“I do,” I told him. “You’d better believe I’m going to make sure Al knows about what’s going on.”
“So how does it work?” Nicky asked. “When the Agency comes to make you spin gold for them.”
“Oh, they take me to wherever they happen to have set up shop here in Chicago, honey,” Rick explained. “Of course, I’m blindfolded—or drugged. I told them I prefer the blindfold. Otherwise I wake up with one hell of a headache and the gold looks like shit.”
Nicky sighed, his disappointment evident. “So there’s no way for you to tell us where their office is.”
Rick offered us a saucy smile. “Well, I didn’t say that. Of course, I can find it! I’m an imp, honey. I’ve been pranking them as payback for ages! They’ve replaced their sprinkler system three times in the last six months because it just keeps malfunctioning.” He batted his lashes innocently, then sent a conspiratorial wink my way. “But you can’t just waltz in the front door looking all hot and alpha male, Nicky. They actually have pretty good security for Ordinaries.”
“Just tell me where it is,” Nicky told him. “And let me worry about how to get in.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
As we made our way home along the wooded, winding road that led to Nicky’s, my fingers rested lightly on the pendant against my chest as I studied his profile. My heart swelled with such love at that moment, I wasn’t even sure I could put it into words. I love you felt woefully inadequate. It didn’t even come close. His lips curved a little as he drove and he sent a sidelong glance my way.
“What’s doin’, doll?” he asked. “You’ve been lookin’ at me that way for a while now.”
“I can’t believe I’m sitting here with you,” I confessed. “I can’t believe what we’ve shared over the last few days. I never dared to hope. . . .” I flushed and turned my face toward my window, staring out at the dark woods that lined the streets leading to his house. “I don’t want you to go, Nicky.”
I heard him heave a sharp sigh. “I can’t stay here, Trish,” he told me after a moment. “You know that. I need to get outta here, start over somewhere else.”
“And nothing could make you stay?” I asked, my voice catching as I turned to face him again. “Nothing at all?”
Not even me?
He shifted a little in his seat. “What if you came with me?”
I frowned. “What, like on vacation?”
He chuckled. “No, not on vacation.” He shifted again, clearly uncomfortable. “Like, you know, for good.”
My breath caught in my chest and for a moment I could only stare at him, wondering if I could’ve possibly heard him right. “Are you asking me . . .” I let my words trail off. I swallowed hard and tried again. “What exactly are you asking me?”
His grin widened and he turned his attention from the road to peg me with a look so full of love, my heart leaped with joy. Then the headlights behind him framed his head, creating a halo of light that seemed to grow in slow motion. I must’ve realized in a split second what was happening, but when I screamed Nicky’s name, the word took too long to come out, and I saw him whip his head around just as the car rammed into his door.
My stomach lurched as the Range Rover pitched over, slamming into the ground, the impact shattering my window, the shards of glass cutting my arms as I instinctively tried to shield my face. Pain tore through my shoulder as the joint came apart. I screamed, curling into myself as we rolled over again, the SUV careening toward the trees. On the second roll, we slammed into a massive tree trunk, sending a fresh wave of pain crashing over me.
For a moment, I just lay there, shuddering and gasping for breath. I blinked rapidly to clear my vision, only to realize there was blood dripping into my eyes. I managed to lift one of my hands to wipe it away and only then discovered we were lying on our side. I carefully turned my head, hoping to God my neck wasn’t broken, and saw Nicky hanging from his seat, the seat belt keeping him from dropping down on top of me. There was a massive gash on his forehead and it was then I realized it wasn’t my blood but his that had been dripping into my eyes.
“Nicky?” I called urgently. “Nicky, honey—can you hear me?”
When he didn’t respond, I used my good arm to unbuckle my seat belt, but when I tried to push up to get to him, pain in my hip jolted another scream from me, and I collapsed as my vision dimmed and my stomach lurched with nausea.
“Oh, God,” I moaned, tears choking my voice. I had to get it together, had to figure some way to get help. My eyes darted around, trying to see anything in the darkness. I could hear men talking, their voices barely above a whisper but still carrying to me on the breeze.
Fear clutched my heart, making my thoughts foggy and frantic. I couldn’t think; I couldn’t move. My skin began to crawl; the phantoms of spiders that had invaded my nightmares for so many years were suddenly there—thousands of them—crawling all over me, slipping under the edges of my sleeves, creeping into my cleavage, invading my ears, my nose, trying to pry open my lips, waiting for me to scream so they could choke me.
I flailed my good arm, tried to shake one leg, but more spiders came, breeding by the hundreds as I looked on in terror. I pressed my lips together against the scream building in my chest. I felt every single little arachnid leg as it brushed my skin, my scalp. And my brain began to tingle. An itch I couldn’t scratch built, sending me careening toward that dark place I’d sworn I’d never go again.
Insanity. Lunacy.
That’s what the doctors in Make Believe had called it. I closed my eyes, forcing myself to take several deep breaths and get my shit together. I wasn’t going there. I was never going there again. The fear had controlled me once, had pushed me into what Dracula had accurately called a dark prison. And I’d be damned if I was ever going back. Not now. Not when Nicky needed me.
Control the fear, Beatrice. . . .
The words were the same as those my father had uttered when pleading with me to come back to them, but the voice was not his.
I can keep the spiders away. . . . We are one. . . .
My eyes snapped open on a gasp. The spiders had gone. Vanished. Pushed away with strength of will—and something else. Something more.
I tried to wet my lips, but my tongue was dry. My throat burned. And a heat began to build within me, starting at the place in my neck where Dracula’s fangs had sunk into my flesh in my dream, and fanning out over every inch of me. And suddenly I felt renewed, revitalized.
As the voices came closer, I could hear footsteps crushing the underbrush as the men slowly advanced on the overturned SUV. I could smell the pungent odor of their fear. And my vision grew sharper, hyper–
focused, as if I was staring into the night with infrared goggles. These weren’t my enhanced abilities, I realized. It felt different—external. As if something else was working through me.
Time to go.
I shifted, the pain in my hip now just a dull throb, and managed to get to my feet enough to support Nicky. My dislocated shoulder protested, but I could already feel it healing and so ignored the searing pain when I undid Nicky’s seat belt and accepted his full weight as he dropped against me.
I glanced around, trying to figure out how the hell to drag both of us out of the SUV. There was no way Nicky’s door was going to open. That left the back door or maybe the hatch. My knees shook beneath me as I dragged Nicky into the backseat and tried to open the back door. To my amazement, when I shoved, the door flew open so hard the hinges bent backward, keeping the door from slamming shut