I flicked off the light and locked the door behind me. As a goodbye squeezed my heart, my fingers brushed against the rough brick edging the doorway. I’d left countless times, but this was...different.
“Olivia, hurry up!” Kael barked, jolting me from my silent farewell.
A small sense of shock jolted through me. Had I told him my name yet? I didn’t think I had. I grumbled under my breath as I headed toward the garage where his voice had sounded. Had he been snooping through my house while I had been preoccupied upstairs?
Despite his gruff tone, Kael was eyeing my dad’s Bristol with approval. Men. If he thought we were driving my dad’s car, he was crazy. Even I had never gotten behind its wheel. It was more like a monument to my dad than a vehicle to me, and it would remain untouched and pristine as long as it was in my care.
Popping the trunk on my Subaru, I shoved my suitcase inside. Kael rounded the front of the car and headed toward the driver’s side.
I froze, hand on the trunk lid that I hadn’t even snapped back down yet. “Uh, no. I can drive my own car.”
He held his hand out, for my keys, I assumed. “I’m driving.”
“Don’t you have a car?”
“Back in Brazil, I do. Now come on, we don’t have all night.”
I ignored him and headed for the driver’s side door. When he didn’t budge, a glare narrowed my eyes. Stabbing him would probably be extreme now. My window of opportunity for reasonably getting away with that had passed. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance of shoving him out of the way, either. With his wide shoulders and hard muscles, it would be like trying to move a boulder.
“I can drive,” I repeated.
He leaned closer, golden gaze hard. “Listen. I’m assuming what you can do—” His gaze flicked to my hands. “—is something new. The last thing we need is for your hands to light up like a Christmas tree just because some jerk cuts you off or something.”
Where was his sense of personal space? My mind flashed back to the woods, to when he had me smashed up against the tree. Duly noted: he didn’t have a sense of personal space. Did he think he could loom me into agreement or something?
Irritatingly, though, Kael had a point. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if that magic burst from my palms while I was in the middle of traffic.
A tingling whispered across my skin, and I tampered it back. “Fine. Here. ”
I shoved my keys against Kael’s chest. He didn’t jostle an inch. I had been right. The man was solid as a rock. I wheeled around and watched with a small bit of satisfaction as he shimmied with difficulty into the front seat, trying not to get the door too close to the Bristol. I settled in and wedged the messenger bag in beside my feet.
Chaucer was inside, along with the few scraps I’d been able to glean from the study in my research, most of which likely wouldn’t amount to anything. I clicked on my seatbelt.
“Food first, then the club,” I said.
Kael drove like a bat out of hell. I wasn’t the safest driver around, but this man made wearing a seatbelt seem like minimal protection. If he wrecked my car, I’d kill him. It was a wonder I’d been able to hold in the power humming through me. The only time I didn’t have my hands smashed under my thighs was when he stopped to grab me a double cheeseburger with extra bacon. At least he had the grace to stay parked while I scarfed, even if he did sigh and drum his fingers on the steering wheel the entire time.
I nearly stabbed myself in the eye with my straw as he took a sharp turn to the right. He had insisted on waiting all day to leave, and now he couldn’t seem to get there fast enough.
“What’s the rush?”
“Pinnacle is only open from eight to midnight. The guy I want to talk to will be gone after that and won’t return until next week. We can’t miss this window.”
After taking advantage of a red light to gulp a drink, I said, “So, this guy we’re seeing will be able to help?”
“I hope so.” Kael glared at the slow truck in front of us. “We need to get the key back before the guy who took it gets too far.”
There wasn’t much I could say to that other than, “Sorry,” and I’d already apologized enough. So I leaned my head against the window and stared at the city as we passed it by .
The nearer we got to New Haven, the closer the buildings out the window stood to each other. Streetlights flashed by like the energy waiting beneath my skin.
Without turning to look at Kael, I asked, “Do you know what’s happening to me?”
“I don’t.” His voice was rough. “Whatever it is, though, makes you dangerous. The key seems to have tainted you.”
I looked at him then, with a tilting up of my chin. “I’m not dangerous.”
Kael smirked. “Right, because safe women threaten men with knives and shoot energy from their hands.”
Wow. Humor and sarcasm. Who would have guessed?
I didn’t agree with him about the key tainting me. True, the visions had started when I had plucked the key from beneath the earth, but a growing certainty inside me told me the relic wasn’t the reason. It was almost as if the key had unlocked something inside me that was already there. The power felt unnervingly familiar.
I leaned against the door as a trio of giggling teenage girls made their way down a sidewalk.
What was it that the dark, ancient man had said to me? That my memory was nothing more than dust? He had spoken of how I didn’t know who I was anymore.
I glanced at Kael, who was still glaring at every vehicle unfortunate enough to get in front of us. Did he know more than he was letting on? He was an agent in that PITO organization, which I gathered was like the FBI or CIA, but for supernaturals. Why would he be assigned to watch the key if he didn’t know much about it?
A part of me was irritated that I should know more about it, and my thoughts looped back to the thief’s words again.
Shifting my legs around my bag to a more comfortable position, I contemplated telling Kael what the man had said to me. He was a stranger, after all, and you couldn’t just tell people you didn’t know that some evil-seeming man indicated you’d met before. Not only met, but maybe had known things, been someone else, and forgotten it all.
I didn’t trust Kael. That would be foolish. However, I didn’t distrust him to the point that I felt the need to keep my mouth shut. After all, he hadn’t really done anything to harm me except eat my food, drive my car like he was trying to win the Monaco Grand Prix, and annoy me to the point my thoughts resulted to violence.
Caution, meet wind.
“The creeper who took the key said I’ve forgotten who I was.”
At a stoplight, Kael breaked shorter than necessary, and my hands flew out to brace against the dashboard. I met his wide eyes with an annoyed glare.
Kael was peering at me like I’d grown horns or something. “He what?”
I shrugged. “He said things like ‘your memory is dust’ and ‘you don’t know who you are any longer.’ Things like that.” I hesitated to say any more, but if I was spilling, I may as well do it thoroughly. “He also said I would not win this time.”
Whatever that meant. Win what, exactly?
Kael’s nostrils flared. Was he angry or trying to smell something? Could he do that in this form?