I kept my hands open and empty for her to see I was unarmed.
But of course, I was armed.
I had no intention of going toe-to-toe with Iav when Emma’s life was on the line.
“You need to come with me,” I said, reaching for her arm.
“Go with you?” she said, pulling her arm from me. “Are you crazy? I’m not going anywhere! Least of all with you!”
I took a deep breath.
“We don’t have time for this.”
“You’ll have to make time!”
Emma bit her bottom lip and the water in her eyes wobbled.
“Tell me what’s going on. Why is this happening to me?”
“I will,” I said calmly. “I promise. But I need to get you away from here first. My Shadow is going to break through the police barricade any minute and then we’ll have to fight him.”
“Fight him? Who?”
“The creature you picked up in the club.”
Her eyes moved to the side, toward the chair leg on the floor.
“He’s dead. You killed him.”
“He’s not dead. He’s out there. He’s the one attacking the police.”
Emma ran her hands through her hair and made fists.
She was losing it.
“I thought you were the dangerous one.”
“I’m not. I just want to keep you safe.”
“Why?”
Boy, was that the heart of the matter.
Where did I even begin?
By telling her she was my fated mate and was destined to spend the rest of her life with me?
That she had no choice in the matter and her future was already settled?
That if she didn’t go with me, she would suffer a fate worse than a thousand deaths at Iav’s hands?
I couldn’t tell her any of that.
Not yet.
She wasn’t ready to hear it.
She wouldn’t accept it.
It would put her in a panic and I would never get her to listen to me again.
Listen.
It was then I hit upon an idea.
“Listen,” I said.
“I’ve done enough listening!”
“Not to me. Listen to the gunfire.”
There were a series of pops from the Glocks and returning cracks from the Shadow’s plasma rifle.
“So?” Emma said.
“So, they’re still firing. That means I’m not the one fighting them. My Shadow is.”
Emma’s eyes moved to the side.
“How do I know you’re not working with someone?”
“You don’t. But you’re going to have to trust me. I came here alone. To find you. I raced against my Shadow but he got to you first. I saw you together in the club.”
“So why didn’t you attack him there?”
“Because it would have caused a panic. And there was a chance you might have been hurt.”
Despite trying not to show it, Emma was affected by my words.
I didn’t want to take the risk you might have been hurt.
I extended my hand to her, the same way I had when we met in her bedroom.
“Trust me,” I said. “Let me take you away from this place.”
Emma eyed my hand cautiously before reaching out and taking it.
I felt her hand in mine, the softness of her skin… and the fear in her eyes.
There was terror there, a great deal of it, but there was also something else just beyond it.
The desire to keep going, to survive.
She would need it in the days to come.
“Come with me,” I said.
We left the interrogation room and the stench of death as my Shadow battled the police officers, fully aware Emma was making a break for it out the backdoor and into the parking lot beyond.
He was not going to be pleased.
Emma
I took his hand.
I actually took this crazy guy’s hand!
But that didn’t mean I trusted him—I had seen him murder an innocent man in my bedroom, after all.
Or maybe not murdered if he was still alive.
I didn’t know what to think.
If he could get me out of that police station without me catching a bullet, it had to be worth trying.
He led us down the hallway and I ducked my head as the officers fired their pistols at his ‘Shadow’.
We reached the door at the end and a buzzing red light blocked our exit.
Great. Now we were trapped like rats in a trap for the gunman to slay us.
I should have stayed in the interrogation room.
Then the stranger did an even weirder thing.
He talked to himself.
“Computer. Deactivate the backdoor. Yes, yes, I know I wouldn’t be anywhere without you but I need you to quit wasting time and get on with it. Yes, I have her.”
I stared at the stranger, my eyes bulging.
I pulled my hand away from his but he gripped me firmer.
The light on the lock blinked from red to green and he shoved the door open.
The cold air hit me full in the face.
It was refreshing, glorious—far better than the metallic tint of blood from inside the station.
The stranger ran to the nearest police cruiser.
“Do you know how to operate this transportation vehicle?”
“Uh, yeah. But we’re not taking a police car, are we?”
“We are if you want to get out of here.”
He released my hand and rounded the car to climb into the front passenger seat.
He didn’t wait for me to follow him.
He took it as a given I would climb in the car with him.
But would I?
I glanced over my shoulder in the direction of the police station.
Where I thought I’d be safe.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
And if the cops couldn’t protect me, who could?
Could this guy who’d put down his identical twin?
There were still so many questions buzzing through my mind, so many things I still didn’t know the answer to.
But the guy sitting in the police cruiser knew them.
I needed a shove in the right direction to tell me what to do next.
It came in the form of something deep in my chest, something I had, until just a few days ago, been completely unaware of.
I’d been lying in bed, enjoying a nice lie-in on a Wednesday morning.
I’d worked till late the night before in the lab and my boss told me I could come into work later the following day.
There was little better than lying in bed knowing you should have been rushing to get to
