Chapter Seven

Even when she slept, Jay kept herself shielded. The low-level shields were minimal, enough to keep her safe, conscious shields she’d developed and maintained through years of experience.

Except she’d lowered them.

Under the bliss of being able to touch somebody and not take in every emotion, feel their every pain and pleasure, she’d lowered her shields and, now, battered by her own pleasure and the sensory shock of finally being able to revel in real physical contact, she slid into an exhausted sleep.

Without her shields.

It wouldn’t have mattered, maybe.

Except there was so much hell around her.

Linc was a solid, blank barrier, his arms wrapped around her, but less than an hour after he’d slid into sleep, her own restless dreams had her rolling away. Obligingly, he grunted something senseless and rolled away, sliding one hand down her back, a wordless reassurance that she was there.

Then he settled more deeply into sleep and she was left alone, curled into a tight ball as everything started to slam into her.

She locked herself down.

It was instinct, more than anything else, that kept her silent.

Perhaps, if she’d been louder with her dreams, he would have heard her when she slipped noiselessly from the bed.

She rarely sleepwalked.

At home, she had an alarm system that sounded if she tried to leave the house and normally, that worked.

His own exhaustion held him captive as she picked up a shirt from the end of the bed, pulling it on without buttoning it, the white cotton pale against her flesh.

The only sound in the room was the soft brush of her footsteps over the floor as she moved to the door, her gaze locked on it, although she saw nothing.

Even when she reached her destination, she saw nothing.

But there was nothing to see, really.

Everything had already happened.

She was just there for the memories.

He heard her moving, watched her slip out the door.

From under his lashes, he thought about going after her, but he needed a minute.

A virgin.

She’d been a virgin.

Yeah.

He needed a minute.

A million of them.

Otherwise, he was going to pull her against him, strip that white shirt away and sink inside her again.

His dick was hard just thinking about it, and thinking about her in any way left him feeling raw.

Under it all, his heart lay like a stone in his chest.

Today, he’d have to tell her to leave.

It didn’t matter if she liked it or not, and he suspected the desire, the affection he saw in her eyes, was going to change to something not far from hate or distrust once he forced her out.

But there was nothing to be done for it.

He’d set down this road not that long ago and he wasn’t going to turn from it.

The Dawson family had money.

He’d inherited everything upon the death of his parents. Not just the money and the house, but the businesses in town they owned and so many other things.

People had let his daughter’s disappearance go unpunished.

People looked at him as he walked down the street, and he saw the guilt in their eyes. That quiet acknowledgement that there were things that could have been done, should have been done, but they were too afraid. They didn’t want to step up, speak up. They feared the power that Steve Mays held.

Well, too fucking bad.

One by one, more and more were realizing Mays wasn’t the only one with power in this town.

That dickless wonder Stahley had been one of the first ones to realize it. He had been trying to buy one of the empty buildings on Main. There was no shortage of them, but only a few would have worked for what Stahley and his brother-in-law had in mind—a garage. Stahley had one particular love, in addition to being a dirty, dickless cop. He liked—and was actually pretty damn good at—rebuilding old cars. The town probably could have used such a business. Stahley’s brother-in-law had a rep for it but he couldn’t keep using that old, rundown place behind his house.

But as far as Linc was concerned, the more people who steered clear of Hell, the better. He was just lessening the fallout, really.

Not that he had to soothe his conscience. He’d bought the building out from under Stahley’s nose while Stahley was working to get his loan approved. Linc had the money and maybe he’d eventually go through with the bullshit plans he’d given when he’d gone to the bank about buying the place.

Assuming he lived to tell the tale.

That was just one of the lesser evils he’d done.

The other part-time cop who worked for Mays, Jeff Foster, a mean-ass bastard if ever Linc had met one, was now living with his dad. Before all of this had gone down, he’d lived in a rental home that had belonged to the Dawson family—they did have their fingers in a lot of pies—but Linc had “decided” he wanted to get out of the rental business and gave Jeff thirty days to decide if he wanted to buy the house—something that just wouldn’t happen because Jeff’s credit was shot.

When Jeff couldn’t buy, he was evicted.

Now the house was sitting empty, the price on it so high, it wasn’t ever going to sell.

He’d emptied out four other houses in the same, methodical fashion.

He still owned six other rental houses, but those, he’d leave alone. Unless the person had caused problems or turned a blind eye—and he knew in his gut who they were—he wasn’t going to make their lives any worse.

It was going to get bad enough once he was done.

He was going to drag this town straight down into a very real hell.

And that was why Jay had to leave.

She had to—

The alarm went off, the resounding peal bouncing off the walls.

He shot off the bed and grabbed his weapon, the Glock he’d bought for personal use back when he’d still been on the force.

As he ran down the steps, he caught a glimpse of Jay and it was enough to slow the erratic pace of his heart.

She’d gone outside, not realizing he had an alarm.

But even as he thought that, he wondered…why hadn’t she just stopped when she heard the alarm?

Robyn Bronwyn was a woman with a heavy heart.

An angry heart.

A tired one.

It had been three weeks since she’d quit working for Mr. Dawson, and it had been three weeks since she’d slept well. She’d worked for his family most of her life, but she didn’t think it was just missing her job as his housekeeper that had her so restless.

It was the nightmares. Three weeks of them, of awful dreams, of whispers and voices.

Three weeks of…her.

That voice in her sleep.

How could you… You left him.

Even now, at nearly three in the morning, after four hours of sleep, after another nightmare, she could still hear the voice.

And she was out of coffee.

“Out of sorts,” she muttered. She hadn’t been in her right mind ever since she’d quit Mont Oak, but she was frustrated. Her daughter Jeannie had told her what Linc had done and Robyn just couldn’t see the right of it.

No, she didn’t like Biff. She wasn’t precisely related to him, although there was a connection. Her daughter, Jeannie, was best friends with Anna Grace. Anna Grace was married to Joey Fletcher and Joey had been planning to open that old vacant building on Main, use it for that business they’d been trying to get off the ground for forever. If Joey’s partner wasn’t Biff Stahley, Joey would probably be working on that even now.

She knew what Linc had done. He hadn’t even lied about it, although he hadn’t outright admitted to it, either.

He wouldn’t lie.

She heard about all the people forced to leave their homes too. None of them had families—he hadn’t crossed that line yet, and so far, not one of the houses looked like it had a snowball’s chance in hell of selling.

“Fool man,” she muttered, reaching for the bottled Frappuccino she’d grabbed from the fridge before heading out of the house. She couldn’t stand another long night of pacing the floors. The longer she was there, the more it felt like the walls were closing in on her and the louder those whispers became, but she couldn’t stand being in Hell these days, either. Some people were starting to look at her strangely. Out of the corner of their eye, like she had something to do with what Linc Dawson was doing to some of the citizens of Hell. Others seemed to have the same sense of foreboding that she had, wondering…what else is he going to do…

Linc owned several businesses in town. Not just some rental homes, but important businesses. He owned Dawson Home Store, the odds and ends shop where you could grab oil for that oil change, seeds for your garden or a gallon of paint. It employed four people full-time and had more than a handful of part-time employees. He owned the Café on the Square and he owned two others there on the square too—a small clothing store and the bait and tackle shop. He had little to do with the day-to-day running of the businesses, but he did own them—the buildings, the land.

If he decided he wanted to shut them down, he could.

Only a few businesses were still fairly profitable and more than half of them belonged to him.

Nearing the bend in the road near Mont Oak, she glanced over, her mouth flattening out into a thin line. Her heart ached for DeeDee. She’d loved that girl. A troubled child, sure, but a good one.

She had no idea—

The pale figure drifting out of the house had Robyn’s heart stopping.

Slamming on the brakes, she stopped. Stared.

Silvery moonlight shone down on her and Robyn didn’t know if she was seeing an apparition or what.

But she was going to find out.

“I’m tired of you controlling my life. It’s my life, damn it.” She glared up at him, wishing he could just understand. He didn’t know what it was like. DeeDee couldn’t make him understand, because he’d think she was crazy.

Everybody else did.

Mom hadn’t told him. DeeDee knew that. Just like she knew too many other things that she shouldn’t know.

Their thoughts, the way they whispered when they thought she was too far away to hear. When she couldn’t hear, she heard. She didn’t know how to describe it, but there was no silence in her head.

Unless she was here, at Mont Oak, with her dad.

Or with Blayne. Why couldn’t he understand?

But she couldn’t explain it to him, because she didn’t want to see him watching her the way Mom had.

So she threw other excuses out there and watched as his face went hard.

“Watch how you speak to me, DeeDee. Do you understand? Maybe your mother doesn’t care if you speak that way around her, but I do and you’ll show respect for the adults in your life.”

“Would you stop?” Her voice broke as she shouted at him. Panic crowded in around her. Robyn was in there and she was about to drive DeeDee nuts. She was worrying about her husband—he hadn’t been able to get an erection, for fuck’s sake, and if DeeDee didn’t get some peace in her head, she might cut open a vein just to silence the noise. “You talk about respect, but you never respect me. I just want to go on a fucking date. Blayne is a cool guy and he’s nice to me. He likes me…” He had to like her. Her head was quiet when he touched her. Just like when her dad hugged her. She felt safe with him. That meant something, right?

Dashing away the tears that burned in her eyes, she glared at him. “He just wants to spend some time with me. What’s the problem with that?”

“You’re not here all the time, DeeDee. I can assure you that Blayne isn’t a cool guy. He gets in too much trouble and there have been three girls who’ve had problems with him—problems that went away after his rich daddy went and had a talk with them and paid their parents money so they wouldn’t talk. You’re not going to be the next girl he hurts, you understand me?”

“That’s bullshit!”

A hand closed over her arm. “You are not going out with that boy, am I understood?”

Oh. Oh, no… She stared at him as the blood started to flow. She’d hit her dad. She’d hit him.

“Let me go! I hate you. Do you hear me? I hate you.”

But she had to go. She had to—had to be with Blayne. He was the only one who didn’t make her feel—

A low moan rattled out of her throat.

Dimly, Jay realized she was waking up.

That she wasn’t alone any more and that the misery of somebody else was pressing in on her.

Dimly, she knew that.

Not so distantly, she was aware of a few things.

Her belly felt like it had been twisted into knots then shoved into a vise.

Her brain felt like it had been scraped out then shoved back into her skull.

And her heart didn’t even feel like a bit of pulp in her chest. Ashes, maybe. Just a bit of ashes, withering away.

Something brushed against the ground and she tried to gain control of her body, tried to turn her head and look, but it was so hard.

In the back of her head, she could still hear that girl’s desperate cries.

Linc had locked his daughter in her room.

Jay didn’t blame him a bit. The girl hadn’t seen it—through the innocence, or the desperation, of youth—she hadn’t seen what her father had, but that boy was nothing but trouble.

The woman standing a few feet away from her was older, maybe in her late fifties, but stress had easily added another decade to her.

She was thin, her clothes hanging on her like she’d lost weight, and her cheeks were hollow, shadows under her eyes.

She moved her mouth, but over the remnant cries, Jay didn’t hear anything.

A hand touched her shoulder and she jumped, trying hard not to scream as the sensation slammed into her.

Bolting forward, she turned, and then felt like a fool as Linc stood there staring at her.

His eyes dropped and she followed his gaze, staring at her partially exposed torso in bewilderment for a long moment.

She’d walked out of the house wearing nothing but a shirt, and she hadn’t even buttoned it. Nothing like letting your tits hang out to make a smashing impression, she thought, dazed.

She reached up, her hands awkward, stiff.

The buttons fought her.

“Let me.”

She looked up, watched Linc warily as he came up.

He touched her. A breath hissed out of her, but there was nothing, just that blissful, empty wall, like an untouched slate. A true psychic null. Now she understood why.

But the woman behind her was a different matter.

Her emotions were cranked up on high and as Linc looked at the older woman, the emotional turmoil only worsened.

“Robyn,” he said, his voice low and harsh. “It’s sort of late for visiting.”

The woman spoke, and as she did, Jay flinched. Each word brought more and more emotion. “Mr. Dawson…” Her voice trembled, then firmed. I can speak to him. I still love the boy. Cared for him since he was a child. Jay pressed her lips together and gripped Linc’s arms, struggling to rebuild her shields. “I…well, I saw the lady. You have visitors. Are…well, do you need any help?”

“No.” Linc’s voice was deliberately cool.

It was a smack against the woman’s pride, a blow against her heart.

Both Jay and Robyn wanted to reel from it.

Robyn did. Jay just breathed shallowly, painfully aware that she needed to get inside. “I…” She pried her fingers loose of his shirt, started to step away.

Linc’s eyes flashed to her.

“I need to go inside.” She glanced at her shirt, forced a smile. “I sleepwalk. Need to clean up, get a drink.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“Mr. Dawson.” Robyn’s voice was low, almost a whisper and full of entreaty.

Memories of Linc flashed through the woman’s mind, all tied to emotion and because it was, Jay saw them too. Emotion, her weakness. Her gift, her curse.

“If you could give me a minute,” she said, unaware of Jay’s plight.

Jay blocked them out. Didn’t hear Linc’s refusal. She took a step. The older woman looked away, cut deep by Linc’s coldness. If Jay hadn’t been so shaky, she might have glared at him.

As it was, she was having a hard time staying upright.

And then, she wasn’t doing it very well, at all.

She stumbled, fell against Linc as another strong jolt of emotion slammed into her. Her shields had protected her most of her life and now, when she needed them the most, she had let them down.

Linc caught her, looking down at her in alarm.

The pain in her head, the woman’s, the remnant pain from whatever had happened here, all of it raged inside her.

Worst of all, there was a gathering darkness, looming over her like a thunderstorm.

“Jay!” Linc wrapped his arm around her waist, using his body to steady hers as it seemed like all the bones in her body dissolved.

Her skin, already pale, turned milk white, and her eyes were too dark in her face.

Cupping her face, he stared down at her. “Jay!”

Behind him, he heard a shout.

Taige. He recognized the voice.

Recognized the panic.

But he didn’t see the problem.

Robyn moved closer, her lined face heavy with concern. “What’s wrong with her, Mr. Dawson?” she asked, reaching out a hand to touch Jay’s face.

As she did, Jay arched, her entire body spasming in one long, rigid line.

Then, a series of broken, desperate screams ripped out of her.

A split second later, Cullen grabbed Robyn, wrenching her back like she was something deadly, something toxic to Jay.

As the screams continued to rip out of her and Taige caught her face in her hands, Linc realized that maybe, just maybe there might be.

“Come on, Jay,” Taige said, her voice low and soothing. “It’s me. It’s me…listen to my voice. Come back to me now. Come back.”

Helpless, unable to do anything but stand there, he looked around, bewildered. His arms continued to support Jay’s lax body.

As his gaze caught Cullen’s, the words boiled through his throat.

“She’s like her.”

Cullen’s lids flickered.

“She really is psychic.”

He just inclined his head.

But it was answer enough.

Linc closed his eyes, looked away.

“She’s not coming out of it,” Taige said, her voice grim.

It had been nearly ten minutes and although the screams had stopped after a couple of minutes, Jay continued to sit there, her gaze fixed, and she was trapped inside herself.

Too much emotion had slammed into her when the woman had touched her.

Robyn, Taige thought. Her name was Robyn. She hadn’t meant any harm, but that was what they had here. Harm, and a lot of it.

Taige hadn’t felt any sign of Jay’s shielding, either. Bad time to let the shielding drop, but she had a feeling why the woman had done it. It was a nice thing, relaxing around a guy who wasn’t going to broadcast his every last thought—or couldn’t. She knew that from experience.

But for whatever reason, she hadn’t reshielded and now they had a mess.

A painful one, in Jay’s case.

“We need to get her inside,” she said finally. She hadn’t wanted to move her. Something had drawn her out here—Taige had been watching from the window and she’d seen Jay wander out here, almost in a daze, and Taige had been watching. But then everything had gone to crap. Too late to worry about severing whatever connection the girl had going now. She had to protect Jay and that started by getting some sort of basic shield up, even if it was passive.

Jay’s eyes remained blank, unseeing.

Linc just stood there, his face about as blank as Jay’s gaze.

She glared at him. “Either you get her inside or I’ll have Cullen put her in my car and we leave. Choose now. I don’t have time for your shit.”

Something raw and dark flashed in his eyes. But he picked her up effortlessly, Jay’s body looking small and helpless in his arms. As he turned to the house, Taige looked at the woman. “You’re coming.”

The woman blinked.

Since Taige didn’t know what had set Jay off yet, she wasn’t letting this woman leave.

She grabbed the ID she’d shoved in her pocket and pulled it out, flashed it.

The woman closed her eyes, then nodded.

There was nothing but chaos in Jay’s mind.

When Taige finally managed to erect a passive shield, the sun was creeping up on the horizon and both women were drenched in sweat.

Jay’s eyes, dazed and confused, connected with hers.

Her voice hoarse, she whispered, “What happened?”

Instead of trying to explain out loud, Taige established a mental link and did it silently. As she silently communicated, she filled the silence so nobody else would. “How do you feel?”

Jay touched her brow. “Lousy.”

She didn’t flinch as, mentally, Taige said, “You weren’t shielded. At all. What were you thinking?”

A dull flush crept across Jay’s cheeks and Taige resisted the urge to apologize. She knew exactly what Jay had been thinking, but it wasn’t an excuse and they both knew it. This could have been bad and, no matter what, Jay’s abilities had to be considered. Always.

“Why did you leave the house unshielded?”

Jay looked away. “I didn’t. Intentionally. I sleepwalk. Something tugged me out. It was an accident. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

Taige sighed and rubbed her neck, acutely aware they were being watched.

Two of the people watching them weren’t all that familiar with the strained, odd silences that happened between psychics.

Too tired for this shit, she forced herself to speak out loud, carrying on one conversation about Jay’s head, how she felt and whether she felt up to doing anything today, while mentally, she carried on a different discussion entirely.

“Do you remember anything?”

Her lids flickered and Jay looked away. “Very little. It’s there, but…”

Taige didn’t need anything else.

It was there for her too. She’d picked up on hazy images from Jay’s mind and they’d connected with the weird little blips she’d been seeing since they’d arrived here.

And now…

Now they just waited.

Like a page in a book, just waiting for her to look at it.

That was all she had to do.

Setting her jaw, she reached out and touched her hand to Jay’s arm, prepared herself, braced. She couldn’t entirely brace for the contact, though. Jay had been slowly rebuilding her shields, but under Taige’s touch, she eased them down and Taige felt herself caught in a whirlwind—a whirlwind of emotion and images and memory.

Jay saw in images. Emotion was tied into memory, events, words…things that happened in a person’s life, and all of that translated to very real, vivid pictures for Jay. Everything she picked up from another, she felt and if she felt it, she saw.

No empath experienced things the same way—psychic gifts were like snowflakes and fingerprints. No two were exactly the same.

But Taige hadn’t been prepared for just how deeply Jay felt what she saw.

It was more like Jay immersed herself in whatever she saw than anything else. Immersed herself, and lost herself, plunging head-deep into a pool that was made up of memory and pain and pleasure and laughter and tears.

If it was like this every time, no wonder she avoided touching anything, avoided being touched.

How terribly lonely that must be.

No wonder she’d grabbed onto a moment with that guy over there. She must have been starving for it.

Taige absorbed what Jay had experienced out on the rolling green lawn and her heart ached.

As she broke the connection, the gray—the nebulous darkness that would pull her in soon—swarmed closer and closer.

Sucking in a breath, she snapped her connection to Jay and shoved upright. The room spun around her. Blood roared in her ears. Was it her? Or did it seem like there were screams?

Cullen caught her arms. “Come on, baby,” he said, steadying her. Already he knew what was happening. He should. He’d been there, at her side, for this sort of thing a hundred times. A thousand. “Let’s get you off your feet.”

“Can’t…” Her tongue felt thick. A forgotten scream echoed in the back of her mind. And the girl… Her vision felt like it was no longer her own as a girl stared upward, where she could see nothing but an odd, oblong box of light, centered directly overhead. “I have to…”

“Sit.” Cullen started to walk her off to the side. “That’s what you have to do. It won’t be any use to do anything until this passes.”

Yeah. Maybe he was right.

She let him guide her off to a chair at the side in the room. As he eased her down, her belly rebelled and she thought she might be ill.

Whatever waited for her in the gray, it wasn’t going to be pretty.