HunterUndone Read online

“Yes, you do,” she said softly, that too-smart gaze searching his face. “You care a heck of a lot. That’s why you’re so pissed off.”

  Not in the mood to have his head shrunk by a teenager in furry orange knee-high slipper boots, he straightened. “I’m not pissed, Ivy. I’m not anything.”

  She ignored that. “Usually, the dreams that wake her up screaming are visions of the future. Things she doesn’t know how to stop.”

  He stilled, his gut twisting violently, before he turned fully around to stare at her. “What are you saying?”

  “Shay doesn’t just talk to dead people. She sees the future, too. And usually, it’s too late for her to do anything about it.”

  Even as puzzle pieces clicked together in his brain, other questions popped up, leaving him feeling like there was a gaping hole in his knowledge. “Who else knows about these abilities of hers?”

  “Me, her family, and now you.” She nailed him with a look that all but screamed ‘fix it, Tyler’ at him. “Not even Hayden or Deke know.”

  He snagged on the first part of her answer. “What do you know about her family?”

  Her already pale skin seemed to drain of any color, sending a hundred red fucking flags flying behind his vision. “I know that there are rumors men who get involved with Evernight women tend to go missing.”

  What the actual fuck. Dragging his hand down his face, he sat down hard on one of the kitchen chairs. “Anything else I need to know?”

  “Yeah.” She hopped off the counter and took a bottle of water out of the fridge before turning to face him again. “Shay isn’t as tough as she seems. She’s wounded easily.” Closing the distance between them, little Ivy’s face went stole cold granite. “If you hurt her, if you make her cry even one time, Tyler Wade, I will cut your balls off while you sleep. If anyone deserves to be taken care of, to be treated like a princess, it’s Shay.”

  Without another word, she walked out of the kitchen and left him standing there, trying to figure out how the hell he’d gotten so screwed up so goddamn quickly.

  CHAPTER 12

  Shay was still staring up at the plain white ceiling when Ivy tried to sneak into her room a little bit after dawn. “How did you know I was awake?”

  “You never sleep after a vision.” Carefully sitting on the bed next to Shay’s hip, Ivy held out a cup of coffee. “Thought you could use this.”

  “You are a beautiful, amazing person and I love you madly,” Shay said, but she didn’t move to sit up or take the steaming mug. Her body ached in ways she couldn’t explain, and her chest just freaking hurt. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

  “He left a little while ago.” Setting the cup on Shay’s bedside table, Ivy pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “You okay?”

  “No. I’m an idiot. What was I thinking?” To her surprise, Ivy tucked her face into her shoulder to hide a giggle, cutting off her words. Shay poked a finger into Ivy’s stomach. “What are you laughing at?”

  Ivy coughed to hide a snicker, peeking up at her over her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I know this isn’t funny. I just, I swear, Shay, he should have a warning.” At her blank look, Ivy covered her face again. “Attention, ladies. Being exposed to this body will cause panties to drop so hard they’ll end up in China. Proceed with extreme caution.”

  Shay blinked at her for several seconds, before a laugh escaped her. Leave it to Ivy to cheer her up when her world was imploding. But then the laughter died out, and she curled onto her side and buried her face in a pillow.

  Ivy made a soft sound of distress, her fingers brushing the hair out of Shay’s face. “Did he hurt you?”

  She could have handled it better if he’d been the one to walk away. That would have made sense.

  “No. God, no.” Telling herself to stop being emotional, she finally sat up until her back was braced against her reclaimed wood headboard. “I think I really messed up, Ive.”

  Ivy twisted on the bed until she was sitting next to her, and rested her head against Shay’s shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No,” she said. Ivy was way too wise beyond her years, but that didn’t mean Shay wanted to give her anything more to worry about. For once, all she wanted was for the girl to be a normal seventeen-year-old high school student. “You’re going to be late for school.”

  “Shay—” Ivy cut off on a sigh, wrapping her in a fierce hug. “I love you, you know that, right? And I’m here to listen.”

  Shay nodded. “Go get ready. Garret worries when you’re late.”

  As usual, Ivy lit up from the inside at Garret’s name, and it did exactly what Shay had hoped for—it got Ivy moving. After crawling over Shay, she hesitated at the door, her eyes troubled again. And seeing the shadows reminded Shay exactly why she didn’t want Ivy involved.

  “Let me know when I need to muster the Rohirrim, Shay. You don’t have to fight whatever this battle is on your own.” She waited for Shay to nod, before blowing out a breath. “For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen you feel this much in…ever.”

  Shay watched her leave and just stared at the closed door for long moment. While Ivy had only been teasing with her Tolkien reference to the Rohirrim—the fierce, battle-ready people of Rohan in Middle Earth—Shay didn’t put it past her to bring in reinforcements if she thought it necessary.

  But this time, there wasn’t anything any of them could do for her, even if she let them in. The vision had been crystal clear. Either she cut it off with Tyler now, or being with her would kill him.

  And worse, she would be the one to do it. To destroy him.

  Sighing in sheer frustration, she finally forced herself out of bed.

  It wasn’t supposed to hurt this soon. She didn’t know him. She knew even less about him than he did about her, and despite his ability and determination to give her bone-melting, toe-curling orgasms, she wasn’t even sure they liked each other.

  Except…when they were together, she didn’t feel lost. She didn’t feel invisible, or like the town freak. Just admitting it made her ache. While she could see herself grabbing onto those feelings, grabbing on to him, it would mean destroying him.

  And what kind of person would she be if she repaid him by putting him in harm’s way?

  Her body stilled. That was the question, wasn’t it? What kind of person would she be? The answer was so clear, she wanted to scream in frustration. Simply put, she wasn’t that person. She dedicated her life to helping people. Everyone. But the one thing she wasn’t, the one thing she would never, ever be, is a killer.

  She lurched into action so quickly, her head spun, but she didn’t care. She shot Tyler a text telling him they needed to talk, then threw on the first maxi-dress she could find, pulled her hair back with a scarf, and left the house.

  She and Phoenix were going to have a long overdue talk.

  ***

  By the time the sun had swept away the morning fog over Willow Creek, Tyler was ready to get the fuck out of Dodge. He was in a shitty-ass mood, and he was torn between the urge to march back to Shay’s house and demand answers, and pulling his fucking hair out in frustration. He fucking hated puzzles. He didn’t even care about Shay being a 5 feet tall, stacked enigma tucked inside Pandora’s Box, or that getting inside her head had intrigued him just as much as getting inside her body. She was a puzzle he shouldn’t care about solving.

  Instead, he bumped open the door to the police station with his hip, a coffee clutched in each hand. He wasn’t surprised to see Deacon at his messy desk, feet propped up. His snores all but lifted the rafters off the place that already looked like a good, stiff wind could send it tumbling to the ground. And if the inside had been painted in the last decade, someone had a sick sense of humor, because it had the personality and charm of a morgue.

  Too frustrated to be amused, Tyler kicked the chief’s chair, startling him.

  “What the—” Deacon’s voice snapped off when he saw him. Si
ghing, he dragged both hands over his face. “Please tell me one of those are for me, asshole.”

  Tyler held out a coffee, before sprawling in one of the chairs facing Deacon’s desk. “Do you always sleep here?”

  Apparently not caring that the coffee bordered on scalding, Deacon didn’t respond until he’d down half his to-go cup.

  “No.” He kicked his feet off the desk, scattering empty paper cups in the process. “Only when demons show up in my town and I have no idea how to fight them.” He lifted his brow. “You here to apologize yet?”

  Ignoring that, Tyler sat forward, bracing his arms against his thighs. “I need information, Deke. What do you know about the Evernight family, and Shay in particular?”

  Deacon paused with his cup halfway to his mouth, before cursing quietly and setting the coffee aside. “What happened?”

  “The fuck if I know.” Tyler lifted his free hand, palm up, and sighed. “But something isn’t right. Do you know anything about her having visions?”

  The silence that came after the question had tension building at the base of his skull, and the knot in his gut twisting deeper.

  Finally, the chief leaned his forearms against his desk. “Everyone knows about her visions, though everyone thinks she’s just good at reading people. Most of the town loves her, and goes to her to have their fortunes read or talk to the dead.”

  Shit.

  “And the rest?”

  Deacon’s face clouded over. “The rest believe she’s as much of a flake as Phoenix, and would prefer me to burn everyone with the Evernight name—including Shay—at the stake.” He ran a hand over his head. “Her family has been suspected of being in some seriously deep shit for as far back as they’ve been in this town.”

  When he didn’t continue, Tyler growled in impatience. “Like what?”

  “Like your mother’s disappearance.”

  The blow to his chest didn’t hurt, but it knocked the wind out of him. Despite the timing, as far as Tyler knew, Shay’s mother’s murder had never been connected to his mother’s disappearance. “I thought Raven Evernight was found murdered only a little while after my mother’s disappearance.”

  “Yeah.” Deacon turned the cup in his hand for a moment, looking uncomfortable as shit before he dug through the massive pile of garbage on his desk. He tossed a file to Tyler. “There’s no evidence, Ty.”

  Placing his cup on the desk, Tyler opened Raven’s file. His brow furrowed at the chicken scratch in the margins of the police report. “How the hell does a heart explode?”

  “I don’t know. I called the medical examiner last night, and he shut my questions down before they were even out of my mouth.” When Tyler’s head snapped up, Deacon nodded and glanced at his watch. “Actually, I’m heading over to the morgue now. I don’t know if I’ll get any more answers than I did last night, but the fucker is going to tell me something if I have to pound it out of him.”

  Despite the restlessness gnawing at his gut, Tyler managed a smile. “Is that proper code of conduct?”

  “I don’t give a fuck. This is my town, and whatever the hell happened back then, is coming back to haunt us now. I want answers.” He got to his feet. “You coming with?”

  Tyler nodded and lifted the file. “Can I borrow this?”

  “Yeah. It’s not much, but I added in a copy of everything we have on your mother’s disappearance.” He held open the door. “So, you going to tell me what happened last night with you and Shay?”

  Afraid he was going to get sucked into spilling his guts, Tyler shook his head as they started for the morgue. Talking about his feelings was never going to be on his list of shit to do.

  “Not even if you pulled out my teeth, Deke.” But he scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Do you know anyone in town who’d actively want to hurt her?”

  “Yeah.” Deacon whistled through his teeth as they crossed the street. “Mostly jealous wives and a few assholes who don’t take well to being turned down by a woman they think is a flake.”

  Tyler’s eye twitched, and he let out a long, violent stream of curses.

  “Alright, then after this shit at the morgue, we’re going to make a list.” And he was going to hunt every one of those fuckers down until he was sure they weren’t a threat to even a hair on Shay’s head.

  ***

  On her list of things Shay most hated to do, talking to her grandmother was at the very top.

  While she had days where she could almost convince herself that Phoenix loved her in her own way, they were rare. Like almost non-existent rare. From Shay’s earliest memories, her traditional family had made it clear her usefulness to them began and ended with her abilities. And as long as her powers benefited them, they let her live in relative peace.

  Like always, the second she made the turn onto her family’s property, her anxiety amped up. Situated just on the opposite side of Willow Creek’s town line, the sprawling ten-acre parcel of land was dotted with new and old trailers and caravans alike, rusting carcasses of forgotten vehicles, and dozens of pots filled with vibrant-colored plants and flowers. Every tree was adorned with glass bottles and wind chimes, and Shay knew the second the sun started to set in the evenings, white fairy lights would light the property. Many of the caravans were transformed during the day into bright, stereotypical gypsy homes where people from all over the state came to get their fortunes read or buy herbs and spells they couldn’t find anywhere else.

  All she wanted was to turn her MINI around and escape back to her tidy house where no one expected anything more of her than to be weird, freakish Shay.

  What the hell that said about her, that she preferred to be looked at as a freak than a bargaining chip and cash cow, she wasn’t sure.

  Sighing, she drove over the pot-hole filled dirt road, bypassing family members crafting their wares and dark-haired children who waved as she passed. The Evernight family had owned this property for more than a century, but all Shay felt inside its borders was suffocation.

  It took her another five minutes of driving to reach Phoenix’s trailer. While the shades were drawn and it looked uninviting, she had no doubt her grandmother was home. What Shay couldn’t gauge was what the closed-off appearance was trying to warn her of, because if there was one thing Phoenix could be relied on, it was having a purpose for everything, down to every flutter of her eyelashes.

  “You should have told him.” Gemma hissed.

  Shay hesitated on the rickety metal porch of Phoenix’s trailer. The air surrounding her went frigid, frosting over the plastic of the screen door in front of her and sending a deep ache into her bones. Gemma shot forward from her left side, her translucent face a mask of raw fury as she sent another blast of cold at her.

  “Weak, useless slut!”

  “Whoa.” Fisting her hands at her sides, Shay slowly turned her head to meet the ghost’s gaze. “Out of line, Gem.”

  “You’re going to kill him! You know it! You saw it!” Gemma’s fingers slashed out, ripping at Shay’s arm with her fingernails. “You were supposed to save him!”

  Razor-sharp pain hazed her vision, staggering her sideways. “I broke it off—“

  “Bitch!”

  Unexpected pain burst behind Shay’s eyes as she hit the ground hard, and the last thing she saw as her world turned gray, was her grandmother swinging an iron fire poker at the furious ghost.

  CHAPTER 13

  “I don’t get it.” Tyler shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans before he gave in to the urge to reach across the slab and strangle the medical examiner.

  Short, round, and squirrely, with thick-lensed glasses, greasy brown hair, and an apparent dislike of anyone with an actual heartbeat, Charles Long was as unlikable as he was unpleasant.

  “There’s a surprise,” Long muttered. He rolled his eyes. “The brain-dead bodybuilder doesn’t get something.” Sighing, he turned the file around so the words faced Tyler and Deacon, then tapped his pu
dgy finger on the page, half-way down. “It’s pretty easy, so even you jugheads should be able to follow along. Raven Evernight’s heart did not explode.”

  Deacon frowned. “Then why did the previous medical examiner list that as cause of death?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care.” Pushing his coke-bottle glasses up his pug nose, Long shrugged. “A heart can’t explode. Not without some kind of outside help—like a 50 cal bullet.” When Tyler and Deacon both stared at him, waiting expectantly, he sighed. “My predecessor wasn’t a messy record keeper, and he didn’t make mistakes in his reports. Either someone altered Raven Evernight’s file, or…”

  sighed when his voice trailed off, snapping, “Or?”

  “Or someone blackmailed him into changing it.” Long closed the file and handed it back to Deacon. “Are we done here?”

  “Almost.” Planting his fists against the metal slab of the exam table, Tyler leaned forward. “Let’s talk hypothetical. What could make a heart explode?”

  Long took a step back, his beady eyes wary. “An outside projectile.” He scrambled past them toward the door. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have patients to see to.”

  “One more question.” Tyler ignored Long’s rolling eyes. “What shape was the body in? There’s no mention of wounds or trauma, outside the heart.”

  For the first time, a tiny spark of interest lit in the guy as he re-opened the file. “That’s the weird part. Her body was a mess of perimortem wounds. The notes don’t say anything else about them, but I remember that day. Raven Evernight had been carved up.”

  A quick glance at Deacon showed he handled that information about as well as Tyler, whose stomach had taken a long, sickening roll. “Perimortem—that means around the time of death, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.” Deacon didn’t say anything until after Long had shut the door in his face. “Am I the only one creeped out by the fact that fucker refers to dead people as ‘patients’?” He glanced over as Tyler dug his phone out of his back pocket and checked his messages. “All right, I’m just going to say it. What the fuck is going on in my town, Wade?”