He was anchored to the ground like a tree, having seen what I was doing a mile off. It was a clumsy, desperation maneuver that he’d probably picked out the moment I went into my spin. I’d hoped it look like I was—I dunno, breakdancing or something, but he figured it out.
I kicked his leg and he didn’t so much as cringe. Upon impact, my spin stopped, and all I had to show for my desperation maneuver was a mild ache across my instep where I’d caught him in the back of the knee, where—dammit—he should have been vulnerable to being knocked off balance.
Instead, I was the one off balance, and still wobbly as my kick bounced off. If it pained him at all, he didn’t show it. He was perfectly poised, low enough with his center of gravity that even if I’d knocked one of his legs from beneath him, he could have recovered.
He didn’t need to recover, though. He was perfectly positioned to lash out, and lash out he did, with a short punch that hit me in the ribs and launched me backward.
My left foot left the ground behind as I tumbled, hitting the counter across the back of my thighs. The sudden contact arrested my lower body’s momentum and I flipped, my head and upper body continuing on without obstacle and my lower body adjusting its momentum to go in the same direction.
The result? I tumbled ass-over-teakettle behind the counter and hit the wall knee first, then thumped into the griddle—ouch, hot!—and then torpedoed into the tile floor beneath.
I made contact all across my forearms, thumping my head lightly but enough that—yeah, ouch, I felt it. As I landed in a heap, I heard heavy feet thud as someone else came down behind the counter only a few feet away.
I opened one eye and looked up to find Mr. Terminator upside down, leering down at me with that frozen, expressionless face. “You’ll be coming with me, now,” he said, and raised a hand to deliver the finishing blow.
And there was a not a chance in hell I was going to avoid it.
16.
Veronika Acheron
San Francisco, California
Vernonika was a night owl by nature, her brain wired so that she couldn’t really get to sleep until the wee, small—hell, the wee many hours of the morning. A stolen look at the clock provided the knowledge that, yes, she was well beyond burning the midnight oil, and now safely into the territory of burning the three o’clock oil. Three-thirty, almost.
Her muscles were tense, ears pricked up, listening. The darkness was complete outside, but in here in the bedroom—
It was nothing but action and excitement, baby.
That was the Veronika everyone knew. Wild to a fault. Frenzied when crossed. Furious in battle.
And in her personal life?
Well, she had stories.
Veronika loved the stories. Loved to tell them, loved to watch the expressions on peoples’ faces as they took them in, digesting the exciting, emotional, sexy content she fed them. It was always a trip, watching a choice joke land, a good reference, some ribald story hit home.
Such excite, as the kids on the internet said.
Yeah. Excitement. This was what drove Veronika.
And it was the reason that she was awake now, pushing herself to stay up later, go longer, and not sleep until she’d had all the fun she could.
Wild. Crazy.
Veronika didn’t have to even try and hold her breath when she felt it coming on. The bedsheets were tangled around her, damp with sweat. Her breathing was quicker, because—hell, she was plainly excited. Even having been through this before—so many times—she couldn’t help but get … enthusiastic.
Sure, it was almost three-thirty now. But she could do this until four. Until five. Six, seven, eight, who cared? She’d do this all night and the next day, she reflected with undying enthusiasm as she rolled, slightly, her hand tight from overuse, a faint smile perched on her lips from the evening’s enthusiasms. She reached up to mop her brow; was it hot in here? Or was it just her?
“I just can’t stop with you,” she whispered, a little bead of sweat drip down her temple. “No matter how times we … do this dance.” She looked ahead, impish mischief in her eyes. “We get to a certain point and … I just gotta finish, you know?”
The book in her hands did not answer her. But then, she’d read Pride and Prejudice hundreds, maybe thousands of times now. It never did disappoint.
Veronika brushed the cookie crumbs out of her bed and onto the floor as she shifted position. Her hand was practically cramping from holding the book open this long. What was it about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy that kept her reading all damned night? Even though she knew the outcome, even though she could quote it by heart?
Oh, who cared. It was three-thirty in the damned morning and she was still reading a book she’d read so many times before. If she didn’t feel the need to justify anything else in her life, she damned sure wasn’t going to justify this.
“You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.”
Veronika sighed, letting the book fall to her chest. Nobody talked like that anymore. Certainly no man. If they did, she might be more interested in them.
A thump came on the roof, like Santa Claus landing. Veronika paused, turning over in bed, hand frozen while reaching for another cookie. “What the hell?” she muttered.
It had sounded like … like a damned flying meta just landed on her roof.
That got her to put down Pride and Prejudice, fighting loose from the bedsheets, which had tangled as she’d tossed and turned all night, plucking her way through the pages. She threw a silken robe over her t-shirt and boy shorts, went down the stairs of her townhome, and out the front door.
She hit the front steps, out into the chill evening air, wind coming in off the Bay making her shiver. She kept going, down to the sidewalk and looked up, up, trying to see on the roof. It wasn’t easy; the roof was flat, and two stories straight up. Her townhome was a quintessential San Francisco-type landmark, built in a row, basement just below street level, two stories rising above that. Her mother had bought it for cheap back in the seventies, and Veronika had taken it over now that her mother was … unwell.
“Hey!” she called up into the night, trying to project her voice up onto the roof. “Who’s up there?”
A man made his way to the edge of the roof and stood there, looking down at her. He was shadowed in the dark; she could tell nothing about him. He stared down at her, she stared up at him.
“Dude, what the hell are you doing on my roof at this hour?” Veronika asked. She brought her hands to her sides, ready to light off plasma if need be. She’d be damned if she was going to toss a burst up at him now; a bad throw and her house would go up in flames.