Damned

Hadn’t they survived? Or had she only imagined their courage? Either way, she envied it and had to emulate it if she were to survive, too.

She had to get out of the alley, get something to eat, a safe place to sleep—get her life back while she still had it. The drugs she’d taken had been prescription ones—some painkillers, some for schizophrenia—but even those hadn’t stopped the voices. Maybe it was time she accepted that they were real. But if the voices were real, so was the killer. Dare she leave the alley? Dare she trust anyone?

“Believe,” the raspy-voiced man murmured. But was he speaking to her or himself? What did he want to believe? Who was he? He’d called her name, as her sisters had. He wanted to find her, too. Why? For them or for himself?

She closed her eyes, sparks of deep blue glowing against the insides of her lids. Instead of fighting his voice, she blew out a breath and immersed herself in his mind. He didn’t say anything else. The blackness remained, thick and impenetrable, with undercurrents of barely suppressed anger.

This man was no different than the other—full of rage. A killer. He wasn’t going to save her. She couldn’t trust him.

Could she trust herself? Could she trust her sanity?

She had to; she couldn’t go on as she had, barely existing. She opened her eyes, then reached for the Dumpster. Her fingers clawed at the rusted metal as she sought handholds to pull herself up. Her knees shook, threatening to fold, but she locked them and stood. Physically she was weak, but emotionally she was stronger than she’d been in a long time.

Her sisters were looking for her but couldn’t find her. So she had to find them. Urgency rushed through her veins. Like those other women, the ones who hadn’t survived, they were in danger. She remembered her sisters’ voices calling out with fear and pain. But they had fought for their lives; they hadn’t died, like their mother. They were still alive.

And so was Irina.

For the first time in a long time, she realized that. All the pain she’d felt, it hadn’t been hers. She was fine, just weak. She staggered toward the street, but before she could leave the alley behind, a dark shadow stepped in front of her. She shrank back toward the Dumpster, not because she thought the hulking man one of the homeless who lived on the streets as she did but because she knew he wasn’t.

The pain in his head pounded in hers as he silently spoke to her. Witch, you weren’t easy to find. If only she’d stayed hidden a little longer…

She shouldn’t have let that raspy voice call her out of hiding. She shouldn’t have listened to him.

She glanced behind her, toward where flames licked up the sides of the barrel at the end of the alley. No one stood around it, as they did every other night, as they had earlier that night.

“Help me!” she called out, praying they would emerge from the shadows where she was certain they hid, frightened of the stranger. They had no reason to fear him, not as she did. “Help me!”

“Shh,” the man murmured aloud. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Liar,” she yelled at him, her throat scratchy from disuse. “Liar!”

He lifted his hands palms up, holding them out to her. “I’m here to help you,” he insisted. “Your family sent me to find you.”

She didn’t hear what he spoke aloud, though. She read his demented mind. Now that I have you, I can get the rest of your family. I can get the other charms. Then I’ll kill all the witches.

“No!” she screamed as she continued retreating from him. Her back, beneath the heavy wool sweater she wore over a threadbare T-shirt, warmed as she neared the burning barrel. Sweat, from fear and the heat, dribbled down between her shoulder blades.

“Come with me, Irina,” the man said, his voice soft and low as if soothing a frightened animal. “I’ll bring you to your sisters.”

Then I’ll kill all of you! Hang the redhead. Drown the blonde. Crush her daughter. And you, since you’re the spitting image of your mother, I’ll have to burn you at the stake, just like I burned her.

“Killer!” she shrieked at him. “You’re a killer!”

“Shh…” he said again, for the first time glancing uneasily around at the shadows bouncing off the walls of the buildings that flanked the alley. “I’m a private investigator. I told you—your family sent me.”

“I can hear you,” she said. “Not what you’re saying but what you’re thinking. I can hear you!”

His dark eyes gleamed eerily as he stared at her. “You can hear me?”

“I know what you did. I know what you intend to do,” she insisted.

But she wasn’t going to let him. She whirled around to the other side of the barrel, then kicked over the rusted metal cylinder. The barrel broke apart, and the flames leaped toward him.

Throwing his arms up over his face, he shrank back against the wall of one of the buildings. Cowering as the barrel rolled toward him, sparks flying, he screamed, “No!”

Taking advantage of his distraction and distance, she ran from the alley, the heels of her worn shoes pounding the asphalt and scattering tin cans and paper debris as she headed toward the street. Her long skirt tangled around her legs, slowing her frantic dash.

You witch! When I catch you, you’ll suffer. She heard his thought first, then his ragged breathing as he chased her.

Propelled by fear, she didn’t dare stop running when she reached the curb, so she hurled herself into traffic. Tires squealed, brake pads burning, but the driver didn’t stop in time. The metal bumper glanced off her thigh, knocking her onto the asphalt.

He would get her now; she couldn’t run anymore. As big hands reached for her, closing around her arms, she screamed, her throat straining, her voice rising with hysteria. “Don’t kill me! I’m not a witch! I’m not a witch!”

Chapter 2

Irina tugged on her wrists, trying to free her hands. But the bindings held her tight, trapped. Panic pressed on her chest, and her lungs labored for breath.

“Let me go!” she shouted, her throat raw from screaming. Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes from the pain. “Let me go! He’s going to kill me!”

But no one believed her. If they had, they wouldn’t have brought her here. To a psychiatric ward. She’d been in one before, but she hadn’t been strapped down to a bed as she was now. She’d been an intern, not an inpatient. Committed.

She couldn’t blame them for not believing her. She struggled to believe herself. Could she really hear other people’s thoughts? Was that possible?

Maybe her earlier fear that she was hallucinating was founded. Maybe she belonged here. She sagged back against the mattress, which wasn’t much softer than the thin cardboard over asphalt where she’d spent so much of the past few months. Even though an IV dripped saline into her arm, rehydrating her, she weakened, her lids drifting closed. Some doctor or nurse had injected her earlier with a sedative, which must have finally taken effect. Although her muscles relaxed and she breathed easier, her anxiety didn’t lessen.

She wished she still believed she was crazy, that she was making up the horror her life had become. But she’d already accepted her truth. And she knew her fate.

He’d be coming back for her.

The doorknob rattled, startling her into fighting against the restraints. She thrashed on the bed, the springs and metal frame creaking in protest of her frantic movements.

“Stop it! You’re going to hurt yourself,” a young woman cautioned as she entered the room.

“He’s going to hurt me. He’s going to kill me!” Despite the sedative, Irina’s voice rose as the panic pressed down on her chest, stealing her breath.

“You’ve been saying that since the police brought you here.” The woman wore the same green scrubs as the nurses but with a white coat. She wasn’t much older than Irina; she’d probably just begun her residency. Irina didn’t remember talking to her before.

“How long ago was that?” she asked—when she’d run in front of the police car, when a concerned officer had lifted her from the asphalt. She’d pleaded with them to save her from the man who’d been chasing her. But they hadn’t seen him; like the homeless people in the alley, he’d disappeared into the shadows. But Irina had still been able to hear his thoughts and had known he watched her. She’d screamed that at them, too, that she could read his mind, that she could read theirs. They thought she was crazy. And so they’d brought her here.

“Last night,” the doctor answered her. “So, tell me, who is this man you’re afraid of?”

“I don’t know.” She hadn’t even noticed the passing of time. He’d claimed to be a private investigator hired by her sisters to find her. But she knew he’d been lying.

“What’s your name?” the woman asked.

Irina. She hadn’t been called that in twenty years, not aloud, but now, locked in a psychiatric ward, with voices in her head, she felt more like Irina Cooper than she ever had Heather Bowers.

Since Irina hadn’t answered her, the pretty young doctor probed, “Don’t you know your name?”

For the first time in a long time, Irina felt as if she did really know who she was. But with the witch hunt resurrected, she wasn’t about to admit to being Irina Cooper.

“I want to help you,” the woman insisted, her dark eyes earnest.

If not for the voices, Irina would have been her. She’d been in her last year of medical school, after having already completed her master’s in psychology, when the first scream had torn through her mind and torn apart her world. “I wish you could….”

But if she told the psychiatrist everything, the young doctor would think her even crazier than she already did.

The woman’s face flushed with pink color. “Someone’s been asking about you. At least I’m pretty sure you’re the woman he’s looking for. Maybe he’ll be able to help you remember who you are.”

He already had. But he didn’t intend to let her make any more memories. God, how had he found her so quickly? He must have followed the police car to the psychiatric hospital.

Irina strained against the bindings at her wrists, trying to vault out of the bed. “You can’t let him in here! Don’t let him near me! He’s going to kill me!”

“Why do you say that?” the psychiatrist asked, her face tight with concern. “Has he hurt you?”

Irina shook her head, tumbling her hair around her shoulders. Citrus shampoo wafted from her curls. The minute she’d been brought in, they’d washed her. Maybe he wouldn’t recognize her from the dirty street person she’d been. Maybe she could convince him she wasn’t who he thought she was.

She wasn’t a witch.

Drawing in an unsteady breath, she admitted, “He hasn’t touched me.” Yet. “But I know he’s hurt other people. He’s killed them.”

The young doctor’s mouth pulled down at the corners. “He probably has, but only in the line of duty. He’s a police officer.”

No wonder he’d found her so quickly. Even if she somehow managed to free herself and escape, he would track her down again. She had to convince him she wasn’t Irina Cooper. If she couldn’t, she was damned.

As the psychiatrist opened the door and stepped into the hall, Irina tested the restraints, tugging on her wrists. Desperation to free herself renewed her struggle, and the straps dug deep grooves into her skin.

“She doesn’t want to see you,” the young doctor, her voice soft with apology, told someone in the corridor.

Irina held her breath as she listened for his response. But she couldn’t discern his words, only the low timbre of his raspy murmur. Through the partially opened door she watched the psychiatrist’s face, which flushed pink as she gazed up at the man who stood just outside Irina’s line of vision.

The woman shook her head, shifting her braid against her back. Her hair was dark and long, like Irina’s. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I don’t want to upset her any further.”

Unable to see or hear him through the door, Irina closed her eyes and listened for his voice inside her head. But now, when she actually wanted her mind invaded with the thoughts of others, it remained empty. Instead of blackness rolling in, she squinted against the stark glare of the fluorescent lights as she opened her eyes again. What had they given her?

She struggled anew against the restraints, wanting to pull out the IV as badly as she wanted her freedom. She needed to hear the voices now; she needed to know what was going on if she had any hope of protecting herself.

“Send him in,” she yelled as the last of her strength drained from her body. The sedative had worked on her muscles as well as her mind, relaxing them so much that she couldn’t even form a fist now. But even weak, she could fight him…if she could read his mind. He wouldn’t dare to try to kill her here, in the hospital. And she’d be able to identify him. Maybe if he got close to her again, as he had in the alley, she could test her power.

Not that she’d ever had to have someone close to read his or her mind. She had no idea where those women were that he’d killed, but she’d heard their every terrified thought throughout their last moments. She shivered; her struggles to free herself had knocked her blankets to the floor, and she wore only a thin cotton gown. But her reaction was more from fear than cold.

She drew in a deep breath, reminding herself that she’d decided back in the alley that she was through running. Of course, a short while after making that decision she had run out in the street and into the path of that police car. The police officers hadn’t helped her. Since he was one of them, there was no way she could trust them. Or anyone else. She had to help herself.

“I w-want to s-see him,” she called out, her words slurred from the effects of the sedative. She blinked hard, fighting against exhaustion to keep her eyes open.

The door creaked as the man wedged his wide shoulders through the jamb and stepped into Irina’s room, which shrank with his entrance. Like his shoulders, his chest was wide and heavily muscled beneath his thin cotton T-shirt. But his size, which was more muscle than height since he hovered just under six feet, didn’t overwhelm Irina. He’d actually seemed bigger in the alley.

His intensity, apparent in his tautly clenched jaw and the hard stare of his navy-blue eyes, overwhelmed Irina. She tore her gaze from his, turning her attention to the woman who accompanied him. The psychiatrist followed closely behind Irina’s visitor, probably whispering instructions on how not to get her patient hysterical again.

The doctor didn’t have to worry about what he said to her. His thoughts were more likely to upset Irina—if she could tap into them the way she had before.

“Is she the woman you’re trying to find?” the psychiatrist asked.

The man brushed a hand through his short black hair, in which the fluorescent lights picked up glints nearly as blue as his eyes. Irina forced herself to meet his gaze, expecting the burning hatred that had scorched her in the alley. But her vision dimmed, his face disappearing into the blackness that enveloped her. Only little sparks of blue relieved the dark.

His voice a raspy whisper, he lied to the doctor. “No.” But his mind called out to her. Irina?

Her heart lurched with the shock of recognition of another kind. This wasn’t the man who’d chased her from the alley. He was the man who’d made her consider leaving it in the first place, calling her name, telling her to believe.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The psychiatrist answered for him, “This is Ty McIntyre, a police officer.”

Suspended police officer. She heard his silent amendment to the doctor’s claim. More than that, her stomach muscles tightened with the pain and pride that omission, even silent, cost him.

“You don’t recognize him?” the psychiatrist asked Irina. “He isn’t the man you claim is trying to kill you?”

Oh God, the bastard has already found her!

Fear raised goose bumps on Irina’s skin, but was it her fear or his? Irina shook her head. “No.”

He was not the man she’d claimed was trying to kill her, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t just as dangerous—or maybe even more dangerous. Her connection with him was so strong, his thoughts so compelling that she had risked leaving her hiding place of the past few months. With the killer, she had only his actions to fear; with this man, she had her own to fear. She struggled to break the connection between them, fighting her way out of the darkness.

Yet the connection remained. The anger tightening the muscles in his stomach twisted hers into knots. Tension radiated from him as he stared at her.

She shifted against the mattress, unnerved by his intent scrutiny and her own inexplicable reaction to it. Her pulse quickened, her breath grew shallow and heat licked at her stomach.

The young psychiatrist cleared her throat. “Well, then…” she prompted the man as she pulled open the door again. “Since she isn’t who you’re looking for…”

“Who is she?” he asked as if Irina weren’t in the room, as if he weren’t staring directly into her eyes.

Irina lifted her chin, pride stinging at the way he’d dismissed her. But at least her pride had returned; she’d buried it for a long time under months of dirt and delusions. The voices hadn’t been the delusion. Thinking herself crazy had been the delusion.

“Jane Doe, for now,” the woman answered Ty McIntyre. “Until we learn her true identity.”

Irina opened her mouth to tell him not the name she’d been given at birth but the one she’d been called the past twenty years. That was her legal identity but not her true one. But his anger coursed through her veins, burning her with its intensity. She didn’t dare trust him. Too many people had died already. She didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.

The faint echoes of old screams reverberated inside her head. She closed her eyes, refusing to relive the gruesome memories.

“Jane Doe,” McIntyre repeated in a murmur, but in her mind, he shouted, Irina Cooper. Irina Cooper.

Since he knew who she was, why didn’t he tell the psychiatrist? He must have a reason for keeping her identity secret. Irina wished she could read his intentions toward her in his thoughts. But she couldn’t, and fear quickened her pulse. Like the man from the alley, Ty McIntyre would hurt her if she wasn’t careful.

She intended to be very careful.

“I’m tired,” she claimed. “You can both leave.” But she couldn’t see if they complied. Black enveloped her, broken only by sparks of blue, the same dark blue as his eyes.

I have to get her out of here before he finds her!

That was his last thought, flitting through her mind, before wood snapped against wood as the door closed behind him and the doctor. Not that distance made Irina’s ability to read minds any weaker. She could be miles away and the connection just as strong as if she stood face-to-face. But usually those people had some relationship to her, like her mother, her sisters or other people who’d meant something to her. Except for the killer. And this man, Ty McIntyre, who might not want to kill her but whose connection with her was stronger than any other.

She tugged at her wrist again, but the restraint refused to give. All her struggle and she’d only worked the fabric-and-Velcro strap a tiny bit looser.

She had to find a way to free herself and get the hell out of here. Because she knew if she didn’t get out of the hospital soon, she would probably wind up in the morgue. If there was even anything left of her to examine…

The strangest sensation washed over Ty, lifting the hair on the nape of his neck. He glanced around the hallway, but the young doctor had left him. No one else stood in the wide corridor. Two nurses worked the station at the end, one on the phone, the other checking charts. Neither of them was the least bit aware of his presence. So no one watched him, yet that sensation persisted, prickling the skin between his shoulder blades as if someone’s gaze bored into him.

He checked the doors along the hall. They were all shut tight in the jambs, leaving no space through which someone could peer out. Maybe his instincts had gotten rusty since his suspension—maybe that was why Roarke had escaped him not once but twice. Roarke wouldn’t beat him again. The maniac would have to kill Ty before he’d get to Irina.

Irina…

His stomach muscles tightened as he relived his brief encounter with her. He should have been prepared for her appearance. She had the delicately featured face, the curly hair and the big Gypsy eyes, exactly as her oldest sister had described her. Yet she hadn’t looked as lost as Elena’s visions had led him to believe she’d look.

Despite the sedative the doctor had said she’d been administered, awareness had sparkled in Irina’s dark eyes. Briefly. Then she’d gotten a strange unfocused expression on her face, as if she’d suddenly gone blind. And that was when his skin had first begun to prickle as if someone were closer to him than they’d ever been. Her sisters each had a supernatural gift—or curse, as they’d first called their abilities. Did Irina have some special ability, too?

The police officer who’d brought her here after she ran screaming into traffic had called her a wacko. Ty had found her through his old contacts and his constant monitoring of his police radio. She’d been right here in Barrett, living on the streets he’d searched over and over again for her. According to his old friend, she was either drugged out of her mind or stark-raving mad, blathering hysterically about reading a killer’s mind. Even though the psychiatrist hadn’t admitted it, he could tell she thought Irina was delusional, too.

But Ty knew she spoke the truth, at least about the killer; he wasn’t sure about the mind-reading part. At the moment, her ability, whatever it was or wasn’t, didn’t matter. All that mattered was Donovan Roarke’s determination to kill her.

Ty glanced at the preoccupied women at the nurses’ station, then again at the empty corridor. Despite the lock on the door separating the psychiatric ward from the rest of the hospital and the locks on the individual rooms, someone clever, with the right connections, could get to Irina pretty easily. She wasn’t safe here. He had to get her out.

He could do it the right way—get Elena and Ariel down here to identify and claim their sister. But they hadn’t seen her in twenty years. To verify the connection between the sisters, they’d have to take a DNA test, then wait for the results. Confirmation could take at least a month. If they used the same lab the Barrett PD did, probably longer. Irina didn’t have that kind of time, not with Roarke stalking her. From what she’d told the police and the psychiatrist, the madman had nearly caught her…just as Elena had envisioned. Except that Irina hadn’t been too weak to fight him off. This time.

Ty couldn’t give Roarke a second chance to grab her; he had to get her out. Tonight.

“Officer McIntyre,” a soft feminine voice called out his name.

He glanced at Irina’s door, but it was still closed tight, the heavy steel too insulated for her voice to carry through it. She was also strapped to the bed, trapped and helpless. Unless what else she’d told the officers was true—she could read people’s minds.

The hair lifted on his neck again. Was she reading his mind? No, he’d locked out everyone, even his best friend, for too many years for someone to slip inside his head without his realizing it.

An echo of a little girl’s voice whispered from the depths of his buried memories. But time had undoubtedly distorted the facts; he had no special ability. He couldn’t hear anyone inside his head.

“Officer McIntyre,” the psychiatrist called out again as she stepped from another patient’s room and closed the door behind herself. Metal jangled as she slipped keys into the pocket of her white coat. The hospital, in the old area of Barrett, was antiquated, their budget too meager for updating. Most doors were locked and unlocked the old-fashioned way. “You’re still here. Did you change your mind? Is Jane Doe the woman you’re looking for?”