A grunt and a thudding sound. Footsteps echoing against the walls of the alley. A sharp stab in her mind. Flat, brown eyes pinning her down.
Shards slashing through the air. Screaming voices, clawing, raking through her hea–
"Hailey!"
Gasping, Hailey opened her eyes. Her cheeks were wet, her head throbbing and her heart racing in her chest. James pulled her onto his lap as she gulped for air, her lungs burning.
You're not alone.
The sound of James' voice eased her choking fear. She buried her face in his chest, his embrace warm and his scent calming as he stroked her back.
After a minute, Hailey released a shuddering breath, her hands clenching his t-shirt. When she arched back, James cupped her chin.
She wiped away the tears from her cheeks. "I'm alright," she assured him, inhaling deeply. "This just… happens sometimes."
His tone was steel, his gaze hard. "Don't lie to me."
Her eyes skated away. "The nightmares never come when you're with me."
His fingers tightened on her chin. When she met James' gaze, he was looking at her so intensely, Hailey knew he was blaming himself for staying away for the past weeks.
"Don't," she said. "You didn't know." Hailey wiggled out of his embrace and stood up. She grabbed a hair tie from the nightstand and pulled her hair into a messy bun before walking over to the bathroom. After splashing some cold water onto her face, she dabbed her wet skin with a towel and returned to the bedroom.
James stood beside the bed, wearing a t-shirt, jeans and his boots, his arms folded in front of his chest.
She scowled. "I'm going for a run." Hailey slipped past him to the cabinet and opened the top drawer to grab a pair of leggings. Big hands clasped her wrists as James' warm chest pressed against her back.
She lowered her head and released the drawer, her hands curling into fists. "I don't want to talk about it." Pain filled her chest at the memories of that night.
"It was dark and you were alone."
His voice made Hailey shiver. "Stop," she whispered. She didn't want to tell him, didn't want him to know how badly that night had scarred her. It was too confronting, too painful.
"You were attacked," James continued.
Hailey wrenched back her arms and James released her, but he didn't step back. She turned around, her body an inch from his, and tipped up her head.
"You fought back," his eyes locked with hers. "You did nothing wrong."
Hailey's fists were so tight she felt her arms tremble. She'd always known James knew the general lines of what happened to her that night; she'd read the file Dev had sent to the Squad. As her mentor, James must have read it.
Devraj knew the details but had assured her the Squad didn't need to know, especially since he'd covered for her after the event. Shane had been the first on sight, and Dev had been one of the people who'd come for her after Shane had called him. Together, they'd helped her when she'd been shell-shocked and recovering in the infirmary of the Shine building.
"It doesn't make it right either." Her voice was sharp.
"You're punishing yourself for something that wasn't your fault." James used her own words against her. "I know you, Hailey. You don't want to harm others with your ability."
His gentle words didn't soften the blow, didn't make the events less painful. Hailey's Tk snapped out, making all the furniture shudder in her apartment for a heartbeat. James was unmoved by her lack of control, his tall frame towering over her as he watched her, unblinking.
"I did, though, didn't I?" A jagged laugh escaped her throat, shards stabbing in her lungs. "I've hurt Shane, I've hurt you… I deserve to feel like shit for what I did that night," she whispered.
"Why?" The audible frustration in James' tone incited her anger. It spilled out.
"Because I killed him!" she shouted, her heart thundering in her chest, her body trembling. "Is that what you want to hear? I lost control and I took a life! There's nothing I can do to turn that back!"
Needing distance, she stepped away and turned towards the window, her arms wrapped around herself, the air pulsing with energy. She jerked when James embraced her, his arms wrapped around hers and his chin on her shoulder.
"Let me go," her voice was a hoarse croak.
"Tell me what happened."
Hailey stared out of the window where the advertising screens of the small shops flashed in the dark. It didn't distract her from her current mindset like it sometimes did. Her muscles were still locked, her body stiff and stomach churning.
James' breath caressed her cheek when he spoke. "I'm not leaving you ever again, Hailey." Pain echoed in his voice. "Trust me."
Her face grim, she tracked the people walking outside, the street relatively quiet this time of night. They seemed to be in search of a bar, laughing and pulling each other along. She envied them for living their lives in blissful normalcy. The normal life she would never have back.
Is that really what you want?
Hailey had no answer to her own question. The events of that night had created a chain reaction she couldn't have prepared for. Just as she'd told James: her attacker wasn't the only one she'd hurt since then. Shane had been on the receiving end of her lack of control two months after the attack, when they'd had an argument. Luckily, he'd only ended up with a couple of cuts and bruises–but that wasn't the point.
Right then had been the moment when Hailey had decided to stop working at the high school, scared she might harm the children. She'd isolated herself as much as possible in order to keep her abilities in check. The only people she'd dared to see were the ones that had refused to leave her alone. Shane, Morgan, Aiseline, her father and some other friends were the only ones she'd trusted herself with, and even those visits she'd kept to a bare minimum.
That was almost six months ago. Too long for her social nature to be denied the contact, and too long for the changeling part of her to have lived on a ration of touch. It had hurt.
"It's all so messed up," she whispered now. Hailey closed her eyes when James' lips brushed her nape, reminding her she didn't have to live without the contact anymore, his touch anchoring her to the present.
And even though she didn't want to talk about it, Hailey knew she'd be responsible for the distance between them if she wouldn't tell James. After everything they'd been through, she only needed him. It was as if the wildness inside her wanted to lunge at him and keep him close.
Bite the bullet, Hales.
"I was walking home from a party," she started, her voice tight. "It was somewhere in the middle of the night." It had been a cold night, early in January. There had barely been any traffic, only a few people on the street. "I walked fast, felt antsy." Hailey released a shuddering breath as she kept looking out of the window. "When I covered a few blocks, a man bumped into me. I was startled." She shook her head. "He said nothing and continued walking. But the moment he walked into me, I saw." Her eyebrows knitted together. "Now that I come to think of it, that was probably the first time I drained someone–though it was just a little bit. I saw he wanted to hurt someone; an image appeared in front of my mind's eye. I followed him."
Hailey gritted her jaw as she recalled the flat look on the man's face. She'd known he was Psy, that he was dangerous… and still she'd chosen to follow him because she hadn't been able to shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. "After maybe two minutes, he disappeared into an alley."
James tightened his arms around her as he listened, keeping her in the here and now.
"I don't know why I walked towards that alley by myself. It was one of the stupidest decisions I've ever made, which says something."
"You wanted to help," James' low voice was a murmur against the skin of her nape.
"I heard a crashing sound. The Psy had incapacitated a kitchen help who was taking out the trash from the restaurant he was working at." Hailey shivered in James' embrace. "I'll never forget the way he was screaming, the shrill sound of it. And the Psy man was standing over him, looking at him, hurting him."
Her heart raced inside her chest, just like it had done that night. Hailey swallowed past the lump in her throat. "I backed away to get help but I must have made a sound, because the Psy turned towards me and let the kitchen help go." Hailey's hands clenched on her arms, her breathing heavy. James' lips brushed over her nape again.
"The moment he used his telepathy," Hailey said as she quivered, "I still remember how it felt. It was just like with Edyson." She tipped her head sideways and locked eyes with James. "The shoving, clawing, searing feeling inside my head. There's nothing worse than feeling your mind tear apart." She kept holding his gaze, finding calm in mesmerizing azure. "The pain was unlike anything I've ever felt before. But the pain wasn't the worst part. It was the fear of having my mind torn open." Hailey exhaled and swallowed. "I have strong natural shields. Still, he was able to force himself inside my head. It was a fraction of a second, but it was enough." She turned towards the window again, her hands sliding over James' arms that were wrapped around her. The safest of embraces, the most welcome confinement. She leaned into his hold a little as she continued.
"He telepathically sent images and screams, all the voices that had begged for their lives, all the people he'd killed... as if he wanted to show me what he'd do to me." She still recalled the nauseating rolling of her stomach, the sick feeling of being invaded, the pictures he'd forced into her head.
"That's when I snapped." It had happened fast and slow at the same time. "My Tk burst out, shattering the windows of all the buildings close to the alley."
The shards had sliced through the air like a thousand crystal daggers, but because of the pain from the telepathic invasion, Hailey hadn't been able to steer them. "The glass cut us both, slashed through one of my arteries." She absentmindedly stroked her fingers over the scar on her lower arm, where the blood had gushed over her hand and had dripped to the ground, deep scarlet stains on the plascrete street.
"He hadn't expected me to fight back, and he tried to psychically attack me again. This time, he didn't indulge in his sick games. He blasted out a telepathic blow." Her head had spun when the telepathic hit had smashed against her mental shields. Blood had trailed from her nose, black spots in front of her vision. "But I didn't go down, and when I looked up, he smiled." A vile, rotten thing that smile had been. She'd known then, that she'd caught his interest in other ways than to be a quick hit to still the lust to kill.
"'I'll enjoy breaking you,' he said." Hailey shivered and wrapped her hands tightly around James' arms. James nuzzled her hair in reassurance.
"The next thing I remember is holding the kitchen help and screaming for medical aid. That's how Shane found me, covered in blood and yelling for help." Shane had left the party around the same time she did, and had noticed Hailey had forgotten her purse. Afterwards, he'd told her he was walking down the street towards her apartment when glass shattered around him and he heard screaming.
Before he could have helped her, it was already over. Shane had called Devraj immediately when he'd spotted Hailey, bloody and shaking.
"Your draining abilities," James said, breaking through the roaring memories.
"I believe so," she muttered. "Dev believed I used a burst of telepathy which incapacitated the attacker but I've never had that ability. Now that I know about the draining, it makes more sense."
There had been so much blood running out of his mouth and ears and nose–even from his eyes. No one had ever told her the details, but she could guess what had happened. The telepathic blow she'd meted out had turned his brain into mush, leaking out of every orifice. Hailey shuddered at the images that came to mind.
James turned her around in his arms, his dark blond eyebrows knitted together. "What was his name?"
Hailey frowned. "Lee Gordon." Shane had searched the Psy for a wallet and that idiot had actually brought it along, containing his digital identification slips. "Why?"
James went motionless. After several moments he grabbed her chin. Hailey blinked at his fast movement, confused by the rage she saw in his eyes. "Are you sure?"
She scowled. Of course she was sure. She'd never forget his name or his face ever again. "Yes."
Azure turned into dark, shadowed Prussian, James' shoulders tightening. "He was one of our targets."
Hailey's eyes went wide. "Your team was tracking him?" She'd known there was something seriously wrong with Gordon the moment he'd tried to invade her mind, but if the Arrows had hunted him, his mental state had been even worse than she'd thought.
"Yes."
James released her and walked over to the bed. When he sat down on top of the covers, Hailey followed him and knelt in front of him. James thrust a hand through his hair, white lines bracketing his mouth. "I could have stopped him."
Her eyebrows drew together. "How? You rarely have visions. How could you have known?"
"We were in New York at the time to take him in for questioning. The empaths had given Aden a warning that Gordon's presence in the Net felt off."
It was an advantage, Hailey realized, the Arrows hadn't had when the Net had been Silent. Empaths would be able to sense the ugliness that lived in people like Gordon; that kind of evil couldn't be hidden forever.
Rain started tapping against the window.
"Enforcement made sure we handled the case afterwards." James said as he stared at the wall behind her. "We were told a telepath with telekinetic abilities had taken Gordon down by accident but we couldn't find anyone that fit the description. Our efforts to question that telepath led to various dead ends." Which made sense, Hailey figured, if Dev had worked his magic. She returned her focus on James when he continued.
"At the time, our resources were stretched because several teams were hunting down leads on the Consortium. Aside from that we had only just started to establish a routine for the children at the valley, so we decided to close the case since the threat of Gordon's psychopathy had been neutralized." He locked eyes with her. "It was filed away as an unfortunate accident. Now makes sense why we couldn't find you; we were looking for a Psy female."
Hailey sat down, her elbows on her knees. "What happened afterwards is a blur. All I know is that Enforcement never got the chance to question me because Dev had taken care of it." She played a strand of hair through her fingers. "Within minutes after Shane found me, I was hauled into a car and brought to the building of the Shine foundation. Glen, a doctor Dev trusts, helped me. I was in the Shine infirmary for a couple of days to recover from my injuries and the psychic strain. After that, I went home."
The irony of how they'd managed to miss each other when their paths had almost crossed wasn't lost on her, and Hailey felt the corners of her mouth twitch–even though the entire situation was still extremely messed up. "Explain to me again how you never saw me coming."
James shook his head. "This isn't funny."
Eyebrows rising, Hailey leaned forward. "I know it's not, but we can't change it." She sighed. "I can never change the fact that I took his life, regardless of what he did."
"He was a murdering psychopath," James' voice was that of the pitiless soldier. "He needed to be stopped."
Hailey tilted her head sideways. "Yes, stopped. Not killed."
James hauled her onto his lap, both her legs on one side. "Your heart is too good." He brushed back a tendril of hair behind her ear and stroked her cheek with his thumb.
"I just told you I killed someone, and you call me good?"
He used her words against her again, emphasizing the parallels between the events that had forged their lives. "Did it give you a good feeling?"
Hailey shook her head. "Of course not." She studied his blue eyes. "I hate the fact that he was able to leave his mark on my life."
James slipped his hand around her nape and kissed her so fiery she was breathless by the time they broke the kiss. "That monster has no claim on you." He took hold of her wrist and lifted her arm in between them. "You were strong when you needed to be, and you've survived." He pressed his lips to her scar. "This is a badge of honor, a symbol of your strength and your will to live."
Hailey's heart swelled as she cupped his face and brushed his lips with hers. "Thank you for saying that, love. You're right, but it's difficult to think that way when the nightmares keep haunting me. The only times they haven't is when you're with me." She frowned as she suddenly became aware of the fact that the reason why her nightmare had emerged must have been James' absence. "Where were you?"
"I was doing a security check on the floor when I felt your distress. You were broadcasting," he answered.
Hailey rolled her eyes at him as her hands dropped to his shoulders. "We can't constantly be on guard for bad stuff to happen."
Azure blue frosted over. "Your death doesn't fall under the category 'bad stuff'." He gripped her chin, his features stark. "We should go to the valley. You'll be better protected if there are more Arrows to guard you."
Hailey shook her head. "No." Her tone left no room for arguments. "We can't be sure if that'll endanger the children." The mere suggestion made her muscles tighten. She'd never be able to forgive herself if something happened to any of them. "I'd rather die than see one of them get hurt because of me."
The air around them shimmered with James' violent energy. "I can't lose you."
Hailey's heart constricted at his gritted-out words, dark shadows covering his irises and his hand clenched firmly on her thigh.
"Then we have to come up with a plan. I can't stay here, locked away in my apartment for the rest of my life because of what you saw." She stroked her fingers past his jaw. "Are the visions all exactly the same?"
"No. The first one deviated most from the three others I glimpsed," he answered curtly.
"You need to show me."
James froze in rejection. "No."
Hailey curled her hand around his nape, brushing her thumb over his smooth skin. "We need every bit of information, every angle so we can stop this from happening."
"I'm not putting more nightmares in your head," his tone was inexorable.
Hailey wasn't going to give up so easily. They'd work it out and do it together this time. She shifted and straddled him, looking straight into his beautiful, hard eyes. "What would you have done if it had been one of the Arrows?"
James' hands smoothed down her hips, the caress possessive despite his remote gaze. "Your point is moot. You're a civilian."
Hailey snorted in an unfeminine way. "So that answers the question, doesn't it?" She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her forehead against his. "You can't protect me from everything. We're in this together."
I don't think this is a good idea, his deep voice in her head.
She stroked his nape with the tips of her fingers. "It's an excellent idea. Do you have any other ideas?" She moved to kiss him, softly nibbling on his lower lip, taking the sting out of her challenge. "We need to try," she whispered in between kisses.
James' hands tightened on her hips. "Fine."
If Hailey hadn't known him, she would have thought he was shutting her down. But she did know him. James wasn't acting cold, he was concerned.
My protective Arrow, she sent to him.
His voice sounded like a growl in her head, making her smile. Only a Siren could lure me into a situation like this.
"Poor James," Hailey teased, "what would the other Arrows say if they knew you'd give in so easily at the hands of a five-foot-four girl? You better watch out they don't steal your lunch."
James bit her earlobe in rebuke, the stinging sensation sending shivers up her spine as she gasped and laughed.
Focus, he whispered in her mind as he rested his forehead against hers again. James closed his eyes, his breath intermingling with hers and his hands tight on her hips. Hailey braced herself for the impact of his psychic touch while opening herself to him completely.
Violently the images rushed through her mind, the crashing sensation hard enough for Hailey to clench her jaw. All her thoughts stopped as she processed the rapid flashes James showed her.
Shadows, darkness. Footsteps on the ground, the clicking of heels on a hard surface.
A silhouette to her left. Hands slamming out, a surge of power.
The images tumbled over each other, overlapped the next surge and seemed out of order. But none of that mattered when she was drawn deeper inside the vision.
A hit, two shadows in front of her. A blast of power.
One down.
Heart pounding a sma–
Darkness, blood dripping from her cheek. Something ripping, another burst of power slamming against the shadow to her ri–
Chains, chains holding her down. Smoke. Vibrations of the earth. Another hit. A blow to her stomach, a shout. Gasping, no air.
Fire.
Flickers of light, shadows moving. Screeching in her head, probing, pulling. Chains holding her do–
Darkness.
Gasping, Hailey felt her lungs burn. She was vaguely aware of a male voice, but the words didn't reach her. Her spine locked and she dug her fingers deeper in the surface she was holding, when telepathic message turned into something else as something snapped taut in her mind.
Shadows moving, circling. Shadows slamming him down.
Her back and neck arched backward as she gulped for air, sucked into the images and living them so vividly, as if she was there.
Blue eyes watching her, blood dripping from his lips.
Fire in her head, the penetrating smell of iron filling the air. An arm in front of her throat, a hand, sliding down her bod–
A shout.
Hailey tried to run, tried to get away from the vortex sucking her down. In the darkness, she slipped and fell. Deeper and deeper.
It hurt so, so much.