We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
29
Agent
Damen Sylver was waiting for me in my living room when I got home.
Agent
Sylver was looking quite cozy, lounging on my couch. His feet were kicked up on the coffee table, an arm was slung over the back of the sofa, and he was chatting with Katie.
Katie grinned as I strolled in. “Hi, Sloan, you’ve got a visitor. And I have some reading to do.” She scrambled to her feet. “I’ll leave you two alone.”
“Thanks.” Hauling my dinner-in-a-bag, I offered, “Before you disappear into your cave, would you like a sandwich? They were buy-one-get-one-free at Como’s.”
“Sure. Thanks.” Katie accepted a wrapped Italian submarine sandwich, then left.
Agent
Sylver started to stand. “I hope you don’t mind—”
“No, it’s okay.” I glanced at the empty glass sitting on the table. “Do you want something to eat? Drink?”
“No, thank you.” He sat back down. But instead of leaning back and kicking up his feet, he sat forward, elbows on his knees. “I’m fine.”
I stuffed the bag in the refrigerator. I wasn’t in the mood to eat at the moment. Maybe after I got everything off my chest, that would change.
I sat as far from
Agent
Sylver as I could and narrowed my eyes at him. “I heard something interesting today.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re with the bureau.” There, it was out in the open.
The skin around Agent Sylver’s eyes tightened. “I am.”
“I asked you earlier today how you were able to gain access to the Academy. You intentionally avoided answering my question.”
“I did. I’m sorry.”
My stomach twisted.
Bastard!
“You lied. By omission.”
“Once you told me about you and Thomas, I couldn’t get myself to admit the truth.”
Damn it.
“You said my reputation wasn’t at stake.” My blood started pounding hot and hard through my veins.
“It isn’t. I didn’t lie to you about that.” Agent Sylver’s gaze searched mine. He knew how angry I was. I could tell. He visibly exhaled. “Sloan, you’re an intern with the PBAU, which is part of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, the NCAVC. I’m a field agent out of DC. We don’t work together, not directly.”
“But we could in the future, if a case comes up in your jurisdiction.”
“We can worry about that
if
it happens.” He stood and my nerves started zapping. It irritated me how reactive they were to Agent Sylver, and to JT, and to Gabe, for that matter.
Since when had I become so insanely horny?
I backed away, giving him a come-no-closer glare. “You should have told me the truth.”
“I should have told you the truth,” Agent Sylver echoed. “You’re right. That’s why I’m here. I came to tell you.”
I’d been expecting at least a little bit of a fight. His complete acquiescence did cool the fire from my anger a little. But my blood pressure was still probably in the stroke zone. Either he was a good man who’d made a mistake, and was willing to pay for it, or he was one heck of a manipulator. I had no way of knowing which.
He flipped his hands over, palms up. “I’m sorry, Sloan. I hope you’ll let me make it up to you.” I looked at those hands, a sign of capitulation; at his eyes, dark with concern; his face, a mask of guilt. How easy would it be to forget when he looked so genuinely sorry?
“I realize we’ve spent very little time together. We don’t know each other yet. But I’ve never felt such a strong connection with a woman before.”
Mirroring his posture, elbows on my knees, I dropped my face into my hands. I had such a hard time trusting any man—let alone one who was lying to me right off the bat.
“I need time to think.”
Why were men so deceitful? Manipulating?
“Okay.” Instead of trying to make me change my mind by hauling me into his arms and kissing me until my brain malfunctioned, Agent Sylver went to the door. Before he left, he turned to me. “I made a mistake, Sloan. I’m owning up to it. But I’ve never met anyone like you. I didn’t want to kill our chances before we’d really gotten going.”
Still sitting, I gnawed on my lower lip. “That’s all fine and good, but you know what they say about honesty and trust. Without them, a relationship doesn’t stand a chance.”
He nodded and left.
Katie dashed out of her room no more than five seconds later. “What happened?”
I put my head down, pressed my palms against my forehead. “He lied. About his job. He works for the FBI. Now I don’t know if I can trust him.”
“Oh, Sloan. I’m sorry, hon.” Katie hugged me, then went to the kitchen.
I lumbered to the bathroom, splashed some cold water on my face, and stared at my reflection in the mirror. Would this girl, the socially awkward brainiac reflected back at me, ever find a man who deserved my trust? Would I ever hear the words “I love you,” spoken by a man whom I could believe in? Would I find a man whom I could trust with all I had and all I was?
After returning to the living room, I slumped, boneless, on the couch, right where Agent Sylver had just been sitting. If I inhaled really deeply, I could still smell his cologne lingering on the throw pillow. That scent made my nerves tingle.
I hugged it to my chest and let my head flop forward, burying my face in it.
Katie tapped me on the shoulder. “Chocolate ice cream always makes me feel better.”
“I don’t know if anything will help right now... .” I accepted a spoon.
“It’s chocolate brownie chunk.” Katie plunked down beside me and flipped off the lid. She tipped the carton toward me. “You first.”
“Thanks.” I dug a big clump out and deposited it in my mouth. The flavors of chocolate and fudge and almonds made my taste buds come alive. “I think I’d probably handle this thing with Agent Sylver better if it wasn’t for JT. And for our case. We know who it is that we’re looking for. But we can’t find her. Get this, Damen strolled into the PBAU today to pick me up for lunch. JT was there. Things have been very tense between us now. Which is exactly why I kept telling JT getting emotionally involved was a bad idea in the first place... .” And on, and on I went, rambling in one long-winded, somewhat incoherent rant.
Throughout my soliloquy, Katie just kept nodding and gobbling ice cream. She offered no words of wisdom, only half-smiles of commiseration. Finally when I’d run out of words, she handed the carton to me. “Sloan, all I can do for you is what you’ve always done for me, tell you that you need to forget about everyone else—what they think, what they want, what you think they deserve—and do what is best for you.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know what’s best for me.”
Katie shrugged. “Then you wait. You do nothing. With JT. With Gabe. With Prince Damen. Until you do know.”
“If only it were so simple.”
“Sloan, it can be that simple, if you make it so.”
I woke up feeling like someone was watching me. I jerked upright, heart racing, and searched my dark room. It was silent, eerily so. No insects chirring. No birdsong. Just my pounding heart and the distant hum of Katie’s window fan.
I went to the bathroom, then returned to bed. My skin was itchy; a creepy, crawly sensation tingled at the base of my neck. I settled in, cradling my head in the softness of my pillow. A breeze gusted in the open window, chilling my skin.
Maybe I was getting sick?
I thought about getting a thermometer and checking my temperature, but I was tired, weary, exhausted. My heavy eyelids fell shut. Slowly, gradually, my body relaxed.
Then I felt it, a tiny tickle, like a fly walking up my arm. I shook it, but the tickle didn’t leave. I scratched. Within seconds, the tickle was back. I rolled over, wedging my arm between my body and the mattress. Images of glowing red eyes flashed behind my closed eyelids. Then the image of a slithering black snakelike creature. And tiny insects. Crawling on me.
All over me.
Arms. Legs. Chest. Face.
I jerked upright and rubbed my face. I broke out in a cold sweat. My spine tightened.
Something was wrong.
Terror gripped my throat, which made no sense. I was sick. Running a fever. Why was I so terrified?
Then I saw them—the glowing red orbs. They rose up, moved closer. They were floating in a deep inky shadow. As they drew nearer, I realized that shadow was corporeal.
I was frozen with horror.
“Who’s there?” I whispered. My stomach clenched. My heart thumped in my ears.
No answer.
Move, damn it. Move!
“Elmer, is that you?”
Still, no answer.
Something inside me snapped. My frozen muscles jerked. I flung myself out of bed, hit the floor, then scrambled for the door.
An ice-cold band clamped around my ankle. I was hauled into the air, dangling upside down. I swung my fists; I thrashed.
The band around my ankle opened and I fell hard. Stars sparkled in my vision, but I hauled ass to the door a second time.
Out. Now. Escape.
I made it as far as the door, grabbed the doorknob, but the band snapped around my ankle again. Before I realized it, I was sailing through the air. I hit my dresser this time, then crashed to the floor.
Must escape.
How?
I was dead if I didn’t get out. I knew it. A sick feeling swept through me. I gagged.
“My baby died because of you,” a creepy, cracked voice said, sounding like a caricature of an old lady. “My sweet baby. Now you’ll pay.”
The cold vise closed around my throat this time. It didn’t squeeze, but I struggled to breathe, anyway. Those frightening glowing red orbs moved closer. The stench of death hit the back of my throat. As the face of my attacker moved into the minuscule light leaking in my bedroom window, I gagged.
It was horrifying.
Huge, protruding teeth. Weird, glowing eyes. Its nose was very long, beaklike.
I was staring into the eyes of the
aswang.
“I ... I d-don’t know what you mean,” I stammered.
Air. I needed air. Not enough oxygen.
“I couldn’t feed my babies because of you.” The
aswang
tightened her grip on my throat.
Instinctively, I curled my fingers around her claw.
She was going to strangle me.
I was going to die.
She snarled. It was a sight I would never forget. Her wings flapped. A soft birdsong accompanied the
whoosh
of air as the wings stirred it. Instantly my thoughts coagulated. My body became heavy. I felt ... peaceful. Then it stopped and the terror returned.
“Imagine what it feels like to hold your beautiful baby and watch her die.”
I couldn’t imagine that. I couldn’t imagine anything. Not with her squeezing my neck.
Breathe, Sloan, breathe.
“I’m s-sorry,” I mumbled, afraid to say too much, to make her angrier. “P-please don’t kill me. Maybe I can help.”
“You are going to help me?” The creature’s smile made my skin crawl. It made my insides twist too. “You owe me that much. But you won’t.”
Her claw tightened.
No air.
Pain. Terror.
Desperation.
This was it.
A blast of adrenaline charged through me. I fought. I kicked. Some strange, garbled noise filled the room. That sound was coming from me.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t get free. I felt my energy slipping. I was losing. I felt the life draining from my body. My vision was dimming; sounds were muffled.
Stars.
Darkness.
And then a scream that made my sluggish blood turn to ice.
The pressure on my throat released. I gasped and choked and hacked, only vaguely aware of some kind of activity going on around me.
My vision was blurred; my eyes were full of tears. Still hacking and fighting to pull air into my oxygen-starved lungs, I looked up.
Katie was spraying something from a spray bottle at the
aswang.
“Leave her alone, you ugly bitch!”
The
aswang
fell to the floor, thrashing. Her skin was blistered and melted so badly from whatever Katie was spraying on her, it looked like she had been burned alive. There were feathers everywhere. Black feathers. She was writhing in agony in the middle of them, lying in a curled-up fetal position, clawing at the floor with one hand and covering her head with the other arm. An ear-splitting shriek cut through the room.