Two † The Big Sleep

To say that Kat was surprised would be an understatement. In fact, she gasped and staggered back, her heart doing cartwheels inside her chest.

The cloaked man had the face of a model: high cheekbones, a straight nose, well-shaped lips, and the most flawless pale skin. Even though his swept-up hair was platinum blond, his thick eyebrows and lashes were brown. His jaw was so chiseled it could probably cut diamonds. His irises were pale gray, the color of storm clouds, and the intrigued look in them was just as stormy.

She had never seen a guy of such caliber before, and she'd lived in L.A. since college. The city was crawling with attractive people, yet this man was on a different league of his own. He wasn't just hot or handsome—he was beautiful.

However, he was also not quite human.

The more she stared at him, the more she got this feeling. Fear started ripping through her guts. Images of her life began to assault her head, and for some reason she knew that it was his doing. That face. Those eyes. It was as though he was forcing her brain to regurgitate the things it was keeping.

Kat saw her dad holding up her birthday cake, his face gaunt but still filled with joy. She saw Vaughn, her first boyfriend from high school, in his prom tuxedo. She saw her dorm at her university, its walls bedecked with sticky notes. She saw her father's eyes going dark as she told him all her plans for the future. She saw the withered flowers on her parents' graves. She saw the glitzy apartment she was renting in LA, where she'd lived for the past years, knowing she would be alone for the rest of her life. . . .

Time seemed meaningless now, reality just as irrelevant. She was reliving every wave of her life, only in rapid pictures and vivid snippets. Her eyelids started to feel heavy, even more so when she blinked. Nevertheless, she tried to keep her eyes open, to keep looking at the man's face.

And she only had the chance to see him put his mask back on before her own vision went black.

•‡•‡•‡•

Kat had experienced fever dreams caused by hangovers, accidents, and really attractive guys before, but not quite like the one she was having now.

It started off well enough. She was back at Midnight Climax in a replay of what she assumed was last night's events. Same table, same spot, same everything. Well, except for one thing: one of the strippers was replaced by the man under the cloak. Only this time, he wasn't wearing anything that resembled a cloak. Or that cursed mask. In fact, he wasn't wearing much at all.

She sighed in content. Now she knew why she picked the dudes in those leather ensembles. The man was beyond hot.

"You like what you see, duchess?" he crooned in a smooth baritone, tilting his head. His gray eyes darkened in the dim room. "What are you going to do about it?"

Oh, she could think of so many things, especially when she let her gaze dip lower on his abdomen. Damn. Still, she didn't voice out the ungodly ideas in her head. She just smiled and beckoned him closer. He obeyed, walking in a teasingly slow pace. The neon streaks continued to flash around them, and as the man got on his knees in front of her, she got a full blast of pink light in her eyes.

She put a hand up to keep the glare at bay, but the next thing she knew, the scene had already shifted.

She was lying on her back, and instead of Midnight Climax's ceiling, there was the blue expanse of a cloudless sky. The sun was blazing down on her, and she could feel stabs of heat on her skin. The grit of sand dug into her scalp. Yellow and brown sand hills stretched in the distance, smooth and perfect. Dryness built up in her throat, in her lips, in her whole body.  . . .

A cry suddenly pierced the air, making Kat snap back into attention. There were black shapes circling above her, their distance from each other equal and their pacing consistent.

Vultures. There were vultures flying above her, which meant that she was about to die.

Indignation and fear coursed through her heart. She couldn't die like this, alone in the desert. It simply couldn't be her time. Not yet, not when she hadn't made anything worthwhile out of her life. But what could she do to save herself? Nothing. Her only option was to keep still and hope death would come fast.

The birds continued to circle around her, lower and lower. Their cries made the hairs on her neck stand on end. The sound was eerie, sinister. It didn't help that up close, the actual vultures were all scabby pink skin, intelligent eyes, and ruffled black feathers.

One vulture swooped down, faster than the others. Kat didn't close her eyes, even when the animal's head morphed into Andy's face and said, "I can put it on your tab."

Every living cell in Kat's body yelled 'no', and just like that, her eyes fluttered open.

The first thing that greeted her was the fluorescent light fixture in the white ceiling. A distinct tinge of antiseptic hung in the air, the sharp smell of something clean and dry. Her gaze traveled down, and she found herself lying on a hospital bed, an IV bag attached to her arm. There was a machine beeping in the distance, but she didn't have the time to locate it because she saw that she wasn't alone.

Sitting in the corner is an elderly nurse with a clipboard on her lap, watching her with a steely gaze. Kat stared at her, blinking hard to fully erase the image of vulture-Andy.

"Miss." The nurse smiled tightly, showing nicotine-stained teeth. "You're awake. How are you feeling?"

Kat paused to assess herself. "I'm . . . fine."

And the silly thing was, it was true. Even saying that she was fine seemed like an understatement. The distinct hospital smell should be enough to send her hurling, but it only gave her a background beat of unease. For a second she wanted to ask if they'd given her a drug for the pain, but she remembered that such an instant remedy didn't exist. If the nurse asked her to do jumping jacks right now, she would've done fifty. Hell, she would even throw in a few push-ups for the heck of it.

However, coming back along with her wits were her worries. The questions. And there were bajillions of them.

Unfortunately for her, the nurse was the one who got to ask the questions. "Are you sure? Not clammy? Not nauseous?"

"No, not clammy or nauseous." Tracing a hand along the chain of her necklace, Kat sat up and peered through the gap in the curtain by her feet, hoping not to see a particular face. "Um, what happened?"

"Accident in front of Cesar's Palace. A man named Mr. Michaels brought you in.

Kat's brown eyes went wide. "Accident?"

"Yes, miss," the nurse answered absently as she scribbled on her clipboard.

Shit. So it had been real. The accident, her narrow escape, and the mysterious and totally gorgeous man.

Wait. Kat didn't have a proof of that yet. And it's not like the nurse would know anything about it. If she dared to ask her about a guy in a bubonic plague doctor costume, the nurse might suggest an appointment with a psychiatrist. If she asked about a hot guy lurking at the scene of the accident, the nurse herself might throw her into a padded cell in a straightjacket. She was in a difficult situation.

"Are you sure you're not dizzy?" asked the nurse.

"No." She shook his head, frowning in disbelief. "To be honest I don't know why I . . . ."

"Fainted?" she supplied.

Color rose in Kat's freckled cheeks. She pictured herself promptly falling on the street like a damsel in distress. "I was thinking the term 'collapsed' would be more appropriate."

"Sure, miss." The nurse's smile became tighter and more forced. "You've been dehydrated. There's a lot of alcohol in your system, and you're lucky it didn't result to poisoning."

"Lucky, right," she mumbled. "Er, about the man who brought me in . . . What did he look like?"

The nurse's eyes narrowed like she didn't like the question. "Tall. Fortyish. Receding hairline."

"Ah." Kat exhaled in relief. So this Mr. Michaels was the driver and not her handsome stalker. "Okay."

"He's right there." The nurse gestures at the gap in the curtain. "Do you want to go see him?"

Kat almost leapt out of her bed. "I can do that?"

She didn't mean to sound and look so eager, but it was too late to backtrack. The nurse was already grimacing, probably debating whether or not to let her out. Kat decided to rearrange her features into what she hoped was a calm, sane expression.

And she must have been pretty convincing, because after a couple of moments, the nurse said rather stiffly, "Sure, miss. I'll call him here."

"Thank you," Kat said, but the nurse had already shot to her feet and slid out of the room.

Normally, this unearned snippy behavior would piss Kat off, but not this time. She just shrugged it off and proceeded to make herself at least presentable. Her hangover might have seemed like a billion years ago, but she was still wearing the evidence of her drunken night—her stinky corporate clothes.

While she was quite keen to get rid of them, she was still thankful that they weren't replaced by hospital gowns that expose the butt crack, especially since Mr. Michaels entered her room without warning.

"Here he is," the nurse announced to Kat in a bland tone, which was useless since she went in last.

"Hi," Mr. Michaels said timidly, standing in the corner like he was afraid Kat might attack him.

"Hello." Kat smiled and attempted to flatten her bangs. No luck. The little locks of hair still stuck out at a forty-five-degree angle. Embarrassed, she turned to the nurse. "Um, can you excuse us?"

Not sparing her a reply, the nurse turned around and promptly exited the room.

Okay. Alone at last. Kat sat up straighter, flashing another smile at Mr. Michaels, who was edging towards the chair beside the hospital bed. He flinched when he saw that she was watching her, but he hurriedly took a seat anyway. Now that his expensive car was no longer in the background, he seemed more like an ordinary middle-aged man. Kat wasn't sure if that made her more at ease or more uncomfortable.

She decided to go with more at ease. "I'm sorry for calling you in here—"

"I'm begging you, please don't sue me!" Mr. Michaels's desperate voice grated her ears. "Please, I'm begging you. . . ."

"Er. . . ." Kat blinked, unsure on how to proceed. "Am I allowed to do that?"

"Well, yes, but you're not going to, are you?" He flung himself at the edge of her bed, making her jump. "Please tell me you're not. My wife recently filed for a divorce, and it's been terribly hard. Nothing's looking good for me and I think I'm going to lose everything." His face creased in despair. "She's going to take the house and half of my money and Bugsy. She's going to take Bugsy."

What must one do when people give information dumps like this? Kat wondered. She definitely didn't call the dude to dissect the details of his divorce, nor the custody of Bugsy, whoever that was. But then, she also knew that Mr. Michaels wouldn't stop until she comforted him somehow. After all, she was the one who'd basically ran into the Range Rover. If it weren't for that weird wind—

Okay, this was weird. She'd forgotten about that too. But now, the memory was fresh and sharp in her head. Her urgency, her fear, the sensation of being pushed back by something she couldn't see.

That couldn't have been some random gust of wind, could it? Maybe it had been her own body all along, reacting to the sense of danger. There wouldn't be a point in asking Mr. Michaels about it. Pitching that in out of nowhere would be overwhelming. And this dude clearly had enough on his plate already.

"Miss?" Mr. Michaels's eyes widened with what looked like fear. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"

"Of course." Kat forced herself to go back to the present, to good old reality. "Don't worry, I won't sue you."

"Really? Oh, my God." Relief flattened out the deep lines in his face. "You're an absolute angel. I'll pay for everything here, so you won't have to think about anything. Just get better, okay?"

Trying to keep the air between them light, she nodded brightly, but she was already starting to get quite agitated with the questions bubbling in her head. She must proceed with care and caution, or else she'd look like a nutter.

"I've been meaning to ask," Kat started in a feathery, look-how-sane-I-am tone, "did you see anything weird earlier? Back at the, uh, accident site?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Um, well." Maybe it was time to come clean. "You see, I was being followed before the accident. I was wondering if you saw anyone who didn't quite belong there. A man wearing all black."

"No, I didn't see anyone like that." Mr. Michaels took a moment to think, but then he quickly shook his head with a small, fragile smile. "You're not a gang member, are you? I mean—"

He stopped abruptly, his whole body turning rigid. His face was wiped free of any emotion. Even his gaze left hers, now zeroing in blankly on the curtain on the other side of the bed. His back was so straight, his limbs so stiff, that he looked like a soldier-robot hybrid waiting to be booted on. 

Kat had no idea why, but the comical sight of him looking like that creeped her out.

"Mr. Michaels?" she asked in a small voice. Her knees were drawing into her body in a subconscious response to being scared. "I'm not a gang member or anything."

He was still not moving. Not even a single blink. Should she call the nurse?

After a moment's debate, she decided not to call the nurse. She doubted Miss Cranky would be happy about an interruption Instead, Kat reached out to tap Mr. Michaels's shoulder. However, before she could actually get the tip of her finger on the surface of his track jacket, he faced her. The abrupt action screamed soldier-robot, which would've been hilarious under normal circumstances, but Kat couldn't laugh. Especially when that sudden turn was partnered with chilling words.

"Katalina Donovan," Mr. Michaels said in a deep, gruff voice that didn't belong to him, "You are planning to sue me."

"Why are you calling me by my full name?" Kat raised an eyebrow. "And I already made it clear I won't sue you."

He slowly rose from his seat without taking his blank eyes off her face. "You called me here to tell me that you're suing me. I got angry, furious, that I couldn't control myself. . . ."

"What?" she spluttered. "What are you—hey! Stay back!"

Mr. Michaels continued to approach her, his hands outstretched. She backed against the headboard, surreptitiously dipping her foot at the edge of the bed to prepare for a quick escape.

"I got angry," he repeated in the same flat tone, "I got angry because you were going to sue me. Because of my anger and desperation, I am going to hurt you."

With that, Mr. Michaels leapt towards Kat before she could react, his hands zeroing in on her neck.