Strangers of the Night

  “You know that you can’t be responsible for someone else’s mental health issues,” Phoenix said. “God knows, I have my share of baggage—”

  Willa cut in, “Like everyone else in the world.”

  “—but you can’t unpack someone else’s bags for them,” Phoenix finished.

  She knew that, of course. She had for a long time. Yet somehow here she was, this was the life she’d chosen, and for the most part it wasn’t a bad one.

  “So...what about...this.” Phoenix touched the bruise she’d left. “When did you figure that out?”

  “It wasn’t easy getting a date in a town this size when everyone thought I was the big bad wolf who’d done her best to blow Brady’s house down. Even when he got married, which he did almost exactly a year later, people didn’t forget what had happened. So, I tried online dating. I met someone. We went on a date or two. Things went well. I agreed to meet him the next town over in a hotel. He asked me to slap him when I came.”

  Phoenix quirked a brow.

  “I couldn’t come,” Willa admitted. “Too much pressure. Too soon. I wasn’t used to casual sex, despite all the accusations Brady had thrown my way. I didn’t see that guy again after that, but I thought about him, and that, a lot. I started to seek it out. Men who were into pain. It’s both easier and more difficult than you might expect to find someone.”

  “I believe it.” Phoenix shook his head. He leaned forward, offering his mouth, which she kissed briefly before sitting back again. “But I have to ask you. About me. How...how did you know?”

  Willa’s brow furrowed as she thought how best to answer that. “I didn’t.”

  “So I guess that makes us lucky, then,” Phoenix said.

  He looked as though he meant to say something else, but from downstairs came the shatter of glass and the thud of the front door breaking open.

  Chapter 6

  It could’ve been anything—a strong gust of wind from the storm. A home invasion. The landlord forgetting his keys. Phoenix was up and out of bed in seconds all the same. Moving. Grabbing his clothes and throwing them on as fast as possible while he shoved the heavy dresser in front of the door.

  “Get dressed,” he shot at Willa without looking to see if she was going to.

  Whoever was coming for him would have no interest in her, unless she had some hidden talents she hadn’t shown off, and not the ones of the bedroom sort. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to get hurt when whoever was thudding up the stairs burst through this door and tried to take him. Dressed, shoving his bare feet into boots, Phoenix backed her up toward the window.

  “You’re going to have to go out there,” he said. “Drop to the roof of the back porch. From there you can climb the trellis to the street.”

  “What the hell is going on?”

  Already the thunder of feet in the narrow hallway was trying to drown out her words. There wasn’t time for her to argue with him. He needed her to get out the window, and now. He nudged.

  “Out.”

  Willa moved toward the window, tearing wide the curtains and pulling up the sash, but she did not do as he’d told her. She looked outside. “They’re out there, too, whoever they are.”

  “Go out, anyway,” he said. “They’re going to come through that door in a minute and they probably have guns.”

  She ignored him, moving into the long, narrow closet that he barely used. “No. This way. Come on.”

  He nudged her harder. She stumbled as though he’d pushed her, a hand to her head, but she did not go to the window the way he was trying force her to. Phoenix pulled back, not wanting to hurt her, his attention torn between Willa and the bedroom door shaking as someone tried to get in. The glass in the window shattered inward after that.

  “Up here.” She’d pulled down the set of folding stairs into an attic he hadn’t known existed. Already halfway up, she turned to gesture at him. “Our two houses share an attic. I can get us into mine. From there we can get out.”

  He didn’t argue but followed. They took the time to pull up the stairs after them, and without a second’s hesitation she grabbed an extension cord coiled next to some boxes. She looped it through the folding stairs’ metal hinges, securing it from being pulled down, at least easily.

  “I read a lot of books,” she said when he looked at her. “I learned things.”

  With an easy, loping step, she navigated the attic’s center line where the beams were high enough to let her pass without ducking. At the door in the center, she pushed hard, and after a moment it opened. The attic on her side was brighter, cleaner, with boxes and discarded furniture and racks of out-of-season clothes neatly placed in rows along the side. She had identical folding stairs. In moments they were in her bedroom.

  “Will they have surrounded this house, too? Will they be trying to get in here? Quick,” she cried, snapping her fingers in his face until he answered.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. They try not to engage civilians.”

  It was the wrong word, because he was a civilian as well. Words were failing him, though not because of the sudden attack on his house. It had been only a matter of time before Wyrmwood caught up to him, he’d thought, but he was left stunned and reeling by how swiftly and with such prowess Willa was reacting.

  “Your truck’s parked in the alley. If we can get to that, we can get out of here.”

  “You don’t need to get anywhere,” he put in. “You can stay here in your house. They’re interested in me, and if you’re over here—”

  Willa cut him off as she grabbed a winter coat hanging from a coatrack. She found a pair of boots and slipped them on as she answered. “You really think they won’t come over here asking for me? We left two plates on the table. Two glasses of wine. The thermal bag has my name on it and my address. If they don’t figure out we were together just now, at the very least I think they’ll come over to ask me some questions.”

  She was right, although it still knocked him for a loop that she’d reacted so quickly. So smart. He nodded, feeling in his jeans pocket for his keys. Thanking all the gods and goddesses or whoever watched over those who’d royally fucked up their lives that they were in there.

  “Let’s go,” Willa told him as she slung a bag over one shoulder.

  Years ago, Willa had gotten into the habit of keeping a go bag near the back door. In case she needed to run away. In case there was a natural disaster that required evacuation. Just in case. She grabbed it now and slung it over her shoulder with a look at Phoenix. There’d be time for him to tell her what the hell was going on, but it didn’t seem to be now.

  She was doing this. Running out of her house with a man she barely knew, as strangers with guns pursued them. Why? Because he’d let her hurt him? Because she was afraid of what might happen if she stayed? Because it was a chance to get out, she thought as she let Phoenix go out the door ahead of her, onto her slightly sloping back porch and down the rickety stairs she always meant to get repaired but never had.

  Screw those stairs, she thought as he took them two at a time, landing on the snowy sidewalk with a grace she admired even in this hyped-up state of fight or flight. There was a man in a black uniform, wearing a mask, holding a gun, but he was looking the other way. He turned as Willa also leaped the stairs of the porch. She slipped on the ice, going to one knee as the gun swung up. She didn’t see what happened next, but the soldier or whatever the hell he was fell to his hands and knees in the piled snow.

  Eating it?

  Chowing down on it like a dog with a bowl of meat and gravy. Tossing his head from side to side. He got right down to pavement while she watched.

  Phoenix yanked her arm. “C’mon.”

  “What the—”

  She took another look over her shoulder as Phoenix pulled her toward the truck parked in one
of the shoveled-out spots in the alley. From upstairs in his house, lights flashed in the windows. Shadows moved behind the glass. They were quiet, whoever they were. No shouting. No gunfire, thank god.

  Another of them stepped out of the shadows as they approached the truck.

  A minute after that he, too, was on his hands and knees gobbling at the snow and ice. Willa looked a few feet down the sidewalk to the first guy, who was now getting to his feet and trying to find his gun from where he must’ve tossed it into a snowbank when he decided to make a meal out of the slush.

  “Get in.” Phoenix sounded grim, but there was a glee in his eyes, and his mouth had stretched into a tight, wide grin. He opened the driver’s side door so she could slide across the bench seat. He followed.

  Keys in ignition. Truck in gear. Lights off. He could do nothing about the roar of the engine, but the truck’s wide tires took the curb and jumped it without effort. Willa put her seat belt on.

  Men came out of both houses. She had a moment to think about how much of a mess they must have made, how much it would cost to fix the door they’d broken on the way out. How much she didn’t give one good goddamn, she thought as Phoenix put the pedal to the metal and flew down the alley, over the snowbanks and piles of ice that had built up because of the storm.

  There was a bad few seconds at the end when the wheels were spinning, but with a shift of gears he put the truck into four-wheel drive and they got over the barrier. Incredibly, Phoenix was laughing. Even more astoundingly, so was she.

  “Are we going to die?” Willa cried out, hanging on to the roof handle as the truck got air from a pile of snow and came down hard enough to rattle her teeth. “Are they going to chase us down?”

  “They’ve been chasing me down for years, and I haven’t died yet.” Phoenix shot a glance into the rearview mirror, still grinning, as he guided the truck onto Elm Street and kept going, taking turn after turn until somehow they ended up on the main highway out of town.

  The roads had been closed for the past day or so, and although plows and salt trucks had come through, more icy snow had fallen and the road was not even close to clear. The truck, battered as it was, took the road without trouble, sliding now and then but recovering under Phoenix’s guidance. Willa wisely kept her mouth shut to allow him to concentrate. She kept her eyes on the rearview, but so far, nothing seemed to be following them.

  The body can only sustain tension for so long, and she found herself nodding off. Every time she felt her head droop forward she managed to wake herself back up, but soon enough it was a losing battle. She piled a sweatshirt from the bag between them on the seat against the window and let herself drift off. She woke when the truck stopped.

  “I need to eat. And sleep,” Phoenix said, peering through the windshield at the flickering neon sign of the roadside motel. “This place looks okay.”

  Dubious but figuring they didn’t have many options, Willa also looked. “I have cash in my bag. I don’t know how much, but I figure you won’t want to use your credit card? I don’t have mine, anyway. I left my purse at home. Shit.”

  “I don’t have my wallet.” He shifted on the seat to look at her. “Tell you what, you stay here and keep warm, I’ll go get us a room. Unless you need your own.”

  “Safety in numbers,” she said, thinking how ridiculous it would be to balk at sharing a bathroom with a man she’d already had an orgasm with. “Right?”

  Phoenix laughed. The light from the neon highlighted his red-gold hair and cast shadows on his face. “Be right back.”

  “Wait, the money.”

  “I won’t need it.”

  Before she could ask him why not, he was out of the truck and striding across the lot toward the motel office. Inside she could see a gray-haired woman wearing a sweater festooned with Christmas presents, although it was the middle of January. Well, fa-la-la-la-la, Willa thought and burst into a scattered flurry of semihysterical giggles. She hadn’t quite managed to calm herself by the time Phoenix came out of the office, holding up a key—an actual metal one—hanging from a red plastic key ring.

  “I got a room with two beds,” he said. “But there’s a fridge and a microwave, and the guy at the front desk said there’s free coffee in the lobby all day long.”

  The room turned out to be cleaner than she expected, and if the furniture was worn and the decor outdated, the bathroom had a brand-new shower and the pillows were fluffy. The radiator ticked and tocked as she checked everything out, tossing her bag onto the bed closest to the bathroom.

  “I’m hungry,” Phoenix said. “There’s a diner across the street. Let me go get some food and bring it back.”

  The last thing Willa expected to want was food, but at the idea of it her stomach rumbled. She put a hand over it. “I’ll go with you.”

  “I can bring it back,” he said.

  “And leave me here all by myself?” She tilted her head to study him. “Or maybe you’re planning to ditch me here.”

  The startled look on his face told her she’d been spot-on. Frowning, she put her hands on her hips. Phoenix shrugged.

  “It would be safer for you if I weren’t with you,” he said.

  “I’m not convinced of that. I don’t think I want to take that chance. Do you want me to?”

  He shook his head. “No. I guess I don’t.”

  “Good.” She paused. “Look, it’s not like I expect you to marry me now or anything like that.”

  He burst into a choking laugh. “Oh...fuck, no. Sorry, but...no.”

  “No?” She laughed, too. “Never thought about getting hitched?”

  “Let’s talk about that with our mouths full.”

  “I can think of something I want in your mouth,” Willa said, “and it’s not eggs and toast.”

  His reaction was immediate. Intense. He shivered, visibly. His fingers curled into fists.

  Oh, she thought. Oh, so it was going to be like this.

  Oh, yes.

  Yes.

  Chapter 7

  Phoenix could not stop himself from devouring the sight of her as quickly as Willa was consuming the platter of food in front of her. The diner across the street was the sort open twenty-four hours, breakfast all day, and she’d ordered the hunter’s special. He hadn’t thought she’d be able to finish it all, but damn if the girl wasn’t putting it away like a trucker.

  “I need to keep up my strength,” she said now, noticing his stare. Deliberately, she ran her fingertip over the corner of her mouth to catch a drop of syrup that had lingered. She licked it.

  He got hard.

  There was no way she could see that, not with the table between them, but something in the way she looked at him told him she knew. He’d finished off his meat-laden omelet already and now sat back with a mug of coffee, casually, as though nothing in the world was making him think about how sweet she’d tasted. How hard she’d made him come.

  This was not the time to be thinking about this. Not with Wyrmwood probably still on their trail. Still, the gleam in her eyes was as intoxicating as if he were drinking a fine whiskey, straight up without stopping to breathe.

  “So,” she said as she dug into hash browns drizzled with hot sauce, “what’s the story? What is all this? Can you even talk about it here?”

  He looked around the diner, deserted at this time of night aside from them, the bored waitress tapping away on her phone and whoever was in the back. “I suppose it’s possible this place is just a front for a pseudo-government organization and we’re about to be hauled away in the back of a black SUV to an undisclosed location where they will definitely perform experiments on us. But it’s probably just a diner. So yeah, I can talk about it here.”

  “Is that what’s going on?” As if defeated by the amount of food, Willa pushed back from the table and lifted her coffe
e cup to sip.

  Phoenix saw no point in lying. She was going to believe him or she was not, and it shouldn’t much matter to him either way. It did, somehow. But there was nothing he could do but tell the truth.

  “Yes,” he said. “They’ve been after me for years.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can make people do things.” It was not the first time he’d said it to her. It was not, in fact, the first time he’d said it to anyone—most of the time he opened with it as truth, because hardly anyone ever believed it was true until he showed them. He only did that when it mattered.

  “You’ve said that.” Her eyes narrowed. She shook her head. Laughed a little, looking away, then back at him. “What does that mean?”

  Here was the part of the story that he didn’t usually tell. At nearing three in the morning, adrenaline fading, stomach overfull from too much food, it was not a story he wanted to start unless he could finish it. He drank coffee instead, draining the mug and setting it down with a thunk.

  “You realize it’s a hard thing to believe,” she said. “Without any kind of explanation.”

  “You’re a librarian,” he said. “Isn’t it your job to have faith in all sorts of stories?”

  She laughed. “Sure. Fictional ones. If you’re trying to convince me this is nonfiction, though, you’re going to have to be a little more forthcoming.”

  “I was born to a woman who’d had seven previous pregnancies. So far as I know, the only children to survive were me, my sister and a younger brother I’ve never met that I can recall.”

  “I’m sorry,” Willa said.

  Phoenix shook his head. “It’s nothing to be sorry about. She allowed herself to get pregnant by a series of men, all of whom were engaged in the use of various drugs and other things that she also took. There were other things, too. Everything was meant to affect the unborn children. Make monsters.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Collins Creek was a ranch owned by a guy named Harrison Collins, who believed the next step in evolution was the ability of the human brain to do...things.”