The Darkness in Dreams (Enforcer's Legacy, #1)(9)
In the background, two events registered. The first was the sound of car doors opening, then slamming shut, and Lexi opened her eyes to find the source.
The second was Christan as he flicked his hand in her direction.
Lexi landed hard, and face first on the ground.
CHAPTER 5
“Well, that worked out well.”
Lexi didn’t believe “worked out well” adequately rose to the occasion. But she recognized the voice. It belonged to Marge, her former therapist, former best friend and surrogate mother figure. And her biggest betrayer.
Lexi was lying on the ground. She wasn’t able to move and she didn’t know why, other than her arms and legs refused to push her upright. It was a little humiliating when she thought about it. A little bizarre. But Marge seemed to take everything in stride, looking sophisticated and motherly at the same time. The older woman fit the wilderness environment as comfortably as she did the cozy therapy office in Rock Cove. She was tall and blue-eyed and there was a man walking at her side. A tall man, well-built with mink-colored hair, wearing jeans and a black sweater that caressed his shoulders.
Lexi wanted to think about that for a moment, think about why her friend would have lied about having a man in her life.
Lexi thought Marge lived alone; it was one of the reasons they’d bonded, but it was definitely not the reality. The man leaned in, pressed his lips to Marge’s temple, whispered something that made the woman laugh. It was an intimate laugh, the kind of laugh a woman only gave to one man. The sun shifted behind a swift moving little cloud and came out again. Lexi glanced around the empty landscape before looking back at Marge.
The couple approached, the men doing the forearm grab men do when they’re part of the tribe. It took a few moments. Marge was standing to the side wearing a plaid shirt in shades of green with khaki slacks and boots. The sunlight caught in her honey-blond hair, making it shimmer around her shoulders.
“What did you do, Christan?” Marge was looking in Lexi’s direction, while everyone else seemed to be waiting, tense.
“Nothing.”
“You can’t keep putting her on the ground every time you lose an argument.”
“I wasn’t losing.”
“Well, you still can’t do it, it’s considered abusive now. Go on, let her up.”
The predator tipped his head arrogantly, widened his stance and crossed his arms against his chest. His expression hardened. The breeze skittered and gritty bits of sand drifted in the air before Arsen moved his hand. The pressure holding Lexi eased. Christan waited until she was on her hands and knees and then flicked his hand again. She went down. Hard. Marge looked at Christan and her eyebrow flicked up.
“What are you, three years old? Let her up, Christan.”
He did nothing. Marge’s expression could have brought a grown man to his knees, if that man had been so inclined. Christan obviously wasn’t inclined. Marge blew out an irritated breath.
“Please,” she said after a moment. “Robbie needs to set up the canopy and I want it overlooking the river.” Then, as if a bribe would work when intimidation hadn’t, she added, “He has cold beer.”
Marge turned, waving a hand toward the black vehicle, and the conversation ended unless they were doing the silent communication again. Lexi watched with growing indignation as the group moved away. Christan could damn well come back and let her up because she wanted the sand out of her mouth. And the ants. They were beginning to concern her. She wondered if they knew she’d murdered one of their own.
But more than that, she wanted to know what the hell was going on, especially with the hand flicky thing Christan used to put her on the ground. She squeezed her eyes closed and then opened them. Men began carrying a small table and chairs to the hill Marge had chosen for her last stand. A white canopy went up, stakes pounded into the ground with rhythmic thuds—a medieval pavilion where the lords and ladies came to enjoy the carnage. All that was missing were the bright streamers and men on stomping horses.
Christan had moved back into her range of vision but there was no sense of relief. The man was arrogant. When he walked past without even acknowledging her, the wave of remembered loneliness was crushing.
You’re old enough to understand, Galaxy, her mother had said as she’d walked away. Their last conversation, probably the only truthful conversation they’d ever had. Her mother wanted a life and there’d been no room for a child. It was better that way, the way it ended, with a child and a stuffed bear and a mother disappearing in the mist.
It taught Lexi an insight she appreciated to this day. Life was limited in what the heart could absorb. Most hearts overflowed with the crap people drug around, so there wasn’t any point trying to get in if there wasn’t any room.
Nor was there any point in asking this man for anything. He would have nothing to give.
When the pavilion was finished, Lexi waited while Arsen approached. He looked guilty in his flowered Hawaiian shirt, but forgiveness was not an option. When he flicked his hand, she stumbled to her feet and took two rapid steps backward. Knocked his fingers away when he tugged a twig from her hair. The white tee shirt she wore had a red smudge near the waist and Lexi decided it was time to reset the ground rules.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t walk away right now.”