Page 35 of Heir of Ashes

Logan shook his head once—whether in frustration or something else, I didn’t know—then turned away and opened the window. Cold air rushed into the small room, swallowing all the warmth within.

The sounds of traffic, pedestrians, and the relentless rain poured in, an ordinary cacophony that felt alien within the tension-filled space. He couldn’t even look at me. Was I misreading him, or was it simply inexperience on my part? No. I might be clueless about men, social cues, and even friendship,but that specific expression, I could distinguish as clearly as night from day.

It was a painful blow to realize that the first man I ever noticed felt disgusted touching me. Men watched me wherever I went while I rarely noticed them. Now that I wanted a man to look, to admire … oh, how it smarted. I mentally slapped myself, dislodging the self-pity. This was not the time or place.

I didn’t even know him. And the little he knew about me was enough to provoke such a reaction. What would he do if he met the real monster within? I berated myself and pushed down the sting of rejection.

“Tell me what to look for. I’ll search for it myself,” I said to his back, my voice flat and my face blank. I zipped the jacket all the way, wishing modesty had a stronger hold on me and I had kept the shirt, wet or not.

“I’ll do it,” he said, still looking out the window. And what a fucker, his disgust rang loud in his tone. He wasn’t even trying to hide it. If I thought I was mistaken before—and I wasn’t—that was a dead giveaway.

“I don’t want you to touch me,” I said stiffly.

He turned then, disgust and frustration evident. “This is not the time for modesty—”

I barked a sarcastic laugh, interrupting him, my eyes cold. It would have chilled lesser men, sent others scurrying far, far away, but he only looked perplexed, shaking his head in confusion, as if I made no sense to him.

“The Society might be assembling guards to come after you right now.” He ran a hand through his hair and motioned to the bed. “Please, sit down on the bed,” he said, leaving his post at the window.

I crossed my arms over my breasts and gave him a cold stare. “I can do it myself.”

He stared back, the disgust replaced by vacant eyes and a flicker of something else. He was the first to break eye contact, showing signs of weariness as he rubbed his face with both hands.

“Look, time is crucial here. I know what I’m looking for. If I do it, it’ll be done faster.” He gestured toward the bed again. “Please.”

He was right. My stubborn pride was only wasting precious time. If I had an active tracker signaling my enemies, the first step to freedom was removing it as quickly as possible. The faster, the higher my chances for success.

I let pride get in the way. I’ve done worse for the sake of freedom, worse than letting a man or scientist examine me. Gritting my teeth, I sat on the bed and waited.

Logan took the chair I had vacated and motioned for my leg. I rolled up my pants, then raised my leg above his thigh, keeping it suspended, not touching him. He let out a long sigh, pressed my leg down on his thigh, and placed his broad hands around my knee, beginning to move his thumb in the same circular motion he’d used on my neck and back. Clockwise, counterclockwise, and then down. His eyes tightened when he found the scars from the vampire’s teeth, but otherwise he didn’t react.

I wasn’t conceited. Not anymore. I knew I was once, back in the days when my biggest worry was my next outfit, but the confidence I’d once held had died somewhere along the earliest years I spent in the PSS. Because I wasn’t yet thirteen when the PSS took me, I never in my entire life tried to seduce a guy or used any feminine wiles to entice one. I’d never encouraged a man to look at me twice; in fact, I’d rather have been invisible. But I’d turned heads wherever I’d gone, regardless of gender and age. Even back in the PSS, I turned heads, gaining appreciative looks from new staff, guards, or guests, sometimes even fromthe veterans. Until one noticed the bracelet on my wrist or realized what I wore wasn’t a jumpsuit, but a uniform. Then the appreciative looks turned to disgust. There were those who tried to spare my feelings by giving me embarrassed smiles instead, but those had been rare and far between.

Some of the staff had tried taking advantage of my status, me being a prisoner and them my captors, but once Kincaid realized this, he slipped me a letter opener, which I had later used to stab my assaulter. I had paid for it, but no one had ever tried to molest me afterward.

But that was then, and this was now, and foolish as I was, I had noticed Logan, and had wanted him to notice me too.

Chapter 13

We were out of the room within an hour. There was indeed a tracker, implanted under the skin of the instep of my right foot. It was deeper than I expected, barely noticeable. Its head was smaller than a lentil, attached to a hair-thin wire about an inch long. One would think my body would have rejected such a thing.

Logan and I separated after we left the hotel. I took a cab to a mall where I spent the remainder of Logan’s money without a second thought. He’d taken the transmitter to dispose of it, told me he had some matters to attend to—finding a car, making calls, and arranging for money to be wired. All in all, I had a couple of hours to kill, so I went shopping before I was to call him at the number he had me memorize before we parted ways.

I went to Arden Fair Mall on Arden Way. It was one of the places I’d frequented as a kid, and I wanted to see it again through adult eyes. I shopped first for essentials, picking up underwear and some clothes from the sale racks. The basics, things I absolutely needed. By the time I made my way to the food court, nostalgia had a tight grip around my chest, squeezing with every breath. I was wearing my new jeans and a blue button-down shirt, my new coat draped over one arm and shopping bags in the other. Despite the disastrous way the day had started, I was feeling almost normal. Michelle used to tell me shopping cleared the mind and freed the soul, and today, I could almost believe her. The thought crossed my mind to call her, to let her know I was fine and alive, but I knew she and the rest of the town were wondering why I had disappeared the same night a mummified corpse was found in my room, not to mention all that blood. Unless the PSS had cleaned up the place before anyone found the vampire corpse. The latter wasmore likely, and they probably had a story about me circulating around to keep others from looking for me. No, Michelle was safer left wondering.

I ordered fried rice and Kung Pao chicken from Panda Express, then found myself a table. I savored the spicy chicken and vegetables while I visualized the PSS Headquarters, bringing into focus everything I could remember—the grounds, the buildings, the layout. Now and again, I’d take note of my surroundings.

The food court was packed with people and sounds, laughter and shouts, screaming, wailing, and giggling children. Just like I remembered, as if years hadn’t passed. Unlike the chaotic emotions that had overwhelmed my senses in the casino, the atmosphere here was easier to bear, lacking the greed and malevolence. I was an insignificant dot in a sea of bodies.

After I finished eating, I pulled out the sketchbook and the magic markers that had cost more than the flip-flops and pajamas from JCPenney. I began drawing, the cacophony of sounds and emotions around me soothing background noise. I wasn’t a great artist, but I was a decent one. Despite my initial thought that mapping rooms and offices wouldn’t be hard, I ripped a couple of pages before I was satisfied with what I was doing.

First, I sketched the perimeters of the three main buildings on the first page, flipped a page, and began drawing the details of the ground floor of Building C. I had no doubt that Logan’s friend would be found either in that building or the topmost floors of Building A. There was a cubical maze on the ground floor of Building C, where the more recent research was kept, locked rooms that opened with authorization cards and retina scans, and other rooms Logan would definitely not need to search. I drew the details I remembered and marked numbers for reference at the bottom of the pages so Logan would knowwhat was what and where he needed to go or avoid. I drew the whole ground floor of Building C, where the labs were located, although floors in Building C were subterranean, going down instead of up. It was very military, but I suppose it was harder to escape a building with only a couple of entrances, several floors up.

When I finished drawing everything I could remember from that floor and checked the references, the cameras, and sensors, a long time had passed. I politely covered a yawn, stretched my legs under the table, and massaged the kink from my neck before glancing around.

The food court was even more crowded than when I’d arrived, but it was refreshing to be among so many people without drawing attention. I checked the time and was shocked to discover that over four hours had passed. Damn, Logan was probably thinking that the PSS had caught me. I studied my drawings one last time and concluded Logan would be able to decipher them after all. I still needed to do the floors of Building A and the subterranean ones in Building C, but for now, those would do. I rolled up both drawings, stuck them inside my purchase bag from JCPenney, and left to find a pay phone—if they still existed—and arrange a meeting place with Logan. But where? He seemed to have known his way around town well enough earlier.

“Roxy?” someone called. “Roxanne?”

---