“Stay down,” he said harshly. “Do not make a single move until I tell you.”

She nodded, not trusting her voice to even work. Her throat was paralyzed and fear was fast closing off her airway.

At this point there wasn’t much more damage Ari could do that hadn’t already been done by the video of her using her powers and so she focused on two metal waste bins that lined the sidewalk further down.

They hovered in the air and then streaked toward her and Beau before coming to rest in front of them, giving them some cover at least. When Beau realized what she’d done, he cursed again.

But if he thought to reprimand her, he didn’t take the time. She was suddenly hauled to her feet and shoved between Beau and what she assumed was his driver and they dove toward the car.

Ari landed in the backseat and cracked her head on the opposite door handle. Her already bruised body was taking yet another beating. She could feel every single one of those bruises and sore ribs screaming their protests.

“Go, go, go!” Beau barked. “Get us the hell out of here.”

The car took off, tires squealing as it shot into traffic. She scrambled up so she could look out the back, trying to make sense of what had just happened. The street was empty of pedestrians. They’d all taken cover the moment a shot was fired.

Beau yanked her down roughly so her head was below the windows.

“Stay down, damn it! Are you just trying to get yourself killed?”

Her eyes were wide as she stared over at him to where he too was crouched low in the seat.

“What happened, Beau?”

“Sniper,” he clipped out.

Dismay and confusion swirled in Ari’s chaotic mind. It was simply too much to take it all in. Too much had happened in a very short span of time, turning her world completely upside down. Her life as she knew it had undergone a drastic change.

“I don’t understand,” she said, trying to shake the cobwebs from her brain. “It seemed so important that they not kill me. They tried to drug me when, if he’d wanted, he could have killed me on the spot. So why would they try to kill me now?”

“They weren’t shooting at you,” Beau said, his expression grim.

She shot him a puzzled look, her confusion growing by the minute.

“They were shooting at me.”

TEN

ARI was eerily silent on the drive to Beau’s residence. She was pale, obviously shaken, and worse, guilt shadowed her eyes. He knew she was beating herself up for placing him in danger and that just pissed him off.

So when she shifted restlessly and turned her gaze on him, he knew before she ever spoke precisely what she was going to say.

“I shouldn’t have involved you,” she said in a low voice. “I had no idea this was so serious. I don’t understand any of it. But I couldn’t live with myself if someone was killed because they were helping me. I think the only reasonable thing to do is give them what they want. Me.”

“Shut up and stop being a goddamn martyr,” he said rudely.

He knew he was being belligerent when he should be more understanding and compassionate with her. She was clearly at her rope’s end and was on the verge of collapsing and she didn’t need him being a surly asshole to her. But it angered him to think of such a vulnerable, innocent woman in the clutches of some son of a bitch out there who planned God only knew what to do to her.

She flinched at the reprimand and he felt instant guilt when he saw the flash of hurt in her eyes. She masked it quickly, but not before he saw that his words had struck her like a dart.

“I’m not trying to be a martyr or overly dramatic,” she said in a low voice.

Sadness clung not only to her features, but to her words, and swamped her vibrant eyes, turning them from the nearly neon, electric natural glow to a more dull, sedate blue-green.

“I just don’t know what else to do. My parents are everything to me. My only family. They’ve given up so much for me my entire life. My powers impacted their lives even more than mine because they always made sure I was happy and safe and it wasn’t until I was much older that I understood the sacrifices they’d made for me.

“My mother calls me their miracle child. After my parents married they tried, unsuccessfully, to have a child. My mother was young, though, and my father wasn’t in a hurry. He would have been happy with just my mother if it ever came to that. But she desperately wanted to have a child.

“After countless miscarriages and my mother deciding to stop trying because the grief grew harder to bear with each child they lost, she got pregnant with me. I’m their only child. My mother was never able to have another. I wanted to be the perfect daughter, to somehow make up for the fact that my mother couldn’t have what she most wanted. A house full of children, love, laughter and happiness.

“They’ve always, always protected me. Sheltered me from the harsh realities of life. Maybe they didn’t do me any favors. Maybe they sheltered me too much. But I’ll always be grateful for what they’ve given me. Their love and their willingness to do anything to ensure my well-being and happiness.

“So now, when it’s them who need me, I feel utterly helpless. I don’t have the knowledge or skills to even know where to begin looking for them. So when I say that I feel like my only option is to surrender to these people, whoever they are, I’m not being dramatic and I’m not being a martyr. I’m a woman who loves her parents more than life and will do whatever it takes to have them back. Safe. Even if it means my own life.”