He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. When he opened them, his expression was hard, like he had a job to do. “Your injury. Let me attend to it first.”
She slipped her arm from the sleeve as carefully as she could, but she clenched her teeth together when a sharp, searing pain shot from the wound. He scowled but his hands were gentle.
“Is it bad?”
“I’ve seen worse.” Curiously, his pupils expanded, leaving only a ring of the blue iris.
“Why do they do that? Your eyes?”
His jaw muscle tensed, but he didn’t answer.
The pulse on the sensitive skin of her arm beat against his caressing fingers. And when she saw a similar spot flicker on his neck, for some reason, she wondered if they matched. He didn’t seem startled when she rubbed her thumb over his pulse. In fact, he leaned almost imperceptibly into her hand. He licked the pad of his thumb then ran it over her wound. Instantly, an effervescent sensation, like the crackling of tiny pop rocks, tickled her skin.
“There. Good as new.” Before she could say anything more, he stood and shut the door.
She could hear him talking on the phone as he walked to the driver’s side. What the hell had just happened? She looked at her upper arm. Rather than a gaping gash, only a thin pink line remained. And even that seemed to be fading. Just like whenshe’d cut her finger at his loft. The car shifted slightly when he climbed in.
“What’s going on, Dom?” she asked. “What is all this?”
“It’s complicated.”
“I’m listening.”
He stared straight ahead.
“What if they come back? They probably have my wallet and ID. Don’t I need to know if I’m in danger or not? And my arm...” She rubbed it but felt no pain. “How is any of this possible?”
“My associates are taking your motorcycle home and will make sure your belongings are secure. As for the others, I’m taking you to a safe place then I’m going back to hunt them down myself.”
Hunt? Her stomach tightened with panic. “What about the police? Shouldn’t we call them or did you do that already?”
“The police can’t handle them.”
“And what are you going to do? Maybe you got lucky back there. Please, Dom, don’t. I don’t want you to—to get hurt.” Her voice caught in her throat. Although she couldn’t deny what she saw, Dom was different—much different.
“I’ll take care of him like I took care of his partner.” His tone was calm, as if he’d done this sort of thing many times before.
The ferry engines quieted for a moment, then groaned loudly in reverse as the vessel glided toward the dock. Engines started as people prepared to drive off, and soon the line of cars next to them began to move.
What if she jumped out of the car? Walked away and went back to her ordinary life, pretended the events of the night were all part of a strange dream? Would tomorrow be normal? Would her students ask her the normal questions in class?
“Don’t even think about it, Mackenzie,” he growled as he turned the key and the engine roared to life with a little more gas than she thought was necessary.
“How do you know what I’m—” She gave a sound of exasperation. “Listen. You didn’t need to say that. I’m not going anywhere. I was just reviewing my options. But you’d better be ready to start explaining or I will leave. So you think about that.”
He maneuvered the Porsche slowly onto the ramp so it wouldn’t bottom out.
As they drove off the ferry, he waved a quick thanks to the dock worker, a nun dressed in a knee-high black skirt, white athletic socks, tennis shoes and an orange reflective vest. She smiled and waved back. The Sisters managed the ferry docks on this side and seeing them here always reminded him that good existed in this world in some very unexpected places.
“You won’t like what you hear. You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”
“I’ve lived under a cloud of uncertainty long enough, and I’m tired of it. I know that—” she pointed a thumb over her shoulder in the direction they came from “—is the answer.”
He ran a hand over his face. Of course, she was right. He was just delaying the inevitable. She deserved to know even if he had to wipe it from her memory later. “All right. I can’t shield you from the truth, Mackenzie, no matter how much I’d like to. You have seen too much.” Taking a deep breath, he jumped in.
“There are things in this world that have only been rumored, whispered about late at night, stories meant to scare the young and titillate the old. Most of those stories are made up and passed down through generations. But some of them have a basis in reality. They weren’t just invented from nothing. They started somewhere. And that somewhere is the reality I’m talking about.”
She looked calm enough, and he didn’t sense any spike of distress. Her eyes met his, and she gave him a pursed-lipped smile, not quite bold, but definitely not weak or scared.
