Into the Darkness (Darkness #1)(10)

Why did it feel like knowing him was the most important thing in my life?

As Jared kissed my neck, guilt unlike I’d ever felt settled down on me like snowflakes, melting into my skin. The stranger took one step closer. To claim me. To claim what was his.

But that was just crazy. This was all just too f**king crazy!

My mind warped, unable to handle what was happening. Unable to handle the burning of my body and intense confusion of my mind.

I broke away from Jared and ran. Sprinted away. Unable to handle this strange new facet to my life. Unable to understand the confusing surety and absolute conviction that I belonged to a perfect stranger. Unable to fathom even considering the words ‘belonged to’ and ‘man’ in the same sentence.

My secret box had lit on fire and was burning my life down around me.

Chapter Four

I huddled on my bed later that night with my knees pulled up to my chest. Thinking. Focusing on what it was I couldn’t remember. It was there, hovering around my conscious mind. Nudging me. Waiting for me to pay attention. To remember. It was the key to that insane situation in the park.

I flung my wet hair out of my face, pulled the sleeves of my pajamas over my hands, and glanced out the window.

The stranger waited. Outside, he watched, staring up at my shaded windows, just wanting me to know he was there. He was waiting for me to come down to him. He had the same questions I did—I was certain he felt the same things.

How did I know this? I just did. And that scared the holy crap outta me!

“Get a grip, Sasha!” I exhaled nosily, lightly rocking back and forth. There was no way in hell I was going outside. What, with Jared’s strange desires, bordering on constant desperation, our inability to remember the night before, a stranger stalking me, and shadows magically coming to life—

I mentally tried to trap the Pterodactyl wings of memory. Shadows, anal, Jared’s car—why the hell wouldn’t it come clear? It was like a mental block shielding the memories from my awareness. They were there, behind a thick veil, I just had to find a way to them.

I shook my head, shoving aside the presence I felt loitering outside my apartment like a creep and settled into my bed. I doubted sleep would come, but I might as well try. It was midnight and I had to get up early for a test.

My eyes snapped open. I looked around wildly, my room was still and quiet. The red letters on the clock read 4:09. I’d been asleep for four hours. I’d had a dream.

Drenched in sweat, I bolted up into a sitting position and focused on my tweed window shade; but instead, all I saw were two men battering into my boyfriend. Something had unlocked that mental vault in my sleep, and I remembered everything.

Everything.

“Oh my God.” My words sounded like gunshots in my quiet room.

I replayed every scene, from walking out of the restaurant, to Charles approaching me with a hungry smile after the stranger—the Boss—had left. Charles had stopped right in front of me, his eyes raking down my body. Faster than lightening, he grabbed my head and stared into my eyes. I watched in petrified confusion as his smile slipped. His fluffy eyebrows settled over his eyes like low-lying clouds.

“I can’t penetrate,” he’d admonished, speaking to the shadow man behind him.

They were real!

“You aren’t supposed to touch her,” the other had said, releasing Jared. “The Boss will rip you apart if you defy a direct order.”

Jared stared straight ahead, his eyes glazed and unseeing. He looked like a robot powering down.

“I can’t wipe her memory.” Charles had leaned closer to me, searching my eyes for a clue to solve his puzzle.

“Some humans are extraordinarily dimwitted. Here, I’ll help.”

I’d had time to feel indignation before my mind went blank.

What the hell had we stumbled upon? They had called us humans. They had made Jared want to have sex with a man when the guy barely wanted to have sex with his girlfriend—I was still pretty sure he was straight. Somehow, they’d used their minds to assert their will.

It sounded like a fable.

That same damned trickle of adrenaline I always got when riding in a really fast car had my heart hammering and my energy zinging. My whole world was topsy-turvy, but one thing was clear.

I had to see him again. I had to see the Boss.

I needed to know what the hell was going on. Was I losing my mind? Were the mushrooms on my steak the funny kind that made me see things? Did I ingest some Ecstasy without knowing it? Because Jared had been right: only drugs could explain last night. It was the only plausible reason for what I was sure transpired.

I slowly lowered my head to the pillow, eyes trying to bore a hole through my window shade. What I had sensed earlier was no longer there. The Boss was gone.

I still had no idea how I knew.

As the next evening fell, I was in street clothes and running shoes. It had not escaped me that I was doing something so stupid, it was life-threatening. At the very least I was heading to a bad neighborhood. Even if I didn’t find man-shaped shadows, and even if I didn’t prove that what I’d experienced was real, if not completely outlandish, I was still heading toward a pack of dangerous homeless hoodlums. There was a reason people on that side of town steered clear of shelters and church-goers offering help. Even wearing grubby black clothes, I still looked like a spoiled brat from a middle-classed family.