The Awakening

slacks around his knees.

Huh. So this was what that rapist had hoped to do to the girl? Only the girl hadn't been willing, and this whore, given her squirming and enthusiastic slurping, categorically was. Her head bobbed and Gaby heard the most obnoxious sounds.

Her stomach lurched.

Then her muscles tightened.

Suddenly the driver opened his eyes and saw her. At first, he went still in shock, and then in a flurry of motion he shoved the whore away and tried to readjust his pants.

Gaby barely saw him. Drawn inward, she focused on an increasing, familiar pain.

A calling.

Finally.

Just as the last few had, this summons came on her with the force of a tsunami. She needed privacy. She needed time to accept and welcome the anguish that would guide her.

Through the recesses of her mind, she heard the man shouting. 'What the fuck is wrong with you, lady?'

Everything.

Gaby shook her head and managed to move her legs enough to back away. She could see, but only in tunnel vision, directly ahead of her, and what she saw was a very angry male who'd had his pleasure interrupted.

Tough. If he didn't back off, and quick, she'd lay him low by habit, and then the poor schmuck would know real agony. When Gaby put a man down, he tended to stay down for a while.

'Get lost,' Gaby tried to tell him.

'You interrupted me, bitch. If you wanted to join, you should have asked. Otherwise—'

Gaby took one more step away from the fuming man, ready to brace for an attack.

She bumped into something hard.

Something familiar.

Strong arms went around her. Oh shit.

'Luther?'

'Shhh. I've got you.'

He really did. He had her hook, line, and sinker and she might as well quit fighting it. Even now, with Luther close, the pain became manageable. His effect on her was such that even in the grip of a calling, her vision expanded, her senses opened to her surroundings instead of her inward torment.

Somehow, some way, Luther clarified things.

Into the line of Gaby's vision came Luther's arm, muscles bunched, knuckles white. 'You.' He pointed at the man in front of Gaby. 'Back off right now.'

The man didn't. 'Just who the hell are you?'

'Detective Luther Cross.'

'Oh.' The man backpedaled. 'Hey, I didn't know. I was minding my own business when—'

His voice a mean snarl, Luther shoved him farther back and said, 'Get in your car, and drive.'

'Right. Sure.' The man hesitated, eyeing Gaby with the same fascination he might give a strange animal in the zoo. 'Is she fucked up in the head or something?'

Gaby would have flattened the man for that, but Luther reached for him first. Using only his left arm— because his right still held her—he hauled the man up to his tiptoes and rattled his brains.

Poor Luther. He seemed as much in the grip of an overpowering force as Gaby herself. Not wanting him to suffer the same lack of control, Gaby collected herself enough to stop him. 'He's not worth it, Luther. You know that.'

Luther paused. She heard his deeply indrawn breath, then watched as he shoved the idiot away, sending him to sprawl backward on the sidewalk.

Gaby smirked as the man scuttled up and into his car with prodigious haste. 'Jerk.'

Luther's hands cupped her face and he looked at her. 'You're okay?'

Oddly enough, the pain blanched, then neutralized as if faded away. Never had that happened before. 'I don't know. I don't understand.'

Grim with rage, Luther caught her arm. 'Come on.'

'No.' Gaby meant to shout it, but the word emerged as a breathless whisper. She couldn't just go. Something was happening—or had happened. Why else would she have had the call, only to have the summons ripped away?

Damn it, she wanted to fight. She wanted to be sent after the evil.

Regaining more strength by the moment, she wrenched her arm away from Luther.

He crowded into her and pushed her up against a parked truck. 'Do you want to go at it right here, Gaby? Right now? With everyone watching to see? You want to kick my ass? Fine. Let's go, lady.'

'What are you talking about?' Gaby didn't give a shit who watched, but surely Luther did. For crying out loud, he was an officer of the law. He couldn't go slugging it out with women in the street.

'I'm talking about me being fed up. With you. With all your crazy bullshit and the impossible runaround you put me through.'

'I don't put you through anything!'

He leaned close enough that she smelled the coffee on his breath. 'Either you come with me now, right now, or we settle it here.'

Gaby bristled. 'I'd demolish you.'

'We'll find out, won't we?'

Damn it, she didn't want to demolish him.

'What's the matter, little girl?' he taunted. 'Got something against public displays?'

'Actually, yeah. Someone is watching, someone not nice. Someone—'

'Evil. I know. Your arch nemesis.' He half laughed, saying, 'A villain of monumental proportions.'

Hurt squashed all other comments. He ridiculed her. Finally. Gaby knew it would come, but… she had hoped it wouldn't.

'No, Luther. There's no one.' Gently, she pressed against his chest. 'I'm ready to go if you are.'

So frustrated that he shook with it, Luther leaned away.

Gaby stepped around him.

'Where are you going?'

She didn't look at Luther. She didn't dare. If she did, she seriously thought she might cry. 'Back to my apartment.' She waited for him a few feet away. 'That's where you wanted me to go, right?'

'Gaby…'

'It's all right.' She couldn't bear to hear his excuses. 'You don't have to say anything.'

'Goddamn it.'

That got her frowning. 'Don't blame God for your bad behavior.'

He was so quiet that Gaby couldn't not look at him. She turned her head—and there stood Luther, his head down, his middle finger and thumb pressed into his eye sockets.

He looked to be in so much pain that Gaby softened. What did it matter if he thought her a joke? That just made him normal. Lucky him. 'C'mon, Luther. It's all right.'

'No, it's not.' He strode up to her. 'Here.'

He held out the gift bag. How the hell had he hung on to that in the midst of everything else? 'What is it?'

'Open it and see.'

She looked around, and sure enough, they'd drawn the attention of a few people. Two men stood in front of a liquor store, watching them. The abandoned hooker sat on the curb, gazing in their direction. An old gray-haired lady looked out her second-story window.

'Not here.'

'Okay.' Luther put his hand at the small of her back and urged her forward. 'Let's go.'

'Back to my apartment?'