Stained (3 page)

His gaze rolled over her, making her hotter. "You are?"

"Yes."

"A girl that heals people."

"Um hmmm."

"And lives in an old warehouse?"

"That-- Sam burned my house down, so I needed somewhere to stay for a little while."

"Your family... They gone?"

She nodded, holding his gaze.

Cayne looked almost uncomfortable as he crossed his arms. "Were they able to do any of the things you can do?"

"No. But they weren't my biological parents. Those died when I was little." Julia had never wondered if her birth parents had been like her. Cayne seemed to think so, which for some reason made her feel even more alone.

He pulled off his right shoe and both his ankle-length white socks and tossed them in the grass, beside the left shoe. "I'm, uh...going to wash off." He nodded at the river, and Julia turned up her nose.

"You're joking, right? That's gotta be like the dirtiest water you could ask for."

"I've see worse," Cayne called over his shoulder. He rolled up his jeans legs, waded in, and ducked his head into the water. Julia sat in the damp grass, crossed her legs, and, when she was sure he intended to take his time, began to cry.

She sobbed for at least fifteen minutes--during which time Cayne, having noticed her tear fest, decided to strip down to his boxers and take a swim. She knew she was in a bad place when her eyes stopped leaking for that moment and her gaze wandered down his muscular thighs...to his knees...and down his calves. And she thought,
dang he's hot
. And started crying again, because she'd cut her own hair and it probably looked horrible.

He got out when she quieted and approached lowly, looking awkward. For a second, he just looked at her. His mouth pinched, and that voice of his--was it Scottish?--rasped out: "You okay?"

Julia was surprised at how warm the question made her feel. With Harry and Suzanne gone, she had figured there was no one left to--

Deep breath.

She nodded quickly.

"Good." Cayne nodded down at her, water rolling down his buff, bare chest. "'Cause I was thinking..."

"Hurt yourself?"

He raised his brows, and Julia smiled a little.

"Okay. Thinking what?"

"Well, we both want him dead: Samyaza."

"Yep. I mean, I do, anyway."

Cayne nodded. "I have a plan." He looked her over, head to toe, in a way that made her aware of her lousy haircut and general grubbiness. His eyes gleamed; that handsome mouth curved like he'd just thought of something clever. "We use you as bait."

Chapter 4

"Excuse me?"

"We--"

Julia held up her hand. "I got what you said. It's just that...well, why do I have to be the bait?"

Cayne grunted as he tugged his shirt over his head. "I thought you wanted to--"

"I do," she said, standing and wiping off her butt. "But I'm not going to be the cheese in your mousetrap."

"It's a great plan, really." He smiled, handsome features exaggerated by his slick hair.

The problem, Julia realized as she studied his smug grin, was that Cayne knew what was going on and she didn't. He didn't need her, but she needed him. Unless, of course, she wanted to continue living in an abandoned pecan factory, hiding under her tarp in terror that Death--er, Samy-wahtever--would return to do her in.

She gritted her teeth. "What's your plan?"

His brows wiggled. "I'll follow you through the city and you try to draw him to us."

"That's the plan?"

Cayne nodded.

"That doesn't seem very safe. For
me
."

"I'll protect you," he said.

"Riiiight." Julia eyed the blood stain on the collar of his shirt. "The guy who just got his tail kicked is going to protect me."

Even in the pre-dawn dark, she saw his nostrils flare. "Only because he caught me off guard."

"Whatever. It seems like an unfair setup to me, and I have yet to see what's so great about it."

Cayne rubbed his eye; it still oozed blood. "It's true I've got shit with him, but he traveled here for you. And if he came himself, he really wants you dead." Julia's throat tightened as Cayne shifted his weight and crossed his arms--the consummate expert on all things Death. "He'll come back for you--again and again and again. You need me more than I need you."

Julia felt unsteady, so she crouched down on a nearby tree root. "You would have died if I wasn't there," she whispered.

One dark brow arched. "Same to you."

She drew her knees to her chest. "Why were you fighting him?"

"What's your name?"

"That's not an answer." She dropped her head into her hand. When, after a few seconds, he shifted his weight--like maybe he was about to walk away--she looked back up at him. "Julia," she said grimly, with a little wave. "I'm Julia."

"Julia, do you have a st-- a birthmark?"

"What's that got to do with anything?"

He shrugged, shrewd. "Just curious."

On its own, Julia's hand slid to the back of her neck. She caught herself mid-motion, but Cayne moved behind her and lifted her chopped hair. His fingers skated gently over her skin, igniting a wave of chills that moved from her shoulders to her toes with tidal force.

"I thought so," he murmured.

She jerked away. He stepped back in front of her, and she pressed down on the hair that usually hid the freaky, ruddy starburst. "You thought what?"

Cayne's mouth pinched, like he was trying to decide if he should tell.

"Get on with it! How did you know I had a birthmark?"

He shook his head. "Consider yourself the down payment on your answers. After I kill him, I'll tell you what I know. You can even choose not to hear the reasons. They won't matter. Your problem will be gone."

Julia's jaw dropped. "You think I'm going to use my life as a down payment because...why again?"

His eyes hardened. "Because without me, you won't last another week."

Cayne ran his hand back through his hair, shifting his weight from one foot to the other like an ornery horse. "You're going to be under my protection," he said. "And we'll only need a few days."

"God." Julia dropped her head back into her hands. She wanted to stay like that, possibly forever, but she felt Cayne's pressuring gaze. "And what if I don't want to be hitched to you after all?"

"You can go back to your warehouse."

His tone was cold--and almost cruel--but the memory of the warehouse, with its Christmas smell and lonely echo, made her chest tight. She was living in a warehouse because she'd lost Suzanne and Harry. She had lost her family because of the winged man. The half-
demon
. She--the secret freak, the cast-off girl--was all alone again, twice orphaned, and it was all that black-winged motherlover's fault.

His eyes on hers, Cayne stuck out his hand, and Julia grabbed it. They walked into the purple glow of dawn, back to the warehouse.

Chapter 5

"So you're really not going to tell me what my birthmark means until I march around the city trying to lure Samy-whatever back for you?" Julia looked out over the rim of her orange soda can, giving Mr. Mystery her best glare.

After they'd returned to the pecan warehouse earlier that morning, Cayne had disappeared for something like an hour. He'd told her he had something he needed to do, and for a while she'd been pretty sure he wasn't coming back. She'd tried to be zen about it, telling herself that if he didn't return, she didn't need him anyway. She'd had this whole plan to hide out in the Peabody Hotel; if Samyaza wanted to come after her, he'd have to get through a downtown Memphis landmark first. But Cayne had returned with a plastic grocery bag of five dripping sodas, six bags of Doritos, one bag of peanut M&Ms, and two jumbo cinnamon rolls.

Added to the list of things she knew about him: Mr. Mystery had a sweet tooth. In the past twenty minutes, she'd watched him pack away two extra-large snack bags of potato chips and one of the cinnamon rolls. He'd let her choose from the remains, and she'd selected the M&Ms--though, at the moment, she didn't have the appetite to eat them.

Even stuffing his face full of cinnamon roll, Cayne managed to look shrewd. His dark eyebrows were expressive in a way that might have been charming if it wasn't so infuriating. As he'd done a few times now, he communicated using only his face, scrunching his brows and pulling his lips into a pinch that said:
Yeah, you've got that right. No way am I telling you shit.
Then he took another bite out of his roll.

Julia opened her mouth to say she'd still help him even if he told her what she needed to know. She shut it when she realized that wasn't true.

"I'll help you for one day," she told him. "Max."

He gave her that look again--the one that said
No way
--and she stuck her tongue out. She tore open her bag of M&Ms, separating them in her palm by color. When he still didn't say anything, she slid a glance his way. He was sitting in a corner, on a plastic chair with rusted legs, looking like a model for
Runaway Teen Weekly
.

"So... You won't tell me about my birthmark, but what about why he was after you? Do you have one, too?"

Cayne stared into her eyes. After a second, he simply shook his head.

She recognized it as another non-answer.

"Where're you from?"

This time, he simply blinked at her.

"Okaaay." She threw all her sarcasm into it, but she could feel her cheeks burning. "I don't need a friend," she told him, though just saying the word reminded her of the twins and brought a fresh wave of longing crashing through her. She'd never had very many friends; kids with families didn't want to hang out with a creepy foster kid--like losing your parents was contagious--and the twins had been a blessed link to normalcy.

Clearly, normalcy was gone.

While she finished off her bag of M&Ms and came to the conclusion that if they were in school, Cayne would be the kind of guy that sat at the punk degenerates' table (she could see him with a pierced eyebrow) or maybe even the athletes' table (a wrestler?), she noticed a huge gray feather on the ground, a few feet from her debris-littered tarp bed. She squinted, trying to remember the half-demon's wings. Had they been grey or black--or charcoal? She couldn't remember anymore.

She stood up and brushed off her dirty jeans. "Are you going to tell me anything about yourself, or will I have to provide the entertainment?"

Cayne stood, too. He grabbed a topless paint can filled with old cigarette butts and tossed his trash inside. He straightened, and again, she thought how tall he was. How handsome.

"You don't have to do anything but walk around," he told her flatly. "If I'm right about you, Samyaza will do the rest."

Walking with Cayne was like walking with a bodyguard. Which Julia figured made sense, because he
was
supposed to be protecting her. He stayed two steps behind her with his thick arms crossed, and he didn't seem interested in conversation.