Rules of Survival(2)

The fan should have been one of the first places I searched. Mom used to joke that I was the “wind beneath her wings.” It was a line from a cheesy old song she’d loved. Sentimental, that was Mom. She believed music made the world go round.

I was losing my touch. Or maybe my memories of her were fading. Each morning I found myself waking up and needing to concentrate harder and harder just to picture her face. Some days it remained elusive, nothing more than a watery silhouette with no defined features. I wondered if eventually she’d be no more than a cloudy image dancing on the edge of my mind. The ghost of someone I used to know.

Balanced on the chair, I rose up on my toes and managed to hook a single finger around a blade and give it a good push. A whoosh of air sent a year’s worth of dust everywhere, up my nose and down my throat, and as I gagged on it, a white blur caught my eye when it drifted to the ground.

Score!

I almost lost my footing as I hopped from the chair, and in my haste to retrieve the letter—which had slipped under the armchair—totally missed the front door opening. And an uninvited guest stepping inside.

Two of them, actually.

“See, Shaun? I told you it was only a matter of time before she came back to town. Never doubt me, kid.”

“What the—” Letter momentarily forgotten, I spun toward the door. A cold gust of wind blew through the room along with two men—both tall, a younger one with unruly black hair and intense hazel eyes, the older one bald with large brown eyes and a long scar on the right side of his face that went from chin to ear.

“That’s Mikayla Morgan?” the younger of the two—probably in his early twenties if I had to guess—said, frowning. He looked unimpressed, and I found myself a little insulted. Wearing a leather jacket and dark-blue jeans that were shredded at the knees, he had the bad-boy thing working overtime. Intense, soulful eyes that screamed mischief looking for a place to happen, chiseled jaw, and an athletic build. In other words, hot as all holy hell. Judging by the way he stood there, cocky grin in place, he knew it, too. “I thought she’d be…bigger.”

The older one laughed. “Don’t let her appearance fool you. I bet she’s plenty dangerous. Just like her mamma.”

“Wow,” I said, shaking off the cold as he closed the door. I’d never seen the younger one before—I would have remembered—but the older guy I knew all too well. I hadn’t seen him in almost a year, but I could never forget that face. He’d been a part of my life off and on for as far back as I could remember. “Patrick Tanner. Long time no see.”

Arms folded, Patrick frowned. I’d forgotten about him lacking a sense of humor. The last time we’d met, Mom and I left him stranded on the side of the road in Minnesota with four flat tires during one of the biggest snowstorms of the year. We thought it was hilarious—for some reason he hadn’t agreed. “Not from lack of trying on my part.”

I shrugged, trying to come off casual while scanning the room for a possible escape route. Patrick Tanner had been obsessed with my mom since before I was born—and not in a good way. He was a bounty hunter and his main goal in life was to bring her in. Now that she was gone, he’d turned his focus on me. “What can I say? I’m just that good.”

“Or that lucky,” his leather-clad mini-me said with a shameless smirk. I caught a glimpse of black against his skin just below the neckline of his T-shirt. A tattoo maybe? It made me hate him all the more. I’d wanted one in the worst way, but it was against the rules. No permanent markings—tattoos, piercings, etc.—that made you easier to identify. We needed to blend in easily with any crowd. That meant being completely generic.

I glared at him. Oh, yeah. Those eyes were heartbreak city. “And you are?”

Patrick clasped a hand down on the guy’s shoulder and gave a slight shake. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me since coming inside. “This is Shaun. I’m showing him the ropes. Teaching him the tricks of the trade.”

“Tricks of the trade?” I snorted. “That’s fancy talk for hunting people down like dogs, right?”

Shaun stuffed both hands into his jacket pockets, finally breaking eye contact. “That’s a little dramatic, don’t ya think? We hunt criminals.”

“I’m not a criminal,” I said with barely contained anger. Sure, my mom did a few things that had been technically against the law—okay, more than a few—but I was innocent. Mostly. Patrick didn’t seem to care about that, though. He’d been on my ass from day one. Following me from town to town, determined to finish what he’d started with Mom.

“You’re a murder suspect,” Patrick said, matter of fact.

“You might have had some serious hate-on for my mom, but you know damn well I didn’t murder her. I would never…”

I let the rest of the sentence hang in the air, biting back a wave of emotion. Pain, and more than that, hate. For Patrick. His relentless pursuit hadn’t given me much free time to think about Mom—much less mourn her loss. The wounds were still raw.

There was a flash of sympathy in his eyes, but it was there and gone before I could blink, making me wonder if I’d even seen it to begin with. Patrick wasn’t the apologetic type. He was a soulless prick who benefited from other people’s mistakes. “Quite a few people looking to get their hands on you. Doesn’t matter one way or the other. Innocent, guilty, it’s all the same to me. There’s a hefty price on your head. The police think you did it, and I intend to bring you to justice and collect a fat check.”