Damned. Lisa Childs

become…because she’d stopped fighting. Those other women—they hadn’t given up. They’d fought for their lives, and two of them had survived and had saved those they cared about, one of them a little girl. Her cries had haunted Irina as much as her mother’s. But the little girl had been brave, far braver than Irina.

      Hadn’t they survived? Or had she only imagined their courage? Either way, she envied it and had to emulate it if she were to survive, too.

      She had to get out of the alley, get something to eat, a safe place to sleep—get her life back while she still had it. The drugs she’d taken had been prescription ones—some painkillers, some for schizophrenia—but even those hadn’t stopped the voices. Maybe it was time she accepted that they were real. But if the voices were real, so was the killer. Dare she leave the alley? Dare she trust anyone?

      “Believe,” the raspy-voiced man murmured. But was he speaking to her or himself? What did he want to believe? Who was he? He’d called her name, as her sisters had. He wanted to find her, too. Why? For them or for himself?

      She closed her eyes, sparks of deep blue glowing against the insides of her lids. Instead of fighting his voice, she blew out a breath and immersed herself in his mind. He didn’t say anything else. The blackness remained, thick and impenetrable, with undercurrents of barely suppressed anger.

      This man was no different than the other—full of rage. A killer. He wasn’t going to save her. She couldn’t trust him.

      Could she trust herself? Could she trust her sanity?

      She had to; she couldn’t go on as she had, barely existing. She opened her eyes, then reached for the Dumpster. Her fingers clawed at the rusted metal as she sought handholds to pull herself up. Her knees shook, threatening to fold, but she locked them and stood. Physically she was weak, but emotionally she was stronger than she’d been in a long time.

      Her sisters were looking for her but couldn’t find her. So she had to find them. Urgency rushed through her veins. Like those other women, the ones who hadn’t survived, they were in danger. She remembered her sisters’ voices calling out with fear and pain. But they had fought for their lives; they hadn’t died, like their mother. They were still alive.

      And so was Irina.

      For the first time in a long time, she realized that. All the pain she’d felt, it hadn’t been hers. She was fine, just weak. She staggered toward the street, but before she could leave the alley behind, a dark shadow stepped in front of her. She shrank back toward the Dumpster, not because she thought the hulking man one of the homeless who lived on the streets as she did but because she knew he wasn’t.

      The pain in his head pounded in hers as he silently spoke to her. Witch, you weren’t easy to find. If only she’d stayed hidden a little longer…

      She shouldn’t have let that raspy voice call her out of hiding. She shouldn’t have listened to him.

      She glanced behind her, toward where flames licked up the sides of the barrel at the end of the alley. No one stood around it, as they did every other night, as they had earlier that night.

      “Help me!” she called out, praying they would emerge from the shadows where she was certain they hid, frightened of the stranger. They had no reason to fear him, not as she did. “Help me!”

      “Shh,” the man murmured aloud. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

      “Liar,” she yelled at him, her throat scratchy from disuse. “Liar!”

      He lifted his hands palms up, holding them out to her. “I’m here to help you,” he insisted. “Your family sent me to find you.”

      She didn’t hear what he spoke aloud, though. She read his demented mind. Now that I have you, I can get the rest of your family. I can get the other charms. Then I’ll kill all the witches.

      “No!” she screamed as she continued retreating from him. Her back, beneath the heavy wool sweater she wore over a threadbare T-shirt, warmed as she neared the burning barrel. Sweat, from fear and the heat, dribbled down between her shoulder blades.

      “Come with me, Irina,” the man said, his voice soft and low as if soothing a frightened animal. “I’ll bring you to your sisters.”

      Then I’ll kill all of you! Hang the redhead. Drown the blonde. Crush her daughter. And you, since you’re the spitting image of your mother, I’ll have to burn you at the stake, just like I burned her.

      “Killer!” she shrieked at him. “You’re a killer!”

      “Shh…” he said again, for the first time glancing uneasily around at the shadows bouncing off the walls of the buildings that flanked the alley. “I’m a private investigator. I told you—your family sent me.”

      “I can hear you,” she said. “Not what you’re saying but what you’re thinking. I can hear you!”

      His dark eyes gleamed eerily as he stared at her. “You can hear me?”

      “I know what you did. I know what you intend to do,” she insisted.

      But she wasn’t going to let him. She whirled around to the other side of the barrel, then kicked over the rusted metal cylinder. The barrel broke apart, and the flames leaped toward him.

      Throwing his arms up over his face, he shrank back against the wall of one of the buildings. Cowering as the barrel rolled toward him, sparks flying, he screamed, “No!”

      Taking advantage of his distraction and distance, she ran from the alley, the heels of her worn shoes pounding the asphalt and scattering tin cans and paper debris as she headed toward the street. Her long skirt tangled around her legs, slowing her frantic dash.

      You witch! When I catch you, you’ll suffer. She heard his thought first, then his ragged breathing as he chased her.

      Propelled by fear, she didn’t dare stop running when she reached the curb, so she hurled herself into traffic. Tires squealed, brake pads burning, but the driver didn’t stop in time. The metal bumper glanced off her thigh, knocking her onto the asphalt.

      He would get her now; she couldn’t run anymore. As big hands reached for her, closing around her arms, she screamed, her throat straining, her voice rising with hysteria. “Don’t kill me! I’m not a witch! I’m not a witch!”

      Chapter 2

      Irina tugged on her wrists, trying to free her hands. But the bindings held her tight, trapped. Panic pressed on her chest, and her lungs labored for breath.

      “Let me go!” she shouted, her throat raw from screaming. Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes from the pain. “Let me go! He’s going to kill me!”

      But no one believed her. If they had, they wouldn’t have brought her here. To a psychiatric ward. She’d been in one before, but she hadn’t been strapped down to a bed as she was now. She’d been an intern, not an inpatient. Committed.

      She couldn’t blame them for not believing her. She struggled to believe herself. Could she really hear other people’s thoughts? Was that possible?

      Maybe her earlier fear that she was hallucinating was founded. Maybe she belonged here. She sagged back against the mattress, which wasn’t much softer than the thin cardboard over asphalt where she’d spent so much of the past few months. Even though an IV dripped saline into her arm, rehydrating her, she weakened, her lids drifting closed. Some doctor or nurse had injected her earlier with a sedative, which must have finally taken effect. Although her muscles relaxed and she breathed easier, her anxiety didn’t lessen.

      She wished she still believed she was crazy, that she was making up the horror her life had become. But she’d already accepted her truth. And she knew her fate.

      He’d be coming back for her.

      The doorknob rattled, startling her into fighting against the restraints. She thrashed