Reflected (Silver Series) (30 page)

“I obviously can’t form any conclusions without speaking to the young woman directly.” Dr. Doyle cleared his throat, signaling a shift of topic. “Tell me more about the circumstances of the fight with Felicia.”

From there, it wound down, the last few questions overlapping things she’d already answered. It made it easier, having the human translation ready to hand, but she knew her control over her emotions was wearing very thin. Just a little longer, she had to keep herself calm.

And finally it ended, thank the Lady. Dr. Doyle set his pad and pen to the side. He rose and Selene followed his example. “Thank you for being patient with all the questions.” He offered a hand to shake once more. “You need have no worries about my report. I’m not sure why you even needed one for something like trespassing, but you’re healthy.”

Selene shook the hand, thanked him, and held in a hysterical bubble of laughter. If only he knew. She couldn’t release the memories yet, though, she had to get away from human eyes. She didn’t want to take the chance of collapsing or losing her way. She made it successfully from the office to the reception area, where Tom and Felicia shoved to their feet. When she didn’t stop to talk, Tom hurried to get ahead of her and Felicia fell in behind.

Few humans were around in the building’s lobby. Her appointment had finished late enough the rush of people leaving at the usual quitting hours had trailed off. Selene allowed herself to relax enough to see the worry in Tom’s drooping shoulders. “It went fine,” she reassured him.

The door to the men’s restroom was open ahead, and Selene caught a waft of cleaning chemicals and a slice of reflection from the mirror. As she passed, Enrique stepped out from behind the door and gripped her good arm. The smell of silver metal suddenly revealed under the chemicals resolved into the knife now jabbed into her ribs. “Why don’t we take a walk?” he said, the intensity of a snarl in his low voice. “Discuss what a good evaluation I just heard you had.”

The burst of anger from Felicia’s scent turned into a growl behind them, but Selene held up her hand to stop her from doing anything stupid. Either to help, or to harm. Shouldn’t she have smelled a little more surprised? Was this what Enrique had meant about something being arranged?

“You forget, boy. Silver doesn’t hurt me.” Selene mentally calculated who would hear and come running if she screamed. Making a scene as a victim in front of humans could be a good strategy, better than letting Felicia and Tom attack him where they could be seen. But that knife could still cut and she could still bleed, bleed worse than a normal werewolf. She could die from blood loss, same as a human.

Enrique must have had the same thought, because he jabbed the knife again. “Madrid told me all about you, don’t worry.” He leaned in close to hide the knife between their bodies. His grip on her arm tightened past ache to pain.

Ahead of them, Tom whined and settled his weight forward, ready to attack. Selene glared him down too. Not yet. “Let’s all go down to the car, like friends,” Enrique said, accent smearing his words together. “Talk things over.” He pulled her around Tom, who whined once more but stayed where he was.

Enrique led the way to the elevator banks that would take them all the way down to the parking garage rather than just within the building. Selene didn’t look back, but she heard scuffling, like Tom and Felicia were arguing through looks and Felicia had had to restrain him physically.

Selene felt a strange sort of clarity formed of relief. This attack, she could fight. Perhaps not on her own, muscle against muscle, but this young man stank of panic. He should be easy to trick, frighten, or otherwise escape from. She couldn’t let go of the memories just yet, not while they were moving, and the flayed feeling of such prolonged exposure to them made her laugh inside.

Enrique had no idea who he was dealing with and what forces she’d defeated before. He was an upstart little rabbit trying to snarl.

The walls of the elevator weren’t mirrored, but the metal was polished so they might as well have been. Selene watched the others in it as they rode down. Tom was practically vibrating with his inability to do anything. Felicia wasn’t much better, probably with the effort of keeping Tom in check. They held each other’s eyes in the reflection.

Selene watched Enrique’s face in the reflection. If he was from Madrid, then she had been threatened by his alpha before. In comparison to that calculated maliciousness, this boy was only a boy, but with him pressed against her, his knife at her side, that didn’t cheer Selene. Panic made the insecure lash out. At this moment, she felt in more danger from this boy than she would his alpha, because no logic would prevent him from reacting if startled.

She needed to stay Selene for now lest her transition startle him just when she was at her most vulnerable, but stress shredded her control worse than ever. Tom’s phone rang as the doors opened onto the first parking level, now only dotted with cars here and there where it had been packed when they arrived. Selene tried to find the tune in her memories, ground herself that way. It sounded like an old-timey movie soundtrack, but nothing she recognized.

“Wait!” Enrique said, when Tom reached for it automatically. He wrenched Selene around so the two of them faced Tom. “Who is it?”

Tom snarled silently and turned the screen.
ROANOKE
stood out clearly.

Enrique hesitated, stink of panic congealing around him. Selene took a deep breath to calm her racing heart at the thought of speaking to Andrew. This was a possible danger, not a source of rescue. She had to handle Enrique carefully. “Let me talk to him,” she said, low and calm. “I won’t tell him anything. You’ll be right here, you’ll know. And then he won’t get worried.”

The phone began its song again in Enrique’s silence. Finally the young man growled. “If you say anything I don’t like, you’ll bleed white long, long before he gets here,” he said.

Selene nodded and accepted the phone from Tom. “Hello?”

Andrew breathed a deep sigh of relief. Just hearing him made Selene want to collapse. So close, so close, and yet not here. No help. “Oh, Silver. Tom’s there listening too, I assume? We’re at Sea-Tac, just heading for the car now. We’ll be home soon, love. How did it go?”

His tone changed on the last part, because of course he didn’t know that she’d understood the first part just as well as Tom at the moment, and he didn’t need to translate.

“It was fine. No hurry, Andrew.” Selene kept her voice absolutely steady. “I’ll meet you at home. Love you.”

Andrew didn’t reply for a beat and Selene ended the call before he could comment on what was wrong with what she’d said.

Enrique yanked the phone away and threw it to smash against the nearest pillar. He used his off hand so he didn’t have to change position and give her an opportunity to get away from the knife. Selene wasn’t sure if she could even if the opportunity appeared. Holding on sapped her strength in a steady stream.

“And yours.” Enrique pointed to Felicia, who dug out her phone slowly, jaw clenched. She tossed it lightly away, possible to retrieve later. Enrique started down the slight slope descending deeper into the garage, glaring at the cars. The tension stretched and stretched as they wound deeper, and Selene realized that Enrique must not be used to parking garages and hadn’t thought of noting the floor when he rode up so he could take the elevator directly to it.

Other cars and the possibility of distractions so Felicia or Tom could jump Enrique decreased. Their footsteps echoed oddly off the concrete, surrounding silence emphasizing how alone they were. Even the human’s cameras had thinned to one or two a level, easily avoided. Still they wound lower. Enrique seemed to have parked right at the very bottom.

Finally, she spotted a single car in the sea of empty spaces, down half a level. She assumed it was Enrique’s, since there were no others within sight now. She had no idea how Enrique expected to get them all into the car and drive while still threatening her. His steps slowed like he’d just realized that himself.

Whether or not his panic had decayed enough for logic, Selene didn’t have time to wait any longer before prodding him. “Now what?” she asked. “Now you have me, have us, what are you planning to do?”

Enrique looked pointedly to the side. “Felicia? This is your show. I’m sure Madrid would be grateful to you for helping me.”

Selene didn’t follow his gaze, but she could imagine from the choking noises that Felicia was probably flushed with rage. “He was blackmailing me. He has these forgeries, like I was feeding them information, but it’s not true! I’m loyal.” Her outburst sounded angled in Tom’s direction.

Selene didn’t quite follow that, but when Felicia held a knife on her, Selene would worry about her. Until then, she would accept the young woman’s assertions of loyalty from before and worry about Enrique.

“Just look on my phone, you can see all her e-mails to us, giving us all the information we needed. But if you don’t believe that, you have your own unquestionable proof that she’s not loyal.” Enrique smirked, panic ebbing in the face of his delight in this game, this … revenge? Another thing in Felicia’s favor, if she had done something to make him want to seek it. “She lied about not knowing me. Of course Madrid sent me.”

Tom growled, the sound twisted with desperate anger decaying into betrayal. “You must have threatened—”

“I didn’t need to. This was her idea. All of it.” Enrique glanced down at his knife and roughly jerked Selene into him as he switched sides. With his arm across her back, he used the pressure of the knife against her side to hold her close while he unlocked the car.

Now.
Someone had to do something now or Selene would completely lose herself. She took her eyes off Enrique long enough to check the other two. Tom’s expression roiled with betrayal and anger, Felicia’s with desperation. Neither of them would do anything, because it would get her hurt, she was certain of it.

When Enrique leaned into the car to reach something, Selene lunged away.

The pain came out of order somehow—first she felt just a line of cold or pressure along her side. Then it hurt in a blaze of heat along the line and Selene put her palm to the cut as she stumbled out of the way.

Tom slammed into Enrique and Felicia screamed for Selene, with the wrong name, but what were names anyway? Not someone’s essential qualities. Burn away everything else and you were left with more than someone without a name. Someone who knew herself.

Someone held her so she didn’t fall, pressed at the blood too. Blood held no names either. It flowed out and Silver found her essential name there waiting for her, not carried away on that tide. Not a quick tide, but inexorable. But the ocean ebbed and returned. The ocean did not die. The Lady waned and returned.

“Are you going to gather clouds in your jaws forever or be useful?” Death snapped.

Silver concentrated until the important things around her slid from the mist. The roamer and her assistant snarled and snapped, the assistant’s wild self already marked with ragged wounds, and her mate’s daughter held her. Her wound hurt, but manageably. Already, the wet warmth against her hand was easing as the blood slowed. “Go,” she snapped at the young woman, borrowing Death’s tone. “Help him, not me. I am not dying.”

20

Felicia almost stopped breathing when Silver lunged out of Enrique’s hold, slicing the knife along her own side. Tom threw himself at Enrique and Felicia longed to help, wanted to pound Enrique into the concrete all on her own. But Silver was hurt, blood wicking through the whole side of her shirt. Felicia ran to her, caught her before she could stumble too badly, and pressed her hand down on top of Silver’s. Lady, don’t let her die from blood loss. Didn’t humans manage to survive it all the time?

In her peripheral vision, Enrique twisted, bringing the knife up in a horizontal backhanded slash. The silver metal could definitely burn Tom, and he stumbled back, off-balance. Enrique pressed his advantage, body slamming him into the nearest pillar. While Tom was still shaking off the stunning effects of the crack of his head against concrete, Enrique backed up and traded hands, knife to left, and whip he’d picked up in the car to right.

Tom didn’t stand a chance. Enrique gave him a precision whip slash across his eyes and Tom screamed. Felicia spat Spanish obscenities at Enrique. Even in a fight back in Madrid, that was a dirty tactic, usually disallowed. She’d never taken a blow right across the eyes herself, but she’d had them come close. Everyone knew it wasn’t the pain that undid you, it was the sheer visceral terror of damaging something so vulnerable.

Enrique laid stripe after stripe across Tom’s chest and upraised arms as Tom clutched at his eyes and gasped with the pain. Felicia jerked toward him—she’d take that whip from him and flay every inch of skin from his body, the Lady her witness—and Silver swayed and she had to stop or drop the woman. She wavered, torn in two directions, while her mind could only scream
no
over and over.

Silver straightened and pulled away from her. Felicia wasn’t sure whether to believe her when she said she didn’t need help, but her feet decided for her, taking her away from Silver and into the path of Enrique’s next stroke. Her skills were rustier than she’d realized because she took a solid slash across the shoulder and had to catch the whip on the next stroke. Enrique had sidestepped to try to get at Tom around her, but she sacrificed some skin on her arm and got a good grip when it wrapped.

“What, you want your turn?” Enrique grinned at her and raised his voice, as if Tom, panting where he’d propped himself up against the pillar, could fail to hear. “Felicia was always a little less precise than me, but much, much more thorough.” He rolled the word, enjoying every syllable.

Felicia didn’t let herself turn to see Tom’s reaction, though she almost couldn’t bear not to see it. Later. She could explain to him later. “I want my turn to beat you bloody, Enrique. I won’t let you hurt them any more. Don’t be stupider than you already are. My father’s going to get home soon and come looking for Silver when she’s not there. What are you going to do then? What are you planning to do
now
?” She jerked at the whip to pull it from Enrique’s hands, but he knew the techniques as well as she did, and braced.