Why bother with pleasantries? Kira wondered. Both of them knew she’d witnessed something that would probably result in her being killed so she couldn’t tell anyone about it.

“Fascinating,” he said, almost to himself. “I cannot hear a word of what you’re thinking.”

Kira’s hands instinctively went to her head, as if she could physically block him from trying to peer in her mind. His half smile quirked.

“That would do you no good under normal circumstances, but as I said, I cannot hear your thoughts.”

“What are you?” she blurted. An alien? She knew the government was lying about that Roswell incident . . .

“Nothing you need to worry about, Tina,” he replied with a shrug. “Soon, you can—”

“Why did you call me Tina?” Kira interrupted in a panicked whisper.

“Perhaps I just need more blood,” the stranger muttered.

“You stay away from my sister,” Kira snarled, rising. Whatever he was, he’d run from the police. That meant they must be able to hurt him, and if he had anything planned that involved Tina, she’d find a way to hurt him, too.

He held out a hand. “You misunderstand. You said ‘Tina’ right before you lost consciousness earlier. I thought it was your name.”

Kira didn’t remember that, but it made sense. When she saw how horrible her injury was, her last thought had been that no one else would be around to take care of Tina once she was dead. A wound like that should have killed her, yet the first thing Kira had noticed upon waking was that her stomach was healed. Incredibly, no mark even remained, and she felt fine, though her clothes were still torn and stained crimson with blood.

That made her give her kidnapper another slow evaluation. He must have healed her somehow. Did that mean he was being truthful when he said she was in no danger, or did this creature have something even worse in store for her? If he had no malicious intentions, why hadn’t he left her at the warehouse with the police?