The Unwanted (A Novella of the FBI Psychics) Read Online Free PDF

“What does it matter to you?”
    “Any reason I can’t ask?”
    A tight smile twisted her lips as she stood, pulling a neat little black case from her pocket. She opened it to reveal money, a few credit cards and her ID. Well, that explained her lack of a purse. As she pulled a few bills out, she eyed him narrowly. “I can think of a number of reasons for you not to ask. The number one reason…it’s none of your business anymore, Caleb.”
    Tossing the money down on the table, she turned on her heel and headed for the door. Caleb sighed and passed a hand over his eyes. He eyed the bills, did a mental tally in his head and added enough to cover his meal plus the tip.
    Outside, he caught up with Destin. Instead of unlocking the car so she could hide away from him again behind her laptop and iPhone, he followed her until she stopped by the passenger side. Resting a hand on the car door, he asked, “The entire trip going to be like this? You and me either walking on eggshells or taking potshots at each other?”
    Destin just stared at him.
    “We used to be friends,” he said quietly. “Maybe it was more than that, but we were friends for a while.”
    “Friends.” A queer smile curved her lips and she laughed. The sound was brittle, as sharp and jagged as broken glass.
    Just hearing it was enough to cut ugly, nasty gouges into his heart.
    Being with her had hurt. It had hurt, even as it made him more complete than he’d ever felt. It had broken him even as it made him. He had never fully been able to explain that to her because she had never fully been able to acknowledge the power of her abilities, or the devastating strength of it. She hadn’t realized what it was doing to her…to him. Hell, he hadn’t understood what he had been letting it do to him inside for a while. After he’d left, he’d tried to act like everything had been fine when he knew it wasn’t.
    It had taken months for things to come to a head, but it finally had and he hadn’t had any choice but to face reality in a hard, brutal fashion.
    Yeah. Being with her had turned into a wound.
    But walking away sometimes hurt just as much.
    None of it hurt as much as this did, though. Standing here, aware of some empty void, some pain inside her…knowing it was there, and equally aware of the fact that he couldn’t do a thing to help.
    The woman in front of him was about as likely to open up to him as she had been five years ago. She’d changed, but not that much.
    He had to touch her, though. Just had to. Unable to resist, he reached out and cupped her face. Rubbed his thumb over the scar.
    She scowled. “Would you stop touching it? I know it’s uglier than hell, but you’re a big boy—you should be used to seeing ugly shit by now. You should be able to manage not to stare.”
    Caleb narrowed his eyes. “Ugly.” Then he laughed, but there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of humor in the sound. There was no humor about this situation at all, unless it was the irony of fate.
    “Destin, there’s nothing ugly about you…and you know it.”
    For a long, tense moment, she stared at him and then Destin turned her head, hiding the scar from him.
    She knew no such thing. Once upon a time, there hadn’t been anything ugly about her—physically. Something she’d taken far too much pride in.
    Her beauty and her gift. It was a screwed-up ability and one she’d loathed almost as much as she prided herself about. It was painful and she died a little inside every time she had to use it but when she did use it, she was able to do miraculous things. Granted, the miracle came from a place of pain and suffering and she suffered through it each time, but so what?
    That had always been her line of thinking. She suffered, and the victims she connected with suffered, but through their suffering, she was able to save them. It sucked that the connection never came sooner, but that was life.
    Right?
    Up until the time she’d messed up so very badly.
    Destin