So she did understand. “I have to. I can’t let go until this is over. Until Jacob is dead.”
“But it’s not my fight.”
She wanted the truth. He was going to let her have it. “It’s everyone’s fight, now. The world’s. Most just don’t know it yet. Besides, a researcher looks for answers, and if this isn’t the most practical application of your field of study, I don’t know what is.”
He dropped his arms in frustration. She leaned back onto the wall and faded into shadow.
“Why aren’t you afraid of me?” she asked. “I could be just as horrible as Jacob in there.”
Ah, a latent fear. She was just as afraid of herself as she was of Jacob. That alone took her out of the threat cate-gory. In contrast, Jacob embraced his inner monster and relished it.
Adam sighed. “I doubt it. You are as set against wraiths as I am. You tried to save my life in the alley. You were nice to Patty even though you were mad at me. And here we are in my personal hell, and you hate it as much as I do. I think you’re safe. Further, I think we have a lot in common.”
“I don’t know what you think I can possibly do to help you.”
“Let’s find Shadowman,” Adam pressed. “He’s got answers for both of us.”
Jacob shrieked; Adam filled with hope. The key was right here, at last.
He reached out to her in the dark. Found the slope of her neck, the curve of her jaw, just where he had left it. The shadows bled away from his vision. Tears streaked down Talia’s flushed cheeks. He needed to get her back in bed, and soon.
“Listen to him, Talia. Listen to Jacob.”
His brother whined in rocking rhythm, a small, scared sound.
“We can stop the wraiths together. My brother first. Come out of your shadows. Face him.”
“I don’t want this. Any of it.”
“Neither do I. When it’s all over, we’ll go on a nice, long vacation. Anywhere in the world.”
Her black eyes filled with tears. A moment passed.
“I’d like to live to see the pyramids,” she said, voice clogged with helpless fatigue.
“Egypt it is.”
“Maybe the Great Wall.” A fat drop slid down her cheek.
Adam laughed, wiping it away. “And China.”
“The Eiffel Tower?” An edge of her mouth tipped up, streaking more tears down her cheeks.
“Paris. At New Year’s, when the whole city is lit,” he promised. “Come out, Talia.”
The darkness dissipated. Jacob’s keens took on volume. Talia’s gaze was trained on the monitor, staring as Jacob bared inhuman jaws better suited to a shark or a piranha or a multifanged snake.
The guard gripped the counter for dear life, sweat running off the side of his face.
Talia trembled, dark eyes huge in a ghost face. “Where do we start?”
SIX
TALIA went with the west-wing apartment, haunted with a view. She had managed two months on the run from wraiths. She could handle this.
She shut herself into her new place, anticipation of some kind of woo-woo event crawling over her skin like creepy spiders. Waiting, breath-bated and twitching at every noise (damn vent rattled every time the a/c came on) was agony until she succumbed to exhaustion.
The bedroom light overhead glared when she woke in the morning. Perspiration pricked at her forehead and dampened her neck under hot, heavy hair in need of a ponytail elastic. She disentangled herself from her twisted sheets and blindly padded out of the bedroom.
Mid-bleary-step, a Ha! exploded into her consciousness. Ghosts, indeed. The man clearly spent too much time with his brother. At the meeting scheduled that afternoon to introduce her to the other staff members, she’d let him know. The thought sent a thrill of satisfaction through her.
The living room looked much friendlier dominated by the growing light of day. A deep red square sofa faced a large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall over a working fireplace. Two chunks of wood lay in a woven basket on the floor, as if she weren’t hot enough. Tall bookcases flanked each side, mostly empty, though somebody had the dark humor to leave The Shining to keep her company on her first night in a haunted hotel. Yeah, real funny.
A buzz sounded at the front door.
Talia ran a hand through the tangles of her hair and straightened the tee to the sweats she’d slept in, wishing she’d gone to the bathroom first thing. Too late now.
She peered through the front door’s peephole. A woman’s face warped into view.
Talia opened the door, crossing her arms to cover her lack of a bra.
“Good morning,” the woman said. “I’m Gillian Powell. I’m one of the doctors on staff.” She held a bundle of clothes in blues and purples, a flash of look-at-me pink, topped with athletic shoes.
Dread pooled in Talia’s empty stomach. Those better not be for me.
“Nice to meet you,” she said. “I’m Talia O’Brien.”
“I know. I’m so glad you’re here,” Gillian said. “It’s such a boys’ club at Segue. We’ve got Vera in the lab and Priya in research and, of course, Mama Pat, but that’s it.”
Gillian appeared to be in her middle forties and fighting each year. She was compact and overly busty, and wore enough foundation to disguise her true complexion, makeup applied with amazing and enviable precision.
Gillian stepped around Talia to dump the clothes on the sofa. “Anyway, Adam asked me to outfit you this morning for Wraith Defense.” She made a sour face. “Goody for you.”
Yeah. Goody. Talia had hoped she’d have the morning to herself before the big introduction that afternoon. No such luck.
“I think I’ve got everything you’ll need.” Gillian glanced at Talia’s comparatively diminutive chest. “Sizing should be okay…mostly.”
Talia stalled. “Um. So what exactly is Wraith Defense?”
“Just the basics of how to defend yourself. Every month we are all required to drill, but we make a pretty lousy show of it. Most of us belong indoors, in a lab coat.”
Talia’s stomach growled. “What about breakfast? I haven’t had a chance to stock my kitchen.”
“Don’t bother. Marcie, Segue’s cook, is awesome. Just tell her what you like and she’ll get it. And that way, you don’t have to do dishes. I’ll show you on the way down.”
“Are you drilling today, too?” Talia reached for the clothes. The hot pink would not be going on her body.
“No. You, lucky girl, get a ménage à trois with Adam and Spencer.”
Great. Her puddle of dread deepened. “I’ll go change.”
Adam and another man, presumably Spencer, were sparring when Gillian led her outside to a stretch of fragrant grass near the buzzing, overgrown garden. The air was clingy, the sun still filtered by the trees.
Talia stopped short. Adam couldn’t possibly expect her to fight like that.
Slim black padding protected the men’s knuckles. Each wore a molded helmet. Adam, his dark crop of hair jutting out the back of his gear, wore black sweatpants and a T-shirt. His arm muscles strained the short sleeves, the material subtly stretched over a hard, fit chest to taper to a trim waist. The pants were cut somewhat loosely, the soft fall of the fabric belying the conditioned body within. Talia’s gaze lingered in momentary surprise and appreciation, before sudden self-awareness shifted her body from chill to rapid, embarrassed heat again.
The other man, Spencer, pivoted and kicked Adam in the stomach. He, too, was dressed in black, though diagonal silver stripes accented the shirt’s ribbing and marked the breadth of his thighs on his pants.