Touch

Eighth

Katie felt the need to yell as she watched Lucas head toward the bedroom door. She was not insane. She had seen a hand, a gnarly, vicious hand.

He needed to believe her!

She recalled the hand's silky, inhuman texture, and her skin crawled, suddenly prickly and cold. She shivered and averted her gaze so the ensuite door wasn't in her line of sight, not even in the corner of her vision.

That hand was still out there.

Damn it, she needed Lucas' weapon. She wouldn't be able to find the courage to face it without some means of offense. And she wouldn't be able to relax, let alone rest, let alone sleep, let alone think, until she'd killed it.

Another thing about Katie Pops: she could be exceptionally stubborn.

"Luke, wait a minute," she said.

He froze, hand hovering mid-air. His fingers were nearly on the handle. She saw how they ached to twist it and disappear.

Lucas' broad back was rigid. "I'm not helping you chase imaginary hands."

"You don't have to," Katie said. She tried, and failed, to swallow the ball in her throat. She didn't understand why she was nervous. Lucas never made her nervous. He was... He was never this. "Just leave your gun with me."

He swiveled around abruptly. His face was confused and irritated, nothing like its normally pleasant, docile expression. "No. Hell no. Are you listening to yourself? This is--"

Crazy.

He cut himself off just in time. He didn't say it, but he might as well have.

It ached more than a physical blow.

This is crazy.

The unspoken words, along with Tasha Pops' vocals, rang louder and louder in the room, stinging Katie's mind, blurring her thoughts--an electric cloud that shocked her, again and again.

Crazy, she thought numbly. He meant to say 'crazy.'

Lucas' face softened--he'd realized his mistake. His lips pitifully bumbled something along the lines of "I'm sorry."

He finished, "But giving you my gun is going to end badly."

"Luke--"

Katie was interrupted by her mother's screams.