Ignoring the way our legs brushed together, I tipped my head back to stare into the sky, wondering how long it would take for me to get called away from this. I didn’t want it to end. But I knew it had to. Which reminded me that we were here for more than just this.
“Do you feel better?” I asked.
Cash smiled. “Yeah. I finally feel…warm.”
“Good.” I held one of my hands out and he just looked at it, confused. “I want to try something.
Touch my hand.” It was risky giving him free rein over me like this, but if he were really a shadow walker, I had to know. I couldn’t have his fate ending up like the boy on the cliff who saw no other way out. That wouldn’t be Cash.
“Okay…” He reached his hand up and I exhaled, letting go of my skin, embracing my elemental form. My shimmer exploded across the water’s surface so that it looked as if we were surrounded by a thousand floating stars. Cash raised a brow and I nodded for him to go on. Slowly, he placed his hand against mine. Palm to palm. Blue sparks ignited between our wet fingers and a current swept though me with a jolt. In an instant, every part of me was thrust into being whole again. I blinked away the dizzy sensation sweeping over me. I was corporeal. And all from his touch. Cash laced his fingers through mine and squeezed.
“Whoa…what was that?”
I stared at our entwined hands, the blue shimmer keeping them linked. It looked like a ribbon swirling through our fingers, binding us at the wrist. “It was you,” I whispered.
Cash exhaled a shaky breath and pulled me into him by my hand. Inside me, alarms were sounding.
Too close. Don’t let him get too close. With his other hand, his fingers danced down my side before curling around my waist to hold me in place. Before I could stop myself, I arched into his touch and closed my eyes.
“Why do I always feel like I’ve got fireworks going off inside me when I have you this close?” he whispered.
I shook my head. I didn’t trust myself to say anything in that moment. Not when I couldn’t think through the heat and want building up inside me with each careful stroke of his fingers against my hip.
Tilting my mouth up to his was all it would take to give in to what the rest of me wanted. As if he could read my thoughts, Cash pushed the wet braids back off my shoulder and slid his fingers under my chin.
“Anaya…you’re shaking.”
I bit my lip and kept my eyes shut. If I opened them…I’d give in. And then I would never forgive myself. “I know.”
“Look at me,” he whispered. “Please.”
How did he have this power over me? Why did he have to be so wonderful and funny and familiar?
His thumb brushed a droplet of water off of my lower lip and he lowered his face…
“Ouch!” Cash jerked his hand away from my hip as heat bubbled up between us. My scythe. I’d been so caught up I hadn’t even felt it calling. I placed my palm over the blade, attempting to calm the tumultuous emotions tumbling around inside of me. Everything about this was wrong. Tarik was up there waiting for me and I was about to let Cash touch me in ways only Tarik ever had. What was wrong with me? I still intended to turn Cash over at the end of this, so what was I doing with him?
How could I want him like this and still claim to love Tarik? I had to get out of there.
“I have to go.” I took a step back in the water and Cash followed.
“Don’t run away again, Anaya,” he pleaded. “You can’t keep taking off on me every time we’re standing on the edge of something important.”
His gaze clashed with mine and connection blazed between us. He wanted me. It didn’t have anything to do with escape this time, and it was terrifying. It was terrifying because I wanted him, too.
The only way to fight this was to get as far away from Cash as possible.
“I’m not running,” I said. “I just…I have to go.”
“Wait.” His brown eyes got wide as he watched the air ripple around me like a puddle of liquid pearls. I turned away and shut my eyes. Stepped into the warmth. I felt Cash’s fingers close around my wrist, and the feeling of his skin on mine was so shocking and right I couldn’t move. I didn’t even have time to think about what it meant. Not when the light and warmth already had me in its pull like this. Stars winked across my vision. They swirled and spun and shimmered until it was all a blur. A blur that faded into a dark, dank basement that swallowed that perfect glow down its throat.
It took me a moment to sort through the dark to find them, though it shouldn’t have. These girls didn’t belong in a place like this. Dirty and bound. Limp and awaiting salvation. I couldn’t wait to give it to them. I stepped forward and stopped when someone behind me gasped. I turned around expecting to see their captor, or maybe a person who had been minutes too late to help them. What I didn’t expect to see was Cash.
Chapter 17
Cash
Anaya’s eyes opened wide, so gold they cut right through the dusty dark around us. I couldn’t let go of her wrist. Couldn’t move. What the hell had just happened? One minute I’d been trying to decide if the feeling in my gut meant that I wanted to kiss the girl in front of me and the next I’m in…I looked around. A basement?
“What happened?” Anaya whispered.
I looked back at her. She looked fierce with her badass blade dangling from her grip. But she looked afraid, too.
“How the hell am I supposed to know?” I hissed, the water dripping from my boxers creating a puddle beneath me. “What did you do?”
“I…I don’t know,” she said.
“How can you not know?”
A girl whimpered across the room and Anaya closed her eyes. She jerked her wrist out of my grip.
“Not now. We’ll worry about this after.”
“After what?”
Anaya rolled her eyes at me and turned around.
I looked over her shoulder at the pretty redheaded girl in the metal lawn chair behind her. Her hair hung in dirty strings around her face. A rag, I’m guessing that was probably used to wipe up the floor, was shoved in her mouth. Her hands and ankles were tied with a bright-orange rope. Another girl with pixie-cut blond hair who looked a few years older was tied up beside her, already lifeless. There was blood streaming down the girls’ wrists and fingertips, pooling under the chairs. Jesus…where was it all coming from?
I raked my fingers through my wet hair and stepped back, waiting for my bones to shake right out of my skin. “Holy hell, Anaya… What is this? W-we need to call the cops or something.”
“It’s too late for that,” she said.
Anaya ran her palm over the younger girl’s coppery hair and cupped her face in her hand as she knelt down in front of her. She ran her thumb over the dirt and mascara smudges. She whispered something to her I couldn’t hear. Whatever it was seemed to calm the girl, because in seconds she looked boneless, limp with relief. Anaya stepped back and pulled the blade above her head, her arms arched like wings. Every part of her lit up like a firefly.
“Whoa, what are you going to do with that?”
“What you wanted me to do to you,” she said softly, her voice like a warning, then swung. The blade sliced through air and flesh and blood. I couldn’t watch. Couldn’t listen to the sound of whatever she was doing—an awful ripping sound. I slapped my hands over my ears and shut my eyes. When she went to work on the second girl I could still hear it, despite my efforts to block it all out. This was freaking crazy. I had to be hallucinating. Stuff like this just didn’t exist.
“Cash?” Warm fingers pulled one of my hands away from my ear. I cracked my eyes open and swallowed the fear in my throat. My belly felt full of it. Anaya stared back at me, her pretty lips tugged down in a frown.