Tears still stained Lindsay Rosen’s cheeks as she stared out the window, the remnants of her beautiful brown hair spread over her lap.
“Can you tell me what happened?” the police officer asked, crouching down on the floor so that he was eye-level with her. He was wearing his uniform, his badge glinting in the sunlight. Even though you were supposed to trust policemen, Lindsay was nervous.
“Didn’t my parents already tell you?” she asked suspiciously, tearing her eyes away from the window.
Officer Brooks nodded. “Now I want to hear what you have to say,” he replied in his soft, calming voice.
Lindsay glanced over at her parents, who were sitting next to her on the couch. Her father was dressed in his navy suit with the red tie, and her mother was wearing her pink cashmere sweater with black pants. These were their church clothes, but they had believed that they should look nice when the policeman arrived at their home. They’d even made Lindsay wear the long-sleeved green velvet dress that they had bought for her to wear to mass on Christmas Eve.
Their expressions were tense as they looked back at her. Her parents didn’t want her to embarrass them. God would want her to honor and obey them, but He would also want her to tell the truth. Lindsay didn’t know what to do.
“Well, I went to sleep at ten,” she said. “My bedtime is supposed to be nine-thirty, but my mother let me stay up late to finish my homework. Um…I woke up at six, when my alarm went off, and when I sat up…” Lindsay paused to sniffle as tears stung her eyes. “When I sat up, all of my hair was left on the pillow.”
All of her beautiful hair was gone. What she was left with was an uneven crop that wasn’t even chin-length.
“Did you hear anything in the middle of the night?” Officer Brooks asked her while he took notes. “Anything strange?”
She shook her head, wiping her nose.
The policeman put his pen down and looked at her keenly. “Do you have any idea why someone would want to do this to you?”
Lindsay hesitated, again glancing at her parents.
“Don’t look at them,” the officer said. “Look at me.”
She did as she was told, and something inside of her relaxed. The cop was being so nice to her, as if he cared about what she had to say. But he would never believe her. Not even her own parents believed her.
Then Lindsay noticed a gold chain under the collar of his crisp, light blue shirt, and hanging on the chain was a cross. “Do you believe in God?” she asked him quietly.
“Lindsay—” her mother started, but the policeman held up his hand to silence her. “Yes,” he replied earnestly.
“Do you believe in evil?”
“This is not what Officer Brooks came to hear, young lady,” her father scolded. “Remember what we talked about.”
This time the officer paid no attention to the interruption, but he didn’t answer her question, either. “Do you?” he countered.
She nodded solemnly. “It’s everywhere. We are all sinners.”
“And what have you done wrong?” he asked.
“My daughter hasn’t done anything,” her mother suddenly cried while still trying to hold her polite smile. “She did nothing to deserve this and—”
“Mrs. Rosen, please—” Officer Brooks said.
Her father patted her mother’s shoulder. “Darling, calm down—”
“I loved my hair so much,” Lindsay said softly, as if she was speaking to herself, but her words silenced everyone. She looked into the policeman’s eyes, willing him to believe her. “I know it was wrong. I begged God for forgiveness. I didn’t even want my hair any more, I swear. I just needed a little more time to... I would be grateful, but…I know that God wasn’t the one who did this to me.”
“Then who did, Lindsay?” the cop asked her, looking at her intently.
Her bottom lip trembled, remembering the evil presence that she’d felt last night. “The Devil,” she whispered.
Officer Brooks stared at her for another moment, and Lindsay felt a spark of hope inside of her. Then he rolled his eyes and stood up. “All right,” he groaned. “I’ve had about enough of this.”
Her heart plummeted.
“Now wait a minute,” her father said, getting up off the couch.
“Look, I have better things to be doing,” the policeman said. His voice was suddenly different—colder, nastier—and Lindsay realized that he hadn’t believed a word she’d said, not for one minute. This whole time he’d been making fun of her. Humoring her, her fifth-grade teacher would have said.
“But the devil really was here!” she yelled. “I felt him. I saw him standing over my bed!”
Officer Brooks just turned towards the door as if he hadn’t heard.
“Wait!” Lindsay’s father shouted. Then he composed himself. “Our daughter may have a…strong imagination, but someone did break into our house and cut off her hair.”
“There’s no evidence of a break-in,” the policeman retorted.
“Well, we don’t usually lock our doors,” Lindsay’s mother stuttered, still sitting with her hands folded on her lap. “This is such a safe area and no one even lives nearby…”
“Mrs. Rosen,” Officer Brooks said tiredly, “there’s no evidence that any crime occurred. Your daughter probably cut her own hair and is making up this story so that you won’t be mad at her.”
“I did not!” Lindsay insisted. “The man in black did it—the Devil!”
“Please,” her mother pleaded.
The cop sighed. “All right, I’ll file a report. But until someone else around here calls in about a prowler or something, I’ve got nothing to go on.”
“Couldn’t you…dust for fingerprints or something?” Lindsay’s father asked in exasperation. “Look for hairs?”
Officer Brooks smirked. “You watch too much CSI, buddy.” He opened the front door, and then he paused at the threshold, looking back at her parents. “In the mean time, you really should get your daughter some therapy.”
Lindsay saw anger in her father’s eyes, but he gritted his teeth against it for a moment, breathing slowly. He was very good at keeping his temper. “Thank you for your time, Officer,” he said politely.
Once he had closed the door behind the policeman, he turned to Lindsay. “Why did you say all of those things to him?” he asked.
She looked down at her lap full of brown hair. “Because it was the truth,” she murmured, suddenly drained.
Her mother touched her shoulder. “I thought you agreed that you just had a bad dream.”
“But I saw him. I saw him standing over my bed last night.”
Her father walked over to the couch and sat down on the other side of her. “I believe that you saw someone, Lindsay,” he said. And he sounded like he meant it—but then, so had the policeman, at first. “But it wasn’t the Devil, sweetheart. It was just some bad man.”
“He knew about my hair,” she insisted.
He leaned forward and drew her into his arms. “I know. And honestly, that scares me a lot.” Then he pulled back and looked into her eyes. “Do you know what a crime of opportunity is?”
Confused, Lindsay shook her head.
“It means that a criminal—like the man you saw last night—will hurt someone else only when it’s easy for him to do it, and when he knows that he won’t get caught. The man broke in here because we don’t lock our doors and it was easy for him to get in. From now on, we’re going to keep the doors and windows locked, and I’m even going to start looking around for a security system. It won’t be easy for the man to break in again, so he’ll just go away.”
She understood what her father was saying, but she didn’t believe it. The evil thing that had stood over her last night knew her. He knew what she was scared of and what she was ashamed of. “But, Daddy,” she said emphatically, “he knew about my hair.”
“Sweetie, you have to trust me on this. You know that I would never let anyone hurt you. And God will protect you, too. You know that, right?”
Lindsay frowned. Her parents watched the six o’clock news every night, and sometimes she watched it with them. She knew that bad things happened to people all the time, even to girls like her. Once she had asked her father why God let those things happen and he had said that it was all part of His plan.
“Only if it’s His will,” she said softly.
Her mother leaned in to hug Lindsay. “It is,” she said. “I know it is.”
Then Lindsay realized that her mother and father were acting so calm and sure because they were afraid, and she didn’t want to make it any worse. “Okay.”
“Now,” her father said, “we should get you to school so that you don’t miss too many classes.”
“Awww,” she whined, mostly because she was supposed to.
“Don’t ‘awww’ me, young lady,” her father said, but his voice was warm. He wasn’t really angry with her. “March down to your room and get your backpack.”
“And you need to change out of that dress,” her mother said. “I don’t want it to get ruined before Christmas.”
Lindsay balled up the mass of loose hair on her lap, and her father brought the trash can over to her so that she could throw it all away. Her eyes filled again, watching it fall into the bin.
“I’m sorry it’s gone, sweetie,” her father said. “But you can grow it back.”
“No,” she replied, brushing away the strands that were clinging to her dress. “I can’t.”
The sky above her was vast and blue as she floated on the cold water. The summer sunshine warmed her from above and the ocean cooled her from below. Her fingers gracefully slid through the water as she drifted slowly towards the shore.
Free. So free…
A cloud passed overhead, blocking out the sun and casting the world in shadow. She stared at the large, rolling cloud with fascination. It almost looked like a face, hovering above her. A beautiful face with black eyes that were fixed on her.
There was a soft splash behind her. Then something snaked around her waist and yanked her under the surface of the sea. She choked on salt water as she kicked her arms and legs, trying to free herself. But there were arms around her, stronger than steel, and they were holding her against a hard body.
The person holding her plunged through the water at an impossible speed. She hadn’t taken a breath before she’d been pulled under and her lungs burned for air. She needed to breathe, but if she inhaled the water, it would all be over.
Hold on one more second. Just wait one more second.
She thrashed against her captor again, in a panic. Instinct drove her as she fought with everything she had. Scratching, kicking, biting. Let me go, let me go.
It was useless. She was too weak, too dizzy, and the person who held her was too strong.
Darkness, then, as she slipped away…
Time passed, the scene shifted.
Her eyes opened. He was on top of her again, tearing her apart. Her hands were still tied down, but she did not have the energy to fight anyway. The pain was far too great for her body or her mind to bear.
She remembered the sea, remembered the darkness enfolding her. The beautiful, blessed darkness. She reached for it as she closed her eyes, feeling herself fading away. No longer a part of this, no longer herself…
Free…
A new pain assaulted her as fangs stabbed into her throat. And it felt as if his soul had seized hers, dragging it from above back into her battered body.
Open your eyes, Alexandra, his voice commanded.
She wouldn’t. She couldn’t.
Don’t try to escape. I will always find you. Now open your eyes and scream for me…
Powerless against him, Lex obeyed.
Aiden sat in the car, gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles were white. His breath was coming in quick gulps, and he had broken into a cold sweat.
He had found her. He was in the parking lot of a dingy motel and he could feel her just a few yards away, behind the door marked “12”. Lex was so close.
This was what he had wanted. This was what he’d driven around the mountain roads for, this was what he’d frightened that irksome store clerk for, this was what he had been burning for—and not just tonight. He remembered the golden curls of the prostitute that he’d brought home. He remembered the way that his heart had stopped when Lex had answered his call later that night, the way his mind had suddenly gone blank.
But, Eve…
No, he’d never liked Eve. Of course, he’d never given himself the chance to try, but that didn’t matter. She was dead, and while he may have loved her, he’d never liked her.
And, Lex…
He’d been drawn to her from the moment he’d seen her pacing in the lobby of Angie’s building, her chilling eyes afire. Then the night that Angie had introduced them on the subway, there had been an undeniable spark between them. He’d let her pierce his mental armor and see the pain that raged inside of him. In that moment, he’d known that she understood him.
She liked him, she’d said so. And goddamn it, he liked her—more than he had realized. He’d driven all this way for her.
So why was he still sitting in the car? Why couldn’t he move?
This was fucking ridiculous. Lex was alone and she was afraid, and she needed…
Him?
Hardly. And that was the crux of it, he knew. It was why he had never gone after her before. He’d left her with her real soulmate because she was better off with that Daybreak witch. Aiden only destroyed everything that he touched.
But god, he wanted to touch her. He gripped the steering wheel harder, barely aware of the fact that he was bending it in his fists, but it didn’t help. He was in free fall, and the contrived soulmate link was like gravity, pulling him at terminal velocity towards Lex. And what would happen when he finally collided with her?
Images flashed before his eyes. His face in her hair, his lips close to her throat as he pressed her against the wall. His hands running over the curves of her body. Her fingers clenching his shirt as she gasped. His hand clamped over her mouth, feeling her lips against his palm as the soulmate link scorched him with its heat.
Aiden shuddered as he remembered those few minutes he’d spent with Lex in the Daybreak compound. He wanted it. He needed to feel that again, needed to feel alive again.
Then another image invaded his mind. He saw Angie Catallini straddling Lex, her hands around the smaller vampire’s neck, squeezing. Aiden had tried to save Lex and he’d failed. With two bullets in him, he could only watch helplessly from the floor as Angie slowly killed the girl that he—
He had to turn around, Aiden thought. He had to start the engine and get the hell out of here, leaving her far behind, before this went any further. If he drove away now, she would never have to know how close she’d come to disaster. Whatever was going on between Lex and her soulmate, Aiden was sure they would figure it out soon enough. The Daybreak witch would take care of her and keep her safe, just as he’d done that day in the compound after Aiden had failed. Fate had chosen that self-righteous witch for Lex, just as it had chosen Genevieve for him. He had thrown his own soulmate away, and he had no right to be going after someone else’s.
Aiden turned the key in the ignition and listened to the engine rev. Putting the car in gear, he started to back out of his parking space.
Then he heard something that made him slam on the brake: a scream—her scream—and it was blood-curdling. Dimly, he realized that it wasn’t a physical sound. It was in his mind, shattering all of his thoughts like glass. For an instant, Aiden could actually see it—sharp red and black lines wound tightly together, shooting through his head like an arrow, obliterating everything in its path.
He didn’t remember putting the car in park or getting out of the driver’s side door. The run from the car to the door of her motel room was a blur. The next thing he knew, he was charging through the door. The security chain snapped, the deadbolt tore through the plaster, the hinges gave way from the force of the impact.
Inside. He was finally inside.
There she was, lying rigidly in the bed. Her unseeing eyes stared through the ceiling, and her mouth was open as she screamed. She was dreaming.
Without thinking, Aiden darted to the bed and drew her into his arms. The scream caught in her throat as she woke up. She was silent for an instant, and then she fought him like a cornered animal, trying to claw away. Her black curly hair fell into her face as she whipped her head around.
“Shhh.” He held her tightly as she struggled. She was wild enough in this state to hurt herself. “It’s all right. I’ve got you, okay? It’s all right.”
Slowly, she settled down. Her face was turned away from him, but Aiden knew that she was coming fully awake. As the jagged edges of her mind softened, he forced himself to loosen his hold on her, but only slightly.
That was when he realized that the soulmate link had opened between them. He could barely breathe as he felt its heat flood him. And in his arms, he could feel that she had gone still as well. She was holding her breath.
She turned over onto her back, and then Aiden understood why the link had come to life. Everywhere he touched was bare skin—her arms, her sides, her back. She was naked.
Oh god, he had Alexandra Harper naked in his arms. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed to keep his eyes on her face, to keep his hands in place on her back.
Lex wasn’t the least bit self-conscious as she looked into his eyes, but he could feel her confusion. It seemed like she was trying to decipher something, as if she recognized him, but couldn’t place him.
His heart constricted at that thought. Had she forgotten him? Had she not thought of him at all since they’d last seen each other in Washington, D.C.?
She wet her lips, and he nearly gasped at the gesture. When she spoke, her voice was as low and sweet as he remembered. “Aiden?”
Just one more hour, Reece promised himself.
He was sprawled out on his stomach on the bed now because his back had nearly locked up from leaning over his work for so long. The light of his computer screen hurt his gritty eyes and he stopped scrolling down the webpage long enough to rub them again.
His second wind, the one that had infused him after Karissa’s phone call, had long since died, and now he was running on fumes. It had probably been closer to his hundred-and-second wind anyway.
In the eighteen or nineteen months that he’d been hunting Zarek, he had pushed himself past the point of exhaustion more times than he could remember. His strength had failed him, his faith had failed him, and yet, he was still here. After all this time, he was still bargaining with himself—just one more trip, one more day, one more hour.
Reece knew that he’d promised Karissa that he would be home soon, but Zarek was about to make his move. He could feel it. If he walked away now, he would be condemning some other innocent girl to an unimaginable hell.
The Loud Sex couple in the room next to him had either fallen asleep or checked out, and a heavy silence had descended. It lulled him. Reece felt like time was passing in slow motion. When he blinked, his eyes closed for a full second before he found the will to open them again. He was so tired.
Goddess, he had to wake up and concentrate. Reece forced himself to get off the bed and stretch. Reaching his hands over his head, he noticed for the first time how stale the air had become. He glanced at the vents on the ceiling and realized that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard them turn on. No wonder he was drowsy—he’d been inhaling his own carbon dioxide for hours. Of course, the fact that he hadn’t slept in over thirty-six hours didn’t help, but he didn’t want to think about that.
He opened the window. Breathing in the cold air, he felt his head clear a little, but not nearly enough. With a sigh, Reece pressed his forehead against the cool window pane. He couldn’t do this any more. He just couldn’t. It had been too long and he was quickly running himself into the ground. Even his team had noticed.
Maybe he should just tell them about his mission and let them help, as Karissa had suggested. She could take over the internet searches while Jase and Sorrentino scanned the police reports. Alyssa and Nick could be out on the streets, integrating themselves into the Vermont Night World. They could ask around to see if anyone might be interested in sampling this delicious little human girl they had just picked up, trying to draw the target out into the open. And with the workload delegated, Reece could actually take the time to think, to plan. His team would have Zarek in custody within days, he was sure.
But he didn’t want any of them to know what Lex had been through. If they did, then they wouldn’t be able to think of anything else when they looked at her. He knew it because sometimes it was impossible even for him to think about anything else. Too often, he looked into her gorgeous eyes and only saw darkness in their depths. Sometimes when she spoke, all Reece heard were screams.
His team would try to hide it, of course, and pretend that she was the same person to the, but they wouldn’t be able to stop the pity from softening their voices when they spoke to her. They wouldn’t be able to help treating her like the fragile, damaged thing that she had once been. And Lex would despise them all.
No, if Reece was going to ask for help, it would have to be someone outside his team. Someone who Lex hardly ever saw. Someone she already disliked, who wasn’t like family to Reece. Someone who wouldn’t treat her like she was broken, who lacked the tact to even try. Carden, maybe. The vampire did owe him a favor, but Reece had honestly never been planning to collect. Besides, this would be one hell of a favor…
Unconsciously, he turned away from the window and leaned against the wall. Lost in his thoughts, he stared through his laptop, through the bed underneath, through the floor. But then a single word on the computer screen suddenly came into focus.
Prowler.
The word invoked a strange shiver inside of him. Reece went over to the bed and dragged his laptop to the edge while he kneeled down on the floor. He was almost afraid to breathe as he read the police report, and by the time he was finished, his mind was racing.
A call had been placed at 6:12 AM by Mr. David Rosen. Officer Jeremy Brooks arrived on the scene at 6:58 AM. Mr. Rosen reported that, at some time during the night, someone had entered his home and cut off the hair of his ten year-old daughter, Lindsay. The officer saw no sign of a break-in and nothing was missing from the Rosen home, so there was nothing more to be done.
“Be advised,” the report read. “There may be a prowler in the area.”
This wasn’t the kind of information that normally caught Reece’s attention. He was more interested in missing person reports because it would allow him to identify Zarek’s victim. Once he’d done that, Reece could find the girl’s home and use one of her possessions to cast a locator spell, which would lead him straight to her and to the bastard who had taken her.
He read the report in front of him once more. The girl, Lindsay, was a little too young for Zarek’s taste, but then Lex, at nearly fourteen, had been a little too old. Clearly, if the bastard saw something he liked, he didn’t let a small matter like age stand in his way.
It was the act itself, though, that Reece was most interested in. Cutting off a girl’s hair while she slept seemed like a very…intimate thing to do. “Mind-fuck” was the only term he could think of to describe it. And nothing had been stolen, nothing else out of place—this wasn’t some random crime. The girl hadn’t even woken up when her hair was being cut off, which meant that she had to have been under some sort of mind control.
A new, volatile energy was coursing through Reece, but he needed to calm down and do this methodically. He forced himself to take a few deep breaths. When his hands were no longer shaking, he went back to the computer and searched around until he found a phone number.
The man answered on the first ring. “Brooks.”
“This is Lieutenant Cahill,” Reece said, relieved that his voice was still steady. “Orleans County police. I need more information about the prowler report you submitted.”
There was a pause. “The Rosen case?” Brooks asked.
“Yes. We’ve gotten reports of similar incidences throughout the county.”
Another pause. “Really?”
“You sound surprised,” Reece remarked.
The man laughed uncomfortably. “Sorry, sir. It’s just that I didn’t actually believe the kid.”
“You mean Lindsay Rosen?”
“Yeah,” Brooks said. “She was going on and on about the Devil cutting off her hair. Honestly, I thought she was nuts. I—”
Reece hung up.
Goddess, he was certain now. The cop didn’t know it, but the girl had actually given a perfect description of Zarek. The vampire was indeed the devil, and he was stalking Lindsay Rosen. But he hadn’t taken her yet, which meant that Reece had the chance to catch the bastard in the act. Once he did, he was going to make Zarek suffer.
In a veritable frenzy, Reece began to gather all of the papers strewn across the bed. He threw them and his clothes haphazardly into his bag. He needed to get out of here. Now. Zarek could strike at any moment, and time was running out for Lindsay Rosen.
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