Page 5 of Danger Close (Mourningkill #3)

That Prickly Feeling

Teri

There it was again, that horrid feeling of being watched. Like someone you can’t see breathing on your skin. It unsettled every part of me until I was coiled so tight, every muscle and tendon hurt.

That was exactly what Ray wanted. He liked to play with his food, and toy with his kill. He was a fucking sadist. He enjoyed my misery. He savored it.

I held my head high. No one would see me bow down again. No one. Especially not him.

If I had nothing else, I would at least have my pride.

“I was born under an unlucky star,” I whispered to myself.

It was something my mother had said to me.

She’d always looked at me as the cause of her misery.

She'd married young, because I’d had the audacity to be conceived.

Then when my biological father hung himself, she’d re-married because she felt she had no other choice.

She blamed me for the life she lived. As far as I knew she was still married to my stepfather, unable to divorce because their priest would never allow it.

It did not matter if he beat her, cheated on her, and treated her more like a pet than a woman.

She said I had brought bad luck. I was cursed. She’d never understand that she was the one who cursed me.

My daughter was right to stay away from me, but I still selfishly ached for the slightest feeling of tenderness from her. Just for one conversation that didn’t end in a fight. Just once… Just one memory not tainted by everything else.

That strange feeling came again. The feeling of something swiping over your skin without actually touching you—like being touched by a ghost.

I looked over my shoulder. No one was there.

But I knew that someone was there , watching. Someone just out of reach, just a little out of my periphery.

A windowless van with no company markings drove by, splashing a puddle in a deep pothole. I looked at the government plates, my step stuttering as I flinched from the curb, and pulled my arms protectively around me. Why didn’t I wear a jacket? It was far too cold.

My ear burned as I strained to hear everything around me. Chirping birds, the rustle of leaves, the sound of distant traffic. I had to be vigilant.

Complacency meant pain. I had to listen to myself, to my body, to the signs of misery around me.

You cannot avoid a trap if you do not see it.

I’d ignored that feeling before. I had dismissed it as the insane mind of a lonely, aging, paranoid woman. I would not do so again.

Awareness danced across my skin, as I heard footsteps behind me. Tapping. Tapping. Heel-toe. Heel-toe. Tap. Tap.

Whoever was following me matched my rhythm, using my own footfalls as camouflage.

Don’t look back.

I did not have to. I knew they were there.

My fists practically vibrated as the adrenaline coursed through my veins. I tried to envision how it would go. What would I say? What would I do? Where would my first strike be?

For once, I would attack first.

I kept walking down the road, pretending to be unaffected.

I turned down a side street, a shortcut to my building sparsely lit with street lights that were only now flickering on in the dimming sunset.

Were I any other woman, I would say that walking down this street was dangerous.

If I saw Trinity doing something like this when a man followed her, I would viciously scold her.

But I was determined to surprise my stalker.

He would not frighten me. I would not be easy prey.

Or he’d kill me… but at least my life would be over. Death seemed restful in comparison to the life I lived.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up as I felt him. I was certain he was right there— right behind me.

“Hello, Princess,” a low voice called.

I pivoted on my front heel, my elbow high, my gaze following the lethal bend of my arm, searching for a target: my stalker’s nose.

It wasn’t who I expected, but Ray had many people working for him. Maybe he was delegating his work to others. He’d done that before. His little coded messages dropped off on a napkin, or scrawled on a pamphlet. His hidden threat that came in three, insipid letters.

No matter. I’d send them back to him with a message of my own—open season on Teresa Louise Guerro was over!

My elbow flew to the man’s prominent nose. His hand shot up, blocking my strike with a palm that was as hard as concrete.

I yelped as the pain of the impact shot through my forearm, to my fist. But Ambrose’s words rang in my ear: Attack! Attack! Close the Distance!

For once, I listened. I followed with an elbow strike that started from my hips, pivoted by my feet, as my arm snapped out.

The punch landed as it was intended—right into his rock hard sternum.

I felt the ache in my knuckles, not having gloves or a wrap to blunt the impact. I pushed the pain from my mind.

He grunted, but did not stumble back.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” His eyes were agitated and confused. His salt and pepper hair covered his head and spread to the stubble on his jaw.

I sent out a left jab, and he harmlessly tilted his shoulder forward. My strike glanced off him but I followed with a right hook which landed.

“Tell Raymond that I’m not his fucking plaything anymore!” I snapped a foot out in a shin kick.

He tilted his hips, bending his knee inward, and my kick landed harmlessly to the outside of his calf.

It probably still hurt, but it wasn’t as damaging as I’d intended. Whoever he was, he was a well-trained fighter too.

“Who…” he said, as I threw another punch. “Is.” Another punch. “Raymond?”

I froze in confusion, but I shook it off. Ray, and the men like him were the greatest scum of the earth. Lying would be in their bag of tricks.

I threw another punch, and he barely dodged it with a weave.

I threw another jab, and another, until we were sparring, with him on the defense.

Something in the back of my mind told me that something was wrong.

It shouldn’t go this way, but it wasn’t a thought I could fully form.

Not when a behemoth of a man stood before me.

I would not be a victim. Not again. Not anymore.

“Teri, I swear to God, if you don’t stop…” He ducked, his hands up to protect his face.

The man was made of marble. Or concrete. Every strike took all my effort, and it took everything I had to ignore the pain in my knuckles.

“He’s hiring help to do his dirty work now?” I scoffed. “Pathetic.”

“Teri!” He stepped forward, his eyes narrowing. “I swear, if you don’t quit, I’m going to…”

Another strike, and he pulled back, sliding his feet until he was a millimeter out of my reach.

Then he lunged forward, his shoulder ducked hitting me in the sternum.

I braced my forearms on his clavicle to keep me from being thrown over his shoulder and dragged away.

I would not let him get me to a location of his choosing. That was certain death.

“Teri! Knock it off!” He pushed me back to the ground. My feet stumbled as my body’s momentum took me backwards.

I slammed roughly against a brick wall, the bare skin of my shoulder scraping where the low neck of my sweater did not protect it.

He barreled forward until his body pressed me against the wall, immobilizing me with his superior size.

He was immoveable, heavy. And unlike Ray, he smelled…

like… coffee, leather, and the slightest hint of amber.

The scent went from my nose right to my brain, sparking a memory I had long tried to suppress.

Feelings of home, of dancing in Paris under the rain.

The lust-filled gaze of the multi-colored eyes of a man who adored me.

I stopped struggling for an instant as my knees buckled beneath me, as the feel of his body, strong, but gentle, made me feel… confused.

“Princess?” His voice was laced with concern.

He sounded far away. Or maybe I was retreating back to a different place and time. I was folding into my own mind, separating from my useless body.

“Teresa!” He was louder this time.

I shook my head, trying to fight the fogginess taking over me. “You’re not him…”

“I’m not who ?” the stranger said.

I was determined to think of him that way. He was an unknown man. A stranger. He was a stranger. Un inconnu.

My heart squeezed as the memories came like an unrelenting, growing wave.

“You’re one of Ray’s men.” The corners of my eyes darkened. My vision narrowed on a tiny thing—an absolutely insignificant little birthmark that rested to the right of Adam's apple. A little heart, almost hidden by his beard.

He swallowed, his voice gentler, as he said my name again. And again. And again.

The world darkened. My mind shut down. The past collided with the present. The careful partitions I had placed inside my mind crumbled, and the structure collapsed. In my delirium, I whispered a name I’d done my best to forget, “Joe.”