The Three Fates of Ryan Love (2 page)

“I think you're a confused woman who needs some help.”

“I'm not confused. An explosion will decimate this building sometime between now and three a.m. Your apartment will be incinerated. Boom.
Gone.
”

“Between now and three a.m.,” he repeated, deadpan.

“Stop it. Stop pretending disbelief you don't feel.”

“Oh, I feel it.”

Narrowed eyes were the only clue that she'd heard him. She didn't argue, she didn't try to add details to support her claim. Most liars did.

“You'll need the money you have stashed beneath the floorboards in your bedroom,” she said with a challenging glance. “Clothes, of course. And Brandy. We'll need her.”

“We?”

“I don't know how much time we have, Ryan. I only know that by three it will all be over. For both of us.”

She was all-in when it came to this fantasy quest, and her conviction planted a seed of doubt that startled him.

“You are more important than you know, Ryan.”

The laugh he'd tried for earlier finally emerged and his doubt waned. The poor woman was definitely delusional.

“I own a pub. Actually, I own about one-fiftieth of a pub. The bank owns the rest. I spend most of my days and nights behind a bar, serving drinks to people who have less of a life than I do. Unless it's critical that the drunks get their next drink, I'm the opposite of important.”

With a superior-sounding sniff, she moved behind the Japanese screen and into his bedroom. Dumbfounded, Ryan followed, watching her open his closet. She yanked his backpack off the top shelf and stuffed his favorite jeans, a T-shirt, and a flannel button-down into it.

As she turned, she caught her reflection in the dresser mirror and did a double take. For a moment, she stared at her pale face like she'd expected to see someone else looking back.

He tilted his head to the side, watching her watch herself. She saw the movement and quickly glanced away, but her cheeks pinked up and she avoided looking at him. She began opening his drawers like she had every right.

And instead of throwing her out on her pretty little ass, he watched her, still trying to figure out what to do about her. Wrestle his phone away? Humor her back outside and lock the doors behind her?

The storm boomed so loud it shook the walls. He couldn't throw her out in this.

In his top drawer, she found his briefs, added a pair to the pack, and pulled open the next drawer. She rummaged until she retrieved some basketball shorts and held them up to her hips. When she tugged them on, she gave him an eyeful of long legs and bare behind.

She turned and busted him staring. His gaze snared hers and something darkened in the uncertain blue. Neither one of them looked away.

“Do you have shoes I could borrow?” she asked, her voice husky.

He pointed to the other closet door. It took her a moment to turn around and slide the door open. She eyed his size 14 shoes dubiously before she spotted a pair of flip-flops on the floor and slipped her feet into them.

“Get the money, Ryan.”

Crazy with sprinkles on top. That's what this was.

“You planning on robbing me?” he managed to say.

She faced him. “Is that what you think? Are you afraid I'm going to tackle you and steal all your precious belongings?”

She was swimming in his big shirt. The shorts hung down to her knees and the flip-flops looked like snowshoes on her feet. She had the threat potential of a puppy.

Again he wished he could muster a laugh. Instead, “No” emerged in a wooden tone.

“Get your stuff and wait it out on the sidewalk with me, then. If nothing happens by three, you can call your police and wash your hands of me.”

She handed him his phone like a gesture of good faith. He took it.

“Or I could do that now and save myself the trouble.”

“Yes. You could do that. But we'd both pay the price for your stupidity.”

“Did you just call me—”

“You are in
danger
,” she said, enunciating each syllable sharply. “You're going to die if you don't trust me. How much clearer can I be? I know you're the kind of man who has to see something to believe it. But why not see it from the outside with me?”

With that, she grabbed his backpack and dropped it at his feet.

He still hadn't moved, but Sabelle didn't wait. She crossed to the front door with a stiff back and an air of determination, ridiculous in her borrowed getup and yet somehow . . . convincing.

“How would you know what kind of man I am?” he asked softly.

The question made her pause. She shot a guarded glance over her shoulder, eyes wide and lips parted. Bravado and hunger stared back at him, a combination so mystifying that it shut his mouth.

So what if she was right? It wouldn't be the strangest thing to have happened in the past month. Hell, in the last week. Even as common sense told him that it was more likely she had someone waiting downstairs to relieve him of the money she'd insisted he pack, he felt himself giving in.

She'd said
beneath the floorboards.
If she already knew where he kept the money, why not just break in and steal it while he'd been out for his run? Why the elaborate naked-and-afraid act?

“I see you thinking,” she said. “You're deciding on all the reasons not to trust me. But that's wasting time you don't have. Look at the clock, Ryan.” She paused. “
Please
.”

It was the hitch in her voice that unplugged his common sense and pushed him to the edge.

He exhaled a heavy breath. “Let me get a shirt.”

The tremulous smile she couldn't hide fast enough called him a fool, but the baby blues sent another coded message he couldn't be sure he was reading right. He ducked behind the screen that divided the rooms and pried up the floorboard by his bed with a long flathead screwdriver he kept in his nightstand drawer just for that purpose. He stuffed the whole hard-earned $10K into his backpack, shrugged on a shirt, and snagged jackets for both of them on his way out. What could it hurt to sit in his truck and wait it out? If nothing else, maybe he'd get to the bottom of her story.

She waited impatiently by the door, watching the clock switch numbers. Brandy sat at her feet, ready to go. According to Sabelle, they had less than fifteen minutes to get out of there before the whole place was incinerated.

“Hurry,” she said and stepped onto the landing without a backward glance.

Shaking his head, Ryan clicked his tongue for Brandy to follow and locked the door behind him.

S
abelle felt Ryan following her all the way down the stairs. Outside, the storm raged in vengeance and she tried not to pin more importance on it than it deserved. But it was hard. It could be a storm and it could be the Sisters. Knowing what they planned for Ryan, it seemed wise to consider the latter. The storm could be a symptom of their anger.

They would know she was gone by now.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Ryan paused, muttering, “Something smells rotten down here.”

Sabelle got a whiff of the pungent odor, too, but her sense of smell was something new and the only scent that mattered to her was the warm, masculine one that clung to Ryan's jacket. She pressed her nose into the collar as he took her hand and the lead, turning right toward the pub instead of to the left and the parking lot where he'd found her.

His hand was warm against hers. She felt it from her fingertips to someplace low and deep inside her, a human reaction to his nearness that disconcerted and delighted her. She'd imagined it enough times, but she'd never considered the impact of
feeling.

They entered the pub from a door behind the bar with Brandy racing ahead. A hundred times she'd seen Ryan's family pub through his eyes, but she'd never seen it through her own. She'd never imagined the
taste
of it. The air was thick and malty, sharp and sour all at once. The graying walls held memories of secrets shared by friends long gone. Framed pictures of Ryan's relatives posing with people she didn't know watched her pass, judging her from their lofty positions.

High up along the front wall, stained glass in brilliant emerald and dusty rose filtered the streetlights and danced pastels over the long, smooth bar. Below them, hazy picture windows looked out on a deserted street where twinkling Christmas lights glimmered from every tree and pole she could see.

“It's smaller than I expected,” she murmured.

Ryan gave her a questioning look but she didn't say more. The responsibility of the pub had always seemed such a huge burden for Ryan that she'd expected an echoing chamber instead of a cozy niche. Her steps faltered as she stared at the empty tables and chairs, knowing soon they'd be rubble and ash. Ryan tugged her hand.

“Did you forget we're about to be incinerated?”

Not something to joke about, but he'd figure that out on his own. Pack on his back, Ryan took a few steps toward the exit and stilled. He sniffed the air again.

“Fuck,” he breathed. “That's gas.”

His accusing gaze swiveled toward her. The fury of the storm amplified the silence inside the bar as the moment stretched. Hail began to pelt the walls and sidewalk. It battered the roof and bombarded the windows.

Ryan cursed again and moved to the door, Sabelle's fingers firmly clasped in his. She matched his stride, suddenly worried that she'd gotten it wrong and they'd run out of time. He had the key in the lock and the door opened in seconds.

“Keep your head down,” he said, shrugging out of the jacket he wore and holding it over them both. “Get closer.”

Dutifully, she obeyed, wrapping her arm around his waist to anchor her to his side.

“Brandy, come,” he ordered as they stepped onto the sidewalk. Brandy didn't look too keen on the idea, but she scooted out and stayed close.

“Good girl,” he praised as the icy wet wind blasted into them.

Ryan didn't take the time to lock this door behind him. Filled with panic, Sabelle held on as they raced across the street, hail hammering them with vengeance. When they reached the shelter of the awning on the other side, Sabelle finally looked up.

Inside, Ryan's pub had seemed small, but outside on the street the world felt endless.

Dark buildings stared vacantly down at the lights twinkling at street level.
Happy Holidays
banners flailed in the frigid onslaught. They passed in front of a bus stop with an advertisement pasted to its back wall showing a hotel nestled in a cove of towering red rocks. Someone had spray-painted black eyeballs over it and signed
Wa Chu
beneath in an elaborate font. She noted it grimly.

Hail bounced against the street like clouded diamonds. Beside her, Ryan stood warm and strong.

This was really happening.

Ryan faced Love's with a look of foreboding on his face that she'd seen before. She knew that as a boy he'd held his finger against the leaking holes his mother's death had caused in the family. He had better methods as a man, but he was still patching the dike with his very soul.

She couldn't stop looking at him. Couldn't keep her thoughts focused on anything but where he stood in relation to her. The rhythm of his breathing. His smell. He was the kind of man people depended on. The kind she hoped she could, too.

He pulled her into a recessed doorway, dug his phone out of his pocket, and punched in some numbers. While he listened, a hot breeze whisked around them, tugging at the hem of her shirt, tousling his hair. It felt so good in the icy cold that Sabelle turned in to its warmth.

A tinny voice answered Ryan's call. “Nine-one-one operator. What's your emergency?”

“There's a gas leak at—”

Lightning snaked from the sky with deadly purpose and struck one of the streetlights directly across from them. It blinded them but Sabelle heard the snap, the sizzle, the
boom
as the light exploded.

“Jesus,” Ryan exclaimed, turning to her as a fiery blast pressed against her eardrums, so loud it deafened. “Get down!” Ryan hauled her to the ground with him.

They hit the concrete hard, Ryan beneath her, cushioning her fall before rolling on top of her as a blistering wind seared them. Hot debris shattered windows and impaled the buildings lining both sides of the street. It sucked all of the oxygen away with a shriek. Sabelle screamed—or at least she thought she did. She couldn't hear her own cry over the destruction. It seemed to go on in never-ending waves and yet it was done in seconds, leaving an ominous silence in its wake.

Ryan lifted his head and looked at her. “You all right?”

At least she thought that's what he said. She couldn't hear, but she nodded anyway, not really sure if it was true.

“Brandy,” he shouted, already on his feet and pulling Sabelle up with him.

Brandy darted out of a doorway a few feet away, barking madly, wild-eyed.

“It's okay, it's okay,” Ryan said, hunkering down so she could smell him. Apparently, the dog needed Ryan's scent as much as Sabelle did.

She stared at the sidewalk, taking short, quick breaths when she wanted one deep one. Her hands shook and her eyes streamed from the smoke. Terror poisoned her bloodstream and blanked her mind. Some distant part of her noticed that the hail had stopped. Was that a good or bad sign? She didn't know.

“Sabelle,” Ryan said. She thought it might be the second time. He stepped in front of her and took her face in his warm hands. “You okay? Are you hurt?”

His gaze moved over her and he seemed to find his own answer. He drew her into his arms and gratefully she pressed her face to his throat as her body shook with reaction. He turned them both so he could see the damage to Love's.

Across the street a black cloud of smoke thundered out of the hole where the front doors of Love's used to be. The upstairs was a jagged silhouette outlined in fire. The flames stretched high and swept across the sky with glee.

It had happened. And, against all odds, she'd succeeded. Ryan still lived. Because of her.

“Hey,” Ryan said gently. “Look at me.”

She hid her fear as she met his gaze. He searched her eyes before murmuring, “Good girl.”

Just like he said to the dog. She laughed, pressing her face back into his warmth.

Fire spread from Love's to engulf everything in front of it, turning the banners into sparking bursts of blue flame, and burning through the trees. Two doors down from the decimated pub, another explosion blew out windows and shot sizzling fingers into the sky, where the wind snatched them up and whisked them along.

Without a word, she and Ryan ran away from it. Black smoke thundered after them and more flames jumped from awning to awning. Another explosion rattled windows and jarred the sidewalk. Sparks bounced in the sucking wind and a rain of embers showered her back. She looked over her shoulder to make sure she wasn't on fire and gave a sigh of relief when she didn't see anything smoldering. Brandy ran beside Ryan, head swiveling as she watched for danger.

Sabelle pulled her shirt over her mouth and nose to block out the suffocating smoke, but it stung her eyes and burned her throat. She coughed as it seared her lungs.

Dread made it hard to think. Hard to do anything but hold on while the fire licked its blazing tongue at everything it passed. She clenched her eyes tight, but
not
seeing made it worse.

Ryan turned down an alley that dead-ended at a concrete wall. She could see it ahead, pale blocks that reflected the smoke and fire barreling down on them. He raced toward it with purpose, pulling her along with him.

Sabelle chanced a glance over her shoulder. The smoke bore down on them and it seemed that something moved beneath the surface. It pressed out, stretching like a membrane. Then it was gone, leaving her with the impression of an eyeless face and gnashing teeth.

Once he reached the wall, Ryan braced his back against it and held out his hands for her. “Over the wall, Sabelle. That's it. Climb. Go.”

She quickly stepped onto his thigh and he used his hands to lift as she shifted, hefting her weight until her right foot found his solid shoulder and her left swung over. She scraped her bare thighs as she straddled the sharp edge of cinder block.

Ryan scooped Brandy into his arms. She clung to him like a baby. Sabelle reached down and grabbed hold of Brandy's scruff as Ryan heaved her into Sabelle's arms.

“Watch out for cactus on the other side,” he warned as he swung up beside her. The fire surged to fill the space he'd just vacated and the building on the corner detonated, sending shrapnel everywhere. She felt the bite of its heat against her cheek, smelled burning hair, roasting flesh. Brandy yelped in pain.

“Go!” Ryan shouted.

She didn't have time to brace or consider. She wrapped her arms around the frightened dog and jumped.

A soft, grassy bed waited on the other side, but she and Brandy came at it fast and flailing. Claws dug into Sabelle's side as the dog pushed off. Brandy spun and got her paws under her, but Sabelle slammed down on her shoulder and rolled.

Her head struck something hard and blinding pain ripped through her. She ended on her back staring up at the startling sky. Ryan hit the ground with more skill but less bounce. She felt the impact of his body crash down. Somewhere in the distance she heard the scream of sirens racing toward them.

Ryan sat up quickly, shook his head to clear it, and looked around to find her. He rolled to his knees and crawled to where she lay, collapsing in the soft winter grass and pulling her up against him. A sharp whistle brought Brandy to his other side. Ryan put an arm around each and held them tight.

They were both breathing heavily, coughing as the smoke they'd inhaled caught in their chests. The fire didn't cross the wall, but the smoke followed them and blotted out the stars. It felt like a message—a show of power. Ryan's hand was warm and comforting against the bare skin at the small of her back. She concentrated on that instead.

They lay like that for a long moment, neither of them saying a word. Finally Ryan turned his head and looked at her.

He had questions and it wouldn't be long before he wanted answers. Sabelle gathered up her scattered wits, ticked off the salient points of her story in her mind, and tried not to get ahead of herself.

Step one, save Ryan Love. Mission accomplished.

Step two, bind him to her. Work in progress.