Darkness Comes Read Online Free PDF Page B

depths of her soul. Including the parts she’d locked down, the parts tainted by evil.
    Something shifted. He stepped away from her. “Deal’s off. Goodbye, Dr. Simon.” He walked off into the night, turned a corner and disappeared.
    She screamed after him, “Wait. You can’t leave me here! We had a deal. You son of a bitch.”
    Her vital signs should be spiking. Ramierez should have pulled her out. When the technicians saw her brain waves weren’t controlling the environment, they should have enabled the failsafe, brought them out with a concoction of meds to drag them back into reality. Something was off. It had been from the beginning. Why was she stuck here?
    Mia turned and kicked the metal door. What the fuck was she supposed to do now?
    * * * * *
     
    Dylan walked through the streets of his construct. He’d lived on these streets in his youth. Grown up among the squalor and poverty of the unacknowledged underbelly. It was one of the reasons he became a thief. His mother, stripped of her pride and dignity, had begged the Company for help to feed him. When they’d refused, practically laughed in her face, she’d taken to turning tricks in the market for food or coin.
    His beautiful mother with the sad eyes and warm, tender embrace. The woman who always made sure he had a hot meal and a kiss at bedtime. She’d died of an STD when he was six and he’d sworn to rain havoc down on those who’d denied her.
    Blood thundered through his veins. He needed to breathe. He hadn’t felt anything for years until her. Dr. Mia Simon.
    He’d had to get away from her. Now that there was distance between them, he forced his body to relax.
    She’d burrowed under his skin. The beautiful psychologist with a dark side.
    He’d believed he could control her, break her down by showing her images from his past. He’d played her game, bought into her secret desires.
    He’d thought her “darkness” revolved around her own past. He’d underestimated her. Her dark desires ran deep. She’d actually wanted him to kill her.
    In his experience, people usually begged for life when confronted with death.
    Not her. She’d embraced it.
    Maybe the VR made her bold. He remembered the look in her eyes. The determination, the courage.
    Fascinating.
    Dylan ducked into a gambling den. He found the bustling atmosphere calming.
    He retraced her scars with his mind. The angry red mass of puckered skin. Her badges of courage.
    It had started out as a game. A challenge to break down the brilliant doctor. Somewhere that changed. She intrigued him. He admired her spirit. He’d seen something inside her that reminded him of himself.
    They’d both been tainted by blood. Both irrevocably changed by the darkness of their youth. Yet looking into her eyes, he’d seen something he’d thought lost—a vulnerability. A certain type of innocence despite the darkness. A desire to be known. To be loved.
    Something shifted inside him. Softened.
    He couldn’t afford to have her under his skin. He couldn’t afford to feel anything. Especially not for her. She could destroy him. Feelings made you sloppy, weak. If he let her into his cold heart, she would change him, burn away the need for revenge. His conscious would rear its ugly head and he’d lose his edge.
    Images of her wandering the VR alone bombarded his mind. “Fuck.”
    She couldn’t pull herself out, not while he was still in control. He had to go back.
    Pushing past a crowd of gamblers, he focused his thoughts. Her fear permeated his senses. What trouble had she gotten into? Technically, this world was his construct. Until he allowed Mia into his head, she shouldn’t be able to project her past into this reality.
    Unless something had gone wrong and they were sharing a consciousness.
    “Shit.” He broke into a run. He needed to find her. Fast.
    * * * * *
     
    Trapped in a maze of alleyways and grim backstreets, Mia began to panic. Not only had Dylan abandoned her, he’d left her in his