Fallen by Christina Skye Page B

dozen colors were arranged in silver vases beneath fine oil paintings. Where was she?
    Abruptly the night’s memories returned in a searing rush. Maddie fell back on the bed with a gasp of anger and confusion. It couldn’t— shouldn’t be true.
    And yet it was. All of it. The truth of the night whispered in her blood and burned at the skin of her palms, where even now she could feel the odd, restless prickling of the spirals of light. The marks were moving, almost alive as if they called her to do something—something Maddie couldn’t understand.
    Or maybe she didn’t want to understand.
    She sat up slowly, grim and focused. She had to check in. The last time she had spoken to Izzy had been hours ago. For all she knew, he had already called out the local police to find her and take her in to custody.
    Except he wouldn’t know where to look.
    Where was her wretched phone?
    She pulled on her jacket and jeans and padded to the small adjoining room. She hadn’t slept long, because it was still dark outside. If she hurried, she could catch Izzy before he did something rash.
    Like contact Interpol, the CIA, or the FBI.
    But her phone was nowhere to be seen. Her backpack was gone too. Maddie glared at the beautiful room, vainly searching for any way to communicate with the outside world. No phones anywhere. “Don’t the people in this mansion believe in modern conveniences?”
    She dug a hand through her hair, frowning as the floor seemed to tilt. Dizziness hit her in a crippling wave and she bent double, staggering. “S-stop spinning,” she gasped.
    And just like that the spinning stopped. No more waves. No more dizziness. Maddie opened her eyes and put one hand on the ornate mahogany side table, thinking about what she had said. And about what had happened next.
    “Start spinning,” she whispered.
    Dizziness slammed over her. The floor tilted and she gasped with nausea and total wonder.
    “ Stop spinning,” she ordered sharply.
    The room went still, utterly still. Command—and result.
    “Okay, this is spiking crazy high on my weirdness meter, Toto. I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
    Maddie stared around her, searching for answers. And then she gave a cocky grin. “I need my phone,” she said very clearly.
    Nothing happened.
    She ran a hand through her hair and thought about what she had said. And what she had not said.
    She thought next about what Lyon had explained to her earlier. Something about her … powers?
    She tried again. “Make my phone ring.”
    Brrring . The sound cut through the air to her left, low vibrations that came from inside a beautiful cherry bureau. Maddie followed the vibration. When she opened the drawer she found the sleek unit Izzy had given her at the museum moving in tight little circles right next to her backpack.
    Total weirdness.
    But it still could be a coincidence. Maddie watched the marks shift over her hands and tried to believe that all of it was a coincidence. She threw all her wanting into that thought, desperate to be normal again, playing music in her grimy little studio apartment and reading a computer manual while she gulped down her usual ulcerously strong espresso brew.
    She didn’t want this , whatever it was, and she didn’t want to change and she didn’t want to make choices and she definitely didn’t want to think about Lyon’s callused hands when they had kept her from stumbling on the ridge, and how he had touched her hair and then slid his jacket around her shoulders when she had shivered and then thrown up. Those things made her body tighten and feel oddly restless.
    Okay face the truth , she thought.
    The man is smoking hot. How can you not think about him? And he’s somewhere thinking about you too, because you saw the way he looked, dangerous and hard, his jaw set in a tense line when you reached up to grab his shoulder.
    Something was going on here.
    Maddie closed her eyes, remembering how her breasts had pressed against his hand and how she