Eyes to the Soul (38 page)

Stefan sat still and listened.
Come on,
he urged silently,
talk to me
.

There are only a few more. But that will help. Cutting them loose will be enough. They need to be enough. They must be…
the energy pleaded to himself.

Stefan heard the voice that reverberated in the ball. But it was the last sentence that chilled him though.

The energy said,
Anything to make this one pay.

And then the swiftly sinking ball of energy, quivered once, twice, then it exhaled to a deflated balloon. No movement. No heat.

No force.

The predator was gone.

*

Sam bolted upright.

“What’s happening?” she cried out, twisting in pain.

“Easy, Sam. Easy.”

“No. My back. God, my back. It’s burning up,” she cried.

Brandt shuffled backwards in bed to see Sam’s delicate back. He flicked a light on. There was no redness. No injury. Nothing. He reached out a hand.

“Don’t touch me, it’s killing me.” And she started weeping.

Her wording had Brandt stop, his arm midair. He moved so he could look at her face. Her eyes, dark and swirling with emotion, glared at him.

“Do something,” she cried out. “Call 9-1-1. There has to be something wrong.” Her tiny frame twisted and she bent over her knees, weeping.

This was not Sam.

Oh, it was Sam, but she was caught in another vision – maybe. They’d never been like this.

Taking a chance he said, “Who are you?”

“What kind of a stupid question is that? I’m Vanessa, of course.”

“Sorry.” He picked up the phone to show her. “I guess I don’t have any practice with emergencies.”

“You just have to give them my name and address,” she whimpered as the pain once again had her twisting and crying.

Brandt pretended to dial. “It’s ringing.” Keeping up the pretense, he pretended to speak to the operator on other end. “Yes, Vanessa needs help. Her last name? Uhm…”

“Coller,” she cried. “Vanessa Coller.”

Brandt quickly relayed the information to the dead phone, all the while watching as his beautiful wife became someone else.

“Address. Honey, I can’t remember your address.” He turned back to her, his throat clenched in fear. Sam had flipped over to her stomach, now quietly weeping. But her back…Christ, it looked like it was on fire.

“334,” she gasped. “Hobbard Drive.”

He had a pen and wrote it down.
Please let this be close by
. Hating to ask but needing to know as much information as he could he said, “Honey, they want to know what suburb. That’s a common name. A postal code, a suburb would help.”

She struggle to answer. He waited. Inside his heart was breaking.

*

Finally. He snuck
back inside.

She slept – or was unconscious. Good. He smiled and settled back inside her head. He hated that she was resting easily now. He wanted her to suffer like he had. And she would…wait…something was different.

Smoother, softer, calmer. No. He didn’t want her calm or happy or resting soundly. He wanted her tortured, tormented, grieving. What the hell had happened? He could feel the old anger rising up. The love-turned-hatred blinding his vision until he could feel the energy build inside. Enough to destroy her sleep.

He wanted to lash out, pouring his anger into the one spot in her head he had access to – the weakest part of her – her eyes. The one spot he could destroy.

He’d gotten good at that part. Only something had happened this last time. Something he didn’t understand. And he had to. He couldn’t afford another failure.

Nor could he afford to expend more energy trying to sort out the problem.

He gave a pained laugh, then choked it off.

He needed to save his energy – for her.

C
elina woke slowly.
How long had she been out? Scared to move, Celina lay quiet, a thin film of sweat coating her skin. The breeze from an open window drifted across the bed, chilling her. Was it over? Or was it only over for now, and that asshole would come back to hurt her time and time again?

She knew she didn’t dare risk moving in case the pain started up. After a few moments shivers rippled over her cooling body. She rolled over onto her back. “Thank God,” she whispered. “The pain is gone.”

“Are you okay?” he asked gently, his voice deep, dark, caring.

“Now, yes.” She reached up to stoke his cheek. “That’s the worst it’s ever been.”

“Sorry about that. Lie there and rest.”

He got up and she heard water running a few minutes later. A shower would be good, but that took effort – energy she didn’t have.

Moments later she almost cried out in relief as a warm washcloth stroked gently across her forehead, easing the last of the tension. “That feels wonderful,” she whispered.

“It’s the least I could do.” Guilt twined through his voice.

“It’s not your fault.” She hated that he felt he’d had a part in this.

“I didn’t stop him in time before he hurt you and I said I would.”

She smiled. He stroked the washcloth down over her breast, sending shivers across her sensitized skin and making her gasp. After a night of heavy lovemaking followed by the horrific pain she’d just survived, her body should have been too exhausted for anything else. Replete and complete. Until now.

Her body uncurled slowly and turned toward him.

His slow strokes slid down lower and lower, drawing lazy circles on her ribs, across her stomach, and down the V of her legs. She lifted her hips toward him, wishing, hoping, pleading.

She rolled closer and cried out when Stefan kissed her hipbone, trailing moist kisses across her flat belly.

Still trembling with the memory of the recent pain, her body willing fell under the spell of Stefan’s ministrations, letting the peacefulness of being here together with him draw her away from all that horror into the sweetness of his embrace.

Yet the fear persisted. Stefan reared up and she sensed him looking deep into her gaze. Tired and worn out, but needing what only he could give, she opened up and welcomed him into her heat.

Still warm from their recent lovemaking, he settled into place and loved her. Slowly, carefully, as if she was the most precious thing in his world, he proved to her with the drugging kisses, his clever fingers, with the complete possession of her body that she was his.

She wouldn’t have it any other way.

*

Brandt drove to
the address Sam had given. If Sam was correct, Vanessa hadn’t died yet and maybe… maybe there was something they could do for her. And maybe she could tell Brandt something about her attacker.

There were already two cop cars and the flashing lights signaled an ambulance off to the side. Damn it, he was too late.

He strode up to the first group of officers milling around and flashed his ID. They willingly shared the story. The young girl’s back has been badly burned but she was going to make it. They still had no idea what had caused the injury, but weren’t looking for an attacker in this case – at least not according to the victim.

Brandt nodded then saw the gurney coming out the house with a young girl, a woman who appeared to be her mother walking at her side. Brandt wondered at the wisdom of speaking with her.

He walked closer, showed his ID to the mother and asked her, “Do you know what happened?”

She shook her head, tears in her eyes. “Nothing we could see. She’s been fine for a long time. We thought it was all over with. Then this…”

“Thought what was all over with?”

“My daughter was in a bad accident. She was burnt on twenty percent of her body. She’d been through so many skin grafts and dealt with so much pain. Her back looked perfect. The scars were minimal. Earlier today she said her back was unnaturally warm. But this was a big evening for her, so she ignored it then out of the blue, she said it started burning up.” She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what to say. There’s no reason for this to have happened.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Vanessa whispered, her voice slow and heavy. The drugs must have kicked in. “For no reason my back got really hot really fast. There was no warning. It felt like I was in another accident.”

Brandt looked over at the paramedic and said, “And the physical damage?”

“Bad,” the paramedic said.

Brandt nodded and stepped back to give the men room. He would ask the couple of uniforms if there was any damage to her bedroom – with that kind of heat there must have been.

Her mother wrapped her arms around her chest as they both watched Vanessa being loaded into the back of the ambulance. As Vanessa’s mother went to join her she whispered, “She hated her recovery. It was horribly painful. I hope she doesn’t have to go through all that again.”

“She’s going to have to,” he said quietly, but the mother had gotten into the ambulance with her daughter and didn’t hear his words.

He opened his phone and made a call. When Dr. Maddy answered he said, “I need a favor. It’s related to the same case that involves Stefan’s Celina.”

“Tell me.”

*