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I lift my head when I hear a woman’s voice and open my mouth to reply. But the asshole beside her speaks before I do.
“Don’t get any closer, Salem. We don’t know who she is or who she works for.”
“I don’t work for anyone. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” I snap, jumping up from the chair I’m sitting on as the Viking man steps closer to me.
I swallow and sit back down, letting my head drop and my hair cover my face as I give myself a second to get my shit together.“I knew I should have kept my mouth shut. But did I listen to myself? No. And now I’m going to die at the hands of a bunch of hot GI Joes.” I almost want to cry at the injustice of it all, but I refuse to give these assholes the satisfaction.
“Can you tell us your name and what you’re doing here? I’m sure you won’t believe this, but nobody is going to kill you. These guys are just a tiny bit protective of me.”
I lift my head and stare at her, wondering what it might be like to wear rose-tinted glasses like she appears to be. These guys would sooner snap my neck than let me anywhere near her, even if I came here to warn her.
Shit, I still have to talk to her, or all this was for nothing. I bite my lip and feel myself deflate, knowing this is only going to end badly. I look around, hoping to find a way to escape, but I know I won’t get far with everyone watching my every move.
“My name is Astrid, and I’m here because I listened to a crazy man who clearly wants me dead,” I admit, vowing to wring Penn’s neck if I ever see him again.
“Stop speaking in fucking riddles and tell us how you found Salem,” Slade—the asshole with the gun in his hand—snaps, making me jump. He might not have it pointed at me anymore, but I can still see it.
“Slade,” Salem says his name firmly.
I try to mask my emotions, not wanting them to see how fucking freaked out I am right now. But I can’t get my hands to stop shaking.
“You said something about a crazy man. Does he have a name?” Salem asks me in a softer tone than she used with Slade.
I stare at her for a moment before swallowing. “He calls himself Penn Travis, but I don’t know if that’s his real name or not.” I don’t know anything about the man at all.
She takes a step closer to me. “You know Penn?”
“Not well. He…uh, helped me out of some trouble,” I answer vaguely, not wanting to open that whole can of worms.
Slade snorts. “Shocking. You have trouble written all over you.”
My temper flares, eroding my fear and common sense. “Kiss my ass, dickhead.”
Salem laughs, but I keep glaring at Slade.
“Astrid?”
I turn to look back at Salem when she calls me. Her eyes stare into mine, and I have a flash of the vision I had of her. I swallow down the urge to vomit as I busy my shaky hands by playing with the hem of my top.
“Why did Penn send you here, and how did he know where I was?”
“He didn’t know where you were. That’s why it took me so long to find you. He heard tales of a woman they called Bruja in Mexico. He wrote it off at first until the rumors said she could heal with her hands. By the time he got there, she was gone.” Or at least that’s what he told me. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure if he was pulling my leg, but I owed him, so I threw caution to the wind. And look where that landed me.
“He tried to find me?”
She isn’t denying that she can heal with her hands. Does that mean… “It’s true? You can heal with your hands?”
She doesn’t answer, so I sigh in defeat. Might as well get this over with.“He told me something happened, and months later, he tracked you to a clinic. He thought he had cleaned the problem up, whatever that means, until he bumped into me.” I take a breath and am about to tell them how the only information he could give me was the name Apex when I’m interrupted.
“I’m confused. Cleaned what up?” one of the twins asks. “And who the fuck is this Penn person? How does he know you?” he asks Salem.
“Penn was a man I met when I was a kid. He showed me how to use my gift. Taught me about the duality it had to offer.”
The other twin steps closer to Salem and looks into her eyes. Something unspoken passes between them before he speaks.
“Think he was the one to blow the place up?”
She shrugs.“I don’t know. I haven’t seen the man in twenty years. Why would he do that?” Salem asks, looking confused.
