“You can’t contact anyone yet,” he said. “Your lawyer friend sees more than you realize.”
“That’s not your choice to make.”
“I already did.”
He wrote a short message to Alex and showed it to her.
Close enough, she thought.
The man powered down her phone and slipped it into his pocket. A dense silence in the cab pressed in. Audrey studied her would-be savior and captor—another telepath. It was almost too miraculous to believe.
She reached again, carefully. His aura was controlled and dense, but before she could dig deeper, his head whipped to her.
“Did you—” He stopped himself.
But it was too late—she’d felt it. There was something in his language she couldn’t identify. It was older, structured, and not the language the killer spoke.
“Stay out of my head,” he said, each word heavily emphasized.
She shrugged.
“You’re sloppy,” he added. “That improves.”
Audrey sat back as a silent but ominous feeling took hold. She rubbed her sternum, trying to erase it.
“You feel the similarity because we share a framework,” he said. “That doesn’t mean the same outcome.”
She didn’t know what that meant, but she couldn’t deny she enjoyed being around another person like her. Was she really that lonely?
Apparently, she was.
The cab stopped. A building rose above them, its glass and steel shining in the dawn. He led her through the gleaming front doors. Upstairs, the apartment was bare—white and stripped of any sign of life. “Doesn’t look like anyone lives here,” Audrey said, slipping off her coat. She wanted a cigarette.
“I don’t have a cigarette,” he said, pushing a glass of liquor towards her. “But this is stronger.”
“Stop reading my mind.”
“Stop shouting in it.”
He reached into his jeans pocket and produced a small bag containing a white rock. He raised his brows in a wordless question.
Audrey froze. Reason tried to take over. She recognized that she shouldn’t get high with this stranger right now. It was a massively bad idea. And yet, her body leaned closer anyway.
Gritting her teeth, she stopped herself and put her finger to the bridge of her nose.
Addiction had never made her life easier, but she couldn’t quit chasing that quiet numbness. Everything from the past twenty hours crashed into her. She was exhausted and hangingby a thread. Would a brief break from it all really derail her plans to confront her mother?
Yes, I want some, she thought.
He must have heard her, because he began chopping it all up methodically into a fine powder. After arranging it neatly on the counter, he handed her a rolled-up one-hundred-dollar bill, and she took it. Audrey let herself think it over one more time...but eventually, she bent her head over the counter and inhaled.
The burn hit first, then the high. It was nearly immediate. Before she could stop herself, she did another line, not caring that this could be a distraction at best or a trap at worst. Her heart rate hammered in a ragged, irregular beat that was soothing and familiar.
“Thanks,” she said lightly. “It’s good.”
It was more than that. The quiet made everything sound possible. The guilt retreated, along with any sense of vulnerability. Yet as the numb confidence rose, Audrey felt how easily it could tip into something more ominous and how quickly control could become surrender. He took some, too, quelling her fears that this was a trap set just for her.
“You already know me,” she said when he finished. “What’s your name?”
