Catalyst: Book 2 in The Dark Paradise Chronicles Read online

  She was screwed.

  In more ways than one, it would seem.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Reese said, trying to buy time. “These visions.”

  “You can’t change them, darl,” Ollo said. “Sorry to say, but whatever it is you’re thinking you can change, you can’t. There is no preventing whatever it is you saw.” He paused, narrowing his eyes. “What did you see, exactly?”

  “Nothing.” She said it too fast, she knew, and her face was too red, so she had to keep talking, even though she knew for a fact that she would only make it worse. “Nothing that has to do with the war whatsoever, I promise.” She pushed her brows up and widened her eyes, attempting to resemble a puppy. “I promise.”

  He looked like he was going to push her, but something stopped him. He closed his mouth and nodded once. “At least tell me if you want the vision to come to pass,” he said finally.

  Reese wasn’t sure how it was possible, but she turned even redder, even worse than when she got sunburnt at her friend’s Malibu beach party the summer before her freshman year of high school. “I-I don’t know,” she said, looking back into his eyes. “I don’t know. But it doesn’t really matter what I want because it’s going to happen regardless, right?”

  Ollo clapped his hands together, startling nearby birds off their perches and into the air. “Right,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

  Andie

  The painful pulsating in Andie’s head was what finally woke the young woman up. She stifled a groan, closing her eyes tightly in hopes she'd feel less of the pain, before reopening them and trying to remember what happened. The first thing she thought of was Jack’s voice…he was yelling at her…they had a fight…because she had left. Because Reese’s house had burned to the ground. Okay, and then what? She went into the manor alone because Jack had to leave as Black Wing. And then? Oh yes. She walked inside and …

  Aaron.

  Aaron had taken her. Her eyes reopened, trying to make out something—anything—in the dark room that would tell her where she was. But the blackness was overwhelming, and any time she pushed her eyes to try harder, her head throbbed more painfully. She shook her head gently, hoping to rid herself of the haziness, but to no avail. Her head hurt remarkably. She had no idea what Aaron wanted to talk to her about, but she was here. Maybe if she listened to him without pissing him off, he would say whatever he felt that he needed to say and then let her go.

  “You’re awake.”

  His statement made her freeze, and as a subconscious defense mechanism, a smart retort came to the tip of her tongue. Quickly, she remembered her resolve and swallowed said retort, but though Aaron could not hear it, he could see it reflected in her flashing green eyes despite the darkness that encased them. She looked almost…dangerous.

  “I’m here,” was all Andie managed to croak out. Then she swallowed, hoping to rid her throat of its dryness. “What did you want to talk about?”

  A smirk slid onto Aaron’s face as he regarded his ex-girlfriend, and his dark gold eyes narrowed in her direction. “Don’t act like you didn’t want to talk, Andie,” Aaron said. From where Andie was, she could see that he was sitting in a chair while she was lying rather uncomfortably on the cool, cement-like ground. “You wouldn’t…you wouldn’t listen to me.” Now it would seem as though he was talking more to himself than to her, as though he was rationalizing his hasty decision to steal her away. “I needed to talk to you, Andie. I needed to talk to you! You weren’t being fair when you left, you know. So I paid the driver a crazy amount of money for him to take me into the house when I saw you were alone. Do you know how easy it is to slip onto Phillip’s property? No security, whatsoever. I had so much to say. You were just ignoring me!”

  “Well, I’m here,” Andie said again, annoyance in her tone. With a muffled groan, she managed to push herself up to a sitting position. She was lightheaded, and for a moment she felt as though she was going to collapse back onto the floor, but she managed to collect her bearings. “And it seems as though I can’t just leave. So talk.”

  “There you go again, Andie,” Aaron said in a condescending manner. “You were always pushing me. You know what you were good at?” Before Andie could answer the very obviously rhetorical question, he answered it for her. “You always had a way with words, Andie. Always. And whenever you wanted, you knew exactly what to say to hurt me. But I stayed with you. I loved you as best I could. And you still walked away. Why? I still don’t understand. And now I see you’re fucking that asshole billionaire Jack Phillip. Was it because of money, Andie? I didn’t think you were a gold digger, but for fuck’s sake.”

  “Can I answer now?” Andie asked dryly, her eyes hard and defensive. He pushed his lips together into a thin line and nodded. “First, let me start off by telling you that I told you I wanted to break up with you because I needed space. But you just couldn’t accept that. There had to be another reason for you explaining why I left. You couldn’t take the truth, so you created scenarios where there was another guy or you were too poor. But it wasn’t like that. I wanted to focus on being in high school, something you’ve never done by the way. I just outgrew you and I fell out of love with you. It was nobody’s fault; it just happened.

  “And the thing about Phillip?” she asked, and then took a deep breath. Well, if she couldn’t confess her feelings to Jack himself, she could at least get them off her chest, even if it was to her ex-boyfriend. “I love him. With all of my heart. And I know how you think, so if you want, go ahead and assume it’s because of his money, or his obvious good looks. Go ahead. I don’t care. All I know is that I love him, and I couldn’t care less what you or anybody thinks. He treats me better than you and challenged me in ways you never could. He’s protective and smart and charming and funny and—”

  “Have you fucked him?” Aaron asked shortly. Andie paused, her head throbbing. This, however, caused him to get extremely upset. “Did you fuck him, Andie?”

  “No!” she snarled, furrowing her brow. “No, I haven’t fucked him!”

  Before she realized it, Aaron quickly got out of his chair, walked over to her, and slapped her across the face. Hard. “Don’t lie to me,” he gritted through his teeth, thrusting his index finger in her face.

  Andie blinked, trying to focus on something, but it was quite hard to do when she was in so much pain.

  When Jack returned from his patrols, he quickly changed into a pair of sweatpants and a wife beater before emerging from his room. He had to see Andie. He needed to tell her everything: the fire that burned Reese’s house was started on purpose; Keirah chose Noir, chose to be with Noir. His head was spinning. He needed to apologize, to make everything right between them. He couldn’t think of much else. However, when he entered the manor, it was uncommonly quiet and oddly dark. Jack, of course, was used to the darkness, or his alter-ego was. His intuition was incredibly on-point, and right now, it was telling him that something was very, very wrong. He swallowed once, then called out Andie’s name. After waiting a moment with no response, the thought struck him that maybe she grabbed her car and left. She wouldn’t have left without saying anything, would she?

  Jack turned on the hall light, and immediately noticed the shattered vase. Andie didn’t drink, and while she wasn’t exactly the most graceful person he knew, she wouldn’t have accidentally knocked into the vase hard enough for it to have fallen. And even if she had, she definitely would have cleaned it up and written him some note apologizing profusely. As he knelt down in order to have a closer look, his heart nearly stopped. On his marble tile there were a few drops of what appeared to be blood. No, Andie hadn’t left. She was taken.

  To say Jack was pissed as he headed back down into his workshop was definitely an understatement. His brow was pushed rigidly down, looming over his dark green eyes. His lips were pressed tightly into a thin line, and he walked with such purpose, it was a miracle he hadn’t knocked over anything himself. As Beverly did her best to catch up without actually running
, she noticed her nephew’s jaw popping profusely. Knowing that Andie was taken from Jack in his own home infuriated him more than anything else. All he could think of as he descended underground was that whoever had taken her was as good as dead. He didn’t even want to think about what he would do if she was harmed in any way.

  “Now, Jack,” Beverly said, hurrying after her ward once the two had reached his workshop. “I know how upset you are, but let’s not rush into this until we’re clearheaded.”

  “Somebody has her, Bev,” Jack said once he stopped and turned to look at his aunt. “Somebody has her and is doing God knows what. Forgive me if I’m a little upset.”

  “I understand.” She placed a hand on his forearm, trying to soothe his temper. “But before you go off prancing into the night in some random direction, think for a minute. Who would take her from you? Were they out to get you or were they focused on her? Once you know the answers, you can actually look for her with a clear destination in mind, not waste time running into things blindly.”

  Jack was still tense and upset, but his mind worked quickly. Beverly was right; with a clear suspect in mind, it would be much easier to find her. “It was her ex-boyfriend,” he said after a moment. “It had to be. Nobody knows that I’m Black Wing, except….” He paused, furrowing his brow, his mind turning like the inner workings of a clock. “Lucas Burr. This all ties back to Lucas Burr. Eagle Corp. hosted the fundraiser. Aaron Groundling—a man with no college degree, who barely managed to graduate high school—is Andie’s superior. Her ex is her boss. Groundling took Andie because he holds some personal vendetta against her, but he managed to get hold of her through Burr. This was a setup to get to me; to get to Black Wing. He’s changing his strategy. Instead of going after the citizens of Onyx, he’s coming after me. Why?”

  “Because you give the city hope.” Beverly’s voice was soft but firm. “And if Burr can show everyone that even you, a symbol, something untouchable, can fall, then they won’t have hope anymore. And Andie has the power to bring you to your knees, Jack.”

  “Are you telling me to leave her?” he asked, his voice raw and throaty. “That I can’t afford any weaknesses like her? That I can’t go and get her, save her, have her in my life? Tell me, is that what you mean?”

  “Quite the contrary, Jack,” she replied, her emerald eyes flashing a warning at his tone. “Finding someone who has that power over you is rare. Even rarer is someone who can admit she has the power and is not intimidated by it. The choice is yours. But with every choice, there come consequences. What you need to figure out, Jack, is whether or not Andie is worth these consequences.”

  It took Jack no time at all to deck himself out in the garb Black Wing was known for, and by the time he returned to Beverly, she had blueprints of an old warehouse still owned by Eagle Corp. It was located on the border of the Zone, one of the most dangerous places inOnyx, but also the cheapest to live in. The closing of that factory cost a lot of people their jobs and contributed to the poverty permeating that section of the community.

  “Good luck,” Beverly offered, but Black Wing was already gone.

  Black Wing was notorious for camouflaging with the night, using stealth to sneak up on criminals without them knowing, and slipping out of certain situations unnoticed. Many citizens of Onyx believed he was impossible to kill, while others reasoned that he had to be human, and as such, he had to have a fatal weakness; everybody did. “And what about Noir?” people would ask. “Of course he has a weakness,” they would respond. “We just haven’t found it yet.”

  Once Beverly had given Jack the warehouse address, Jack slipped out of his workshop and into the night. The night was like a shelter for him. Though the streets of Onyx became more and more dangerous with each passing hour, Jack moved along with relative ease as the Black Wing. He had been the vigilante, as people deemed him, for a couple of years now, and people had yet to actually even suspect it was him. He wore sharp suits that did a clever job of hiding his toned body. He dated and slept with women; that added to his arrogant persona, and Black Wing couldn’t possibly be arrogant. Not someone who was so determined to save this city from treachery. Plus, Jack acted relatively careless concerning the city except for how it could make him money. Oddly enough, it was easy for Jack to adopt this persona because people already expected it. If anyone from the upper class had any suspicion about the wealthy man, they tended to ignore it, much like they ignored everything that didn’t have to do with money.

  What Jack wasn’t expecting, however, was finding someone who actually saw through his act. Andie Shepherd was unlike anyone he had ever met before. From the unconventional moment that they met, Andie saw right through him—the only person to ever do so. He never regretted hiring her as an intern, and she was an excellent one, probably the best he ever had. The only one he never slept with who was of age, actually, and the only one he loved. That was why he had to find her, had to save her. Currently, he was soaring through the black night, the cold trying to pinch at his skin. He couldn’t appreciate the feeling of flying while his mind was so determined to focus on Andie.

  If anything had happened to her….

  Jack shook his head. He couldn’t think about that now. He had to focus. It was a very hard task to do, however. If it had been anyone but her that had been stolen from the city, his attention would be firm and unwavering. But now, because it was not just anyone, but rather Andie, he couldn’t concentrate. He couldn’t think clearly without feeling his anger reach his boiling point quickly.

  Ringing broke through the chaos of his thoughts, and he tapped the head-set with a gloved index finger. “Yes,” he said in a low, raspy voice.

  “I looked up Mister Groundling’s criminal record,” Beverly told Jack. “No arrests, but apparently, he received a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt back when he was sixteen, which has yet to be paid off.”

  “And that’s it?” Jack asked, his brow furrowing in anger. He had to make sure Aaron had no history of violence with anyone, let alone Andie. It would not cause him to fret any less, but at least it wouldn’t be likely that he would harm her in any way.

  “Well…” Beverly said, and Jack heard his aunt flip through some papers before finally saying, “on his record, it reads that he has been publically drunk twice and has gotten into two physical fights with his friends on two separate occasions. No charges were pressed.”

  “Thanks, Beverly,” Jack said, and hung up just as he landed on the rooftop of his destination.

  There were a couple of homeless men slumped up against the side of the house and middle-aged women with no teeth dressed in skimpy outfits, trying to get anyone’s attention. He couldn’t save everyone, especially those who didn’t want to save themselves.

  Black Wing turned and headed toward the door, twisting the knob so the lock popped out and it opened. As he silently descended the staircase of the two-story building, he could hear the mumbling of voices. His eyes were used to the dark, and there seemed to be light coming from one room. The door was slightly ajar, and once he reached the first floor, he slipped into the room unnoticed. The conversation they were having was incredibly intense, and as a result, the occupants were not focused on anything but each other. As Jack made his way toward the two, he strained his ears, hoping to better listen to what they were talking about. Maybe then he would finally realize why Aaron had wanted so badly to speak to Andie, to the point of bruising her wrist and stealing her from Jack.

  “…still don’t understand. And now I see you’re fucking that asshole billionaire Jack Phillip. Was it because of money, Andie? I didn’t think you were a gold digger, but for fuck’s sake.”

  “Can I answer now?” Andie asked dryly, her eyes hard and defensive. Aaron pushed his lips together into a thin line and nodded. “First, let me start off by telling you that I told you I wanted to break up with you because I needed space. But you couldn’t just accept that. There had to be another reason for you that was my problem and that you couldn’t h
elp like there being another guy or you being too poor. But it wasn’t like that. I wanted to focus on graduating college, something you’ve never done by the way. I just outgrew you, and I fell out of love with you. It was nobody’s fault; it just happened.

  “And the thing about Phillip?” she asked, and then took a deep breath. “I love him. With all of my heart.” Jack swallowed as he listened. She couldn’t be telling the truth, could she? She was just lying, wasn’t she? But as she continued to speak, something inside him hoped that her words were more than just words. “And I know how you think, so if you want, go ahead and assume it’s because of his money, or his obvious good looks, go ahead. I don’t care. All I know is that I love him, and I couldn’t care less what you or anybody thinks. He treated me better than you and challenged me in a way you never could. He’s protective and smart and charming and funny and—”

  “Have you fucked him?” Aaron asked shortly. “Did you fuck him, Andie?”

  “No!” she snarled, furrowing her brow. “No, I haven’t fucked him!”

  Before she realized it, Aaron quickly got out of his chair, walked over to her, and slapped her across the face. Hard. “Don’t lie to me,” he gritted through his teeth, thrusting his index finger in her face.

  When Jack heard the thwack across Andie’s face, any chanceof sneaking up on Aaron went out the window. Before he could stop himself, Jack leapt out of the shadows and tackled the large man to the ground. With ease, Jack straddled Aaron and began to punch him once, twice, three times. Each time, a sharp crack was heard, causing Andie to wince. Jack, however, didn’t even flinch.