"Hurry up in there," Jack said, but he wasn't barging in to check on her.
"Asshole," Cindy muttered, and because she wanted to annoy him, she took another minute as she wet her hair just enough to get rid of some of the frizz.
Because she was curious, she also very carefully opened one of the drawers, as silently as she could, just to see what was inside of it. She found an electric shaver, some cotton swabs, spare hand towels and so on. In the drawer below that, there was the odd bottle of cologne, some body wash, and a few other necessities that a man would need for his morning routine.
He hadn't been lying, however. There wasn't a real razor in sight. There wasn't even a hand mirror that she could steal and break for later on. She really was stuck.
Jack knocked on the wall, probably because he knew that if he knocked on the door, it would open. Maybe the only reason why he didn't do just that was because he worried about seeing her on the toilet or something. "Cindy? You okay?"
She sighed. Of course she wasn't okay. The man she'd loved was going to ship her off to a lab the second the collectors came to pick her up. She was utterly and totally screwed.
But then she looked herself in the mirror. Really looked this time, instead of just staring ahead in a daze.
"What are you doing in there, Cindy?" Jack asked.
"I'm, uh, brushing my teeth," she said, and then clenched her eyes shut. That was dumb. She quickly went looking through Jack's drawer again, sure that she'd seen a toothbrush somewhere.
"You're brushing your teeth?" Jack asked.
"Yeah, I found one of your toothbrushes," she said, and then sighed when she found them. He must've stocked up from Costco or whatever because there were extra unopened toothbrushes inside, and she quickly opened one and reached for the toothpaste.
"Oh," Jack said. "Sorry, I didn't think about giving you one."
What was he sorry for? He was going to sell her. Not giving her a toothbrush seemed pretty low on the list of things that were insulting in comparison to that.
She started brushing her teeth, because she really did need to clean her mouth out once she realized it.
Then a thought came on to her, that same one that had been brewing as she stared at her reflection, and it built and built until, within seconds, she had a solid plan.
Despite getting kidnapped and locked into a hunter box for the night, she didn't look half bad. Her hair was now wild and all over the place, despite her attempts to tame it, but that had its own sexy sort of appeal, especially when it was as damp as it was. Her eyeliner was a little smudged from sleeping while wearing it, but her expensive brand of mascara hadn't run, even when she'd cried, and that gave her a smoky-eye sort of look she'd always tried and failed to get on her own.
She looked pretty damn good, all things considered. Jack had loved her at one time, and he'd often complimented her on her looks. He'd loved her wild red hair, the heart shape of her face and her lips, and he'd touched both every chance he got. He hadn't even minded the freckles that dotted her cheeks and shoulders.
The fact that he'd fed her, let her out of the box so it would be easier to breathe, and then brought her upstairs to use the bathroom instead of giving her a pee bucket meant he didn't completely see her as an animal. There was some sympathy inside of him for her. She could use that.
No, she was going to use that. This was her way out.
She finished brushing her teeth and rinsed her mouth with his mouthwash. She even pinched her cheeks and bit down on her lips for some added color. She thought she saw that Jack had some hair gel as well. She could use some of that to keep the wet effect in her red-orange mess on her head.
Everything had to be perfect for this to work.
Jack had taken her power away from her, but she still held a very strong power over him. Herself. She wasn't going to the labs, and she was getting out of here, no matter what she had to do to accomplish that.
She'd even seduce a man who hated her.
Chapter Eight
Jamie turned off his phone immediately after checking for messages. He wasn't ready to ditch it just yet, but it was tempting to take the SIM card out and just squash the thing so he couldn't be traced.
She must have been picked up. She didn't show up last night and she wasn't answering his calls, or the emails he was sending to her private account. He didn't expect her to just blindly text him either. They had little codes for each other that they used in every message, to prove they were who they said they were, and that no one was coercing them into writing or saying anything.
Jamie was really hoping this was just a mistake, that her phone was lost or dead and that she was just inexplicably unable to contact him, not because of hunters, but that was so damned unlikely that he felt like yanking his hair out.
She was caught. The hunters had caught up with her and she'd probably been hauled off to a compound somewhere for study hours ago.
The thought of the collectors being rough with her, and handlers grabbing at her, taking her clothes away and pushing her every which way they wanted her to go before a scientist stuck her with needles, made it difficult for him to breathe.
He could feel his temperature rising and he could barely see or hear the people who were walking past him on the sidewalk. He needed to get away from them. He felt eyes on him from all angles and it itched him all over in a way he couldn't scratch.
Jamie inhaled deeply. He did it again, and then again. It got easier when he focused. He was going to be hauled in, too, if he didn't cut it out and calm down. He'd already sucked the power out of an entire city block when he checked his phone for the fourteenth time since waking up early that morning. Now he was buzzing with electricity, and it would be too easy for him to lose control and draw even more unwanted attention.
It couldn't be helped. He'd just been too pissed. His best friend was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it.
All the electricity that had been coursing through air conditioners, televisions, and even the phones and iPods from people walking around on the streets, had been tapped. It flowed right into his body as if it had nowhere else to go. Jamie was still jumpy and jittery, like he was on a sugar high. Tiny blue sparks danced out from his fingers. He probably had another white patch in his hair. Thank god he was such a pale blond, almost platinum, that it was hard to notice, but the way his hair stuck up was more noticeable.
He'd gotten out of Dodge when he realized what was happening, as everyone around him yelled and searched around for the source of the disruption.
Running helped. Physical exercise always succeeded in working some of the energy out. The rest he'd need to put back into the ground, once he found a safe place.
On the other hand, taking off like a bat out of hell probably hadn't been such a great idea. Nothing screamed "pay attention to me!" like someone running away from the scene when something weird was happening.
Hunters had probably been called already, which meant he needed to get his ass home now so he could hide out.
But if Cindy had been picked up, and they tortured information out of her, he was going to have to move out of the city before she spoke and the roads shut down. He had to do it before the sun set today. He trusted Cindy, but there was no telling what would happen to her if she didn't comply in the labs.
"Jamie? What are you doing here?"
He jumped at the voice, but then he sighed as he turned around, glad for someone he knew. "Ethan, hey, I was just-" Jamie stopped abruptly.
Ethan stared at him, patiently waiting for an answer, his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket.
Jamie could hardly look at him. The second his eyes noticed the light that glimmered off of the gold badge at his hip, not a cop's badge either, the one that had a hawk in flight, Jamie stepped back.
"I didn't know you were a hunter," he said.
"Yeah, I was going to mention it eventually, I guess," Ethan said, rubbing his hand over his trimmed beard. His dark eyes moved back up to Jamie's face, glinting with suspicion. "What are you doing here?"
"Just hanging out."
"In an alley?"
"What?" Jamie looked around. There were bricks and trash and dumpsters lining the space he found himself in. Fuck. He was in an alley.
"Yeah, in an alley. What are you doing here?" Jamie asked. "This isn't exactly a place to be social."
Ethan stared at him hard for a good solid minute, and then took a step toward him. "Are you selling something?"
"What? No," Jamie said. Hunters weren't cops, but in most cases, they had more power than cops did. Ethan could easily fuck up Jamie's day even more if he suspected Jamie was dealing something.
"Are you buying something?" Ethan asked, his voice level, but still suspicious..
"No!"
Jamie snapped his mouth shut. Fuck. It might've been better if he'd just admitted to wanting to buy something. Wanting to get high by drinking the blood of paranormals, or smoking some of their hairs, would've been a hell of a lot easier for Jamie to deal with than having Ethan looking at him like he was now, regardless of the questions he'd have to answer.