The Faerie Master (Aaron's Kiss Series) (13 page)

Sara had told him to back off.
He was sure she meant well, but Cade needed someone to watch over her and to keep her safe.
He realized that he’d not gotten from her what had happened to her face and who had hit her.
He’d have to make a mental note on asking her about it the next time he saw her.

Sleep was weighing heavily on his mind when he thought of several things he wanted to ask Cade.
There was the bruise first and foremost and then why she was living in a cave, also if she had any more powers than the few he’d already witnessed.
He also should get her a more reliable car to drive.
She couldn’t be riding around on a bike in the dead of winter.
As he closed his eyes a vision of her lying beneath him, moaning and begging him to let her come had him groan.
He knew in that moment that his life was taking on a whole new spin.

~~~

Cade sat in the coffee/Internet café for a good hour before she touched the mouse.
She’d known that she was wasting time, that she had to do what she’d been told or Gabriel would hurt Paul and his family.
She wanted to scream she was so frustrated with herself.
If she’d been a little smarter or a little savvier about things this may not be where she was right now.
But it wasn’t and she hadn’t been.

Cade had been sixteen when she’d been arrested for shoplifting.
It was lift or starve and she thought that she could get out faster than the clerk could.
She might have, too, if the cop, Gabriel Sheets, hadn’t walked in when he had.
He’d tackled her with all his weight and had nearly broken her arm in the process.
As it was she’d had three broken ribs for her problems.
When he refused to get her medical treatment the shop owner had threatened to call Gabriel’s boss.
She got her treatment, but it did her little good when she couldn’t afford the pain pills or the food to take them with.
Gabriel had taken her to the station anyway, even after he was told no charges would be pressed against her.

“You are one lucky bitch, you know that?
Any other cop would have taken a piece of your ass by now, but you got me.
What do you think of that?”

She had since learned to curb her mouth, but back then she said whatever popped into her mind.
“What?
You couldn’t get your dick up so I’m supposed to be grateful?
Sorry, but you don’t impress me with your humanitarian ways when you’re the one who beat the shit out of me in the first place.”

The slap knocked her off the chair.
She nearly lost conciseness, too, when she banged her ribs against the table leg.
When she sat up again and blood poured from her upper lip she spit at him.
That got her another slap; this one did take her out.
When she woke up she was sitting in a jail cell and her hands were cuffed behind her.

“You behave yourself, kid, and I’ll let you live.
One less punk on the streets is fine by me.
I don’t care one way or the other.
And if you tell that brother of yours what happened here I’ll make your life a living hell.”

Cade started to say he’d been doing a bang up job of that already, but decided that she’d probably live longer if she didn’t.
Her body hurt and the thought of leaving with Garrett didn’t sound any better than being in the cell.
That’s when she noticed the computer on the floor in front of him and Garrett at the desk asleep with his feet up on the desk.

“Yeah, your brother and I have had a nice long chat about you.
Seems you could be useful to me alive rather than dead.
He was telling me about this nice little thing you can do with accounts.
I think I might like to see you do that.”

The laptop slid over toward her.
She didn’t know how he thought she was going to use it with her hands behind her back, but she kept her mouth shut.
Cade didn’t even look at it as it slid within a foot of her feet.

“You’re going to use that little talent of yours to break into this account for me and move the funds to mine.
If you’re good then I’ll let you go when you’re finished.
Otherwise, you’ll be hanging out with me for a bit longer.
Here’s the account numbers and the amount I want you to move.
If you fuck this up you’ll be the one going to prison, not me.
Stand up and put your back to the cell walls here and I’ll let you go.
Don’t fuck with me on this, kid, or else.”

“Or else what?
I’m already in jail. What the fuck else can you do to me?
Kill me?
If I keep going the way I am I’ll be dead in no time anyway.
Rape me?
Sure, you do that and I’ll give you the itchy diseases that I have already.
Matters little to me.”

Gabriel looked over at her brother.
Garrett had meant little to her since her mom had married Cade’s stepfather five years ago.
Garrett was older than her by six years and acted like he was ten most of the time.
He had also been mean. Not as mean as he was now; he’d gotten stronger with age, but mean.
If he threatened her with killing him she might have him pop some popcorn so she could enjoy it while she watched.

Cade couldn’t defend herself against Garrett.
His father had beaten her every
time she’d tr
i
ed.
Then when telling on him to the authorities had gotten her nowhere, she’d just simply avoided him at all costs.
Her mother was no help.
She had been drinking heavily before she’d married Daniel Reid and now she drank more. Cade would never have thought that even possible.

“I know you don’t care for him.
He told me as much.
But you do care for the lady next door, Mrs. Ida Marsh, and her grandchild, Chesney.
What if I told you that if you don’t help me
I’ll kill them both?
I will.
And I’ll never get caught either.
Will you help me?”

“Fuck off.
I’m not helping you do anything.
If you don’t let me go I’m going to start screaming for someone to come help me.
I’m sick of you and your shit.”

Cade didn’t know what to think when he stood up, came to the cell door, and opened it.
She thought for sure that he was going to hit her again and cowered down on the cell’s only bed.
But he had simply flipped her over and uncuffed her.
When he stepped back to let her go she almost didn’t move. She thought he’d just shoot her in the back as she did.
As she moved toward the door to leave the station house she kept looking and waiting for someone to come and get her or to take her back inside.
But nothing happened.
Nothing happened then at any rate.

The sirens woke her up the next morning.
It wasn’t as if she never heard them on her street, but they were very close and not moving on like they normally did.
It took her a few moments to realize that they had stopped next door.
Cade rushed out the door when the ambulance pulled up in front of the little house.
Cade was standing there waiting with the rest of the neighborhood when her step-brother and Gabriel walked up to her.
Her body froze when they started talking.

“Shoulda helped him, Cade.
Shame a couple of nice people had to die ‘cause you’re a stubborn bitch.
Yeah, terrible shame.
Tell her, Gabe. Tell her what happened next door.”

“Someone just broke in and killed both those nice people.
Killed the little baby first while the old woman watched, I was told.
Seems Mrs. Marsh was told that it was because of you that poor little Chesney was dead.
Your brother is right, you should have helped me.
Now I’m going to give you another—”

Cade had attacked him.
It didn’t do her much good.
Her broken ribs and small body was no match for the big man.
Then when he’d thrown her to the ground her step-brother had kicked her.
She’d slipped into unconsciousness within seconds.

When Cade had woke
n
up in the hospital there was a laptop sitting on the little table and a sticky note with two numbers on it. When she’d opened the lid on the computer there was a picture of the couple down the street from her family and their little boy.
The red line through their faces made her open the Internet connection and do what she had to do. That had been ten years ago.

The first five, she’d done just what he told her to do.
Every time she would get her envelope from him there would be a new picture. She’d only told him no once more and when three people she’d worked with had been murdered and their shop burned to the ground she’d never argued again.
But she did plan.
Plan and save to leave the area and start a new life.
That’s how she had ended up in Ohio.
But six months ago her brother Garrett had found her again.
And with him he’d brought Gabriel.

Taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly Cade connected to the Internet and opened the program to the bank accounts.
With trembling hands she reached for the mouse and as soon as she made a connection to it she felt whatever it was that happened tingle through her body.
It only took Cade eleven minutes to complete the transaction and three more to move the money.
She was closing down the computer twenty minutes after she first keyed in.
Cade had just stolen one point seven million dollars out of someone’s account and transferred it to one far across the world into another.

Cade was wandering the streets a few hours later.
She felt someone following her and it didn’t register until the person was nearly on top of her.
At this point she couldn’t fight them, didn’t even know if she wanted to.
Her strength was drained from whatever it was she used up to make the computer work for her and when the black sedan pulled up beside her and her step-brother got out she didn’t even stop walking.

“I need that money, Cade.
Where is it?
This guy wants it now.
I told him that you’d need a couple of days to get it together, but he doesn’t want to wait.
For some reason he doesn’t trust me.”

“Go figure.
Did you tell him I don’t trust you either?
It doesn’t matter. I don’t have it.
I told you the other day I didn’t have it and I don’t know why you think the situation has changed.
You are going to have to get your money the old fashioned way, work for it.”

Cade braced herself for the hit or whatever else it was.
When he threw her against the wall and knocked the wind out of her, she didn’t even fight him.
In fact, Cade had no idea where she even was or how he’d found her in the first place.
Before she could ask, he started slapping her.
After the fourth hit she just stopped counting.
But at some point she realized she was alone. Garrett was gone.

“You need a keeper, has anyone ever told you that before?
My name is Daniel Taggert.
I work for Aaron.
Can you stand or do you need help up?”