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  “You a pervert?” Jared half asked, still backing up. “You always walk around the woods spying on women?”

  The strange look in the man’s eyes held Isadore captive. So many emotions all at once. Curiosity.

  Rage. Okay, only two, but a lot of those two.

  “I’ve been listening,” he repeated. His eyes bore into hers still, his voice hissing with a low snarl that showed near flawless teeth. He looked at Jared and slowly tilted his head.

  The air in the room suddenly became hot, like it was on fire, and Isadore gasped. Ice cold wind came next, slashing intermittently within the heat.

  The man pointed at Jared. “You. It was you who lied.”

  Chapter Two

  Ruin stared at the human named Jared, not understanding why the heat of the sun burned through him alongside the ice roaring in his ears. He quickly searched through the data he’d gotten in the last two days to explain it but found nothing to match this need moving him closer to the man. His body told him to take the human’s head off. No, the heat said it. And the cold… the cold seemed to say no, that wasn’t right.

  The longer Ruin stared at the skittering human, the hotter the heat became. He looked at the woman next. She had taught him a lot in the last few days. The look in her eyes held the answer. If only he could see past the fear in them. The power to rip or crush something drew a snarl that rumbled in his chest. Ruin clenched his teeth when the ice grew stronger, carrying a simple directive. Don’t.

  The powers boiled inside him until his body heaved with it. Ruin glared at the man. “Leave!”

  Blood colored fire exploded through the room with the command, followed immediately by white ice harnessing the flames with spidery fingers, turning sure death into a hiss of steam.

  Before the air cleared, the human was down the ladder and running out the door. Ruin gazed at the woman named Isadore, looking to her for answers to what had just happened to him. The fear in her eyes slowly ebbed away enough for him to see questions. Questions, like he had. She was like him in many ways, he realized. Was that why he felt the constant need to watch her?

  Blood on the bed drew his gaze and he involuntary went to her, searching its source. Finding a wound on her leg, that anger from earlier stirred again. He became acutely aware of two things happening inside him. One part of him wanted to open the injury on her thigh that produced the blood and let it pour until the wretched body was extinguished. The other part of him wanted to kill what caused it.

  It all confused him, and he remembered the words that he needed to say to her. “Help me.”

  Waiting, he studied the woman’s eyes that matched the sky when it peeked through the trees during the hottest part of the day. The sizzling in his brain happened again. He liked the feeling because he always understood things more after he had it. He waited for the heat to do its thing, watching the

  movement of life at her neck without looking directly at it. The sparks raced around in his head from one thing to the next, almost too fast for him to follow, as he stared deeply into her gaze.

  He took an abrupt step back at finally getting what he saw. There was no name for it, only that it made the heat inside him swirl with the need to crush her. A deep growl began to vibrate in his throat and the look she had immediately flashed to fear, making the heat worse.

  He’d never had the need to take her head off before, but he did now. And he was sure he would have, if the shards of ice didn’t war in his body, little knives of don’t. Ruin hurried to the window when the heat spread, demanding release. It was somehow worse than it had been with that human, Jared. The need to understand why, or not knowing why, wasn’t helping. He didn’t like all the things he didn’t know and needed to know.

  He gave one furious glance back at the woman before jumping for the tree limb over the roof. She was the answer. He didn’t know how or why, he just knew she was. As he sought a place nearby to wait till morning, he contemplated that last look in her eyes. It had told him other things about her. It said she’d give him all the answers he needed. And that she’d give him whatever he wanted.

  ****

  Isadore eyed the swamp with caution as she made her way to her crawfish traps in her faithful canoe, riddled with patches, mostly made out of miracle-working-chewing gum. She wasn’t looking for the alligator, but Tarzan. That’s what she’d nicknamed him until she had a name. And she would definitely be getting a name. “Help me.” She muttered the words he’d spoken. “How am I supposed to do that if you don’t ever come back?”

  Giddy excitement tickled her stomach and she focused not on the man’s body or looks but on the other amazing things she should be focused on. Like…damn those eyes, she’d never seen green eyes like that before. But really, what required her scientific attention was what he’d done with the air in the room and how he’d done it. She pulled out her sticky note pad from the front pocket of her overalls and bit off the cap of her blue Sharpie. “Felt like a hundred and twenty degrees,” she wrote on the pad. Holding the Sharpie between her teeth, she tore off the note, folded it and put it in her front pocket then began drawing some of the symbols she’d remembered seeing. “I know those symbols…at least a few of them.”

  She wiped the drool from her Sharpie and put the cap back on and returned them to her apron sized pocket gaping open at the top of her coveralls. She got serious with the oars until she reached her first trap location. She pulled it up and the bait-war saga took the stage of her mind, front and center.

  “Fuckers,” she muttered. With a sigh, she looked around, feeling like the bastards robbing the bait out of her traps were hugging a tree nearby, whacking their legs and howling in silent laughter. She was the butt of the joke in town. “Stupid city-girl trying to be a country girl. She’d never make it,” they said. But ohhhh, look who was making it. Let them cram that in their pipes and smoke it.

  “That’s okay,” she said loudly, hoping somebody was there to hear. “I’m just going to put up city cameras to take pictures of whomever is stealing my bait and then they are going to jail!” Stupid, Cajun coonasses. She tossed the empty trap back into the water and yelled, “I was raised in these swamps! Did you forget that?” She snatched up her oar and jabbed it into the water. “I have a right to be here!” She made her way to the next trap, thinking it was time to relocate them again. “Buncha’ dumb fucks,” she muttered. “Maybe I will do the camera thing. I could put some fake ones; they’d never know the difference. Could probably put up one of them View-Master 3-D toys and the idiots would think it was a sophisticated modern-day-devil-contraption.”

  She aimed her canoe for the next trap and stopped to find the same moral felony as at the previous one. There was no point in checking any further, they’d robbed them all. A good thing she had money, or they’d have robbed her back to the city. It had become a matter of principal. And maybe stubborn challenge, but these ‘effers weren’t going to win. Letting them win was wrong. Not stopping them was wrong. She rowed her boat to Mr. Thibodeaux’s just for a quick hi and to check on him.

  Dragging her canoe on land, she made her way along the skinny grass trail to the old man’s back door. “Mr. Thibodeaux?” She knocked loudly on the old screen door. “It’s Isadore, you up?” She could hear the sound of frying and by the smell of it, he had the day’s vittles on. Which could be any number of innards from any number of animals, all of which Isadore had no taste for. Anything that operated as a filter in any capacity in nature, was not only dirty, it tasted dirty.

  “Izzy? Come on in chile, the door open.”

  She opened the flimsy door, mindful that it only hung by a top hinge. “Just stopping to say hi,”

  she called out, pulling the pitiful frame shut so that it rested in the jamb. She passed through the closet sized room just before the kitchen and focused on the smell of fresh brewed coffee. She pulled out the metal chair she’d given him. “Remind me to pick up that screen for that back door when I go into town tomorrow. One of these days I’ll f
ind you’ve been carried away by the mosquitos.”

  Mr. Thibodeaux turned with a coffee cup and loud laughing, shuffling his way to the table. “Dem skeeters don’t botha me. They can’t poke no holes in dis here ole hide. You comin’ from yah traps?” His gnarly hand trembled as he carefully set the cup down and then himself before leveling those gray eyes on her, lit with the promise of gossip.

  “You know it.” She always made him work for it and today was no different. She took the single spoon from the cream and sugar tray, another gift she’d given him—but for her when she came—that’s what she’d had to say since he sucked at accepting gifts.

  “Well?” he cried. “Dem sons a bitches stealin’ from ya’ still?”

  She nodded slowly, stirring her cup. “Yep. They are.” She sipped her coffee, noticing he’d finally put up the fly tape she’d bought him. Not a one damn fly on it. Rip off.

  “Well, I’ll be!” His old body jerked dramatically. “What you gone do, Izzy? Mebbee you could train dat alligator to help you?” He cackled and rocked in his seat, delighted with his idea.

  She nodded and shrugged, sipping her coffee. “Very funny. You know I don’t like alligators.”

  “Meh, why not, sha? You live in da swamp, das dare hometown! You gots to luv ‘em!”

  “No, I don’t. I never read I had to love them alligators to live in the swamp. I may like to hunt one and et’ him up though.”

  Mr. Thibodeaux got a kick out of that. “You gone hunt you an alligator? Now dat would be fun to watch, fuh sho! You hawngry?”

  “No, I just wanted to say hi and ask if you’d heard of any newcomers in our neck of the woods.”

  “Newcomers?” His eyes lit up again as he leaned back, regarding her. “Meh, no.” He leaned in close then. “Why, you see sumthin’?”

  “Oh,” she waved a dismissive hand, “No, no, I just… wondered.” More coffee stirring now. “So, we expecting a hurricane this year?”

  “Dis might be dah year, fuh sho,” He nodded and caressed his elbow. “I feel it in my ole bones.”

  She nodded in return, hoping he was both right and not. “Are you ready? You said you’d come stay with me if we had one.” At seeing his absent expression, she pointed at him. “You promised Mr.

  Thibodeaux. I told you I was scared.”

  “Meh… I can’t really leave mah house like dat.”

  “Your house isn’t going anywhere!” she cried. Problem was she was sure his house was going somewhere if a hurricane hit. Her dad had made their house to withstand storms and it had. “The last hurricane you went through nearly kilt you, those were your words, mister!” she aimed an accusing finger at him.

  “Awww,” he pawed the air with his old hand before smiling at her with his chin nearly touching his nose. “Ima be alright, chile.”

  She sighed and shook her head then got up from the table. “Oh I’m sure you will because you’re staying with me. You said you would. You can’t go back on your word,” she reminded him.

  “Lemme walk you out, chile.” She nearly protested but the old man loved company, so she spent the ten seconds it took him to complete the simple task. “You still comin’ tomorrow to get me my stuff?”

  “As scheduled,” she said at the back door.

  “Aaaaaas schedule,” he repeated, sounding happy about it.

  She scoped out the area for any out of the ordinary movements resembling Tarzan as she made her way to her boat. Carefully climbing in, she sat and pulled out her sticky pad and bit off her blue Sharpie cap. “Add screen to Mr. Thibodeaux’s list,” she mumbled around the cap in her mouth, scrawling

  quickly then ripping the note off. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.” She folded the paper and put it in her pocket.

  “Okay sha, be careful, now.”

  She tossed a wave up then stabbed the oar into the mud, pushing off while looking for any alligators. And a half naked man covered in tattoos.

  Back at the house, docking the canoe proved to be vexing with the whole scoping out the area without appearing like she was. It didn’t help that she had to fulfill her obsessive canoe parking ritual.

  The rear had to face north, paddles together, placed spanning both seats, and rope knotted exactly right or there would be no damn sleeping at night for her brain.

  With the canoe tying task done, she covertly reapplied her hair clamp, using the opportunity to casually glance around. What was wrong with looking? That was a normal thing for a woman to do living alone in a swamp.

  Grabbing hold of the pier post, she climbed out of the canoe and hung the rope then headed toward the house. Again, she acted uninterested and unintimidated all at the same time. “Just…casually checking for rogue alligators,” she mumbled, glancing about. She found herself worried about what she looked like. Geeze, she really, really, needed to get out more.

  She eyed the storm shutters along the house’s wall as she made her way up the walk. All shut tight. No guilt there, she had warranted reasons, especially the upstairs ones. Pulling her key from one of the pockets on her outfit, she unlocked the padlock on the front door. She didn’t need a hand-bag with her attire. She had more pockets than her grandmother’s purse. And that was a lot of pockets.

  Isadore opened the door and hurried in, sliding the deadbolt home. Turning, she leaned against the slats and sagged with a sigh, feeling like she’d swam sixty miles-an-hour through quicksand.

  The cut on the back of her thigh throbbed and her brain re-enacted the way Jared viciously yanked her through the window. She'd successfully fought off the memory all day. It was one of the reasons Tarzan had been so easy to think about, anything to avoid that fresh nightmare. She was necessarily stupid to contemplate not showering as stinky as she was. But dealing with that ugly gash and the memories it came with might be worth it.

  Putting water on for coffee, she decided she wasn't going to let the incident dictate her life. She'd not fall back into that trap. She headed to the small bathroom and turned on the shower. The hot water heater was made for one tiny midget person with very short hair, not a compulsive woman who had to wash herself exactly thus and so. She'd just make herself hurry.

  Stripping out of her baggy blue-jeaned overalls, she tossed them into the grass green hamper then yanked open the shower curtain. Shit, the bandage. Whatever. She’d tend to it separately, after. Stepping

  into the hot water, she set to washing her hair. She didn’t want her appearance to scare away potential company that might happen by her house. For help.

  Halfway through rinsing her hair, she was rejuvenated by the hot water she’d plum run out of now. Grabbing the bar of Ivory soap, she lathered the green puff-ball as fast as she could and washed her body, face to toes then, back up again. By the time she was rinsing, she’d been in the cold water long enough to become exhilarated.

  Images of Tarzan’s tattoos returned for the fiftieth time and her brain itched to get a closer look at the odd scrawl. Something was familiar about them. Just who the hell was he though? She couldn't rule out angel. Paul said in the Bible, "Be sure to entertain strangers because many had entertained angels unaware." So, technically he could be. And the way the air changed, and all that stuff happened, well... it had to be. Shit. Could he be a demon? Could they do that?

  If he never showed up again, she’d be inclined to think the entire thing was a hallucination, Jared and all. But if he was real…she’d like to thank him at least. She’d been too freaked out that night to think about it.

  The cut behind her leg throbbed in answer to the hallucination theory. But… maybe she had a nightmare and slept walk out the window?

  Geeze. The idea that she’d be crazy enough to do that was a scary notion. Yes, trauma did things to people, but it was hard to accept that for herself, an intelligent scientist with an IQ of 156.

  Shutting the shower off, she jumped at hearing the whistle of the kettle. Wrapping a towel around her, she hurried out to the hot plate to shut it off. “Shit,” she whispered. />
  “Can you help me?”

  Chapter Three

  Izzy screamed and turned to find him--Tarzan-- sitting on the loft stairs. “Oh my God, how did you get in here?”

  “The…” He seemed to contemplate and struggle for the word before giving up. “I need your help.” He stood and made his way toward her and she backed up, hitting the stove. He wore the black pants and no shirt still which drew her gaze to those tats until she realized it was rude to stare and snapped her gaze up. Thick black brows furrowed in what seemed like… annoyance before he pulled out a kitchen chair and sat. “You said… you would help.”

  “I did?”

  He gazed at her, those bright green eyes making her stomach knot. “Yes.”

  She shook her head a little. “I don’t…remember saying that.”

  “Not with your words.” He pointed to his eyes. “With these... you told me.”

  She swallowed hard, worried about the man’s mental state. “Are you…? Are you sick?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where are you from?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know that either.”

  She gasped, realizing. “You have amnesia?” That was a stupid question. “Never mind, don’t answer that.” She pointed at the ceiling. “You mind if I go upstairs and get clothes on?”

  He suddenly lowered his gaze. “If you…think you need to.”

  His lack of knowing that she should get clothes on was disturbing. That was some serious amnesia if he didn’t remember it was wicked bad manners to stand in front of a stranger in only a towel.

  “I think I need to, yes. I mean yes, I need to.”

  He nodded, and she hurried to the loft. Chancing a glance at him on her way up, making sure he stayed put, or that he was still there and she’d not imagined him. That brutal green gaze followed her, confirming that she’d not lost her mind.

  She attempted a relaxed smile that threatened to shake right off her damn lips as she raced up the stairs. Once in the privacy of the large room, she gasped, holding up her shaking hands. She clenched her eyes tight, fighting to think. Clothes!