Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Dahvid

Hissing, Dahvid covered his eyes. Whatever Kim sprayed in them stung to high heaven. He sneezed.

She demanded, "What are you doing here?"

Keeping his eyes closed and protected with his hands, he murmured, "I upset you, Kimberly, and I wanted to reassure you that no one sent me to collect you for them. Or to make you pay money."

"How the hell do you know my name?" she hissed.

Dahvid felt her back away from him. He imagined she was ready to spray him again. Frowning, he tried to think. Shit. He couldn't admit that he'd been stalking her. Not only in this life, but throughout all her previous incarnations. His friend Grace had warned him about over sharing. "I heard it. Kimberly. At the coffee place, the woman called your name. I am Dahvid. I wanted to explain that I don't know who your father is and would never hurt you. I came to Toronto because my father sent me here. It's a family business, and he's always sending me somewhere. Are you okay? I heard you scream?" Dahvid's eyes continued to water and burn. He couldn't open them, couldn't protect her from whatever frightened his Keeper.

Well, not his Keeper yet. Earlier, he noticed she'd been wearing dark pants tucked into black ankle boots. Along with a long black coat over a pale pink sweater. There was a purse attached to a long chain slung over her shoulder—which made it easy to access the spray she shot across his face. Instead of assuring her that he wasn't a threat, that her father hadn't sent him to force her to return to him… he'd frightened her again and she sprayed him.

But she'd screamed before he came up behind her. "What is it? What made you scream? Are you in danger?"

She sighed, and he felt the tug on his left arm as Kim urged him forward. "I'm taking you to the kitchen so I can help wash the bear spray out of your eyes. I screamed because someone had trashed my house. Not just searched it, but destroyed everything." She sighed again. "All the little things I picked out so carefully to match the style and period of the house have been broken, ripped to shreds, or scattered all over the floor. Even the dirt was dumped out of my plants."

Dahvid frowned. "Why would someone do that? Were they looking for something or trying to scare you?"

He could feel Kim tense at her side. "I don't know. I was thinking of vandals. I don't have anything worth stealing. What the hell would I hide in my plants?" she asked.

He thought of several options before he heard her push open a door and she pulled him through an entryway into what he hoped was her kitchen. His eyes were stinging, and he wanted them washed out so he could look around and see what had happened to her home and figure out if Kimberly was still in danger.

Before the thought could sink in, pain exploded in his head. Oh, hell. Whoever went through her house was still here. Dahvid slumped to the floor. He didn't lose consciousness, but before he could decide if he should fight back, even blinded as he was, Kimberly landed on top of him. He resisted the urge to wrap his arms around her. Freezing in place, he wanted to know what was happening. Whoever hit him also hurt his mate.

"Take her purse. We didn't find anything in the house or the shed outback. Maybe she's carrying it with her. Put her in the van. The boss wants to talk to her before we kill her." The voice was gruff and low. Male.

As was the one who answered. "What do we do with him?"

Dahvid felt the kick in his side. He was careful not to react. Keeping his eyes closed and his teeth clenched, not wanting to make a sound. He couldn't see and any move he made meant moving Kim off him and trying to blindly fight two attackers. Even armed, they really couldn't hurt him, but Kimberly was vulnerable.

"Bring him with us. I don't recognize him, and we've been following her for weeks. Maybe he's her contact."

It was difficult to not react to being jerked along the floor through the house, bounced down the porch stairs, and then thrown into the back of a vehicle. From the size, he figured it was a van. Seconds later, Kimberly once again landed on top of him. The door slammed shut, leaving them alone. Cautiously, Dahvid moved his hand between their bodies, searching for her pulse. He allowed himself to relax when he felt the strong, steady beat. He made minor adjustments to both the arrangement of his body and hers before he heard the van doors open and their attackers climb into the front.

Kimberly

The headache woke her. The throbbing was an insistent counterpoint to her pulse. Every time her heart pounded—the pain escalated. Kim tried to open her eyes… but the darkness scared her. Was she blind?

She felt the warmth of someone next to her, and that made everything worse. Fear caused her pulse to pound harder and her head to shatter. She couldn't stop the moan.

"Kimberly, it's Dahvid. Are you okay?"

Who the hell was David? She must have said those words aloud because he answered her. She was surprised at the humor in his voice. She struggled to open her eyes, but the pain in her head made it impossible.

"We met at the coffee shop this morning. I followed you home. Then we were on the way to cleaning the bear spray out of my eyes," he whispered.

Oh, right. Bear Spray. She didn't want to know if he was whispering because they were in danger, or because he realized her head hurt. It was easier to ignore that and just let her aching head rest. Bear Spray.

Canada had a lot of wildlife—bears, wolves, and moose were only three of the larger animals you had to watch out for. Anytime you went hiking, it was a good idea to take the spray with you. It was like pepper spray for humans… only much stronger. Which meant it was an important thing to keep in her purse. Kim often worked in some high-crime areas.

"They're coming," David murmured. "I'm going to pretend to be unconscious. I'm afraid they'll take me away from you if they think I'm awake. They keep talking about questioning both of us."

Kim heard the words but didn't really understand. Her head hurt so bad—she wanted to scream.

Suddenly, the lights came on. Brilliantly bright lights pierced through her eyeballs and into her brain—like daggers. Or shards of glass. She whimpered and turned, trying to shield her eyes from the pain. Squeezing her eyes shut didn't help.

The door flew open, banging against the wall. Kim moaned again at the loud noise. Someone grabbed her shoulder and tugged on her.

"Good. You're awake," a man growled at her.

She didn't think it was good. It was horrible. Everything in her body hurt, especially her head. She couldn't focus on what was happening to her. Kim soon discovered that movement was not her friend. When the man tried to pull her to her feet, she projectile vomited.

The man screamed and pushed her away. "God damn it! She barfed all over me."

Kim collapsed to the floor, hitting her head before vomiting again.

"I was afraid of this." Another man's voice this time. Still gruff. Mean. "Her head is bleeding, and she has a concussion. We'll be lucky if she lives."

"We were going to kill her anyway," the first man grossed.

Kimberly lay there in her vomit. In so much pain. Listening to the men discuss killing her, unable to care… or do anything about it. The pounding in her head increased. She didn't move, not wanting to attract their attention, not wanting to vomit again. That made her head hurt even worse.

The second man said something about their boss. That he didn't want her dead. Not yet. Because he wanted to talk to her. Then they could kill her. Her mind tried to make sense of what they were saying. She had no idea who the boss was, or why he wanted her dead. And her brain was cloudy. The fuzz started to overtake everything.

Kim took a shallow breath. She didn't want to lose consciousness when these men were in the room with her and David. There were no other sounds in the room, other than the voices of the two men. David was doing an excellent job faking unconsciousness.

As if her thoughts had caught his attention, the whiny man said, "We can take the guy to the boss. I didn't mean to kill her."

She wasn't dead yet. But maybe she was dying. Her head hurt enough she might be. Kim heard a thud and realized the whiny guy must have hit David or kicked him. No noise came from her friend in response. David was her friend now. They were in this together. She didn't want to take him away from her.

A tear leaked from her closed eyes. She didn't want to be left alone. To die alone. That was so selfish of her. She knew David wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her.

Someone moved, then settled. The second guy spoke. "He's still out. Jesus, Ben. What did you conk him with?" Disgust evident in his voice.

The whiny guy sighed. "The wrench I used to take apart her furniture."

"We'll check her in the morning. Nothing we can do now but tell the boss they aren't awake or responding."

Whiny guy asked, "You'll tell him, Lucas?"

The door closed before the man's answer and moments later—the lights went out. Kimberly sighed and felt herself drifting away. She wasn't alone.

Dahvid

The door slammed shut and Dahvid opened his eyes. Using the five seconds of light to check out the room and as much as he could see of Kimberly's head injury. One of the captors had said her head was bleeding.

He had specific powers—such as observing details that would slide past a human along with increased strength and stamina.

The room they were in was large. Windowless. The only way in or out was through the heavy metal door. That didn't concern him. He could see in the dark, just not far. Details were sketchy, depending on how much natural light there was. In this room, it was none. But in those few seconds, Dahvid noticed enough to help Kimberly.

He waited several minutes, hoping their attackers were gone. Eventually standing, he stretched his muscles and evaluated his balance. He didn't have any lingering effects from the head injury. If the men came back, this time he'd fight. Dahvid inched his way to the sink. The towels smelled clean, and the water was cold, but it was drinkable. Which meant he could use it to clean Kimberly's wound and remove the blood and vomit from her.

First, he let his fingers do the walking over her scalp. Finding the gash on the top of her head—just below the center. It wasn't deep and her skull felt intact, although it might be bruised. Head wounds bled a lot, but weren't always fatal. Wetting one of the smaller rags, he cleaned the gash as gently as he could.

Then he rolled up a piece of the cold, wet towel and wrapped a torn strip around Kim's head to hold everything in place. Dahvid hoped the light pressure would stop the bleeding. Then he used another piece of towel to carefully clean her face, arms, and legs by touch. There wasn't much he could do about her clothing.

After he cleaned and bound her head-wound, Dahvid picked up Kim and moved to the corner that would be partially hidden if someone opened the door.

Before laying her down, he spread out the towels he hadn't used, so she wouldn't be on the cold cement. Then he covered her with the last towel. He settled beside her, putting his body between Kim and the room.

Like all Guardians, Dahvid had the ability to communicate with his ship. Implants in his brain were connected to the ship's computer. He could do a number of things. Like, check the day and time. It seemed as if they'd been taken captive days ago, but it was only about ten hours. It was night now, close to midnight.

He could also check if his call for help had been answered. He didn't expect another Guardian to answer the call… Dahvid was the backup. But even a Helper or two would be great. Helpers were assigned to every Guardian pair. They served in the shadows, taking care of finding and acquiring items the pair required. Even arranging places for the Guardian and his Keeper to stay when they were in other realms. Even though Kimberly hadn't committed to him yet, there might be Helpers in the area who could lend a hand.

Except he hadn't received an answer yet.

Dahvid could move the ship with his thoughts, even engage the weapons he had on board. He could also summon the small, two-person glide. It was a shuttle that had stealth ability and could land in very tight places. That would come in handy later. At this point, he had no idea where he was, or if the building had a roof for the glide to land on.

Keeping his eyes closed, Dahvid thought about what else he needed to know. Then he remembered one of the men saying that Kimberly could die from her concussion. He needed to know if that was the truth.

The ship's database told him that humans who received a severe head injury could suffer from intracranial hemorrhage. Symptoms of this included vomiting, the inability to remain awake along with poor response to commands, and other items at which he could only guess. He was fairly sure she had a headache and unsteady vision. He didn't want her warning signs to progress, adding weakness on one-side of her body or seizures. And yes, their attacker had been right. Combining a concussion with an intracranial hemorrhage could lead to death.

It was unacceptable. Worse, the database said that movement could make her symptoms worse. Dahvid could walk out the door right now and escape, except he couldn't move Kim. He also couldn't fight with her in his arms.

Checking Kim's head wound again, he was happy to see it had stopped bleeding. But she was obviously concussed and could have a brain bleed. He had heard enough to know the man who ordered Kimberly's house searched had no plans to keep them alive. She wasn't going to heal on her own and seemed to be getting worse.

She was his Keeper. His body was designed to care for her. To heal her when she was sick. He had two choices—heal her now and they could escape—or let her die from her injury. Well, there was a third option… let the kidnappers kill them both. So, really… there was only one choice.