I lay there and felt something blow against my face and the bare skin of my foot that protruded from the blanket.
The hairs stood up on my arms and legs and when I let out a breath, I felt the icy cold touch of frosty breath kiss me.
When I checked over my shoulder, scrubbing the window for a gap or condensation trickling down the glass…
I found nothing.
Well, that’s not entirely true.
I felt like someone was staring at me.
But no one was there.
No one.
Even worse, I could have sworn there was more than one pair of eyes.
Or was it the same pair of eyes but looking at me from two different angles?
Curiouser and curiouser.
The moment passed and the eyes evaporated.
I never discovered what caused that sensation, or the icy chill that rode up my spine.
I never thought about that moment again.
Not until I saw Iav across the room at the club.
I felt that same shiver writhe up my spine, that sense that someone was looking at me.
In truth, I didn’t need Olivia to tell me someone was staring at me.
I already knew someone was, and it was coming from that corner of the club, oddly at the same angle as the invisible eyes I felt that morning three days earlier in my bedroom.
I felt that same sensation later in the club.
While Iav got our drinks, I spotted someone turn away from the dance floor and approach the bar.
For a moment, I thought I recognized him, or at least knew him on some level, but I tore my eyes from him and focused on the man I had spontaneously fallen head over heels for.
Now I was at another crossroad.
Did I get in the police cruiser and let this adventure continue?
Or did I turn and run?
I let that strange throbbing in the center of my chest decide.
I ducked inside the cruiser.
Now I was an accessory to committing GTA by stealing a police officer’s car from their own parking lot.
“Computer, go!” the stranger commanded.
When the car did nothing, he tried again.
“Computer, drive!” he said.
“Do you want me to drive?” I said.
The stranger’s frown deepened.
“I think that’s best. There appears to be an identification procedure I can’t overcome.”
He climbed out of the cruiser and I shimmied over into the driving seat.
I put the car into gear and applied the gas.
Now I wasn’t only an accessory to GTA.
I was the chief component.
“Keep going down this road,” the stranger said.
Traffic was dead this time of night.
Nice to think the rest of the world was going about their business like a regular Saturday.
I wished I was among them.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on here?” I said.
“We’re driving.”
I gave him a flat look.
“I want to know everything that you and your twin have gotten me involved in.”
“He’s not my twin.”
“Fine. So start with that. What’s your real relationship and why are you trying to kill each other? And why am I caught between you?”
The stranger frowned.
“Maybe it’s better if we begin with something simpler.”
“Like what?”
He smiled and extended his hand to me.
“My name’s Vai.”
I didn’t take his hand.
“And I’m Emma. Now can you tell me what’s going on? The other guy’s name is Iav. If he’s not your twin, what is he? And how did he survive you shooting him in the chest?”
“Iav is… Now, how do I explain this? He’s me but he’s also not me. Does that make sense?”
I glanced at him and focused on the road ahead.
Maybe I could pull over at the next red light and get out, I thought.
“He’s sort of my doppelganger,” Vai went on. “He’s me but he’s not really me. And he wants to mate with you. And if he does… well, it won’t end well for you.”
“And why wouldn’t it end well for me?” I said, recalling my earlier all-encompassing need to sleep with the guy.
“Because you don’t really want to be with him,” Vai said simply.
“For your information, I was more drawn to him than I have been to anyone else.”
“That’s because he spiked your drink.”
I accidentally slammed my foot on the brakes, making us jolt forward violently in our seats.
“What?” I said, regaining control. “What do you mean he spiked my drink?”
“He put something in it to make you think you wanted to sleep with him.”
“That’s not how spiked drinks work.”
“It depends on what they put in your drink.”
“So what did he put in my drink?”
“An herb native to his homeworld.”
Homeworld.
Did he mean home country?
Native land?
Homeworld made it sound like he wasn’t from this planet…
I filed it away for later.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s say I believe he spiked my drink…”
And it certainly explained a lot, now I came to think about it.
Each time I was suddenly turned on by Iav it’d been shortly after I drank something—something he had given me too, I might add.
“Why would he do that?” I said. “And why would he want to… mate with me?”
Vai looked over at me and his eyes drifted around my face.
Despite myself, I felt the blush rise to my cheeks.
Oh.
“Take the next left,” Vai said.
I did as he asked and ducked my head when a caravan of police cars screamed down the road, heading back in the direction we’d just come from.
Reinforcements for the attack taking place at the precinct.
The situation I found myself in suddenly hit me full in the chest.
I’d witnessed a murder, then a dozen others as the man I thought was dead actually wasn’t and tore into the local police force at the station.
Now I’d taken it into my head to trust a known murderer.
He’d convinced me to drive this cruiser to a place outside the city.
I sniffed, suddenly overcome by emotion, the shock and desperation of the evening hitting me full in the chest and all at once.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
“Kill you? Where did you get that idea?”
“You came to my room and shot Iav. You would have killed me too if I didn’t escape.”
Vai reached
