TWELVE
Leila had noticed a sign for a subway station when Aiden had driven up to the hotel. Her handbag clutched tightly to her body, her limbs shaking from the cold night air, she ran, or rather limped, toward the entrance as fast as her aching ankle allowed. She fumbled for some quarters and dropped them into the ticket machine. The clinking of the coins as they made their way through the machine echoed in the empty entrance area.
She cast a look over her shoulder, scanning her surroundings, hoping that Aiden was still at the motel, thinking she was in the shower.
Her eyes tried to penetrate the dark but couldn’t. She saw nobody and hoped she was alone.
A coin dropped from her trembling fingers. She bent to retrieve it and inserted it into the slot. In the distance she heard a voice over the loudspeaker.
“Next inbound train in one minute. Platform two.”
Leila hit the ‘purchase ticket’ button, but nothing happened. Frantically, she pressed the button again, but no ticket emerged from the slot.
“Shit, shit, shit!” she cursed.
Footsteps behind her made her reach into her bag and grip the can of mace she still kept there as she spun on her heels, ready to defend herself. Her heart beat into her throat, choking off the air to breathe when she saw a dark figure approach. As soon as the light from the station engulfed him, she released a shaky breath.
A tall teenager dressed in a hoodie and worn jeans, his posture slouching, entered the ticket area. He glanced at her before approaching the turnstile, then jumped over it, not even checking if a station clerk was watching or not.
As he sauntered toward the stairs, she focused her attention back on the machine. She’d put the correct amount of coins in, so why wasn’t that damn thing spitting out her ticket? Angrily, she hit her foot against it, hoping to un-jam the darn machine. Suddenly, all the coins she’d inserted landed in the little receptacle for change.
“Yo!” a deep voice behind her jolted her.
Leila pulled the can of mace from her bag in a flash and whirled around to her would-be attacker. She’d never felt so jumpy in her entire life.
A tall black guy the size of a football player took a deliberate step back, lifting his hands in the process. “Hey, sis, no harm.” He motioned his head toward the machine behind her. “F*ckin’ thing’s broken again. Ride’s free tonight.”
Then he slowly walked toward the turnstile, watching her as he did so.
Leila lowered her can of mace, now breathing again, and watched him as he too jumped over it.
“Train approaching on platform two,” the voice from the loudspeaker announced.
“Uh, screw it,” she mumbled to herself and rushed to the gate, lifting herself over it much less elegantly than the guy before her had. She had no time to lose. If she didn’t catch this train, who knew when the next one was due. For all she knew, it could be the last one for the night.
She ran down the stairs, using the handrail to keep the weight off her injured foot, and saw the train that had already opened its doors.
“Doors closing,” the next announcement sounded.
“Hold it!” she screamed and ran as fast as she could, ignoring the pain shooting up her leg now.
Panicked, she saw the doors closing and lunged for them. A hand emerged from the train, pushing between the closing doors. Shrill beeps sounded as the doors reopened.
Leila hurtled inside, past the black guy who’d held the door open for her, the same who’d told her the machine was broken. As she took a steadying breath, she turned her head to him. “Thank you.”
He simply nodded. “No prob.”
She slunk into a seat next to the door, realizing only now that her heart was beating like a jackhammer and her breath had once more deserted her. But she’d made it, she acknowledged with relief. Now that she was on the train, she was safe.
For a few moments she relaxed and allowed the rumbling sounds of the train to lull her into a sense of security. The flickering lights as it changed tracks and moved from one tunnel to the next, felt almost soothing, comforting. It was something she knew, something familiar. Something so unlike what had happened tonight.
She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, trying to stop her body’s trembling. Maybe she’d been in shock all this time, but suddenly things were hitting home: Aiden, a stranger, had followed her home and broken into her apartment. He’d watched her doing . . . that . . . and then kidnapped her. The things he’d told her about demons and guardians, supernatural beings and immortals seemed so surreal now, so totally unbelievable.
Yet, she couldn’t deny that she’d seen him pass through the door of her bedroom and through the car. But that didn’t mean that anything he’d told her was the truth. He could be a demon—the very thing he pretended to warn her of. She didn’t know what to think anymore. If he was really an immortal bodyguard as he claimed, why hadn’t he said so when they’d first met? Why had he snuck into her apartment in the middle of the night? Yet at the same time, she had to admit that he hadn’t harmed her even though he’d had plenty of occasions to do so.
But did that mean she could trust him? Or was it simply a ploy to gain her trust? And he was playing dirty, using the sexual attraction that sizzled between them to slip past her defenses.
Her cheeks still burned at the thought of him watching her. Kissing her. Oh, God, and she’d been so numb from the shock of having escaped her burning apartment that she’d responded to him like a common slut. This wasn’t her. She wasn’t like that: wanton, lusty, reckless. But this man, this stranger, had turned her into a person she didn’t recognize. A person she didn’t want to be.
Liar, a tiny voice in her head whispered. You liked it.
She tried to protest, but all strength seemed to have drained from her tired body and mind. Defeated, she lowered her head into her hands, trying to hide from the world, and more so from herself.
By the time she looked up a few minutes later, the train was approaching her stop. She was about to get up when she realized one thing: she couldn’t get off here. Her apartment was in cinders, and there was no way she could stay there tonight. She slumped back in her seat. Where could she hide for tonight?
Her parents’ home was on the outskirts of town, and there was no train this late at night. Without a car, she couldn’t get there, not tonight anyway. It only left one place for her to hide out, a place with good security: her office.
Even though she realized that Aiden could walk through walls and doors, it wouldn’t help him: Max, the security guard in the lobby of Inter Pharma would see him. There was no way Aiden could get past him, not with the security cameras that were mounted in every corridor. At least for tonight, she’d be safe. Tomorrow she would figure out what to do. Maybe after a few hours of sleep, her brain would function better, and she’d come up with a plan for how to proceed.
The police would think she was crazy if she told them about demons and immortals, and, who knew, they might just send her for psychiatric evaluation if she dished up a story like that. No, she had to get her story straight first before she went to the police and made a report.
Her hands played nervously with the strap of her handbag while the train proceeded to the next station, then another one. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, it approached her stop.
She was the only one exiting the train. Paranoid that someone would follow her, she kept her hand around the can of mace as she left the station and limped the five long blocks toward Inter Pharma. The streets were deserted. Even the Irish pub was now closed. Leila rushed past it, her feet moving ever faster.
When she spotted the light in the lobby of her building, she let out a sigh of relief. Through the glass walls, she saw Max sitting behind his desk, his eyes scanning the monitors in front of him.
She ran toward the door. Despite the security clearance she had, all external doors were locked after 9pm, and there was no other way in other than being let in by the security guard.
“Max,” she called out as she reached the glass door and knocked.
Max’s head spun to look at her, a surprised expression on his face. Then he smiled and got up.
A moment later he unlocked the door and motioned her inside, locking it behind her.
“Hey, Dr. Cruickshank. Some emergency?”
She forced a sweet smile onto her lips. “No, no, Max. But you know me. I couldn’t sleep and I was just thinking about one of the experiments I was working on, so I figured, I’d come in and look at some of the data.”
She knew he wouldn’t find it too strange for her to show up so late. He knew she was a workaholic.
He shook his head in a slight reprimand. “You’re working too hard. Mr. Patten better be giving you some raise soon. That man really doesn’t know what he’s got in you.”
“I really don’t mind. I love my work.”
“Well, it’s one thing loving your work, it’s another having some time off.”
“Once this part of the research project is done, I’ll take some time off, not to worry,” she pacified him and spied behind her, scanning the darkness beyond the building.
“If you say so.”
“I’ll just be going up to the lab. Oh, and Max, nobody’s been here tonight looking for me, right?”
He gave her a confused look. “Looking for you? Why would somebody be looking for you?”
“Oh, nothing . . . Anyway, just wanted to make sure I’m not disturbed while I’m working,” she waffled.
“No problem.”
Relieved, she walked toward the elevator and stepped inside. By the time she reached the door to her lab a few minutes later, she felt better already. Max would make sure nobody could enter the building. Even if Aiden walked through the walls out of view of the lobby, in order to get to her lab, he would have to pass by several security cameras. Max would spot him on the monitors and activate the intruder alarm. The police would be summoned instantly. For tonight, she would be safe. She could sleep on the old couch in her little office just off the lab.
She reached for the keys in her handbag, grateful that she’d had the presence of mind to grab it when she’d had to flee from her burning apartment. Instinctively, her hand went to the pocket of her jeans where her pendant made a small bulge. Her research was safe. That was all that mattered. She pulled the necklace from her pocket and put it around her neck. When she felt the pendant against her skin again, a sense of relief flooded her.
As soon as she’d unlocked the door, she slipped into the dark lab. Only when she let the door snap in behind her, did she reach for the light switch, flipping it. The room was instantly bathed in the harsh tones of fluorescent light.
She took a step farther into the room and glanced around. Her gaze fell onto her work bench where her laptop lay—the lid was open. She was sure she’d closed it before leaving earlier that night.
With an odd sense of foreboding in her gut, she approached the bench and looked at the monitor. On a black screen the curser flashed ominously. All it said was ‘c:/’.
Her heart sank.
“Oh God, no!” she whispered to herself, knowing all too well what the flashing curser meant. But she didn’t want to believe it.
She hit the enter key, but all the computer did was spit out another ‘c:/’. And another. Sliding onto her chair, her fingers flew over the keyboard, entering all commands she was familiar with to try to reboot the system. Nothing worked.
It confirmed her suspicion: somebody had tried to access the data on her encrypted laptop, and the security system on it had initiate the self-destruct sequence and wiped the hard drive clean. Not a single byte of data was left on it.
She couldn’t help but suspect that this incident was connected to the events earlier in the evening: the car, which had nearly swiped her, her burning apartment, the kidnapping. Somebody was trying to get at her research. There was no other explanation for it.
Had Aiden been sent by a rival pharmaceutical company to steal her data? Was that what this was all about?
She had to have certainty about it. Shooting up from her chair, she ran toward her office. If somebody had tinkered with her safe, then she would know for sure that this was what they were after, whoever they were.
“Demons, my ass,” she mumbled. “More like industry spies!”
Leila threw the door to her office open and turned to her left, where her safe was built into the wall. She stopped in her tracks. The door to the safe was wide open.
She took a tentative step toward it. It didn’t look as if anybody had broken the locking device or used explosives, no, the safe had simply been opened. And the only other person who could do that was Patten, her boss.
Why?
Had he been paid off by somebody to steal her data for another company? She shook her head, trying to shake off the disappointment that rose inside her. Her hand reached toward the safe as she took another step. Her foot stepped on something, making her move back instinctively.
She lowered her gaze and stared at the floor.
At her feet, a thumb lay in a small pool of blood, discarded like a useless tool.
Her mouth opened for a scream, but it never left her throat, as a hand clamped over her lips to prevent her from giving voice to her panic.