Haunt (Regenerate #5)

Chapter 23

I'm still in the hammock when I wake up. Anthony's here too, one arm draped over me.

I sit up so fast that I nearly knock us both out of the hammock. Anthony has the good sense to sit up a little slower.

He blinks sleep from his eyes. "Sleep well?"

The best I have since Nightmare.

"Your yammering put me right to sleep," I say.

Anthony glances at his watch and frowns. "I have a meeting with some interns."

"Lorna is going to let you go to that?"

"Lorna doesn't know about it," he says. "But at some point even Lorna would agree that I have to go back to work."

"Maybe when you're done we can go to The Getty," I say. "Look at some art. If you can sneak away from Lorna long enough."

He studies me. "I'd like that."

I hop out of the hammock. "You'd probably better go before Lorna finds you here and confines you to bed again."

"Right," he says. "See you tonight."

I plant a quick kiss on his cheek before running back inside Lorna's house.

I'll figure out what that means for us later, I guess.

I sit and read in Lorna's living room while I wait for Anthony to be done at work. After only a few hours, he walks through the door.

"You're back earlier than I expected," I say.

He shrugs. "Didn't take as long as I thought it would."

There's something off about the way he's carrying himself. Too stiff. Too calculated. Maybe he feels awkward about earlier.

No, that's not how he gets when he feels awkward. Actually, that stance doesn't belong to Anthony at all. That's Dr. Intrigue.

He takes a step toward me. "What are you reading?"

I toss the book at him, catching him off guard. "See for yourself."

His eyes skim over the book cover as I try to think. Intrigue is in Lorna's house and I am the only one home. He'll know if I try to send out a signal to anyone else.

I hold a hand out to retrieve the book. It's an excuse to move within striking distance without making him suspicious.

He hands the book back for me, and I swing it at his head. He doesn't manage to dodge it fully, and it knocks him off balance. I kick him before he can recover, and he goes flying into a table.

Intrigue grimaces, but sits up anyway. He must be wearing some kind of armor with how quickly he's recovering.

I'm about to dive on top of him, when I feel a stinging sensation in the back of my neck. The pain intensifies as I reach for the source, some sort of robotic bug that's biting into my skin.

My knees buckle before I can remove the bug. The last thing I see before passing out is Intrigue looming over me.

When I come to, the world is upside down.

Very literally, upside down.

I'm dangling from the ceiling, upside down.

I blink, trying to clear my eyes enough to see where I am. Anthony's house, I think. Hard to be sure from this angle.

Somebody, Intrigue, I assume, grabs my arm and starts digging into my skin with a knife.

"What are you doing?" I can't heal the cuts right now. Too drained from the shock earlier.

"Sending a message."

"I don't do damsel in distress," I say.

"Luckily you're not the one I'm trying to distress." Intrigue drops my arm and I try to hold it at an angle where I can read what he wrote. All I can make out is the word interfere.

"Tell my pathetic original to leave me alone in the future," he says.

"Why bother carving it into my arm if you just wanted me to tell him in person? You're..."

Intrigue cuts across my neck. I can't finish my sentence. I'm too busy choking on my own blood.