Vision of Darkness (33 page)

EPILOGUE

Cold water splashed over Theo’s head, jolting him awake. The muscles in his arms burned from inactivity and his mouth tasted like day-old vomit. For a long, frightening moment, coherent thought struggled to penetrate the fog in his mind.

Shards of sound pounded into his skull like glass nails. Water dripping off his nose onto the floor by his bare feet. A persistent hum, like a bee in his ear. A train’s keening wail, muffled by distance. Squeaky faucet and the spurt of water into a metal basin. Footsteps walking away then moving closer again….

He heard fragments of incoherent conversation from the low thrum of a male voice to the higher, wispy sounds of the Guides babbling inside his head.

Slivers of images flitted in front of his half-cracked eyelids. A concrete block wall. A bare bulb. Strips of green paint peeled up from a concrete floor.

Definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Impossible. Our Lady was as inescapable as Hell. He had to be in the rubber room, still zonked out on his meds.

Great. That meant he had visual hallucinations to go with the auditory. He’d finally, really, cracked up. Gone over the bend. Lost his mind. The thought sent a hot jolt of panic through his body, jump-starting his sluggish brain.

No, he wasn’t insane. At least no more than he had been before. But he was in a shitload of trouble.

Theo’s body shuddered so hard his teeth clinked together. It wasn’t from the icy water dripping down his nose. A fever, hot as sin, raged under his skin. With a groan, he rolled his head up to lean against the hard-backed chair where he was—tied? No, handcuffed. Steel bracelets cut into his wrists behind his back.

Water, hot this time, splashed his face again. He gagged and gasped, his voice too raw to form a scream. He jerked in the chair and pain lanced through his shoulders, pins and needles pricking his fingers. He’d been in this position for a while. Hours, days, or weeks, he didn’t know.

How much time had this latest blackout cost him?

Theo struggled to come up with the answer. The last thing he remembered was Alex’s visit. He’d warned his brother away from the lighthouse, but the stubborn bastard refused to listen. Was Alex dead?

Theo’s eyes burned with tears as he managed to crack his heavy lids open a little more. The room was concrete with a line of bare light bulbs running the length of the wood beams on the ceiling. A noisy generator, tucked into the corner of the room, supplied power to those bulbs and accounted for that annoying busy-bee hum.

A basement. No hallucinations, thank God. He was in a cellar and it wasn’t the hospital’s. He’d been to the hospital’s basement enough times looking for a way out—a drab, clinical place that constantly stank of the food prepared in the kitchen down there. This basement was more like the one in the trashy apartment building where he’d grown up with Alex and their drug-addled mother. The raw stench of must, mildew, vomit, rot and blood made his nose itch and brought back too many memories he’d rather forget.

The room spun and his stomach heaved. Theo groaned and clamped his eyes shut, willed the tilt-a-whirl feeling to stop.

“That’s the thing about psychotropic drugs, ya know?” a male voice said in amusement. “Going cold turkey really fucks with the body.”       

Gulping in a lungful of air, Theo searched for the source of the voice and found a man leaning against the nearest support post. At least it wasn’t in his head this time. “Who are you?”

“Not your concern.” He pushed away from the post and walked forward into the light. His eyes were such a pale, unnatural blue they sent a chill of dread down Theo’s spine.

Wolf eyes.

Oh, fuck.

“Where is your brother?” Wolf Eyes asked casually, as if he was inquiring about the weather.

Don’t answer!

Yeah, thanks. He didn’t need the Guides to figure that one out. He leaned back again and struggled to control the bone-rattling shivers. “Not your concern.”

“Funny. Didn’t expect you to be a funny man.” Wolf Eyes backhanded him, the large ring on his index finger gouging a line across Theo’s cheekbone. “Then again, you’re not really a man, are you? You’re a freak, just like your brother and his friends. A disgusting freak of nature that needs to be exterminated.”

The room tilt-a-whirled again. He just barely managed to swallow back a surge of vomit. “And, lemme guess, you’re the exterminator?”

Wolf Eyes backed up a step, lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “We all have a calling.”

“Hah. You’re crazier than they say I am.”

“Oh, you’re not crazy.”

Theo snorted and tasted the copper twang of blood as it drizzled down the back of his throat from his nose. His own brother didn’t believe he was sane, and this guy, of all people, did. Go figure. “Mind telling Dr. Romano that?”

“Mm, he knows. How do you think you got here?”

“I’m a little fuzzy on those details.” He coughed, choking on the blood. “Care filling me in?”

Wolf Eyes walked over to a table just beyond Theo’s line of sight. “You made a mistake bringing up the doc’s dearly departed wife. He knew then what you were. An Unnatural.”

Theo struggled to see what the maniac was doing over there by the table, but the pain in his immobile arms and shoulders and the spinning in his head made it impossible to turn.

“Romano—” He had to keep the conversation going, had to keep Wolf Eyes talking and distracted, give himself time to think. But, goddammit, thinking through the pain and fog was hard. “Romano killed his wife. The Guides said he made it look like she overdosed on pills because she knew his secrets and wanted a divorce.”

“That he did.” Wolf Eyes didn’t seem all that concerned about it. “And only three people knew about how she died. Me, because I told him how to handle the situation. Him, because he did it. And her. Obviously, she’s not talking—to a Normal.” He sliced a glance toward Theo, cold as an arctic front. “Which is how Romano knew you were one of them. He keeps an eye out for freaks like you and sends them my way for disposal when he can’t do it himself.”

A switch clicked. A saw buzzed. Metal screeched, the sound piercing Theo’s skull like a fire-hot poker. He sucked in a breath through his teeth, biting back the cry of pain he knew the bastard wanted to hear. Wolf Eyes laughed. The sound stopped and he reappeared, blowing the fine shavings off a freshly sharpened knife.

You have to get out!
the Guides wailed.

“Thanks for the news flash,” Theo said.

The humor faded from Wolf Eyes’ expression. In one quick move, he surged forward and dug the tip of the blade under Theo’s chin. “Who are you talking to?”

If his mouth wasn’t so dry, he’d spit in the guy’s face. He bared his teeth instead. “The voices in my head. I’m loony tunes, ya know?”

“You’re evil.”

He managed a thin laugh. “That’s why you’re going to kill me? ’Cause I’m evil.”

“You’re not fucking human.” Wolf Eyes sucked in a breath through his nose and let it out, visibly reining in his temper before backing away. He dragged the knife downward and drew a circle on Theo’s bare chest over his pounding heart. “I’m going to cut out your black heart and burn it. It’s the only way to kill things like you and make sure you stay dead.” He leaned on the knife, just enough to draw a drop of blood that slid down Theo’s stomach like a hot tear.

“But that has to wait until I get your brother’s location out of you. He’s the one I really want. I’ve been looking for him for a long, long time. I had him, too, in that little town in Maine where he shacked up with the pretty lighthouse keeper. He killed my worthless idiot of an operator—but at least I knew his location. Then he went and got himself shot.”

Theo choked on a surge of panic.

Wolf Eyes smiled and drew another circle around Theo’s heart with the knife point. “That paranoid jackass Sullivan Nathanson moved him to a safe house and now I can’t find him. So you are going to lead me right to him.”

If Alex’s friends took him somewhere to recover, that meant he was still alive.

And Theo damn well meant to keep his little brother that way. He leaned forward, felt the sting of the blade cutting into his skin between two ribs, but kept pushing. He met Wolf Eyes’ gaze with a challenge in his own. “You plan to kill me, you might as well do it now, you sick fuck. Because I’m not telling you shit.”

“Ah, that’s admirable.” Wolf Eyes grinned. “But very, very stupid.”

<<<<>>>>

To: my readers.

Without your cheers of support, I never would have been brave enough to make this leap.

This one’s all for you, guys.

*hugs*

Other Books by Tonya Burrows

Broken Honor

Honor Reclaimed

SEAL of Honor

Wilde Nights in Paradise

Wilde for Her

About the Author

Tonya Burrows wrote her first romance in 8th grade and hasn't put down her pen since. Originally from a small town in Western New York, she's currently soaking up the sun as a Florida girl. She suffers from a bad case of wanderlust and usually ends up moving someplace new every few years. Luckily, her two dogs and ginormous cat are excellent travel buddies.

When she's not writing about hunky military heroes, Tonya can usually be found at a bookstore or the dog park. She also enjoys painting, watching movies, and her daily barre workouts. A geek at heart, she pledges her TV fandom to Supernatural and Dr. Who.

If you would like to know more about Tonya, visit her website at
www.tonyaburrows.com
. She's also on Twitter @tonyaburrows and Facebook
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Copyright © 2014 by Tonya Burrows

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