Soulless (Book #2 of Hunted)

Braniac

I stared at the fire and tried to feel sad or guilty, but for some reason I couldn't. It made me angry, the fact that I wasn't able to feel for these dead bimbos. I felt Zane's eyes on me and turned to look at him.

"What?" I asked him. He didn't answer; he just continued to stare at me. I sighed and began swaying side to side, shifting my weight from one foot to the other.

"I don't understand you," Zane suddenly said. I remained staring at the bright flames and continued to sway.

"Okay," I said. "I don't understand you much either."

"You're not normal!" he shouted at me as if it were some sort of revelation. I scoffed loudly.

"And you are?" I said sarcastically. I finally looked away from the flames and at Zane. Bright spots danced across my vision.

"Well no, but Hunters are supposed to have a better sense of right and wrong than most people so that they're motivated to fight evil, but you just..." he trailed off in search of the correct word, "Don't," he finished.

"I know what is right and what is wrong. My brain knows what is moral I just don't always make decisions based on morality," I said simply. He stared at me some more.

"So you're saying that you think with your heart," he said. I looked at him and sighed.

"My heart is incapable of thought, Zane, I think with my amygdala," I said haughtily. I may not have been as smart as Nate, but I did know some things. I saw a genuine smile break across his face and suddenly he was laughing. The sound frightened me and delighted me all at the same time. It was a pure and beautiful sound, but it also reminded me of the mad laughter I heard in my dream when Zane was slaughtering these burning girls.

"Okay, Miss Braniac," he said after the fit of laughter subsided. I grinned at him.

"Alrighty then," I said clapping my hands together. "While these guys are frying extra crispy how 'bout we go back to my house and get started on your rehabilitation program?" I asked in the most annoyingly chipper voice any one person could manage.

"How can you joke like that?" he asked incredulously. I shrugged and felt my ears burn with shame.

"I don't know. People would get angry at me when I said stuff like that. They'd yell at me and call me 'psycho,'" I mumbled. "They'd ask my opinion on some crime that had been committed and I'd answer truthfully. They'd call me apathetic or insensitive. I was only telling the truth," I whispered the last sentence. I didn't realize Zane was getting closer to me until I felt his hand on my arm.

"Believe it or not, but that is exactly how I feel all the time. Not feeling sympathy and then feeling guilty for not feeling sympathy," he said.

"Then when I say I don't care about someone's problem they get all pissed at me. Then I feel bad that I don't feel bad that they feel bad. It's all so confusing," I said sadly. I stepped away from the fire because it was making me sweat.

"Emotions are a peculiar thing," he whispered almost inaudibly. Suddenly he pulled me extremely close and pressed my face into his chest. My heartbeat doubled its speed as I breathed in his alluring scent mixed with the odor of blood.

"You are the single most incredible creature I have ever met," he said in an angry voice. I could feel his muscles trembling around me. As if he were restraining himself from squeezing the life out of me.

"I don't know how you find me incredible. I'm just a sociopath with a thing for dangerous guys," I murmured against the soft fabric of his gray wife beater. Though I knew he could crush me in an instant, I felt impeccably safe.

"You're incredible because you don't let bad situations rip you apart. Your very existence is the only reason I can't stop fighting. Because I know that if I can get a handle on my appetite I can be with you," he said. His words brought tears to my eyes. No one had ever said something that meaningful to me. I never thought I was that big of a factor in Zane's life. I thought he would be able to live without me so easily, but apparently that wasn't so.