It was easier than breathing. Stopping would have been harder. No need to worry about Andrew this time. He lived inside her. She could feel him under her skin. Her power would flow harmlessly past him, because he was already a part of her, whether she wanted him to be or not.
“You’re scaring me,” he whispered, just before she let go.
Not all the way. Not even that much, just a little of the pain that had lived inside her, a little of the rage that built at the thought of someone hurting Andrew. She braided them into a shining arrow of psychic power and sent it twisting back.
Distance was meaningless in the vastness of her gift. The heart traveled at the speed of light. She felt her attack slam home, slicing through the driver’s mind like a well-honed blade. When he lay open and vulnerable before her, she called up the one memory that would never fade.
Andrew, on the office floor. Her hands clutching at his abdomen, holding things inside that she’d never seen before outside of a biology textbook. Bright red blood everywhere, on her face and her hands and his clothes, and his life pumping out through her fingers as she sobbed and he flooded her with loss and pain that faded to numbness. A thousand missed opportunities slipping away, and her lips too numb to form the words she should have said. I love you, I love you, I love you-Pain. Pure, unrelenting terror. More than a year and she could still smell the metallic stink, feel the slick heat of blood drying tacky on her skin. Even with Andrew’s hand gripping her leg, for one endless moment she felt the loss of watching him die.
Her heart broke in two.
So did the driver’s mind.
Tires squealed behind them. Kat opened her eyes in time to see the dark car fishtail. It momentarily righted itself, then spun out. Gravel flew in every direction as it swerved onto the shoulder, then back, narrowly missing a giant red pickup truck. The driver of the truck wrenched his vehicle out of the way as the car careened through an intersection and into the ditch, rolling out of sight.
Kat.
The small things came back first. Fingers on her leg. A firm grip. Steady, considering the fear dancing up and down her spine, a wicked tickling like bugs over her skin.
“Kat, I swear to God, if you don’t answer me, I’m stopping right here.”
She followed the thread of his voice back to sanity, even though her own came out rusty. Hoarse.
“Andrew?”
“Jesus Christ.” He was driving up a ramp, getting back on the interstate. “Are you okay? Do I need to stop?”
Her mouth was so dry that swallowing hurt. “They wanted to hurt us.” He had to understand. He had to believe her.
“I know.” No hesitation. No doubt. “We’re headed toward New Orleans now. I think we’ll be all right if you need to rest.”
She felt naked, laid bare to the world. She’d spent more power than she should have, certainly more than she should have had to spare. Rebuilding her shields and gathering the shreds of her self-control would take most of the endless drive back. If she concentrated on the ritual of it, the trancelike beauty of Callum’s waking dream, she wouldn’t have to face the stark, ugly truth.
Darkness lived inside her. Thrived, even. The slightest hint of danger to Andrew, and she lost her grip on morality. She maimed. She killed. Worst of all, she regretted it, felt the pain she’d caused, felt dirty and sick…and then she did it again.
All that training, and she was right back where she’d started. A broken girl with too much power and an unraveling grip on reality.
“Hang in there.” Andrew moved his hand back to the wheel. “Just hang in there if you can.”
“I’ll be okay.” Carefully phrased to avoid an outright lie, but maybe one anyway, if only because she didn’t really believe it.
“We’ll have to stop eventually, for restrooms or gas,” he murmured, “but we can take precautions.”
“Okay.” A shiver claimed her so hard her teeth knocked together. “I need to find the quiet place for a while. It’s like a trance, I guess. I need to rebuild my shields. As long as my breathing stays steady, I’m fine.”
The fear in the car spiked. “If you say so.”
Some tiny piece of her shattered, and her heart bled from it. “I won’t hurt you.” Don’t be afraid of me.
He answered as if he’d heard her silent plea. “I’m not afraid of you, Kat. I never have been.” He glanced over. “I’m afraid for you.”
The hardest thing she’d done in months was hold out her hand. He took it and breathed a shaky sigh of what felt like relief.
Her body was too conflicted to stir with desire, her mind too fragmented. She moved their joined hands to rest on her leg and closed her eyes. “You can let go when you need to,” she whispered. “But it’s…nice.
It makes me feel like I’m not alone.”
His answer was concise—and anything but simple. “I’m here.”
Waking Kat seemed like a bad idea, so Andrew drove. He drove for nearly two hours, straight down the interstate, and pondered taking the exit ramp into downtown Birmingham—and back to Ben’s condo.
But he couldn’t guarantee they’d lost the trouble following them, couldn’t guarantee the safety of Kat’s friends.
He kept driving. The best thing to do would be get them home.
Home.
He finally had to stop just outside of Montgomery, and he reached over to shake her shoulder gently.
“Kat, wake up.”
At least she didn’t seem too deeply asleep. Her eyes fluttered open, and she squinted against the early-afternoon sunlight. “Where are we?”
“A place called Prattville. On the way back home.”
“Gas station munchies?” A ghost of a smile curved her lips. “I could use some chocolate. Three or four pounds of it.”
He could pay for the gas at the pump, but the only way to grab food was if she went in with him. “Got your land legs yet?”
“I’m fine.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and stretched. “I didn’t need that much sleep to get past it. The drain was more…emotional.”
He stuck close, even hovering outside the women’s restroom while she was inside, but the station was deserted, save for the bored clerk behind the counter. They piled its surface high with drinks and snacks, enough to keep them going until they’d reached New Orleans.
Outside, Andrew hustled Kat back to the SUV. “I’m not going to be able to rest until we get home.”
She must have had some sympathy, because she tolerated him opening her door and holding it as she climbed back in. When they were headed toward the interstate again, she dug through the bag and surfaced with a bag of Twizzlers. “Home, New Orleans? Or home, like your place?”
She sounded tense. “Got a preference?” he asked quietly.
“Do you?” Not just tension now, but a challenge.
“Makes sense to stick together until you get the information you need.”
Her fingers tightened around the Twizzlers until the plastic crinkled loudly. “So we’re just being practical?”
He made a concerted effort to breathe, to relax his hands on the steering wheel. “It would make me feel better—more secure, I mean—if we went to my place.”
“Okay.” The tips of her fingers barely brushed his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.
You’ve had a shitty couple days, thanks to me, and hardly any sleep.”
Admitting as much felt like weakness, and something in him railed against it. “Just need to get you safe, that’s all.”
“Then go home, Andrew. To your home, if I’m invited.”
Having her there would soothe him. He knew it because he’d wanted it a hundred times over the last year. A thousand. “You’re always welcome.” Wanted.