Closer: A Novella Read online

  “Need a ride?”

  She dumbly shook her head, the paper sack growing heavy in her arms. The engine shut off and he opened the door to get out. The car blocked the exit and her eyes darted around the empty lot. Carrie was breathing faster, feeling the adrenaline pour into her veins.

  As he stepped around the car and approached her, Carrie sensed malice. His emotions were blazing like a forest fire. Dark intent dripped from him like honey, and the second her milkshake splashed on the concrete, Carrie was on the run.

  Dry, dusty air burned her lungs. Not fast enough, she thought, hearing him closing in behind her. She kicked up pebbles with every step; there was no chance of outrunning this man in her sandals so she leapt on the fence to jump over it.

  He gripped her ankle, pulling off her shoe as she desperately kicked him until he let go. Carrie lost momentum and twisted over the fence; her dress snagged and ripped at the end as she fell on the hard ground. An open field of wild daisies and tall weeds stood between her and a row of buildings on the far side. The fence rattled as the man began scaling it, and that’s when she took off again. Halfway across the field, a sharp rock pinched her heel and she fell down hard on her elbow.

  Before Carrie could move, a knee rammed into her lower back and a strong hand brutally shoved her face into the dirt.

  “Think you can get away?” he mocked. “Nope. Nobody gets away from me, you little tease.”

  “Please, don’t,” she tried to say. But the press of his knee cut off her breath and she cried out.

  This couldn’t be happening. Someone had to see what he was doing. Her eyes pleadingly skimmed up to the buildings, searching for a face in the dark windows as pain lanced up her side.

  His strong arm hooked around her waist and he covered her mouth with his calloused hand as they stood up. That was the moment when she realized that he wasn’t going to assault her in that open field. He was taking her, and that’s when she knew she was going to die.

  Not like this. Not like this, she thought.

  Carrie bit into his hand and clawed at his arms like a feral animal.

  “Goddammit!” he growled in her ear, shaking her like a rag doll.

  Fear iced through her veins. She could only breathe through her nose and Carrie was panting so hard that not enough air could get in. Her heart pounded with such intensity that it felt like it was going to explode. The attacker had no hair to pull, so she reached back and scratched his face with her short nails. That’s when he threw her on the ground and kicked her hard in the stomach. She curled up, gasping for breath.

  The heart-shaped ring she always wore was lying in the dirt and Carrie slipped it back on her finger before he noticed. It was just a trinket, but one that she never took off because the ring had been a gift from her father.

  Dirt muddied her tears as the flavor of his intentions leaked from his pores.

  She tried screaming, but it came out ragged and pained—her stomach tightened and she wanted to throw up. He was mumbling to himself when he picked Carrie up and dragged her through the gate. Her other shoe fell off as her feet left long trails in the dirt.

  Her eyes went wide when she saw the open trunk and Carrie sank her teeth into his arm, deep enough to draw blood. She stumbled when he let go, and without warning, he backhanded her. Carrie hit the ground behind the bumper and looked over her right shoulder, too numb to feel the scrapes on her arms and legs. That’s when he lifted the tire iron from the trunk.

  As he raised his arm, a single word trembled on her lips, barely anything but a cry through the sobbing that left a trail of tears down her dirty cheeks.

  “Daddy.”

  Years had passed since she’d seen her father, but Carrie needed him to hold her in that final moment and tell her that everything was going to be okay. Please God, I don’t want to die.

  The first swing landed on her back, and the second one she couldn’t remember.

  The memory lingered as fresh as a raw wound while she gazed through the empty window. She was a prisoner in her own mind, and probably for the better. God knows what that man was doing to her body, so maybe it was a blessing that she remained unconscious.

  When Kane first appeared, it startled her because he wasn’t a figment of her memory or imagination. A striking set of hazel eyes and furrowed brows stared past her as his fingers touched her neck.

  It scared her that someone could get inside the safest place—the only place—she had left. Not to mention he had his hands on her. The second time he returned, she had a surprise waiting for him. Kane may not have meant her any harm, but how could she have known that, when every time he appeared, he was touching her?

  “Caroline,” he whispered. “That’s pretty.”

  While sitting on the cold floor holding hands with a stranger, Carrie distinctly felt Kane’s beautiful eyes drinking her in. He wasn’t the sort of guy that ever gave a girl like her a second glance either. Hearing her full name roll off his tongue brought a heat to her cheeks; it was intimate, and she liked the idea of someone calling her by a name that no one else used. When the blush faded, Carrie met his riveting gaze head-on.

  She hesitated. “What did he do to me?” The thought of being raped crossed her mind and terrorized her even more than the beating. “Was I… did he…”

  “No,” he said in a firm voice. His dark brows slanted sharply. “It looked like he was just getting started when I found you in the trunk.”

  “Good,” she said in a trembling exhale. “The last thing that I can remember is him trying to get me into the car. Then he hit me with that metal thing.” She instinctively winced.

  Kane lifted his arm and tried to touch his ear before dropping their hands on his lap. “I took care of him. Look, we both know that I can’t take you to a human hospital. Give me a number of someone to call. Maybe a Relic could help, but I don’t know any. Do you?”

  She shook her head. Carrie’s father had once consulted a Relic when she was a little girl and they found out about her problem, but the Relic merely stated there was nothing he could do. It happens.

  Kane seemed keenly interested in their hands. Between their short conversations, he would look down and slightly turn them, as if contact was something that he wasn’t used to. What an odd reaction from a Sensor. Maybe he didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t feel anything from her. She was insecure about her defect, not because it mattered much to her, but because it did to everyone else. Enough that it altered her chances of having a family and children. Carrie loved life, but there were sacrifices that she had learned to accept.

  Her mind drifted back to her grandma’s kitchen, a place where she’d always felt at home because Grandma was the only mother Carrie had ever known. She clung to the memories in order to stay grounded, because part of her was feeling adrift.

  A strong aroma of peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies filled the air and Kane’s nose twitched again. His tongue slid out, running along his lower lip and lingering at the corner. She squeezed his hands without even realizing it and he smirked.

  Kane was savagely handsome. He was the sort of man with smoldering bedroom eyes that her coworkers would have called smoking hot. Not a guy who needed to approach women because his aloofness and wolfish grin was all the bait he needed. Whenever he bent his arm a little, his toned bicep would flex and she stole glimpses when he wasn’t paying attention.

  Carrie had never dated a man so nicely built and as sexual as Kane. Her dates were usually smart, well-dressed guys with boring office jobs. They were the kind of men who were in search of a wife, not a lover.

  Compared to his warm tan, Carrie felt like an Irish albino. He encased her small hands with his large ones, and his skin was so deliciously hot. Kane’s thin, black T-shirt was a snug fit and his jeans were tattered with a few rips. The fact that she was physically attracted to the man kindled her irritation.

  “Exactly how is it that you’re able to get inside my head? Mind explaining that, Mr. Houdini?”

&
nbsp; “Only if you explain how these battle wounds are showing up on my real body,” he said, lifting his bruised knuckles.

  Was he serious? That was impossible.

  “You’re only saying that to make me feel guilty. I just had a man try to murder me, so forgive me if I’m not rolling out the welcome mat.”

  A red carpet rolled across the floor and she blinked it away in embarrassment.

  His eye did look swollen, and a quick glance at his knuckles revealed a small cut. How was it possible? He could smell her grandmother’s cookies and that was only something she was thinking about. Kane’s connection was so unique that fear and excitement shared a little dance before going their separate ways.

  “Kane, I want you to wake me up.”

  He chewed on his lip for a second before answering. “Give me a number.”

  “There is none.” She made a frustrated sound. “I don’t have any family.”

  Carrie was an only child, raised by her father. He’d disappeared when she was fifteen, and after that, life had been temporary housing with other kids her age until she was old enough to find work. That’s how Sensors ran things. They had a small Council, but they only stepped in when it was their duty. Carrie enjoyed the freedom of living alone, even though she had a few sleepless nights wondering what had happened to her father. Did he abandon her, or was he involved in something illegal? The most difficult questions in life are always the ones without an answer.

  “I’m sure you’ve got somebody—a boyfriend,” he suggested.

  “My friends are just a couple of people at the hotel where I work as a desk clerk. That’s what happens to girls like me who aren’t like the other Sensors—not that I would have wanted to get into trading. They’re just casual friends and we don’t even talk outside of work; I doubt they’d want to be tangled up in whatever’s going on here. Exactly what is going on here? Who are you?”

  “I’m nobody,” he replied, attempting to pull his hand away. “I’m just a guy who was on my way home when I ran into your friend.”

  “He’s not my friend,” she bit out angrily. Another thought crossed her mind and her heart skipped a beat. “What if he finds out where I live?”

  “You don’t have to worry,” he assured her. “I took care of him.”

  She swallowed hard. “Took care of… how?”

  The sharp line of his jaw intimidated her when he clenched it. “Meaning he’s dead. I don’t think he had time to do anything to you, because he was in a hurry to get back to his car.”

  “Why were you going through his trunk? Where are we now? I don’t mean here,” she said, looking around. “Where are we for real?”

  His teeth scraped against his lower lip. “His house.”

  Carrie paled.

  “What?” she cried out, catapulting to her feet. The guilt on his face made her furious. “You mean to say that you found me unconscious in the trunk of a car and decided that instead of calling for help, you’d drive me to that murderer’s house? And then—then you appear in my head with your hand on my chest! If my hands were free, I’d slap the living shit out of you! How dare you—”

  “Now cut that out!” he roared, standing up so that he towered over her. “It’s not like that. I didn’t know you were in the fucking car. The plan was to dump it at his house and wash my hands of this catastrophe. Going to Breed jail to rot for the next century is not on my agenda, you got it? I could have left you right where you were, but that’s the sort of thing a lowlife would do. I’m not saying that makes me a hero, but cut me some slack for trying to lend you a hand.” He smirked inwardly; the remark could have been funny considering they were holding hands. “If you don’t want to help yourself, then I don’t know what else I can do.”

  “Don’t want to?” she said in a broken voice. “What choice do I have? What can I give you that’ll wake me up? I don’t have anyone,” she said, fighting against angry tears. “I’m stuck here and fading to God knows where, and you want to blame me for not being able to get myself out of this mess. Well, I’m sorry!”

  Too late. Wracked with emotion, Carrie completely lost it and fell to her knees. All she had wanted was a milkshake and a compliment. She cried against her arm, thinking how silly it was to wonder if the guy at the burger place would notice when she stopped coming in. She had been thinking off and on about getting a puppy to keep her company in her quiet apartment.

  All the things she had never done—all that life wasted. How was she to know that this could be the last night of her life?

  Hot, salty tears streamed down her face, and the man with the hazel eyes knelt before her and tenderly squeezed her hands.

  “Go, just go,” Carrie choked out, barely audible. Now she had to cry in front of this man because she couldn’t let go of him, and that made it so much worse.

  “Hey, hey now… don’t cry,” he said in a softened voice. “You’re going to be okay, Caroline. Do you understand me? I’ll figure something out.”

  He wiped her wet cheek with the back of his knuckles and it didn’t seem to matter that he was still holding her hands. Kane had a firm grip and a soft touch, as if all of his emotions were in every stroke, and yet she felt none of him in this place. Within the walls of her mind, the only pain she felt was her own.

  “I’m sorry I hit you in the head with a frying pan.” She sniffed, finally gaining the courage to look him in the eyes once more.

  Kane snorted and sat back. “I’ve been told I have a thick head. Don’t sweat it.” His Adam’s apple undulated when he spoke in a gentler voice. “What did you mean when you said you were fading?”

  Fear snaked in her belly and she furrowed her brow. “Did you notice how the light in the window seems to be a little bit dimmer?” she asked, nodding in that direction. “What if that means something?”

  Kane looked thoughtfully over his shoulder at the stream of light that blanketed the room like a golden tapestry. “Just means that you need a lamp,” he said, trying to sound like it didn’t matter.

  She wiggled her fingers and noticed that his hands were clammy. Funny that you really didn’t need to be a Sensor to know how someone felt if you just took the time to read their body language. It was in the way he tightened his jaw and briefly avoided eye contact that showed he acknowledged what was happening. Did he care? Probably not. Maybe he just didn’t want to deal with anything this heavy, and who could blame him?

  “I think that’s my light,” she said. “It feels like I’m separating from life and the scariest part is there’s no feeling of angels or someone waiting at the end of a tunnel. Maybe that doesn’t come until later, but I’m not ready to die. I’m really scared, Kane.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” he said with a sunken brow. “Look, you just need to sleep it off and heal naturally. It’ll take a while but you’ll get there. It’s not like we’re human—we don’t die as easily.”

  That was true. They were mortal, all right, but all Breed had the ability to heal slightly faster. Sensors, like most Breed, were also resistant to human diseases. They lived longer than Relics, who were the closest to humans genetically and had a shorter lifespan, not to mention that Relics were more susceptible to catching airborne viruses like the flu. A Sensor who took care of himself could live a couple of hundred years, sometimes longer.

  A serious take-charge look came over him and a bloom of confidence invigorated Carrie when he leaned forward. Sometimes all a person needed was a dash of hope to get through the darkness.

  He squeezed her hands. “Caroline, did you hear me at all when I wasn’t in this room with you?”

  She almost didn’t hear the rest of the sentence after he said her name. Carrie would have liked to hear him say her name over and over again. In fact, she purposely delayed answering him.

  “Caroline?”

  She quirked a knowing smile and quickly concealed it. “I’m not sure. Maybe—but I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Here’s what I’ll do: I’m going to leave for a few
minutes to see if I can wake you up. Concentrate as hard as you can. Got it? Listen for my voice and try to follow it. Maybe somehow I can pull you out of here if we keep trying. Your head injury just looks like it needs stitches, but I don’t know—if he hit you with that tire iron…”

  Kane twisted his mouth skeptically. He didn’t have to say another word. A few stitches? She might have a cracked skull and brain damage.

  Carrie nodded, and in the blink of an eye, Kane was gone.

  Chapter 4

  “Caroline, time to open your eyes,” he urged with a commanding tone. “Can you hear me? Follow my voice and come out of there.”

  Kane put on his gloves and shook her gently at first, but then with more urgency. He was careful not to jostle her head because he hadn’t inspected her injuries as thoroughly as he should have.

  She didn’t respond. He’d never expected to have a decision so completely placed in his hands, where his actions meant life or death. Especially not in the same night he’d committed a murder. Maybe this was Karma giving him a cosmic bitch slap. Kane stood up, tugging at his earlobe.

  The bright green numbers on the alarm clock switched over to the next minute. Exhaustion wouldn’t rub away. God, what if he fell off the bed and cracked his skull during one of his head hops? Kane snorted. Wouldn’t that just be ironic?

  Sirens wailed in the distance and he walked to the window, peering through the curtains at the sleeping world. When the sounds faded, he recognized them as fire trucks and not police sirens. Tell that to his thundering heart.

  Kane crawled onto the bed on the other side of Caroline and propped his head in his hand. The idea of lying beside a woman was kind of nice; something he did only on rare occasions. She had such soft lines to her body, curves in all the right places and a lovely skin tone. He looked between their arms and noticed how much richer his tan was. Her face was angelic, not carved with the hollow cheeks and sharp lines of a tough woman. The expression she carried was serene—absent of worry, pain, and anger.