Silent Fall

could feel her gaze with every passing second. The silence was very, very loud. Finally he turned his head, knowing he couldn’t walk out of the room without at least saying something, but what he should say he had no idea.
    She was sitting up against the pillows now, the sheet pulled up modestly to her neck. Her hair was a glorious mess of curls. Her lips were soft and well kissed. Her eyes, a deep, dark blue, were filled with shadows. He couldn’t read her expression. Or maybe he was afraid to.
    "I knew I’d scare you eventually," she murmured, a gleam of disappointment in her eyes.
    He hated to think he’d let her down. But, dammit, a man could only take so much. He’d been dodging bullets and cops all day.
    But so had she.
    He knew he was making excuses, but he couldn’t seem to stop. The need to breathe away from her was overwhelming. "I have to get some air. I’m not scared." He was actually terrified.
    "Liar."
    "Catherine..." He started, then stopped, having no idea what he wanted to say. If she could see into his head, then what was the point of making something up?
    "Where are you going?" she asked. "We’re in the middle of nowhere. You can’t just leave."
    "There’s a soda machine down the hall. Do you want something?"
    "No." She looked him directly in the eye. "Usually I can separate my mind from my body so that sex isn’t so overwhelming, but this time I couldn’t, and..." Her voice drifted away as her fingers plucked nervously at the sheet.
    "What’s inside you, Catherine?" he asked, the words coming out before he could stop them. "What happened to you? Where does the black energy come from?"
    Her face paled. "You felt it, too? I was hoping you wouldn’t."
    Felt it? He’d almost suffocated in the thick, smothering darkness. "Tell me what’s behind the pain and the anger and the evil that runs through you."
    "I don’t know."
    "You’re the one who’s lying now. You can’t keep putting me off. You have to tell me your secrets. If not me, then someone. You need to get it out before it consumes you."
    "I’ve tried," she cried, her voice filled with despair. "I’m not lying. I don’t know what happened, because I can’t remember it. The memory is locked up in my head. And I can’t get it out except in little bits and pieces. Because it’s... it’s horrific."
    Her words made him want to run, but some deep inner voice told him that would be absolutely the wrong move to make. The evil inside of her wanted her isolated, vulnerable, so it could feed on her insecurity, on her fears. He couldn’t leave her alone with her monsters. He couldn’t do that to her. In a few steps he was back at the bed, sitting down next to her.
    She gazed at him, confusion in her eyes. "I thought you were going."
    "Tell me what you do know."
    "You don’t want me to do that. You’re scared now. It will be even worse if you know it all."
    He suspected she was right, but he wanted everything out in the open. "I felt it, Catherine. I felt the power of your nightmares. I can’t help you fight if I don’t know who the enemy is. Who hurt you? Who’s hurting you still?"
    She stared at him for a long, tense moment. "When I was six years old, my mother was murdered, and I was the only witness."
    He caught his breath at her words. He’d known it would be bad, but he hadn’t expected it to be this bad. "Who did it?"
    She drew in a deep breath, her eyes blurring with tears. "They said it was my father."

Chapter Fifteen

    Dylan’s stomach turned over. "Your father killed your mother, and you were there?"
    "That’s what they said."
    "Who’s they? Tell me what happened. Start at the beginning."
    "I don’t know the beginning. I don’t have any memories from the time I lived with my parents before that night."
    "And that night?" he prodded.
    "I remember hiding in a closet. There was blood on my feet, as if I’d run through it. I tried to be really small. I didn’t want him to find me. But he kept calling my name, and he said he was coming to get me." She drew in a shaky breath. "Later, I think, I was standing in the kitchen in a puddle of blood. I guess he was gone by then, but I don’t know how much time had passed. A policeman put a blanket around me and took me out and put me in the back of the squad car. I didn’t want to leave my mother. I remember crying that I didn’t