Counterpart (Succubi & Incubi Assn.) (9 page)

It was like I was never here.

The next day was the first weekend of summer and I spent the morning
doing nothing but sleep. Melinda had stayed last night, which was cool... then
she announced this morning that she was moving into Jamie's room. This is never
a good thing. Something
always
happens when we’re together.

Speaking of my roommate, I received a message from Jamie, along with
a picture. She was grinning towards the camera holding her hand up which had '
I'll
drink loads of alcohol for you
' written along her palm. Lucky bitch. I
would trade places with her in a heartbeat.

Melinda and I walked out of Starbucks, iced coffees in our hands,
and we were currently heading back to the club we attended last night. I had
dropped my lip gloss in the parking lot sometime during the exchanging of
tongue. Due to the fact it was an expensive lip gloss and also my favorite, I
planned to get it back.

The parking lot was deserted as expected, seeing how the place was
closed. I found the small pink tube where I had guessed it was, right where my
car was parked. The sound of a group of murmurs grabbed our attention as we
headed back to the sidewalk, and I was startled by the commotion that we had
completely missed when we arrived.

People stood tightly together, huddled as they murmured while
pointing down the alley that was on other side of the club.

“I wonder what that's all about,” Melinda murmured.

Curiosity got the best of us and we walked towards the crowd. There
had to be about twenty or so people and it was hard to even see past the first
five.

“Why are they standing there?” I asked, knowing full well that
Melinda wouldn't know.

“Let's go check it out,” Melinda said, leading us inside the group.
It was hard to get past a single person, but eventually we managed to fit in.
We pushed past as much people as we could, all while an off feeling run through
me that I couldn't point a finger on, yet it didn’t stop my feet from taking those
remaining steps in the crowd. I felt like I wanted to know what it was that had
caused so much talk, and I felt like I
needed
to see. Murmurs continued
around me as we walked through, eager to get to the front of the group.

“I wonder how he died,” one person said.

“I heard it was a heart attack,” another replied.

“Poor boy, he was so young too.”

All their comments added anxiety inside me and I didn't know why,
but it only led me to want to see it even more. Finally, we made it to the
front of the group when a yellow tape stopped me from going any further. I
looked up and instantly, I froze.

A gurney sat in the middle of a group of cops and medical staff as
they hurried around the body that was on top. But that wasn’t all that grabbed
my attention. The short black hair, brown skin, masculine arms, it hit me
straight away who this guy was. He was the one from last night.

“Oh shit,” Melinda said, spotting what I was just seeing.

What. The. Fuck.

****

“I thought he was breathing when we left him,” Melinda questioned as
soon as we walked into my dorm. After seeing the crowd, hearing them talk,
watching the male from last night get pulled onto an ambulance, I wanted to get
away from it as fast as possible.

“He was. That's why I'm so confused.” I raked my fingers through my
hair, falling onto the couch. I felt like banging my head on a nearby wall.
This wasn't supposed to happen. I couldn't have killed that man. It couldn’t
have been me.

But I was the last person he saw.

Melinda took a seat opposite me. “Maya, what are we going to do?”

I snapped my head in her direction. “What are
we
going to do?
Melinda, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s
me
who should be worried.
I’m fucked if they find out I was with him.” And it wasn’t the police that I
was scared of.

“Let's call Daniel. He usually knows how to get out of these
situations.” She walked off to get her phone and I sighed in frustration. She
was only calling Daniel because—like me—she had hit a dead end on how to get
out of this.

One of the rules of being a succubus/incubus was to avoid killing a
human, and if we did, our DNA had to be completely off the victim.

I didn't see how that was going to work when you're fucking the
person.

“Daniel?” Melinda came back in with her cell phone in her palm. “We
have a problem.”

“Two problems in 24 hours, you two might need to stay indoors for a
while,” he replied amusingly.

“I killed someone,” I said bluntly. I know it would have killed the
amusement that Daniel had inside him, but I didn't see any humor in this matter
what-so-ever.

Silence followed. He obviously wasn't expecting me to say that. I
heard him exhale and I could just imagine what he was doing right now. Long
fingers would be rubbing the skin on the bridge of his nose, while his mind
tried to process what I had just said.

“You what?” he asked calmly. I could tell in the tone of his voice
that he knew and understood what I said, but he was giving me that chance to
change my statement.

I felt the weight of his words on top of me and I rubbed the back of
my neck. “I
may
have killed someone,” I said, my voice going up an
octave at my own angst.

“How could you be so
fucking
careless, Maya?” I flinched at
the hardness of his tone. I knew
Nice Daniel
was gone and replaced by
the angrier version. “Do you know what will happen if they find your DNA on
him? You better hope that they just state the death as a heart attack or it
won't be just me you receive this from.”

He said less than I expected, and I took this as my chance to state
my side before things got worse. “I didn't know it would kill him. I—he was
breathing when I left!”

“He was definitely alive when I saw him,” Melinda put in, “is there
a possibility that he could have had died from something else? I've never known
someone to die during the recharging of the body. If anything, they should have
died through orgasm.”

She was right with that. If I had killed him, I would’ve known. But
there were no other options.

Except for one.

“What about the person from last night?”

Melinda arched a brow. “The one you couldn't spot in the arena?”

I nodded.

“It doesn't make sense, Maya. What are the chances of someone
killing someone else, who just happened to be the guy you fed off?”

She had yet another point.

This only made my frustration worse. “I don't know. But I know for a
fact that I didn't kill that guy. One, he was on the other side of the
building, and two,
he was alive when I left him
.” I felt like no one
understood that one piece of information.

Melinda and I sat quietly, staring at each other. I was trying to
get her to believe me, and she was trying to think up something to say.

“My only solution would be a rogue,” Daniel said in a much calmer
tone but with a hint of anger. “This would be the second time in one night that
they have preyed. This person seems to have a lot of power on them.”

“Then how come I haven't sensed them?”

“They must be releasing their demon much more than usual. It would
easily disguise their scent and make them look like a normal human being,” he
answered.

“This is stupid,” I mumbled into my palm as I rested my chin on it.
My demon didn't like the feeling I was putting off and warned me to stop it.

“Just keep under wraps for a week or two, Maya. You can survive up
to three weeks before things will start to go bad. If things don't die down—no
pun intended—I will come over there and help out.”

I arched a brow at the phone and contemplated over his words. It
almost frightened me that Daniel went all mad, and I mumbled, “Thanks, Dan.”

“It's okay.” The anger had diminished, and now he sounded like the
old Daniel. “We'll sort this out, Maya. Just... don't get into anymore
trouble.”

It's not like I ask for it.

I couldn't have asked for better friends though. I knew Melinda and
Daniel would both stick by me, and if the SIA got involved they would continue
taking my side.

I just hoped it didn't come to the SIA finding out.

A few days had passed since we last spoke to Daniel. I didn't hear
anything about the guy in the alley and I was glad. I was expecting the
government or the CIA to come knocking on my door.

It was safe to say, I practically made Melinda crazy.

“Maya, you're being a paranoid cow. Will you stop looking out the
window?” Melinda moaned from the couch.

I narrowed my eyes outside. I know they just found the body
yesterday, but my angst had grown so much that I was acting like a guard dog.

“You never know what can happen, Melinda. They could be watching me
right now.” A lady and her dog walked past and my eyes narrowed more. “It could
be those two.”

I felt Melinda's presence as she joined me by the window. Her head
hovered over my shoulder and she looked down on the poodle—which seemed to be
looking for somewhere to shit. “Oh, yeah, they sent an old lady with a dog,”
she said dully, heading back to the couch. “Beware of the poodle. They can be
vicious with their yelping and shitting.”

Okay, so maybe I was overreacting a bit, but I still wasn’t moving
from the window.

“You never know, Mel,” I said, watching the lady and her poodle
disappear around the corner. “The CIA or the FBI—or whatever other fucking cop
things there are out there—could have hidden cameras on me, waiting for me to
make my move, expecting me to attack so they can take me away.” It seemed
pretty logical in my head.

She didn't speak for a few seconds but I could feel her eyes on me.
And without even turning around, I knew what look I was getting and what she
was about to say.

“The mental ward will take you away before the CIA does, and that,
I'm positive about.”

I soon realized how crazy I had gotten, and obviously I needed to
snap out of it. Plus, if I was in trouble, I was sure they would've come by
now.

Melinda had made plans with Stuart today and even asked if I wanted
to join, but I declined. I had mentally made plans for myself, so I was heading
to the gym to see Tristan.

I hadn't heard from him since that drunken night, and I desperately
wanted to know what the verdict was. If he couldn't fight, I would feel
guiltier about that than the guy in the alley.

And frankly, I needed a distraction.

It was
12PM.
Lunchtime. I knew Tristan wouldn’t be at his house. He never was on a Monday,
or a Tuesday, or any other part of the weekday as it is. The gym was his second
home. The one place he seemed to always be if he wasn't at campus.

I held two fruit smoothies in my hands, knowing he could use one. I
walked through the automated doors and smiled at the receptionist.

“Hey Maya,” she said.

“Hey Sophia, is Tristan in class?” I placed one of the smoothies on
the counter and pushed my glasses up to my head, getting a better view of the
gorgeous blonde.

Sophia was always someone who knew how to brighten your day up. We
attended the same college, but never had classes together. She wanted to be
something in the physical department, while I didn't really care where I ended
up. Her platinum blonde hair was pulled up into its usual high ponytail but her
brown eyes—which usually crinkled on the sides at the sight of someone walking
through—showed no sign of happiness.

Something was wrong.

“He's here... but so is Tori.”

My forehead just wanted to drop on the counter. Talk about a major
mood killer. “Perfect,” I mumbled, mentally kicking myself for wanting to come
in.

“I know, right?” She smiled sadly, understanding where I was coming
from. “And the whole time, she's been complaining about the heat, and how
stuffy it is inside. I don't even know why she's here if she's going to
complain.”

Another reason why I liked Sophia, she understood what most people
couldn't see.

Tori was a bitch.

“Thanks for the warning. This won't be a long visit.” I may have
been eager to see Tristan before, but now, I was contemplating if I wanted to
take my time to get there or not.

I grabbed the smoothie off the counter and lazily headed inside the
gym. Tristan trained younger children in Mixed Martial Arts. Some had joined
the club to learn from the best, while others were here because their parents
wanted them to be able to defend themselves. Either way, Tristan was one of the
best trainers there was. If no one could see that, then they were blind.

When I reached the training room—which was on the opposite side of
the building from the reception— my eyes instantly spotted Tristan walking
along the outside of a group of about twenty kids.