She smiled at him, shaking back her black hair as she popped a cucumber in her mouth. “Not this time.”
Chris shrugged as he ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “Just remember, if you ever do see it, you had better tell me.”
“You wouldn’t want to know,” Cassie and Melissa replied simultaneously.
They grinned at each other across the table. “You owe me a Coke,” Melissa quipped.
“You don’t drink Coke.”
“You owe me something then.”
Melissa chewed on her cucumber before grabbing a tomato. Cassie studied her questioningly, wondering what Melissa had seen, but she didn’t really want to know. The thought of knowing scared her. Besides, Melissa would not tell them, not unless their lives were on the line. And even then, Cassie didn’t want to know what Melissa saw, not unless there was a way to stop it.
And most of the time, there wasn’t.
It was very rare that Melissa ever saw anything she wanted to, but she had no choice as her “gift” overtook her whenever it wanted.
Although, to be fair, Cassie had to admit she was a little disappointed she hadn’t inherited a “gift” like Chris and Melissa had. Apparently they ran rampant through The Hunter line, but for some reason Cassie had come up short. She definitely would not want the ability to see the future, like Melissa, for she didn’t want to bare that cross, and she wasn’t sure that she could handle it. But she wouldn’t have minded Chris’s talent of being able to read people, to know what they were feeling, and to know who and what they were, good or bad, upon meeting them. And unlike Melissa, Chris was able to keep people blocked out, and control his ability if he wanted to.
But then, any ability would have been better than the nothing she had been given. Well, unless she counted her ability to fight, and fight well, as a gift. And she was a good fighter, she was even better than Chris and Melissa. But, to her, that was not a gift. She didn’t care if the people she killed were no longer human, it bothered her to kill at all, and it bothered her even more that she was outstanding at it.
It was a fact that wore at her every day, slowly eating at her spirit. She sometimes wondered if that was where the growing hole inside of her had come from; if that was the reason she had been feeling less and less like herself lately. Maybe all of the death and murder that surrounded her had started to take away bits of her soul. Whatever it was that was missing, or off in her, she desperately needed to find it, and fix it.
She could not keep living like this. She could not keep going on without knowing why she was so lost, and why she couldn’t shake her misery. She needed to drown out the feverish need for something more that had encompassed her. She needed something to ease the pain that suffused her. She had been living with the emptiness for the last few months, but over the past two weeks it had gotten worse. The hole had become a chasm within her soul, ripping her open, leaving her raw and exposed.
She was greatly afraid that if she didn’t mend it soon, it would swallow her whole.
Cassie shoved aside her morose thoughts, sick of them. Sick of herself even. Wallowing in her misery, and loneliness, was not going to ease it.
“Are you going to tell us what you saw?” Chris demanded, leaning forward on his knee.
Melissa shook her head as she sat back in her seat, shoving the remains of her salad aside. “Nope, it doesn’t involve you so there’s no need for you to know about it.”
Chris groaned in disappointment, but his frustration did not affect his appetite as he took a big bite of his bacon cheeseburger. Grease dropped onto his paper plate but he paid it little mind as his attention focused on Marcy again. “She is cute.”
Cassie glanced over at Marcy, tilting her head as she studied the petite brunette. Despite her over exuberance, she was a pretty girl. “Does it matter?”
Chris grinned down at her as he shook back his mop of blond hair. “Not at all.”
Cassie couldn’t help but laugh at him, loving the bright sparkle in his sapphire eyes, and the cocky grin that flashed across his handsome face. She leaned against his leg, relishing in the easy comfort, strength, and reassurance he gave her. He had been her best friend, her rock, since she was born. Though many people thought they were a couple, or soon would be, there had never been anything other than sibling-like feelings between them.
Chris patted her back for a brief moment before turning his attention back to his cheeseburger, and Marcy. The hair on the back of Cassie’s neck suddenly stood up, a tingle swept down her spine that was neither pleasant nor unpleasant. With sudden certainty she knew that someone was staring at her, watching her. Straightening away from Chris, she frowned as her gaze rapidly scanned the forest, but she could see nothing, and no one, within its dark depths.
Turning slowly, Cassie was surprised to realize that her throat had gone dry, and her heart was trip hammering with excitement. She didn’t know what was causing the strange reaction inside her body, but she couldn’t stop it either. She was certain that there was something out there, and that it was waiting for her.
She froze, her gaze latched onto a man standing at the edge of the building closest to the road. He was highlighted by the splash of light pouring out of B’s and S’s, his features indiscernible in the shadows that played over him. He was completely still, his hands shoved into the pockets of his leather jacket. Even though the shadows kept him half hidden, she could see the startling, brilliant, emerald green of his eyes. Those eyes were oddly alight in the dark surrounding him, a dark that caressed his hard, unmoving body.
To Cassie’s utter amazement, the world around her suddenly ground to an abrupt halt. Everything around her fell away, the crowd disappeared; Chris and Melissa no longer existed as he became the central point of her world. All she could see, all she could feel, was him. He was inside of her, flowing through her veins, burning into her extremities, filling her. His presence eased the painful hole she had been living with. Though it made no sense to her, and she certainly couldn’t explain it, he somehow helped to heal everything that had been hurting, and broken, and wrong within her.
Unknowingly, tears sprang to her eyes. She would be ok; everything would be ok as long as he was here. The thought blazed into her mind, seared through her heart, and though it seemed crazy she knew that it was completely right. She didn’t understand how he made everything right, but he did. She needed him, the realization slammed into her with the force of a sledge hammer. It was a terrifying thought, confusing and unsettling. However, she knew that the thought was completely true. She knew it with the same certainty that she knew she needed air to survive.