No Peace for the Damned

his eyes. My thoughts scattered. He was so close. When he took a deep breath, our cheeks brushed. His lips parted and I closed my eyes. The contours of my body fit perfectly against his. So warm, so safe. His hand moved against my hip and I slid even closer, searching. My own lips parted so I could taste his breath on my tongue. He lowered his face.
    The double beep of the alarm sounded.
    We froze.

Theo cursed under his breath and lifted himself to stand. He swayed on his feet, then fell right back down on the bed.
    “Stay here,” I said softly. “You need more than just a couple of hours of sleep.”
    He wanted to argue, but he was completely drained. With a light push I got him to lie back down. I crawled from the bed and grabbed a T-shirt and cotton shorts. As I pulled them on, my faced burned. I had healed Theo, spent the night lying next to him, just had that unbelievable moment against him, and the whole time I wore nothing but ugly purple panties and a faded green camisole top. I didn’t even want to think about what my hair looked like.
    In the kitchen, I poured myself a drink. Would Theo want one? Or maybe coffee? He probably didn’t drink whiskey for breakfast like me. I started up the coffee pot when the monitor beeped again. Jon fumbled at the door before he and Shanecharged into the house. Thirteen’s large form moved quickly in their wake.
    “We want answers and we want them now!” Shane roared as soon as he saw me.
    I shifted my weight, adjusting my grip on the whiskey bottle. Shane drew up short. Confusion and anger shaded all their thoughts.
    “You have to know more than you’re telling us, Magnolia,” Jon said evenly. He stood across the table from me and leaned forward, both hands pressing onto the table’s ledge. “More Network members are missing. We have no clue where to find Banks, and if we don’t move
now
, more people are going to die.” He narrowed his eyes. “But maybe that’s what you want. Maybe Marie was right. Is that it, Magnolia? Are you just a plant for your family?”
    My power sizzled under my skin. The cabinets rattled, the coffee maker popped. If I broke my new dishes because these two pissed me off…
    “That’s enough.”
    I looked at Thirteen on reflex, but he wasn’t the one who spoke. Shane gasped. Jon straightened. He looked over my shoulder to the hallway.
    Theo towered in the doorframe behind me. His presence wrapped around me like a blanket. I relaxed a little because I couldn’t help it. Jon calmed down too, but a new annoyance surfaced in his thoughts. Almost like he did a mental eye roll.
    “Theo! Oh, thank God.” Shane’s hands relaxed at his sides. “We went to your house when you missed the five thirty check-in, and the door was splintered just like Banks’s. We thought…well thank God you’re all right.”
    His gaze passed over me and he tensed again—the look on his face even fiercer than before. God, even when I hadn’t done anything Shane was pissed off at me.
    Theo didn’t answer. The tension grew thick but no one’s thoughts made sense. What was going on?
    “Someone was at your home, Theo,” Thirteen said coldly. “Were you there when they arrived?”
    Thirteen folded his big arms across his chest. He was concentrating on the break-in scene at Theo’s house but…was he
mad
at Theo? That couldn’t be right.
    “I don’t know who took me,” Theo said. “I was asleep when they came. The explosion of the door woke me up, but before I could get my gun, I was shot with some kind of tranq. When I came to, I was at the Kelch estate.”
    “How did you know where you were?” Jon asked.
    “I didn’t. Not at first.”
    I felt Theo rotate his shoulders behind me in some sort of stretch.
    “You need more rest,” I said softly, keeping my eyes on Jon.
    “Well, the standoff in the kitchen was kind of hard to ignore.”
    I almost smiled. Almost.
    “But she’s right,” he continued, “I do need more sleep.”
    There was a gentle tug on the hem at the back of my shirt. No one else saw, but my whole heart soared. I stepped back toward Theo then suddenly froze in my tracks.
    “We need to get through this first,” Thirteen said, his words clipped. “Go put some clothes on and walk us through
exactly
what happened last night.”
    I heard Thirteen, but just barely. Jon had my full attention now: he thought Theo and I had had sex. In fact, he was sure of it.
    My mouth fell open. My earlier vision of Theo and me together, only