Steele looked around the room and saw everyone but the two that Nick thought had been there. He didn’t see them. Not that it worried him overly much, but he was worried about his friend. Nick was tired and maybe a little on edge. Steele wanted to help him in the worst way.
“This woman…is she from around here? Maybe you can tell by the way you have to save her.” Nick shrugged but said nothing as he stared out the window. “Nick, what if she’s your other half? Your love?”
“I can’t love anyone, Steele, and you know why.” Steele used to think he did but not so much anymore. What had happened to his friend was nothing he could have prevented. “I’m damaged goods, and I’ll never let anyone hurt me again.”
Few knew what his life had been like before Ray had found him and brought him to work with them all. Ray didn’t know the horrors of Nick’s life, and the only reason that Steele knew was because they’d gotten drunk one night, really drunk, and Nick had told him. It was a horrific and bloody life the younger man had led before Ray had recruited him.
“I said the same thing, if you remember correctly.” Nick nodded but didn’t turn around to look at him. “Nick, what else can you tell me?”
“The first time I dreamt about her she was laying in the street. Someone had hit her with a car and she was already nearly dead. The dream came back to me over and over, showing me just a little more of the event that put her there each time. Until I saw that I had hit her with my car. I killed her.” Nick came back to the chair again and sat, his nearly full glass of liquor apparently forgotten. “The second time…the second time a different dream came to me, about her and I on a date. I have no idea where we were other than we were together. A person came into the restaurant and opened fire. I was the only one that lived, and she died in my arms that time as well.”
“She dies in your arms every time?” Nick nodded, but Steele could tell he wasn’t really paying any attention to him. He watched him closely. He was reliving each of her deaths, and it made Steele wonder how long this had been going on.
“Last night we were having sex. It was…it was really great. But she looked at me when she was…Christ. I’m glad this is you I’m talking to and no one else.” Steele nodded but said nothing in reply. “She was riding me. My cock was buried so deep inside of her that I knew it was real. I could feel her heat, her wetness holding me. When I touched her breasts, they were full, warm, and her nipples were hard and tight. I wanted to suckle them, but then she looked down at me. Her face twisted until I didn’t know who she was, but she rode me harder, faster until she screamed.”
He was standing next to the window again, staring out it as Steele waited. He had no idea where this was going but knew that it was going to be bad. When Nick poured himself another glass of the dark liquid, Steele realized that his friend was drinking a great deal more lately, and thought it was because of his haunting woman.
“Her body seemed to change. Shift I guess. Not like Kari does, but into something monstrous and evil. As I held her…emptied inside of her…this thing, whatever it was, laughed and rode me faster, harder until I came again. Then she….” Nick drained his third glass but didn’t move to refill it. Steele had a feeling that before this was over he was going to need a drink himself. “She opened her mouth, and her teeth started for my throat until I woke up covered in sweat and nearly screaming myself.”
There was more. Steele knew as he sat there that something else had happened, and either Nick was afraid to share it or he was still trying to believe what had happened himself. And as much as he wanted to help his friend, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know either.
“They’re here.” Steele looked around the room and Nick laughed. “Not my haunting woman, but your mom and that lawyer guy. They just pulled up.”
Steele stood up, then sat back down. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t ready for this. He was, but he had thought to have more time. He looked at Nick when he laughed again.
“I don’t know what to say to her.” Nick nodded and sat down across from him. “She’s my mother, my biological mother, and I haven’t a clue what to say to her.”
“‘Hello’ is where I would start. Then from there, let her lead the way. From what I’ve heard, she’s been pretty hurt by this too. Not by you but your father.” Nick grinned. “Wish I could have met the bastard. He and I would have gotten along famously.”
“You would have killed him.” Nick nodded and said that worked for him as well. “She might not like us. We might be wrong about everything and she’ll not want to have a thing to do with us.”