12
They sat quietlyfor another couple of hours, holding one another. Not a single gunshot broke the silence, and Genevieve drifted off to sleep.
She awoke to his hand idly stroking her hair. For a split-second, she forgot about the danger beyond the cabin walls, stretching languidly against him. When she looked up to find him gazing outside, reality crashed down on her. Glancing at her wristwatch, she saw it was already four in the morning. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. With the focus in his expression, Genevieve knew Alex hadn’t slept so much as a wink.
“Why don’t you sleep? I’ll take watch,” she said quietly.
He opened his mouth to argue, but then seemed to think again, which told her how tired he was. This was the first day since he’d been injured he’d gone more than five hours without catching a nap. She figured that he would fall into a deep sleep, and he didn’t disappoint.
Genevieve took his place against the window and kept her attention on the darkness, the shotgun balanced in her lap. The shooter had been conspicuously silent for the past few hours. It was too much to hope he was gone.
Dying had never really bothered her before. When a person had no one left around to care, dying was really just a full stop at the end of a life.
She had Alex now, though. Despite her best efforts to keep her distance, she cared for him. She cared for him so much, if it was a matter of one of them surviving the night, she hoped it was him. The world would be a worse place without souls like his moving around on it. She couldn’t see her own aura, but she was sure it couldn’t possibly look anything like his. After what she’d done in her life, she must have badly tarnished it. No, there was no comparison. Plus, he had a mother and brother who cared for him.
She’d hatched a plan as soon as she’d realized her full powers had returned. Their conversation had cemented it. She had to protect Alex.
With his aura, she was a bit surprised by how long he’d managed to stay in law enforcement in such a dangerous area. It was like his soul was too pure for day-to-day violence. Her on the other hand…well, she didn’t love violence. But she was a pragmatic person with a good plan on how to fix this. Her lover would never agree to it if she gave him a choice. So it was time for some sneaking.
She rested her gun against the wall as she crept to the coatrack to pull on her big coat. Her boots came on next. No need to be uncomfortable in the cold.
She looked out the window again and allowed her vision to blur and flip. Seeing an aura wasn’t quite like thermal goggles, but it was all energy in the end. She couldn’t see it through trees, alas, so if he was camped out deeper in the forest, she was shit out of luck.
Really, her best bet was to try this right after the jerk launched a volley of gunshots. She’d just about given up when she caught a flicker of red to her right. She zoomed in and almost crowed when the red shifted and moved. Too big and complex to be an animal.
Genevieve crawled out to the back room in the dark, trying her best not to make a single sound that would alert Alex, avoiding each of the creaky boards. He stirred once, when she opened the back door to allow the cooler air in, but he subsided back to sleep.
Alex’s conclusion that the guy was playing with them was dead on. If she’d been in the shooter’s place and wanted to get to someone who was inside this cabin? It would have been a simple matter to shoot out the sunroom. The whole wall and the back door were made of glass. Before she walked out the door, she did a quick survey of the forest from here. Once again, not foolproof, but it was all she had. If there was more than one aggressor, it made sense to have one of them parked out in the back.
She opened the door and crept out, flattening into the shadows of the house as soon as she was able. She held her breath, but no bullets came tearing out of the darkness toward her. When she was safe for a solid two minutes, she exhaled and started to inch toward the side she’d glimpsed the color from.
The snow crunched beneath her boots. Probably not that loud, but to her, it seemed like it was in stereo. Her gun was sweaty in her palms. She kept her vision off the physical plane in an effort to see any stray energy.
A plan that had seemed so simple inside now appeared fraught with danger. Had she really thought she could just shoot someone? Sure, she’d done a few things she wasn’t proud of, but shooting someone with a gun was a hell of a lot more personal than cursing a person to a long and painful death.
By the time she reached the front corner of her cabin, she was tempted to march herself right back inside to the safety of her home and Alex’s side. That was when she glimpsed the energy moving amongst the trees, closer now.
Trying not to let her stomach heave in fright, she bent down, picked up a large, snow-encrusted rock and threw it as far away as she could. Since she could hear the sound it made when it landed, presumably the shooter could too.
Sure enough, the energy became more visible as the person moved closer to the edge of the trees. She lifted her gun and sighted down the barrel.
His aura was disgusting, a combination of black and red. She felt like she was staring at putrid flesh and rotting maggots. Genevieve shook her head until her vision cleared, fighting the urge to gag. This man was…horrible. She’d never realized anyone could look like that. There was no redeeming quality in him.
You could just play around with those colors a little. Really punish him for everything he’s done. Come on, he deserves it.Genevieve tried to focus past the seductive voice. No. She wasn’t going down that road again. If at all possible, she wanted to come out of this alive, which meant she was going to rely on good, old-fashioned bullets.
Hands suddenly steady, she took aim. Her finger tightened on the trigger.
It wasn’t much different from shooting at targets on a post, she thought dispassionately, as the energy flinched and flickered. She watched him tumble out of the forest. She made the decision in an instant, changing her aim. She shot again. The gunshots were muted, but everything after them, the thud of the man, Alex’s yell from inside the cabin, sounded unnaturally loud.
Her vision flipped so everything appeared normal, including the dark form on the ground. Not really sure what she was doing, she started walking to where the man had fallen. When she was within a foot or two of his body, she heard her name called out. She didn’t bother to turn around.
She knelt beside the stranger and touched his face. His eyelids flickered open. Both of her shots had hit her target, and she didn’t need to examine him to ascertain he didn’t have long to live. His gun had fallen out of his outstretched hand, and she kicked it aside. Blood was pouring from both wounds, turning the snow beneath him to a sickly pink. Ignoring his wounds, she patted him down, removed another small gun and a knife, and sent them the same way.
“Genevieve!”
She jumped when Alex grabbed her arm from behind. “What the hell have you done?”
She blinked at him over her shoulder. “I took care of things.”
