Ultimate Weapon (McClouds & Friends #6)(154)

She dragged her attention back to the music blasting into her headphones and focused on the bracelet she was working on. The evil, whispering voice was backing off with time, but oh, so slightly and oh, so slowly. Every time she spaced out and stared blankly into space, which was often, Novak’s raspy voice was there to fill the gap, whispering his constant stream of cruelty and filth.

Damn. She had to get over this. Rachel was traumatized, too, and Tam had to be strong for her. She could not afford to whine and mope.

But oh, God, it was hard. She weighed two tons. She felt so tired, so sad and empty. The f*cked-up arm and the near-lethal dose of poison on top of it all had wiped her out. So did pining for Val. Not twenty seconds passed that she was not thinking of him, dreaming of him. Lusting for him, too, now that the worst of the poison had worked itself out of her system. She was starting to feel almost human again, even a little bit female, which meant that erotic dreams of him had begun to torment her, along with the hideous nightmares. She’d be hard put to say which type of dream was the most upsetting.

He had not called or texted or e-mailed. Granted, neither had she. She’d grabbed Rachel and run, over oceans and continents, as soon as she’d been capable of standing. Well before the doctors had wanted to let her go.

She could not bear to see him. She’d been in overload. Poisoned, polluted, sickened by everything, herself included. It had overcome her. The poison she’d swallowed, being slimed by Georg, having Rachel taken, threatened. The mental poison that Novak had forcefed her. Those videos, playing and playing in her head.

And that last awful conversation she’d had with Val. He, spitting with rage and betrayal, handcuffed to the bed. She, spraying a drug into his face so she could run off and murder someone.

All things considered, they had issues.

She couldn’t bear the thought of him looking at her the way she felt. She flinched from being seen by anyone. It hurt, it burned. The only reason she permitted it at all was for Rachel’s sake.

That was why she allowed the McCloud contingent to hang out here, always underfoot and driving her slowly but surely bugf*ck. So that Rachel would have one more healthy, sane point of reference, besides the long-suffering Rosalia. She could not trust herself to be one. On the contrary.

She’d thought about contacting Val by e-mail, with the electronic distance giving her a little emotional protection. Had even gone so far as to pull up the Capriccio Consulting Web site contact page on her computer screen, even typing a few words.

Something had always laid a heavy, smothering hand over each attempt. The same something that kept playing the erotic footage of San Vito and the Huxley hotel over and over in her head, the images cheapened by the camera’s cold, unfriendly eye into porn.

She saw glowing, malevolent green eyes watching her in the dark when she lay in bed not sleeping. When she did get to sleep, she dreamed of herself, skim milk pale and covered with goosebumps, cold, wearing soiled, limp, red silk lingerie. Alone, shivering in the snow. All the many monsters of her life circling round, licking their lips.

And that voice, whispering. That evil voice. Men don’t love women like you. They use them and discard them, like the trash that they are.

This wasn’t her usual horror of being made a fool of. This was worse. The stakes were so much higher. If she called it wrong, if she opened herself up, offered herself to Val, and proved to be mistaken, she wouldn’t just feel like a fool. Not this time.

She would be dead. Destroyed. It would be the end. She didn’t have the courage to risk it. Her reserves of courage were all used up.

Hah. Now who was being melodramatic? She slid her hand up under the goggles to wipe the tears away. What would she say to him if she got him on e-mail anyway? Hi, what’s up? How do you feel?

God help her. Did she really want to know?

Even now, she imagined that she could feel his presence. Her skin prickled with warmth. If she turned, there he’d be, gazing at her out of those dark, smoldering eyes filled with speechless longing.

But she would not give in to the urge to turn. The blankness she felt when she saw the empty space where he wasn’t was too f*cking depressing. She had to stop doing that to herself.

But her neck itched madly, hairs prickling. She took off the headphones, and hesitated for a moment. Her heart thudded.

Ah, what the hell. Why not compound her misery?

She turned, looked…and gasped.

The world shifted on its axis. Her blush started from the very soles of her feet, or even deeper. From some other lost dimension of her being: the molten core of her soul, the bottom of the ocean of her heart.

She felt naked. Inside out. Sweet, shivering chills chased themselves across her skin. Part terror, part astonished joy.

He said nothing, just gazed at her. His hair was longer, too long for the cool style he had before. It dangled over his eyes and ears in unkempt waves, streaked with threads of stark white.

He was thinner, more compact than before. His eyes shadowed, his skin paler, his jaw sharp. His cheekbones jutted out like they’d been carved with a dull knife. But it was him.

God, how he filled the space he occupied. How he dominated it. He took the place he inhabited and claimed it utterly, made it his own.

The way he had claimed her. By some freak miracle.

She cleared her throat. “Aren’t you going to say something?” The words burst past the aching block in her throat.

His mouth twitched. “I was waiting for you to start.”