Second Skin (Skinned) (5 page)

Exit light, enter night

Matt took shotgun while Brit and I piled into the back seat. Alec navigated the slippery road with a deft hand, careful to avoid patches of black ice. I dodged his searching glances in the rear- view mirror and plucked at a thread unraveling at the corner of one of the boys’ gear bags. I was wedged between the bags and Brit’s awkward dark-sprite form. Adrenaline still flowed through her system making it impossible for her to do a quick change back to human form. The edges of her wings dug into my arm, but I didn’t care. Pain was a great distraction. We fishtailed, leaning left, then right with each turn. Matt cast worried looks at Brit over his shoulder, which she ignored, keeping her gaze on the snowflakes whirling past the window.

I choked on questions that would only make me hate myself more.
What do I do wrong
?
How do I hurt you?Can’t you stop me before it’s too late
?
Why haven’t you killed me yet
?

I glanced at his brother’s profile. Matt’s lips were pressed in a grimace. He wouldn’t hesitate to take me out if he didn’t have to face Alec’s wrath. Maybe they were just waiting for me to turn against them. Because we all knew what would happen. And now Alec had seen it for himself.

How could he stand to be near me?

I hate to say I told you so, but….
Wade’s voice cut through my mind like ice cream on a hot summer day.

I gasped at the unexpected invasion. Bitter, yet relieved.

Wade.

I projected his name on a growl. Brit tilted her head in question. I waved away her concern and pretended to clear my throat.
Where the hell have you been
?

I waited, holding my breath, willing a response. But no cool tendrils projected into my head. Lovely. Now I was imagining contact between us. I had to be. Why would Wade tap into my mind now, when he’d been on mute all this time? With me thinking Logan was torturing him, or worse. The silence had been beyond deafening.

It hurt.

Almost as much as when my parents disappeared.

Mom. Dad. Missing, likely dead, and all to prevent me turning dark side. It was pointless, really. Darkness stalked closer each day, hunting me. I couldn’t run forever.

My eyelids flickered as I recalled the nightmare that had woken me. The blood. My mother’s horror.

I’d only killed in my dreams, but how long before my wolf took over and I attacked those I loved—for real? How disappointed my parents would be if they could see me now. I felt every inch the monster they feared I’d become.

Their voices carry in the dark silence of the night. They’ve returned home long after my nanny has read my favorite fairy tale to me for the millionth time before going to sleep in her own room. Below, the hardwood floor creaks with their steps. They enter the den at the base of the stairs. I creep out of my room and crouch on the landing, hidden in the shadows. The thick wooden door to the den is open a crack. I strain to catch their words though I’m supposed to be a good girl. To stay tucked in bed.

I clutch my ragdoll, Sara, close to my chest. My breath catches. I need to know why Mommy and Daddy fight so much. Why are they always arguing about me? A sick ache settles in my tummy. A sob escapes me and echoes along the expansive hall. I clamp a shivering hand over my mouth, not allowing myself to breathe, but no one seeks me out. No one has heard. I give a shuddering sigh.

Later. I’ll cry later. I lean against the banister’s spindles and listen.

“She’s training with my crew.Yesterday isn’t soon enough.” Daddy’s using his deadly quiet voice, the one right before he explodes into rage. “
Never
would be too soon,” Mommy says. Her voice clogs with

tears.

“I increased the dosage. We can’t have a repeat of today. Christ, Tera, she almost killed one of my men.” The floor creaks loudly under Daddy’s heavy pacing. “Samson tried to take that damn doll from her. That was all. And she went for his throat like a mad dog.”

“She’s just a little girl, Liam. Our daughter. Our beautiful child.” “Yes, and then she’ll grow up to be a beautiful monster.” Daddy’s

voice is soft. Sad. “This is the only way to keep her contained. We snuff out her wolf. Train her to hunt, to see the damage paranorms can do.
Keep her on our side as long as we can.” Chairs squeak.

“And if the drugs aren’t enough?” Mommy sounds as if she’s speaking into a pillow. “If she turns?”

“I can’t let that happen.”

This time Mommy’s sob cuts through the night. I slip back into my room, into my bed.

I’m a monster. Like my fairy tale.

Daddy is right. I can still taste that man’s blood on my tongue. Coppery and warm, it calls to me, promising…something good. Something so good it’s really, really bad.

Back in my room I hold Sara up to the moonlight. I can see the blood stains on her patchwork dress. Smell the scent of the man’s fear. Feel the tear of his flesh.

We’ve been through a lot, Sara and me. I give her a final hug and then stuff her into the wicker toy basket at the end of my bed.

The time for dolls is over. They get me in too much trouble.

I pull the covers over my head and wonder what happens if you’re both the beauty and the beast.

Brilliant red and blue lights pulsed in the night, illuminating the interior of the truck, bringing me back to the present. Brit twisted to stare out the back window, her wing swiping me across the forehead with the mild force of a cinder block striking between my eyes.

I swore and felt for blood, but found only the beginnings of a welt.

“Cops,” Matt said, stating the obvious. “It’s hours after curfew. We’re screwed.”

“Brit, stop gaping and get down,” Alec ordered.

Brit tried her damnedest to crouch out of sight, but the jut of her wings was clearly visible over the backseat. Matt reefed off his winter coat and hurriedly tossed it over her crouched form.

“Oh, that’s a big help.” I said, grasping the material and attempting to cover her, dodging the razor-sharp talons at the peak of each wing.

“I could shift back,” Brit mumbled.

Matt and I exchanged a look. Naked was better than scales and wings.

“Hold on,” Alec said, pulling the truck over to the side of the road and slowing. “They’re not after us.”

The flashing vehicle ducked down a side street, its lights fading into the distance.

Alec pulled back into the lane and continued at a moderate speed. All of us sat, unmoving, expecting those high beams to blast at us head on.

The streetlights at the next intersection turned red, and Alec stopped.

A booming bass pounded, gaining on us. Curious, Brit poked her head out from under the coat as a little hatchback cruised passed us, slowing before the intersection. The car was crammed full with kids in Halloween costumes. I’d forgotten it was so close to Halloween—monsters were too real to me. The school’s Harvest Moon dance was this weekend. There were parties all week long.

Two poorly made- up zombies hung out the passenger window. Their plaid shirts were ripped, their faces splotchy with fake rotting flesh. One spotted Brit and grabbed the other’s face, turning it so they both could see. They took in her scales and the wings arching against the roof of the truck.

“Whoo, dude, now that’s a costume.” They gave her four thumbs up. Their screams of laughter rang out in the night, accenting the blaring tunage. An old rock tune about beasts hiding under your bed and being dragged to Neverland.

I suppressed a shiver of unease.

The driver must have thought better of lingering when he spied the police car pulling onto Main Street. The hatchback shot through the intersection, and the cop barreled along after them. We sat in silence while the music and lights faded. The truck tires spun as Alec put the vehicle in gear and gave it gas. We drove about half a mile before he turned off Main Street onto a service road and then into a back alley, killing the headlights to avoid attention. We crept along, bouncing through the compacted snow ruts and grooves in the road.

Moonlight bathed the narrow alley, casting shadows along the back fences and brick buildings. If we encountered another vehicle, we’d be in trouble. There was no place to park. The alley served as a delivery drop-off and staff entrance to the many homes converted into commercial businesses. Most of the rear entrances sported spotlights over functional bay doors. Not so with Conundrum. The entire expanse of the café’s back wall was awash in color. A mural—expressionistic, with splats, squiggly lines, and odd shapes that made no sense except they used one heck of a lot of paint.

But Conundrum’s a haven for the arts, a two-story Victorian, with a café on the main level and an art gallery on the second floor. Not that I’d been to the second floor. I wasn’t much for the artsy-fartsy.

About twenty feet from the entrance, my neck hairs stood on end. I closed my eyes, waiting, willing the sensation of impending doom to pass. It didn’t. It grew stronger. I tapped Alec on the shoulder.

“Roll down your window.”

A blast of cool air entered the cab. I sniffed and stiffened. My fingers dug into Alec’s coat.

“Stop. Something’s wrong.”

He slammed on the brake. I bolted up and reached over the back of front seat, beyond Alec, flicked on the truck’s headlights.

A body lay slumped on the ground, half propped against the brick wall of Conundrum’s entrance. Crouching over it, pinned by the harsh beams of the truck’s headlights were two pint-sized, hooded figures.

They whirled to face the light, holding their arms up to protect their eyes. Gnarled hands with only four fingers, each with grotesque black nails that curved into their palms. A sour gas smell emanated from their direction. These guys were rotten, through and through. The tops of their heads didn’t reach above the truck’s metal emblem, a silver ram, perched on the hood.

Red eyes peered out from beneath their hoods. The headlights exposed eroded, ravaged flesh.

Now
that
wasn’t fake makeup.

Their oozing, gaping mouths opened wide. A chorus of eerie screeches pierced the night.

“Shit, shit…” Alec cried. He slung his arm over the seat, sliding into reverse.

Matt reefed the gearshift back to park, risking the transmission. “No, we have to help. I think that’s Kate out there.”

Alec swore again, spun to face me, eyes hard. “Weapons.”

I dug into the gear bags and tossed whatever I could grasp to the brothers. They caught an axe and a bowie knife, and then bolted from the truck. The truck doors slammed into the buildings on either side as the guys scrambled to get clear of the truck and find some swinging room.

Matt popped his head back in just as I reached across the scattered equipment and grasped the door handle to follow. “Keep Brit out of the way, she’ll be weak now, and I don’t want her to fight.”

I swore. Nice of Matt to play up on my Mount Olympian pile of guilt. The guys stood on either side of the truck, assessing the diminutive figures that stalked away from Kate and eyed them right back.

“I am so not waiting in here,” I said on a growl.

“Nope,” Brit confirmed, “me either.” She wrenched one of her claws free of the leather seat.

“If you get hurt, Matt will never forgive me,” I said. Every instinct screamed at me to get out of there and back the guys up as I struggled to heave the gear bags out of my way.

“If you don’t get out of my way,
I’m
going to kill you.” Brit became a hellion of wings and scales and claws, trying to twist free of Matt’s coat and work herself out of the cramped cab.

Alec and Matt were closing in, about to make a move, when the figures charged for the truck with Brit and me trapped inside.

Lovely.