Tag.

I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not. It didn’t look good. Fear overrode

my damaged body, and I dug my hands into the hard-packed dirt, prepared todrag myself toward him. Behind me a hoarse scream ripped through the night.

“God, no!”

I knew that voice. It raked against my panic and pain like razor blades.

Petrified, but unable to stop, I rolled over, half-propped by Ortega to watch thehorror unfolding behind me.

Part way down the alley, two men had someone pinned against the wall. My

vision wavered, and then cleared. Flash was still being held in place while athird man moved to stand in front of him. Flickering light came from somewhere,

illuminating the terror etching cruel lines across Flash’s face.

The third man, dressed in black, with wide shoulders, removed his gloves,revealing pale skin that seemed to glow against the night. Flash continued to

struggle against the other two. My mind tried to grasp the fact that a thin line ofblue-white flames outlined Flash’s arms without seeming to burn him.

“Go ahead and fight, Captain, I don’t mind.” The perverse enjoyment in the

voice chilled my soul. He raised his bare hands to cup Flash’s face, breaking theline of the blue-white flames.

There was no way to see what changed, but those horrific flames surged,turning solid white, then changing bit by bit to yellow. Yet neither Flash nor hisassailant burned. Not yet. Those flames weren’t normal. What was he using?

Why couldn’t I see his weapon?

I shoved my questions away, knowing if I didn’t do something now, theywould kill my friend, my mentor, in front of me. I searched Ortega’s body for a

weapon and came up empty as my heart raced. With no gun readily available, I

reached down my damaged leg and found my knife. With my vision swimming,my hand broken, and terror screaming through my veins, throwing it wasn’tsmart, but I was out of options. I aimed for the one holding Flash’s face. I musthave made some noise because the man closest to me looked up.

Then my knife did the impossible. It stopped in mid-air as if running into an

invisible barrier and dropped to the ground.

My mind stumbled.

A dark chuckle cut through the night.

The flames went from yellow to a hellish, reddish orange and Flash began to

scream.

The sound. Dear God, as if he was being ripped apart from the inside out.

The flames cast Flash’s face in an unearthly nimbus of fire. His screamsincreased, driving me forward.

Harsh sobs wracked my body. Then the smell drifted toward me. I began to

gag as the sickening odor of burning flesh replaced the dust-dried air. Horrorengulfed me even as Flash became the wick in a grisly pyre, the fire paintingmacabre shadows on the surrounding mud walls.

The two holding him stepped away, but the third still held his face, his hands

untouched by the flames.

I blinked away the darkness edging my vision and fought to stay conscious.

“Flash! No! Stop! Please!” It didn’t matter how much I begged, the nightmarecontinued.

When the only screams left were the ones in my head, the third man turned

and walked toward me, slow, deliberate. As he got closer, his body blocked out

what was left of Flash. He crouched in front of me and a flickering light to my

left caught my gaze. I stared at his right hand as it dripped blue-tinged flames.

“Your turn.” He reached out to touch my face.

I jerked backward, but my battered body was slow to respond.

His hand moved closer until a mere breath separated our skin. It wasn’tenough. He traced a torturous line from my cheek and down my neck, to myshoulder. The heat from his burning hand left melted skin and material in hiswake.

My screams pierced the night, then nothing.

CHAPTER 7

The sound of the door opening behind me brought me back into the present.

Too busy hiding my nightmare, I didn’t turn.

“Cyn? You good?”

At Tag’s question, I managed a jerky nod.

He stepped out onto the small porch and closed the door behind him. His shadow blocked the light of the afternoon as a glass of water appeared in front of

my face.

Setting the photo face down on the table, I took his offering.

He crossed in front of me to the other chair. He sat down without a word, setting a second glass on the table. A brittle silence settled between us. Finally,

he broke it. “Are you going to ignore me?”