6.
CASSIE
All the investigating Cassie wanted to do on the Tevisians didn’t need to be done in person. There was a wealth of information she could gain from the internet, too, and it was a good place to start.
She sent Vikram back to his room after dinner, feeling bad keeping him cooped up in her room listening to her attempts at speeches and giving her critique. They might have had some laughs in between it, but she knew he must have been bored to tears.
The feeling of constantly being watched was beginning to bug her, too. She was quite a solitary person—she was used to spending lots of time on her own, reading or watching movies, just being alone. Having Vikram there was draining her. She couldn’t just kick her feet up and relax because she was a little bit self-conscious around him. She wanted to make sure her hair was always perfect, that she always looked good.
He always looked perfect.
Now that she was alone she changed into some scraggly pajamas she’d had forever and poured herself a small glass of scotch, ready to start her investigations.
On the official conference list were the names of the two main delegates. A quick look into them didn’t suggest anything awry, though. They’d not been heavily involved in the rebellion, or the assassination, and seemed to have been civilians caught up in the regime and tortured for information rather than being active participants in the conflict, which was why they were here advocating for the universal rights legislation.
Cassie wasn’t deterred, though. They would still have aides working with them. The foundation was traveling light with just Miranda because of the sensitive information they had on the memory cards—they didn’t want more people than was absolutely necessary having access to it—but the Tevisians likely had at least four other people with their delegation. They just weren’t listed on the conference attendees.
She’d have to find that out by visiting them, and then she could start looking up what their roles in the rebellion were.
The assassins had never been tried for killing the Tevisian president. They were still out there somewhere. Maybe even on the space station right now.
She downed her scotch and was itching to go and confront people. She wanted to storm down there and demand answers, even though it was the most stupid idea.
It was all taking so long. She wanted to know, now. She wanted closure.
To try and calm herself down she had a look at the room service’s dessert menu. Everything was on the house for the entire conference, and she planned to take complete advantage of that. A big bowl of ice cream sounded like exactly what she needed right now.
She placed the order and resisted pouring another drink. She didn’t want to end up in the same state as the night before—she actually had to get up tomorrow morning. Though that thought made the bottle call to her again.
Tomorrow the conference began.
Tomorrow she had to be Archie, and it terrified her.
He’d given her a few days over the years where she was the one standing up and being part of the debate. Normally, though, she sat beside him scribbling notes and searching for responses for him. She was more of a clerk than a participant. Now Miranda was going to have to do that for her, something which she’d never really done before.
It was a mess.
But it didn’t matter. What mattered was the memory card. No one would be listening to her in the debates much anyway, she was just a small pressure group that had been invited out of courtesy. She wasn’t going to make or break the situation in the conference room. It was the back alley political games she planned to win at.
There was a knock on the door and she grinned. Ice cream time. A good substitute for scotch.
She took a look through the peep hole and a woman stood outside with a large bowl of ice cream, wearing the IU hotel’s uniform.
She opened the door. “Hi! I hope I’m not the only one miserable enough to be ordering midnight—”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence. The woman was suddenly stepping forward and trying to slam her in the side of the head with the tray the ice cream was on. It clattered to the floor and Cassie barely managed to jump backward and avoid the blow to the head.
She’d had basic combat training. They had to—for health and safety reasons—when they were about to be sent into a combat zone. But it was nothing compared to the skills of the woman who was coming after her now. She didn’t pull a gun, but there were knives in each of her hands now that she’d ditched the tray.
Cassie jumped backward, searching for a weapon and finding nothing but her laptop, which she pulled up to defend herself from a slashing attack. The knife slammed against the keyboard, and keys clattered to the floor. “Who are you?” she asked. This was how it worked in the movies. You distracted them by talking to them.
There was no response other than another slash from the knives. This time one sliced into an arm she automatically raised to defend herself.
Her training in this situation was to run, but the assassin was blocking the door and she had no way out.
She lunged for the panic button still on her pillow instead, and slammed her hand onto it just barely before rolling out of the way of another attack and ending up on the other side of the bed.
The bed was in between them, and now she had a clear path to the door. She bolted for it, the assassin sprinting after her. They were matched evenly for speed, at least, and she went full pelt down the corridor, her heart pounding so loud in her ears she barely heard the opening and slamming of a door.
And then there was a roar.
She dared to look over her shoulder and saw Vikram had emerged from his room, and had caught up the assassin in just a few steps.
At least, she thought it was Vikram. He looked different. Taller and more muscled. His teeth were bared and he had fangs now. His skin had changed color—he was dark red, the cracks in his leathery skin were wider and burgundy. His eyes were slitted and red.
Her breath caught in her throat as she stopped running, watching in equal parts horror and fascination as the half-Vikram, half-beast slammed her assassin into the glass wall of the corridor. It was reinforced and didn’t break, but her head slammed backward and she groaned at the force of it.
“Don’t kill her!” Cassie screamed as Vikram held the woman up to the wall with one hand at her throat, and reached for a knife with the other.
It was like she hadn’t even spoken, though. He slammed the knife up through the ribs and into the heart.
It was an instant death. She watched the life drain from the woman’s eyes and her body go slack.
“I said don’t kill her!” Cassie cried again, jogging back to where they stood. Vikram was slowly going back to its normal. His skin faded back its normal tan hue, and he shrank a little, his muscles no longer straining against his shirt quite so much. His fangs retracted and when he turned to look at her, his eyes were deep brown again.
He dropped the woman, wiping his hands against his shirt and curling his lip so much she thought he might actually spit on her corpse.
“I said don’t kill her,” she repeated for the third time. “We could have gotten information from her.”
“I can’t stop it. When the rage comes, I can’t stop anything,” he said, fetching his phone from his pocket. “I’ll call the police.”
People were already coming out of their rooms to see what the commotion was.
Cassie finally got a good look at the woman. Her eyes weren’t lilac, but it could have been contact lenses. She wasn’t going to rule out the possibility of a Tevisian just yet.
Vikram placed a hand on her shoulder and she jumped, a scream sticking in the back of her throat. “You should go back to your room,” he said. “We don’t want people getting photographs of you. Journalists will be here before long, and you’re shaking.”
His knife was still stuck in the woman’s chest, and her mouth was open in a scream. Cassie replayed the death in her mind, and didn’t know if it made her feel safer with Vikram or not. He was deadly. He was terrifying.
She allowed him to walk her back to her room, her body on autopilot as he kept his hand on her lower back.
He shut her door. “The police will be there to deal with that in a minute. I’m going to stay here with you.” He took her hand and she blinked, looking up at him with wide eyes. “You have a cut on your arm,” he clarified. “It needs wrapping.”
“Oh. Right.” She shook her head, pressing her non-bloody hand to it. “I just need a minute to get my head right.”
“Take as long as you need.”
“What was that?” she asked him. “With the skin and the eyes and the fangs?”
He smiled, sitting her on the edge of the bed and taking a seat beside her, first-aid kit in his hands. “It was a rage. It’s like a trance, almost. It’s why we make such good bodyguards. When someone is in danger, we can channel the rage. We get stronger and faster and less affected by pain. It makes us good fighters.”
“You said you couldn’t stop yourself from killing her. Does that mean you could kill anyone in a rage and not know?”
“It doesn’t work quite like that. I’m going to use an anti-bacterial wipe. It’ll hurt.”
She nodded, gritting her teeth and refusing to make a sound when the intense burn of the wipe blurred her senses for a moment. “It’s fine,” she managed.
“But, yeah, part of being in the rage is heightened ability to read body language. We can tell friend from foe. I’d never hurt you when I was in a rage.”
He began wrapping the bandage and they lapsed into silence for a moment, while she watched his fingers work gracefully. His hand was so much bigger than hers, he could have crushed her in a second if he had the desire to.
There was a knock on the door and she jumped, grabbing Vikram’s wrist as an automatic reaction. His skin was scalding to the touch.
“It’s okay,” he soothed, resting one hand on top of hers. When she didn’t relax, he lifted a hand, and she thought for half a second that he was about to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear. It hovered, right by the strand hanging in her face. He didn’t, though; he used the hand to help him stand up and said, “I’ll get it.”
She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until she could no longer feel his body heat beside her and let it go.
It turned out to be the police, and she spent the next half an hour talking through exactly what had happened while someone recorded her. When they said they were done, she finally let go of her restraint and asked the questions she’d been holding back. “Is there any news on the Archie case?” she asked.
“I’m afraid we can’t talk about an ongoing case.” They stood up and she did too, folding her arms.
“You haven’t even interviewed me about it yet.”
“We have a long list of witnesses, I’m sure you understand.”
“I do not understand. A man was murdered and you have the body of his assassin. There should be more news by now. I just want some updates. He was my friend.”
“I’m sorry. This is procedure. As soon as there’s news, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Just like I was the first to be interviewed, even though I was right beside him and almost got shot myself, I’m sure.”
They didn’t reply and left the room. Cassie’s mood was black with anger, and she slammed the door after them. “Bastards,” she muttered.
“Just following orders. It’s their bosses that are the real problem.”
“Does that mean you’ve had a change of heart and intend to help me with my investigations?”
“Don’t push your luck,” he muttered.
Her smile was weak as everything came back to her, and she lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “Well this definitely isn’t where I was expecting my day to go.” She automatically checked her bra to make sure the memory cards hadn’t somehow fallen out. “What a shit storm this conference has already turned out to be.”
“I can’t see it getting much better.”
He was doing another sweep of her apartment, and then back to the window to watch people down below. “They’re giving a statement to the press now.”
“I don’t have to give one about this attack too, do I? Maybe I should. At least now all these stupid rumors about Archie’s personal life being the reason for his assassination might stop. Unless they think we were having an affair and his wife is eliminating both of us out of misguided vengeance. Actually I can see some of them printing that. I shouldn’t even joke.”
“It’ll all die down eventually. Just got to push through.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I’m staying in your room from now on.”
He asked it like a question, even though the words were a statement.
“Really?”
“Someone came to your room and almost killed you. If I’d been in the middle of something you’d be dead. I’m not risking that again.”
“My couch is a little bit small.”
“I don’t mind. I’d feel better knowing I was in the room. As long as you don’t mind.”
She felt a small thrill at the thought of suggesting they could just share the bed. It was practical, after all. He was far too tall to sleep on the small couch really, and the bed was a double.
And if they happened to wake up tangled in each other’s arms in the morning, it would have happened in their sleep, so what would it matter?
“I don’t mind,” she said, turning around to hide the flush that had crept onto her cheeks. So he was attractive, that didn’t mean she needed to fawn over him. There were more important matters at stake. “Really, though, you can’t sleep on the couch. It’s tiny.”
He looked at the bed once, before dismissing it. “I’ll manage.”
She decided to leave it for now. She was still too full of adrenaline to think about going to sleep any time soon, anyway.
She looked at the bowl of ice cream on the floor. “I really wanted that ice cream,” she muttered. “Would it be a terrible idea to order some more? I mean what are the chances of twice in a row, really?”
“You’re allowed as long as you get enough for two.”
She beamed, and put an order in to room service. “Deal.”
He grabbed a cloth from the sink and the trash can and sank gracefully to the floor beside the mess. She had no idea how he did it when he was so large. How could he go from killing someone as though it was nothing one minute to moving like a dancer the next. He was mesmerizing in every way, really.
It wasn’t until now that Cassie realized just how distracting he was.
She’d almost been killed less than an hour ago but she was quite content to sit on her bed and watch the muscles in his back move as he scrubbed ice cream off the carpet.
It wasn’t a good sign.