She believed him. And it enraged her.
Ten years on her own, ten years alone, and while some of that time had been shit, she’d made it — and hammered out a life with her own two hands, a life that was quick and dirty, but hers.
And now this man, a stranger, was telling her that he was in her life?
And Long Nu was involved?
No, she thought. No way. Not in a million years was Lyssa going to let that stand. It would be like spitting on her father’s memory. All the humiliations, his isolation, his sacrifice.
Because Long Nu had thrown them to the wolves.
“Get away from me,” she growled.
“No,” he said again, and there was more quiet power in that one word than in any other she’d ever heard.
She backed away. Eddie followed. She turned, and he stayed right on her heels, terrible heat flowing down her back.
“Lyssa,” he said, reaching for her.
She whirled, lashing out with her first: a solid right hook that snapped toward his face. Fast, driven by arm muscles deformed with power.
Eddie blocked her. Barely. Her fist clipped his ear, but he twisted, and clamped his hand around her wrist. She grabbed his throat, but not before his hand slid forward, beneath her sleeve — and touched her bare, reptilian, skin.
The contact burned. Burned to the bone.
Lyssa flinched. So did he. A roaring sound filled her ears, and her vision brightened in a haze of golden light. She tried to let go, but her hand around his throat would not loosen, no matter how hard she tried. The world blurred away in the light until all she could see was Eddie’s eyes.
He was looking at her. . not with fear. . but that quiet, deadly compassion.
I understand, she heard him say inside her mind. I’m sorry.
Smoke rose from beneath her hand.
Everything exploded.
Chapter Six
Eddie knew it was a mistake the moment he touched Lyssa.
Because he was irritated when he caught her wrist — and it didn’t matter that she had tried to punch him. He had laid a hand on her, with frustration, annoyance — and it was too close to anger for comfort.
Too close to his worst nightmare.
So Eddie didn’t fight when she grabbed his throat. He went still, staring into her glowing golden eyes, taking in her anger and knowing it was fear. The same fear he had felt for years on the street: cornered, forced to look strangers in the eyes and hope it would be okay, without knowing whether or not it would be.
I understand, he wanted to tell her. I’m sorry.
A thought that was followed by fire.
When he could see again, when the world stopped spinning, and the heat inside him was nothing but a matchstick, burning — he blinked away tears and found there was nothing left but smoke clouding the air.
Alarms wailed, sounding tinny in his ears. His clothes were charred, his jeans on fire. Pavement, cracked and blackened. He smelled gasoline and burning metal, and felt terrible heat press against his back.
Cars had exploded, parked at the side of the street. The skeletons of each vehicle burned, pouring off a poisonous cloud of smoke that was thick and gruesome. Eddie didn’t see anyone inside, but maybe that was just wishful thinking.
He rolled over. Nothing but broken glass in the office building beside them. Windows had blown in. He heard screams and moans. How many? How many injured? Had anyone died?
Lyssa.
Eddie twisted and found her close, curled in a ball. Her green sweater had been reduced to rags that sparked and glimmered. She was on fire.
Choking, eyes stinging, he crawled to her and beat out the fire with his bare hands. Not once did she move. Grabbing her shoulder, checking her blackened face and arm, he was relieved to find the dark spots on her skin were nothing but soot. The fire had not touched her. Relief made him tremble.
She was like him. Immune.
“Miss,” he rasped. “Lyssa.”
Still no response. With a gentle push, he rolled her over — and stared.
Her scarf was in tatters, her sleeve mostly gone. Much of her glove had burned away, revealing her neck, right shoulder — her arm, her hand.
Gleaming red scales had replaced human flesh. Large scales, like a snake’s, edged in gold. It was like looking at armor made of rubies and precious metal, glinting in the smoke-shrouded light as though lit from within. Beneath that reptilian skin were contorted, sinewy muscles. Golden claws tipped her slender, triple-jointed fingers.
Eddie saw it all too quickly. No time to take it in.
He glimpsed movement on the other side of the dark cloud — people rushing down the sidewalk, pouring from the few office buildings that lined the street. Police would be coming soon, ambulances, fire trucks. Cameras.
Get out of here. Right now.
His ears still rang. Eddie fell the first time he tried to stand, and looked around, wildly, for a way out. Through the smoke, across the street, he glimpsed a parked car: an older model Camry.
Lyssa’s backpack was a wreck, but the strap was still intact. He slung her belongings over his shoulder, then scooped her into his arms. He held her carefully, her inhuman shoulder tucked against his chest. Hidden, as best he could. She did not make a sound.
Hunched over, hurting and breathless, he staggered between the burning wrecks. He felt movement from the corner of his eye, heard shouts and more screams as he carried Lyssa across the street. He set her on the sidewalk and pulled a multipurpose folding knife from his charred jacket. One of the tools was a window punch, which he set against the lower corner of the car window. He tapped, hard, and the glass crumpled with a crackling sound. Tapping again, he made a hole large enough for his arm. He reached in and unlocked the door.
Lyssa was so quiet and still. Gritting his teeth, trying to stay calm, Eddie pulled and pushed, and shoved her into the cluttered backseat. Newspapers fell to the floor, along with limp gym clothes and empty cans of soda. He tossed in the backpack after her.
Before he jumped into the driver’s seat, he looked around one more time — and found that they were not alone.
Two women stood close. The one on the left was tall, African-American, wearing a cropped red motorcycle jacket and a skintight black bodysuit with tall, heeled boots. Her striking face was dominated by eyes highlighted in purple shadow and black liner.
The other woman was shorter, but no less beautifuclass="underline" long black hair, pale skin, crystalline blue eyes. Dressed in jeans and a white blouse partially obscured by a heavy necklace strung with chunks of onyx.
They stared at him. Him, and not the blast.
Might as well have been no fire, no screams, no billowing smoke and burning cars. . none of that touched them. They stood eerily still, still as stone, still as cats waiting to pounce — their eyes narrow and watchful, their mouths tilted into faint, sly smiles.
And Eddie realized, in one split second, that he was in deep trouble.
Few people scared him anymore. Most inspired caution, yes — but not fear. It wasn’t arrogance that made him feel that way. Just age and fire, and experience. Most of the time, he was more scared of himself.
Something about these women terrified him.
It was hard, immediate: a primal fear at the back of his primitive brain, like hearing a scream in a pitch-black forest, or the touch of bone fingers in the night.
When he looked at them, he thought death. Or something worse. And for those brief seconds that he stared into their eyes, the fear made him feel like a kid again, faced with all his worst nightmares: powerlessness, despair, guilt, desperation.