He memorized the length and width of the lines across her Achilles tendon and the rise and hollow of her anklebones. Shiny new skin, raw patches, and dry scabs covered her toes, the back of her heel. Her feet were a map of misery.
Stop staring at her feet like Little Man drooling over a bone. Touch her—skin to skin.
Fear plunged into his heart, sharp as a scalpel. No. He couldn’t allow his bare skin to make contact with another human’s flesh. He refused to regress to his childhood—lost in a blur of other people’s memories, not being able to find his reality. Touch amplified his ability. Touch incapacitated him. When he’d started wearing the gloves, he’d gained a critical piece of control.
And yet, he yanked off his gloves. His heart rate, his breath rate jacked up to an almost unbearable level.
What the fuck was he doing?
Not listening to logic. He pressed one finger to her ankle. A wave of calm crested over him, quieting his racing heart, dowsing his ragged breathing, and abating the fear of losing control. No SMs. Millimeter by millimeter he settled his entire hand over her, circling her ankle, thumb meeting middle finger. Her skin was cold over the sharp bones.
No SMs. None. How was that possible?
He didn’t believe in God, but maybe, just maybe, she was created for him. An Eve to his Adam.
What was he thinking? Crazy, crazy, crazy thoughts.
She probably had a brain defect that prevented scents from linking to memories. His olfactory region was overdeveloped. Maybe hers was underdeveloped.
He pulled his hand off her ankle.
Distance. He needed distance between them. He grabbed his gloves and headed for the back door. He glanced at her only once, to make certain she still slept, then left the house.
*
An endless plateau of white surrounded Evanee. No sky, no walls. Just white trailing off to infinity.
The White Place. Such a childish name, but she’d named it when she was a child.
She opened her arms wide, tilted her face skyward, letting the tranquility of the space cradle her body. The silence settled her mind. The color calmed her soul. The aloneness healed her heart.
Over the past few months, she’d longed for this escape. But the White Place chose when to admit her. It was a gift granted only in the worst of times.
Growing up, she came here every time she slept. This place rejuvenated her fragmented emotions, granted her the strength to fight, and gave her the will to live when the easier option was suicide.
It’d been a decade since her last visit. Too long.
A sound. She caged the breath in her lungs to listen. Sound had never existed in the White Place.
Fear whispered over the back of her neck, the backs of her arms, the backs of her legs. She was in the presence of a predator. She could sense its malicious energy, its malevolent intent.
The sound—clearer this time.
Humming. The sweet, dulcet tones clashed with the suffocating terror coursing through her.
She lowered her arms to her sides, cinched her hands into fists, and turned.
A child, a little girl, her body in profile. Her pink shirt, her hands, her baby-doll blond tresses matted with reddish mud. The glare of color against the pristine white was repulsive. Wrong.
Adrenaline squirted into Evanee’s system. Every muscle mobilized, ready to fight. Or run.
Why was she afraid of a dirty kid?
She could only see the side of the girl’s face, but that was enough to see her beauty. She was the kind of child women were jealous of because they knew how stunning she’d be when she matured. The kind of child every father feared having because the boys wouldn’t leave her alone. The kind of child parents couldn’t help spoiling.
The girl extended her arm, hiding something in her fist. “Take this.” The girl’s petulant tone raised goose bumps over Evanee’s skin.
“What do you have?” Evanee’s voice quivered.
One by one, the little fingers opened to reveal the child’s treasure.
Round. Puckered. Ashen white. Misty blue circle in the middle.
An eye.
Evanee’s legs wobbled. She stumbled back, opened her mouth to cry out, maybe to scream, but something invisible, immovable, immense grabbed her throat, choked off the sound, and stopped her. She was locked inside the husk of herself, unable to move or breathe or fight.
The girl turned. One side of her face was sweet child perfection, the other an abomination. Blood and flesh congealed in her empty eye socket. Rusty brown smears mixed with scarlet trailed down her cheek, some slithering into her mouth.
Gray spots speckled Evanee’s vision. She was going to pass out; maybe she was going to die. She’d never feared death, used to wish Junior would just kill her instead of playing with her. And disappearing right now from the mess she’d made of her life would be easier than working her way out.
But she didn’t want to die. She wanted to live.
She had an absurd desire to hold Lathan’s hand again. Even though the tattoo on his face made him look more intimidating than anyone she’d ever met, he’d protected her from Junior, and that vaulted him way past stranger-danger status to good-guy-hero level.
“You.” The girl’s voice was a command. “Take this.”
The gray spots spread, turned blinding yellow, then black, blotting out the girl. Unable to struggle, unable to breathe, unable to utter a sound, Evanee mouthed the word she wanted to say. No.
“Don’t say no to me.” The girl’s tone deepened beyond its natural level, dipping into the range of the demonic.
The Thing holding Evanee released her. Her knees folded neat as a shirt on the display table at Gap, bringing her down to eye level with the girl. Air sucked into her oxygen-starved lungs. The girl opened her mouth, hurling blood over Evanee in a vindictive arc. The warm slickness of it touched her tongue. Before she could spit it out, its heat snuck down her throat and burned in her belly.
Her arm rose to take the eye. She screamed—she didn’t raise her arm. The Thing did.
The girl dropped the still-warm eye in Evanee’s palm. Across the girl’s face spread the smirky smile of a spoiled child who’d just gotten her way.