The Darkness in Dreams (Enforcer's Legacy, #1)(8)

Lexi stiffened against the rocks.

He remained where he was, relaxed in the sun.

She challenged him without speaking.

He taunted her, and for one desperate moment she wanted to flounce away like she was five years old again. She even thought there were daisies in her hair, felt a wet-sharp stem scraping against her scalp behind her ear.

Sunlight softened, melting on a faint breeze. Lexi reached up, just lifted her hand as a white and yellow butterfly flitted nearby. The dainty wings caught the light. She watched as the butterfly changed direction in that lazy, zig-zag way they do, flew toward her outstretched fingers. It hovered, landed briefly, waved its wings up and down before drifting away. Lexi realized she was holding her breath. Realized she was waiting for something that didn’t happen… always the waiting.

Christan pushed away from the rocks with such aggression the air became turbulent. Heat waves vibrated. Lexi’s eyes burned while he seemed to disappear around the edges. Then the energy dissolved and the man was back in his guardian position, arms crossed, legs relaxed, leaning against his rock wall with every appearance of disinterest.

It was a hell of a lot to get from a little butterfly. When Arsen drew her attention, Lexi tried to focus on what he was saying.

“Let’s go back to yesterday.”

“A day I do not remember,” she said tightly.

“I regret the loss of memory.”

“Says the person with no intention of apologizing.”

“I regret that as well,” Arsen agreed, and on a surge of frustration Lexi lunged to her feet, feeling like a drunken woman on stilts.

“I’m so tired of your explanations, Arsen,” she said, bracing against the rock to steady her cramped legs. She began to pace, trying to shrug off the disruptive effects of Christan’s hostility. The man threatened her in ways Arsen never would. Arsen was a surfer boy with steel beneath the killer smile. Christan was fierce with uncompromising male power. He pulled a phone from his pocket and Lexi smirked as he fought with the unlock function before jabbing at the screen.

“Christan?” Arsen asked. Then they were having some kind of silent communication that bros have and Lexi wasn’t included. Which was fine. She wasn’t interested in talking to either of them. They couldn’t force her to take part in a fake intervention if she didn’t want to, and it wasn’t as if being in the wilderness intimidated her. Lexi had trekked through plenty of empty places while researching locations, and they’d foolishly provided the hiking boots. She was no longer going to wait around feeling helpless.

Lexi decided her first action would be to locate some water. Then she would leave, walk away, and Arsen could explain her disappearance to his good friend Marge—who she would really fire the moment she got home. It occurred to Lexi that she was acting badly. In her own defense, she’d been sitting on the rocky ground for at least an hour with nothing to do but have inane conversations and watch the red ants move bits of grass around. She was entitled to be irritable under the circumstances.

With that justification, Lexi looked at her options. In her experience, backpacks contained water, and there were backpacks right in front of her. It would serve them right if she took matters into her own hands, maybe threw their underwear all over the ground.

Arsen was still in his conversation with Christan, so Lexi saw no reason to question her actions. The first backpack held clothes of the male variety and she tossed it aside. But the second held pay dirt.

It just wasn’t the dirt she’d expected.

There was a file, filled with photos that looked like—was that her cottage?

“Oh, my god!”

“Lexi.”

“Is that my bedroom?” Arsen reached for the photos but Lexi danced out of his reach. “Oh, no, Bucko, you get to explain this. All of this.” She waved them beneath his nose, thinking he could explain the brown grass and red ants as well.

Arsen was stalking toward her but wisely staying beyond her reach. There were photos of her deck, her kitchen, her bathroom... Lexi tossed photo after photo onto the ground because whoever had taken these photos had been following her for a very long time.

Arsen reached for her. “We can explain—"

“I’ll just bet you can.” Lexi wrenched away, hating him. Both of them. Hating Christan a little bit harder and not understanding why. “Just like you can explain me being here when I don’t remember, and why you took my phone.”

“The reason you were running—”

“Oh, so now we’re back to the running?” Were those tears in her eyes? No, she refused to waste that kind of emotion on them.

“Lexi, please, we aren’t trying—”

“The hell you aren’t trying.” Lexi was shaking the last photo in the air as if it was a weapon that would protect her if he attacked. And yelling, yes, lots of yelling.

Her vision was distorting again, too, because now Arsen had that heat wave vibration going on around him. He disappeared at the edges, the way Christan had when he’d pushed aggressively from the rocks.

But none of it was as bad as realizing they’d lied. Why did she feel hurt by that? People always lied.

Lexi closed her eyes. She wanted to be back home in Rock Cove. She wanted to stand beneath the cool fir trees dripping in the rain, listening to her grandmother’s voice as she said, Galaxy, what do you believe? Are you a pinpoint in the vast emptiness, alone in the dark, or are you part of something more?