Jim squeezed and squeezed some more until pain cut off any struggle. And when there was plenty of compliance with the even breathing, he dislocated that arm right from its shoulder socket with a quick twist. The resulting scream was loud, but the music from the dance floor drowned out the echo. Which was why, all things considered, clubs were not a bad place for throw-downs.
As the kid sagged onto the floor, Jim knelt in front of him. I hate hospitals. Just out of one myself. You know what they're going to do to someone with your kind of injury? They're going to put the arm back where it belongs. Here, let me show you.
Jim took the flopping limb and didn't bother telling the guy to breathe deep. He just applied the appropriate pressure so that the bone popped back into its home. No screaming this timethe SOB just passed out cold.
In the wake of his stab at being an ortho doc, Jim glanced up to see how things were going with the other half of the altercationsand got an eyeball full of Vin working his opponent's liver like it was bread dough. College Boy was wilting badly and looking royally licked, his hands up not to throw punches, but to ward them off...and his knees knocking together like his balance was going fast.
Which would have been great except for the fact they had trouble.
At the end of the hall, they were attracting attention, a clubgoer peering down the corridor. The lights were dim, but not that dim. They had to clear the fuck out. Vin, we got to go, Jim hissed.
The newsflash didn't register, and that wasn't a surprise, given the brutal focus Vin was bringing to his fight. Shit, screw the peanut gallery; if he was allowed to keep this up, he was going to kill the guy. Or at least turn the fool into a linebacker-size vegetable.
Jim stood up, prepared to intervene with more than words.
CHAPTER 13
Vin was having a fucking ball.
It had been years since he'd thrown punches at more than a bag of sand in the gym, and he'd forgotten how good it felt to physically express his opinion of an assholedirectly in the guy's face. Man, it all came back, the stance, the power, the focus.
He still had it. He could still fight.
The trouble was, like all good things, the party had to come to an end and it turned out not to be of the knocked-out-opponent varietyalthough given the way the college kid's pins were wobbling, if Vin had just a little longer...
But no, Jim broke up the fun, locking a heavy hand on Vin's shoulder and yanking him out of range. We've got an audience.
Panting like an fin bull, Vin glanced up the hallway. Sure enough, a guy with glasses and a mustache was staring at them all, his expression like he'd been witness to a car accident.
Before anyone could react, however, the back door to the club swung open and an African-American man came striding down toward the melee, looking like he was capable of tearing the front fender off a car. With his teeth.
What the hell is going on in my house?
Vin's dark-haired woman stepped out from the locker room. Trez, the two in the skull shirts are the problem.
Vin blinked like a dummy at the beautiful sound of her voice, but then he refocused and muscled his kid face-first into the wall. Feel free to finish what I started here, he said to the club's owner.
Jim pulled his loose bundle of frat boy off the floor. This one had the knife.
The Trez guy looked the kids over. Where's the weapon? Jim kicked the thing over and the owner bent down and picked it up. Police been called?
Everyone glanced at the woman, and as she shook her head, Vin found himself unable to look away. From across the club she'd made his heart pound; up close she made the thing stop dead: Her eyes were so blue they reminded him of a summer sky.
I think these boys are done, Trez said with approval. Nice work.
Where do you want them? Jim asked.
Let's take 'em out back.
Look at me, Vin thought at the woman. Look at me again. Please. Roger that, Jim said, and began hauling his load down the hall.
After a moment, Vin followed the example, pushing his guy along. When they came to the door, Trez opened the way like a perfect gentleman and stepped to the side. Anywhere you like, the owner said.
Jim 'liked' the brick wall to the left, whereas Vin preferred the opposite side Just as he dropped the kid on his ass, he froze.
The security lights around the door shone down over the heads of the boys, casting a solid blanket of illumination all the way to their feet. So their shadows should have been on the asphalt. They weren't. Both of them had dark halos on the brick behind their heads, a twin pair of smoky gray crowns that weaved ever so slightly.
Oh...Christ, Vin whispered.
The one he'd been beating on glanced up with eyes that were more tired than hostile. Why are you looking at us like that.
Because you 're going to die tonight, he thought.
Jim's voice registered from a distance: Vin? What's up?
Vin shook himself, and prayed those damn shadows disappeared. No luck. He tried to rub his eyes in hopes of wiping them awayand found that his face hurt too much from the punches it took to handle that kind of attention.
And the shadows prevailed.
Trez nodded over his shoulder to the club. If you two can head in, I'm going to have a word with this pair of shit-heads. Just so that they're perfectly clear on where things stand.
Yeah. Cool. Vin forced himself to get moving, but as he came up to the door, he glanced over at the kids. Be careful...watch yourselves.
Fuck you, was what came back at him. Which meant they were taking it not as advice, but a threat.
No, I mean
Come on, Jim said, muscling him back into the building. Let's go.
God, maybe he was wrong. Maybe he just needed to get his eyes checked. Maybe he was going to get a migraine in another twenty minutes. But whatever the explanation, he couldn't go back to where he'd been with this shit. He just couldn't handle that.
In the hallway, Jim took his arm. You get knocked in the head bad?
Nope. Although, given how much his face was flaring up, that wasn't entirely true. I'm fine. Whatever. Let's give the owner a minute out back and when he comes in again, I'll take you to my truck.
I'm not leaving until I see that Woman. There by the locker room door.
Vin headed for her, shutting all of his paranoid, wingnut head spins down and concentrating on her. Are you okay?
She'd put a fleece on over her revealing getup, and the thing fell to her thighs, making her seem like the kind of woman you wanted to take into your arms and hold through the whole night. Are you all right? he repeated when she didn't answer.
Her eyes, those stunning blue eyes of hers, finally swung over to his face...and he felt it again, that high-bore charge barreling through him, enlivening him.
Her lips lifted in a small smile. The question is more...are you? As Vin frowned, she made a motion around his face. You're bleeding.
It doesn't hurt.
I think it's going to
Two other women bubbled out of the locker room like a pair of yappy dogs, talking a mile a minute, hands waving like tails, the gold chains around their waists bouncing and chiming like tags on a collar. Fortunately, they were all over Jim, but then again, they could have popped skirt and mooned Vin and he wouldn't have noticed.
I'm sorry about those guys, he said to the dark-haired woman.
It's okay.
God, her voice was lovely. What's your name?
The rear door to the club opened and the Trez guy strode over. Thanks again for taking care of things.
Conversation sprang up, but Vin wasn't interested in anyone but the female in front of him. He was waiting for her to answer him. Hoping she would. Please, he said softly, tell me your name.
After a moment, the dark-haired woman turned to the owner. Mind if I clean him up in the locker room?
Go right ahead.
Vin glanced back at his comrade in harm. You okay to hang out, Jim? The guy nodded. Especially if it means you won't bleed all over my truck. I won't take long with him, the woman said.
Not a problem, Vin thought. As far as he was concerned, she could take foreverhe stopped himself. Devina might have stormed off, but she was in his house, in his bed at this very moment. He owed her more than the way he was going on about this other female.
At least, you think you know where Devina is, his inner voice pointed out.
Come on, the woman said to him as she opened the locker room door.
Vin looked back at Jim for some reasonand the expression he met was all about the watch-yourself-my-man.
Vin opened his mouth, prepared to be reasonable and get a grip.
I'll be right back, Jim, was all that came out.
***
Slut. Whore. Prostitute.
He couldn't believe it. She was whoring herself out. Selling her body to men who used her for sex. The reality was incomprehensible.
At first, he hadn't been able to fathom what appeared to be going on. Bad enough if she'd been a bartender or a waitress or, God forbid, a caged dancer in a club like thisbut then he'd seen her walking around with her breasts on display and her thighs bared to the eyes of other men.
And she got what she deserved for doing what she did: Those two young guys had tracked her like prey, treating her exactly as men treated women like her.
He'd followed along as the pair had trailed her into the hallway, and watched as that fight had erupted. He'd been unable to move, so great was his shock. Of all the things he had pictured her doing, of all the assumptions he had made about what her life here in Caldwell was like, this was not it.
This was not happening.
As the harassers got pounded in the corridor, he backtracked through the crowd and tore out of the front of the club in an urgent haze, having no idea what he was doing or where he was going. The chilly night air didn't clear his head or his confusion, and he went around to the parking lot with no plan whatsoever. When he got into his nondescript car, he shut himself in and breathed hard.
That was when the anger hit. Great waves of fury poured through his body, making him sweat and shake.
He knew his temper had gotten him in trouble before. He knew this boiling rage was a problem, and he remembered what he'd been taught in prison. Count to ten. Try to calm down. Call to mind the safety image
Movement by the back of the club brought his head around.
A door opened and the two kids who'd been stalking her were dropped like bags of garbage onto the pavement by the ones who'd come to her rescue. A black man stayed out in the cold and spoke to both of the offenders for a moment and then returned into the club.
From behind the wheel, he stared hard at the young guys.
The lightning strike hit him as it always did, wiping everything out of the way: His rage condensed and then crystallized, locking on the pair by the back door, all the anger and the sense of betrayal and the fury and the confusion that woman had created getting trained on those two.
Moving in a daze, he double-checked that the false mustache and the glasses were where they were supposed to be. Chances were very good there were security cameras on the back of the club, and having been caught by the likes of them before, even in his rage he knew enough not to do this in front of prying lenses even with a disguise.
So he waited.
Eventually, the college kids got stiffly to their feet, one of them spitting out blood, the other holding his arm as if he were afraid it was going to drop off his torso. Facing each other, they argued, whatever harsh words they shared nothing but mute theatrics because he was too far away to hear what they were saying. But the fight didn't last long. They fell silent fairly quickly, as if they'd lost their collective will, and after some looking around, they lurched into the parking lot like drunks.
Probably because their heads were spinning from the beatings they'd taken.
When they passed by his car, he got a good look at them. Fair skinned, light eyed, both had an earring or two. Their faces were the kind you'd see in the newspaper, not in the criminal section, but under the header College Sports.
Healthy, young, with a lot of life ahead of them.
There was no conscious thought at all as he reached under the seat and then got out from behind the wheel. He shut the car door quietly and fell in behind the young men. As he moved silently, he was action and nothing more.
The pair went to the last row in the parking lot and took a right...going into a tight alley. With no windows.
If he had asked them to find some privacy, they couldn't have possibly been more accommodating.
He tracked them until they were halfway down the buildings, right in the middle of the double block. With smooth control, he leveled the muzzle at the strong, young back in front of him and paused with his finger on the trigger.
They were up ahead a good ten yards, their sloppy strides cutting through the slush, their shifting torsos presenting moving targets.
Closer would be better, but he didn't want to wait or risk spooking them.
He pulled the trigger, the loud pop! followed by a messy scramble and a thump onto the ground. The second of the pair wheeled around.
Which meant the kid got dropped by a bullet right through the front of the chest.
Satisfaction made him soar, though his feet stayed on the asphalt. The free expression of his anger, the prickling, orgasmic release, made him smile so wide that the frigid wind registered on his front teeth.
The joy didn't last. The sight of the two lying side by side and moaning doused everything that had bonfired his brain, leaving a whole lot of rational horror: He'd just fucked himself. He was on parole, for God's sake. What had he been thinking?
He paced around as they writhed in slow motion and bled red. He'd sworn he'd never find himself in this situation again. Sworn to it.
As he stopped, he realized both his victims were looking up at him. Given that they were still breathing, it was hard to be sure whether they were going to die or not, but more gunshots were not going to help the situation.
He tucked his gun into the small of his back and took off his parka, wadding it up into a pillow of Gor-Tex and down. He went over to the taller one first.
CHAPTER 14
He was beautiful, Marie-Terese thought.
The man who'd protected her was absolutely beautiful. Thick dark hair. Warm brown-toned skin. Face that even with its bruises was stunningly attractive.
Flustered by so much, Marie-Terese pulled out one of the stools in front of the makeup counter and got ahold of herself. If you sit here, I'll get a washcloth.
The man who'd thrown down for her looked around, and she tried to ignore what he was seeing: the kicked-off, scratched-up stilettos, the torn miniskirt hanging from the bench, the towels strewn here and there, the pair of thigh-highs draped on the edge of the lighted mirror, the bags on the floor.
Given how amazing his black pin-striped suit was, this kind of cheap chaos was clearly not what he was used to.
Please sit, she said.
The man's gray eyes came to rest on her. He was about eight inches taller than she was, and the width of his shoulders was easily two of her. But she wasn't uncomfortable around him. And she wasn't scared.
Man, his cologne was delicious. Are you okay, he said again.
Not a question, but a quiet demand. As if he wasn't going to let her do anything about the shape his face was in until he was certain she wasn't hurt. Marie-Terese blinked. I'm...fine. What about your arm? He locked on pretty damn hard.
Marie-Terese tugged up the sleeve of the fleece she'd put on. See...? He leaned in and his palm was warm as it wrapped around her wrist. Warm and gentle. Not grabbing. Not demanding. Not...owning. Kind.
Abruptly, she heard that college kid's voice in her head: You are not a woman.
The nasty crack had been said to be cruel and to wound, and it had...but mostly because it had become what she felt about herself. Not a woman. Not...anything. Just empty.
Marie-Terese pulled her arm away from the man's touch and tugged the sleeve back in place. She couldn't handle his compassion. In some weird way, it was harder to bear than the insult.
You're going to have a bruise, he said softly. What was she doing? Oh...right. Washcloth. Clean him up. Sit down here. I'll be right back.
Going into the shower room, she took a white towel from a stack by the sinks, grabbed a small bowl, and got some hot water running. As she waited for the stream to warm up, she looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were wide and a little crazy, but not because of the pair who'd been so grossly inappropriate and disrespectful. It was the ass kicker with the gentle hands sitting on the stool outside... the one who looked like an attorney, but fought like Oscar De La Hoya.
When she came back to the makeup counter, she was a little calmer. At least until she met his eyes. He was staring at her as if absorbing what she looked like into his body, and what made her uncomfortable was not how he regarded her, but how she felt as he did.
Not quite so empty.
Have you seen yourself? she asked, just to say something.
He shook his head and didn't seem to care enough to turn away from her to the mirror behind him. She put the bowl down and snapped on latex gloves before stepping up to him and dipping the washcloth. You have a gash on your cheek.
Do I.
Brace yourself.
He didn't, and he didn't flinch as she touched the open wound.
Dab...dab...dab...Then back to the bowl, a little tinkling sound as she rinsed the cloth out. Dab... dab...
He closed his eyes and parted his lips, his chest rising and falling evenly. Up this close, she saw the five-o'clock shadow over his straight jaw and each of his long, black eyelashes and all of his trimmed, thick hair. He'd had his ear pierced at one point, but only on the right side, and it had obviously been years since he'd worn anything in the hole.
What's your name? he asked, his voice guttural.
She never gave Johns her real fake name, but he wasn't just a John, was he. If he hadn't come along when he had, things could have gotten ugly for her: Trez had been away from the club, the bouncers had been breaking up a skirmish out by the bar, and the hall led directly into the parking lot. Work of a moment and those two beefy college types could have had her in a car and...
You have blood on your shirt, she said, going back to the bowl.
Great conversationalist, she thought.
His lids lifted, but he didn't look down at himself. He looked at her. I have other shirts. I'll bet.
He frowned a little. Does that kind of thing happen to you often?
With anyone else, she would have shut the question down with a quick of course not, but she felt as though, given what he'd done in the hall for her, he deserved something more truthful.
Any chance you're undercover? she murmured. Not that you'd necessarily tell me, but I have to ask.
He reached into the breast pocket of his coat and took out a card. There's no way I'm a cop. I'm not as illegal as I used to be, but I wouldn't be eligible for a badge even if I wanted one. So ironically, you can trust me.
She looked over what he gave her. The diPietro Group. Address here in downtown Caldwell. Very expensive card stock, very flashy professional logo, and a lot of numbers and e-mail addresses to reach him at. As she put the thing down on the counter, her instincts told her the part about his not being with the Caldwell PD was right. But the trust thing? She didn't trust men anymore.
Especially ones she was attracted to.
So does that happen a lot? he said.
Marie-Terese went back to work, wiping off his face, working her way down his cheek to his mouth. Most people are okay. And management looks out for us. I've never been hurt. Are you...a dancer?
For a moment, she entertained a fantasy where she told him that all she did was hang out in one of those cages, showing off some moves, being nothing but eye candy. She could guess what he would do. He'd take a deep breath of relief and start relating to her as if she were just any other woman who'd caught his eye. No complications, no implications, nothing but some flirting between two people that might lead to bed.
Her silence made him take a breath, and it wasn't the oh-good kind. As he exhaled, the muscles that ran up his neck tightened into stark cords, like he had to fight back a wince.
This was the thing: She was never again going to have a normal get-to-know-you with a man. She had a dark secret, the kind that you had to gauge how many dates could pass before you had to reveal it otherwise you were a liar by omission.
How bad are your hands? she said to fill the void.
When he held them out, she inspected his knuckles. The right ones were bruised and bleeding, and as she put the washcloth to use on them, she asked, Do you come to the rescue of women a lot?
No, I really don't. You're missing an earring, by the way.
She touched her lobe. Yeah, I know. I meant to put another pair on today. But...
I'm Vin, by the way. He put his palm out and waited. Nice to meet you.
Under other circumstances, she would have smiled at him. Ten years and a lifetime ago, she would have had to smile as she put her palm in his and they shook. Now, she just felt sadness.
Nice to meet you, too. Vin.
Your name?
She took her hand from his and ducked her head to concentrate on his knuckles. Marie-Terese. My name...is Marie-Terese.
***
She had such lovely eyes.
Marie-Terese of the lovely French name had absolutely lovely eyes. And she was gentle with her hands, carefully cleaning him up with that warm washcloth as if his nicks and scratches were something important.
Shit, he wanted to get into another fight just so she could nurse him again. You should probably go to the doctor, she said, patting the little towel across his cracked knuckles.
Absently, he noted that the terry cloth had started off white but now was pink from his blood, and he was glad that she'd put on the latexnot because he was HIV positive, but because he hoped the gesture generalized and meant she protected herself in what she did for a living.
He'd hoped all she did was dance. He really had.
She rinsed out the washcloth. I said, you should see your doctor.
I'll be fine. But would she? What would have happened if he and Jim hadn't come along?
God, there were so many questions he had all of a sudden. He wanted to know why someone like her was in this line of work. He wanted to know what harshness had brought her to the place she was at. He wanted to know...what he could do to help, not just tonight, but tomorrow and the day after that.
Except none of that was any of his business. More to the point, he had a feeling that if he pressed her for details, she would close up on him.
Can I ask you something? he said, because he couldn't help it.
She paused with the cloth. Okay.
He knew he shouldn't do what he was about to, but he could not fight the overwhelming draw of her. It had nothing to do with his mind and everything to do with his...okay, heart was too stinkin' melodramatic. But whatever was driving him came from the center of his chest.
So fine, maybe his sternum was really into her.
Will you have dinner with me?
The door to the locker room swung wide, and the flame-haired prostitute who'd triggered Devinas exit strode in.
Oh! Excuse me...I didn't know anyone was in here. As she stared at Vin, her bright red lips widened into a false smile that suggested she'd known exactly who was in the locker room.
Marie-Terese moved away from him, taking her warm cloth and her bowl of water and her soft hands with her. We were just leaving, Gina.
Vin took the cue and stood up. As he cursed the redhead's interruption, he caught an eyeball full of all the makeup on the counter and reminded himself that she had more of a right to be here than he did.
Marie-Terese went into the bathroom, and he imagined her cleaning out the bowl and rinsing the washcloth off, then snapping free the gloves. She was going to come out of there and he was going to say good-bye and...she was going to take off that fleece and go back into the crowd.
Staring at the door she'd gone through, while the prostitute next to him chattered away, the strangest feeling came over Vin. It was like a fog had gathered on the floor and sent tendrils up his legs and over his chest and all the way to his brain. He was suddenly hot on the outside and cold on the inside....
Shit, he knew what this was. He knew exactly what was happening. It had been years, but he knew where this constellation of sensation went.
Vin grabbed onto the stool and let his ass fall back upon it. Breathe. Just breathe, you big dumb bastard. Breathe...
So I saw your girlfriend left, the redhead was saying as she sidled up to him. You want some company?
Hands with blood-colored nails as long as talons reached out and drifted up his stained lapel. He brushed her off him with a sloppy palm. Stop it....
You sure?
Oh, God, he was even hotter on the outside, even colder on the inside. He had to stop this... because he didn't want to know the message that was coming to him. He didn't want the vision, the communication, the look-see into the future, but he was the telegraph who was powerless to deny receipt of the letters sent to him.
First the man in the elevator, then the two outside...now this.
He'd exorcised the dark side from himself years ago. Why was it back now?
The redhead rubbed herself against his arm and leaned into his ear. Let me take care of you
Gina, give it a rest, would you?
Vin's eyes moved toward Marie-Terese's voice and he opened his mouth to try and speak. Nothing came out. Worse, as he stared at her, she became a vortex into which his sight was sucked, everything but her going blurry. He braced himself for what was coming nextand sure enough, the trembling started at his feet, just as the fog had, and moved up his body, taking over his knees and his stomach and his shoulders....
Whatever, I don't need to beg, Gina said as she headed for the door. Have fun with himhe looks too strung out to party anyway.
Vin? Marie-Terese came over. Vin, can you hear me? Are you all right
The words bubbled up out of him, the voice not his own, the possession overcoming everything such that he knew not what he spoke because the message was not for him, but for the one he was addressing.
His ears heard only nonsense: Theio th lskow... Theio th lskow... She blanched and stepped back, hand lifting up to her throat. Who.Theio. ..th...lskow...
Vin's voice was deep and dark and senseless to him, even as he tried to hear the syllables correctly, tried to unscramble in his head what he was telling her: This was the very worst part of his cursehe could do nothing to affect the future, because he didn't know what he foretold.
Marie-Terese backed away from him until she smacked against the door, her face pale and her eyes popping wide. With shaking hands, she fumbled to open the thing and then burst out of the locker room, desperate to get away from him.
Her absence was what brought Vin back to reality, snapping the hold that had been clamped onto him, breaking the strings that had turned him into the puppet of...he didn't know what. He'd never known what. From the very first time he'd been taken over, he'd been clueless as to what it was or what he spoke of or why, of all the people on the planet, it had to be him who chose to bear this terrible burden.
Good God, what was he going to do? He couldn't function in his business or his life with intrusions like this. And he didn't want to go back to his years as a young kid when people thought he was crazy.
Besides, this shouldn't be happening. He'd taken care of this.
Planting his palms onto his knees, his let his head sag on his shoulders, his breathing shallow, his locked elbows all that held him upright. That was how Jim found him.
Vin? What's doing, big man? You got a concussion?
If only that were the case. He'd so choose a brain hemorrhage over the speaking-in-tongues thing. Vin forced his eyes over to the other man. And because his mouth evidently wasn't through with its independent streak, he heard himself say, Do you believe in demons, Jim? The guy frowned. Excuse me?
Demons...
There was a long pause; then Jim said, How 'bout we get you home? You don't look right.