“
Meu Deus
,
I didn’t mean to do that, but you were coming after me,” she said breathlessly as she tossed the now-useless bow aside.
He dropped to his knees with a pained grunt. His vision began to wink in and out. His mind was detaching from his conscience, being pulled into a deep sleep. He couldn’t afford to sleep. He was weak and would be rendered helpless the moment sleep overtook him. Not to mention he was in the presence of a murdering psychopath and a trigger-happy reporter. There was also a
feeish
vampyre on the loose.
With each pull of darkness came flashes of Anna. She was hurt. He had done this to her when he swore he would never let harm come to her again. He slowly lifted his gaze.
Destiny. Anna. Destiny. Anna. Was he home or in the woods of Jim Thorpe? The heat suddenly left his body in a rush. His body swayed in long, wide circles.
He looked at the female before him, no longer certain who she was. Her face blurred, and his vision faded with the weight of his body. He called to her, “Anna.” And then everything fell away.
Chapter 1
The moment he fell into the snow, the silence became suffocating. Adrenaline and the residual shock of what just happened pumped through her blood like fire, and her entire body began to practically convulse she was shaking so badly. Pain seared her back and the cooling, sticky trickle of her blood seeped through her clothing. Carefully she tried to look over her shoulder, but the angle twisted her muscles so painfully she couldn’t see the damage.
The muscles of her stomach trembled fiercely. She was too traumatized to even cry. Her hands shook terribly, and she noticed she had broken several nails, had nicks across her skin, and her knuckles were caked with mud and blood. They were suddenly frightening weapons. Her eyes found the discarded bow and the dead man lying in her periphery, but she was too weak to look at him. She couldn’t face what she had done.
Destiny dropped onto her bottom, legs splaying in the snow, shoulders slumping, and stared numbly at the ground. She wasn’t sure how long she stared there. Eventually she reached into her pocket for her phone.
The pain in her back was throbbing, and she wasn’t sure if she was still bleeding. The thick wool of her coat seemed to be fusing itself to her flesh at some parts and the slightest movement tore the material away, causing warm blood to flow once more. She was so tired.
She held the power button down on her phone and prayed for the slightest bit of life. The moment the screen lit up she took a jagged breath and lost the battle against her tears. The settings of her smart phone loaded and beeped, warning her it was about to power down.
Quickly, Destiny dialed 911. Her fingers trembled so badly she accidentally dialed an eight instead of a nine and an extra one. Her mistake cost her. The time it took her to clear away those four numbers was all the time she had. The phone shut down before the call was placed.
Destiny squeezed the phone tight in her dirty hand and collapsed to her side. Her shoulder took the brunt of her weight, and the snow mixed with her warm tears against her cheek.
She wasn’t blinking enough. The vapor from her breath began to form smaller and smaller clouds. She didn’t quite feel the cold so much anymore. This close to the ground, the snow smelled of ice. She thought of being a little girl and her father taking her ice-skating for the first time.
There was a trace of earthy scent beneath the snow, and she had a vision of gardening with her grandmamma outside of her villa in Portugal. Her lips curved into a gentle smile that took little effort. The memory brought her peace.
She thought of the tall, brightly tiled buildings butted together along the sloping, stone streets of Reiros. The monuments and idols crowded by blackbirds and tourists just as peddlers pushed their goods at the corner lampposts. Warmth and comfort spread through her, detracting from her fear, as she imagined her joy on the plane while flying over the terracotta roofs, streets and valleys cut deep in the mountains, and the peaks of cathedrals and castles dating back to a different time. That was her home. Perhaps she should have stayed there.
She longed for even the less provincial areas where brightly colored clothing draped over strung lines connecting one balcony to the next. She missed the noncommercialized fruit stands just outside of a stranger’s vibrantly painted front door. She shut her eyes, and warmth filled her as she imagined she was back in Portugal.
She forced her mind to happier times and grinned as an image of Vito riding beside her in a gondola as the warm, sultry air laced with spicy ethnic scents tickled her face. Yes, that was where she would go.
Destiny awoke to the sound of movement. It was dark, and she wasn’t sure where she was, but she was freezing. She trembled and pulled her body into a ball, but the cold penetrated every layer of clothing and was freezing even her bones.
She whimpered as her belly swooped with nausea and she felt as though she were flying again but in a way that was out of control. Her muscles drew tight. The cold began to burn her flesh. Heat began to mix with bitter cold, and she couldn’t differentiate the two. Was there a fire? She was too weak to open her eyes. More movement, but she couldn’t find the strength to hide. She could barely hold a thought, and soon she was drifting back to unconsciousness.
Just as she was about to tip off the cliff of unconscious bliss, something sharp cut into her. Pain seared up her arm, and she felt as though she was a pool of water, a tub being unplugged. Images of herself as pure and clean disappearing down a drain to the ocean floor. Her muscles grew heavy, and her body became weightless. Pulling, pulling until she was nothing more. And then the warmth came.
She had slept. Her body was no longer cold, and all the snow was gone. Where was she?
Destiny turned and winced at the soreness of her body. Had she been in an accident? She heard a crackling sound to her right and slowly opened her eyes. She faced a dark wall. Flashes of amber danced over the jagged surface, and she couldn’t for the life of her identify where she was. Her back was tight as if she were in some sort of a brace. The sound of wind and the call from a large bird of prey had her shifting her weight to better view her surroundings.
Angling her neck, she gasped. She was at the top of a mountain. In a mountain! She shifted onto her elbows and forearms, and her jaw slackened. Black and green peaks were stacked across the line of the gray horizon like humps along a camel’s back.
How had she gotten here? She gasped as she recalled what happened in the wood just after she hung up with her brother. An uneasy feeling jolted her senses, and she quickly turned. The movement sent a starburst of sharp pain along her shoulders and back.
“Easy. You’re still in bad shape.”
Just beyond a small, low-burning fire was a man. His face remained in the shadows, but his tanned chest, heavily muscled and bare, moved slowly with each breath. He sat with his bare back against the cave wall, arms akimbo. Strong legs dressed in fatigues were spread and bent at the knees. Large booted feet pressed into the pebbled gravel. Wow. She may be hurt, but she wasn’t dead. Or maybe she was. How often did someone get attacked in the woods and have someone this good-looking come to their rescue? She tried to sit up.
Her hand went to her hair, and she flinched as her fingers pressed into the matted, nappy mix of leftover straight locks now mingled with her natural tight curls. She probably looked like a freaking nightmare. Her shirt hung awkwardly down her front and the collar gaped, exposing a good amount of cleavage. Maybe that would distract him from looking at her hair.
Her mouth tasted like the bottom of a bird cage. Her lips were chapped, and she was parched. She cleared her throat. “My name’s Destiny.” Her voice sounded hoarse.
“I know your name.” She tried not to let his clipped reply affect her, but maybe her hero wasn’t pleased with her after all.
She remembered the man in the woods. She had killed a man. She remembered the way he looked at her just before her finger pulled the trigger on the crossbow, but now she wondered if she perhaps overreacted and killed an innocent man.
She had been distraught. A rabid animal had attacked her. She wasn’t thinking clearly.
Mãe sagrada de deus. I killed a man!
She was going to vomit.
She began to hyperventilate, then a sudden sense of calm washed over her. She couldn’t understand where it came from, but apparently, after thirty-two years of dealing with an old-school Portuguese mother capable of reminding Destiny of every flaw, she was more than able to push away the calm to make room for her self-deprecating guilt.
“Relax,” the man in the shadows said irritably, but her guilt covered her like a blanket, suffocating her.
“I need to call the cops. Do you have a phone?” She turned back to her stomach and faced the ground. She heard him move, but couldn’t bear to face another human being at the moment. She was a murderer.
“Here.” The scrape of his boots was followed by a leather canteen dangling in her periphery. She turned, but couldn’t tilt her head enough to look into his eyes, which was probably for the best. With shaky hands she took the canteen and awkwardly tried to unscrew the cap. She was so weak. The water was warm, but good enough to wash away the dust in her mouth. It wasn’t bottled. The taste was clean but different than what she was used to, yet she didn’t care.
“Not too much. You haven’t eaten in days.”
Days? Her first thought was of Vito looking for her. Her second was of the police finding the dead body of the man she shot. She carefully screwed the cap back on and contemplated undoing it again to drink some more. “How long have I been out?”
“This is the third morning.” He moved back to the shadows and lowered himself to the floor.
Destiny slowly sat up and tried to right her clothing. “I need to get to a phone. My brother will be looking for me, and I have to contact the police.” She asked again, “Do you have a phone?”
“I have no phone, and you won’t be contacting the police.”
“You don’t understand. I’ve to turn myself in—”
“Quiet.”
She shut up. The silence stretched between them as he stared daggers at her from the shadows. Destiny fiddled with the dirty hem of her ruined blouse. “Thank you for rescuing me. Did you…did you try to save the man?”
“No.”
She hung her head. Did the man have a family? A wife? Children? He had said the name Anna just before he died. The police would figure out it wasn’t the animal in the woods that killed him.
She looked around for her crossbow. When she didn’t find it, she figured it was likely being catalogued as evidence. Her fingerprints would be all over it. Then she had a dreadful thought. Did hunters have to register crossbows like they registered guns? It was her brother’s weapon. “I need to get to a phone.” She began to stand.
“Sit down.”
The lash of his voice caused her to stay put. His words were slightly clipped and accented. She recognized that Pennsylvania dialect and realized he was likely a local. He didn’t understand. Her brother could be in jail right now. She rubbed her filthy hands over her face and massaged her temples. “You don’t understand—”
“I understand fine. It is you who hasn’t a clue.”
His words were too personal. He was annoyed with her, but why? “Do I know you?”
“In a matter of speaking. What were you doing in the woods?”
Her brow knit, and her lips curved downward. “I…I was waiting for something. I work for the local news channel and…there have been women going missing and turning up—”
“And you thought little old you and your pitiful weapon were enough to stop the thing in the woods? Are you stupid?”
She bristled. “No…I…well, yes! I don’t know. It may not have been the wisest choice, but I certainly am not a stupid woman. I graduated fifth in my class.”
His laugh was cruel. “Could have fooled me. You English and your foolishness. You watch too much television.”
She scowled at him. She may be a murderer deserving of punishment, but she wasn’t deserving of his nasty comments regarding her character. Shooting the man in the woods was an accident. She had been terrified, and he had come at her. But this man, who was he to talk to her this way?
In a defensive tone she said, “First of all I’m not English. I’m Portuguese. Second of all, I barely watch TV. Last year alone I read over three hundred books.”
“Pardon me for not recognizing the scholar in you. I must have been confused by your display of idiocy.”
She scoffed. Unable to form a rebuttal, she shifted and reached for her coat which had been set out as a pillow for her head. She shook out the heavy, wrinkled wool and froze. It was destroyed. Dark brown patches of mud soiled the camel fabric and turned into chips of clinging, dry clay. The satin lining was shredded, the belt torn, and blood, it was covered in deep-red smears of blood. Her hands began to tremble again.
“The coat is ruined.”
She could barely find her voice. “Is…is this my blood.”
“It is
ferleicht
some of mine as well.”
Her head shot to his direction. “
Yours?
”