Page 3 of Finders Reapers

He flicked a glare my way and pointed to the cellphone in the stand attached to the air vent. I reached forward without a thought, and my hand passed through the screen.

Huffing in annoyance, I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest.

Sunglasses smirked. I got the feeling he had done that on purpose.

“You said you were looking for me?” My voice was steady even though I wanted to crack his head against the steering wheel—blame it on my Italian blood.

He hummed. “Uh-huh.”

“Do I know you?” I squinted.

He said nothing.

“Obviously, you know me,” I continued, reaching up to flick my hair off my shoulder. At least I could still touch my hair even if I couldn’t touch anything else. “That doesn’t mean much. I have twenty million subscribers on YouTube and, like, three million on Tiktok—”

He reached over and pulled a pack of cigarettes from the glove compartment before lighting one and blowing smoke in my face.

My nose crinkled in disgust, but I realized that I couldn’t smell a damn thing.

“Be. Quiet.” He said in a low and dangerous voice. “Wisp.”

I got the feeling that Wisp was an insult.

“Your car is filthy,” I sniffed.

The Russian said nothing.

I tried to relax. To tell myself that he couldn’t attack me if he couldn’t touch me.

The footwell was filled with greasy fast food bags. A wallet had been tossed amongst the wreckage. It showed a photo of Sunglasses, just as grumpy and sullen as the man in person.

Rome Kozlov.

It suited him.

I took a moment to study him a bit more closely. His nose was crooked, but he made it work. The scar on his jaw left a sharp line from the edge of his lip to his jaw. His lips seemed too large to belong to a man as dangerous as he appeared.

He ignored me as I studied him, sucking on his cigarette before he blew smoke out of the open window.

Something inside of me felt broken—I was watching myself inside of a strangers car, traveling through the desert, instead of experiencing it first hand.

The threads that connected me to my emotions had been cut.

I didn’t know how long we drove before a building rose from the center of the unbroken horizon. Entirely out of place. An office block in the middle of the desert. A box made of grey concrete, with uniform windows.

Rome, aka Sunglasses, pulled into the parking lot to the side of the building. The grey concrete was cracked as the plants tried to reclaim the land. There were no other cars in the lot.

Rome got out quickly and slammed the car door behind him, striding off without a word.

I had no choice but to follow.

The sensation of leaving a car by passing through the door was not one I wanted to get used to as I crossed the parking lot.

“Do you know what’s happening to me?” I called out, tottering after him, dodging the cracks and rubble even though my bare feet passed through them.

He didn’t turn back. I pulled my lip between my teeth and weighed my options.

If this was a kidnapping plot, it was a well-thought-out one.