Michelle Rowen - Wicked Kiss

His mother picked up. I shakily asked if she’d heard from him lately and where he might be. She had no information for me—and yet again, she said she was sorry. This wasn’t the first call I’d made to the Keyes residence in the last week. I’m sure his mother thought I was obsessed with her son. I was. But not for the reason she might think.

Discouraged, I hung up after saying a hurried goodbye. I stood in the center of my bedroom, my fists clenched at my sides, feeling utterly helpless and alone.

I hated feeling that I had no control over my life anymore.

Cassandra told me to stay home and let the “professionals” handle this. Well, I’d decided I wholeheartedly disagreed. I would go to the church and get my answers, even if it was just to grill Bishop about his mysterious past.

Just as I’d pulled my coat on and started for the front door, the phone rang. I almost ignored it, but something drove me to pick it up.

I picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Samantha.”

I froze. He’d only said my name, but I knew the voice. My grip on the receiver tightened. “Stephen?”

“I need to talk to you.”

My words tripped over themselves in a hurry to escape my mouth. “Where’s my soul? Where’s Carly’s soul?”

“I have to see you in person.” There was a short hesitation. “Look, I know you hate me...”

I had to slump down in the nearest chair since my legs gave out. “I just want to be normal again.” The words bubbled up my throat before I could hold them back. I knew very well that it couldn’t ever happen. Even if I wasn’t a gray, being the secret daughter of an angel and a demon had made me abnormal from the day I was born. It didn’t matter that I’d only recently learned the truth.

“Meet me at the Trinity Mall,” he said. “On the fourth floor by the railing. It’s busy there today so you don’t have to worry about me doing anything threatening, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

I stood up and pressed my back against the wall for support. “Everything about you is threatening, Stephen.”

“Don’t bring one of your new friends.”

“Why wouldn’t I bring all of them? You’re the bad guy here, remember?”

“I’m not as bad as you might think. We’re the same. We should be on the same side.”

My grip tightened on the phone. “I’m on my own side. Nobody else’s.”

“Then you should want all the information you can get about what’s to come. Meet me there in an hour.”

He hung up.

I stared at the phone before I finally placed it back on its base.

I’d been searching for him for a week and had come up with nothing but air. If Stephen didn’t want to be found, then he wouldn’t be found. But now he wanted to talk to me.

On his terms.

My first instinct was to find Bishop, but if Stephen saw him with me I knew he’d leave and I’d never see him again.

I had to get my soul back on my own. Put the lid back on this box and keep it there. Then I’d be able to leave the city again, get past the barrier. Other people’s souls—including Bishop’s—wouldn’t drive me crazy with hunger. Everything would be better.

I could still fix this.

* * *

The Trinity Mall. Not my favorite place in the city.

Over three hundred stores on four levels, it was a shopping mall slash tourist destination. Trinity was huge enough to have a few malls, but this was the crown jewel right in the heart of downtown. I used to love coming here with Carly, shopping for hours on end, and having lunch in the food court downstairs, back when we both had regular-size appetites. We’d still gorge on the food—hamburgers, Chinese food, souvlaki, French fries, you name it. She’d complain about her slow metabolism and grumble about how I never gained a pound. I’d tell her she looked fine—because she always did whether she realized it or not. I should have told her how much I envied her curves.

But then I ran into some trouble here. After my parents’ divorce was finalized six months ago, I went on a bit of a shoplifting spree. Or, as my guidance counselor put it, “a cry for attention.”

It was never much, just enough to give me a rush of excitement that I was getting away with something. That I wasn’t being perfect, or good, or coloring inside the lines like everyone had told me to all my life. Instead of focusing on being a perfect student and getting all As, I got a lipstick. A scarf. A leather wallet. I knew it was wrong even as I shoved them in my pocket or under my shirt. I didn’t try to justify it as something I needed that I couldn’t afford. I could afford it. My father felt enough guilt over the divorce and his move across the ocean that my monthly allowance, written on checks with his gold-stamped law firm logo in the corner, were so big I didn’t even need to apply for part-time jobs. I mean, I couldn’t buy a car or anything major, but for the necessities of life, I could get what I needed.

Getting caught had been mortifying in so many ways. No charges were laid, but my humiliation was witnessed by several kids from school. The cop had been a jerk to me, treating me like a total juvie and a spoiled brat. I’d sat in the back of a cop car for an hour, and only through sheer will had I avoided having the anxiety attack I always got in enclosed spaces. I’d closed my eyes and breathed in and out, pretending to be somewhere, anywhere else.

My penance for my short life of crime was to do some community service. I worked in the kitchen at a local mission and had the chance to interact with people who really had it bad while I had never appreciated how good I had it. I had a home, a roof over my head and a mother who loved me. I’d met homeless people who had nothing and nobody.

It was the most important lesson of my life. Be grateful for what you have, since it can be taken away at any time. Sometimes fate steps in to pull the rug from beneath your feet whether you’re prepared or not—and we all fall differently.

I now regretted my month of shoplifting, and not just because I’d been caught. I knew it was wrong and I’d done it for stupid reasons. Not that there was ever a good reason to steal.

But I still hated this mall. I usually shopped at the one on the north side of the city. Took longer to get there, but at least the floors weren’t tiled with my shame.

Past Macy’s and a lineup of other stores that at one time would have been calling my name were the escalators up to the fourth floor. I wasn’t a fan of the elevators due to my claustrophobia. I didn’t even like wearing turtlenecks.

At the moment, I didn’t need any more anxiety than I already had.

The railing curved in a circle around the open center of the fourth floor and looked down into the main floor food court a hundred feet below. A massive chandelier of crystal birds hung from the glass ceiling, a piece by some artist that had cost a ton of money when the mall opened twenty years ago. When the sun from the skylights hit it just right—it was magic.

I gripped the railing and gazed down nervously at the food court. Despite my big breakfast, my stomach grumbled. Sundays were a busy day at the mall. There were thousands of people here, and I swear I sensed the press, the heat and the scent of every one of their souls.

I couldn’t stay here for very long. Already, I felt the need to escape.

“You’re here.”

Stephen’s voice bit through my concentration and I tensed, turning slowly to see him leaning against the railing six feet to my left.

This was real. He was here. I’d finally found him.

Or, rather, he’d found me.

Stay calm.

But that was a losing proposition. I couldn’t be calm around Stephen Keyes.

A very short time ago I thought he was the hottest guy I’d ever seen, in Trinity or anywhere else. Black hair, cinnamon-colored eyes with a slight exotic slant to them thanks to his Hawaiian-born mother.