Breaking Day Read online

  She obeyed with no resistance. Her mind only heard his words, echoing like a lazy whisper. Don’t – scream – Sit.

  The sudden impact of her rear against the surface of the chair finally jarred her thoughts free.

  “This doesn’t have to be hard, Seleina.”

  His words flowed easily through rose-colored lips that barely moved, their meaning, however, was conveyed effortlessly.

  Seleina tried to pull away from his gaze, but was compelled to follow every movement, every shift of his lens.

  “What are you doing to me?”

  Her voice was barely audible, even to her own ears.

  “Please, don’t resist. The more you fight against me, the more I will have to push against your thoughts. The more I push, the more potential there is to damage your mind. Understand?”

  Seleina’s head slipped forward in acknowledgement, then eased back.

  She was completely under his influence. Though the need to resist his commands was there, it was at the furthest reaches of her mind, far beyond her ability to control. Whatever his intended purpose for her, Seleina was sure he would soon make his move as she was powerless to fight against him.

  “Hey, Seleina,” the voice was familiar but her mind was in a fog and couldn’t register the owner.

  The man across from her blinked his eyes and black returned to a serene blue just before they slid over to meet the newcomer.

  The shifting of the colors offered a welcome release from her trancelike state and Seleina looked up to see David, whom she stared the 11A-7P shift with, watching the pair closely. His head turned away from Seleina and went to the stranger.

  “You okay?” David asked but he continued to hold the other man in his sights.

  “No, not really.”

  Seleina was desperate to remove herself from the stranger’s intoxicating presence.

  “Come on, I’ll walk with you back to the lab. Break time is over anyway.”

  David reached for her free arm and cupped her elbow.

  The other man remained silent and made no moves to release Seleina’s forearm. She felt the heat radiating off of his skin and penetrating hers.

  “Hey, pal, let the lady go. We don’t need any problems here.”

  David was solid in his stance and stared the other man down. The dark man’s gaze was fierce as well as he studied David for what seemed like an indefinite length of time.

  To Seleina’s relief, the other man complied and dropped her arm, allowing it slap against the table. Her strength was still ineffective and the weight of her own body was too much for her to control just yet. With a quick tug from David, Seleina was up on her feet and trying to walk off the side effects of whatever enchantment she had been under. Each step was slow and deliberate. She was glad for the momentum that was starting to build the closer she and David came to the cafeteria exit.

  Not sparing a parting glance to her unwanted visitor, Seleina clung to David’s arm and allowed him to guide her from the room and as far away from the wiles of the stranger as was possible.

  ~3~

  “You said you didn’t know that guy?”

  David’s words sounded muffled in Seleina’s ears.

  Twenty minutes later, and she was still feeling lethargic as if she had been drugged.

  “No,” she shook her head slightly, trying to avoid the spinning sensation that was now beginning to plague her with almost ever head movement she made.

  “You don’t look so hot.”

  David spoke in her direction from his station in front of the microscope. He glanced over at her and narrowed his eyes.

  “I’m okay. I just need to shake off the feeling from that man. He gave me the creeps in a major way.”

  “Yeah, he did look a little imposing.” David chuckled more to himself than to her before continuing. “Maybe you should cut out early. I should be all right. Kim is in the next lab and Al and Lacy are due to relieve our shift in under an hour.”

  Under normal circumstances Seleina would have shrugged off her discomfort. But this feeling, this stupor, was far from normal. The room had actually started to spin twice within the span of five minutes. Seleina did not usually give in to weakness so easily, but today she had no choice but to throw in the towel. Having to meet up with the same weirdo twice in less than a day was enough to get her senses on high alert. She would need to have all of her wits in order so that if and when they crossed paths again, she would be ready for him.

  “You sure you don’t mind?”

  Whether he did or not, she had made up her mind that rest – and very soon – would be the only resolution to her plight.

  “Not at all. You want me to walk you out?”

  He started to move toward her and she immediately turned, as slowly as possible, toward the coat rack. The last thing Seleina wanted was someone thinking they had to be her knight in armor.

  “No, I’ll be okay. I think you might have scared him off. He seemed to listen to you earlier. I think I might catch a cab back home. Thanks anyway.”

  ***

  Seleina looked down at the illuminated time on the face of her cell phone.

  She had called for the taxi more than fifteen minutes ago – for the second time. At this point, she could have waited out her shift, which was scheduled to be over right about now.

  Shifting restlessly from one foot to the other, Seleina had regained some of her edge. Her strength and her mental stability were returning. All the silliness from earlier was fading away and she was starting to return to her normal self again – irritated and aggravated.

  Not wanting to waste another minute waiting for a ride that obviously wasn’t coming, she pulled her backpack further up onto her shoulder and went to take a step off the curb. The sound of David calling to her halted Seleina’s steps.

  “Hey, Seleina, wait up. You still here? I thought you would have been long gone by now.”

  He walked up beside her and took his shoulder length brown hair from its holder. Just before the full-length slide down his shoulders, she eyed a small tattoo on the side of his neck that she had never noticed before.

  “I called that stupid cab and he’s been a no-show so far. I was going to walk it. The transit station isn’t that far, I usually do this every night and I don’t know why I didn’t just do that from the start.”

  He moved off the curb and his legs carried him in the direction that Seleina was already headed so she moved with him.

  “Well, that guy did seem like he meant serious business so I don’t blame you for trying to be cautious.”

  “That’s true enough. Hey what made you come over when you did?”

  The thought suddenly occurred to Seleina that David did not have to intervene. Other than a few passing words and them sharing a common working space, he had no ties to her and could have easily dismissed the whole scene on his way back to the lab where they analyzed specimens from in and out patients.

  “Come on, Seleina,” he glanced over at her and offered a small smile, “I know we don’t really talk – well, you don’t really talk – and you don’t know me, but I’m not that kind of guy.”

  “What kind is that?”

  She met his eyes but offered no return sentiment to his easy smile.

  Seeing that she was not playing along, he turned his focus forward once again and picked up his walking pace.

  “The kind who walks by while a woman is obviously being harassed and does nothing to help.”

  His hands slid into the pockets of the dark green hoodie sweatshirt he had slid over his aqua green hospital scrubs.

  “Hm, well, thanks,” she offered in a non-committal voice.

  “You’re welcome,” he replied with a flat tone of his own.

  His head dropped slightly and then his chin lifted up. A frown went over his face as Seleina eyed him. He was listening to something. It was a noise or disturbance her own ears failed to register. From the distraught look seeping over David’s features, she wished she cou
ld hear whatever held his attention.

  They had walked halfway to their destination and had reached a part of the way that was barely lighted by streetlamps. Seleina was not one to frighten easily and the veil of darkness that covered this stretch of her journey did not usually bother her, but tonight there was an uneasy presence in the air. They passed the last lamp and were engulfed in stealth darkness that went on for half a city block until the next lamp would illuminate the surroundings.

  Though she and David had continued on with no pause, the feeling of being watched slowly made its way over her already frazzled nerve endings. She could feel prickles of skin raising up on her arms.

  David continued to move forward but had started to cut a route that brought him closer to her personal space. Their arms were nearly starting to touch and his pace had quickened.

  For the next minute, he was absolutely silent. Seleina had always counted silence to be golden, yet right now it was deafening and becoming more frightening by the second.

  She could hold her tongue no longer.

  “David, what is it?”

  The moment he reached for her arm and nearly dragged her further up the street, Seleina knew that they were in trouble. What kind she was not sure, only that her companion wanted to make a hasty retreat and with her being half his size, she had no choice but to comply. Having already come to her rescue once today, Seleina was not hesitant to follow his lead again.

  Only yards away from what seemed like the safety of the fluorescent brightness of the overhead lamp and her companion halted. She heard the rustling of the bushes to the right, along the edge of the sidewalk. Given the time of year it was, it was not unusual for the wind to move the shrubbery to and fro. What was unusual was that the movement of the brush followed them as they began to move slowly forward along the walkway. Then there was the sound like a heavy rush of air or a large object displacing the air surrounding it. A hint of something rotting, like bad meat floated up her nasal passages.

  David stopped again and so did she. Seleina heard her heart beating in her chest. A shadow crossed her line of vision. She felt as if they could only make it to the light, safety would greet them. David tried to move forward, then doubled over and pushed out a heavy breath, as if his lungs were being drained of oxygen.

  He grabbed for his stomach and Seleina watched as his knees buckled beneath him.

  “David? David?”

  She reached for him. Another blur whizzed across her vision and then Seleina noticed three straight tears in the right arm of the denim jacket she wore. She studied the gashes and her brow furrowed as she quickly contemplated what they could be. Her own mind did not want to accept what her eyes were seeing.

  Claw marks. There was a telltale-jagged pattern in the rips.

  A sharp pain ripped into her left shoulder blade. Then another went through her right. Seleina’s body weight shifted back to her heals and her back arched outward. She was being dragged backward. The smell of burning rubber surrounded her, as the soles of her sneakers were dragged furiously against the unyielding concrete.

  Suddenly, she stopped. The sensation of the sharp stinging in her back returned to the forefront of her mind. The pain of the claws, now penetrating the thick jean material and digging deep into the top layers of her skin, made her nauseous. Seleina squeezed her eyes together as she fought against the fierce throbbing in her muscles. Tears budded at the corners of her lids.

  On the verge of losing consciousness, Seleina was suddenly aware of another presence. Though a superhumanly force held her captive from behind, two large limbs were reaching around her. The more the arms grabbed at her unseen foe in the rear, the less the searing pain became, and then she was released by whatever had been holding her from behind, dragging her along the sidewalk. Suddenly, her weight became suspended in midair.

  Seleina used her remaining energy to focus her eyes. Two midnight black irises stared back at her.

  ~4~

  The small woman asleep on the couch intrigued him.

  Though she was still fully human, there was an inner strength about her that drew Ryan in the moment he laid eyes upon her. When he had arrived, the stalkers were trying desperately to drag her away. She was lucky to be wearing the jean jacket, the thick fabric took most of the impact from the ragged nails on the beasts. Her wounds were artificial, she only needed to rest for a short while to recover from the shock of the attack.

  Standing over her sleeping form, he watched her chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm. The outer curves of her breasts, although obscured slightly by the starched garb she wore, were hypnotic. Ryan had to call himself back to a watchful focus instead of a lustful one no less than three times over the last thirty minutes.

  Seleina would awaken soon and he needed to prepare for her surprise – and her feistiness – at him standing in her living room as an unwanted guest. The female had already proven herself to be almost immune to his powers of hypnotic suggestion. He had to summon every bit of power within him to place her under the last few times. The harder it became to enter and manipulate her mind, the more dangerous it would become for her and for him, as well. Ryan was only at level three in the Ops Corps and his abilities were still well within the growth period. He could easily damage his own mind while trying to gain control over Seleina’s or anyone else’s.

  Ryan’s hand immediately went to his nose and rechecked for any traces of blood. All the energy he had drained over the last several hours had caused him to have several minor nosebleeds, reminders of the physical weaknesses that accompanied his remaining humanity. He would need to be more careful as to how and when he applied his abilities.

  Seleina’s curly head shifted to the left. Long locks fell across her face. For the life of him, Ryan could not understand why he had a sudden urge to reach down and move the delicate strands behind her ear.

  Focus soldier. He fought internally against the nagging feeling that was trying to surge within his chest.

  Even in his former life, he was not a Casanova. He liked his women willing and ready and was not much for wining and dining his prey. Her very presence appealed to emotions that had been long dormant within him and Ryan would fight the temptation to his last breath.

  A soft snore escaped from the sleeping woman. He stepped back and went to walk toward the loveseat opposite the couch in her small living room. He needed to put some space between their two bodies. Standing so close to her delicate form was making his insides heat up. He needed to return to a level head if he were to plan the next move. The stalkers had come for her twice within a day and their masters would not be far behind.

  Ryan’s heavy steps caused the shellacked wood to creak beneath his feet and Seleina’s eyes snapped open.

  In a heartbeat, she was sitting up and staring at him wide-eyed.

  Shit. Bad move.

  Ryan stood motionless as his trained sight watched for her next reaction, already written in her lovely hazel eyes, now a soft brown.

  Seleina shot up from a sitting position and was headed straight for the door behind Ryan and to his left. He reached out to grab her but she was quicker than he had expected and her arm slipped out of his grasp. He did a full turn of his upper torso and caught her by the collar of her uniform shirt only inches before her hand could slip around the doorknob.

  She used her elbow to dig into his midsection. If the situation had not been so urgent, he would have laughed – hard. He liked her spunk. Though the jab did nothing to hurt him, the move caused his manhood stand to attention. Women who weren’t afraid to get rough triggered his lustful side. He sucked in a long drag of air and held it to steady his growing hardness.

  He had never fought a woman before and her writhing between his arms, now encircling her slim body, seemed to excite him more than infuriate him. Nevertheless, he had a job to do and he would wrestle her to the ground if need be. Her tiny weight as compared to his own large frame was a clear indication that extreme moves would not be needed, however, he di
d need for her to calm down so he could fully explain her situation.

  “Enough!” He shouted loud and added a hint of anger. He hoped it would be enough to frighten her in to submission.