Free Brighid's Flame by Cate Morgan Page A

feeding him.
    He was a dead man. He knew it, accepted it. Now he just wanted it over with.
    The door rolled open, the sound prompting his head to snap painfully upright. Blood rushed from his brain, making him dizzy and nauseous. He startled like a wounded animal when a single light flickered on, the door slamming shut once more.
    â€œHello, Nicholas.”
    Nick peered through the careful cracks of his eyelids, lashes creating little screen doors over his vision. He cracked them open a fraction more.
    The tallest, coolest drink of water he’d ever seen greeted his parchment-dry eyes. She wore a trim, navy pinstriped skirt an inch or so above the knee, a crisp white Oxford men’s dress shirt tailored for a woman, and killer navy stilettos with a series of thin buckled straps up the ankle. Silver cufflinks—Tiffany, if he were any judge—winked at her wrists as she unscrewed the cap off a bottle of water. Her auburn hair was pinned up, leaving wisps of hair to frame her face. “Thirsty, are we?”
    He could barely dredge enough air from his lungs to force the words past his enflamed throat. “Don’t want nothin’ from you,” he growled.
    The woman appeared not to hear as she skimmed a drop of water from the bottle neck and flicked it in his direction. He could almost feel it, if he imagined hard enough. “Now, Nicholas. Is that any way to speak to the one person in a hundred-mile radius willing to spare your sorry self?”
    â€œIf you’re going to kill me,” he croaked, “just do it.”
    She clucked, as though disappointed in his performance. “You’ve put up a decent fight so far. Why give up now? Especially when I can make everything better.”
    He tried to spit, and failed, instead erupting in a coughing fit. “Is this about the bitch who put me here? ’Cause I want nothing to do with her.”
    She regarded him with bright blue eyes, clear as a summer sky. Then she lifted the bottle to her generous mouth, apparently changed her mind and lowered it again. Nick focused on the bottle, mouth slightly agape. “Do you know who I am, Nicholas?”
    He opened his mouth to tell her he didn’t give a demon’s fart in Hell, and stopped. His mind, sluggish with trauma, suddenly made the connection. The necessary synapses fired, but only managed to confuse him. “Yes.” His bloated tongue, still registering the bottle of water in her hand, had difficulty forming the words. “Why?”
    â€œBecause I want you to do something for me, Nicholas. One teeny, tiny thing. And then this is all over. But the timing has to be perfect. Timing is everything. Can you do that for me?”
    â€œWhat?” His eyes riveted once more to the water in her lovely hand.
    â€œI want you to tell them where to find Tara. And I want you to be very, very specific.”
    Nicholas stared at her, questioning whether he’d heard right. When he decided he had, he grinned like a shark.
    Tara and Stephen huddled together in the rear of the subway car, sharing their two-seater bench with their packs. There was no light in the car, other than one or two oil lanterns swaying from the metal bars overhead. People’s meager belongings crowded the aisles, while their owners jostled with the slow, rocking movements of the train. They swayed like trees in a gentle breeze as they played cards with their neighbors across the aisle, or traded small children to less weary laps. Stale, recirculated air did nothing to alleviate the stench of close-pressed, unwashed bodies. Hopeful talk of towns looking for refugees to infuse their populations and work forces provided a cozy, if monotonous, murmur throughout the slow-moving cabin. New Jersey, Connecticut and Vermont, even Boston suburbs or as far north as Maine—still a viable food source in that part of the country.
    Stephen was covered in a tweed overcoat too large for him, a newsboy hat pulled low on