Useless. You’re utterly useless.The voice was harsh. He recognized that voice. Dr.Peter Whitney. The man from hell.
A chorus of protests, young girls’ voices drowning out the nextthing that abrasive and severe voice snapped before Gideon could hear it again.
Take them out, all but her.There was a long silence while Whitney’s order was presumably obeyed. Then he began berating Rory again.They could have all been killed because of your utter incompetence. If you cared enough about them to work harder, you wouldn’t endanger them, but you’re just too selfish and lazy.
Despair. Guilt. Self-loathing. It was difficult to breathe, but the determination not to wheeze, not to allow the sound to be heard, was paramount in young Rory’s mind. She did her best to control her inability to find air while Whitney’s voice continued to insist she was worthless and she had nearly gotten everyone killed. Whitney called for the guards and told them to escort Laurel up to her room, and he told her she should stay there and come up with reasons he should keep her around.
Gideon felt the heavy weight of each one of her steps on the stairs. The airless, stuffy room, hot and miserable, filled with layers of dust, making it impossible to breathe adequately.
Hot tears tracked down Rory’s face, and he felt each one. She walked to the other side of the room, where a tiny square of a boarded window let the night in.
Alarm shot through Gideon as he read the intent in the child’s mind. The girl in the nightmare wiggled a board loose, something it was clear she had worked on for some time. She stepped out onto the ledge. In real time, Rory, trapped in her nightmare, stepped to the ledge of the three-story building.
Rory. Wake up. Wake up now.He called to her imperiously. Commanded it. At the same time, Gideon didn’t hesitate.
Uncaring of his injured body, he leapt to the very edge of the wide concrete railing that surrounded his rooftop. Flinging his arms wide as if he might fly off, he called on every owl in the vicinity and sent them flying straight at the woman he consideredhis. He had to use his body as well as his mind to direct them. His heart and lungs. His entire focus. His very being so he became the owls.
Screeching, the raptors complied. Wings beating hard, they flew at Rory’s face and around her body, pulling up sharply at the last minute. Gideon felt her wake, disoriented at first but gripping the railing tightly and then stepping back, panic in her mind.
8
The music seemed overly loud, and for some reason, Rory couldn’t turn it down in her head the way she normally could. Noises didn’t get to her because she controlled the volume in the way she mysteriously did a number of odd little things she had come to take for granted. Tonight, she had a pounding headache that just wouldn’t go away, and the noise level in the bar seemed to increase with every hour she worked.
She’d always had nightmares, but lately the frequency was escalating. Waking up to the sound of Gideon’s voice and owls flying at her head as she stood at the very edge of her rooftop terrified her. If she hadn’t awoken, would she have fallen to her death? Yes. The answer was yes. There was no doubt in her mind. The spot over her left temple burned and hurt like hell. The strange sensation had grown into pain. The pain had worsened with each nightmare until it was like her nerves were too close to the surface.
“You okay, Rory?” Dana asked in a whisper as she collected drinks to take to her tables.
Alarmed, Rory raised an eyebrow. “Does it show?”
Dana shook her head. “No, you’re talking to the customers as usual, and you’re just as fast. You’re just not you.”
“Later,” Rory said, not meaning it.
What was she going to say? What could she say? She was uneasy and didn’t know why. She wasn’t used to sharing her life with friends. She wanted to learn. She even wanted to settle there in San Francisco and keep the friends she was making. She wanted a family. She wanted to take a chance on Gideon, but everything was falling apart.
Dana nodded, picked up her tray and moved easily into the crowd. Rory, pouring drinks and making small talk with her customers, couldn’t help looking for him. Gideon. She wanted him to come in. Two of his friends were sitting in the back, which was a good distance from her. She recognized them. Ethan and Brian were their names. Both would be considered good-looking men. Hard if you looked at their eyes. She knew few women would see past the tall, ripped bodies. She hadn’t exactly seen them with Gideon, but she knew they were part of his family.
If she were being honest with herself, she didn’t want to know how Gideon’s eye could go from soft sky blue to arctic cold like a dense glacier. There were a couple of times he looked more like a predator than a human when she’d looked into his eyes. She’d blinked and the illusion was gone, but which was the illusion? Man? Or predator?
She read the energy of people around her fairly easily. Gideon was a dangerous man, just as Ethan and Brian were. Javier was extremely dangerous. Yet Rory felt safe with them when she hadn’t felt safe in years. Why was that? And why hadn’t Gideon come to see her? Where was he?
Rory realized, as the hours had gone by and he had not arrived, the tension in her had grown. She had to give that some thought.She wasn’t dependent on anyone—least of all a man. In reality, she barely knew Gideon, yet she couldn’t stop thinking about him. The anxiety she was feeling wasn’t just for herself but for him. Since her nightmare and hearing him call her name, more and more she was becoming certain he was in danger. She just didn’t know where it was coming from.
A man with dark blond hair and brown eyes took the seat directly in front of her when a customer and his friend got up and headed to a table. The blond gave her a friendly smile. He had one lower tooth next to his molar capped in shiny gold. He looked very fit, wide shoulders encased in a tan tee stretched over heavy muscles. He had a darker-colored hoodie unzipped over the tee.
“What can I get for you?” She took one more quick scan of the bar and then another of her new customer. She gave him a bright smile.
“Old-fashioned. Johnnie Walker Black Label. Name’s Scott Tinsdale. Didn’t expect my bartender to look like you.” Deliberately he looked at her hand. “Married? Engaged? I don’t want to step on someone’s toes asking you out.”
“Moving a little fast, aren’t you?” She laughed as she mixed his old-fashioned with simple syrup and two dashes of aromatic bitters. She didn’t look at the tall ice-filled glass but kept her gaze fixed on him.
Something was very wrong. The anxiety that had been growing in her since she’d woken from her nightmare had continued to worsen. Her mind sought Gideon, but she couldn’t touch him. The connection between them seemed to be broken.
“I’m a decisive kind of man. I see something I like, and I go after it,” Scott declared.
“That’s a good way to be,” Rory said, setting his drink on a napkin in front of him. “Thank you for the compliment, but I’m in a very committed relationship.”
Dana was there again, leaning on the bar, gesturing toward her. Rory hastily excused herself and went to the waitress.
