Vague memories of a calming, deep voice, teasing and soft. That quick, light burn of lust, dazed heat. Okay…maybe some more beer instead. Yeah…no. Wait. Have to stop…scholarship.
Cold. So cold—
Oh. That’s nice…the thoughts got blurrier then. The confusion and chaos grew stronger.
Wait—who is that? A voice. The girl didn’t see anybody, but that voice, she knew that voice. A smell, one that triggered instant panic assaulted her, and through the bond of memories, Destin as well.
No, no, no, nononono…what are you doing here?
Clear thought burst through the confusion. Panic.
What is going on—
And then the pain started.
Caleb kept his hands on Destin’s even when she flinched and pull away from him. She moaned quietly and all he wanted to do was push inside now, use his ability to cut through what she was picking up on and stop the pain.
But now wasn’t the time.
If he intruded now, she might miss something she needed to see to stop this.
So instead of pushing inside and filtering the pain away, he shared it with her.
It was one thing she’d never realized he could do and maybe there wasn’t any point to it, but he wouldn’t let her suffer alone.
Just as he hadn’t let her suffer her nightmares alone.
When the girl tried to scream, Caleb knew the reason nobody heard was because somebody had clamped a hand over her mouth and he felt the same sensation of smothering that Destin now suffered. The pain that had her sweating and trembling gripped him as well.
And when the connection ended, he lowered his head and focused on the scarred wooden surface of the picnic table. Destin would need a few minutes to settle back inside her skin after that and he’d use it because he needed to settle himself.
It hadn’t been just one son of a bitch who’d hurt the girl.
The police report hadn’t made any mention of that, but the girl had been confused and scared when it started, then it only got worse. She’d been dumped out behind the library, unconscious, and had stayed out there all night, the doctors believed. Her clothes had been torn. Her panties, wool tights and one leather boot had been missing. She had been one of the victims with more serious bruising, but nothing had led the police to believe there was more than one perpetrator.
But Destin’s vision had been pretty clear.
The girl had been held down by one man while another raped her.
Whether or not both men had assaulted her, Caleb didn’t know. The girl had lost consciousness during the assault. Tests at the hospital had proven inconclusive as to whether or not she’d been slipped any sort of drugs that might have incapacitated her.
Caleb was certain she’d been given something. The confusion in the memories Destin had lifted from the vision were too muddled for anything else, and that had started before the rape.
Some of the more popular date-rape drugs left the system pretty damn quick and she’d been outside, unconscious, alone, for hours, and then it had taken the college another hour to get her to the hospital while they wrung their hands and worried about this latest attack.
Two perpetrators.
This changed the game.
Untangling his hands from Destin’s, he swiped one over his forehead and then pressed the heels against his eye sockets, waiting for his brain to settle, the rage to fade.
They’d find them. They’d find them, stop them.
That was all they could do.
It wasn’t enough.
But then again, it never had been.
Sucking in a breath as the connection abruptly ended, Destin closed her eyes and groaned. Disjointed thoughts, sensation and images circled through her head. The connection had ended, but it was like she was still in the middle of a download and the shit she downloaded was like a video straight out of hell.
Across from her, Caleb waited. Patient and quiet, unperturbed.
It was beyond fucked up that she was in this kind of turmoil and he was like the Rock of Gibraltar, she thought disgustedly.
Man, what she wouldn’t give to let him take some of these nightmares for a while.
“It’s coming,” she said sourly. “Too much of it.”
He held out a hand.
As their palms touched, she felt him reaching out, felt his shields lower.
She lowered hers, almost eagerly, ready to let him ease some of the noise away.
The confusion in her head faded almost instantly. The pain. The fear.
All of it gone…and then she opened her eyes, staring at the small building just off to the side of the parking lot.
“There were two of them there that night,” she said quietly. “And one of them was a security guard.”
Chapter Seven
“You need to rest.”
Destin flicked him a glance as she pushed through the doors to the library. She’d rest soon enough. It wasn’t going to be that long before she dropped like a stone. Might as well wring every last bit of information from her brain as she could before that happened, she supposed.
“She came in here,” she murmured, following the fading buzz of emotions. It was a tenuous connection and getting weaker all the time, but it was still strong enough for her to follow. “She could barely walk, she hurt so bad.”
In the back of her mind, something dark and ugly stirred, crowding its way into her mind and taking over.
It wasn’t conscious thought. Images. Feelings. Almost like memory, but not quite. Flashes of terror. Hands that held her down. A brutally strong body.
Ugly laughter. The laughter was the worst.
These flashes seemed to get worse lately. The more control she had of her visions, the more these seemed to control her and the worse the cases got, the worse these…echoes…seemed to be.
A minimum of seven rapes and the man was having fun with it, taking pleasure in hurting, controlling. Using.
It was going to get worse.
It would be nice to take the calmer cases. Or even the bloody, brutal ones that dealt with the dead.
But her gift didn’t work that way and the aftermath and misery, her constant companions, would whisper to her for days after she wrapped up a job. Nightmares where she was the victim. Where she was the one struggling to get away, to break free from hands that tore at her clothing and—
“Destin.”
She stopped in the middle of the floor, panting for air.
Her teeth were rattling and her hands were icy.
Caleb tugged on her arm and, blindly, she followed. When he stopped walking, she had no idea where they were, no idea if anybody was around them. Her breath was coming in harsh, shallow pants and she couldn’t seem to slow down the ragged pace of her heart.
Her teeth chattered. “Sorry. Reaction. Hitting hard this time.”
“Yeah.” He brushed her hair back from her face and cupped her chin, angling her face back until their gazes met. “I see that. Just breathe, baby. Just breathe…”
His voice, solid and steady, guided her through it and the fear, the panic and darkness faded back to the edges of her mind. None of it disappeared. It wouldn’t. Not as easy as that. But it was no longer everything she could see, touch, feel.
Moments passed before her mind was her own again. Before she could breathe without feeling the terror crowd her throat. When she could, she eased away from him and forced a smile. “I’m good now.”