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Angels really were assholes.

  Chapter Four

  Angels didn’t lie, but the wretched things could twist the truth through omission. I supposed she was probably right on the nature of the accident; to everyone else, the wreck probably did look accidental. I supposed it was nasty enough, although I wasn’t sure.

  I hadn’t been awake to find out.

  No matter how many times I sifted through my memories, I couldn’t remember how I’d gone from conscious and driving to unconscious. I’d learn to recognize when I was at risk of dropping during a panic attack; my vision turned brown, red, and gray at the edges and funneled down to a pin-point of light while my body numbed. I jerked awake more often than not, the panic attack resuming right where it’d left off, although I always had an easier time calming after a collapse.

  The doctors even had some fancy word for it. Most of them thought time would help, but I didn’t believe them. I thought one of them—only one—had the right idea.

  It wasn’t the two years I’d spent in solitary confinement that’d gotten to me. Abandonment changed people, but few lost everyone and everything at one time, and fewer still spent years waiting alone for those who wouldn’t come. By nature, humans were social creatures, pack animals of sorts, requiring contact with others to remain healthy and sane.

  Maybe my progress to becoming a functional member of society was more impressive than I liked to think.

  Just like during bad moments, when I thought I’d shake my way out of my own skin, focusing my thoughts on something else helped. Something positive creeping in was new for me and distracting enough I could circle back to my more immediate concerns.

  What had knocked me out?

  It hadn’t been a panic attack. I’d learned to pull over and wait them out, recognizing the first signs of trouble so I wouldn’t end up getting myself—or someone else—killed. I even thought of myself as a good driver. I mostly obeyed the traffic laws, I was probably one of two people in the state who understood how turn signals worked, and I minded my own business. I didn’t even honk at the assholes, although they tempted me from time to time.

  No, a panic attack hadn’t knocked me out. I was too careful about when I needed to stop driving and wait out the storm.

  So what had?

  I tried to open my eyes, but they refused to cooperate, my eyelids weighed down by some invisible force, the same one that kept my arms and legs immobile. The rest of my body was numb, too, although not in the way I usually thought of it. It took a lot of thought and concentration to recognize the sensation for what it was.

  Someone had drugged me.

  If I had been in an accident, a nasty one according to an angel, drugs made sense. Drugs would also explain how I’d gone from conscious and driving to my current state. I dodged narcotics of any sort, even the prescription ones designed to make handling my life a lot easier.

  Drugs could mitigate the damage of old traumas, but I hadn’t wanted them. The first few times I’d been prescribed medication, they’d left me floating in a haze, so disconnected the cost of functionality was my basic ability to perform anything beyond the simplest of tasks. One round had been enough for me. I’d clawed my way to functional without them, a daily battle I fought of my own free will. I could have made things easier on myself if I’d consent to the use of magic, magic capable of smothering the memories of my incarceration.

  How the hell was I supposed to fight the influence of drugs? At least I recognized the fog in my head enough to realize someone had done something to me.

  Whether dosed with sedatives or painkillers didn’t really matter in the long run; either one would make a mess of anything I tried to do until they wore off.

  Drugs also explained why Luna would suggest I cooperate. Until I could think clearly, I’d be more of a danger to myself than anything. I wondered what the angel had meant by the rest of her warning—and her odd belief I’d somehow be worth more assuming I survived. To who?

  Why?

  I couldn’t think of any substantial reason I’d be of more value tomorrow compared to today. The longer I thought about it, the less value I could assign to myself. I was good at numbers and negotiation, which made me somewhat valuable to my boss and the company we worked for. Beyond that, I could disappear and no one had any reason to care.

  I had no idea how long I hung in the void, conscious without truly being awake. A cramp in my calf jolted me to a more immediate awareness, one where every muscle in my body filed a complaint all at the same time. Pressure against my chest kept me from curling, and my entire body jerked. My attempt to suck in a breath through my mouth failed, and panic slammed through me as my lungs demanded air I couldn’t provide.

  It took a lot more effort than I liked to force myself to breathe through my nose.

  With a little experimentation, I determined some nice, helpful person had decided duct tape belonged over my mouth. I’d had duct tape over my mouth once before, a test to see what it was like after watching a movie. As a teenager, I hadn’t been the brightest, and I’d made my lips bleed when I’d finally ripped the tape off since peeling it carefully hurt too damned much.

  The stunt had been one of many during my childhood.

  I prepared for the worst and cracked open an eye. Apparently, my kidnappers feared my mouth far more than my sight, as they hadn’t even given me a token blindfold. Somewhere behind me, a dim light illuminated a room filled with books. They were piled all over the floor, spilled off the shelves, and otherwise occupied every bit of available space as though they’d somehow bred right along with the dust layering everything, including me.

  In the movies, kidnappers did a better job of holding their hostages victim. My hands were bound with duct tape in front of me, my wrists pressed together, leaving the edge where I could easily get at it with my teeth—or use gravity to help rip through it. The silvery tape was strong, but it tore readily enough. The two or three layers wrapped around my forearms wouldn’t hold me for long. Better still, my fingers were free, which made it easy to reach for the strip covering my mouth.

  To avoid drawing attention to myself, I took the slow, painful route, scratching at the tape and easing it away, cringing at every pulled hair. Judging from the state of my new beard, I’d been taken at least a day ago. A fringe benefit was the fact with a few pulls, the tape separated from my skin, leaving it stuck all over the short hairs.

  On the bright side, I wouldn’t have as much work to do next time I shaved—and I could yank it off in one fell swoop without the sound of it pulling from my skin betraying me. Clenching my teeth and bracing for the pain, I secured a grip on the edge and ripped.

  There was a special place in hell for people who put duct tape sensitive places, including on my face.

  With tears blurring my eyes, I went to work on the next challenge, the tape wrapped around my wrists. With the seam marking the end in easy reach of my teeth, I opted for the quieter, slower method of loosening the end and peeling it off. The more violent method worked faster, but it involved lifting my arms over my head and jerking down while straining at the tape. My shoulders already ached, and I hadn’t even moved my arms much yet.

  I’d save the fast, noisy way for desperate measures.

  By the time I’d gotten enough of the tape loosened I could get a good hold on it with my teeth, my lips bled. It took several tries to peel away enough so I could squirm, get my hands near my feet, and pin the end with my shoe. It didn’t take long after to unwind the tape from my arms, although I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my teeth at the final stage, which ripped all the hairs off my arms.

  To make matters worse, beneath the tape were a few scabs, which pulled free with the final tear, resulting in streaks of blood smeared all over my skin. With soft curses muttered under my breath, I freed my legs, although I was spared additional torture thanks to my slacks, which would never be quite the same again. A closer inspection revealed cuts in the black fabric and a few bloody gashes on my legs beneath. One
of the nastier ones had even been stitched, and I bet it’d make walking a living nightmare.

  After a full pat down, I determined I was one big bruise, sported several gashes someone had bothered stitching in their effort to keep me alive, and had no broken bones. I considered Luna’s phrasing and determined if shed blood served as the qualifier for nasty, I had been in a rather nasty accident, and I would not like the process of separating my clothes from the cuts that hadn’t been treated.

  Throughout the entire process of freeing myself and checking how badly I’d been injured, the library remained quiet. My nose itched from the dust I’d stirred up moving around, and if anyone did come to check on me, there’d be no way of hiding my activities, not without effort. Bracing for the inevitable pain, I staggered to my feet, my breath hissing through my teeth.

  One problem down, too many to count left to go.

  Someone had, in their infinite wisdom, decided to dump me at an old, abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Footsteps through the dust marked where people had come and gone. In the drying mud outside, I identified at least three distinct set of prints, although there could have been more. The one set almost made me laugh.

  What sort of woman wore high heels in the mud during a kidnapping? I gave my oxfords a rueful look; the leather would take a whipping, and if they were like any of the other pairs I’d destroyed over the years, they wouldn’t keep on ticking. They’d fall apart and inflict blisters and misery on my feet before giving up the ghost.

  Then again, maybe the woman had the right idea. At least she’d only get her toes wet, where my socks would be soaked the instant I stepped out of the building. I took a long look around, scowling at the open, rolling fields and distant trees. Until I reached the shelter of the woods, anyone would be able to spot me. Maybe I’d gotten free from the duct tape, but I wouldn’t be running anywhere anytime soon. Just standing made my stitched calf throb, and the hike wouldn’t do me any good.

  Sitting tight wouldn’t do me any good, either. Unless I developed a taste for mud-contaminated water, I’d dehydrate long before I starved, and I’d rather take my chances with a stream than stagnant puddle water. While I had the skills necessary to maintain my rickety little house in the middle of the woods, I didn’t look forward to the idea of hiking through the woods in a torn suit, recently tenderized in a car accident.

  The average raccoon could kill me and eat me for dinner, and I would give a mouse equal odds.

  The only smart thing my kidnappers had done was take my cell phone. I appreciated having my wallet and keys, since I’d be able to take care of myself the instant I found civilization. It puzzled me they’d taken the keys from the ignition, but I wouldn’t look the gift horse in the mouth quite yet. Just to make certain my keys and wallet were intact, I pulled them out and checked. Someone had gone through my wallet, moving the cards around, but everything was still present, even my cash. My keys were a mess, caked with blood and mud.

  Later, once I hid away in somewhere I considered even remotely safe, I’d have to think long and hard over why my kidnappers would retrieve my keys and put them in my pocket and leave me with my wallet. If they wanted me alive, it made some sort of sense, but it would have been better for them to take everything and leave me incapable of staging an escape at all.

  Then again, maybe they’d believed I wouldn’t be able to break free. Since that possibility made some sense to me, I ran with it. There were many other possibilities, and I fear I’d lose points off my IQ score if I thought about them too much.

  The only thing I could think of worse than being kidnapped was being kidnapped by idiots.

  My first step into the mud squished, and cold water oozed through the laces and into my shoe. Grimacing at the slimy chill, I walked in the footprints of one of the men who’d come before me to help hide my tracks, following their path until I reached the weed-infested gravel road leading away from the house. A decade ago, the fence might have deterred me from heading for the field, but the posts had decayed down to stumps while the crossbars lay broken between.

  Had the fence still stood, I would’ve been stuck on the road. As it was, I adopted a limp to keep from pulling the stitches too much, and my entire leg throbbed from the effort. I re-evaluated the stupidity of my kidnappers. The real idiot was me, testing my luck on a busted leg.

  If I didn’t find civilization, I’d contract a serious case of death, although if Luna had spoken the unadulterated truth, I’d be choosing the way I went out rather than having my brains shot out, shot in the chest before drowning, or shoved from a sixteenth story window. Death by raccoon made for a better headline, and if I was going to go out, I wanted it to be memorable.

  Knowing why someone wanted me dead or captured would’ve helped, too, but I could only handle one problem at a time. At least raccoons were easy enough to find. The damned things infested the woods in Indiana. All I had to do was walk for a while and one would show up.

  I laughed a soft, hoarse laugh all the way to the woods.

  Chapter Five

  While I found a raccoon, it didn’t seem interested in murdering me and feasting on my body.

  So much for a memorable headline detailing my death.

  To add insult to injury, the raccoon bolted for a thicket, running as though hell chased it. I supposed that was accurate enough. In order for angels to have children with humans, as my two angelic grandparents had done, they did have to consort with demons in a rather intimate fashion. I’d gotten the biology lesson when I’d been little, although it never really made sense to me how someone who was a sixth incubus, sixth succubus, one-third angel, and not quite a third human equaled a human. Worse, there was a few percentages of ‘other’ from my father’s side of the family.

  He had promised to tell me one day what else I was, but I doubted he would. I’d only found out because my mother had lobbed it at my father when she’d been pissed at him over something. Thinking back on it, I doubted she’d known exactly what the ‘other’ was, either.

  I took a breather, gritted my teeth, and resumed my hike, determined to forget about the past and worry about more important things, like finding a phone—or possibly a hospital. A hospital would be a good bet, as the sort of throbbing my leg insisted inflicting on me suggested I should take care of it, stat.

  I hated hospitals. Worse, I hated the thought of having to explain to the police I had no recollection of being in a car accident and had woken up bound in duct tape. My pride had taken enough of a beating along with my bruised and battered body. Muttering complaints and curses under my breath, I forced myself to keep marching.

  If I stopped to rest, it’d only be harder to move later. After two years of confinement, I’d done enough physical therapy to respect how painful stiff muscles could get.

  Fortunately for me, the abandoned farmhouse wasn’t far from civilization. I emerged from the trees along a paved road, which headed straight for three buildings. The post office didn’t surprise me, especially if the town was large enough to justify a gas station and a police station.

  If it was a place like Gypsum Creek, the post office would be the last to go, clinging to life until the bitter end. Technically, Gypsum Creek’s post office still operated, but since the only occupied residence—mine—had mail delivered twice a year in the form of tax notices, the carrier cheated and stuck to the neighboring town.

  Over the years, I had learned delaying made my anxiety worse, so I marched resolutely towards the police station to get the humiliation over with. I’d be safe enough from a panic attack, unless one of the cops happened to be a pretty girl with auburn or red hair. Then I’d have problems, but I wouldn’t have to say a word to get the point across anyway.

  I’d be making acquaintances with their floor unless I remembered breathing was mandatory.

  With trembling hands, I pushed my way through the station’s front door and headed for the front desk. Unlike the others I’d been to, there were no bulletproof glass walls separa
ting me from the cop. The lobby felt more like a doctor’s office than a police station, all hard, white lines, metal chairs painted white, and sterilized tiles.

  The cop’s mouth dropped open when he saw me.

  Waiting only made things worse, so I blurted, “I was in a car accident, kidnapped, and dumped in some farmhouse not far from here.”

  When I said it, it sounded even more embarrassing than I had initially anticipated, and heat spread over my cheeks. The station lobby offered no places to hide or pretend I didn’t exist. I swallowed, my entire body so tense my trembling graduated to shaking. I shoved my hands in my jacket pockets to hide them.

  The man blinked, reached across his desk, and picked up a form, which he set on the desk in front of him. Picking up a pen, he gave it a click. “Your name, son?”

  “Reed Matthews.”

  “The location and time of the accident?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t remember. I was driving between Indianapolis, Indiana to Cataract, where I live.”

  The cop dropped the pen. “Did you just say Indiana?”

  I thanked my lucky stars my kidnappers hadn’t taken my wallet. Digging it out of my pants kept my hands busy, and while I couldn’t hide my shaking, having something productive to do helped. I pulled out my driver’s license and offered it to him.

  “This says Gypsum Creek. Where’s that?”

  “Town next door to Cataract, sir. It’s not on most maps.” I gave it a few years before it vanished off the face of the Earth altogether, my residency the only reason it still had a zip code. “It’s a pretty small place.”

  “You’re a long way from home, son. Why don’t you go on and have yourself a seat? You look plum tuckered out.”

  Plum tuckered? I took the single sidestep required and sank down onto the plastic and metal chair. My leg approved, and I stretched it out to take pressure off the stitched gash. “I’m afraid to ask.”