Wicked Ink Read Online Free PDF Page B

distance to the hidden staircase. She had opened the door. His mind reeled with horror until he realized she hadn’t actually gone up the stairs, just stood in the space they occupied. Her scent, something flowery with a hint of her own unique fragrance, filled the closet but didn’t go farther. He would face her this afternoon because he had to, but from now on he would distance himself from her. He wouldn’t answer his door if she knocked, or eat her food if she offered it. He wished he were the kind of man whom someone like Dory could feel safe with, cherished. But he was not…and never would be.
    Trundling up the stairs, he took in the stark room. On the walls, maps and corkboards abounded, marked with the locations of places he’d been and things he’d done. But the only furniture in the whole nine hundred square feet were the chair and a long table where he worked standing up.
    He focused on the chair, ignoring the table and laptop that sat upon it for the moment. Made of oak, it was sturdy and strong. Two vertical wooden pieces cradled the back of his head to keep him from snapping his neck when he strained against the electricity he forced through his body to dissipate the darkness with light in its purest form.
    When he’d transitioned from his previous life to this one, going from hurting to helping, he had searched high and low for a way to fight the darkness he needed to activate his tattoos. It wasn’t until a cop had accidentally hit him with a stun gun instead of the perp he had subdued that he saw a possible solution. The jolt of electricity had taken the edge off the darkness, muted it. But he wanted more—something that would give him complete freedom. And so under the watchful eye of Jackson, he had started experimenting with how much voltage he could take. There were a few hairy moments when he’d come near death because of overexposure, but in the end it had been worth it.
    After moving into this new apartment, he had started doing the purge alone, and that had gone even better. Now he had mastered the whole process.
    Jackson had pulled him out of the hole he’d been living in after Morgan’s death, showing him there was a way to come back from the edge and live something resembling a normal life. Electricity was his salvation, but Jackson had been his first savior.
    Should he sit in the chair now? It was worth it to keep the people in this town safe, but he couldn’t imagine strapping himself in when he didn’t feel the slightest twinge of darkness.
    Flipping open his laptop, Garrett stood with his feet spread, waiting for feelings of anger to rip through him, for rage to take flight in his breastbone and threaten to come tearing out of his chest. And yet nothing happened.
    He didn’t trust it would stay that way, so he stayed close to the chair for the next hour, researching abandoned buildings in the area, pulling up previous places where bad things had happened before he’d made this city his home. He also popped the word
Andraste
into a search engine and came up with the Celtic goddess of war. Good to know. Though it didn’t have any bearing on the fact that he had to find Marta soon, it might be useful when his current mission was complete and he had time to go after whoever this bastard was. He wanted to be proactive. The time for reacting was over. He needed to find out who was doing this and stop them before anyone else got hurt.
    With four strong leads, he headed out the door after calling his boss to let him know he was going to have to take a day or two off to fight a cold. Since his boss was Jackson of the cleanup detail, the man didn’t hesitate. Fighting a cold was their code for something big going on. It might have sounded lame and unimaginative, but it did the job. That was enough for Garrett.
    * * *
    Typing in one last set of numbers, Dory leaned back in her chair. Lunchtime was just around the corner. She was sorely tempted to go check on Garrett, but she didn’t want