His face was red with anger, his eyes bright with fury. I didn’t know what I could have ruined, no, but I knew I didn’t like being the target of that gaze. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“‘Sorry’ doesn’t fix the damage you’ve caused. I was this close. This close to success, and in less than two minutes you managed to destroy all my work, making these last few months a waste.”
Rather than shrink from this conflict, my normal defenses fell away and I snapped, “I’m dying, and you’re yelling at me? I said I was sorry, okay? You’re the one to blame here anyway. If you hadn’t given me that napkin, I wouldn’t have followed you.”
A moment passed in silence while he ground his teeth together. Then he pierced me with a fierce stare. “One, you’re not dying. You’ll live. Two, once again, your ‘sorry’ doesn’t mean shit. But it’s not entirely your fault that tonight happened the way it did,” he conceded. “My past finally caught up with me and things would have gone badly with or without your interference.”
That mollified me, but only slightly.
“Having said that, however,” he added, a steely edge to the words, “I’ll tell you point three. Even if I’d given you a bag of dog shit, you should have stayed at your table. You almost blew my cover with—” He stopped himself. Frowned. “Never mind.”
I blinked in surprise. “Your cover? What, you’re undercover? You’re a cop?”
He tangled a hand through his hair, muttering, “You wish.”
“You’re what, then?”
“Just drop it, Camille.”
It was the first time he’d said my name. I shivered at the sound of it on his lips. “Are you A.I.R.?” It was the only other agency I could think of, and since they specialized in Outers and the Morevv had been there…
Erik snorted. “I’m A.I.R.’s worst nightmare, sweetheart—and now I’m yours.”
4
I took a moment to digest his words.
“Ni—nightmare?” I sputtered. There was an unholy gleam in Erik’s eyes, darkening the brown irises to a frightening, ominous black. He didn’t look like an innocent teenager just then. He didn’t look like the boy I’d crushed on for months. No, he looked mean and hard and capable of any evil deed.
A shiver moved through me, and this one wasn’t pleasant like before.
“I—I don’t understand,” I managed to say.
“You don’t need to understand,” he said darkly. “All you need to know is that I’ve done bad things, and I’ll continue to do bad things to meet my goal.”
Tendrils of surprise blended with my fright. Was he threatening me? A cold chill swept through me. “I don’t understand,” I repeated stupidly. Surely I was mishearing, I thought, as the car hit a bump, jolting me up. I gripped my arm, trying to protect it from the stinging aftereffects.
“Like I said, I wouldn’t worry about understanding. I’d worry about staying alive.” He turned away from me, then, and faced the front window.
“You’re just trying to scare me.”
“There were A.I.R. agents in there, Camille. Remember the group of tough-looking girls?” He didn’t wait for my answer. “They’re after me.”
“After you for what?”
“They’re determined to catch me,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “and they saw me give you that napkin. They had to wonder what was on it. A code? Information? Unless every single one of them is blind, they saw you follow me afterward. They probably think we planned the meeting and now assume you’re involved with me. A.I.R. is going to be after you, as well.”
A.I.R. agents. The media was fond of calling them the most feared people on the planet, saying they killed predatory aliens without thought. Without concern. Without remorse. And without a trial.
I pictured the girls, the hard gleams in their watchful eyes, the way they’d stood out, unconcerned with everything around them. The way I’d been singled out by the gorgeous Asian. Yeah, I could easily imagine her as a killer.
Don’t worry. You didn’t do anything wrong. “I’m innocent,” I told Erik, my voice trembling. “And neither one of us is an alien. A.I.R. won’t care what we did.”
“They don’t just hunt aliens. They hunt humans who help aliens commit crimes.”
“But I didn’t help anyone commit a crime, alien or not.”
Erik just flicked me another of those hard glances.
I blinked in shock. “You helped an alien commit a crime?”
“Yes.”
“And then they saw me follow you with that stupid napkin,” I said weakly, having trouble catching my breath. “So they think…they assume…” Oh, sweet baby Jesus, as Shanel would say.
“Yes,” he said again. “They think. They assume.”
“How could you have done that to me?” I gasped out.
He shrugged. “I wanted them to go after you rather than me.”
My shock doubled. “What?”
“They would have caught you, interrogated you, found the note blank and you as innocent as you appear, and then they would have let you go. Knowing me as they do, they would have figured out that I’d tricked them. But noooo. You had to follow me as if we’d planned it, making you look guilty as hell.”
“You…you…bastard!” What he’d described did make me look guilty of something.
“I do whatever I have to do.” Erik pinned me with his stare, holding me captive with its intensity. “Always.”
I thrust my chin forward in determination. “Well, I’m going to go to them and explain what happened.”
“Like they’ll believe you now.”
“They will.”
“Whatever you say. I mean, you know how they operate, I’m sure.”
My stomach churned with nausea. “I’m still going to talk to them. I did nothing wrong.”
“You go to A.I.R. headquarters and you’ll be beaten for information and locked away, just like me.”
“You’re lying.”
“Only one way to find out, I guess.”
My nausea intensified.
He sighed. “What if they didn’t get your name? What if you’re in the clear? Still think it’s wise to turn yourself in?”
I experienced a ray of hope. “No.”