole over me, warm and erotic, enough to lick tiny embers of sensation over my skin. Hot, like the flames. Maybe hotter.

“You’re a menace to yourself, not to mention the rest of the world. No wonder the paras want you.”