Her nipples were hardening, her clit becoming sensitive, moisture gathering between her thighs.
Her response to him wasn’t just shocking, it was frightening.
And she wanted no part of it.
“I said I couldn’t see the reason why, not that you weren’t being targeted,” he pointed out as though speaking to a child and patronizing her for her stupidity.
“I’m certain I don’t know why they would target me either,” she assured the director. “What I do know is that I’m not in the mood for the third-degree here. You guys have done nothing but cause trouble since you arrived. First Isabelle was kidnapped and nearly turned over to those deranged Coyotes Holden was trying to take her to, a friend is nearly murdered in front of her and now I’m being accosted during my morning run no more than weeks later. What’s next with the lot of you?”
With each accusation, Jonas’s expression turned stonier while Stygian eyed her with greater intensity.
“Your abduction could be next.”
Liza followed Jonas with her gaze as he moved to the long table against the wall.
“Let me show you something,” he suggested. Turning, he indicated that she should follow him.
Liza’s gaze shifted to Stygian before she turned and moved carefully to the table.
She had a feeling she didn’t want to see what the director was pulling from the files stacked there.
Stepping to his side, she stared down at the photos he was setting out on the table.
The eight-by-ten glossy photos were of a very ill child, her little head bare of hair, blue eyes filled with sorrow.
She was pale, obviously in pain, and stared into the camera with a sense of resignation.
Her heart beat faster, her throat felt tight with dread. She tried to tell herself, to convince herself it was because of a child’s pain seen so clearly in those frightened, worn blue eyes.
But that didn’t explain the flash of some long-forgotten sensation attacking her arm. The feel of phantom needles inserted into an arm so thin, already so bruised and abused, sent a shock wave of horror traveling through her so quickly that before she could react, it was gone.
What was that? It couldn’t be a memory, because Liza knew she hadn’t ever been so ill as a child.
The next photo was one of another young girl, though her illness wasn’t as apparent. Dark brown eyes and hair lay around her pale face. Her lips were cracked and dry, her gaze distant as though she were forcing herself to see beyond the camera.
She was living, but she wasn’t really with them. They were desperate to pull her back. What if she never came back? What if she went away inside herself and never returned to them? All the planning, all the deception and the lies would have been f
or nothing?
Liza felt her breath catch as she fought to hide the shock and fear that nearly overcame her. Clenching her fingers into fists and tucking them beneath the fold of her arms, she kept her gaze centered on the corner of the photos until the wave of disorientation receded.
But she couldn’t keep her eyes from them for long.
There were pictures of the two girls together; then, there were pictures of the hairless girl with two adults Liza assumed were her parents.
The tall, broad male had a haunted look in his gaze, while the mother’s face was filled with pain and love. They weren’t staring at the camera; rather they were standing next to the hospital bed where their child lay sleeping.
Sleeping?
Or dead?
There were other pictures.
The two girls with two Breeds. It was obvious because they were displaying their incisors in the pictures. In their eyes though, Liza could glimpse the hell all four were clearly enduring.
Compassion filled her, as well as a sense of sorrow.
“Who are they?” Looking up at the director, she had to refrain from rubbing at the chill that suddenly raced over her arms. “Will they be okay?”