Talia let the shadows slide on her skin, caressing her face and stroking her body. If she didn’t fight them, if she allowed the strands to insinuate themselves around her limbs, hug her curves and wrap her in darkness, then her sight grew clearer.
Her vision doubled, then tripled. Another Custo approached the loft’s building and surveyed the coded pad at the door. Yet another Custo followed at his heels, taking the sidewalk at a jog. One cut across the street on a diagonal. Another walked to the crosswalk at the corner, just as a car circled the building, Custo in the driver’s seat.
“I don’t get it. Which one is him? Which one is real?” Talia looked to Abigail for clarification.
“None of them is real until he acts,” Abigail answered. “These are just possibilities. And you are only seeing the versions of him that go to this building. There are probably many others who elected not to come. To opt out of this fight.”
“No,” Adam said with conviction. “There are no other versions of Custo. He is a man of his word. Custo will meet me at the loft.”
Adam was right. Each and every one of the Custos she saw, in spite of their small differences in approach, concentrated on the coded panel at the building.
“But he won’t go in,” Adam continued, as if he could direct Custo by will alone. “Our escape will have rotated the entry codes. He’ll know something is wrong. If he’s smart, he’ll walk away.”
Talia saw the many Custos’ expressions change as, indeed, his initial code was rejected. One Custo swore. Another raked his hands through his hair. Another stepped back onto the sidewalk to peer up the height of the building, then approached the keypad again.
All of the Custos entered the building.
Talia’s eyes teared, her breath coming faster. She had always liked Custo. He’d always seemed solid, direct, and real.
Adam groaned in frustration. “Damn it. No.”
“He’s a good friend,” Abigail said.
“He’s an idiot,” Adam roared back. The pain in his voice reverberated through Talia.
Every Custo drew his gun. All but one took the stairs; the other went with the elevator. Firearm raised, Custo entered the loft apartment.
A blur of movement obscured what happened next, but Talia caught the moment when Custo’s head jerked back, as if struck. She witnessed the sudden curl of his body around a belly-planted kick. She shuddered as he fell, spitting blood.
“What?” Adam asked. “What? What’s happening?”
Talia shoved away the shadows and retched, trying to get them out from inside her body, her mind. The coating of Otherworldly ick grasped at her throat as she heaved for air. The effort knocked her off balance and burned her from her core out, but Adam steadied her, drawing her against him.
A tremor of relief washed through her body—she’d wanted, needed, to be in Adam’s arms for a while. She just had no idea how to get there.
“Are you all right?” Adam spoke low, words short with tension.
Talia’s lungs were screaming, but she nodded a mute yes against his ribs. A faint tinge of sewer still clung to him, but underneath the smell was all Adam.
“Will you be okay here for a while?” He backed them both to the door of the room.
She shook her head. No. She knew what he was thinking. No way on earth was he going without her.
“Talia, these people seem fine. If they meant us any harm, they would have done something by now. And I’ll be back as soon as I can. I can’t stay. You have to understand, I can’t just stay and let Custo die.”
Talia did understand. He was being condescending again. Taking over. She wasn’t asking him to babysit her. If he could just get over his macho I-have-to-save-the-world routine, then he would know she understood. Her “no” had nothing to do with staying with these people.
He was going after Custo. She was going with him. She cocked her head to tell him so.
“Don’t look at me that way, Talia. You just said that the doctor wants you to take it easy,” he argued. “You need to heal. Besides, I’ll probably be walking into an ambush. I won’t be able to protect you.”
She pointed to herself, and then pointed to him. I’ll protect you. Duh.
His eyes narrowed. “You can’t scream. How can you protect me?”
Talia laid a hand on his chest, just under the U between his collarbones where she could feel the soft echo of his heartbeat, and pulled the shadows around them.
Adam knocked her hand away and the shadows snapped back. “No. The risk is too great.”
He may as well have slapped her. She gritted her teeth and glared at him from her darkness. Idiot man. She was going, whether he liked it or not.
Abigail laughed. “Poor Adam. Probably thought he’d found a woman who would follow his lead, do everything he said. Got a banshee instead. I need one of them big windows for you two to work it out against. Zoe, do we have a big window somewhere? Adam’s particularly good with windows. Maybe he could convince her that way.”
Talia’s face heated, but she ignored Abigail, stubbornly crossing her arms and blocking the door.