Closer: A Novella Page 9

  He looked down; their lips were only a breath apart. The intensity of her stare created a tension that buzzed between them. It was past twilight and the light—her light—was almost gone.

  She stroked his bristly jaw with her thumbs, whispering against his mouth. “I want to see your eyes when you say it. Just pretend, Kane. Tell me you love me before it ends. I promise no tears, and you can even leave me here if you want. Grant a girl a dying wish?”

  Kane licked his dry lips and his throat constricted. Didn’t seem like such a difficult request, except that the words were tumbling around in his mouth like loose marbles. Prickling sensations needled his chest and a sting of sweat touched his brow. He caught the last flicker of light in her eyes when it went dark and he felt her no more.

  “I love you, Caroline.”

  Darkness enveloped them and he could no longer feel her in his arms.

  “I love you, my sweet Kane.”

  His eyes snapped open and he was sitting up in the bed. Sunshine covered the both of them like a spotlight.

  Caroline was gone.

  Chapter 7

  “Caroline!” Kane roared, straddling her body and slamming his hands against the mattress on either side of her. “Wake up!”

  His heart sped out of control when the connection between them broke. Adrenaline poured through his veins like gasoline and he leapt off the bed, tilting her head back to begin CPR. It’s not something that he’d ever done before, but the medical shows on television were descriptive enough that the average person could grasp the idea.

  After thirty compressions, he placed his mouth on hers and blew a breath into her empty lungs. He searched for a pulse with his fingers.

  Nothing.

  Kane relentlessly administered a series of breaths, pumping on her chest to force blood through her heart.

  “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,” he counted aloud.

  Sweat trickled down his temple and his shoulders stiffened. Every passing minute was agony as part of him wanted to rush to the phone and call someone—anyone. But he couldn’t risk losing one precious second.

  When he blew another breath and checked for a pulse, Kane’s heart sank into a bottomless pit of despair.

  He made bargains in his head that he’d stop all of the stupid shit. He’d turn himself in and serve his time. If they ever released him, he would get a better job and do something meaningful with his life. If she’d just breathe on her own again, Kane vowed that he would look after her. Even if she wanted nothing to do with him, there would never be a moment’s worry in her life for money. He’d work his ass off to make sure that she had what she needed.

  “Come on, Caroline. I know you can hear me,” he shouted. “Wake up and hit me again because I deserve it!”

  Twenty minutes? Maybe closer to forty-five. In the silence of the room illuminated by early morning light, Kane collapsed across her lifeless body as the realization hit that Caroline was gone.

  He couldn’t save her.

  His body sagged from the weight of the guilt and he wiped his brow against his trembling bicep. The only sound was his ragged breath.

  No birds sang for her passing, and the breaking dawn honored her with a moment of silence. Caroline had no family to grieve for her, no lover to hold her hand and smooth away her fears, no children to cry themselves to sleep. A lovely girl who vibrated with life and so much promise… had slipped through his unworthy fingers.

  Fury consumed him and he grimaced, feeling the hot flames of anger scorching his face. He wanted to flip over all the furniture and set the house on fire. Smash every piece of glass, kick in every door, and rip the blinds from the windows. He wanted to go back in time and kick the living shit out of that man until the violence in him quit raging. This beautiful girl had been ripped from the world, torn from his hands, and cast into the darkness by fate.

  But when he lifted his head, she anchored him back to his senses.

  Her expression was angelic, and he could see the tiny mark on her cheek again. Kane brushed his thumb tenderly over it and leaned closer to her face, pulling away the bandage so he could see her eyes more clearly.

  Closed eyes. Ones that should have awakened and filled with the morning light of the sun.

  The truth of how he felt about Caroline hadn’t sunk in until those three words crossed his lips—words simply meant to offer comfort. But Kane had never said those words to a woman before, not in a way that really meant anything. All Caroline wanted was someone to stay with her in the darkness, talk with her in the silence, and care for her in the solitude.

  He should have kissed her.

  This was the decision in his life that would break him, the one he would remember in those odd moments when something reminded him of Caroline.

  Kane leaned forward, pressing his warm lips against hers. They were cool to the touch. Very lovingly, he delivered a heartfelt kiss.

  He felt nothing from her, but for the first time—he felt everything. All reason broke away and tears washed down his jaw onto her cheeks. No woman had ever broken through his façade and accepted the man that he was.

  He spoke in a raspy voice against her face.

  “You were wrong, Caroline. You matter. We would have been a pair, you know that? I would have taken you out on a date and showed you off in that dress.”

  The one still covered in her blood—but that’s not how he’d remember it. He’d always see her standing in the spray of sunlight by the window with her tenacious spirit and gentle laugh. Kane wondered if any man in her life had really noticed how beautiful she was. Anything. He’d give anything to feel her touch again.

  Kane placed the flat of his hand across her chest where the necklace charm had settled across her heart. Nothing could have prepared him for the devastating loss of hope, promise, and a young woman that bared her soul to him in the darkest moment of her life.

  A burst of pain tore through his heart like a dagger and ripped him open. Exposed were the lies of all the times he’d told himself that he could never love a woman. Heated tears stung against his beautiful eyes.

  Kane held her cheek with his bare hand, speaking quietly against her lips. Sorrow was the sunlight wrapping them tight, fury was the regret that burned in his heart, and tender was his kiss. He honored her with memory.

  It was all he had to give.

  “I meant it Caroline, I do love you. No other woman will ever matter. You’re in my head now and as long as I’m alive, I’m going to remember you, Angel. Always.”

  The sunlight warmed his arms, as if trying to offer a consoling touch, but he felt shredded beneath it.

  Emotions poured out in the form of rage and he grabbed a plastic clock from the bedside table and flung it across the room. It slammed into the wall and shattered the plastic face. Just as he closed his eyes, a loud commotion sounded as someone kicked in the door.

  Two men stormed into the bedroom.

  “Get away from the female!” the tall man shouted.

  From his height and the light coloring of his eyes, Kane identified him as a Chitah. He peered over his shoulder, staring at the shorter man with the comb-over who stood beside the tall tracker. Couldn’t tell what Breed he was.

  The Chitah lifted his fingers, holding a slip of paper between them. “Next time, take your receipt out of the bag.”

  The shorter man yanked Kane off the bed and cuffed his hands.

  “The grocery store manager was kind enough to rewind the footage on the security camera,” the Chitah said. “People don’t just leave beer sitting on the street corner, and wouldn’t you know it, your victim was in the store at the same time. We managed to get his credit card information from the sale and trace it back here. You had me wasting time running around town before I realized you’d gotten into a car.”

  Kane winced when the cuff tightened on his wrist and pinched his skin. They could lock him up for years and it wouldn’t matter; he’d already received his punishment.

  “You’re a si
ck fuck, you know that?” the man behind him growled in his ear. “Taking a dead girl back here and—Jesus, I don’t even want to think about what we just walked in on!”

  “Me saying goodbye,” Kane murmured.

  “Shut up.”

  The Chitah lifted a Breed badge and showed his identification. “The human police collected the body of your victim and we confiscated all of the evidence that would lead them here. It’s against the law to kill a human. You’re under arrest.” His eyes flicked behind Kane and his nostrils flared, picking up a scent. “Was she also a human?”

  “No, she’s a Sensor. I did the world a favor taking out that piece of shit and leaving him for dead.”

  It would be the last chance Kane could look upon Caroline, and he glanced over his shoulder. For the first time, he noticed that his socks were on her feet and it made him slam his eyes shut. He couldn’t remember her that way—lying on the bed.

  No life. No light.

  “Then we’ll have to locate her family so they can claim the body,” the Chitah grumbled. “Mick, see if she has anything on her.”

  Kane reached behind him with his cuffed hand and grabbed Mick by the wrist.

  “Touch her and I’ll end your life,” he said with a visceral snarl.

  The Chitah stepped forward. “Then why don’t you tell us her name and where to send her body,” he suggested in a slow and threatening voice.

  “Caroline.”

  “Caroline what? Who does she belong to?”

  Kane never learned her last name. Did it matter? She had no one to claim her. Then the idea of her body being disposed of like unwanted trash made his stomach turn. He lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes at the Chitah.

  “She’s mine. I loved her.”

  He was nose to neck with the tracker who glared down at him with piercing golden eyes and short blond hair.

  “You are aware that a Chitah can scent a lie.” His nostrils flared and a muscle twitched in his face as he took in a breath of air and let it roll across his tongue. The Chitah gave Mick an unwavering stare. “He speaks the truth.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Mick said, hooking a tight grip around Kane’s arm. “We still have to haul him in for murder. Don’t get all sentimental on me because of the girl. I don’t give a good goddamn who he is to her; you know the laws. There was no sign of a struggle in that alley—that human was murdered in cold blood by one of ours. All that evidence left behind that we had to clean up could have led the humans into our world. I’ll buy you a beer when our shift ends and you can cry about it then.”

  The Chitah’s mouth twisted and he raised his hand to stop them from leaving. Something flickered in his expression and Kane knew what it was. Chitahs revered women and would lay down their lives for one.

  “Did you kill the human to protect the female?”

  That could possibly get him off the hook. In the end, killing the man kept her from an even crueler fate. Kane could have attempted to lie, but that’s not how it went down. He killed that man out of impulse.

  “No. I killed him because he was a murderer. I’m a Sensor, and his crimes are as long as the Nile.”

  It was almost undetectable when the Chitah shook his head. “Come with us.”

  ***

  Four days later, Kane was sitting on a flimsy cot in his cell. Breed jail was everything he’d heard about. It was an old building with several stories, and they segregated the prisoners by their Breed. Vampires were located on the floor below, staked for their entire sentence. The wood paralyzed them. Rotting away for years without moving or eating (not that they needed to) would be enough to drive a man out of his mind.

  Every six hours, a tray filled with food that came out of a can, slid beneath the bars through a rectangular gap. The meat was barely recognizable. He should have been hungry, but Kane hadn’t eaten since the morning of the murder.

  The guards showed up like clockwork, leaving his tray and later collecting the uneaten slop that they called food. Kane never sensed anything while touching his tray and the guards wore gloves when making their rounds. They denied Sensors access to emotional imprints, perhaps so they couldn’t uncover juicy tidbits about the guards to use as blackmail. Guards were required to keep their distance from the cells and not engage in conversation. No doubt men had tried to bribe them with a mind-blowing emotional trip in exchange for a walk out of jail. Kane had never collected useless emotions and stored them, so he had nothing to offer.

  There weren’t many Sensors locked away, so it was quiet. Except for the guy five cells down who liked to whistle a lot.

  Kane looked down at his laceless shoes and sighed. Sleeping the first three nights had been impossible, and he doubted that tonight would be any different. Each time his eyes closed, he saw Caroline’s smile, one that time would eventually try to erase. On the first night, he awoke screaming out of control. The guard slammed a baton against the bars as a warning. In the dream, Caroline slipped down a black tunnel with nothing at the end. She whispered to him, but he couldn’t hear the words. She should have seen a light; wasn’t that what was supposed to happen? A tunnel, a light, angels or some shit?

  The memory of it crippled him, and he rubbed his rough hands against his face. He’d never felt so gutted in his life.

  Taking out the human was the best thing he’d ever done, but it didn’t matter to the men who locked him up. The one thing that kept him sane was thinking about the women who would not fall prey to that rabid human. They’d gotten a free pass without even knowing it.

  Kane pinched his earlobe and listened to the door at the end of the hall open. Someone needed to oil the hinge because it creaked like an old house in a horror movie. He tensed, wondering if they were going to impose the death sentence. So many regrets ran through his mind, and he thought about what kind of man he might have been if he’d just given himself the chance.

  Would they allow him to contact Sunny one last time? There would be no jury or trial. When they deliberated a person’s fate, the facts of the case were presented to some representatives who made a collective decision. Kane faced a possible death sentence, or at the very least, a lifetime behind bars.

  The footsteps grew closer and Kane readied himself. Today was the day of his sentencing. Now he knew how Caroline must have felt not really knowing what was coming except for the certainty that there was no escaping the inevitable.

  A long shadow slithered into his cell and he swallowed hard, wringing his hands together.

  “I asked if I could bring in a frying pan to cook you up some fish tacos, but they wouldn’t let me,” a delicate voice said.

  Kane’s head snapped up and his heart caught in his chest.

  Standing on the other side of the bars was a lovely young brunette in a pair of jeans and a red blouse with a v-neck collar. Her hair was smooth and fell in subtle waves just past her shoulders.

  Maybe in the middle of the night he had died in his sleep and this was the other side. But why would Caroline’s ghost visit him in a pair of red sneakers with white laces? His body refused to move.

  She swung her hip and rested a fist against it. “Well, if that’s how you treat your visitors, I’ll just go.”

  Caroline whirled around and disappeared.

  Without a conscious thought, Kane flew up and slammed against the bars, gripping them tightly and trying to mash his face through. “No, don’t go,” he called out.

  She slinked into view as if she’d only moved a few inches out of sight, twisting a lock of hair around her index finger.

  Damn, it was her. Heavenly brown eyes, a glowing complexion, a cunning smirk, and she was completely eating his reaction up. The glint of the anchor between the open cut of her blouse caught his eye.

  As did the luscious shape of her hips—ones that those jeans should have been flattered to hold, but instead they hung slack. Her thin T-shirt was short enough that he could see the flat of her stomach and hips. He’d never envied a pair of denims in his whole damn life until
he saw them on Caroline.

  “But you’re dead,” he said in disbelief, pressing his forehead bruisingly between the bars.

  Caroline walked closer until she was within arm’s reach.

  “I was dead… for a little while. There was a strong pull somewhere else and I was going there without a choice in the matter.” Caroline sniffed as if she’d been crying, although her eyes didn’t show any signs of tears. “Then, your voice called out and…”

  “And what?” he asked hoarsely.

  She stepped closer and it smelled as if he’d walked into a field of wildflowers during the spring when the blooms first open. A blush tinted her skin, so pale and immediate that he reached out to touch her. His finger grazed along her rosy cheek and Kane’s lips eased into a grin.

  He felt her happiness.

  Caroline’s inability to transfer her emotions wasn’t entirely true. Kane’s gift was strong enough that he was able to pick up the slightest trace of it. It was just enough to taste her emotions, but not so much that they would overwhelm him.

  Suddenly, he wanted his hands all over her skin. A deep ache knotted in his belly, turning him inside out. Before he realized what he was doing, Kane pulled at the ends of her cotton shirt until she shuffled her feet forward, only an inch away from the bars.

  Her breath tickled his neck.

  “And what? Finish what you were going to say,” he muttered, intoxicated by her nearness, caressing the narrow curve of her waist.

  “Did you mean what you said, Kane? That you loved me? I heard you say it. I felt your emotion—it formed a connection that carved a pathway back to the living world.” Her eyes sparkled as she recounted the memory. “It spread out beneath my feet like brilliant diamonds, and suddenly, I had a choice! Whatever was pulling me into the darkness let go, and I felt you reaching for me. It really does work, Kane. It wasn’t your words that brought me back. It was your love. But was the love for me, or were you remembering someone else?”