And when he did—
Hector’s eyelids popped open.
Barely able to catch his breath as the dream receded, he realized he was drenched in sweat, his body seemingly on fire. He did a quick scan of his bedroom. He was alone. His thick, dark curtains were drawn, and the only light source was the azure pulsing from his arms.
His arms. Shit! He jackknifed to his feet and studied both. The skin was raw from his determined scratching, the ink faded. Again.
Scowling, he looked over his bed. Despite his flame-retardant sheets, he’d left singe marks behind. Have to control yourself better. His heart drummed erratically against his ribs, his blood molten in his veins.
Hector hated dreaming about his childhood, but he especially hated that particular memory. At least you didn’t dream about what happened the next night.
Shaky, he lumbered to his kitchen. His tattoo gun, ink, various other paraphernalia, and gauze rested on top of his kitchen table, where he also had papers about his past scattered.
Articles about people with unexplainable abilities that had nothing to do with otherworlders. Things like skin turning to stone, and bone to metal. Things like eyes that swirled and hypnotized and voices that enslaved. Then there were the papers concerning his mother and father’s family trees. Hector came from poor, uneducated trash, and he’d even had to teach himself how to read and write.
Another reason you shouldn’t be with Noelle.
The stray thought didn’t exactly take him unaware. He’d thought about her the entire drive home yesterday. He’d thought about her while watching TV before bed. He’d thought about her when he’d fallen asleep. He was only surprised he hadn’t dreamed about her.
Annnd … there was his hard-on. The stupid shit. Hector had developed a very bad habit. Think of Noelle, and become aroused. No matter where he was or what he was doing.
You can’t have her. Why is that so difficult to accept?
To encourage that acceptance, he listed the reasons he needed to avoid her.
She had money.
He did not.
She was sophisticated.
He was not.
Actually, he was as rough and gruff as a man could be.
With the publicity a woman like her garnered combined with his soiled past—and present—they’d be headline news and none of it would be good. Mia had told him how the press had already phoned AIR about Noelle’s enrollment, asking how she was doing at camp.
No matter what happened or how much digging was done, no one would learn about the violence of Hector’s childhood. That, he’d buried and buried deep, ditching Beckham for his brother’s name. But the hooker thing? Yeah. That information was only a phone call away.
And if he was caught “dating” Noelle, his sexual practices would stare at him from every newspaper and TV screen he encountered. No, thanks. The fact that he knew was bad enough.
Plus, what better way to lose someone like Noelle? Not that you can ever have her. Once she learned the truth about him, she wouldn’t want him anyway. She’d stop looking at him as if they were alone and naked, the only thing keeping them apart a prayer that neither of them wanted answered.
A look he didn’t trust. Girl was tricky. Big-time tricky. A man would never know where he stood with her, what she was capable of, or what she truly wanted from him.
Not only was she was devious, but she was smarter than she appeared, tougher, a little bit cruel, and a whole lot prepared for whatever AIR threw at her. After the double tap she’d given him, there was no denying the truth: if something drastic wasn’t done, she’d make it to the end of camp and he’d have to deal with her for the rest of his working life.
His hands fisted, the glow intensifying. Damn it, stop thinking about her and fix your tatts.
Hector plopped into a chair, sorted through his supplies, clipped the ink gun together. He’d been doing this so many years, it was second nature. Honestly, he could have done it with his eyes closed.
The little needle glided over his skin, creating the Celtic symbol for peace over and over again. Every so often he would have to stop to wipe away the blood, but soon the glow died. Unfortunately, the heat never did.
Shit. Until he at last released the darkest edges of his body’s sexual needs, Hector realized, the tattoos wouldn’t help him. Because clearly, his desire for Noelle had made him sensitive to all other emotions. Especially anger. Now he was like a bomb ready to blow.
So. No question, he’d reached the danger stage. The do-something-now-now-now level. Or suffer.
You know what you have to do.
Yeah, he did, and he’d get to that. Right now, he had to finish his tatts. They might not help him now, but they’d help him later, after he’d gotten to that.
He’d discovered this method about a year before joining AIR. He’d been desperate, having tried meditation, and even keeping a freaking food journal on the off chance the problem stemmed from something he was eating. Then he’d read somewhere that once upon a time berserkers had tattooed themselves with images meant to keep themselves calm.
Hector had thought, why not, and had done the same. Though he’d quickly burned through the first round of ink, he’d liked the fact that he could judge his heat factor with a single visual sweep. So he’d tried again, peppering his arms with different symbols for peace. He’d soon learned the Celtic one lasted the longest, helped the most, and acted as the best guide.
So he’d been applying these ever since.
If any of his coworkers had ever noticed that the ink was sometimes light, sometime dark, or that the symbols sometimes linked in new places, they’d never said. He never let anyone study them, anyway, and everyone knew never to touch him.
When he finished, he cleaned both arms and applied antibiotic ointment. Tomorrow he’d have scabs, but whatever. He’d wear his gloves and no one at AIR would know.
Mia had a case for him, and he was excited to dive in. Five more otherworlder girls had been found in a warehouse. They were around the same age—late teens—though each was a different race and unable to speak English. They weren’t as undernourished as the three before them, but they were just as traumatized.
Mia had brought in translators, but even still, the girls had given very few usable details. All they’d known was that they’d been home one moment and in the warehouse the next. Unfortunately they hadn’t seen their captor—or didn’t remember seeing him. Drugs could screw with anyone’s memory, and they’d each had fresh track marks on their veins. Track marks they’d claimed to know nothing about.