10. Raegan
Chapter ten
Raegan
Now I’m running late.
I pocket my phone, double check all of my knives are in place, and then head out.
The paramedic should be asleep in his apartment now, based on the routine I’ve been tracking the last week. He works the day shift and sleeps alone in his apartment. It’s a relief he doesn’t have a family or roommate with him. Now, I can use his apartment for some one-on-one time.
Once I make it there, I slip around the back and begin my climb up the metal balconies. They’re all independent of one another but close enough that I can stand on one and jump to pull myself up to the next one. I have to take it slow to keep from making enough noise to draw attention, which only adds more time to the plan. It’s an exhausting exercise, and I’m glad I took a city bus to this area rather than walking.
The last thing I need is to be too tired to get this guy restrained and wind up getting myself killed because of poor planning .
I really wish I had my gun.
I count the six balconies that I’ve climbed and carefully step down on the metal floor so as not to make a sound. I peel off one of my gloves to expose my hand and then hold my palm against the glass door.
My gift warms in my gut as I call on it, pulling it to my exposed hand until it burns. Fuck, does it burn. I don’t let my enemies know that it hurts me to use my gift. That I’d rather use a gun or a knife than pull on this little trick to destroy whatever I touch. But I’ll also use it when I need to.
I grit my teeth and thrust my gift out from my palm in a rush. If I do this too slowly, the glass will crack and make noise as it falls apart. If I do it fast and hard, I can force the glass to dust in a matter of seconds with minimal sound.
The burning pain spreads down my arm, but then the glass is gone, and crystal dust falls in front of me like ash. I shake my hand in the cool night air, but it’ll take a good fifteen minutes before the burning pain stops.
I carefully tug the glove back on and then flex my hand to make sure I can still move it through the pain. With my right, I grab a knife and point it ahead of me.
Then I push aside the curtain and step inside.
The apartment is dark, as I’d planned, except for the thin line of light under the bedroom door at the end of the hallway.
Fuck. Is he still awake?
I creep closer, focusing on silence and stealth more than speed, then freeze when I hear bone breaking followed by a groan .
“—where it is. One bone every time you don’t answer the question,” someone growls from inside the bedroom.
“Did you know there are 206 bones in the human body?” a nonchalant second voice adds.
Son of a bitch.
The first one roars with laughter. “Did you hear that? Sounds like you have 203 chances left. I guess we’ve got some time together still.”
Kellan and Jackson.
I turn the door handle and throw it open. There’s no point trying to sneak in. Jackson would kill me before I could even see the room. At least this way, they’ll see me before they act.
I’m taking the risk, though, because neither of them tried to kill me the last time. So far, it seems like we want nothing to do with one another, and that’s it.
I can handle that to avoid missing out on this lead.
I just wish they would stop showing up wherever I go.
The man that was supposed to be my victim is zip-tied to his gaming chair in front of Kellan and Jackson. He’s covered in blood, bleeding profusely through his nose, and littered in bruises already blooming over his face. One of his legs is bent at a weird angle, which explains why they didn’t bother tying his legs up.
I shift my gaze to Kellan, who’s standing in a wide stance, his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face. The bit of knuckle I can see on one hand is already scaled over, meaning he bloodied his fist and his gift took over to protect him. Apparently, he’s using that armor-like skin to continue beating the guy. Kellan’s jeans are ripped, his shirt maroon and tight across his chest and arms, accentuating the pure muscle he’s developed.
Jackson is dressed like the first night I’d seen him in the city. All black, hood up, but his piercing blue eyes almost glow through the shadow of it as they lock on me.
Kellan looks like a pure enforcer, while Jackson looks like the God of Death, just waiting for Kellan to be done with him before he whisks him away to the afterlife.
“What the fuck, Jack?” Kellan growls at his friend. “You knew she was here, didn’t you?”
Jack shrugs, which makes it difficult to tell if he knew and didn’t care I was here or if I somehow surprised him.
Since my target is already bound and helpless, I yank my gaiter off my head. “What are you doing here? This guy’s mine.” I jab my finger at the guy whose head is bent over while he sobs into the carpet.
“I didn’t see your name on him anywhere, beautiful,” Kellan drawls in his deep voice.
My teeth clench as he uses the nickname for me again. To torture me? If so, it’s working. It feels like a punch in the gut, winding me with memories and old feelings of safety and being cared about. And then it all slips through my fingers when he stirs those emotions up, because I may be physically close to them, but I’ve never been farther away.
“Well, I’ve spent weeks getting to this night. I’m not letting it get fucked up because of you,” I snap back.
This is also my last lead that Elias worked hard to get for me before leaving on his trip .
I have to make this count.
Kellan scoffs and steps up into my space. I hold my ground, my hand gripping the knife at my side tightly. One wrong move, and I’ll stab him in the dick.
Wait, would that scale up like everything else? Become an armored dick?
Fuck, not important. Focus.
He leans over me, because he’s a giant compared to my five-foot-four self and smirks. “Not my problem. Now, skedaddle before you become my problem. Or more of a problem than you already are by being in this city.” He smells of blood and musk, rich and dark and so delicious; my body heats with excitement at his proximity, even as angry as I am with him. I really need to get my mind and body on the same page.
“I didn’t realize you owned this city. Where’s your name stamped on it?” I snark back.
“Oh, it’s on it. Trust me. You just need to listen a bit harder.” He bares his teeth in a grin, and I’m tempted to stab him over it. Prick.
“Look. I’m not leaving until I get some information. Either you let me stay or—”
“Or what? You’ll fight me? Don’t waste my time.” Kellan turns away from me, and I take that moment to lunge forward. He spins, prepared to block my attack, but I pivot and wrap my hand around the back of the restrained guy’s neck. It doesn’t matter that my glove is still on. It’ll disintegrate first, and I can buy new ones.
“Fuck, you wouldn’t,” Kellan growls at me. Then he turns to snap at Jackson. “Are you really just going to stand there? ”
“Or,” I continue as if he never cut me off, “I kill him. Then none of us get the information, and we’re all back to square one.”
Kell swears viciously, and his face turns thunderous. “This isn’t a race. Both of us losing only means they’re winning. Let him go.”
At least Kellan can’t read my body language so easily to tell that I’m bluffing. “Let me stay.”
Jackson tsks and finally moves from his spot to stand in front of the guy in the chair. He squats down and leans his face into his fist as his elbows rest on his knees. “See what you’ve done? She might just kill you out of spite because you won’t tell us one location. And when she does, believe me, it’ll hurt far worse than anything he or I could do to you.” His voice is husky and low but calm as ever while he talks about murder. Then he smiles, and a full body shiver takes over the man.
He continues, “Do you know what she can do? Her gift allows her to break down the molecular structure of things she touches. Primarily inanimate objects, but it works on people too. You see, people don’t just turn to dust like other matter. It attacks your organs first. Breaks them down internally. Then it hits your skin, and it begins to crack. It splits apart. And finally, your heart bursts. It’s all in a matter of minutes, but I’m sure you can imagine it’ll feel like an eternity when it’s happening to you.” Jackson’s smile is sharp and wicked, the gleam in his eye making it look like he’s lapping up the fear he sees in the man.
“Would you like to give it a try? You can let us know how it feels. The others are usually too busy screaming, so we’ve never gotten a clear answer. Maybe you can do better,” he finally finishes .
Even I have goosebumps on my skin at the threat, and it’s my gift he’s talking about.
It’s terrifying and…I’m so turned on by him.
Definitely broken.
The man is bawling now, his entire body wracked with sobs. “P-please no! I’ll tell you! Anything. Just—” Another sob. “Not that. Not that!”
Jackson pats the man’s cheek with a condescending smirk. “Good man. Let’s hear it then.”
“235 West Fillmore Avenue,” he sputters as blood, snot, and tears hang from his face and lips. “That’s the next drop off location. The burner phone they contact me with is there, on my desk. W-will you let me go now? I have nothing else. I swear it!”
Jackson stands back and nods. “I believe you.”
Kellan steps up in front of the man to draw his attention. “You won’t speak any of this to anyone. If I hear so much as a whisper that you opened your mouth, I will personally hunt you down. And believe me, there’s nowhere you could go—”
I can’t believe they’re going to let this man go just like that. They’ve broken three bones and he’s seen their faces. I learned the hard way, more than once, that leaving someone alive gives them the opportunity to go after you or rat you out. It’s also how GE came to find out I was still alive and is now looking for me. I came this close to being killed because of that mistake.
I won’t make it again.
Kellan’s speech is the perfect distraction for me, so while he’s reading him the riot act of how exactly he’s going to get all of us in trouble, I take my dagger and drive it up and through the back of his neck and out his eye.
It takes strength to get it in there, but as long as you hit the spot right, it slides right through.
The man is dead in an instant, which is nice, considering the circumstances. I could have used my gift just as Jackson explained, but I don’t know the full extent of his involvement in the organization. Being involved gets him dead. But only certain involvement deserves my gift as punishment.
There’s a roar, and when I look up after tugging my knife out, a body slams me to the ground. Pain blooms into my side at the same time the wind is knocked out of me, and all I can focus on is trying to breathe.
“What the fuck?!” Kellan shouts in my face. “He was just a lackey. We were letting him go.” I gasp for air. He pulls back the slightest bit when he realizes I can’t breathe. He doesn’t apologize, just glares at me with what looks like betrayal and disgust.
Right.
I suck in air and cough until I can get my lungs working again. “…kill you…later,” I wheeze, trying to explain that the guy will come back or tattle which will get them killed later, but then I’m coughing again. Sharp stinging pain stabs into my side again, and I glance down. There’s just enough space between us that I can see my knife is stuck between us, the blade on either side digging into each of us.
He hasn’t even noticed. Or, at least, he’s so used to the pain that he isn’t even affected by it. But our blood is slowly joining and then running down my side to the carpet beneath me .
Fuck.
Evidence against us.
“Kill us? I thought you said you were after GE or are you here for us too? You just murder everyone you don’t like now? Is that part of this promise that’s so important to you?”
I pinch my eyes closed so he can’t read the pain in them.
Murderer.
Monster.
Villain.
His weight is suddenly gone, and when I open my eyes again, Jackson’s pulled him up and has stepped between us. His eyes are narrowed at the blood leaking from my side and the pool of our DNA now soaking into the carpet.
Fucking Kellan.
I yank my gaiter off to press into my wound to stop the bleeding, then groan and curl onto my side. My other hand presses into the blood-soaked carpet. My eyes close when the steady burn of my gift returns. I try to focus on the bloodied area of the carpet, but my control over my gift isn’t what it used to be and it clears out a wider area than I’d planned.
Well, hopefully it’s good enough.
I at least got to it and the padding beneath before any blood reached the floorboards, so aside from having no good explanation for why a chunk of his carpet is gone, at least our DNA isn’t all over this crime scene.
I slowly make it back to my feet, retrieving my knife and wiping the guy’s and now our blood on my pants before putting it away. There goes another pair of pants that I’ll have to destroy and replace.
“You’re welcome,” I grit out through the pain.
Kellan’s still glaring at me with eyes narrowed, so I just huff and decide not to bother helping with anything further. I wore gloves the entire time and now my blood has been removed from the scene. There’s nothing here linking me to this man. Whether or not Jack and Kellan took the same precautions is on them; unless they know of a way to get rid of the body completely. No body means no murder.
When I check in on Jackson, he doesn’t seem fazed. He’s watching me carefully, but his face is blank, and he hasn’t reacted at all to what I did with killing the guy or cleaning up Kell’s mess.
I turn and freeze when pain lances through my side. Gritting my teeth, I force myself to keep moving through it. I leave without another word between us, and the silence echoes louder than anything else that could have been said.