“Can you find your way home from here?” he asked.
“You’re just going to dump me here?” But the real question framed in my mind was this: Why had Jev, presumably one of them, alienated himself to save me?
“If you’re worried about Gabe, trust me, he’s got more on his mind right now than tracking you down. He won’t be doing much of anything until he gets the tire iron out. I’m surprised he had the strength to chase us as far as he did. Even after he gets it out, he’ll have what I can only describe as a killer hangover. He’s not going to be in the mood to do much other than sleep for the next several hours. If you’re waiting for the perfect moment to make a break for it, you aren’t going to get a better one.”
When I didn’t budge, he jerked his thumb back the way we’d come. “I need to make sure Dominic and Jeremiah clear out.”
I knew he wanted me to take a hint, but I wasn’t convinced. “Why are you really protecting them?” Maybe Jev was right, and Dominic and Jeremiah would fight the police. Maybe it would end in a bloodbath. But wasn’t the risk better than letting them walk free?
Jev’s eyes were fixed on the darkness beyond the windshield. “Because I’m one of them.” I immediately shook my head. “You’re not like them. They would have killed me. You came back for me. You stopped Gabe.”
Instead of answering, he angled out of the Tahoe and came around to my side. He yanked my door open and pointed into the night. “Head that way to town. If your cell phone doesn’t work, keep walking until the trees clear. Sooner or later you’ll get reception.”
“I don’t have my cell.”
He paused only a beat. “Then when you get to Whitetail Lodge, ask the front desk for their phone.
You can call home from there.”
I slid out. “Thanks for saving me from Gabe. And thanks for the ride,” I said civilly. “But for future reference, I don’t appreciate being lied to. I know there’s a lot you aren’t telling me. Maybe you think I don’t deserve to know. Maybe you think you hardly know me, and I’m not worth the trouble. But given what I just went through, I think I’ve earned the right to the truth.” To my surprise, he nodded. Not eagerly; a reluctant inclination of his head that said, Fair enough.
“I’m protecting them because I have to. If the police see them in action, it will blow our cover. This town isn’t ready for Dominic, Jeremiah, or any of us.” He watched me, his razor-sharp eyes softening to a velvety black. There was something so consuming about the way his eyes took me in, I almost felt his gaze like a real touch. “And I’m not ready to leave town yet,” he murmured, his eyes still holding mine.
He stepped closer, and I felt my breath come a little faster. His skin was darker than mine, more rugged. He wasn’t beautiful enough to be handsome. He was all hard, prominent angles. And he was telling me that he was different. Not because he was unlike any other guy I’d ever known, but because he was something else entirely. I clung to the one strange new word that had stayed with me all night. “Are you Nephilim?”
Almost as if he’d been shocked, he jerked back. The whole moment snapped apart. “Go home and get on with your life,” he said. “Do that, and you’ll be safe.” With his blunt brush-off, I felt tears spring to my eyes. He saw them and shook his head in apology.
“Look, Nora,” he tried again, resting his hands on my shoulders.
I stiffened in his embrace. “How do you know my name?”
The moon broke briefly through the clouds, allowing me a glimpse of his eyes. The soft velvet was gone, replaced by a hard and hooded black. His were the kind of eyes that held secrets. The kind that lied without flinching. The kind that once you looked into them, it was hard to break away.
We were both damp from the exertion of our earlier escape, and what I assumed was the lingering scent of his shower gell hung between us. It held the slightest trace of mint and black pepper, and the memory of it rushed through me so fast I was left dizzy. I had no way to trace it, but I knew the scent. Even more unsettling, I knew I knew Jev. Somehow, whether it was in a trivial way, or something much larger and therefore much more disconcerting, Jev had been a part of my life.
There was no other way to explain the searing flashbacks that came from being near him.
It crossed my mind that maybe he was my kidnapper, but the idea didn’t have a lot of conviction behind it. I didn’t believe it. Maybe because I didn’t want to.
“We knew each other, didn’t we?” I said, my extremities tingling. “Tonight isn’t the first time we’ve met.”
When Jev stayed quiet, I was pretty sure I had my answer. “Do you know about my amnesia? Do you know I can’t remember the last five months? Is that why you thought you could get away with pretending not to know me?”
“Yes,” he said wearily.
My heart beat faster. “Why?”
“I didn’t want to pin a target on your back. If Gabe thought we had a connection, he could use you to hurt me.”
Fine. He’d answered that question. But I didn’t want to talk about Gabe. “How did we know each other? And after we left Gabe behind, why did you still pretend not to know me? What are you keeping from me?” I waited restlessly. “Are you going to fill in the gaps?”
“No.”
“No?”
He merely looked at me.
“Then you’re a selfish jerk.” The accusation flew out before I could stop it. But I wasn’t going to take it back. He may have saved my life, but if he knew something about those missing five months, and refused to tell me, anything he’d done to redeem himself was lost in my eyes.
“If I had anything good to tell you, trust me, I’d start talking.”
“I can handle bad news,” I said curtly.
He shook his head and sidestepped me, heading back to the driver’s side. I grabbed his arm. His eyes dropped to my hand, but he didn’t pull free.
“Tell me what you know,” I said. “What happened to me? Who did this to me? Why can’t I remember those five months? What was so bad that I’m choosing to forget?” His face was a mask, all emotion compartmentalized away. The only sign that he heard me was a muscle flexing in his jaw. “I’m going to give you some advice, and for once, I want you to take it. Go back to your life and move on. Start over if you have to. Do whatever it takes to leave this all behind.
This will end badly if you keep looking back.”
“This? I don’t even know what this is! I can’t move on. I want to know what happened to me! Do you know who kidnapped me? Do you know where they took me and why?”
“Does it matter?”
“How dare you,” I said, not bothering to swallow away the choked-up quality of my voice. “How dare you stand here and make light of what I’ve been through.”
“If you find out who took you, is it going to help? Will it be the closure you need to pick yourself up and start living again? No,” he answered for me.
“Yes, it will.” What Jev didn’t understand was that anything was better than nothing. Half-full was better than empty. Ignorance was the lowest form of humiliation and suffering.
He let go of a troubled sigh, raking his fingers through his hair. “We knew each other,” he relented.
“We met five months ago, and I was bad news from the moment you laid eyes on me. I used you and hurt you. Fortunately, you had the good sense to kick me out of your life before I could come back for round two. The last time we spoke, you swore that if you ever saw me again, you’d do your best to kill me. Maybe you meant it, maybe not. Either way, there was a lot of strong emotion behind it. Is that what you were looking for?” he finished.
I blinked. I couldn’t imagine myself making such a malicious threat. The closest I’d ever come to hating someone was Marcie Mill ar, and even then, I’d never fantasized about her death. I was human, but I wasn’t heartless. “Why would I say that? What did you do that was so horrible?”
“I tried to kill you.”
I met his eyes sharply. The line of his mouth, grim but steady, told me he wasn’t in the slightest way joking.
“You wanted the truth,” he said. “Deal with it, Angel.”
“Deal with it? It doesn’t make any sense. Why did you want to kill me?”
“For fun, because I was bored, does it matter? I tried to kill you.” No. Something wasn’t right. “If you wanted to kill me back then, why did you help me tonight?”
“You’re missing the point. I could have ended your life. Do yourself a favor and run as far and as fast from me as you can.” He turned away with a dismissive gesture, signaling for me to walk in the opposite direction. This was the last we’d see of each other.
“You’re a liar.”
He turned around, his black eyes snapping. “I’m also a thief, a gambler, a cheat, and a murderer.
But this happens to be one of the rare times when I’m telling the truth. Go home. Consider yourself lucky. You’ve got a chance to start fresh. Not everyone can say the same.” I’d wanted the truth, but I was more confused than ever. How had I, a straitlaced, straight-A student, ever crossed paths with him? What could we possibly have had in common? He was abominable … and the most all uring, tortured soul I’d ever met. Even now, I could feel a war brewing inside me. He was nothing like me, quick and caustic and dangerous. Maybe even a little scary. But from the moment he’d stepped out of the Tahoe tonight, my heart hadn’t been able to find a steady rhythm. In his presence, every last nerve ending in my body felt wired with electricity.
“One last thing,” he said. “Stop looking for me.”
“I’m not looking for you.” I scoffed.
He touched his index finger to my forehead, my skin absurdly warming under his touch. It didn’t escape me that he couldn’t seem to stop finding reasons to touch me. Nor did I miss that I didn’t want him to stop. “Under all the layers, a part of you remembers. It’s that part that came looking for me tonight. It’s that part that’s going to get you killed, if you’re not careful.” We stood face-to-face, both of us breathing hard. The sirens were so close now.
“What am I supposed to tell the police?” I said.
“You’re not going to talk to the police.”
“Oh, really? Funny, because I plan on telling them exactly how you rammed that tire iron into Gabe’s back. Unless you answer my questions.”
He gave an ironic snort. “Blackmail? You’ve changed, Angel.” Another strategic stab to my blind side, making me feel even more unsure and self-conscious. I would have squeezed my memory, trying to place him one last time, but I knew it was wrung dry.
Since I couldn’t rely on my memory, I’d just have to cast my nets elsewhere and hope for the best.
I said, “If you know me as well as you claim to, you know I’m not going to stop looking for whoever it was who kidnapped me until I either find them, or hit rock bottom.”