Turned by Virna Depaul

her way to a recent acquisition: a thrift-shop vanity with a mirror the size of the moon. She sat on its matching chair and yanked open a little drawer to find a hairbrush.
    With long, slow strokes, Ana drew the brush through her dark brown hair, something that usually soothed her.
    Not tonight. She set it down, looking at herself in the mirror. Her brown eyes were troubled. She rubbed at the dark circles under them, then sat back, pulling up the frayed strap of her tank top.
    Ana Martin, secret agent. Hah. Big fat fucking hah. What did Ty see in her?
    How badly she wanted to trust him and reach out for all that he’d offered. His help. A sense of purpose. A team to belong to, on the side of the good guys this time. That would be interesting. It was even more interesting that Ty thought she was perfect for it. He didn’t seem to doubt that she could be what he and Belladonna needed her to be.
    Maybe he was right, she thought wistfully. Maybe she could teach Belladonna’s female agents something and prove to Ty that she was worth trusting. But he seemed to know far too much about her dirty past.
    It hadn’t stopped him from kissing her, though. It hadn’t stopped him from looking at her like he wanted her. Needed her. Like maybe, given enough time, he could even come to love her.
    You really think a man like that could love someone like you?
    It was possible. Ty had kissed her like he meant it and didn’t seem to care about her scar, but that didn’t mean the guy wanted anything from her but sex. Story of her life.
    Ana pushed back the chair and flung herself into the tangled bed. She knew she’d toss and turn for hours.
    She reached for the alarm clock, running her hand down the cord to pull the plug from the outlet. The last thing she needed was to watch the digital numbers change until the sun came up. She’d stare at the ceiling.
    She slept and dreamed instead.
    After making it back to his flat, Ty dragged himself into the bedroom and collapsed on the bed. Several hours later he woke and breathed a sigh of relief. The pain had finally receded. He gingerly poked at his forehead toconfirm that the bullet wound had completely healed. He’d kept the slug as a fucking souvenir.
    Ty was still a filthy mess, though. He was covered in dried blood and sweat, and the bitter taste of the homeless man’s blood in his mouth was enough to make his stomach roll. The digital clock beside his bed told him it was 3 a.m. Shakily, he pulled himself to his feet and into the bathroom, where he brushed his teeth and spent almost an hour in the shower. Then, feeling remarkably better, he dried off, threw on some sweats, and headed for the surveillance equipment that took up one corner of the room.
    As good as the shower had felt, it was nothing compared to the curious sense of peace that washed over him as soon as he saw Ana. Peace, however, looked to be the last thing she was feeling. Her restless, sleeping image was crisply displayed on the monitor, just as it had been for the past few weeks since he’d bugged her house. For all her street smarts, Ana still had a lot to learn about sweeping a room and making sure the enemy wasn’t spying on her. That, of course, was to be expected.
    She was a tough girl, but not trained in covert operations. And despite what she wanted to believe, she was still gullible.
    He’d never tried to read Ana’s mind, and even with what he’d discovered tonight about his ability to read lingering mental energy and possibly control minds, that wouldn’t change. Though he knew he was invading her privacy right now, he was doing so by garden-variety covert means, not the paranormal. He refused to stoop that low. Anything he needed to know from her, he could damn well use his other skills to get.
    Unless mind reading became absolutely necessary. Then he’d play as dirty as his talents allowed him to. Butright now, she was pretty much an open book to him. Far more than she realized.
    As Ana muttered