Mixed Feelings (Empathy in the PPNW Book 1) Read online

  I looked over and met Mel’s eyes again. The car was still freezing and the windows were getting foggy. The light dusting of snow on the windows made the car oddly intimate. For once, though, Mel didn’t invite me onto his lap or suggest he shove his hand up my shirt.

  It was getting a little weird.

  “I’ve got a date. I’ll keep you posted,” he said, breaking the silence.

  “Not on the date.”

  He grinned. “You wish.” After some more intense eye contact, he jumped out of the car and slammed the door. I did a roll of my shoulders, considered the note in my pocket, and wondered why the candy thief had decided to be helpful. I should have just been grateful the thing had taken a liking to me, especially considering everything that had fallen into my lap, but I couldn’t bring myself to just run with it. I had a good thing going with my ignorance and if the candy thief was going to hang around, I might not be able to revel in it anymore.

  I might have to start learning things about fairies and, god forbid, werewolves. I didn’t want to know more about either, and this sticky note addict was putting a kink in my plans to avoid that side of things.

  As I started the car again, I dipped a hand into the center console, aiming to soothe myself with a snack. When I found only an empty bag, my first reactions were a snarl and a hearty string of cuss words.

  Then, when I remembered where the hard caramel candies had disappeared to, I thanked my past-self for having finished them a week before. They’d been gone well before the magical bastard could steal them, so there. Bolstered slightly by the fact that the thief hadn’t gotten the best of me this time, I headed for home.

  ***

  That evening I journeyed to a tiny vegan donut shop on the far side of Bellevue. Chloe had gotten me addicted months ago just by bringing me a single donut at work one morning, though I was sure that hadn’t been her intention. While I usually didn’t travel all this way for something as simple as a donut, I figured the last twenty-four hours called for it.

  No one in the state—as far as I knew— other than Dulcet Donuts made a triple chocolate pastry stuffed with frosting and covered with a banana glaze. It could make your heart stop, but I figured the fact that the sugary coating was at least flavored with fruit meant it had to be good for me on some level.

  The woman at the counter recognized me when I walked in, despite the fact that it had been over a month since I’d been there, and had my order ready.

  “Long time!” Polly said, already ringing me up.

  I shrugged. “Hard day, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have made the drive.”

  “Well, that makes me feel special,” she said, an edge of fake insult in her tone. I could tell, even without my psychic power, that she wasn’t really bothered, but I made up for the accidental insult with a fat tip. I took a narrow two-top in the corner for myself and chowed down on my unhealthy delights, feeling all the better for it. After I finished, I realized that, if things got any crazier, I might not make it out this way again any time soon.

  Just to be safe, I ordered five more of the heart-stoppers to go, cleaning them out.

  I was strapping the box into my passenger seat—you can never be too cautious when protecting such valuable treasure as donuts—when my phone rang.

  “Hello?” I answered without looking at the number on the screen.

  “I have the address of your kidnapping.” I blinked, my brain briefly too far gone in a glaze high to know what the silky voice was talking about, or who it belonged to. Evadne pressed on without waiting for me to acknowledge her, detailing an address that, to my surprise, was in the same city. I jumped, trying to find something write on. “Merrin will bring your trinket by later and we will be settled, is that understood?”

  “Yeah. Wait, trinket?” I asked, still digging through my glovebox for something to write the quickly fading address on before my mind erased it. Evadne had already hung up, so I let the phone fall into the footwell of my car while I gave up on finding a clean piece of paper and scribbled directly onto the donut box.

  “Crazy blue-haired hottie,” I groused, flipping on the dome light to see what I'd scrawled. My writing was nearly illegible, but I was able to punch it into my phone to see where I’d be telling Chloe to meet me.

  “Well, that’s convenient.” My phone claimed it would take me less than ten minutes to arrive at my destination. It was nearly seven-forty, but I figured Chloe could make it out my way if I got hold of her quickly enough. A revelation hit me as just before I hit the call button and I sat in the quiet car staring at her smiling face on the screen. Chloe could do wonders with an insurance company and make a damned fine cup of tea, but she wouldn’t be any help in stopping a kidnapping. Chloe was, as she’d put it, just my assistant; what good was she at something like this?

  I couldn’t help anyone alone, though, regardless of how close I happened to be. Somehow I didn’t think knocking on the door of someone’s house and politely informing them that their child was about to be kidnapped was going to go well. I considered calling the police but instantly realized that was an even stupider idea than calling Chloe or trying to warn the parents.

  So what the hell was I supposed to do?

  When I realized what my only option was, I let out a resigned groan. I needed the big guns. Rather, I needed a werewolf with big guns. I rubbed my temples, then called Mel. To my surprise, he answered on the first ring.

  “News?”

  “Uh.” I needed a second to adjust; I had expected him to answer with some crude come-on. “I just got the address of the supposed kidnapping. It’s in Bellevue. I’m on my way there now. I was going to call Chloe but I figured you’d be more helpful. I’m assuming you can do more than howl at the moon.”

  “Please,” he spat. “Send me the address and I’ll be right there. Where are you?”

  “Nearly there, actually. I was already in the area.”

  “Shit,” Mel growled. There was an edge of an actual growl to it and my stomach did a flip-flop. Since it was currently stuffed to the brim with donuts, it was a heavy, unpleasant feeling. “Don’t go near the place until I get there. I’ll—I know someone in the Bellevue PD. I’ll send her there. Don’t be a hero.”

  “Not something you have to worry about with me. Just hurry. Merrin said eight and it’s closing in fast.”

  “Already in the car,” Mel said, hanging up. My headset went dead and I glanced at my phone on the seat as if it could answer my questions about when, exactly, Mel had become useful and heroic. This wasn’t a side of him I had considered possible.

  I paused at the first stop sign I came across, punching the address I’d been given into my phone and sending it on its way to Mel. I got a honk as I hit send, but I’d rather be honked at than accidentally crash myself into a tree because I’d been texting.

  I planned on parking far down the street, but the closer I got, the more I realized that was unlikely. The street was packed with cars and, in an ironic twist of fate that never happened when I was, say, visiting a tiny vegan donut shop, I found parking right in front of the apartment building. It was run-down, though not as if it was neglected, just a little worse for wear. There were maybe twelve units in total. The paint was faded here and there and the sidewalks around it had seen better days, but the foliage was well-kept and the windows actually looked new. It matched the address that Evadne had given me.

  “Dammit,” I said, darting across the other lane to take the spot, despite my misgivings. I was technically parked backwards, but I wasn’t planning on being there long, so I decided not to worry about it.

  I locked my doors, hunkered down in my seat, and tried not to be noticed by anything that looked like it wanted to kidnap small children. I sat in silence for ten minutes, too nervous to even contemplate digging into my box of donuts. The closest thing I saw to a kidnapper was a hipster with a giant mustache striding by. He looked harmless, but I decided not to trust him anyway, just to be thorough.

  As was qu
ickly becoming its habit, the universe decided to throw me a curveball. I was still hunched down in my seat, my gaze darting between my side mirrors, the front window, and out toward the apartment building, when I felt a peculiar emotional signature coming from far off to my left. It wasn’t one I’d ever felt before, so I couldn’t immediately recognize what the emotions meant. They felt liquid, thick and aggressive in a way that made me rub my hands over my arms as if I could wipe them away.

  When I turned to see what exactly I was feeling, I found myself looking at a man. He was approaching the apartment building across the grass and the closer he got, the more I started to pull back, considering moving to sit in the passenger seat or getting out of the car and running away altogether.

  Whatever he was feeling, my empathy was drowning in it, sucking under the thick, syrupy weight. I took a shaky breath and closed my eyes as I tried to build up my shields to block it out. Within a few seconds, I felt stronger, more aware of my own body and not just of how it felt to be near the creature outside. I opened my eyes, focused on him again, and tried to apply everything I’d ever learned from cop dramas on TV. Pay attention to details, notice the physical stuff, remember things I could pass on to Mel if necessary.

  From my place slouched in my seat, he looked tall, reedy, like he was habitually underfed. His hair was pale, looking almost white even in the dark, and his features were shadowed, maybe a little gaunt. Despite the temperature outside, he was dressed in only jeans and a button-down long-sleeved shirt. Just the idea of standing out there in the cold without a heavy jacket made me uncomfortable. Shaking my head, I let out a small, unhappy sound of disgust.

  As soon as I did, he tensed, perking up to look around as if he’d heard me. I pressed my hands over my mouth, terrified he’d detected me and was, at any moment, going to explode out of his skin into some horrid bat creature and fly across the distance between us to rip off my head. His gaze passed over my car but, to my surprise, he didn’t seem to notice me. Seconds passed like eons, and when his shoulders relaxed and he shifted his footing, I let out my breath as quietly as I could, thanking the stars that I was still alive.

  Where the hell was Mel?

  Come to think of it, what the hell was this person-shaped creature even doing? I’d expected, should I run afoul of something, that it would spring into action, phasing through a wall or teleporting instantly into a home and reappearing seconds later with a stolen child in its arms. This thing, whatever it was, just stood there, almost like he was waiting for someone. Maybe I had it all wrong and this guy was harmless, unrelated to the kidnapping. Maybe it was the hipster with the ‘stache I needed to be worried about, after all.

  Taking a deep breath, I bit my lip and considered my options. Since none of them involved me getting out of the car, I figured I had only one way to satisfy my curiosity.

  I extended my empathy toward the creature, reasoning with my fear about what I was trying. I’m not a cat, I figured; in fact, I don’t even like the furry little bastards. But as sirens started to wail off in the distance and the creature with the liquid emotions turned to deliberately catch my eye, I considered that, while curiosity might not kill me, it could definitely rough me up.

  Chapter Seven

  I woke up in the car with a feeling like someone had driven a railroad spike through my sinuses and straight to the back of my brain. I was slumped over the steering wheel and something was tapping at my left ear with a sledgehammer. I groaned, shifting my gaze to the window.

  Light blazed and, for an instant, I was sure someone had lit two road flares and jabbed them against my eyeballs. The sudden brightness was unbearable, swamping my entire nervous system. I shoved at the door, just barely able to aim my impending vomit outside the car. The violent heaving of my stomach did nothing positive to the chaotic destruction eating away at my brain and I was distantly aware that I was whimpering. When my body finally calmed, I didn’t bother attempting to sit up straight and some small part of me realized that I would have fallen right out of the car if the seatbelt hadn’t been there to stop me.

  “Ms. Arthur?” a soft voice asked. I grunted in response but didn’t have the fortitude yet to actually see what or who was questioning me. I couldn’t feel anything except my own pain and I noticed after a moment that I was weeping. What the hell had happened?

  “Gwen? Can you hear me?”

  My eyes were closed but that didn’t stop the swarm of angry bees going to town on my eyeballs. I felt a warm, gloved hand on my chin and my head lifted slowly. A light shined into my eyes, blinding me to details, but I took a deep breath of the scent of feminine soap. When she let my lids droop, I cracked an eye open on my own and saw a blurry, face-shaped blob. Whimpering, I let my eye close again and felt something soft come up to wipe across my mouth.

  A radio squawked painfully next to my brain and the person tending me responded in cop-speak before dialing down the volume. I shifted, trying to turn myself over to lapse back into unconsciousness. Her now-bare hand rolled my face back toward her and she pushed one of my eyes open.

  “No, you can’t sleep. I don’t know what’s wrong with you.” Gently cradling my head with one hand, she felt around my jaw and cheeks. On the surface, it wasn’t a bad touch, but it seemed to aggravate something in my brain. Distantly, I realized it wasn’t just me in my head anymore. Something else had surfaced in her presence, pounding at my skull from inside. I was still crying. She kept talking as she inspected me. I wasn’t paying attention, though it was keeping me conscious; her voice was soothing but the thing in my brain was angry and fighting her, trying to drag me back down into darkness. Time passed as she felt around my body for injuries and checked the seat and car for blood, talking all the while.

  “If we need to, I can call an ambulance and we’ll get you checked out proper. I have a bit of first aid training and you don’t seem to have a concussion, though. No injuries I can find. Honestly, if I could smell even a bit of alcohol on you, I’d guess you had the worst hangover I’ve ever come across.” She leaned a hip on my seat next to my leg, facing me as her hands slid gently up my face, fingertips starting at my jaw and ending in my hair. “My name is Amy, and I wish we could have met under better circumstances. Now, breathe with me, Gwen.”

  As she took a breath, I took a breath. The thing inside me started to panic; she might have been human but that wasn’t all and the parasite in my head knew it. It battered against the inside of my skull, trying to read her, trying to figure out what she was and what she was doing. As she breathed out, I did as well. The thing inside my psyche flailed spastically and then started to dissipate. My eyes snapped open and I found myself able to focus on a very pretty face.

  Even with slightly frizzed hair and no makeup, she was lovely. Her blue eyes were vibrant over a straight, narrow nose and full lips. She had a trio of tiny beauty marks set back on her right cheek and I found myself concentrating on them as she continued what had to be some sort of psychic healing.

  Amy’s lips parted; she took a deep breath, seeming to call my attention from her cheek to her gaze. I couldn’t look away and I couldn’t resist whatever her power was. I took a breath with her and, when we breathed out, the thing in my head came out with it. Within a few more breaths, I was alone in my brain. I still felt like I’d been thrown off a cliff on fire, a la Lara Croft, but I could see my surroundings again and my empathy peeked out of whatever deep, dark crevice it had burrowed into. Concern and calm radiated from Amy; it was like being a small child sitting in my mother’s lap again. I let out a small whimper of happiness and took a slow, long breath, on my own this time.

  Still holding my face between her soft hands, she grinned at me from inches away. I swallowed thickly and gave her a small smile as I slurred at her.

  “Thanks.”

  We stayed that way until something hot seared the edges of my consciousness.

  “Why, hello, ladies,” Mel said from nearby. Amy looked up at him without taking her hands away from my sk
in.

  “Mel, dear, how are you?” She turned back to me without waiting for his answer and her face went sober. “I’m going to let go and you are going to feel it. Something was inside you and it left a nasty stain. Whatever it was, it’s gone now, but you’re going to need more than my modest little healing ability to feel back to normal. Are you ready?”

  I swallowed hard and said a meek, “Yes.”

  She pulled her hands away and nausea rushed in. She jumped back just in time and I threw up just outside the car, where she’d been leaning. I wouldn’t have figured I had anything left in me after the last time.

  “I got here maybe ten minutes ago,” Amy explained to Mel while I finished heaving. “I didn’t see her at first, but I did a sweep of the area, checking around the building. Nothing out of the ordinary that I could see. Whatever you called about either ran off when it heard the sirens or had already done whatever it came for.”

  “Sirens, most likely,” Mel murmured. I looked up at him from my seat, wondering why his emotions weren’t affecting me as much as they usually did. I considered that maybe Amy was to thank, but I didn’t have the energy to ask.

  “That’s the second time she’s vomited and there’s no clean street left for me to stand on.” She looked away from the mess to Mel and her face warmed. “You’ll need to take her home. Whatever's wrong with her, it’s not something that a trip to the E.R. will fix.”

  “I did a lap around the area, too. I think the snow is screwing up my nose,” Mel said, shaking his head. “I could’ve sworn I smelled vampire, but there’s no way.”

  “Vampire?” Amy asked, her eyebrows shooting up. “I... those really exist? I had no idea.”

  “There’s a reason. Don’t worry about it, they’re not a threat to you or anyone else.” Mel paused, cocking his head at her. “Will your bosses ask about your sudden detour?”