Revenant's Kiss (Chronicles of the Afterlife) (2 page)

            
He shut his mouth, seemed to reconsider whatever he’d been getting ready to say, "we need
gas." To the point, he eyed her speculatively, seemingly trying to gauge whether or not she would be
able to stay on her feet if she stood up, but he didn’t ask. A reaction for which she was instantly
grateful because she couldn’t be sure how she would have reacted. There was always something
beneath her skin, crawling to get out, it sounded more ominous when she thought about it like that. But
even as a child there had been rage boiling beneath the surface, she was usually pretty good about
keeping that rage reserved for what she faced out in the field at work. There was actually very little
outside of her work that managed to bring that particular emotion out of her, she was lucky in a sense
that she’d experienced little in the way of betrayal from the people that she trusted. She wrote off her
lack of emotional control where Malcolm was concerned due to her inexperience with getting stabbed
in the back by someone that she loved. She had found it was easier to face that reality head on, she
had shared more of herself with him than she was usually comfortable sharing with anyone and he’d
taken that information, warped it in his mind as sufficient insecurity to accomplish, she wasn’t even sure
what in the long run. It hurt her to think that after everything she had shared with him he would think for
a minute she would ever be capable of trusting him enough to stay with him if he’d managed to get her
removed.

            
 Shaking her head Jennifer resolved to let it go, it wasn’t worth thinking on, the entire situation
was over. She and Malcolm were no longer together and he no longer possessed a reason to worry
for her in the field, at least not outside of the obvious work related ones. At least that was what she
told herself had his brow creased in the way it did when he was worried. She did her best to push her
feelings about what had happened between them back, it had nothing to do with the here and now, she
certainly had no room for it now, not with everything else. With her current physical injury she was
going to need all her focus on this one. She couldn’t afford to let her thoughts wander, so instead she
rolled her shoulders, ignoring the spike of pain that jolted through her side and pushed her own shit out
of her head.

            
"Fine, anyone else a taker for coffee," she offered, a torture for herself. She had tried the
particular beverage on several occasions and no matter how she tried it, watered down with milk and
sugar and any other number of things that she could find the stuff still and always would taste like shit.
Usually of her own free will she would not volunteer to drink it unless she had worked more than
seventy hours with little sleep and less to come, the horrible taste a certain reminder that for days or
more she was failing to do her job.

            
"I’ll come in with you," this from Manson who had never been one to let someone else wait on
him hand and foot, except for maybe his wife, she seemed to be the only person he didn’t mind doting
on him. Jennifer shrugged and watched him exit the vehicle before looking back over her shoulder to
Marcia who simply shook her head.

            
"I’ll take a coffee," Jennifer glanced at Malcolm and gave a quick nod. "You remember how I
like it?"

            
Jennifer paused halfway out of her seat to look back at him, "I never forget." Whether he
understood that she meant more then what he liked in his drink she neither knew nor cared. "I’ll see
you in five," she told him before slamming the door closed, she heard his side of the van open and close
and tried to get around the vehicle before he could stop her but that was wishful thinking. She glanced
across the parking lot at Manson’s retreating back toward the station and wished she were there beside
him instead of facing yet another painful conversation with her ex.

            
"Jenny," she stopped to glare at him when he came around the front of the vehicle blocking her
path.

            
"I really just don’t have time Malcolm," she tried to hop around him quickly but her usual speed
was slowed by a spike of pain. She wished in that moment that her phone would ring, that Zip would
haul ass and find something already so that they could leave and Malcolm could mind his own business.

            
"Are you hurt," without permission he reached over like he was going to touch her and she
jumped back. "We shouldn’t be out here if you’re hurt," he didn’t say the rest but she could sense
what he didn’t say. They shouldn’t be out here because if she was injured she could get herself killed,
she could get them all killed. It was true that Malcolm and Marcia never left the vehicle on the kind of
hunt they were involved in at the moment but that didn’t detract from the fact that it was dangerous for
all of them. There had been more then one occasion that the only thing standing between the people in
this van and certain death were herself, Manson and as a last resort Clive. Malcolm and Marcia were
of course always armed and trained to use those weapons but possessed little experience, no amount of
training in the world could prepare you for what happened in the field.

            
"I’m fine," it was a lie but she wasn’t dead and she certainly wasn’t giving up, not on this one,
she wanted this ones head.

            
"Jen wait," but she blew past him, avoiding yet another attempt by him to take hold of her.

            
"Five minutes," she called back over her shoulder before pulling open the station door and
entering. She looked briefly left then right, probably unnecessary but it was habit that she catalogue the
exits as well as the number of bodies inside. She quickly located Manson back by the refrigerated
drinks before making her way a little ways down in that direction and stopping by the counter for the
vile coffee dispensers. She tried to focus on the task instead of the fact that she was doing nothing at all
of consequence, should be but wasn’t. At the rate of disappearance the one they were after was
managing her broken ribs would be healed before they found him, if they found him. She was just now
mixing in Malcolm’s milk and three sugars when she felt Manson’s approach toward the counter. She
paused in her task and took note of Manson’s drink of choice, she didn’t try to hide her smile. "Brave
choice," she commented quickly before he could pass, trying to hide the laugh that was threatening to
escape at the sight of his large hand holding a bottle of pink milk. "Very manful," she teased as he
passed her.

            
"Good for my bones," he commented on his way to the register, he didn’t look back and she
could never help but wonder how it was the big man always seemed to be capable of making her feel
better, just for a second making her forget why it was they were out this late. She was never sure if it
was something he did intentionally or it was just natural for him to be so capable of making people laugh
or lighten the mood when it needed it. A surprising quality to be found in someone who was as deadly
as he was. When he finished paying he looked back to her, "see you outside," he offered her a quick
toast with his pink milk.

            
"You can count on it," she gave him a quick two fingered salute, smiling now when she went
back to concocting her own torture devise. She was stirring her drink when a bell rang at the back of
the store, it took her brain a moment to register that she hadn’t bothered to check the hall for a another
entrance. In the field it would have been a tactical error that would likely kill her, in a gas station it was
her hope that it was not. Instinctively she reached for where her gun would be, it of course was not
there, she was armed only at the moment with a knife, the guns were rarely on her unless she was
working and this was not work. Even though her fingers itched for the familiar weight of a firearm in her
grip she forced her fingers to relax and move away from her hip. As there was nothing currently
strapped to her hip the habit almost felt ridiculous when surrounded by a place so normal. She
distracted herself by trying to remember if she could recall an occurrence where she’d ever had to draw
on someone or something in a well lit room. She was sure there had to be at least one instance but all
she could recall at the moment were distorted happenings in fading or no light at all. She had become
accustomed to the dark, had started feeling more at home there than she felt now under the bright
flourescent lights that most places employed to keep the dark at bay.

            
It was knowledge about herself that she was not entirely comfortable with, it was a small thing
when she considered the things that she’d discovered about herself that she had no problems
acknowledging. For instance she knew that she was capable of killing, it was something required of her
and probably knowledge that she should find at least in some way disturbing. Instead it was something
she found comforting in her character, knowing that she could protect the people she cared about and
not blink. But her comfort level with the dark was something she was all around nervous could lead
somewhere she would rather not go. While it was true it served its purpose in her line of work, it
probably wouldn’t be so off putting if she felt half as comfortable in the light.

            
Forcing the thought aside Jennifer tilted her head doing her best to make it seem as though her
focus were still completely engrossed in the task of putting lids on the drinks she’d finished when in fact
that focus was trained on the newcomer. She wasn’t sure what it was but just a glance from the corner
of her eye, which was all that she really intended to allow, was not enough. Just that one glance should
have been enough, but it was like her eyes made contact and something inside of her shifted in an
uncomfortable way. She wouldn’t say bad, the shift she felt in herself in that moment felt so out of
character for herself that she couldn’t describe it as anything other than uncomfortable. She should
have felt embarrassed by how quickly her intended simple glance became full blown starring but she
could not seem to control what she was doing or where her focus wandered. One minute she was
attempting to put a lid on a cup and the next she found herself turned toward the hall that led to an
apparent back entrance she hadn’t known about; and was now starring at the newcomer who had just
frozen in the frame at the entrance of the hall like maybe he was trapped in the same stupor she was.

            
For an entire moment she was sure she stood there with her mouth hanging open, trying to
figure out what it was exactly that had her heart racing and her stomach feeling like it had plummeted to
the floor. It was like the shift was an instant shot of g-force and adrenaline that was there and suddenly
gone and she was left completely unsure how to react, her heart was racing, her breathing erratic, and
she was pretty sure her knees were shaking. She tried to shake it off, tried to force herself to look
away from him but couldn’t manage it. Under normal circumstances she would have probably
panicked because she knew there were monsters out there that could control your mind, make you do
things, want things. She had experienced those compulsions in fact so intently in the past that it had
nearly killed her, and it was that experience alone that convinced her this couldn’t be that. She could
look away any time she liked, she simply didn’t want to. There was something about this person that
simply would not let her go, she couldn’t think of a single instance in her life where she had simply seen
someone and found herself wishing that she was close enough to touch them, but she could not deny
that she wanted to touch him. She wouldn’t under any circumstance call herself a vain person although
certainly her last boyfriend hadn’t been unattractive, it wasn’t what she looked for immediately in
another person, or at least she hadn’t thought that it was. She had always found Malcolm attractive,
stunning green eyes fringed in dark lashes, golden hair, strong features, she’d always been fond of the
cleft in his chin. On the other hand, she had never really put much thought into how she physically
perceived herself. She would say that as far as looks went she looked all right, blue eyes that she had
always thought were just this side of dull enough to nearly be gray, straight brown hair that contained so
little in the way of color variation that brown was really the only word that described it. There was
nothing particularly special looking about her features that she made note of, although in context when
she’d been in a relationship with Malcolm she had never thought he was so attractive that he was out of
her league. She took one glance at the new comer and she was dumbfounded, stupefied even by his
good looks, and the first thought that came to mind was that he was too attractive for her, way too high
on the level to fit her pay grade.

            
She had no idea which was more irritating, the fact that she instantly thought she was too ugly to
be caught in his company or the fact that in the next second his surprise at finding her gawking seemed
to pass and he smiled in a way that only the male species seemed to manage. It was a crooked smile
that managed to be both boyish and full of sex appeal, while of course giving a view of his pearly white
teeth. Maybe it was the smile that finally allowed her to turn back to the table, more likely it was the
fact that he’d caught her staring, found it amusing and now she was blushing, probably a fine tomato red
shade. It could also have been the fact that his smile felt contagious, made one want to smile back
while simultaneously turning ones usually dependable knees into melted butter. She knew exactly what
it was that made her want to smile back, he surpassed handsome by more than she could think to
describe and he managed to smile when he caught a girl who looked like her gawking, she liked to call
it Peter Pan syndrome. She had no idea if there was already a syndrome using the title, perhaps
applied to people who over did their plastic surgery because they wanted to be young forever but in her
terms it was applied to attractive men like him finding themselves in the company of girls like her. His
offering his attention at all to someone that he wouldn’t regularly look twice at was like waking up to
find a boy that could fly in your room, promising you impossible adventures, of course he wasn’t doing
that, he was probably being polite. But it didn’t make much difference, Peter Pan syndrome, him being
the Pan, her being the poor schmuck Wendy who fell in love with a boy that was so out of her reach
she might as well have fallen for a star in the sky it was just as likely that she’d reach it. So Jennifer
forced herself to face back to the counter and try to forget that he was there. Impossible of course
because she knew he was there and she wanted to look at him so badly it almost hurt, that wasn’t
normal was it? She’d met people before who were just that side of too good looking, she’d never
wanted to stare before, had simply acknowledged the fact and moved on.