Fury’s Kiss Read online

  Stop wheezing, stop trying to speak, stop acting like he was the victim.

  Without giving it any thought, I lunged forward and locked my mouth onto his, smothering the rasping sounds he emitted. Startled by my own instinctive action, I stared into his eyes and sucked in a breath of surprise. He clutched at the hand I held around his throat and kicked for a few seconds before going rigid in my grasp. His skin swelled under my fingers and the moisture inside his mouth heated, nearly boiling.

  Shocked, I let go of him and jumped back with an inarticulate cry. My newfound strength abandoned me and I sank to my knees in the gravel as he began to convulse.

  I scrambled into a crouch next to him, chest heaving as I tried to breathe through my adrenaline and confusion. What the hell had I done?

  I looked around wildly. My rage had disappeared and I tried not to panic now that I was left with the reality of an unconscious—or maybe even dead—body at my feet. Could you kill someone by sucking the air out of his lungs?

  I swallowed hard as I wrapped my arms around myself and rocked back and forth. What was I supposed to do now? Go back into the bar and announce that I’d almost been raped, but no need to worry—I’d knocked the guy out? Or maybe even killed him?

  Yeah, that was so not gonna happen. Who would believe my story?

  I’d been there, and even I didn’t believe what had happened.

  “Hey.” I nudged the guy’s shoulder.

  No response. He was puffy, like someone had stuck a bicycle pump under his skin, and he had a definite bluish-purple tint. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not, so I nudged him again.

  Still nothing.

  I got up and stood over the body for a few minutes, trying to think. I didn’t feel even remotely drunk anymore, but I was exhausted and my head and arm were screaming at me. It was hard to think clearly. The situation was majorly freaky and I just wanted to go home and pretend it had never happened. But how could I?

  He got what he deserved.

  The voice came from inside my head, sharp and sibilant, like when I’d hissed at the guy a few minutes ago.

  “Oh, God,” I moaned aloud. “What’s happening to me?” Clearly, I was losing my mind.

  No one saw what happened, whispered the freaky-me voice again. No witnesses.

  It was hard to focus, but the voice had a point. The longer I stuck around, the more likely it was that someone would come out of the bar, see me standing by the body, and accuse me of…something. I didn’t know what had happened, but I knew it looked bad.

  He got what he deserved, freaky-me said again and I propelled myself into action. My split personality—or whatever it was—was right. The unmoving body at my feet was hardly an innocent victim.

  I leaned closer to study the…thing lying next to Nora’s truck. It didn’t really resemble a man anymore, and after a few seconds, I had to turn away. Its staring, bulging eyes looked at me accusingly.

  Turning my back on it, I walked toward the more brightly lit section of the lot where my car was parked, glancing back over my shoulder every couple of seconds. I half expected the body to lurch up and follow me, but nothing happened. When I reached the car, I debated whether I was sober enough to drive, and finally reached the conclusion that whatever had come over me, it had dissolved the alcohol in my bloodstream.

  I let out a desperate laugh—some silver lining. I was panicking, exhausted, and in pain, but at least I didn’t feel drunk anymore.

  I got in and put the car in drive, trying not to think about what I’d left behind me. My palms were sweaty on the steering wheel as I drove, fingers curled around it like claws, and I expected to hear the wail of sirens the whole way home. Finally, I pulled into the driveway. After fumbling with my keys for what felt like years, I managed to stagger inside, and made it as far as the couch before I collapsed with my shoes still on.

  Before I lost consciousness, I had just enough time to hope I wouldn’t wake to cops banging at the door.

  Chapter 2

  When I woke up the next morning, there was a smudged imprint of my eye makeup from the night before smeared on the couch cushion I’d been lying on. It looked like someone had smothered a trampy Maybelline clown with it, and my hair was strangling me like an overgrown kudzu vine. I scraped it back off my face and staggered into the bathroom, where my roommates had left a note taped to the mirror.

  Gone to the beach, back later. Tried to get you off the couch but you were dead to the world. xo Rach and Alex.

  I winced. Dead was a seriously bad word choice this morning.

  I thought about the bloated, purple-blue body I’d left in the parking lot at Spyder’s, and the events of the night before came flooding back to me. I felt those rough, greedy hands on me again, pulling, hurting me, and I gagged. I made it to the toilet in time to watch the contents of my stomach come rushing up. After rinsing my mouth, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My memories had to be wrong—there was no way all that had really happened.

  But my aching head and arm said otherwise.

  I reached around to feel the back of my skull, and winced when I found a huge bump under my hair. Yep, last night had definitely happened. I had been attacked, and I’d… What exactly had I done to that man?

  I wasn’t sure, but my pain was a souvenir of the night’s events and I felt dirtier than I ever had in my whole life. I turned the shower on as hot as I could stand it, then struggled to get out of my clothes without using my left arm.

  I scrubbed at my skin until I was red and raw all over, not stopping until I was so clean I squeaked. Then I climbed out and dripped my way to my bedroom, not bothering to pick up the clothes I’d left on the bathroom floor. I planned to throw them out, anyway. Or better yet, burn them. I sure as hell didn’t need any reminders of what that bastard had tried to do to me.

  I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a soft, old T-shirt before I climbed into bed, then propped myself up against a small mountain of pillows while I tried to come up with some explanation for the night before. The only thing I could think of was that my temporary super-strength had been a self-defense mechanism, fueled by adrenaline. Like those stories you hear about mothers lifting cars off their kids.

  Though I never heard of a supermom sucking the life out of someone and leaving him all puffy, purple, and dead.

  I worried my bottom lip with my teeth, longing to call my mother and have her fly home from California to comfort me and look after me. But it had been years since she’d had a vacation, and she’d been looking forward to visiting family out West for months. Besides, if she knew what had happened to me, I’d find myself hauled in to the hospital as soon as her plane landed. Not to mention the argument that would follow when she felt I was up for it.

  My mother had never been able to understand why I worked in a restaurant instead of pursuing a university education. She’d blame my assault on my lifestyle. She was convinced the long, late hours I worked were a recipe for disaster, and that my roommate, Alex, was a bad influence with her heavy tattoos, dyed-black hair, and job as an exotic dancer. She considered Rachel, who wore her auburn hair in a librarian’s bun and whose glasses emphasized her bookish nature, a much better role model.

  Calling my mother was out of the question. But being alone…so not good. My mind was veering off in a million confusing directions at once. I reached for the phone and dialed Alex. She and Rachel would hear me out, would support me.

  At least, I hoped they would.

  By the time the girls got home, I was a mess. I’d spent the past hour icing my injured arm and imagining the police figuring out I was responsible for the guy in the parking lot, CSI-style. Every time a car drove past the house, I was sure I was about to be taken away in handcuffs.

  “Tara, are you ok?” Rachel asked as she burst through the door. I flinched at the sudden noise. “What happened? You sounded terrible on the phone.”

  “I’m OK. I just…needed you guys.” I tried to stay calm but tears welled up in my
eyes and my voice hitched in my throat.

  “What’s wrong with your arm?” Alex demanded, taking in the defrosting gel pack in my hand.

  “Something…happened at Spyder’s last night.”

  “What do you mean?” Rachel stepped closer and sat on the bed. “What happened?”

  “Did somebody hurt you?” Alex asked, correctly interpreting my tears and the way I cradled my arm. Her voice shook and she clenched her hands into angry fists. “Who did this?”

  I opened my mouth, but closed it again when nothing came out. My face crumpled and more tears slid down my cheeks.

  “Never mind.” She shook her head and reached for my phone. “I’m calling the police and then we’re taking you to the hospital.”

  “No! Wait.” I held out a hand to stop her. “I’m not hurt. Not that badly, anyway. And I can’t go to the police.”

  Rachel smoothed my hair back. “Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault.”

  “It’s not that.” I shook my head. “This guy attacked me and I…” I swallowed hard and the rest came out in a whisper. “I killed him.”

  “Tara, whatever you had to do to get away from that guy, you did the right thing.” Rachel took my hands in hers. “And I’m sure you didn’t kill anyone. You’re just feeling guilty and confused right now, which is totally understandable.”

  Alex echoed Rachel. “No one will blame you for fighting back.”

  “You don’t understand. I didn’t just fight this guy off. Something weird happened. Something I can’t explain to the police.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I let out a frustrated breath of air. “God, I don’t even know how to explain it. This guy tried to force himself on me and I pushed him off of me. But it wasn’t, like, an ordinary push. It was like I had this crazy strength that came out of nowhere.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “But that’s not all. I…” It was hard to say the next part, hard to remember what in the world I’d been thinking. “I kissed him.”

  Alex pursed her lips, clearly surprised, but she remained supportive. “Honey, no one can predict how they’ll react in a situation like that. And if you’re really embarrassed about it, you can leave that part out when you tell your story. But I’m not hearing anything that should make you afraid to talk to the cops.”

  “It was the kiss that killed him. I don’t know how, or what I did, but when I kissed him, I somehow…I don’t know, sucked the air out of him.” I raised a hand to my mouth to bite at my thumbnail, a bad habit that asserted itself whenever I was stressed out or overwhelmed.

  “Tara, that’s just not possible,” Rachel said. Her voice was gentle, like she didn’t want to provoke me in my fragile condition. She exchanged a glance with Alex and I could see neither of them believed me.

  “Fine, I’ll prove it to you.” I leaned over the edge of the bed and grabbed the laptop I’d left on the floor next to it. I flipped it open and quickly navigated to the Hawthorne Herald website, our local daily newspaper.

  The story I was looking for screamed at me from the front page. Mysterious Death at Local Bar Baffles Police.

  “There.” I turned the laptop to display the screen to my roommates. “I knew there’d be something about it in the paper.” There was a picture under the headline, showing what must have been every cop car in town gathered at Spyder’s.

  “I made the front page.” My voice quivered as I got out the words.

  “Tara, this is crazy,” Alex said. “Come on, put the laptop down. You’re shaking.”

  “Read it.” I forced the computer into her hands.

  Reluctantly, she took it and began to read out loud. “A body was found in the parking lot of Spyder’s Bar and Grill early this morning by bartender Nora Katsaros, when she literally stumbled upon it. Sources tell us that Katsaros described the remains to police as ‘grotesque’, citing the body’s distinctly purple hue and severe bloating.”

  She paused to look up at me, and I waved her on.

  “The deceased has been identified as twenty-nine-year-old Clinton Miller, an ex-convict employed by DeVille Developments. Although the death does not appear to be related to Miller’s employment with the company, police urge anyone who knew or worked with Miller to come forward with any information they might have, however unrelated it may seem. The cause of death has not been released.”

  “So, what are you saying?” she asked when she’d finished reading. “That you had something to do with this?”

  I nodded, still sniffling.

  “Tara, look at the article,” she tried to reason with me. “There’s no way you did this. The guy was bloated and purple, like he’d been strangled or…I don’t know, drowned. And we’re talking about a grown man here—you’re like a hundred and twenty-five pounds soaking wet. It’s physically impossible.”

  “It couldn’t have been strangulation if the body was bloated,” Rachel pointed out. “Or drowning, either. The color and bloating are signs of hypoxia, but a strangulation victim wouldn’t be puffy. Neither would someone who’d drowned, unless they’d been left in the water a while.”

  I just looked at her. “Hypoxia?” I had no clue what she’d just said, but at least she wasn’t trying to persuade me I was crazy.

  “Oxygen deprivation,” Rachel clarified. “Whatever happened to him, you couldn’t have had anything to do with it.”

  “I’m telling you,” I insisted, “I did this. I killed this guy. He tried to rape me and I sucked the life out of him somehow.”

  At the word rape, Alex jumped up and began to pace. “You’re just confused, maybe feeling guilty about what happened last night.”

  She was only half right—I had been feeling confused all morning, but I damn sure didn’t feel guilty. Clinton Miller had gotten what he deserved. I thought of what the now-dead attempted rapist had tried to do to me and my thoughts went red with rage, like they had the night before. My muscles contracted, ready for a fight, and I welcomed the angry tension that thrummed through my body. It felt better than the fear that had kept me hiding in my bedroom all morning.

  “I’m not confused.” I jumped up too. “And I sure as hell don’t feel guilty. That bastard got what was coming to him.”

  “Tara, what’s wrong with your eyes?” Rachel took a step back and raised her hands in a placating gesture. There was nervousness in the lines of her forehead and the tension around her mouth, but it just made me angrier.

  “What do you mean, what’s wrong with my eyes? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “How badly were you hurt last night?” Alex backed away a few wary steps. “Did you get hit in the head?” Her eyes darted to the door.

  I growled, remembering how Miller had shoved me into the hard brick wall. “Yeah, I did. Along with having my arm nearly broken and almost being raped. So what’s your problem?”

  They were my roommates, my supposed best friends, and they were looking at me like I was insane.

  “It must be broken blood vessels, from being hit in the head,” Rachel murmured.

  “Yeah, sure,” Alex muttered back. “And they decided to go ahead and pop a day later.”

  With every step I took closer to my roommates, they took another in the opposite direction. Alex gnawed at the inside of her cheek, clearly working up the courage to approach me. Finally, she took a deep breath and grabbed my good arm to propel me into the bathroom, where she turned me to face the mirror. When she let go of my arm, she wiped it subconsciously against the leg of her shorts, as though I might be infected with something contagious. Her eyes were wide and frightened, and she held her breath as she stepped away from me again.

  “Look.” She nodded at the mirror. Her whole hand trembled as she raised it to point at my reflection.

  “Fine,” I hissed through gritted teeth, turning toward it. “But just so you know—”

  Oh. My. God. My eyes were something out of a horror movie, the usually hazel irises now a dark, orangey red surr
ounded by black. My pupils were an even darker, true red.

  Blood red.

  My hair danced like someone waved a static electricity wand over my head, long strands weaving and tangling around themselves. If you watched for a minute, it kind of looked like… I turned my head sideways.

  Like snakes.

  Alex’s reflection next to mine was pale-faced and breathless, and it made me inexplicably furious. She and Rachel were like sisters to me, and this was what it took to convince them I was telling the truth? Some friends they were.

  I had a mental flash of Alex and Rachel lying in the living room, still and swollen like the man from the parking lot, and I tore my gaze away from the mirror. What was I doing?

  With intense effort, I forced myself to calm down enough to remember the meditation classes I sometimes went to at the local rec center and pictured a door slamming shut, cutting off my anger from the rest of me. Immediately, my hair went limp and my anger faded away. I braced myself against the sink, breathing heavily. When I leaned closer to look at my eyes again, my irises were back to the same familiar hazel they’d always been.

  I met Alex’s frightened gaze in the mirror, then turned to look at Rachel as I asked the question we all had to be thinking. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

  No one volunteered an answer, so I staggered back into the living room and made it as far as the couch before my legs went rubbery and gave out. Alex braced herself against a bookshelf, and Rachel sagged weakly onto the arm of the cushy old chair we’d found at a yard sale the summer before.

  “You really did kill that guy, didn’t you?” she whispered.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” My voice began to rise again, but I forced the panic down to a more manageable, gut-churning level of anxiety. I rubbed my temples with my fingertips as if I could massage away the memory of what had happened the night before.