Stricken (The War Scrolls Book 1) (12 page)

Killian noticed.

“Keep it down,” he barked.

Dom grunted, lifting a middle finger in the air. His eyes didn’t leave the television screen.

Killian frowned, his gaze narrowing on Dom.

“It’s fine,” Aubrey said before he could open his mouth to fuss at his brother. “Really.”

Killian hesitated a moment before turning back to her. “If he gets too loud for you, you can tell him to shut up.”

“He’s fine.” Aubrey smiled a little. “It reminds me of how things used to be, you know? Aaron and his friends were always so loud when they played video games. I’d forgotten what that was like.”

“You never played?”

Aubrey shook her head. “I preferred books. I still do.”

“Ah. Well, you’re welcome to browse my shelves if you need something to read,” he offered.

“Thanks.” Aubrey hesitated. “I’ve snooped a little. You have eclectic tastes.”

Killian shrugged. “I like variety.”

“Me too.”

They fell silent for a moment, watching Abriel and Dom battle on the screen. Aubrey had no idea what they were playing, but it looked like some sort of war game. People were running all over the place, weapons strapped to their bodies. Smoke drifted up from various places on screen. Mangled bodies littered the field where one of their characters ran, a grenade in his hand.

She shivered and turned away, only to find Killian watching her once more.

“Do you want them to turn it off?” he asked.

“No, that’s fine,” she said. “I just…do you guys honestly enjoy this kind of stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“War.”

“I don’t think anyone enjoys war.”

“So why play?”

“It keeps us sharp.” Killian shrugged.

“Oh.”

“Does it bother you?”

“What? War? Or war games?” she asked.

“The games.”

She thought about it a moment. “Not really. I guess I just don’t see the point to them. Isn’t the world violent enough already? There’s so much death and destruction. Why add to it unless you have to?”

“I think it makes humans feel safe,” Killian said.

Aubrey’s eyes widened.

“As you said, there’s so much death and destruction.” He turned his body toward her, leaning in. “Feeling like you have some measure of control over that makes it seem a little less overwhelming to most humans. And since your people can’t control what happens outside of their homes, they bring it inside, try to figure it out the best way they can.”

“I guess. I still don’t get it, though.”

“I know you don’t,” he said. Emotions danced through his eyes so quickly she couldn’t catch them. But his gaze warmed her and made her ache too. As if she craved something from him she didn’t quite understand. That same vast, bright thing that had called to her in the elevator so many days ago. His gaze locked with hers. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

Her stomach fluttered at the look in his eye. It was predatory and beautiful at once.

She felt herself leaning in, caught by it. Captivated.

Killian leaned in too, his gaze dropping to her lips.

Aubrey’s heart raced.

“Dammit,” Dom yelled.

Aubrey jumped, whipping her head in his direction.

Abriel’s gaze met hers, an indecipherable expression on his face.

He’d seen her and Killian. And he wasn’t happy.

Killian cleared his throat.

Abriel turned to look at him.

They stared at each other for long minutes. They didn’t say anything aloud, but Aubrey had a feeling they were having an entire conversation she couldn’t hear. One she wasn’t sure she
wanted
to hear.

“I’ll…” She jumped up from the sofa, clearing her throat. “I’m going to go read for a while.” She didn’t wait around for an answer, instead turning to hurry from the room.

Killian’s gaze followed her, burning.

She didn’t slow until she made it to his room. After the door closed behind her, she leaned against it, breathing hard. A chorus of emotion sang inside of her, too confused for her to understand. But she felt…strange. Excited. As if whatever she’d seen in Killian’s eyes had awoken some secret part of herself.

One that didn’t frighten her nearly enough.

One that Abriel had noticed too.

“Get it together,” she muttered to herself, scrubbing her hands across her face.

The motion didn’t slow the racing of her heart.

Nor did it quiet the butterflies in her stomach.

Chapter Eleven

At some point, Killian and his brothers had removed the vampire’s body from Aubrey and Mel’s apartment and put the place back in order. Everything looked as good as new, but Aubrey wasn’t sure she’d ever want to live there again. The vampire’s oozing sores and the wild look in his eyes played front and center in her mind while she packed enough clothing to get her through however long it took them to hunt down her past.

Larry seemed relieved by her momentary return though not by the warrior who stood at her side, as silent and unyielding as ever. Still, the old man didn’t mention anything about what John had witnessed days ago.

She and Killian left Memphis as the sun broke over the horizon the next morning, his Mustang racing down the interstate in the early morning light. Abriel and Dom followed in their truck, staying several car lengths back. Checking, perhaps, to ensure no one followed her from the city. She didn’t say much as Killian drove. He didn’t, either. There wasn’t much to say, anyway.

Since that moment in the living room, she’d avoided him, going out of her way to be anywhere but in the same area as he was. If he’d noticed, he hadn’t commented on it. Neither had Abriel or Dom. She felt Abriel’s eyes on her enough to make her uncomfortable, though. So she’d taken to avoiding him too. It was cowardly, but then again, she’d never professed to being courageous in the first place.

Laying her head on the headrest, she stared out the windshield as the sun burst into life overhead. Zee perched on her shoulder, peering out as if trying to figure out why everything moved so quickly while he did not.

Farms identical to one another flew by, workers planting crops here and there. The trees growing on the sides of the road were a riot of vibrant spring colors. Everything bloomed to life, while Aubrey felt as though hers was slowly slipping away.

“I’m sorry,” Killian said nearly an hour into the drive. “I wish this could be easier for you.”

“Me too.” She closed her eyes, her throat tightening at the gentle way he said the words. Why did he have to be so nice to her? “How long will it take us to get there?”

“We’ll be there early this evening. You should try to sleep.”

She hadn’t slept much for the last few days and didn’t want to sleep now. Nightmares were hard enough to deal with when she was alone. She didn’t want Killian to suffer through them with her. Didn’t want him to see how much she still struggled with this decision, perhaps.

“Where did you grow up?” she asked him.

“In a Fallen settlement in Maine.”

“Have you returned since you left?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Is going back hard for you?”

“In a way.”

The car slowed a little before regaining speed. Aubrey didn’t even open her eyes to see why.

“How so?” she asked.

“Halflings like me are a reminder of a weakness many Fallen would prefer not to acknowledge,” Killian said. “They slept with humans and were cast from Heaven as a result. My existence reminds them that not all have overcome that weakness. Out here, it’s easy to forget how bitter those memories are for my people or how far they’re willing to go to forget their shame.”

“Oh.” Aubrey thought about his response for a minute. She’d forgotten a lot too. More than she’d meant to, perhaps. Was forgetting the bad things worth the sacrifice of the good?

She didn’t know.

“I haven’t been back,” she said. “Aunt Mel and I packed what remained of my stuff the day I left the ward and skipped town. We didn’t stop until she was so tired she couldn’t drive any longer.” They’d made it to her home in Memphis the next day. Aubrey had tried to put everything behind her and forget about the friends she’d left or what their world had taken from her.

Eventually, time did what distance could not in those early days—it gave her a respite from grief, allowing her to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and forget.

“We’ll do this as quickly as we can,” Killian promised.

“I don’t think it matters if we do it quickly or not. It’s going to hurt either way.”

Killian didn’t say anything.

“Do you think—?” She swallowed the painful lump in her throat. “Do you think the Elioud shifters I knew are still alive?”

“I don’t know.” His warm hand touched her arm briefly, making her skin tingle. “We haven’t heard anything about an infection in the area. That’s a good sign.”

Possibly.

For all she knew, no word could mean her friends had simply died quietly, their extraordinary lives snuffed out like candles. Silent. Unnoticed. Or it could mean she and Killian were driving into more of what they’d left behind in Memphis.

The only way to know for sure was to keep going.

“This could all be for nothing,” she said, opening her eyes, unsure if she wanted this to be a dead end or not. She wanted to help Killian save his people if she could, but if her dad had known about the virus, what did that mean for her?

She still wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that question.

“I know, but we have to look anyway.” Killian cut his eyes in her direction for a moment. “Did your father act normal before the fire, Aubrey? Any unknown visitors, odd phone calls, anything like that?”

She thought it over and then shook her head. “Nothing like that. He worked a lot, but that wasn’t unusual for him.” She frowned, her eyes falling closed again. “I’m not sure he would have told me even if there was something wrong.”

“Oh?”

“He and Aaron went a little crazy when I got home from the hospital. They wouldn’t let me out of their sight. If I stepped a foot outside, they were right there beside me. The day of the fire, I had to fight to ride the bus to and from school.” Had she not fought her father and brother so hard that morning, Aaron wouldn’t have died in the fire. He would have been on the road to pick her up, safe from harm. She couldn’t forget that part of her past, no matter how she tried.

“Ah,” Killian said. “Exactly how long after—?”

Aubrey cracked one eye open to see him staring straight ahead. “They were killed six weeks after,” she said. “I’m not going to fall apart if you ask me a tough question, Killian. Please stop treating me like I will.”

He bowed his head. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m not used to dealing with humans.” He winced as soon as the words left his lips. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I’ve lived among your people for a long time, but I’ve never spent any real time with them. Being around you is new to me.”

“I know it is, but you have to remember that I’m not made of glass. Talking about my father and Aaron may not be easy, and I may not want to go back, but I’m not going to break.” She couldn’t let herself, because there would be no one there to pick up the pieces if she did. She didn’t tell Killian that, though. He didn’t need to know.

“You won’t,” he said softly. His lips turned up at the corners a little. “You’re a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for. Whatever we find out there, you will survive it.”

“What other choice is there?” She rolled her head in his direction to look at him more fully.

The sun was a bright orange ball hanging low in the sky. The light made the blue of his eyes seem brighter than normal. He looked ethereal. Halfling. Nephilim. Fallen. It didn’t matter which descriptor she used, they all meant the same thing—dangerous.

She shivered, tearing her gaze away from him.

***

Aubrey fell asleep as they drove through Missouri, curling into the passenger seat in a small ball. The soft cadence of her breath eased Killian, lulling him toward an inner quiet he’d lost somewhere beneath the stain of blood and abrupt, violent death in the last four months.

When she woke at noon, they were halfway through Illinois. She didn’t speak to Killian, and he didn’t push her. Deep shadows surrounded green eyes lost in thought as she stared blindly at the dashboard, rubbing Zee’s fur between her fingers.

Killian wanted to tell her that everything would work out. That the friends she worried about would be fine and that nothing they found would hurt her. He couldn’t lie to her, though, even had he wanted to. He didn’t. If he’d learned anything about the beautiful little human in the last few days, it was that she preferred the awful truth to a pleasant lie.

That surprised him.

She’d run from the past for so long, doing her best to bury the pain beneath the grim weight and daily grind of human life, but even then, she hadn’t lied to herself about it. And she hadn’t lied to him, either. She could have offered him a false smile and told him she was fine like so many other humans seemed to do when they hurt, but she didn’t.

Had he ever been so honest with himself?

The desire to kiss her, to hold her, grew a little stronger every day. Talking himself out of that rash act was no easy feat. In truth, he didn’t want to talk himself out of getting further entangled with Aubrey. She was soft and warm when he’d had little of softness or warmth in longer than he cared to consider. Fallen females avoided him, and the human girls who approached him were the type he knew to avoid.

Aubrey was nothing like those girls. And Killian was tired of trying to convince himself that didn’t matter. She captivated him, confused him, and made him yearn for the intimacy of touch, of surrender. But she was just a girl, and she didn’t feel the same pull. When this nightmare ended for her, if he got her out of it in one piece, she would walk away and not look back.

She had every right to do so. And he wouldn’t blame her if she did.

But even so…ever since he’d nearly kissed her in the living room, he struggled to remember all the reasons he couldn’t have her. Not even Abriel’s reminder that she was human had helped. If anything, it’d only served to piss him off. He’d tried to avoid her since, but that hadn’t worked, either. He’d found himself stealing glances at her whenever he could. Found himself drawn to her more and more.

The reasons for that alarmed him.

“We’ll have to stop for gas soon,” he murmured to her over the quiet hum of the radio.

“Okay,” she said, still rubbing the kitten’s fur between her fingers.

“Do you need anything?”

“No, thank you.”

“We should probably let Zee out to walk around.” Killian had never owned a pet, but somewhere over the last week, Zee had grown on him. The little hellcat had grown on his blade-brothers too.

Aubrey’s gaze moved to the white ball of fur in her lap. “He’s been good.”

She rewarded Zee with a small smile.

“He has,” Killian said as the outline of some small town appeared in the distance. “We’ll stop up ahead.”

“Do we need to let Abriel and Dom know?” she asked, still not looking at him.

She’d barely looked at him all day, and that drove him insane. He wanted to see those green eyes turned in his direction.

“No. They’re scouting ahead of us now.”

“Oh.”

Killian gave up trying to get her talking and drove into the nondescript town. He settled for the first fill station they came to. An older man fueling an ancient, rickety truck glanced at the car when Killian pulled in, his eyes widening. He shook his head as Killian stopped in front of a gas pump and turned his eyes back to his truck.

“Take Zee to the side of the building, and stay close,” Killian said, pointing out the grassy area running alongside the parking lot.

Aubrey nodded and climbed from the car with the kitten in hand. The animal’s ears twitched as he moved his head back and forth, taking in this little part of the world.

Killian sat there for a moment before following Aubrey. He strolled around the car to begin fueling, watching her as she walked away. Her hips swayed a little, and he jerked his gaze down. He could still see her out of his peripheral, though. The scent of the gasoline was acrid, but he imagined he could still smell her lovely scent beneath the stench too. It was soft and sweet, like lavender and sugar.

“Get a grip,” he muttered to himself when the pump clicked, indicating his credit card had been accepted. He jerked the nozzle from the holder and shoved it into the gas tank.

“Zee, get back here,” Aubrey called.

Killian’s gaze shot up from the pump just in time to see her disappear from view. He didn’t even bother stopping the pump before taking off in her direction, a curse on his lips. He moved quickly, following the soft sound of her voice scolding the wayward hellcat.

She came into view as he rounded the side of the building, only to disappear again.

Killian raced toward her, circling the grimy white brick building to scoop Zee up before he could take off through the empty lot behind the station. The kitten squirmed in his arms, not happy with being recaptured when there was so much to explore.

Killian turned toward Aubrey to hand the hellcat over, only to find her pressed back into the wall, her eyes wide. Fear swam in their depths, instantly putting him on high alert. He scanned the area quickly but saw nothing out of the ordinary.