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I held up my hand, showing Kevin the back of it. The cops would have to find us both first.
The after-effects of the almost-lethal violence still seethed through my veins. I’d seen violence that varied from war to up-close-and-personal killing. Many engagements, many years. Why had this excited me?
And...had that really been a goddamned wolf?
CHAPTER7
Zara
Back in my apartment,I stood, heart thudding, and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Had that truly been me back in the mini-mart?
“Who are you?”
My voice shook as if I were scared I might actually get an answer.
I remembered playing with guns, doing tricks, and it wasn’t yesterday, or ten years ago. It was while traveling on horseback from town to town. There’d been no cars.Zero fucking cars.
I’d owned a flintlock. My fingers felt the weight of metal. The gunfighter who taught me tricks had loaned me a Colt such as they had in the Wild West. The trigger on a flintlock didn’t lend itself to pistol antics.
This weird shit, the pop-up memories of a past that wasn’t mine, seeing things like little black arms under the bathroom door, the mad skills with swords and guns...if that were really real...I found it strangely exhilarating.
And scary, just a little scary. Maybe a lot.
I should be freaked out.
The memories were from another woman. A strong, capable woman. The seamstress. The stitcher.
“The Cucitrice,” I whispered.
But...I’d almost executed the man in the mini-mart, just because I could. What the fuck? It had been an instinctive reaction, a muscle memory. The man was a potential threat. You didn’t leave a threat behind when you could eliminate it for good.
A fight or two had ended like this.
I shut my eyes, rocking into the memories.
After my first mistake, I’d sustained a mortal wound and died. Late 1700s.
I’d learned from that.
In 1850, I’d put a bullet through a man’s head before he could rise again and blast me with his scattergun. That’d been a Pinkerton agent gone wrong, nightmare contaminated and likely to plug me in the back if I turned away.
“So,” I said to myself, “seems this morning’s nap has done something after all.”
Memories whirled.
Some were like short films and delivered intact. Most were dust in the wind. They swirled and danced, and beckoned, but I couldn’t quite touch them.
Trembling, I felt my face and pinched my cheek.
“Ouch. Real.” This was the real world.
I exhaled, loudly and slowly, trying to get my mind to settle.
Had that man from the store followed me? Had I led him here?
I hadn’t recognized him at first in the mini-mart, but now I remembered who he was. The bomb. He seemed linked to things; maybe he had answers? Maybe he could help?
He’d tried to help me back there.
