Soul Survivor (7 page)

“This is Lucien.”

“Get here. Now. I'm in the cockpit.”

“Monica? What the—”

I didn't give him the chance to say no. I hung up the phone and tossed it onto the seat. I knew he had placed a constant tracker on me ever since we'd dealt with a murderer in his sector; he could find me in an instant. Part of me wanted to continue holding Aaron's lifeless body. The other part—the self-preservation side—made me lower him out of my arms back to the floor. If I hadn't killed him, he would have murdered me. I'd had no choice. A crack sounded and Lucien appeared in front of me.

“Do you know how hard it is to teleport onto a flying plane, Mon? This better be . . .” His words faded away as he stared wide-eyed at Aaron, sprawled across the floor, sword sticking out of his chest like he had lost some Arthurian battle.

“You've got to be fucking kidding me.” His head snapped around to look at me, arm flailing wildly to Aaron's corpse. “How'd this happen?”

I shrugged and tears threatened to spill from the corners of my eyes. “He's an assassin—was scheduled to kill me tonight. I-I don't know; I didn't mean to kill him, but he lunged at me and I tried to conjure a knife, but instead got a sword in hand. At that point it was too late. He ran right into it.” I sniffled to keep the tears from exploding.

“Conjured? What the fuck are you talking about . . . ?”

I held up a hand, cutting him off. “Look, we don't have much time. The captain will be back any minute. Can you get his body out of here?”

Lucien snorted and looked me up and down. “Of course I can.” He lifted the body with ease and threw him over a shoulder. “Nice outfit, by the way.”

“Shut up,” I muttered before shifting to look like Aaron. Medium height. Sandy brown hair. Muscular with dark blue eyes. “Close enough?”

Lucien nodded. “A fucking mirror image. You really going to land this plane?” an eyebrow lifted with the question.

I shrugged. “I'm hoping the captain will do the brunt of the work.”

“You owe me for this.”

“What else is new?” I said under my breath.

Crack.
Lucien was gone just as the door to the cockpit slid open.

T
he captain stood in the opening of the doorway staring at me, fake Aaron, with forehead crinkled. “What are you doing standing there?”

“I . . . was just going to page for you.”

“From a standing position? Several feet away?” His narrowed eyes darted to our seats at the front of the tiny room.

It took all my power not to glance down at my feet, the bloody carpet below squishing beneath my shoes. Thank Hell for dark carpeting. “No,” I said, taking a moment's hesitation. I shifted a cut that looked deep on the palm of my hand. “I cut myself.” I held up my palm to show an open, gaping wound. “And I needed to run to the bathroom to clean it quickly.” Not only would it explain the blood below me (if anyone took the time to notice), but maybe I could get out of landing the plane.

“Christ, Aaron. Go, but hurry. We're scheduled to land soon.”

Classic. He takes an extra long break, then blames the younger kid for needing the bathroom. As I exited the cockpit, I almost ran directly into Damien's shoulder, speaking with Meg, the flight attendant.

“What do you mean you haven't seen her? She must be here
somewhere
. We're fucking thousands of feet in the air.”

Oh shit.

“Excuse me.” I touched his arm and his neck whipped around aggressively in my—well, Aaron's face. He cracked his knuckles.

“What do
you
want?”

I cleared my throat and stepped so that Meg wouldn't be able to see my face.

“You're looking for your friend in first class, right?”

“Yes,” Damien snarled. “What did you do with her?” He stepped as if he were going to lunge at me.

I shifted my eyes back to blue like Monica's briefly so that he would notice. Shock, then recognition softened his angry eyebrows. “I believe she went to sit in the back with her friends. If she's not there at the moment, she's probably in the restroom.”

He nodded slowly, grasping that something was up he needed to just go along with. “Uh-huh.”

“We have video monitors up in the cockpit—I was of course keeping an eye on her and saw her back there just a minute ago.”

Damien swallowed, jaw clenched. It was most likely pretty jarring to see someone you were attracted to as a six-foot-something man. “Well”—he clapped his hands together in forced jovial tone—“I guess we're good here, huh?” He clapped Meg on the shoulder and she scowled at him. Then he looked again at me. “Thanks for letting me know.” He shook my hand in a gentle way that could only be interpreted as sweet. Then, turning, he went back to the economy cabin.

Meg looked at me, creases all over her forehead. “Some people, huh? I wouldn't mess with that girl, Aaron. She's got way too many men protecting her as it is. She smells of trouble.”

Oh, Meg. If you only knew.

 

When I returned to the cockpit, the captain sat waiting for me. “All right, rookie. Ready?”

Ready? Rookie? “Uh—sure.” I took the seat next to him, my fingers twitching in my lap.

“Well, let's land this plane.” The captain grabbed a fishing magazine from next to his seat and flipped through a few pages.

After staring at him for a few moments, I grabbed Aaron's iPad. “Um, okay.” They had autopilot for when they were at the correct altitude.... Maybe they had an auto-landing program now, too. It had been some time since I'd been privy to the inner workings at an airline.

“What are you
doing
?” the captain shouted just as I pushed the button to turn on the iPad.

His loud voice boomed through the tiny enclosed space and I jumped, almost dropping the expensive electronic device. “I'm—er . . . landing?”

“Gonna be a smart ass, I see . . . ,” he grumbled before grabbing a headset and speaking a bunch of coded nonsense into it.

“I just really don't think I'll be of much use with this hand. It's really in bad shape.” I shifted the gash to look even worse, making sure some ligaments and bone could be seen.

“Jesus Christ, kid. Was it that bad a few minutes ago?”

I shrugged. “Must've been, right?”

He shook his head. “Shit. Guess I'll be landing this thing on my own tonight.”

I smirked on the inside. Lazy bastard had had a break
and
a nap—he sure as Hell should be landing it, even if Aaron were still here to help. I watched as he maneuvered the controls and the tower with an ease that could only be described as fascinating. Like watching a skilled gymnast perform a flawless routine. As the wheels touched down, I had to stop myself from clapping.

We exited the cockpit and watched all the passengers leave the flight. Damien walked by and caught my gaze. As subtly as I could, I shifted my gaze to the luggage compartment above my would-have-been seat. With an eye roll, he nodded and reached in to grab my duffel bag.

After everyone had left, the captain clasped my shoulder. “You're lucky that was the last flight of the evening for this plane, kid. Otherwise, you would have been stuck here for an hour with post-flight tasks. Go get that hand stitched up.”

I nodded and turned to leave. “Hey,” he said . . . the tone in his voice giving me pause. “How'd you get that cut, anyway? Pretty nasty one considering how safe these flights are.”

I swallowed and turned to meet his eyes. They were narrowed and he had both hands in his pockets, leaning against the door frame. I shrugged. “It's pretty embarrassing. I—I was learning how to knit. And the needle sliced through my hand.”

You would have thought I'd told the man I'd taken up puppy hunting by the look on his face. “
You
knit?”

I held up the gashed palm. “Not anymore, I don't. Guess that's why us guys are supposed to leave that task to the women, huh?” I elbowed his belly in a friendly gesture and turned to make my escape once more, rolling Aaron's luggage behind me with his iPad tucked under one arm.

I
found the group waiting for me right outside the airplane, each with their own suspicious glare. Damien was seething to a point that if you poured cold water on him, steam would have erupted off his body. George had his “what the fuck” face on, Adrienne was wringing her hands, and Drew just looked confused.

“Well? Where is she?” Drew asked the group, eyes tilting down at the corners. My stomach wrenched as I walked past them still in Aaron's body. “If she's not out in another minute, I'm going back in there.”

“No!” everyone yelled so loud it made
me
jump.

“Drew, you'll get arrested if you try to go back on the plane,” Adrienne said calmly, placing a hand on his forearm. “Let's just give her a few minutes.”

The men's room was just a few feet ahead, my sanctuary. Just a few more steps and I could shift back into me. Damien's gaze burned into my back.

“Excuse me!” Drew's voice bellowed from behind me and I sped up the pace. I heard him call out again, but he sounded farther away. I didn't bother looking back, and instead slipped into the men's bathroom. A few men stood at the urinal and as though it was habit, forced themselves not to look up as I entered. One man's eyes twitched in my direction and we made eye contact before he quickly diverted his attention back to the matters at hand.

I slipped into a stall, pulling Aaron's bag with me. After locking the door, I shifted. It was like an immediate comfort; not too dissimilar from taking off a tight dress after a long night of dancing. My breathing was heavy and I sighed, leaning against the side of the stall. Even with having a lot of sex lately, that shift had sucked up a lot of my energy reserves. When I looked down at my fingernails, they were glossy and long—even without my making them so. A telltale sign that my body was compensating for depleted reserves. The more energy we need, the more beautiful we naturally are; a beautiful bait strung up on Saetan's fishing line.

Once I caught my breath, I opened the stall with the intention of just slipping out quietly. It was as though every man at their urinals forgot the unspoken rule of not making eye contact while taking a piss and in unison they looked up and directly at me.

On an exhale, I raised an eyebrow and smirked before strutting to the exit. My confidence shattered as Drew walked in, almost bumping into me.

“Oh, excuse me,” he said before it registered whom he was talking to . . . and
where
we were talking. “Monica! What—what are you doing in here!” He dropped his voice, eyes shifting at the other men who were all now staring at us, mouths agape. “This is the men's room, Mon,” he whispered as if I didn't already know that.

A nervous laugh strangled in my throat. “Right, I know. I mean—I didn't know at first. And then I came in and, uh, oops?” Clearing my throat, I beelined it away from there. Drew was at my heels.

“We were all pretty worried about you. Where've you been?” The concern in his voice caused a pang in my heart.

“I was the first off the plane,” I said over my shoulder. Keep the lies simple. Don't get caught in a web of intricacy. “First-class luxuries, you know.”

He grabbed my elbow, spinning me to face him. Drew's green eyes were tilted and his face registered a mixture of emotions ranging from anger to sadness. “Monica,” he whispered, a frown marring the space between his eyes. “That pilot—I-I don't know.... There's something about him I don't like. Just . . . be careful.”

The words were a bee sting on my heart. “Oh,” I said with a bitter laugh. “There's a shocker—you don't like someone I'm sleeping with. Takes a genius to dissect that.”

His jaw dropped, brows pinching as he registered what I had just said. The muscles in his throat tightened and for all of a minute, my heart broke for him. “You slept with him? Already?” His eyes darted to the bathroom door and his features hardened as though one by one they turned to stone. “So that's what you were doing in there. An airport bathroom. That's classy.” His eyebrows twitched with the sarcasm and he tucked both hands into his pockets, backing away from me. “Even for
you
.”

My face flamed. He had no right commenting on my choices. Not anymore. “I am a shattered vase, thanks to you. I am thousands of glass shards and you don't get to tell me how to piece them back together when you're the one who broke me in the first place. Besides—” I arched an eyebrow and folded my arms across my cleavage, making sure to push them just a touch higher. He swallowed, his eyes not leaving mine. We were in a standoff, each with loaded guns, ready to draw. “Why would I need to resort to bathroom fucking? Aaron and I already took care of that in the cockpit.”

Drew's face turned bright red, pain flashing across his chiseled features. His lips pressed together in a thin, white line.

“There you are!” George interrupted and stepped between us. He looked at me with apologetic eyes and gently ushered me away from Drew. Wrapping me in a hug, he kissed my temple. “What do you say we get to the hotel?”

George's arms took the place of Drew's as I rested my cheek on his shoulder.

Drew and I managed to ignore each other for the rest of the evening. Within a couple of hours, I had filled Damien, Adrienne, and George in on what had happened in the cockpit and we were checked into the hotel. I collapsed into bed, not even caring that it was only ten o'clock. Not caring that I desperately needed to hunt. And not caring that Drew was in the next room sharing a bed with Adrienne.

 

The feeling of someone watching you is always startling. I woke with a start, gasping and sitting straight up. The hotel comforter was coarse and scratched against my skin. A breath, short and ragged, caught in my throat and I glanced at the clock. A little before three in the morning. I was about to throw back the covers to splash some water on my face, when I noticed someone at the foot of my bed. She was facing the other way and I could just barely make out the back of her head—red fiery coils of hair. A scream strangled in my throat as she turned slowly to face me, spinning with the grace of a practiced ballerina. She hovered at the foot of my bed, head bobbing up and down, milky eyes regarding me with a stony glare. As if trapped in a block of ice, I froze. A whimpering sound crackled through the air. I was surprised to discover it was my own soft cry.

She cocked her head like a puppy who didn't understand my fear. I slid a glance to George's empty bed—he was out hunting, no doubt. Panic gripped my throat like two meaty hands and I hesitated before bringing my attention back to the Banshee. Her hair spread out, framing her face like a bunch of red serpents. She parted her lips and I cringed, anticipating the scream.

Instead, she puckered her lips and blew, a stream of black fog escaping her mouth and surrounding my body.

The fog split and instantaneously, her face was in front of mine, close enough to kiss. I clamped a hand over my mouth to stop the scream. Putting a finger to her lips, she shook her head back and forth. Blood stained her fingers as she lowered her hand.

Veins pulsed in my neck, my heart jackhammered against my chest. My throat felt dry despite the full glass of water I had drunk before bed. Her bloody finger moved to my face. I shook my head, desperation in my eyes.
Please don't touch me, please don't touch me
. . . .

She paused, eyebrows twitching together. What could she not understand about this? How did she not realize I didn't want an omen of death touching me?!

With a deep breath, I looked closely at her. How long had it been since she was human? Her features, though terrifying, retained the traits of what once could have been a beautiful woman. A dainty nose and scarlet lips that matched her hair. High cheekbones. Even those milky eyes could have been at one point a bright, luminous blue. She was like a wild animal that had been trained to do a task. A feral cat put in a home for the first time, not knowing how to receive or give affection.

She glanced down at her bloody fingers, then back into my eyes. Did she have any concept that I wasn't human either?

I shifted myself to look like the mirror image of the Banshee, the rush of it making me breathless. I would definitely need to find a conquest soon. Her wild red hair was now mine. Pale skin. Milky eyes. She blinked, her neck twitching at the sight and she raised her hands to her face, feeling her nose, her chin, her cheekbones. Red smears covered her powdery skin. Her mouth tilted into a frown and I couldn't help but wonder if she'd never before seen her appearance. One hand moved to my face, the other still on her own jaw.

I shifted back to myself before she could touch me and her hand jerked back, surprised at the sudden change.

“See?” I whispered. “I'm not human. Why are you coming to me?”

She opened her mouth to speak, a grunt escaping in lieu of words. She sounded like a hound that had had its vocal chords snipped. Teeth clicked together as she snapped her mouth shut and her jaw clenched, lines forming on her flawless porcelain skin. She clapped her hand to her chest and tapped it a few times with her palm, using the other hand to point at me.

With a deep breath, I shifted to look like her again. This time those big milky eyes regarded me in fascination. She tapped her chest again, lighter this time with only her fingertips, and turned her head to the side as if asking,
Me?

Nodding, I pointed to her. “Yes. This is you.” I whispered.

Those milky eyes brimmed with fluid. They weren't your typical tears—they were a translucent gray. Like murky bath water falling from her eyes. Like a rising tide, they spilled over onto her cheeks and the blood on her face mixed with the odd tears, creating an even bigger mess. Her hand stretched out toward my face again and before I could stop it, her still bloody fingers brushed across my lips. Those red coils of hair were the last thing I remembered seeing before I fell into darkness.