House of Slide Hybrid (10 page)

I stared at him, wondering if his insanity was giving him delusions. He couldn’t know where he was—I hardly knew that and I’d been sitting beside Grim the whole time he drove.

“You can’t tell where we are? The earth pulls at me, the trees in the park, that way,” he nodded past me, like the walls of Grim’s home and every other little house were translucent to him. “You should learn that, to feel familiar landmarks, it should be part of your training.”

I opened my mouth to ask how he knew that I was going to be training, then shut it again, not wanting to continue this conversation any longer than was absolutely necessary.

“If Axel doesn’t have it…” His face became a mask of fury at the same time I stopped edging towards the door.

“Axel?” I asked, images of Lewis and his auburn hair dancing through my mind with a vividness most of my memories lacked. I could practically smell him, the sunshine on grass scent, while his eyes, so warm, golden and lovely gazed back at me.

“He must have it, kept in his garage as a trophy. He wouldn’t keep it in the house—not the place to keep something like that. Most of its potency would be bled there.”

“You’re serious?” I asked, waiting for the madness to subside, or for him to explode into rage Grim would hear. “You know where his, um, garage is, and it’s close to here?”

He stared at me levelly, making me extremely uncomfortable. “Come here.”

I couldn’t help but move forward, one reluctant step at a time until he put his massive hand on my forehead, pushing me away from him at the same time as he flopped back on the bed. I stared at him, the pale, lifeless face where a moment ago it had been all potency and turned reeling to the doorway where Grim appeared, making me jump.

I blinked several times, trying to clear my vision while he nodded thoughtfully. “You should get some rest. Follow me, please.” I followed him, opening my mouth several times to tell him what had just happened, then closed it, not sure if I was ready to explain about the Hybrid to my uncle. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell him that he was awake and crazy, but that I wanted to know about the other thing, the part where the crazy Hybrid had touched my face and filled my mind with an image, a multitude of images actually, of walking to a place, details standing out in my mind, not fading with time as I stood with Grim outside another white room, only this time with a regular bed and no medical equipment.

I’d seen the way to the garage, and it was close, a few blocks away where I might be able to find answers to questions I’d never had time to ask. I didn’t for a moment think that Lewis would be there, no, I didn’t want him to be there. I certainly wouldn’t go running to him when the last time I’d seen him had been so unpleasant what with the blood loss and the exploding, and the fact that I’d told him I never wanted to see him again, right before he’d told me he loved me. I stood in the room alone remembering his words, wondering what was up with that. He shouldn’t have said that to me, not when he was nothing like the nice boy he’d pretended to be.

I stood there, lost in thought while a clock ticked in the hallway. I heard new voices, the low growl of my uncle Satan making me feel strangely protected and at the same time excluded, like I was a child in an all adult conversation where Grim could bring in Satan and they could know what was going on while I stood on the chessboard to be moved wherever they wanted me.

I went to the window to look out and saw the shadows stretched over the lawn, the darkness of the winter evening filling everything with shadows in spite of the piles of snow reflecting any light it could. I pushed hesitantly on the window, thinking that it would be stuck, but it opened with barely a sound. I shivered as the cold air swirled around me down the neck of my coat, making me zip it up. One leg over, then another, a three foot drop down to the snow and I was on my mad, impetuous, deeply misguided mission.

I grinned as I moved from shadow to shadow, feeling like a secret spy, or a seriously stupid lost puppy as I tumbled through the hedge and onto the sidewalk trying to look like I hadn’t just about landed on my face for anyone who might be looking my way. I couldn’t see anyone, couldn’t feel anyone with my leaning.

I shoved my hands deep in my pockets as I moved as quickly as I could without running down the block, across a dark street, then even faster down another block while I held my sparkling energy behind walls so I didn’t blow up the streetlights. The sounds of traffic were distant, like all the fervor of the city was far away in another world. After two more blocks the houses gave way to different buildings, old gas stations or brick structures covered in graffiti that may have been fast food at some point.

I knew that the garage was down an unlit alley with garbage bins along the walls, but it seemed like a strange place to have a super-secret stash of cars while it smelled of fried chicken and stale French fries.

I tripped on a bottle, sliding over it with a noise that made me suck in my breath and realize how nervous I really was. If I’d stopped to think about it, I would have brought a flashlight, a gun or an uncle—something anyone of average intelligence would have brought. As it was, I was so close, and the thought that I might find something on the other side of the wall to explain to me about Axel, to prove that the person I’d been obsessed with existed, that hope kept me walking. I kept walking even though I strained my ears to hear every sound, and stretched out all my internal senses to hopefully read if someone bad was in the vicinity.

I made it to the end of the alley, pushing my hands deeper into my pockets. My jeans were cold enough. It was a good thing that I’d resisted the urge to put on my new sparkly tights in the bathroom before I dyed my hair, otherwise, my knees would be frozen solid.

The cold bit my cheeks as I stood, hesitating outside the metal door. I stared at the old gray metal slab, studying the nicks and gouges until I finally forced my numb hands to try the handle. It would be locked and if it was then I’d just turn around and go home.

The knob broke off in my hand. I stood, staring at the slim metal bar in the dim light from the far away street while the door swung in with a creak. I stood there as a shiver crawled down my spine. I swallowed then pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped through.

I took two steps into the darkness, inhaled one breath of air thick with the smell of motor oil then blinked as the fluorescents came on, revealing the figure of a man right before he hit me.

It happened so fast, but I could feel the contours of every inch of his chest beneath a thin shirt as his arms wrapped around me, twisting us so that I landed mostly on him when we hit the floor. The feel of his body hitting me wasn’t only the physical shock off a massive piece of flesh knocking the wind out of me, I also felt a lurch from my head to my toes as the heat of him spread through me along with a bone-deep awareness that I lay in the arms of my soul mate.

I clung to his shoulders as he pulled away, only far enough to look at me, to gaze at me with those burning hazel eyes that held a mixture of greens and golds that were warm and alive. I spent a million heartbeats caught in that gaze, lost in the color and heat that spun out into infinity before I gasped needing oxygen. He blinked slowly then lifted me like I weighed nothing until I sat away from him on the concrete floor, barely braced by the arm wrapped around my shoulder. I leaned forward over my knees, struggling to catch my breath as his hand absently rubbed the base of my scalp. I trembled from the heat, from the impact, or maybe from relief that he was alive, whole, safe beside me.

I pulled him close, pressing my cheek against his throat where his pulse beat so loud and fast in my ear. I felt my own heart, ricocheting in my chest in time with his. I pushed my fingers through his hair, sighing as the strands slid against my palms. His heart sped impossibly fast while his skin burned hotter and hotter against mine.

He held perfectly still even as his heart raced then moved his hand slowly from my head, down my shoulder, over the thick puffy coat to my wrist. My gasp as his fingers found my wrist, the wrist that the crazy Hybrid had burned, made Lewis pull back, leaving me without any trace of his touch while my skin ached, betrayed as the cold air brushed my face instead of his warmth.

He sat in front of me, just out of reach with his legs crossed, one hand clenched around the hilt of a simple, long knife that I only noticed then. He held it casually on one denim thigh. He could have been a normal guy in a t-shirt and jeans, but there was nothing ordinary about the way he looked with a knife7 or the way he looked at me.

I sat locked in a gaze so intense that I could hardly breathe. He looked like a Hotblood except that he had a stillness that contained the heat of his fury as he stared at me, a mixture of heat and intention that came from his dual nature, Wild, Hotblood. The room could barely hold all of his energy. There was so much of him to see and feel that I didn’t possess the capacity to capture all of him, but I wanted to try.

He blinked then shook his head like he was trying to convince himself of something before he moved. I breathed a little bit easier when he stood up, staring at the way he moved as he looked out the door I’d left open.

Lewis was there. What was I doing in the same room as him? I mean, besides barely breathing. The sound of the door clanging shut made me feel like his prisoner, or maybe it was the way he looked at me with eyes that held me tighter and closer than prison walls. How was I supposed to escape him when I couldn’t even look away?

“Where is your guardian?” His words were quiet, the voice level, but I felt the words like they’d been written into my flesh, a voice that brought back a hundred memories, made my heart ache and beat a little faster. He took a step closer to me, rubbing the knife slowly over the fabric of his pants while his eyes narrowed, studying me with merciless calculation.

“In bed?” My voice was hardly a whisper as my breath struggled to catch up to my racing heart but at least I’d remembered how to talk.

“A few things don’t add up,” he said as he cocked his head to the side, bringing the knife up to absently rub the blade against his jaw. Right. Like, what he was doing in the garage when the crazy Hybrid had practically promised that he wouldn’t be there, also, how he could move the knife like that, thoughtlessly, a natural extension of his hands. He must have had it out during our entire collision without accidentally stabbing anyone. That’s because he’s Axel, I told myself, because apparently I needed a reminder. I mean, he looked like Axel all intense and powerful but at the same time, he still felt like Lewis. He stood taller than I remembered, but maybe that had to do with his body holding his awesome soul instead of my smaller, more dainty version, or maybe it had more to do with the fact that I was still sitting on the floor.

I forced my gaze on the room past Lewis while I tried to collect myself, to get a grip. The garage was bigger than it looked from the outside. A few cars parked in front of the large garage door that I hadn’t noticed before where it took up most of the wall. Past that were a mechanic’s lift and a few machines I couldn’t possibly identify while the rest of the room held a long line of shelves. At least, it had probably been a line before the shelves were ripped to pieces then flung around the room. One long metal strip dangling over the hood of Lewis’s purple mustang like a giant spider’s leg, leaving a hole in the windshield with cracks spreading over the rest of it like cobwebs.

The mess was as impressive as it was random, leaving some shelves perfectly aligned and untouched while others were tangled together in what looked like an intentional metal sculpture fused together. In the middle of the mess I couldn’t see the floor.

I found my feet, barely noticing the twinge in my ribs as I stared at the wreckage. “What happened?” I asked, turning to Lewis. It almost didn’t matter, not when his gaze held me again, wrapping me in the warmth that I wanted to suffocate in. He studied me, stared into me until he shrugged then looked at the mess like he’d forgotten about it too.

“Someone broke in.”

“Who did it?”

“Not a lot of people know that it’s here, maybe two people that are still alive. I think it was Aiden. I think he told you to come here after he redecorated my place so that I would be here when you came.” He turned back to look at me, his voice as intense and relentless as his gaze. “The fingerprint burns on your wrist match his large hands. I don’t like that you have been socializing with the least stable Hybrid I know, or that you’ve been sent here to me,” he said with the hint of a smile. “The second least stable Hybrid I know.” His smile became predatory as he took a step towards me then reached forward.

My heart stopped as he pulled Snowy’s pink hat off my head, letting the blue strands of hair fall down over my face. His eyebrows rose in surprise as he blinked at me, then he really smiled, a smile that I dreamed of sometimes, a smile that warmed me more than the fury.

I could have stood there forever basking in his perfection, but there was a little voice in the back of my head that told me that Valerie was right about him being too good for me. The idea of Valerie was refreshingly unpleasant. I had to focus, to remember what I was doing in the garage in the first place. Like, why the Hybrid I picked up in the Mall bathroom would trash the garage and then send me here to find Old Peter’s cane.

“You think that the crazy Hybrid set us up to meet? Why?” I sounded practically rational.

He took another step closer, and I found my knees traitorously weak. “That’s a good question. Maybe, since you’re my soulmate, he thinks that you’re going to destroy me…that you’re the only one who can. Do you want to hurt me?”