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Then her. Macayla.
I kicked off the sheet tangled around my ankles and threw my legs over the side of the bed. I half bent, resting my elbows on my thighs as I placed my head in my hands.
When did it end? But I already knew the answer. It didn’t. I had to live with the failure, and I deserved to be reminded of it every single day. What I didn’t like was the fact that she’d invaded it. It was her I’d yanked from the depths.
I inhaled a ragged breath. Moldova had brought everything back full force. The dank smell of the sewer. The sound of the rats parading along the walls of the tunnels.
I thought I could handle it. I did handle it, until the rain started.
Then I’d froze. I’d froze and nearly got us killed because of it.
I ran my hand back and forth over my head, then down my face.
I heard the car engine a split second before the beam of light arced through my bedroom like a fan.
It was instinctive as I dove for my gun under my pillow. I stayed low and crept across the room. When I reached the wall beside the window, I straightened, pressing my back against it.
I turned my head and glanced outside.
The full moon filtered through the treetops, leaving a dusting of speckled light over the ground. But I didn’t need the moonlight to see whose headlights they were.
I lowered the gun, but I didn’t move away from the window.
What the hell was she doing coming home at this time of night? It had to be after two in the morning.
Macayla pulled into the driveway and shut off the engine. The interior light went on as she opened her car door and climbed out. She slung what looked like the kid’s knapsack over her left shoulder along with her purse. She didn’t slam her door shut. Instead, she inched it closed, then lightly hip checked it a couple times until the interior light went off. She walked around the car and opened the back passenger door. She bent for a few seconds before I saw thin spaghetti arms loop around her neck and a pair of legs hook her waist. The kid.
I stiffened, my eyes narrowing as I watched her walk toward the cabin, stopping once to hitch the kid up as if he was sliding. She struggled a bit when she tried to unlock the door while holding the kid, who was obviously fast asleep. She opened the door and flicked on the outside lights before shutting the door behind her.
Even though I could no longer see her, I easily followed her movements as she turned on lights and lit up the cabin like a bloody Christmas tree. The only light she didn’t turn on was the one in the kid’s bedroom.
Jesus. Didn’t she realize that even with those flimsy curtains pulled closed, anyone would be able to track her movements?
What was she doing keeping a kid out this late? Had she been out partying? Had she been drinking and now driving with her kid in the car? I didn’t know why, but I knew that didn’t fit with her, and I was a good judge of character. I had to be, in my line of work, and Macayla didn’t seem the type to neglect her kid.
But I’d seen the dark shadows under his eyes. Where had they come from? His father? Her husband? Or maybe a boyfriend? Had she come here to get away from him?
It was none of my business. She’d be gone in six days.
I moved away from the window and tossed my gun onto the bed before grabbing a pair of charcoal joggers and a T-shirt out of my bag. I strode into the bathroom and placed the clothes onto the counter before stepping out of my cargo pants. I must have dozed off sometime after midnight while reading the latest Tom Clancy novel. I wasn’t a habitual reader, but I needed to distract the demons. And myself from the fact that I kept watching for her car to pull up the driveway.
I stepped into the shower and turned on the tap. The freezing cold water pelted my skin, and I gritted my teeth as I placed my palms on the tiled wall and tipped my head forward. The water pounded into the back of my neck and slid over my shoulders, the ice-cold stream warming slightly as it trailed down my heated skin.
I stared at the spiral of water pooling at my feet before it glided down the drain.
My jaw flexed and I closed my eyes, waiting for the cold water to do its job and numb the pain. The memories. The emotions.
I hadn’t had a hot shower since that night in the sewers when I was twelve. I wanted cold. Just like he’d been. His blue lips quivering while his teeth chattered so loud it echoed through the tunnel and scared the rats away.
It was the same nightmare I always had. Except this time, it had been Macayla I’d pulled from beneath the surface. Why? Why couldn’t I get her out of me?
My hands curled into fists on the wall.
Fuck, she needed to know what she was exposing her kid to by staying here with a man who tortures and kills for a living. A man stained with darkness. A man who could easily hurt her or her kid if those stains bled.
But she stupidly hadn’t run from me when she was a little five-year-old with huge, innocent eyes looking at me like I wasn’t a killer.
Would she now, if I told her what I’d done? If she knew what I’d become.
