Adrian Phoenix - Beneath the Skin

Slipping the flash drive into his trouser pocket, Emmett bent and wrapped his fingers around the satchel’s handle. “Chief,” he said, straightening. “Is there anything else we should know about the project or Prejean’s enhancements ?”

Gillespie swiveled around to face them, the lenses of his glasses reflecting light, his arms still folded over his chest. “I wish I knew,” he said quietly. “Be careful out there. Don’t take any chances—especially with Prejean. Hell, not even with Wallace and Lyons. I know HQ wants them alive, but it’s not worth your lives. Not to me.”

“Might be better to take our time and wait for Prejean to Sleep,” Merri said.

“Maybe so,” Emmett said. “But then he could hole up someplace we won’t find him. So I think moving our asses is our best option.”

“Then let’s hit the friendly skies and catch us some bad mofos.”

“Truth, sistah.”

“Be careful,” Gillespie said again, voice low. His gaze once again fixed on the office’s blood-spattered interior. “And that’s a direct order.”

“Roger that, Chief.” Emmett exchanged a glance with Merri as he strode for the front door and the fresh air beyond. Doubt and a frown pinched the skin between her eyes. A dark realization glimmered in her eyes, the same realization rolling around in Emmett’s skull.

He and Merri were being ordered into the forested hills of Damascus on a goddamned bureaucratic ass-covering operation without knowing the truth of what they were up against.

A monster waited for them in the forest’s dark heart, a monster who savaged a man in his own home, but left his daughter untouched.

A monster named Dante Prejean.

LAFAYETTE, LA

Eleven years ago

Chloe bounces out of the bedroom she shares with the other girls, wearing the purple Winnie the Pooh shirt he nabbed for her from Walgreens. Grinning, blue eyes bright, she throws her arms around him and hugs him. She smells like strawberries and soap and her red hair smells like baby shampoo.

“It fits, Dante-angel! It’s perfect!”

He laughs and hugs her back. “It looks great on you.”

“Do you want to practice reading?” she asks, releasing him and smoothing her hands down her new Pooh shirt. “I got some books from the library today. One is called The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight. It looks a little spooky.”

“Spookier than Winnie the Pooh’s adventures?” he teases.

“Winnie the Pooh isn’t—oh!” Chloe giggles and smacks him on the shoulder with the plushie orca in her hand.

Dante grins. “Did you learn anything new in math that you could teach me?”

Chloe tucks Orem the Orca under her arm and considers. “Just more multiplication stuff.”

“I like multiplication stuff.”

Chloe’s face screws up into her ick-gross expression. “Yuck.”

“I see that you like it too.”

Hands on her hips, Chloe sticks her tongue out at him.

“Wanna go to the park first? I’ll push you on the swing.”

Just as Chloe opens her mouth to answer, another voice carries in from the front room, the accompanying foot treads punctuating each word. “Boy, you got work tonight, you. Time to get yo’ ass downstairs.”

Those words scour the happiness clean from Chloe’s face. Her blue-eyed gaze seems to age while Dante watches — no longer eight, but a wary forty. She hugs Orem against her chest.

It’s okay, Dante mouths to her. A smile ghosts across her lips. He turns around.

Papa Prejean stands in the hallway in white T-shirt and khakis, his belt loops empty, an amused gleam in his hazel eyes. “Now why ain’t I surprised to find you with Little Ms. Feisty, huh, boy?”

Dante’s gaze tracks down to the belt folded in Papa’s hand. He steps in front of Chloe. “I’m going. Ain’t gonna need that.”

Papa looks down at the belt in his hand. “Oh, this ain’t for you, p’tit.” His gaze slants past Dante. A chill ripples the length of Dante’s spine. “Seems someone didn’t vacuum the parlor like Mama asked.”

“I was gonna,” Chloe says.

“I was talking to her and held her up, so punish me,” Dante says.

Papa laughs, his voice cigarette-smoke rough, then coughs. “How’d I know that too? I ain’t gonna let you do it this time, boy. How’s she ever gonna learn to obey if you always take the belt for her, you?” Papa shakes his head. “Ain’t gonna mark you up before your clients get here, anyhow. Get in the basement, p’tit. After you’re done, I think I’ll give you the belt anyway since you’re so hellfire eager for it.”

“No!” Chloe shouts. “It’s not his fault!”

“Shhh, princess. It’s okay.”

Amusement gleams in Papa’s eyes again. “Aw … ain’t this sweet? Y’all wanting to protect each other from what y’all got coming.”

“Get that p’tite marmaille in here, Papa!” Mama Prejean shouts from the front room. “I want this parlor vacuumed tout de suite. You can beat her lazy ass later.”

“Looks like you get a reprieve, you,” Papa says, nodding his chin at Chloe. “Go do what Mama wants. I’ll deal with you later, me.” His gaze flicks over to Dante. “You too.”

Ice rims Dante’s heart. He has an uneasy feeling that as soon as Papa cuffs him to the bed in the basement, Papa’s gonna march upstairs and beat Chloe. Beat her while he’s cuffed and unable to do anything but listen. That’s gonna be his part of the punishment.

Dante whirls, hooks a hand around Chloe’s biceps, and moves. She squeaks in surprise. Papa shouts and yells as he and Chloe blur down the hallway, into the brightly lit kitchen, blowing past a startled Mama, then out the back door into the night, screen door slamming behind them.

“We’re flying!” Chloe breathes. “You really are an angel!”

“Ain’t no angel. Ain’t flying.” But the houses blur past Dante as he zips down narrow Catherine Street, surprised by his own speed.

“Where we going, Dante-angel?”

“Dunno,” Dante says. The cool night feels good against his face and smells of wet pavement, boiling crawfish, and rain-heavy roses. He swings onto Johnston, then blurs down to Lewis, heart pounding, a wild hunger knotting his belly. He tightens his grip on Chloe’s arm.

“Are we running away?”

“Maybe we are, yeah.” Only wanting to get Chloe out of Papa’s reach, he hasn’t even thought about where they are going.

As cars shush past them on rain-wet streets, headlights starring the night, Dante moves across the street to Girard Park. He slows to a walk, but slides his hand down from Chloe’s arm to her hand and clasps his fingers through hers.

She looks up at him, her long red hair wind-blown and tangled. She smiles, and the sight of it buoys his heart. It rises within him as though on wings.

“Where will we live?” Chloe asks.

“Dunno. Maybe we can find an empty house and move in,” he says, angling a path past the swings and into the evergreens and leafless elms. Leaves crunch underneath their shoes. “But we can’t stay here. Papa’d find us.”

Chloe’s fingers squeeze Dante’s hand hard. She stops walking, forcing Dante to a halt. She looks at him, and her eyes glisten with more than just starlight. “Papa’ll kill you,” she whispers.