Secrets - [Guardian Trilogy 01] (6 page)

She definitely had potential to become a serious problem. I took a deep breath and decided to approach the whole mess logically. The way I reacted to her was foreign and occurred on a base level well beyond my comprehension or control. It blindsided me. I lead her to the doors, but I didn’t let her open them. The doors held the beast, the part of me I had to keep locked away to live among people. He would have ended her and that was my intention, but some pain in the ass instinct kicked in kept her safe and messed everything up.
I went around the fucking corner. There wasn’t supposed to be a corner.
What came over me? Hell, I
tried
to make her run away. I tried to scare her, but she was impervious. The snakes, my town, the waste land of a soul, nothing managed to clue her in to the danger she was in just being there. She stayed calm and curious, and above all else… trusting. Watching everything around her as if she were painting it in her mind, she never considered running. What choice did she leave me? They’ll kill me if I let her live.

I have no choice she has to die, especially now that the beast has seen her
.
I can’t believe she still opened the door.

If I ever saw her again, I would
have
to kill her. My job had very clear, very specific rules that were not to be broken—

I punched the dashboard hard enough to bring blood to my knuckles—Blah, blah, blah. I was giving myself the right argument, but despite the facts, part of me wanted to know what she was and why she targeted me. I knew this was a test and to let her live would be to fail. I never failed.

Something new occurred to me then, and my anger subsided as quickly as it had appeared. Planning her death held less interest than discovering why she was here. It was curious that she didn’t seem to know how this was happening any more than I did. I couldn’t be positive that she wasn’t faking or working an angle, but she genuinely didn’t seem the type—though that was the most likely scenario. Either she was an incredibly good actress or there was something much larger happening. If I could say anything for this girl, she wasn’t boring me—yet.

I needed to
question
her then kill her. The idea of interrogating the girl made me feel strange, uncomfortable even. It was even more unsettling than the intense, nearly overwhelming desire I had to see her again—to see her
without
killing her. I drove back to my apartment and paced around it until I felt sure I would wear a path on the wood floors. I just couldn’t unwind. Obsessively thinking and rethinking about every single detail of the last few hours, all I managed to do was tie myself in even more knots. When did I open myself up to weakness? How could I fix it? I had no answers. The frustration built and built, until a stronger more rational voice in my head once more commanded that I let it go. I had to calm down or the effects could be disastrous. I didn’t have the luxury of losing control.

I picked a book off of my shelf, Dostoyevsky’s
The Brothers Karamazov
. It had become one of my favorite books over the years, though it had taken multiple reads to fully grasp the complexity of the story. The exploration of the moral struggles in the book kept me coming back again and again. My mentor, when I first began the business, often recommended Machiavelli’s
The Prince
, but it never resonated with me the way this novel did.

The text did what I hoped it would. It engaged my mind with subjects that were equally as impossible for me to come to terms with as the girl was, but ones I didn’t feel the need to solve tonight. If I wasn’t vigilant, however, her image floated into my mind and broke my concentration. I had to control my thoughts every moment—something that was relatively easy for me to do until a few hours ago.

“Argh!”
I cried out in frustration as she charged back into my thoughts.

Who was this woman?

I threw the book down on the couch and went for a walk. It was nearly 5:00 a.m. The streets smelled of early morning and were blissfully quiet. I walked up and down the sidewalks, ignoring the buildings or the odd person here or there. I had asked for something that wasn’t boring in my life, and it had appeared in the form of a woman with curious eyes and a stupid amount of courageousness. All of my years and training told me she was a threat, that I should kill her before she could compromise my position. But every time I ran this argument through my head, I came back to one little hitch. I didn’t want to. I wanted to watch her, study her, piece her together. Which was fine, still within the rules, but I knew it wasn’t that simple. It was a thin line I was proposing to walk, with temptation at every turn. No, I wouldn’t lie to myself. It was too risky. I noticed a poster in a window of a gallery I was walking past. It was a flier for some run of the mill gallery show, but in the bottom corner of the poster was the face that had been haunting my thoughts for hours. It was a little more than suspicious that the moment I decided to kill her, the where and when fell into my lap. 

I continued walking, muscles still knotted. I needed to find a release. I came to a bus stop, empty except for one young man sitting on the bench with his hands stuffed in the front of his hooded sweatshirt. I sat down next to him.

“It’s too early to be awake.” I made my voice sound gruff to emulate having been pulled out of bed at this ungodly hour.

He grumbled something about someone not showing up for a shift so he had to go.

It was just too easy sometimes. I smiled to myself before I started to commiserate with him, releasing everything I had been holding in. When the bus pulled up to a grinding stop, I clapped the kid on the back companionably and said farewell. I felt a lot better—and the kid? Well, let’s just say he wouldn’t be holding back anymore either.

Five

The hours melted away in my dark room as I immersed myself in work. When I was alone in the studio, it was easy to give myself over completely, all worries and problems dismissed from my mind. With my music playing, time flew by until the faint sound of bells pulled me back to reality. I ran out to answer the phone.

I made it just before the machine picked up. “Yeah?”

“Where the hell are you?”

“Jules?”

“Yes.” Her voice was sharper and a higher than normal. “Where are you?”

“At the studio. You know that—”

“I knew that
six
hours ago. It’s after ten. You weren’t at your apartment—and you were talking about strange men watching you this afternoon!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“We were supposed to hang out tonight, have dinner.”

“I lost track of time. I'm on my way now.”

“Please take a cab. It's late.”

“Yes, Mother,” I agreed with no intention of taking her good, well-meaning advice. I could walk home faster than calling a cab and waiting for them to show up.

But the streets were different tonight, somehow. I don’t know if it was the same feeling from the night before, but again I felt scared. Scared in
my
city—a city I knew and trusted. I never felt frightened here, but at this moment every person I passed, no matter how innocent, seemed threatening. Each dark alley held thousands of unseen horrors. Each noise was amplified a hundred times over. I tried to maintain my ever-fleeting grasp on rational thought.

Footsteps echoed behind me. I sped up and so did they. I stopped and the sound went silent. I mentally counted to five, trying to steady my breath, and whipped around. The street lamp fifteen feet away went out with a pop that made me jump. I stared at the darkness waiting for movement while my legs were itching to run. A faint chuckled drifted through the night and trickled down my spine. I turned around and ran the rest of the way back to my condo’s building. I could feel unseen eyes on my back, waiting in every shadow, poised for attack. I fumbled with my keys, my fingers were thick and slow, my muscles flexed with fight or flight adrenalin. Finally, I got the key into the lock and rushed inside. My chest still felt tight, and I realized I was holding my breath. The air released from my lungs as I laughed at my own foolishness. I couldn’t believe I let my imagination get so carried away.

Juliet was making a late dinner in my apartment, when I walked in. Everything was so familiar and peaceful that all of my fear evaporated, leaving not even a clear memory of what I’d been scared of to begin with. Immediately, I was at ease and ravenous.

“Smells great.”

“Pesto.” Juliet looked up with a slight frown and pursed lips.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Liv, you can’t talk about people watching you then flake out on me. Especially after what happened today.”

“I didn’t mean to—wait, what happened today?”

“You never do.” She sighed. “Some kid went to work in some customer service call center and shot his boss and a few of his co-workers. The police are looking for him.”

“Wow, that’s crazy. I don’t understand the things people do to each other,” I said, wondering if maybe I should have taken a cab like she suggested. “Do you need help?”

“I have this covered. So what all happened this afternoon?”

I started from the dream last night. She listened as she finished making dinner, and it was a relief to verbalize and explain what I saw. It helped me sort out my feelings about it.

“So, what do you think?” I finished.

Juliet considered everything I’d said for a moment. “I’m not sure I understand what’s bothering you,” she said finally, her brow furrowed. “Why is any of this connected? You know, what actually happened? You had a bad dream and freaked yourself out. You went to the park and some guy was checking you out, hardly shocking. You went to the studio, buried your head in the sand for hours, then
walked
home late at night in the city by yourself. Who wouldn’t get totally spooked? Not really surprising. I wouldn’t put too much stock in any of it.”

It made sense. Why
was
I freaking out? No one was out to get me. “You’re probably right—but I just can’t shake the feeling that everything’s different somehow.”

She shrugged. “Are you missing something? Something that connects everything.”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be missing it. I can’t even begin to guess what it might be.”

“I say don’t think about it. It will either pass, or you’ll figure it out. Either way, obsessing over it won’t solve it any faster.”

“What if my dream was a warning that something bad’s about to happen?”

Juliet looked dubious.

“Like I’m going to die.” As soon as the words escaped my mouth, I felt the truth in them. Not that I was actually going to die, but that that was the fear that was worrying me.

 “Are you serious?”

I shrugged.

“Liv, this isn’t like you. You’re not fanciful. You like to deal in reasons and facts. You always have. From the first day I met you in junior high you were always practical. A tiny bit introverted, a little twisted, but always practical. Dreams having hidden meanings about impending doom, rather than being a random firing of neurons? It’s just not you.”

“I feel like everything’s about to change.” I didn’t know how to explain it more clearly, but the knowledge sat heavily in the pit of my stomach.
Soon nothing would be the same
. It terrified me.

 Jules gave me a piercing look, then rolled her eyes. “Well, duh—most of the time it is. Life is constantly changing. Did you remember to eat today?”