Authors: Shannon McKenna
He just stared at her. “How do you figure? You’ll have to buzz to get in. You think they won’t notice?”
She jerked her chin toward the door. “The door is still open,”
she said. “I stuck a piece of paper in the lock just now.”
Aaro started to turn his head to look. She cupped his hot face, jerking him sharply back around. His beard stubble scraped against her palm. “Do not draw their attention to it, idiot! Or you’ll wreck it.”
His eyes went narrow. “You’re weirding me out, Nina.”
“You should be used to it by now,” she said. “This not-being-seen thing, it’s a sort of talent I have. Or you could call it a dysfunction, depending on your point of view, and what you want to accomplish. But if I don’t want to be noticed, they won’t notice me.”
He gazed at her for so long, so intently, she started to fidget.
“You can make yourself invisible?” he said.
His incredulous tone stung her. “Don’t be absurd. Of course not. I just slide by, without making an impression. It’s handy, sometimes. And sometimes it’s a big pain in the ass. Like, when I’m waiting in line at the coffee shop. On a bad day, I practically have to set off flares to get a goddamn latte and a scone. That’s the downside. Remember what happened with the taxis? Classic.
It’s not so great for getting asked out on a date, either. But . . .
well, whatever.”
“I see,” he said. “Came in handy, with the dickhead step -
father, too, huh? So this is why he messed with you, but not too much? Because you learned how to be invisible? Even to him?”
She flinched, uncomfortable. “I never claimed to be invisible,” she said crabbily. “I said unnoticeable. People see me, for God’s sake. They just don’t notice me. Or remember me.”
“Of course not, with that bag over your head,” he said.
She flapped her hand at him. “Never mind, OK?” she said tightly. “Forget I said anything. If you don’t want my help—”
“I never said that.” His big hands fastened firmly over her elbows. They sent sweet shudders of warm awareness shooting up into her chest, speeding her heart. “I just don’t want to let you out of my sight.”
She had to force herself to remember. Nothing personal. He’d said so. Repeatedly. He owed Bruno that favor, and he was paying up.
So don’t get gooey.
“There’s hardly anyone inside,” she told him. “Patients, night staff. Nobody who’s gunning for me in there. I’ll be fine.”
Aaro was shaking his head. “Won’t work. They saw me with you.”
“Wrong,” she said. “They saw you, Aaro. Believe me, they will remember only you. You are super-memorable. You used up all their RAM. Just let me try, OK? The worst that can happen is that they stop me, scold me, and send me out with a flea in my ear. Big deal.”
“I don’t like it,” he repeated.
It came to her as she gazed at his face. A flash, as if a curtain had been twitched aside. She saw inside him. Or rather,
felt
inside him.
And an ache of longing twisted her throat, like a screw turning to unbearable tightness. How lost he felt, how sad. The shadows, the chill. How violently he hated needing or asking for help from anyone.
It made her eyes fog up. She clenched her body, made her voice businesslike. “So? Go to the entrance. Wait for me to open the door.”
“If you’re not there in five, I’m coming back for you,” he warned.
“You have to be patient. I have to wait for my moment.”
He scowled. “Either you can do this, or you can’t.”
“No,” she said stubbornly. “You have to wait for the right moment. You have to be patient. Do you understand the concept?
At all?”
“No,” he said grimly. “I am not patient.”
“Tough. Give me more than five. You want to see your aunt?”
He let out a sound, half groan, half growl. “Ten. No more.”
She made a shooing gesture. “It’s impossible to disappear with you throwing off that frequency. You’re, like, Times Square.
Go, go.”
Aaro turned, and disappeared into the shadows.
Nina let out a breath that felt like it had been sealed in her lungs since the moment she’d first seen him. The darkness pressed on her now that Aaro was gone.
Get it together, girl.
This was her chance to be of use to this guy, and in some small way make up for his much bigger favor of saving her life. She did not want to screw it up.
She maneuvered herself into the shadows of the bushes, into a position that allowed her to observe the receptionist without being seen. She waited, settling her mind and nerves.
Not here.
Not here. Just air.
The receptionist got up, leaned on the doorframe, chatting with whoever was inside.
Not here. Not important. Just air. No big
deal.
She sauntered to the door, shoved, caught the square of folded paper as it opened. She drifted along while the woman talked, passed the desk, cleared it, and was out of the receptionist’s current line of sight.
Elevator, or stairs? She opted for the elevator, pushed the call button. Waited.
Nobody here. Nothing but air. No big deal.
The elevator opened. There was a janitor inside, with a garbage cart that blocked half the elevator cabin. A black man in his fifties. He had the blank, indifferent look of a person at the end of a long shift. Sore feet, sore back, no energy to be curious.
Nina stepped in, and the guy put his hand over the numbered buttons, in automatic politeness.
“Where to?” he asked dully.
“Second floor, please,” she murmured. He pushed the button.
They stared side by side into nothing as the cabin hummed up. The door opened. She nodded as she exited, but his eyes were closed.
She walked down the corridor,
nobody here, no big deal,
following the route Aaro had indicated. Around the corner. There were personnel in the medical station, but they didn’t see her walk by.
At one point, a nurse came out of a room, and headed purpose-fully down the hall, walking past Nina without turning her head.
She’d gotten here at the end of a shift. That was lucky. Everyone tired, thinking about dinner and some mindless TV. She paused outside the room. It felt rude to shove open a door without knocking, but drawing attention to herself by making a sound was crazy. She turned the knob, and pushed.
It was a normal-looking bedroom, with a dim, mellow-golden bedside lamp. Not a sterile white hospital room, except for the bed, which was an automated hospital bed with rails and an IV
rack.
A wasted form lay in it, eyes closed. Nina stopped at the door.
The woman had high, jutting cheekbones like Aaro’s, an oxygen tube taped beneath it. Her skin was yellow, her eyes were closed, sunk deep in shadowy eye sockets. Her head turned, and her eyes opened.
The impact of her gaze made Nina gasp as if she’d been splashed by ice water. She went from feeling invisible to feeling intensely visible.
She tried to speak, but she was immobilized by the dying woman’s intense, haunting gaze. Pressure built, as if she were holding her breath. She was about to panic when the tension abruptly eased.
The woman tried to speak, but her hoarse rasp did not carry.
“Excuse me?” Nina said, feeling inane and helpless.
The woman twitched her fingers. It was hardly visible, and yet it was an immistakable “Come here.”
Nina couldn’t disobey. Charisma and a compelling personality must be genetic traits that ran strong in Aaro’s family.
Close to the bed, Nina saw every detail of Tonya Arbatov’s skull pressing against the yellowed parchment of her skin. Her thin fingers twitched imperiously. Nina could come no closer, so she did the only thing she could think of. She took the woman’s hand.
Tonya’s fingers were cold, but the crackle of awareness was anything but. It thrilled through Nina’s nerves, too sparkling to be fear, too nervous and unsettled to be joy. Vividly, intensely aware.
The dying woman began to speak. Nina bent low, putting her ear closer to the woman’s mouth. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured.
“Again?”
Tonya sucked in air, and let it out in a long, slow wheeze, forming words as she did so. “You bring my Sasha?”
Nina stared down at her, that thrill of emotion jangling through her again. The woman’s eyes shimmered with happy tears.
“How did you know . . .” The question trailed off. It was stupid and irrelevant, under the circumstances, and Tonya didn’t have the strength to answer anyhow. Twenty-one years, no warning, no word, and somehow, she just knew that her beloved nephew was out there.
Tears rushed into Nina’s eyes. She had to make this happen, before Aaro panicked outside and spoiled everything. “I’ll get him for you,” she whispered. “I have to hurry. We’re not supposed to be here.”
Tonya Arbatov made a wheezy creaking noise that sounded like distress. Then Nina realized that it was laughter.
“Go, go,” she mouthed, her voice inaudible. “Get my Sasha.”
Nina shoved open the door, bolted to the end of the corridor.
She was so rattled, she didn’t establish the drone of
nobody here,
no big deal
in her mind. God forbid anyone see her now. She was so excited.
She slid the square of folded brochure into the stairwell door and ran down the stairs. Aaro glowered through the small glass window. She ran at it full tilt, shoved it open. Aaro burst inside, grabbing her arm.
“What the fuck took you so long? It’s been sixteen minutes!”
No time for scolding, not with his aunt waiting, tears of joy in her eyes. “Shut up!” She towed him toward the stairs. “Come quick!”
“You found her?”
“Yes. She knew you were coming. She’s waiting for you.
Hurry!”
But he dragged his feet, slowing at the foot of the stairs. “How, ah . . . how is she?”
It stabbed into her again, that sudden glimpe into his armored head. He was so afraid of what he was about to see. And she could not help him with that. Not one little bit. “She’s dying,”
she said. “She’s emaciated, jaundiced, bald. But she’s lucid, and she’s alone. Now is your chance. Come
on!
”
They hurried up the stairs. The corridor was still deserted.
Aaro hesitated again outside the door, but Nina shoved him in.
They damn well were not going to all this trouble to get kicked out by a night nurse.
Aaro stared at the woman on the bed. His aunt’s eyes streamed with tears. Such a blaze of love shone out of her skeletal face, it could only be described as beautiful.
Nina waited at the door, to give them some privacy. Aaro bent over his aunt, spoke to her for a minute, and turned, beckoning her. “She wants you, too.”
Tonya was waggling her fingers as she approached, a clear invitation, so Nina took the woman’s cold hand once again.
Tonya’s eyes cut from her to Aaro, and back again. The tender gleam in her eyes started to sink in, and with it, a terrible realization.
Oh, God. The woman thought that she and Aaro were a couple.
She was appalled. Of course Tonya would think that. It was a natural assumption. Like a guy would dream of bringing a woman to his aunt’s deathbed if she wasn’t his fiancée, or at least a serious girlfriend. Any guy at all. Let alone a guy like Aaro.
Oh, this was bad. The dying aunt, all misty-eyed and contented to see her darling boy finally settled before she died. But a deception of this magnitude felt immoral, whether it was inten-tional or not. She shrank away, but Tonya’s fingers tightened around hers.
“This one, she is perfect. Pretty, too, eh? But she doesn’t know. She needs you to show her how pretty she is. Perfect for you, Sasha.”
Aaro grunted. “Pretty, yes. Hardly perfect. You should hear her scold me.”
Tonya’s chest jerked, creaking laughter. “Good, good,” she wheezed. “You are terrible. From minute you were born. Of course she scolds. She is smart to scold you. You would crush a weak woman beneath your boot.” She looked up at Nina, her eyes sparkling. “Yes, scold him, scold him,” she urged. “He is bad boy. Needs strong hand.”
Nina opened her mouth to explain that she was just a . . . well, hell. Her imagination failed her. A friend? Could she be defined as Aaro’s friend? His protectee, rather. Did having a violent adventure in common make people friends? God forbid she made any more friends like that. She wouldn’t survive the bonding experience again.
Aaro was speaking again, but she didn’t catch his words, just Tonya’s response. “Yes, and she has gift, too. Like you, Sasha.”
Aaro shook his head. “No, Aunt, you’ve always been wrong about that. I don’t have the gift. Not like you.”
“Oh, yes, you have gift. You just never let it out of cage. I understand. You are smart. You didn’t want to end up like me.”
Aaro looked tormented. “Aunt, I didn’t want—”
“Shhhh.” She patted his hand. “One day you will open cage.
And she . . .” She flapped her fingers at Nina. “She has it, too. Like you, but different. Just different enough to complete you. Very good girl.” She patted Nina’s hand, smiled up into Aaro’s eyes. “I am so happy.”
Aaro sank down to his knees next to the bed. He hid his face against the bedclothes. Tonya stroked his tangled hair. The protests, the explanations, the
Oh, no, we’re really just friends
that Nina had been trying to phrase dissolved. Tears welled up, spilled over. Aw, hell. She couldn’t disappoint Tonya now. She’d been set up, boxed in, and there was nothing she could do to fix it. She and Aaro were going to have words. But not now. Not while just looking at him made her cry.
Tonya’s eyes were fluttering. The brief but intense conversation had exhausted her. “You come back tomorrow?” she rasped.
He lifted his head. “If they let me in. They don’t like me much.”
Her lips twitched. “I will tell them I want my Sasha. Maybe they will listen. But your clever lady will get you in. Her gift is strong. Strong with strong. Makes both of you stronger. Very good. Son of my heart.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt.” She could barely hear his gruff, choked voice. “That I was gone so long. That I didn’t visit you.”
“No, no.” She shook her head, smiling. “No, Sasha. The one thing that gave me peace was to think that you were free, somewhere. Like we dreamed of, remember, Sasha? That star we saw?”