“Did you just…?” Woah. She blinked once. And again. Did Deacon have a twin? Because there were definitely two of them. And they were both cute. Annoyingly cute. Had she always had this many hands? Where were her legs? Had they fallen off?
Deacon’s features faded as he whispered, “Think of your happiest memory.”
It was a weird thing to say. But Deacon said a lot of weird stuff. Reflexively, she thought of her brother and sister and smiley-face pancakes.
Warm, comforting heat gathered around her, and instead of resisting, she succumbed to the darkness.
“What the hell is going on? Paul just interrogated the shit outta me and kept asking if I’d heard from you.”
“I was afraid that would happen.” Deacon sighed and adjusted the earpiece in his ear. “HOOK showed up at the hospital.”
“I leave you alone for two days and all hell breaks loose,” Ethan muttered. “How’d they know about her?”
He nestled deeper into the bank of the steep rooftop and winced when the shingles scraped his neck like sandpaper. “I haven’t a clue.”
“Where are you now?”
“On her neighbor’s roof.” The car illegally blocking the fire hydrant shuddered to life before sputtering toward the intersection.
“Do you have a death wish?” Ethan bit out. “Why’d you bring her home if HOOK knows about her?”
Deacon may have flouted the rules, but he wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize his mission. “The hospital roof wasn’t the best place to convince her to accompany me.”
“You must be losing your touch, Prince Charming. You’ve convinced girls to do a lot more for a lot less.” A chuckle. “I suppose now’s as good a time as any to tell you Lee caught wind of what’s happening.”
“Brilliant.” Just bloody brilliant. Could this day get any worse?
Once the narrow alley below was clear, Deacon sat up and scooted closer to the grimy gutter.
“It doesn’t stop there.”
Sure, why would it?
“Paul wants you to cut your losses and come back,” Ethan went on. “Expect the call any minute.”
That was one call he planned to ignore. “If I go now, they’ll take her.” He searched Vivienne’s dark window for signs of life within. How much sleep did she need? It had been hours.
“She’s young—”
“I don’t care if she’s seventeen or seventeen hundred. We have to keep her DNA out of their hands.”
“You’ll need to convince her quickly, because Paul’s sending extraction—”
“Tell him to hold off. We’ll both be on our way by sundown.” Deacon pressed the button on his earpiece. Then he jumped across the gap, landed on the third-story window ledge, and slid the glass aside.
Vivienne woke from the strangest yet most realistic dream. She had been soaring over the city in the arms of a handsome angel with white feathered wings. Instead of being afraid, she’d felt free.
She stared at the roses on her sun-dulled wallpaper and tried to separate fact from fantasy. Had she really followed a stranger to the roof? Were people really trying to kill her? Or had she been hallucinating the whole time?
If someone had been after her, why was she home, sitting in her lumpy bed?
She was still wearing the clothes from the day before, but her shoes had been removed and placed beside the nightstand.
Weird. All of this was too weird.
After a scalding shower, a blue bruise and a patch of sticky residue were the last visible signs left of the ordeal at the hospital. She wrapped herself in her Bounce-scented robe and returned to the tight space that had served as her sanctuary for the last four years.
Feeling better than she had all week, Vivienne searched the sparse contents of her closet before throwing a pair of black leggings and an oversized sweatshirt on her bed. When she slid the door closed, her reflection stared back; smudges of blue bruises ran beneath her wide brown eyes. Her face was a ghastly greenish-gray, making her look more zombie than teenager.
She reached for the tie at her waist and—
“You should probably leave that on.”
She jerked around so fast she rammed her shin against her desk chair. Deacon sat on the ledge of her opened window, raising his dark brows, fighting a smile.
“Otherwise,” he went on, looking pointedly at her bare knees, “I’ll be too distracted to do my job.” He was still wearing his black hoodie and skinny jeans.
Her face caught fire, and she gripped the lapels of her robe until her knuckles turned white. “And what job is that? Breaking and entering?”
“Among other things.” He moved to investigate the framed photos decorating her desk. His lips lifted as he slid his finger along Vivienne’s short blue dress in the picture of her and her friend Jamie at prom.
She stomped over and slammed the frames so the photos were face-down. The stack of college letters she had been avoiding tumbled to the floor. “You need to stop talking in riddles and give me some real answers. Otherwise, I’m going to—”
“What are you going to do?” Deacon leaned forward until they were nose to nose.
“I’ll scream.”
His brows quirked upwards. “No one is home.”
Crap. He was right. Lyle and Maren were at school, and Lynn was at the office. “Well…then…I’ll call the police.”
“If you want me to leave you alone, all you have to do is say the word and I’ll be gone.”
She should want him to leave her alone. But she was too curious for her own good. “I want you to give me answers.”
“Have lunch with me and I’ll answer every question you have.”
Her stomach responded for her. When was the last time she’d eaten? “Are you paying?” Her bank account was ten dollars away from a negative balance.
“What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t?”
“The kind who breaks into other people’s houses and creeps around bedrooms that aren’t his.”
“Touché.” Chuckling, he went back to the window. “I’ll meet you out front.”
“I have a door, you know.”
“What fun is that?” He slipped beneath the raised pane and . . . jumped.
She ran to the window and scanned the gravel three stories below. Nothing. And there was no ladder either. It was like he had disappeared.
Which was impossible.
Vivienne threw on the clothes she had laid on her bed earlier and raced down the stairs. Deacon was waiting for her on the porch steps, petting the neighbor’s cat.
“How did you—?”
“Food first. Then answers.” When he grinned at her, it felt like she had swallowed a bunch of fireflies and they were lighting up and buzzing around in her stomach.
Annoyed by her body’s reaction, she breezed past him and down the stairs.
They ended up at a twenty-four-hour diner six blocks from Lynn’s townhouse. Vivienne had been there once before with Lyle. Not the nicest restaurant, but the food had been good. The place wasn’t busy, but there were enough people around in case Deacon ended up being a serial killer or something.