I didn't allow myselfto ponder Rome's threat/delicious promise as I ate three protein bars and packed my bags. Toothbrush, fire-resistant change of clothes, raincoat, snow boots and a photo of me, Tanner, Rome, Sherridan and my dad, taken a few weeks ago when Tanner had prepared a dinner of his
"famous" booby sandwiches - bread and meats cut in a circle and topped with olives.
Still I didn't allow myself to dwell on Rome's parting words as Sherridan and I loaded our stuff in the car. I couldn't. I'd lose all focus on the case. Again. I'd have to think about it later - and decide what to do if Rome actually attempted to seduce me.
I couldn't think about Tanner, either. My sweet Tanner, who was stuck on a gurney, hooked to an IV
and missing all the action. No one loved action more than Tanner.
My cell rang as I shut the trunk. "Hello," I answered, leaning against the sedan. Please don't be about the wedding. After everything I'd been through, saying my marriage vows was the last thing I wanted to worry about.
"Hello, Belle." The speaker possessed a warm, masculine voice I'd never heard before.
I frowned. "Who is this?"
"Did you like the flowers? The candy? The...panties?"
My jaw nearly dropped. Could it really be..."Who is this?" I demanded again.
"You probably know me as Memory Man."
I froze. So it was him, and he did want me. My first reaction was anger, the slight softening I'd had when I'd heard about his torture, then learned of his dislike for Desert Gal, forgotten. Yo. Yo. "Listen, you.
I - "
"I know you're mad," he interjected. "And I understand the reasons for it. I do. But all I'm asking for is a little of your time so you have the chance to get to know me. I'm not such a bad guy. Let me - "
"No. Whatever you're going to say, no. You have a lot of nerve calling me. You took something that doesn't belong to you and we want it back."
Sherridan motioned to the phone with a wave of her hand.
"Memory Man," I mouthed, and she scowled.
"I'll give you anything you want," he said stubbornly. "Anything but that." Oh, really? "You just wait until I find you. The memory you have of me Tasering Rome will seem like a spa visit compared to what I have planned."
"You have so much spirit." He chuckled softly. "I love that about you. I love so many things about you."
"No, you don't. Rome does." Or did. I wish I had a tracer on my phone. I'd find out where M-Squared was and blast him as promised. He had no right to say that kind of thing to me.
"Doesn't matter whose memories they are." His voice had veered from sweet and amused to hard and stubborn. "They're in my head, which means I lived them. Kind of," he added on a wistful sigh.
"They don't belong to you, and you know it. You have to give them back to Rome."
"Not going to happen. I like them too much." There was that stubbornness again.
Damn him. "Why me?" I asked, still dumbfounded by that fact. I had to know. "You could have had Lexis. She's grade A."
"Actually, she's kind of a snob. But you...you're beautiful, always make the people around you laugh, and...and you know what it's like to have a powerful gift the world wants to use you for." There at the end, sadness had dripped from his words.
So he hated his ability. He felt used, probably didn't know whom he could trust. And his own memories were no doubt tainted from his days - weeks, months, years? - of captivity. Some of my anger drained as I once again found myself softening - what was wrong with me? But I would not feel sorry for him, I vowed. "None of that matters," I said, more gently than I would have liked. "You had no right to do what you did. If you don't - "
"You didn't let me finish. You're also kindhearted and passionate and - "
"Stop right there. Not another word about my passion. But thank you." What kind of moron was I?
Compliment me and I'd melt like ice cream in the sun. "The truth is, I'm cranky, flaky and borderline homicidal."
"No. You're loyal, dependable and you stand up for what you believe in. You nearly worked yourself to death just to pay for your dad's health care. You gave yourself to PSI to save that man and his little girl.
You're the only person I know who is truly selfless."
"That man has a name. And I promise you, I'm far from selfless." He expelled a frustrated breath. "I know I can make you happy, Belle. If you'll just give me a chance." Sherridan crooked her fingers expectantly, silently demanding an update. I motioned that I needed a minute and turned away from her, resting my elbows on the hood of the car. Had the sun always been this hot and stifling? "Why don't you tell me where you are and we'll discuss this face-to-face?" He laughed. "How adorable are you, trying to lay a trap for me. You're taking to agenting very nicely.
Look, I just want to be with you. I want you to look at me the way you looked at him. And like I said, I want to make you happy. I know I can. Is that a crime?"
"When you steal from others, yes," I said through gritted teeth. His devotion was just so damn nice. It wasn't fair that I was getting it from him.
A sigh crackled over the line. "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I am. I just couldn't help myself. You're everything I've ever wanted in a woman and for the first time in my life, watching you, I actually felt...alive. You're worth living for, Belle Jamison. You're also worth dying for." Damn him, damn him, damn him. "If I promise not to lay a trap, would you please consider meeting with me?" Somehow, someway, I had to make him understand the horror of what he'd done. My life depended on it. "Think about it. We can make new memories. Memories of our own." Sure, those memories would involve me holding him in a wind lock until he gave me what I wanted, but he didn't need to know that.
"One day soon, we will. I promise. For now...just be careful out there, Wonder Girl. I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you." Click.
I stared at the phone for a long while, shaking my head, wondering if I'd imagined what had just happened. With the week I'd had, I wouldn't doubt it. Hallucinations had to be par for the course. But no. I couldn't fool myself for long. It had happened, I just hadn't gotten the results I'd wanted. I'd gotten the opposite, actually. The wrong man was determined to win my affections.
"He's going to be fine , Belle," Sherridan said as we settled into the Honda.
I took the wheel. Bad a driver as I was, I was still better than There's-No-Such-Thing-As-A-Brake Sherridan. "Who is?" I asked, inserting the key and twisting. The engine roared to life. Though only an hour and a half had passed since I'd last stepped outside, it was far more humid. Humid enough to melt the Wicked Witch of the West. Which, to some people, I probably was. I cranked the air-conditioning as high as it would go, but sadly, that didn't help. "Memory Man?" I hoped he'd be anything but fine.
Kind of. Damn him. I didn't wish him ill. For the most part. Damn him, damn him, damn him, I thought again.
My emotions were all tangled up where he was concerned. He'd said he wasn't a bad guy, and he hadn't seemed like one. And yeah, somewhere during that conversation, I think I'd even stopped hating him. For real, not just for a few seconds while my dumb little heart softened. I was still pissed as hell, but I no longer wanted to cut off his balls and wear them as earrings. At all. Proof: I was thinking about him but steam wasn't coming out of my nose. He'd just been too sweet. Too devoted. To me. The dummy.
I guess Rome's hypothesis had been right. M-Squared wanted me to love him. I couldn't, and that made me wonder if I should indeed fear what would happen. Would he become desperate? Start hurting the people I did love?
To be honest, he hadn't seemed the type to go down that violent road. He wanted me happy, he'd said.
He wanted me safe. I mean, he'd called me to tell me to be careful. Not the actions of a man who would next try and off me.
"Hello. Are you listening? You know who I was talking about," Sherridan said. "Mr. Sensitive. Your sidekick. Our horny roommate."
Ah. "I can't talk about him." Not without crying. I hated leaving him, felt guilty, like a horrible friend.
"Let's talk about me, then." Her favorite subject. One of mine, too, truth be told. "What superpower do you think I'll get?" she asked as I maneuvered the car out of the driveway.
To my surprise, a dark sedan with tinted windows started forward, too, maintaining a perfect distance.
When I'd first come home, it had been parked a few houses away. I'd noticed it because it had been the only other car currently on the road. And because sedans gave me the creeps. All agents - good and bad - seemed to use them. You'd think they'd come up with something more original, but no. Was I being followed? So suspicious. Well, I had reason.
I made a left turn. Waited. The sedan turned left, as well. Next I turned right. Waited, again. Again, the sedan turned right. No doubt about it. I had a tail.
Rome? was my first thought. I glanced into the rearview mirror. The windows were too dark to see inside the car. Not Rome, I decided anyway. Love me or not, he wouldn't have wanted to scare me.
Was this courtesy of John? Had he sent someone besides Rome to monitor my abilities? That theory was more plausible. As my vehicle eased through the neighborhood, taking turns I didn't need, I kept an eye on the sedan. I couldn't head toward my destination until I knew who was behind the wheel.
"All right, Grandma," Sherridan said, drumming her coral-colored fingernails into the console between us. "It's okay to put a little pressure on the gas. You have my word you won't skid out of control if you pump it up to ten miles per hour."
"Very funny. Don't look, but I think we're being followed."
"What! By whom?" She immediately twisted in her seat, peering out the back window.
"I said don't look. Jeez!"
She turned, facing front and going stiff as a poker. "What should I do?" she asked, her voice shaking.
With fear? Excitement?
"Just...I don't know." Nervousness rushed through me. "Get my cell out of my purse." Bending down, she dug through the contents. Finally, she pulled out the little black device. "Rome's on speed dial. Press one."
She did. Then, "What next? Should I talk to him?"
"Press speaker," I said. I didn't want whoever was behind me to know I had someone on the line.
Bring, bring.Pause. Bring, bring. He had better answer!
"Miss me already?" Rome asked huskily.
I shivered, then cursed under my breath. There was no time for that. "Did John put a tail on me? And be honest. This could be a life-and-death situation."
"Shit." His voice lost all hint of husky entreaty. "Someone's following you?" Okay. That answered that question. "What should I do?" Always before when we'd been chased, Rome had been the driver. Now, everything hinged on me. Had I been alone, I wouldn't have been quite as frightened. But Sherridan's life rested in my hands.
"Give me two minutes," Rome said. "I'm on my way to you."
"I'm headed south on Cedar, and I'll keep going straight."
"Good. I'm calling John. Don't answer your phone for any number but mine." Click.
Sherridan dropped the phone in her lap. "Could be nothing," she said, rubbing her hand against her jeans. "Just a regular Joe on the way to the private airport no one knows about but us." She was reaching, but man, I wanted to agree.
"No one would follow you so blatantly. Right?"
"I wouldn't think so." Unless...was this Memory Man? Trying to keep me safe?
But why scare me like this? Fear hadn't been the emotion he'd wanted to incite in me.
My hands were shaking on the steering wheel, my knuckles so tight they'd already leached of color. The bones felt brittle with cold. God, do not let me freeze our car. We'd be immobile. Even, dare I say it, helpless. I had powers, sure, but as unstable as they were without my filter, I couldn't use them and risk destroying the entire neighborhood.
I kept my attention riveted to the rearview mirror. The sedan maintained a steady pace behind us, the driver not the least bit concerned with my slow speed, it seemed. I pressed the gas, increasing to about twenty miles per hour.
The sedan sped up, as well.
Up to twenty-five.
The sedan preserved the same, short distance between us.
Thirty.
Yep. Once again, there was an increase.
Why would the driver be so blithe about this? He - she? - didn't seem to care that I knew what was going on.
"Parked car approaching," Sherridan said, gaining my attention.
I switched my gaze to the road and swerved to avoid impact with a pickup. "Thank you."
"Anytime."
My cell phone beeped, and Sherridan quickly pressed speaker again.
"I'm almost there," Rome said without preamble. "And John did not put a tail on you. You okay?"
"Yeah. Thankfully, they aren't doing anything menacing. They're just keeping pace with us."
"Could be Memory Man," he said, voicing my earlier thought. "Can you see the driver?"
"Not even a hint. The windows are too dark."
He cursed. "A man who can make you forget that you've seen him wouldn't worry about keeping his identity hidden, so I doubt it's him."
Good point. So who was it? "If they wanted to talk to me, why not do it while I was loading my supplies in my car? I would have been a captive audience."
"The security there. The cameras. We'll find out. Later. Right now I only care about your emotions.
How are they?" Rome asked.
"Fine, they're fine." I turned the wheel to avoid another parked car, then eased back to my side of the road. "No freezing or - "
Something shattered my back window. Startled, I accidentally swerved, my right front tire popping a curve.
Sherridan screamed.
"Duck," I shouted, hammering my foot on the gas and revving us to sixty in just a few seconds. Fear swam through me.
Thankfully she obeyed, throwing herself on the floorboard. Her eyes were wide as saucers as she panted, "What about you?"
"What the hell happened?" Rome demanded before I could reply.
"They freaking shot at us!" Sweat broke out over my skin, but the fear still surging through me instantly froze it, leaving me covered in a fine sheen of ice.
There was a loud pop, then a bang, something slamming into the back of the car, causing us to jerk forward and back. Sherridan belted out another scream.
"Belle!" Rome. "Talk to me. Are you hit?"
"They just rammed us, and I think they flattened a tire, but we're good." But for how long? I was coming to a dead end. "I'm going left on...Maple," I said. I didn't let my foot off the gas, so the tires (or what was left of them) squealed.
"I see them," Rome growled. "Go left on Pine and then keep going straight. There's an exit to the main road about three blocks down."
At the next turn, I spiked the wheel. Once again the tires squealed and Sherridan and I were thrown to the side as the car veered sharply. "What are you going to do to them? I don't want to leave you to - "
"Do what I told you." Click.
From the rearview, I watched as Rome's sedan approached. (See? A sedan.) Closer to them...closer.
He slammed his car into theirs. Both pivoted, and Rome rammed forward again. This time, the bad guy's vehicle turned a full circle.
I lifted my foot from the pedal, cracking the ice that had bloomed from me and bound me to it, and the car slowed. I took another turn, then another, wanting Sherridan as far away from the action as I could get her. Unfortunately, the cold sweat had solidified all over me, making my motions stiff, my clothing uncompromising. The ice had even slithered to the car's dash, freezing the gauges. Much more, and the car itself would be useless.
Glancing around, I found a shadowed alcove in the back of a house. Sure, I didn't know who the house belonged to and the owners didn't know me or Sherridan, but I pulled into the garage and parked anyway.
"Rome said to head to the main road."
"Yes, well, I haven't pledged to love, honor and obey him yet. Stay with the car," I told Sherridan as I unbuckled. Rome would need help, so help he would get.
"No. I - "
"If you don't, the home owners might try to have it towed. Don't let anyone inside. Oh, and there's a gun in the glove box. If you feel threatened, start shooting and ask questions later." I didn't give her time to refuse me. I just hopped out of the car and booked it to the street where I'd left Rome. Along the way, I allowed my fear to grow and fester. Soon, even the street beneath me possessed a patina of ice.
My agency-regulated boots slipped and slid, and twice I almost fell. Somehow, though, I managed to maintain my balance.
What would I find? Rome - shot to death? God, I hated thinking like that, but right now it was to my benefit. Even as I thought it, ice balls formed in both of my hands. I clutched them tightly, keeping them at the ready.
Finally, the two combatants came into view. No one had emerged from their cars. Instead, the vehicles were still ramming together, metal crunching against metal. In the distance, I could hear sirens. Much longer, and the police would arrive. PSI would have to do cleanup, and that would piss John off royally.
The world could not learn about the paranormal underground cohabiting with them. They'd panic.
They'd probably try and hunt us down, kill us all. Melodramatic? I didn't think so. I'd watched all four X-Men movies.
I had to get Rome out of here before someone attempted to arrest him. But how?
I inched closer to the action, doing my best to remain hidden by bushes. Rome finally managed to pin the bad guy's car into a tree. He threw open his door, staying low to the ground. His assailant got out, too, but I couldn't see him because he was low to the ground. Through the slit between road and car I could see his feet, though. Boots. Big boots. Definitely a man.
"State your business," Rome demanded.
"We just want the girl."
We?
Another pair of feet hit the ground. Then another. Dear God. There were three men - all training their weapons on Rome, most likely. Teeth grinding together, I sharpened my focus to the man closest to me, the one who made the mistake of straightening to try and ferret out Rome's location, and let one of my burdens fly. I missed. The ice ball slammed into their car, spreading quickly and lethally.
"Get back!" Rome shouted at me.
A pop. A whiz.
I dove for the ground. I didn't feel the bullet sail overhead but I knew that one had, the air above me blistering. Move! You're out in the open. I rolled as swiftly as I could, hiding behind a fence of bushes.
Another pop. Another whiz. The dirt just in front of the bushes exploded, spraying in every direction.
"Why?" Rome asked, drawing their attention away from me. "Why do you want her?" Damn him! I didn't want them shooting at him, either.
Pop. Bang. Pop. Bang.
I knew that sound well. As I'd feared, they were shooting at Rome, their bullets slamming into the car's metal frame. What should I do? What the hell should I do?
"Why else?" an unfamiliar voice said. "Money."
"Who wants her?" Rome. "Maybe we can work something out."
There was a snort.
I couldn't see anyone through the thick green foliage, and perhaps that was for the best. The grass underneath me turned to ice, the bushes wilting under the weight of the crystals. I crouched lower. What would Rome do if he were in my position? Just stand up and start tossing ice?
"You're all right," a voice suddenly whispered from behind me.
I almost screamed in shock and fear. My gaze jerked left and right, up and down, searching, but I found no one. "Who's there?" I whispered back.
"I won't let anything happen to you, Belle." Another pop rent the air, this one so close my eardrums almost burst. "I swear it."
A howl of pain echoed from behind the smashed cars. Not Rome's, thank God. Then a round of bullets was pumped my way - until Rome and my guardian angel began pumping out rounds of their own.
Another howl.
"Two down," the husky voice behind me said. A male voice. Warm. Somehow familiar.
Dear Lord. Memory Man. And I had an ice ball with his name on it. "Where are you?"
"To your left, behind the wall of the house."
Slowly, so as not to draw attention to myself, I turned. A man peeked out from behind the wall, exactly where he'd said he was, smiling over at me, there one moment, gone the next. There was no time to toss the ice, which was why he'd probably hidden so quickly. I'd caught the barest glimpse of sandy hair, thirtyish features and a tall, perhaps a little lean body. He'd been too far away to tell what color his eyes were, though I thought they were dark. He was handsome, that much I had seen.
"I thought I told you to be careful," he said.
Like this was my fault. "I was driving, minding my own business," I replied, scanning the area for another sign of him.
He let out a long-suffering sigh. "You can't help it, I suppose. You're a magnet for trouble."
"Tell me something I don't know," I muttered. "But can you see why it would be a good idea to return Rome's memories to him? This is the kinda thing I'm always embroiling my boyfriends in."
"You misunderstood me, darling Belle. I happen to love trouble."
"You'd be wise to let me take her," someone snarled from the cars, drawing my attention away from Memory Man and saving me from thinking up a response. "Otherwise, more and more men like us are going to be coming after her."
Like them - a.k.a. assassins, I thought, stomach churning with sickness. I'd been marked for death, then. Again. When would it end?
"Why?" Rome repeated.
Footsteps echoed. Theirs? Rome's? I lifted my fist, the one that still contained an ice ball, and prepared.
But my ears began ringing before I could launch it, startling me. No, wait. The sirens were ringing, impossibly loud.
The authorities had arrived.
Shit! Before I could panic, Rome was at my side, panting, beautiful. Clearly furious. I didn't know who he was at first - only that someone had snuck up on me - and threw the ice. He'd been expecting it, though, and ducked. It sailed over his shoulder, hit the front door of the house and turned it into a large popsicle.
He scowled down at me, keeping an inch between us so that he didn't freeze like the door. "Foolish woman. I could have gone after them, found out what they wanted with you, rather than scramble after you on guard duty."
"And you could have died. You can't do everything on your own. Trying will only get you killed." I searched once again for M-Squared, but didn't catch another glimpse of him. "If you hurt him," I called to Memory Man, "I will hate you forever."
No response.
Rome eyed me strangely. "Hit your head?"
I didn't reply. He ignored my questions at times. I'd ignore his. "Where is he? The survivor, I mean?
And should we, like, make a getaway?"
"He ran. And yes. First, where's your gun? Nice aim, by the way."
"I don't have a gun."
"How'd you shoot at the men, then?" In the distance, policemen shouted commands at each other.
Footsteps pounded. "Never mind. Tell me later. Right now, you've got to calm down and we've got to get out of here before we're arrested."