Race the Darkness (Fatal Dreams, #1)(99)

“Honey.”

She stared into his eyes—his eyes, not the image on his cheek. Heat flared up his neck and onto his face. She looked at him—saw him, the real him. How did she do it?

“I’ve got a favor to ask. When you talk to me, look me in the face.” He should explain, but he wasn’t going to. “Please.”

“I’ll be better after I sleep. I always am.”

The sounds and sight of her speech matched perfectly, but he still wasn’t certain what she meant. “You want to take a nap?”

“I have to.”

The seriousness of her gaze worried him. “You have to?”

“I’ll be better after… I promise.”

Huh? Maybe she knocked her head when she fell. No, she had landed on ass and elbows. “Ohh-kaay…” He drew the word out, showing his confusion.

She shifted her legs up onto the couch, laid her head on the arm, and heaved a deep breath. Her eyelids fluttered shut. He waited for them to open again, but they didn’t. The tangled scent of her emotions faded, and her honeyed scent signature intensified, enveloping him in a vaporous caress. Only one thing magnified a person’s scent signature. Sleep. She’d been trying to tell him she felt the adrenaline crash coming on. Damn. It had hit her hard.

He should go into the kitchen, make himself a peanut butter sandwich, a steaming pot of coffee, a large helping of rational behavior. Instead, he ass-planted on the opposite end of the couch, submitting to the urge to watch over her, to make sure nothing bad happened to her.

She frowned in her sleep. Shifted. Straightened out her legs until her feet ran into his thigh. She heaved a slow breath, her expression settling, as if touching him soothed her. It sure as hell felt good to him.

He memorized the length and width of the lines across her Achilles tendon and the rise and hollow of her anklebones. Shiny new skin, raw patches, and dry scabs covered her toes, the back of her heel. Her feet were a map of misery.

Stop staring at her feet like Little Man drooling over a bone. Touch her—skin to skin.

Fear plunged into his heart sharp as a scalpel. No. He couldn’t allow his bare skin to contact with another human’s flesh. He refused to regress to his childhood—lost in a blur of other people’s memories, not being able to find his reality. Touch amplified his ability. Touch incapacitated him. When he’d started wearing the gloves, he’d gained a critical piece of control.

And yet, he yanked off his gloves. His heart rate, his breath rate jacked up to an almost unbearable level.

What the fuck was he doing?

Not listening to logic. He pressed one finger to her ankle. A wave of calm crested over him, quieting his racing heart, dowsing his ragged breathing, and abating the fear of losing control. No SMs. Millimeter by millimeter he settled his entire hand over her, circling her ankle, thumb meeting middle finger. Her skin was cold over the sharp bones.

No SMs. None. How was that possible?

He didn’t believe in God, but maybe, just maybe, she was created for him. An Eve to his Adam.

What was he thinking? Crazy, crazy, crazy thoughts.

She probably had a brain defect that prevented scents from linking to memories. His olfactory region was overdeveloped. Maybe hers was underdeveloped.

He pulled his hand off her ankle.

Distance. He needed distance between them. He grabbed his gloves and headed for the back door. He glanced at her only once, to make certain she still slept, then left the house.

*

An endless plateau of white surrounded Evanee. No sky, no walls. Just white trailing off to infinity.

The White Place. Such a childish name, but she’d named it when she was a child.

She opened her arms wide, tilted her face skyward, letting the tranquility of the space cradle her body. The silence settled her mind. The color calmed her soul. The aloneness healed her heart.

Over the past few months, she’d longed for this escape. But the White Place chose when to admit her. It was a gift granted only in the worst of times.

Growing up, she came here every time she slept. This place rejuvenated her fragmented emotions, granted her the strength to fight, and gave her the will to live when the easier option was suicide.

It’d been a decade since her last visit. Too long.

A sound. She caged the breath in her lungs to listen. Sound had never existed in the White Place.

Fear whispered over the back of her neck, the backs of her arms, the backs of her legs. She was in the presence of a predator. She could sense its malicious energy, its malevolent intent.

The sound—clearer this time.

Humming. The sweet dulcet tones clashed with the suffocating terror coursing through her.

She lowered her arms to her sides, cinched her hands into fists, and turned.

A child, a little girl, her body in profile. Her pink shirt, her hands, her baby-doll blond tresses matted with reddish mud. The glare of color against the pristine white was repulsive. Wrong.

Adrenaline squirted into Evanee’s system. Every muscle mobilized, ready to fight. Or run.

Why was she afraid of a dirty kid?

She could only see the side of the girl’s face, but that was enough to see her beauty. She was the kind of child women were jealous of because they knew how stunning she’d be when she matured. The kind of child every father feared having because the boys wouldn’t leave her alone. The kind of child parents couldn’t help spoiling.