Page 62 of Caretaker

I gaped at her. “You can do that?”

“Of course. How do you think he walks out of this house every day? Put him on the table, Rhys.”

“I got you, man,” Rhys said, gently, and when I unbuckled the cuffs and Clayton began to slide down the wall, Rhys caught him. He half dragged Clayton to the table in the middle of the floor and helped him lie down.

“Miriam, what have you done?” But I didn’t really want to know. He swam in blood. White bone gleamed through gaping holes. First, I felt horror, then I felt pain, and then, there was only rage.

I would have killed her right then if I hadn’t been so sure Clayton would go with her. He couldn’t die. Not yet. Not until he’d experienced something good first. And then I’d let him go.

He deserved his peace. His niche.

“Move aside,” she said. “It’ll be dark soon and the island awaits.” She paused and looked at me. “You’ll be careful, Trinity. Something is different with this day. This night. I can feel it.”

She reached out to take my hand and I jerked away from her, snarling. “Fix him. Don’t try to touch me. I will…” But I controlled myself and cut my words off. I didn’t want her to change her mind. She could. She certainly could.

Pain flared in her eyes, and her bloody hand fluttered to her chest. “Trinity…”

“Fix him,” I repeated.

She nodded, then walked to the table. She opened a drawer on the side and pulled out a dark, wide-mouthed jar, and after she twisted the lid off, she scooped out what looked like wet, black mud.

I stiffened when she put her hands on him, but I didn’t try to stop her. Clayton needed help. I couldn’t give it to him.

Miriam slid her muddy fingers through the blood covering his body, starting at his feet. She hesitated only once. “I went too far,” she admitted. “I was trying to force the demon out—after all, he can feel the pain, too. But I lost control. I told you there’s something bad about this day.”

Stunned, I could only gape at her. “You know the demon is still inside him?”

She smiled. “Of course. He hid for a little while. He is still hiding. But we know he is there. Waiting. Biding his time. I will not let him take Clayton from me. Not again. That’s why I did this.”

I glared at her. “You hurt him before he had a demon inside him.

She lowered her gaze. The Miriam I knew was slowly sliding back into her head. “I do this to feel better.”

“Does it help?” Rhys asked, standing with his hands at his side, his fingers dripping blood. “Does it really help?”

“Not as much as it once did,” she said. “I have to do more to get the same joy.” She stilled her hands and looked at Rhys. “Trinity helps me. I feel better just from being next to her. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“Stop talking,” I cried. “Stop having a fucking conversation and fix him, damn you!”

But Rhys had one more thing to say to her. “Then you’d better give yourself and Clayton to her before she kills both of you.”

Miriam looked at me, just briefly, but I saw the resistance in her eyes. She might have given herself to me, but she’d never give me Clayton.

And I would kill her.

Finally, she began again. She molded Clayton like a sculptor would mold a chunk of wet clay. She hummed something unending and tuneless under her breath, and her hands glowed with a pale, yellow light. She closed holes, reformed missing pieces, and smoothed new flesh over bones. Still, when she massaged in new skin, parts of it were marked with scars.

No wonder she could hurt him so easily. He was not a man to her. He was not a person to her. He was simply a clay doll, and that clay was the object of everything that was wrong with her.

I wiped tears from my face. “What’s his real name?”

She shrugged. “I no longer remember. He is Clayton. Ask him and he’ll tell you the same.”

She worked him into something real. Something breathing. Something…healed.

But the entire time he was sculpted and shaped and formed, he stared out at me from glittering eyes that were completely lucid. Completely aware.

Completely helpless.

She reached his face, finally, running her thumbs over his cheekbones, his nose, his beautiful, sensual lips, lips that were missing until she manipulated them into what they’d once been.

I would never unsee that.

I would never forget.

And I became a little harder. A little colder.

Silverlight vibrated against my flesh, begging to be released, and I really didn’t know who she wanted to taste. Who she wanted to kill.

Miriam, or Clayton.