Chapter Seventeen

G ina was huddled in a dark corner. Demons were all around her, searching. If she curled herself into the smallest little ball possible, maybe they wouldn’t be able to find her.

She was shaking nearly uncontrollably now, fear snaking its way up her spine, every nerve ending in her body primed with terror.

“Gina?”

At first she could barely hear the soft voice. She strained to listen.

“Gina, sweetheart, can you hear me?”

She shoved her fist against her mouth, batting back the tears. Momma?

No, it couldn’t be. She was dead. Gone. They’d taken her a long time ago.

“Gina, where are you?”

She closed her eyes, refusing to believe. It was a trick the demons were playing on her to get her to come out of her hiding place.

No way. She wasn’t going to fall for it.

Yet she could smell her mother’s lotion, so familiar, so comforting. The urge to leap from the dark corner and run to that scent was so strong she had to force herself to stay put.

They’ll hurt you if you move. Don’t do it.

“Let me get you out of here. I know the way.”

Don’t do this to me, Momma. Please.

She heard a scraping noise against the floor, then shuffling, growing ever nearer her location. Her heart thudded, her blood pounding in her ears. She covered her ears with her hands, willing the nightmare to go away.

“Gina, come to me.”

She wasn’t real. She wasn’t. Yet she could still smell her, could feel her mother’s presence.

“Sweetheart, let me take you out of here. Let me take us someplace safe.”

Her hands dropped to her sides and she stood, then, needing this. To hell with demons and nightmares. She wanted her mother. “Momma. Where are you?”

“I’m right here. Listen to my voice. Follow it.”

She did, winding her way through the darkness, ignoring everything but the sweet call of her mother. Soon she’d fall into her arms and everything would be all right.

The light. She saw the light, and a shadow in front of it. Long hair falling over her shoulders, her arms outstretched.

“Is that you, Momma?”

“Yes, it’s Momma. Come to me.”

She was almost running now, afraid to look back, afraid the demons would get to her before she reached her mother.

Almost there, her arms outstretched. The fog was lifting now, the light illuminating the shadows around her mother.

Gina skidded to a halt only inches away from the woman whose arms she’d almost thrown herself into.

That…thing was not her mother. Hideous, its face was twisted into a demon’s mask.

It was her mother’s voice, but not her mother’s face. It was ugly, with fangs dripping blood, clawlike fingers reaching for her.

“Come to me.”

Revulsion filled her. Gina shook her head, tears flowing from her eyes. Her stomach hurt. Her heart hurt.

“Momma, what did they do to you?”

“They made me better. Stronger. Let me hold you. I’ll make you just like us.” Her mother lunged for her, evil filling her eyes.

“No! Don’t touch me!”

“Gina.”

“Stop it! Get away from me. Don’t touch me!”

“Gina, wake up!”

She shot up in bed, a part of the dream still with her, her face wet as she blinked back tears. Derek was right there, his arms tight around her.

“Baby, it’s okay. It was just a dream.”

A dream. Her mother was gone. It was just a dream.

A horrible, awful nightmare.

“I know.” She brushed her hair away from her face and allowed Derek to pull her back down. The room was dark, though she knew it was daylight outside by now. Somewhere during the early dawn hours he must have pulled the window shades and closed the shutters, blanketing the room in cooling darkness.

The dream had been so vivid, she still shuddered as she recalled every detail. She hadn’t dreamed of her mother in years. Why now?

“Tell me about it.”

“I was in a dark place, hiding from demons, and my mother called out to me. At first I didn’t believe it was her, but then I went out to find her, and when I did, she had the face of a demon.” It hurt again just to think about it.

Derek pulled her tighter against him. “I’m sorry. I know how painful it is to think about them taking her.”

For the first time, she realized someone really did know how she felt. She turned around and switched on the bedside lamp, then faced him. “How have you coped all these years, knowing they took your brother?”

He swept her hair away from her face, then smoothed his hand over her shoulder and down her arm, continuing to caress her skin. “When I was little, it was mostly fear that they would come for me next. Then I felt safer when we moved. But when I spotted one as an adult, it all came rushing back.”

She lifted up on her elbow. “You spotted one? You mean in public?”

“Sort of. I was in the Navy and out on leave in Chicago with some of my buddies. It was about three in the morning and I’d just left a bar and was heading toward the parking lot by cutting through an alley. There it was. Same kind of ugly fucker I’d seen the night Nic was taken. At first I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, thought it was the alcohol. I hid behind a Dumpster, scared shitless and shaking, convinced I was having some kind of psychotic break. But when I watched it take a human and disappear down a manhole cover, I knew damn well I wasn’t drunk and seeing things.”

“Oh, my God. I can’t believe it.”

He nodded, squeezing her hand. “Then I saw Lou and a few hunters go in after it, and I followed them. They fought off a bunch of demons, and Lou found me. He didn’t seem surprised to see me there, almost as if he’d been expecting me.”

“Well, he did say he had psychic abilities. Maybe he had a premonition about you or knew about your background like he did ours.”

“Yeah, something like that. I just wanted to kill those bastards. Not too long after I met Lou I got out of the service and joined up with the Realm of Light and have been doing this ever since.”

Whenever he talked about demons his face went hard, the lines of his forehead more pronounced, the gray of his eyes darkening like an approaching storm. She smoothed the furrows on his brow with her fingertips. “It’s been a difficult life for you.” Would she become the same way? Would the drive for revenge against the creatures who’d stolen her mother become what she lived for?

“It’s a choice I made a long time ago, even before I saw the demon and found Lou. I knew I had to find the thing that took Nic, had to figure out what happened to him. Even if just to prove to myself it hadn’t been a dream, that Nic hadn’t died that day like my mother claimed.”

She stared at the smooth expanse of his chest. “I never searched.”

“What do you mean?”

“For my mother. I never looked for her.”

“You were a child, Gina. What were you supposed to do?”

“I don’t know. Nothing at first. But when I grew up, I never hired anyone to try and find out what happened to her. I had just pushed it all out of my memories. The authorities had no leads and had closed the file on her by then. I just gave up. It was so painful, thinking about that night, waking up alone and not knowing where she was.”

He reached for her chin and lifted her head, forcing her to meet his gaze. “You were a child. It was a trauma. What happened to you after that?”

“Since I had no other living relatives, I was sent to foster care. Hated my foster parents, hated the other kids. Of course they were all nice enough, not abusive or anything. God knows they tried to reach me, but I didn’t want them to. I’d already had a mother and didn’t want another one. All I wanted was to be left alone.”

She hadn’t wanted anyone to love her ever again, hadn’t wanted to risk the possibility of opening her heart to anyone, to take the chance that they, too, would be taken from her.

Her stomach clenched as the memories flooded back.

“Where was your dad?” he asked.

“He died when I was a baby. Brain tumor.”

Derek rubbed his thumb over her cheek. “So you decided you’d just tough it out on your own.”

“Yeah.”

“So did I. My mom had no other family, either. When Nic disappeared and my dad did whatever the hell he did and we moved, it was just the two of us. And of course, she was pretty much just a shell. I was taking care of her after that.”

“Aren’t we a pair?” she stated.

He smiled and palmed her cheek, his voice filled with soft tenderness. “Kindred spirits, in a twisted kind of way. We’ve been through hell and back, and we’re survivors. We don’t let anyone hurt us. Nothing could be as bad as what we’ve been through.”

Which was probably what drew her to him. That he had a tough exterior, yet underneath a tenderness that surprised her.

Something she was learning to adapt to.

“It’s strange,” she murmured, not realizing she’d said it out loud until he responded.

“What is?”

“Oh. Nothing.”

“Come on.”

“You, I guess,” she said with a light chuckle.

“Oh, thanks.”

“No. That’s not what I meant. Well, I guess I did. You’re unlike any man I’ve ever met.” And she was getting uncomfortably close to revealing emotions she wasn’t certain she was ready to uncover. Either to him or to herself.

“In what way?”

“I’m not very good at this, Derek. I told you I don’t do relationships with men. Hell, I don’t do relationships with people, period.”

“Try me. I won’t bite. Well, I might, but you’ll like it.”

She snorted. “It’s terrifying to feel close to you, to want to confide in you. I never had friends or family that I talked to about her, about what was going through my head after she was gone. I never talked to anyone about anything important.”

“I know exactly how you felt.”

“You do.”

“Yeah. Scared, alone, and isolated. Like no one loved you and no one ever would again. And if you allowed yourself to care about someone, they’d hurt you.”

Whoa. Derek couldn’t believe he’d just said that. Why not just purr for her and complete the utter pussy transformation?

And the way she looked at him right now, her big blue eyes growing wider…she’d probably toss him out of her bed any second.

He pushed away and sat up, jamming his legs into his pants. Something about Gina drove him to tell her things he’d never told anyone.

“What are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because you’re the one who’s afraid now.”

“I’m not afraid, Gina. It’s just time to go.”

“You want me to open up, but when you do, it scares you. What does that say, Derek?”

He paused and half turned, his gut tightening as he looked at her sprawled out across the bed.

She looked so goddamn beautiful she took his breath away. And vulnerable, with unshed tears glistening in her eyes.

Tears. Shit. Now what?

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She held out her hand, and like the dumbass he was, he took it and allowed her to pull him back down on the bed.

“I don’t know what’s wrong. Everything’s wrong. Nothing’s wrong.” She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I’m never weepy. It’s weak.”

He swiped at a tear rolling down her cheek. “Yeah, well, I never admit to women that I might have felt lost, alone, and scared. It’s weak.”

“It is not weak to admit that. If it is, then I was weak, too. I was so afraid the night my mom disappeared I couldn’t get out of bed to go to the bathroom. I wet the bed, Derek, because I was afraid of someone or something getting me if I left it.”

Her voice wavered as she said it, her lip trembling.

“Ah, God, Gina.” He jerked her against him and she let loose, her body shuddering as she released huge, wracking sobs she probably hadn’t allowed herself to cry in years. And he remembered that shaking fear, though he’d long ago come to grips with it, used it to his advantage when he fought the monsters.

She’d learn how to use it, too. But for now, he let her cry it out, held her while she sobbed against his shoulder until she had nothing left.

“It’s not weak to cry for your mother, baby. It’s not weak to mourn for her again, especially since we just dredged it all up, making it fresh.”

She sniffed. “I guess.”

“And it’s okay to care.” He didn’t know if he was trying to convince her, or himself. “It’s okay to care.”

“Caring about someone scares me. I want to care, Derek, I really do. But God, it scares me so much.”

He pulled her away, wiped her tears, then kissed her lips, licking away the salt as he covered her mouth.

God, he did care. Too damn much.

And that was more frightening than the demons.

He wanted to lose himself inside her again, spend the day forgetting where they were or what they had to do. But they’d already hidden away long enough.

“We need to get something to eat, and figure out the plan for tonight,” he said, after reluctantly releasing her mouth.

“I’m a mess. I’m going to take a shower and get rid of these swollen bags under my eyes.”

“You look beautiful. But take your time. I’ll see you outside later.”

“Thank you.”

She kissed him again, and his heart clenched. By the time he walked out of her bungalow, he realized he was well and truly screwed.

He’d fallen in love with Gina, and that had just made his job ten times more difficult.

 

The Master watched the transformation take place. So painful for these humans. Though this one was almost dead by the time they’d brought him in. It took all the enjoyment out of the process when they weren’t fully cognizant of what was happening to them. They had gone overboard during the capture and hadn’t listened to his instructions. Now the human’s mind was gone and he was useless to them. Those who had done so had been punished severely.

But this one would still prove useful in other, more entertaining ways.

It didn’t take long, though the final changes would take weeks to perfect. But they had transformed him enough to send him back out with the others.

“So soon, though?” the second asked.

“Yes. For…psychological reasons,” the Master said.

“Of course,” the second replied, his dark eyes gleaming. “You are so evil.”

The Master grinned. “I am the best at what I do. I know what frightens them.”

He turned away from the second to regard the beast in transformation. Chains secured its arms and legs to the wall, holding it as its muscles broadened and its body strengthened with the hormones and chemicals they’d implanted within it.

Such hideous creatures, yet such utter perfection.

“You may not survive what I have planned for you, but you will be mine in so many other ways.”

The creature lifted its lids, barely aware of what was happening, yet finally regaining consciousness. Not really the same consciousness it had before, but still, a mindless awareness, susceptible to command. As it opened its mouth, the Master saw fangs beginning to emerge where teeth used to be.

The Master swiped a sharp claw down its torso from left to right, cutting a thin swath of flesh open. Blood trickled from the wound and the Master’s eyes widened in excitement. He knew those behind him scented the human part of it that still remained. Yet they would not approach.

No, this one belonged to the Master and they knew better. Bringing his fingers to his lips, the Master licked the blood from them. So sweet, so innocent, so sad to have his life cut so short.

The Master laughed.

The wound bubbled, a frothy white substance pouring forth where blood appeared. The cut would scar, forever marking this one as special. The Master slid his claw inside the open wound, emblazoning his own version of a tattoo along its abdomen as the sizzling sound of burning flesh echoed throughout the chamber. The creature didn’t even flinch. When he removed his claw, the wound had already begun to heal, but the mark would remain.

Yes, he knew these humans, knew what terrors lurked within their minds.

And their horrors were only beginning.

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