Hearts of the Hunted (3 page)

"Sorry, I had to be sure
you weren't going to call someone as soon as I was out of sight. I
promise it won't happen again."

"Hell no, it won't,
because you're
leaving
." She stood, forcing me back, and I glared.

"I thought you wanted to
help me stop this guy."

That stopped her cold. Her
face went pale, and then pink stained her cheeks before spilling
out across the rest of her skin. I wondered if her breasts were
flushed, too, but I kept my eyes up, especially when I noticed the
color slowly leeching out of her eyes. She blinked once, hard, and
the color came back into them. She sat back down, and I relaxed.
"You are a world class bitch," she said, sounding more tired than
angry.

"You're, um, sitting on my
clothes."

She eyed me again, this
time taking in the bare shoulders. Something other than her power
flickered in her eyes, and I did not like the look of it. "You
could always wear something of mine."

I flinched. She was almost
as tall as me, sure, but I had no breasts worth mentioning and my
hips were like a boy's; her clothes would fall right off of me.
"Please, can I have my clothes back?" I asked, hoping that a little
humility would go a long way.

Her smile clearly told me
that my hope was misplaced. "Oh, I don't think so. I guess you
could just stay invisible, if you want to." I could probably have
wrestled her off the couch. It was even appealing, in a way. But I
had a feeling that if I took my clothes by force, I would make her
very angry, and getting in a wrestling match with a pissed off girl
is best done when you're both equally dressed and not magically
outgunned.

I let the rest of my skin
shift into invisibility again and stalked off, just to watch that
seasick expression cross her face when she tried to watch
me.

Her closet was full of
stylish clothes that would look like empty sacks on my
frame—blouses cut to show off full, creamy breasts; slacks designed
to hug hips I didn't have; and dresses that cinched at the waist to
show off an hourglass figure and long legs. I finally found
something in the back that didn't look like it would be
awful.

The neckline was scooped
and made of a drapey material that would help conceal the fact that
I had nothing to show off. The waist was cinched, which was fine
since I don't have much of a waist, and the hips got a little help
from the slightly puffed underskirt. I let myself fade back into
visibility as I tugged it on, and then checked myself out. I didn't
quite look like a boy in a dress, although I sort of felt like one.
I sighed and tugged on the hemline as if I could magically make it
grow to beneath my knees instead of skimming above them.

"Good enough," I muttered,
making sure I had a scowl fixed on my face before I emerged from
the bedroom. I stalked past the couch toward her tiny kitchen and
found a piece of bread to toast, not sure what else there was to
eat and not really wanting to try to cook anything. Hannah came up
behind me and pulled down a box of cereal, holding it up until I
nodded. She poured me a bowl and handed it to me just as the toast
popped.

"You look cute," she said.
I glanced up and glared, my eyes settling over her cleavage for
only a minute on the way by. "Your hair could use some work,
though. Do you ever wear makeup?"

"I spend most of my free
time helping potential murder victims get from here to Canada via
filthy warehouses and camping in the woods, so, no, I've never
really had time for makeup," I said. I should have probably turned
down the sarcasm, but I was sick to death of people telling me how
nice I would look if I just put on some makeup and a dress. And
here I was in the dress, already.

"I thought you were just
some sort of organizer," she said quietly. She looked startled.
"You were in that nice apartment."

"I was visiting with the
woman who owns most of the habitable safehouses we use on my
route," I said, finishing off the cereal. "And waiting for news of
a lynch mob."

"And you got me instead,"
she said. Her voice was sad and lost—quieter than
normal.

I coughed and stood,
shoving another bite of toast into my mouth. "Do you need to do
anything else to get ready? We should leave soon."

"Yeah, come here." She
grabbed my arm and pulled me back into her bedroom and into the
bathroom. "You may not usually have time for makeup, but I do, and
I want to play a little." She paused, then, and looked into my
eyes. Hers were green and sparkling like gems. "May I?"

I was ready to fight her
right up until the second she asked so sweetly. She didn't have to
use her magic on me; I was helpless and hopeless in her spell. It
made me angry in a way, made me want to resist, but the greater
part of me just wanted to feel her hands on my skin. I nodded, and
her smile warmed me from the inside.

"Okay, just stand
still..." The effect of the makeup was subtle but impressive. In
just a few moments she darkened my lashes and applied a neutral
color to my lids, making me appear a little more awake and a little
prettier without even looking like I was wearing anything. She
applied a light pink gloss that seemed to be the same color as my
lips, only
more
so, and she smiled at the result. "Beautiful. Now your
hair."

Before I could even think
to resist, she'd squirted something into her hands and plopped it
down on my head. But when she was finished combing it through my
short hair, I had gone from looking boyish and moppy to feminine
and sexily tousled. "Impressive," I said. "I would have said it
would take a miracle to make me look like a real girl."

I looked from the mirror
directly into her face and realized for the first time how close
she was standing. Now that my concern over what she might do to my
face was past, I was left with the awareness of her body nearly
touching mine. I fought the urge to close that last small distance.
She reached up and wiped a bit of her gel off of my face, and I
captured her hand, pressing it against my skin. Her warmth and
softness ignited something that had been sitting inside me, waiting
for a spark, and I started to lean toward her.

An alarm went off on her
watch, making both of us jump. She stepped back and coughed as she
turned it off. "We need to get to that meeting," she
said.

I nodded, mutely, but
inside my mind was whirling. This girl was going to get me into
some serious trouble before all this was over.

Chapter 3

Jack Freeholm was already sitting at a table in the small
café when we arrived. He shifted uncomfortably in his uniform when
he saw both of us, but I only nodded and stepped to the counter. He
would be able to observe my companion and get a grip in the time it
took to get a couple of drinks; cops hate surprises.

Sure enough, his
professional mask had resumed by the time we sat, though he chewed
his lip and shot glances at Hannah when she wasn't looking. "What
do you want, Camille?" he asked quietly.

"You sent us a little
present." I gestured to Hannah, who was sipping at her coffee.
She'd pleasantly surprised me by eschewing cream, though she did
dump a packet of raw sugar in. "Sounds like she had some trouble
that you thought we could help her with."

"Well, didn't
she?"

Hannah jumped in before I
could answer. "He took control of my mind. He made me go with him,
and then he raped me while he forced me to hold still and let him."
Her gaze was unflinching, and I wanted to reach across and hold her
hand. "I'm... I'm
different
now because of him," she said, and his eyes
flicked down and back up again as he took it in. "We want to keep
him from hurting anyone else."

"You know she was raped,"
I told him. "And you know that the city will go up in a hysterical
firestorm if they find out that one of us is attacking people."
Even in our quiet corner it would be foolish to use words like
Transformed aloud, but it still sickened me to call him one of us.
"We have to stop it. Quietly. Do you have
anything
?"

"You're sure he is? One of
you?"

"Show him your eyes."
Hannah glanced at me, and then back at Jack, and her eyes faded
until they were clear. She stared at him for a moment, and then
blinked the effect away.

Jack sighed and slumped
over his coffee, leaning in to us. "You were attacked a week ago
today," he said quietly. "Exactly one week before that, another
woman apparently called her boyfriend and told him that she thought
she’d been raped, but she wasn't sure. He was pissed and broke it
off with her," Hannah made a sound of disgust and he raised his
eyebrows at her. "So anyway, she killed herself. Seemed pretty cut
and dried, no sign of foul play, and there wasn't much
investigation.

"But her mom brought a
diary in and I caught a look at it. In the last few pages she
talked about strange things happening, like thinking she could hear
what people think. She killed herself because she was
Infected."

Though he said it quietly,
we all glanced around to be sure that no one else heard. I sat back
in my seat, suddenly aware of how I'd been crouched over the table
in secret conference with a cop. He glanced toward my cleavage,
noticed the lack, and shifted his eyes to Hannah's breasts. I
banged my elbows on the table and startled him back to me. "Where
was she attacked?"

"Same area as your friend
here. Here's her address, but the place has already been cleared
out." He pulled a notebook from his breast pocket and scribbled a
downtown apartment address from memory, and then he stood. "Look,
there's really nothing else I can do for you. I hope you find the
bastard before he hurts anyone else, because if you don't, the city
is going to go crazy real soon." He ripped the page free and
dropped it on the table.

"Not much of a blessing,"
Hannah muttered as he left. She took a long swallow of coffee and
toyed with the piece of paper.

"Are you okay?"

She glanced up, surprised.
"I just—I never even thought about killing myself. I wanted to kill
the guy who hurt me, and then I was just angry with everyone when I
found out what had happened. I'm still angry with everyone. But to
hate what you are so much that you feel like you have to
die..."

"We're lucky she did," I
said, and earned a hot glare from Hannah. I glared right back. "She
hated us so much that she thought she deserved to die. It wouldn't
take much of a shift to convince someone like her that
all
of us need to die,
and that she should be the one to help accomplish it." I glanced
around again and found my face burning with embarrassed
frustration. I felt so conspicuous in the little dress that it was
hard to imagine anyone
not
paying us attention, but no one was.

I snatched the paper from
her to make myself feel better. The address was not too far from
Hannah's apartment. "Where were you attacked?" I asked.

"Downtown."

"Fine. Let's go to her
place and then walk from there to the area where he got you. Maybe
we'll see something." I tossed back the rest of my coffee and
stood, remembering at the last moment that I was wearing heels and
couldn't rock back like I sometimes do when I'm thinking. Hannah
saw me wobble and smiled sweetly before throwing out her own coffee
cup and leading the way out of the café. I rolled my eyes and
followed after.

The walk was short, and
the heels weren't so high that my feet hated me yet. I drifted
close to Hannah and allowed my arm to brush against hers. She
glanced over at me, and the sadness in her eyes made my heart
stutter. "I'm sorry," I said, not sure what I was sorry for. But
she took my hand, and the weave of her fingers in between mine made
it well worth the small cost to my pride.

"Here's the address," she
said, gesturing to an apartment building. "Should we go
in?"

"No, I don't think we'll
really be able to find anything. She died there, but he wasn't ever
in there as far as we know, and Jack said that her parents took
everything. Show me where you—where he—"

"This way," she said,
sparing me the need to say it. I squeezed her hand, and she
squeezed back, acknowledging.

Apartments soon gave way
to businesses selling everything from books to boutique clothing,
and Hannah slowed at some of these, her eyes moving over girly
blouses and flowing skirts. "Seriously, you're thinking of shopping
right now?" I asked her.

I lost her hand for my
attitude, but when she crossed her arms and stopped to look at me,
it was appraisal and not anger I saw. "I'm looking for
you
," she
said.

I shook my head. "There's
a reason I don't dress like this," I said, gesturing to the cute
dress I was wearing. "I need to be able to run, to react, to hide.
I can't do that dressed like a princess."

Her eyes took me in again,
and they were wistful and sad. "You're gorgeous all dressed up like
that," she said and turned to start walking again. "It would just
be nice to see you looking lovely and happy rather than ready for a
fight every minute."