Coming here was smack in the middle of that territory.
Stepping onto the construction site, inside the wrought iron gates that manned the single, incomplete building from the abandoned street, Morana looked around, taking the area in. The sun hung low in the sky, ready to jump below the horizon at a moment's notice, throwing just enough light to let the building cast long, creepy shadows on the ground, the sky slowly burnishing itself from purple to a cold grey as the moon waited to come out.
Morana could feel the wind cooling against her skin, making a small shiver travel down her bare arms in the chill, goosebumps erupting across her skin like small soldiers readying themselves for battle. But it was something else that truly creeped her out.
Eagles. Dozens of them. Circling the building, again and again, calling to each other, the cacophony of their voices lost in the flap of their wings against the wind.
Dusk was setting in, and they kept circling the tall building, telling Morana one thing about the structure. It was no ordinary construction site. Somewhere on the premises was a corpse – she looked up at the birds, at their number – more than one corpse.
She should so not be here.
Tamping down the sudden attack of nerves, Morana looked down at her watch.
6 P.M. It was time.
Where the hell was Jackson?
The sudden buzzing of her phone in her pocket startled her. Exhaling to calm her racing heart, she quickly pulled it out and looked down at the number. Jackson. Putting it to her ear, she accepted the call.
"Morana?" she heard Jackson's familiar voice whisper into the phone and frowned. Why was he whispering?
"Where are you?" she asked quietly, glancing around, looking for anything unusual. Anything unusual except the damn eagles, that is.
"Did you come alone?" Jackson asked.
Morana scowled, her senses on alert. "Yes. Now, will you tell me what's going on?"
She saw Jackson's head peek out from behind the building's door. He waved her forward. "Come inside quickly," she heard on the phone.
Morana's eyes wandered to the unfinished building, rising high up in the sky like a dilapidated monster surrounded by birds of death. She would have been laughing her ass off at the clichéd obviousness of the setting had this been a movie she'd been watching. The last thing she felt like doing now was laugh. This was some really creepy shit. And something was totally off.
"I'm not moving an inch till you tell me what this is about," Morana stated firmly, standing her ground outside the building, watching Jackson peek around the door again.
"Damn it, Morana!" Jackson cursed loudly for the first time, agitation evident in his tone. "She won't come in!"
Morana stilled, hearing Jackson shout to someone behind him, and the certainty of his second betrayal settled itself in her gut. The fucking asshole! He'd set a trap for her.
Without waiting for another second, she crouched down on the ground behind some rubble and pulled the gun out from her waistband. Readying it, straightening her arms, she got ready to aim and fire at the drop of a hat. Her heart thundered in her chest, her breathing laborious as adrenaline surged through her bloodstream, everything but the sound of her own breathing too quiet. Except for the eagles. They kept making their own noises, right above her head in the sky, surrounding the building that reeked of death.
She had to get back to her car.
Eyes darting to the gate, she gauged the distance between the stack of rubble and realized it was a few hundred feet away. Damn. There was no way she could run through the open space without being shot if someone was aiming for her already.
Think. She had to think.
"Morana!"
She stayed down, listening to Jackson calling out her name, his voice coming from the direction of the building.
"We won't hurt you! We just want to talk!"
Yeah, and she was a monkey's uncle.
She grit her teeth, anger filling her, the urge to punch his teeth hard enough to make him bleed surging through her. Oh, how she'd love punching him.
"I know you like playing games, babe, but this isn't one!"
She hated, absolutely detested, when he called her 'babe'. It made her feel like one of those floozies who surrounded men in their world. She should have knocked him down.
"Look, I know," Jackson continued talking, his voice inching closer to where she hid. "I know you hate me for taking the codes but it was all money, babe. I did like you. We can help you if you help us."
Was he high?
Her grip tightened on the gun.
A shot fired. The eagles went wild.
Morana flinched at the noise, her gaze sliding upwards to see the eagles flying haphazardly in chaos, completely frantic, and felt her heart beat in tandem with their wings. She waited for Jackson to speak again, but he didn't. The dread in her stomach tightened.
"I prefer you blonde."
Her breath seized in her throat at the voice coming from behind her. The voice she hadn't been able to forget for a week. The voice that had whispered the ways of murder into her skin like a lover's caress. The voice of hard whiskey and sin.
She swung her gaze up, her eyes leveling with the barrel of a Glock pointed right at her head. She slowly let her gaze travel up to the sure, steady fingers, up the forearms exposed under folded sleeves of a black shirt, roped with muscles, up the shoulders she knew possessed the strength to pin her useless against a wall, up that scruff littering his square jaw, and finally to his eyes. His blue, blue eyes. His blue, wiped-clean-of-every-expression eyes.
It was just a second of these observations, a second of feminine appreciation before she let herself remember who he was.
And swung her arm up, pointing her gun right at his heart with his own pointed at her head, in a silent standoff.
Standing up, her eyes not wavering from his, her arm not wavering in her hold, Morana tilted her head.
"I prefer you gone."
His face retained the stoic expression, his eyes narrowing slightly. They stood silently for a few minutes, just with their guns pointed at each other, and Morana realized it was rather pointless. She knew he wasn't going to kill her. He had ample opportunity just last week and he hadn't. He wouldn't do so again.
"We both know you won't shoot me, so let's remove the guns, shall we?" she suggested conversationally, never blinking once to give him any opportunity.
His lips curled but the amusement never reached his eyes. He raised his arm, pulling it back, waving the white flag, and she dropped her own, keeping him in his sights. The moment her gun was down, he stepped into her personal space, placing his gun right between her breasts, his face inches from her own, the scent of his sweat and cologne mingling in the air around her, every fleck of blue in his eyes somehow highlighted even in the darkness that had descended around them.
He leaned in slowly, speaking softly, his eyes hard, never moving from hers, his words making her breath hitch a little in her chest. "There are places on your body that I know," he spoke, his free hand wrapping around the back of her neck, his grip strong, just on the periphery of threatening, as the gun stayed right above her racing heart. "Places that you don't know. Places where I can shoot and harm and you won't die."
He leaned even closer, his whisper just a ghost across her skin as her neck craned to keep their gazes locked, his hand cradling her nape, his height looming above her, his eyes never moving from hers. "Death isn't the main course, sweetheart. It's the dessert."