Midnight Rising(78)

The gunfire came again, another rapid report that split the night. The sharp staccato pops were coming from somewhere close; in his head they were cannon fire, the sound of them—the shock of a sudden attack—ripping through his senses, filling his mind with a thick fog that swallowed the here and now.



Dylan, he thought fiercely.



Had to keep her safe.



He was only barely conscious of his actions as he grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her down onto the grass beneath him. Her cry of alarm was muted, more felt than heard as he covered her body with his, willing to sacrifice himself for her.



Protecting her was all that mattered.



But as they hit the hard earth together, Rio felt his mind splintering off. Past and present began to blend, mesh…morph into a hazy confusion of thought and fracturing logic.



Suddenly he was in the warehouse again—Lucan, Nikolai, and the other warriors moving in on a raid of a Rogue lair in Boston. He was glancing up into the rafters of the abandoned building, noting the movement of enemies in the shadows.



Seeing the silver glint of an electronic device in the suckhead’s hands.



Hearing Niko shout a warning that a bomb was set to blow…



Ah, fuck.



Rio roared as remembered pain blasted into his head, into every inch of his body. He felt like he was on fire, flesh burning, filling his nostrils with the stench of seared skin and hair.



Cool hands came up to his face, but he was too far gone to make sense of what was real and what was a nightmare from his recent past.



“Rio?”



He heard the soft voice, felt those soothing hands moving over his face.



And, from somewhere not far away the hoots and chortles of several human youths. The laughter was accompanied by the slap of sneakers on pavement, all of it growing distant now.



“Rio. Are you all right?”



He knew that voice. It filtered through the swelling madness that was engulfing him, a lifeline thrown to him in the dark of his mind. He reached for it, feeling her voice ground him where nothing else ever had.



“Dylan,” he managed to rasp out between the panting of his breath. “Don’t want you to get hurt…”



“I’m fine. It was only firecrackers.” She smoothed her fingers over the cold clamminess of his forehead. “Those boys set them off by the railing over there. It’s okay now.”



Like hell it was.



He felt one of his blackouts coming on, and coming on fast. He rolled away from Dylan with a groan. “Shit…my head hurts…can’t think straight.”



She must have leaned over him, because he felt her breath skate across his cheek as she blew out a low curse. “Your eyes, Rio. Shit. They’re changing…they’re glowing amber.”



He knew they must be. His fangs were biting into his tongue, his skin tightening up all over his body as rage and pain transformed him. He was at his most deadly like this, when his mind was not his own. When his devil’s hands were at their most unpredictable, and most powerful.



“We have to get you someplace less public,” Dylan said. She slipped her hands underneath his shoulders.



“Hold on to me. I’m going to help you stand up.”



“No.”



“What do you mean, no?”



“Leave me,” he rasped.



Dylan scoffed. “Like hell I will. You can’t lie out here like this in the middle of Manhattan and expect not to be noticed. Now, come on. Get. Up.”



“I can’t…don’t want to touch you. I don’t want to hurt you, Dylan.”



“Then don’t,” she said, and put her weight into the task of hoisting him up onto his feet.



Rio had no choice but to put his hands on her shoulders to steady himself as the fog in his mind grew thicker, swallowing up his vision. He fought to keep the blackout at bay, knowing Dylan would be safest only if he remained lucid.



“Lean on me, damn it,” she ordered him. “I’m going to help you.”





Dylan wedged herself under Rio’s arm and took his wrist in her hand, bearing as much of his weight as she could while she tried to find somewhere private for him to deal with the aftershocks of the attack that had come over him. She led him off the riverside walkway and up a one-way side street where there was less traffic, and far less people around to get close enough to see his transformation.



“Still good?” she asked him, hurrying toward an old brick church with plenty of shadows behind it. “Can you make it a bit farther?”



He gave a nod and grunted, but each step was more sluggish than the last. “Blacking…out…”