He took another step forward until he was only a foot away, and a tremor ran through her that she hoped he didn't notice. He was definitely impatient. She had a feeling he wasn't the type to naturally run long on that attribute anyway. She'd never been easily intimidated but dying seemed to have unsettled her composure a bit.
Maybe she should've gone to the second name on the list, someone named Fate, but this place had been closer. She had to believe that the five miles between this location and the next address didn't mean the difference between life and … Could you even kill a dead girl?
She watched as he stood in front of her and realized that, good or bad, the choice was out of her hands, for now anyway. She was here, and her second and third choices were no longer available. Might as well lay it all out on the table. And come to think of it, she had already died once this week and come out of that intact. If he did kill her, maybe she'd just keep coming back?
"I really don't know anymore. I can tell you who I used to be." She watched his face, waiting to see what reaction he would have. There was none.
"Keep talking." He didn't retreat or continue forward, the only movement was to cross his arms, showing off the striated muscles of his forearms. The gesture worked against physics and somehow made him look larger.
She thought of how to explain all that had happened, not sure how to tell him the chaotic events that had occurred. He was going to think she was insane. What if she told him and he called someone from the loony bin to come and get her?
She did a mental shake of her head as she appraised him. No. Chain her up in a basement? Maybe. Call the cops or an ambulance? She'd bet no on that one.
"Talk." He leaned forward as he said it. If she didn't start giving him what he wanted, he'd be on top of her soon.
The buildup of frayed nerves took over and she decided to run with the situation as she started babbling it all out, without a thought to what was being said. "I was running an art show in my gallery in Seattle, and I went outside to go get my phone. It was dead, and I wanted to charge it, but I didn't have a cord in my office because I lent it to a friend the day before, and so I only had a car charger and I hate not having a phone and there was no-"
"I get it. You went outside." He made a rolling motion with his hand so close to her it caused a few strands of blonde hair to sway. His eyebrows rose slightly. "Then what?"
And here came the ugly part she didn't like to think of, let alone have to explain to someone. "There was a sharp pain. Someone stabbing me, I think, but I'm not sure because I couldn't find any wounds and I still can't, and then I was somewhere else entirely and it wasn't Seattle anymore, and I didn't look like me. There was this guy who said I was dead and I had to work for him, and I think I'm having a psychotic break because none of this makes any sense, but he had your name on a list of threats and I made a run for it-"
"What was his name?" His words cut through hers, startling her out of her rambling.
"Who?" Faith didn't care that he kept cutting her off. She wasn't sure anything coming out of her mouth was making sense anyway. It didn't sound plausible to her and she'd just lived through every horrifying second of it. Maybe she should've gone to the cops, but if it were true … if she was dead, and all the things that had happened to her were accurate, what would the cops do?
She didn't look like herself anymore; she had no proof that she was who she said. She'd definitely end up in a psych ward for sure, locked up like a sitting duck for that psycho to come and pluck her up, pretending to be a relative or something. No; Lars, as intimidating as he looked, was still the better choice.
She looked at him with that thought in mind. Boy, she might really be fucked if he was it, though. She had a feeling the odds were really low on him having a Good Samaritan plaque hanging in the back somewhere.
"The one who wanted you to work for him?" His voice was calm as he reminded her that he was still waiting for an answer, and somehow she heard the weight of the question he'd just put to her. She had a feeling he was already suspecting the name she was about to give but she wasn't sure if it would be a good or bad thing.
She looked around, as if just uttering his name would somehow make it possible for him to find her here, and then decided she'd probably read too many Harry Potter novels. She cleared her throat, trying to get rid of the hitch she knew would be there, and forced the name out anyway. If Harry could do it, so could she! "Malokin."
She flinched as he suddenly went from almost perfectly still to a movement so fast it blurred. His arms unlocked and his fist slammed into the nearest counter, splitting the wood and dislodging everything upon it in the process and she was glad she hadn't mentioned the other one who'd wanted her.
Faith nearly tripped in her effort to move farther away from him. He didn't seem to notice as he let out a string of curses. She backed up until the wall was at her back and prayed to a god she was fairly certain had forsaken her that she hadn't made a huge mistake. Then she remembered that she was an atheist. Oh yeah, she was screwed for sure.
Chapter Two
First his friend Fate dragged him into this mess with Malokin, and now the shit storm was literally spreading into his shop, Dead Ink. Up until this point, even with the gangs on the street and the way the riots were kicking up, he'd managed to maintain some semblance of normality. The world might be going to hell but in his small corner, there was still normal civilization. It might only be a block long but it was enough for him.
His attention swung back to the girl who'd brought the mess inside his shop with her.
She'd marched right in here and dragged Malokin, the most likely cause for this upheaval, right along with her. Malokin was a sadistic bastard who lived for pain and anger and had been eluding him and the guys for years. The only thing they knew about him was that he was somehow the psychical manifestation of anger and had appeared with increasing regularity, right along with the increase of riots and the gangs in the streets.
And now he appeared to be sending care packages to Lars, all wrapped up in the shape of a helpless female with a sweet voice. And how did she get past his wards? Anyone wishing ill upon him or his property shouldn't have been able to make it beyond the sidewalk. Unless he'd left a loophole? Did he say people wishing him harm or just men? He'd have to redo them now.
Still, she didn't look like trouble, and you didn't hang around as long as he did and get lied to easily. Problem was, the read he was getting off of her contradicted everything he knew about Malokin's tactics so far. He didn't recruit the innocent types to work for him. She could be here setting a trap.
But she was here so what did he do with her now?
"What's your name?"
"Faith Dover," she said and then her eyes drifted off toward the door again. "Or it used to be."
Her fingers hadn't stopped toying with a rip in the dirty shirt she was wearing, and she looked like she hadn't slept in a week. Her pants appeared to have been rolled around in a dirt pile while she was still wearing them, and he thought that might have been a fragment of a dead leaf stuck in her hair. He would've thought Malokin would've sent her out packaged up a little better. She was definitely attractive but she looked like filet mignon served up on a moldy hamburger bun. Malokin might be a sadistic psychopath but he was a sophisticated and polished one. Nothing about this made any sense.
"Why did you decide to come here?" He took a few steps closer to her, closing the distance that had been created when he'd lost his temper, but stopped when he saw her chest rise and fall more rapidly. He didn't want her terrified to the point she'd hyperventilate. He wanted answers now, not in a half an hour after he'd gone to the trouble of reviving her from a spell of nerves.
"Because I didn't want to work for him or be near that man and I didn't know where else to go. You were the closest name on the list I knew I could get to."
"Closest to where? Where is he?" Lars asked, thinking maybe they'd finally found a lead on the slippery eel's location. They'd tracked Malokin down many times to always get there just as the dust was settling from his departure.
He could see her struggling to remember and then a thought triggering an action. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper and looked at it quickly. "The Breakwaters," she said as she handed it to him, the name and address of the hotel stamped on top, his shop's address and his name scribbled in messy handwriting below, as if she'd been in a hurry.