Fated: Karma Series, Book Three (8 page)

“We aren’t killing her. There’s nothing you can do about this.” Eddie was speaking but it didn’t sound like he truly believed his own words.

I felt a little slack in my arms but not enough to break free; just enough to be less bruising. I guess his friends heard the same hesitation I did.

“You really believe that?” The words were succinct, crisp and layered with something else that made the hair on my body stand up and pay attention.

If I didn’t know better, it sounded like he was goading them for a fight. But I did know better.
Sacrifice one for the greater good.
We’d just talked about this the other day. Now that I was the sacrifice, I didn’t expect him to think differently, protective instinct or not. He would’ve let Kitty die and he’d known her for centuries. Letting some girl he’d only known for months get raped wasn’t going to change a philosophy that seemed pretty ingrained in his nature.

He was bluffing and I’d prefer that he just left rather than witness the act.

My current position was humiliating but I forced myself to meet his eyes anyway, and I found the strength to take control, if not of the situation, of at least myself. “It’s okay,” I said but broke eye contact quickly before I followed those two words with something more desperate and truer to how I was feeling.

It would have to be okay. I wouldn’t grovel for help simply to be denied. I had too much pride. I wouldn’t cry for these men to stop. They wouldn’t. I could only control myself and that would have to be enough, because Fate wasn’t going to break a truce for me—one person.

The gun rang out and the hold on my wrists released. I was frozen for less than a second before I stood and yanked my pants up quickly, covering myself. I looked around. It was a good thing I’d developed a stronger stomach because there was blood and little fleshy bits everywhere. He’d shot all three of them quicker than I thought was possible. I’d expected a mess from the warm spray that had hit my exposed skin and there it was. All three of my assailants no longer had faces.

I heard Fate approach as I was tying off the ripped corners of my pants to keep them up. I was still staring at the dead bodies around me. Who knew we’d break the truce first?

I tore my gaze away from the bodies lying there to look at Fate. He looked worse than he had a minute ago and I saw his eyes move from my torso to my wrists. I looked down at myself, not realizing that the guy had torn my shirt as well. There was blood spattered all over me and marks on my arms. “Wow. I’m a wreck.” My voice was flat, in distinct contrast to the chaos I felt ricocheting within.

His hands reached behind him and pulled his shirt up and over his head. Standing there naked from the waist up and completely at ease, he held it out to me. I took it and quickly swapped out shirts with my back turned, self-conscious now.

I turned back, resting my hands on my hips to keep them from wrapping around myself. Some loser had almost gotten the best of me, raped me a foot away from my Ho Hos. I was not going to compound matters and look even weaker by having a mental breakdown over it.

“The truce is definitely broken.” I took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “Do you regr—”

“No.” The single word cut me off and echoed with power and finality.

As soon as his attention was off of me and on the bloody bodies, I searched his features for some sign of regret. I should’ve let it go but I couldn’t, and when I couldn’t find any, I tried to pull it out of him.

“I know this wasn’t the outcome you were hoping for.” I thanked my years in front of hostile juries for my ability to hide stress under duress and my continued blasé attitude when I felt nothing of the sort.

“It wasn’t planned but I’m not unhappy with the results.” His voice was stiff and I felt like I barely knew this man. Or maybe I did. I just hadn’t seen him in a long while.

He walked closer to where I was and looked over his
results
.

“We should get out of here.” I looked over my shoulder, toward the glass door. All I could think of was escape. They were dead and I still wanted to run. I felt like a coward of the worst kind, worse than the names I’d called the tattooed employee who had taken off. I turned to Fate again, my back to the doors, refusing to show any more weakness.

Fate looked at his watch. “Why? The police response time right now is a joke.” He knelt down next to one of them, looking the bodies over.

He was right. The cops who were still showing up for work were so overtaxed it was almost as if there weren’t any at all. I’d heard reports of up to a twelve-hour response time in certain areas.

“I knew that one.” I rattled off the bare details as he concentrated on the other two. I knew what he wanted. He was looking for ID. If there was some way to link the bodies to their former past, we could determine if the truce had been broken before this incident. I didn’t see a reason to care. The truce was broken either way. “What’s the point?”

“All knowledge is good.”

My arms were wet. I needed to get the blood off. I walked down an aisle and found some baby wipes and made my way back to where he was still inspecting the dead, only one question on my mind. “What about that thing you said to me the other night?” I asked as I scrubbed my forearms to baby softness, trying to concentrate on the clean smell and not the wet feeling on my leggings.

He looked up at me from where he was and cocked an eyebrow as if he had no idea what thing I was speaking of.

“You know,
the thing
?” I’d just escaped rape. Did he have to play games right now?

“What thing?” He shook his head, still proclaiming ignorance.

Was he trying to be obtuse? “
Sacrificing one for the greater good
thing.”

“This was different.” He went back to his inspection, dismissing the question.

I took a second, wondering if I was the one missing something. “How is this different?”

“It is. That’s all.”

“I don’t see how.”

“Did you want to get gang raped?” His voice was off, the tiniest little bit. It was so slight, I wasn’t sure my human ears would’ve picked up on the difference of a 16th of an octave at most.

“That was uncalled for.” Anger that was boiling inside of me, choking me with its fight for prominence in a myriad of unhealthy emotions, was starting to gnaw its way out, beating past the humiliation, ineptitude and self-pity.

“Then stop questioning it and be grateful.”

This tone I knew well. Irritated.

“I just don’t understand why you did it.” I went to grab another wipe to realize the packet was empty, all the used ones in a pile by my feet. I ducked down the aisle to grab another container.

“What don’t you understand? Didn’t you want me to stop it?” he asked, his voice carrying over the aisle as I debated between baby wipes or going for some disinfectants. I opted for Lysol wipes and walked back.

When I returned, he looked at me as if I were the stupidest being walking the planet. He was the one contradicting himself.

“I want to know why you did that. Why you broke the truce when it’s the exact opposite of what you said you’d do? And I want to know why, whenever I need you most, you act like the biggest asshole I’ve ever met?” I looked at the spot where the incident had almost happened as I vigorously scrubbed my skin. No. I wouldn’t let that rile me. They hadn’t done it, and if I acknowledged how close they’d come I might start losing it a little, and I was fairly proud of myself with how I was holding it together thus far.

His eyes narrowed on the Lysol wipes I was scrubbing my cheeks with and then rubbed against my lips. “Can you just say thank you and—for once in the last twenty lives you’ve lived—act like a normal girl?”

“You’re a complete ass. Can’t you ever have an ounce of compassion?” Wait…twenty lives? I had him! He slipped. Didn’t really watch me
my ass
. “Twenty lives?”

He let out a loud sigh and ran his hands through his hair, still clean and pristine in comparison to myself.

“I might have seen you around.”

“When?”

“Can’t say. Against the rules.” He shrugged as he stood there.

“Well that’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard from you. Yes, you can. And even if some stupid rule existed, you don’t listen to rules.” He walked out of the store but stopped just outside of the threshold holding the door open for me.

“You’re right. I can. I just won’t.”

“You’re really not going to tell me anything?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Don’t feel like it.”

“What do you mean,
you don’t feel like it
? I was just attacked in there! You can’t cut me a little slack?” I was screaming at him like a banshee in the middle of the parking lot and he seemed completely unperturbed.

Then it clicked into place. He’d
wanted
me to scream at him. I stopped, now feeling like an even bigger ass than I had a moment ago. My shoulders sagged and I let out a long sigh.

“Better?” he asked.

“Actually, yeah, a little,” I admitted, embarrassed at how easily he’d manipulated me but grateful for the release. “Was that a lie? The twenty lives?”

There was a flicker of indecision before he answered, “No.”

“And?”

“What?”

“You’re really not going to tell me about them?”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“That wouldn’t be any fun.” He walked toward the car, opening the trunk and grabbing a T-shirt out and throwing it on.

“But…"

“I know,
you were almost raped
.”

“I can’t figure out if you’re really a bastard or sometimes you just play one for kicks.”

He smirked but the light in his eyes wasn’t there this time and I had a feeling he was faking it.

“Just so you know, I won’t ask any more questions for now, since you are obviously flustered by this situation, but this is not the end of it.” I tilted my head toward the store we’d left. I didn’t even want to look in that direction. “What about them? We can’t just leave them there in the middle of the store.”

“They won’t be there long. If they do manage to get the police here, the bodies will be gone before they show, energy reabsorbed into the system. Nothing will be left but some dusty residue.”

I nodded, feeling an overwhelming need to go home and scrub my skin in the shower for hours. “I need to get my car at the office. It’s been a long night.”

“I’ll drive you. You’re in shock.”

I shook my head. “No. I’m not. I’ve been in shock enough times in the last several months to know what it feels like. I’m a little off balance but I’ll be fine.” The scariest part was I would be. Close call, but I’d made it out relatively unharmed, physically anyway.

His silence made me look at him and the stern set of his mouth as he stared off into the distance, surveying for anymore threats.

“I would’ve thought that would make you happy. I’m getting tougher, jaded if you will.” I let out a long sigh before I continued. “Less human.”

He shook his head, a profoundly sad look on his face. It wasn’t an emotion I was used to seeing him wear. He leaned his forearms on the car hood in between us. “No. Not even a little.”

“Why? It’s for the best.” How many times had I heard the word
transfer
like it was a disease of the worst kind since I’d come here?

“I never wanted this life for you.”

Every time he said something like that, so brutally honest and from the gut, it flayed me until I was raw. Maybe that was why we didn’t speak honestly with each other.

“Come on. I’ll drive you.” He straightened and opened his door.

“You don’t need to come. Just give me a lift back to the office where I’m parked.”

“Not tonight.” His voice was soft. He wasn’t just asking me to let him do this, he was asking me to not fight him on it, and it revealed more than anything he’d said to me tonight. He wanted to drive me.

He wasn’t going to budge and he was probably right. I might not have been in shock but I wasn’t great, either. A ride wouldn’t be the worst idea.

I got in the car, letting him drive me away from the place I’d been attacked. That wasn’t how I’d remember it though. I had a frightening feeling that from this point on, I’d remember it as the place I’d lost yet another chunk of my humanity. I just wished I knew how many pieces you could lose before you had none left.

We didn’t speak as we drove. I wasn’t sure what kept him silent. For me, the scene kept replaying in my mind. If I kept accumulating moments like these, I’d be able to run an entire movie theatre’s worth of traumatizing images soon. Murder, torture, beatings—I had a plethora of horrible memories to draw from next time I was staring down one of the numbers on my bucket list and trying to find the magnitude of strength I needed to pull that trigger. Thinking of it that way, a near rape wasn’t such a big deal. I’d shown more skin on the beach, I’d just been more selective about the parts.

I redid my warrior ponytail, as I’d come to think of it, and set my mind to a more useful purpose than dwelling on what might have happened. It
hadn’t
and there were plenty of things that were happening I needed to concern myself with.

But I couldn’t let the scene go completely. “He was really strong.”

“I’d suspected as much,” Fate said, without any question.

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t see any bruises on them. You were overpowered too easily, and I know you wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.”

“Was that…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Fate had just paid me the first compliment I’d ever heard him utter, and it made me feel like I was glowing and not just from my tattoo. First he saved me, then he helped me vent when I would’ve swallowed all those horrible feelings, now a compliment? That was a big problem. I could feel myself getting dragged down further into the quicksand of emotions that were Fate.

I wanted to smack myself upside the head and might have done it if I wouldn’t have had to then explain it to him.

Work—world is falling apart, need to concentrate on work.

“So Malokin is tapping into a human’s natural inclinations.”

He nodded.

“If you knew, you could’ve mentioned it to me.”

“Sorry. I thought you knew that that’s how it works. I forgot you were a transfer.”

“Don’t flatter me so.” I lifted my head and took a deep breath. “Do you smell that? The air smells weird.”

“I do.”

I hit the down button on the window so I could get a better sense if it was coming from the car or outside and that was when I knew something was wrong. This time, it had nothing to do with gut instinct.

We were a mile or so from my condo when I saw it. Smoke was billowing up into the night sky over the area of my building like an ominous cloud of dread or, maybe more accurately, a personalized billboard from Malokin. It might as well have had the words
you fucked with me
carved into the smoke.

That there’d be retaliation wasn’t surprising. There was no way Malokin would let the death of his men—and a break of the truce—go unanswered. Not for a second had I ever believed his southern charm act or doubted his ruthlessness; not even before Kitty’s torture or that first offer of a drink. But I hadn’t expected payback to come so swiftly. The shit was about to hit the fan in a very large way and I was pretty sure we weren’t prepared.

Fate hit the gas, giving the work car as much juice as he could, which was quite substantial since it wasn’t the wreck he’d promised to buy.

Traffic choked up the streets when we got a couple of blocks away. Without having to discuss it, we abandoned the car and ran the rest of the way on foot.

The fire department, or the skeleton crew who were still reporting for work, was trying to put out a raging fire that looked like it had been burning for a while from the amount of damage already done. Or more likely, had gotten some help in the way of gasoline. Half the building was blackened and half was in sticks. My condo looked like it wasn’t fully gone yet, as if Malokin had orchestrated the fire to burn in just the perfect way that I’d be able to witness its destruction in person.

My condo didn’t matter right now. All I could think of was Smoke, my cat. If that bastard had killed my cat…

I didn’t think of the fire, or Fate, or anything but Smoke as I took off toward the building. A fireman blocked me immediately.

“Ma’am, you can’t go in there,” he said, but I was pushing past him before he’d finished the sentence.

He screamed something along the lines of
crazy bitch
after me, but I ignored him and ran for the stairs that led to my floor. He didn’t know what crazy was if my cat wasn’t okay.

I barged through my door, flames creeping closer as the fire burned through the cedar siding like it was a book of matches. “Smoke!” I screamed.

A howling preceded Smoke leaping into my arms and digging into me with a clawed death grip. I ignored the discomfort as I hugged her closer, feeling utter relief. The overhang in front of the door fell, blocking the way. The deck was in flames at the back.

I turned, with Smoke in my arms and howling up a tirade like I’d never heard before. Both doors were burning flames. And then sheet rock started crumbling from above. I thought the ceiling was collapsing until I looked up to see Fate leaning over the new hole in the ceiling. That’s where he’d gone.

I reached up toward him before he had to ask and was quickly pulled up through the hole in the ceiling he’d made that went through the rafters of the attic to the roof.

There was only one clear path but it led to a deck on the side and we were able to climb down. We hit the beach where a different fireman thought we’d escaped the fire.

“You okay?” he yelled after us as we gained some distance from the burning building.

“Fine,” Fate yelled back.

I wasn’t sure what the guy would’ve done if we’d said no. There wasn’t an ambulance to be seen.

Standing on the beach with Smoke safe in my arms, as a crowd gathered to watch my home burn to the ground, the impact of what happened hit. “My stuff.”

“Is all replaceable. Nothing in there would be salvageable anyway.”

He was right. Even if something did survive, which was becoming more and more doubtful, it would all be smoke damaged.

For the second time in less than six months, I’d lost all my possessions, and it felt every bit as bad as the first, maybe even worse. Smoke let out a howl and I loosened my grip.

It hadn’t taken long for the truce to fall apart and the gloves to come off.

***

Morning light had just started to disrupt the dark sky as we met in the office for an impromptu meeting to discuss the latest development. My fingers pushed the hair from my face and a fluttering of ashes floated to the floor. Then there was the smell of eau d’ ashtray that permeated the air in a ten foot radius around where I sat in the middle of the office, Smoke on my lap, even stinker than I was.

Fate was leaning on the desk in front of me, Murphy standing to his right and Luck to his left. The Jinxes were doing laps around the room on their skateboards, each go around punctuated at the sharp turns with skidding sounds.

Knox—who was looking pretty good in another high end suit of navy blue, bought with an obviously much higher salary than I received—followed them with his eyes in a way that confirmed they’d managed to irritate the new guy.

“Don’t tell me the agency doesn’t have another condo,” I said to Knox. I wasn’t sure how he’d found out about this little get together, since I was certain it wasn’t from Fate. Still, maybe I could make use of him.

“No, nothing,” he replied, still not turning away from the Jinxes like a housecat staring at an annoying fly it couldn’t reach. Wow, they’d really gotten under his skin.

“You aren’t staying alone.” Fate crossed his arms in front of his chest and the muscles in his forearms looked like they were geared up for a fistfight. His eyes stared hard and his mouth was tense. It was what I thought of as his emotional lockdown face. It was the look he gave when he was unmovable; I’d come to know it well.

Luck edged back to sit on the desk, crossed her shapely legs and trim ankles, all the more attractive for being donned with five inch red stilettos. “It’s not like you have much of a choice anyway. Duh, your condo looks like the remnants of last night’s bonfire, and an extremely festive one at that,” Luck added, stating the obvious.

“Thanks, Luck. What a wonderful visual that is.” I could imagine all the psychos toasting marshmallows as the fires died down. I hadn’t stuck around that long myself, having seen all I’d needed in the fifteen minutes I’d been there.

“You should stay with me,” she added, undaunted by my sarcasm. The only sign of nervousness from her was the continual digging out of her red lipstick as she reapplied it to already pouty fresh red lips. It was the fifth time she’d done it since she’d heard what happened, beginning with the convenience store attack and followed by my condo building being burnt to a crisp.

Being overly groomed in response to Malokin declaring war wasn’t a sign of weakness to me. In my book, it meant you had some balls if that’s the most you were slipping. And if he won, at least she’d go out looking her best.

“No,” Fate said, countering Luck’s offer. His body was so tense I could actually trace the line of his veins visually all the way from his elbow to his hands. This was going to be a tough battle, and I wasn’t sure I had the gas left in the tank to take it on. The only thing that gave me any fuel was wanting to curl up in a ball in a dark room and be able to process this all in solitude. And if I couldn’t be left alone completely, Luck won hands down. She was far easier to ignore.

“I’m tired. I’ve had a very rough day and I’m not arguing. I’m going home with Luck for tonight, and before you start asking who’s covering my back, I’ve got Luck. Who’s covering yours? Do you think you’re untouchable?”

“Yes. I do,” he said.

“Really?” I leaned back in my seat, feeling much more bravado than I thought I’d be able to muster. He’d walked right into my hands with that last statement, and I could never walk away from a challenge. “And why is that?” I said, backing him into a corner. Fate had secrets and I was fairly certain I wasn’t the only one he kept them from. If he wanted me to stay with him badly enough, he could come clean.

“Because I’m me.” He smirked.

I’d thought I’d laid a trap. Traps didn’t work on Fate. He didn’t feel the compulsion that normal people did to defend themselves or explain. I should’ve known better.

“You’re in that house
alone
so you don’t have a leg to stand on. At least Luck and I will have each other. ”

I leaned back and let my eyelids droop closed over gritty eyeballs, thinking I should have splashed some water on my face. I couldn’t wait until the day was over. Once I went to sleep, it wouldn’t be the day my home burned down or the day I was almost raped while I stared down at my favorite ice cream. It would be a fresh new day where all sorts of wonderful things could happen.

Or maybe it would just be the shitty day after everything went to hell. Still, probably an improvement.

“She’s got a point,” Murphy said from his position next to Fate, his trench coat rustling with his finger pointing.

My eyes widened and fixated on my unexpected ally. I hadn’t thought I’d get any support from his corner, not when it went against something Fate wanted. He wasn’t as bad as the Jinxes but he had a slight Fate crush. Embarrassingly enough, there seemed to be a long list of us on it.

“Thank you, Murphy.” The count had just hit three against his one opposing vote.

Fate threw him a look that I thought would send him scrambling, but Murphy looked back at him and kept talking. “I’m on your side. I don’t think anyone should be alone,” Murphy added.

Now I was the one shooting dirty looks in Murphy’s direction.
This
was more along the lines of what I’d expected from him.

Fate raised his eyebrows and turned his gloat glare all the way to maximum output for my benefit.

“Oh, so now
Murphy
is the be-all and end-all on tactical matters?” I didn’t care if it was a valid point. I didn’t like getting ganged up on. I’d had enough of gangs for a while.

Murphy, who’d been in a slouch, straightened his shoulders. “I’ll have you know, I’m very good tactically. I’m an excellent chess player.”

Knox, forcing his eyes away from the long skid marks on the floor left by the Jinxes’ last lap, dragged his attention back to the group.

He did that weird sleeve jerk, which men who wore suits a lot often did, to look at his watch. “He’s right. No one should be staying alone.”

“Are you kidding?” I nailed Knox with a stare that said
I’d thought maybe we could be friends but not anymore
. Of all the people I’d expected to back Fate up, Knox was the last. He and Fate hardly had a bromance brewing.

Didn’t anyone get it? I wasn’t looking for attention or someone to take care of me. All I wanted was to crawl into a bed, be left alone to digest the shitty day I’d had and go to sleep. Why was this turning into such a fiasco? This day just kept getting longer. It felt as if the last twenty-four hours had magically stretched into forty-eight.

Knox’s eyes softened when they landed on mine. He shot me a look back that silently asked me for patience. “He’s right. The entire office should condense. After what happened with you, it’s for the best.” He looked at the occupants again and then his eyes came right back to me. “I’ve also received orders,” he added.