That’s what this is about. His father. His hunt.
And that look in his eyes—I recognize it too well. The one Mama would get before she found a new boyfriend with new needles. The one Daddy gets before the rent money disappears. There’s always an addiction. And God, the books on the nightstand prove no one’s really immune.
“Then stay,” I say, more afraid for him than myself. There’s a reckless aura around him. A violence that seems almost directed at himself—or the man who made him that way. “Stay here with me.”
He gives me a crooked smile, eerie because of how sweet it looks. “No, baby genius. You know the answer is no. I have something else to do first.”
“You’re not a killer. You said you were, but you’re not.”
I don’t know if I’m trying to convince him or me. How could I love a murderer?
“I’m not?” he says, almost idly. What he shows me next takes my breath away. It’s hard to hold his gaze, to stare into the terrible soul he shows me. “I’ve never killed before now. But I think I’m going to enjoy this. I’ll draw it out, make it last. And when I come back this will finally be over.”
He leaves the room with that threat in the air.
With that imagery in my mind. Torture. The kind of torture that Jonathan Scott did to me. The kind he must have done to his own son for years. It’s a form of justice, a balance to the equation. But it will turn Damon into the same monster he’s hunting. It will break this man as surely as his father broke me.
Chapter Nineteen
I spend the next few days in a kind of stunned purgatory. My mind replays that kiss over and over again, recalling the silver flecks in his eyes I could only see that close, the slightly mint flavor of his breath. A thousand details my mind catalogued for me to look through, hour after hour, minute after minute.
And every daydream ends the same way.
With the nightmare of me in that black pool, fighting to breathe.
Avery has downloaded these books on her phone about PTSD and repressed memories. She reads them out loud to me, but I’m not really sure if they’re for me or her.
It takes days before her worry level starts to rise.
Breaking out of this gilded cage will require more than ordinary worry.
Over a breakfast of oatmeal and grapefruit slices I say, “He’s not coming back.”
Her hazel eyes meet mine, panic pure and strangely beautiful. “Penny?”
I pick up my spoon, wondering about the best way to convince her. Damon is going to crush the last small piece of his humanity torturing his father, who also happens to be after you. No, she wouldn’t rush to Jonathan Scott’s aid. And that’s the way she would see it.
He’s not the one in danger. What he did to me, the way he violated me, it’s unbearably intimate. He knows things about me, private things, but I know things too. Like the fact that he wants to die.
He wants to be tortured, for whatever insane reason is in his head.
“Why did you say that?” Avery demands. “What do you know?”
“He never said goodbye.”
She gives me a hard look. “If you mean Gabriel, he’s coming back. Any minute now.”
“Him too.”
“Penny. Who didn’t say goodbye?”
“Damon.”
She hides her relief. “Do you want him to come back?”
Only with every cell in my body.
I want him to come back whole, not as the monster he hunts. I shrug, swishing my oatmeal around in the bowl. Avery is always pushing me to eat more. Doesn’t she realize that I’ve survived on less my whole life? This is what I need her help with—getting us out of this fortress so that we can find Damon.
“Maybe we can visit the Den one of these days. We’ll get Gabriel to take us.”
Does she really think that’s how it will happen? That Damon will let us visit him for tea in the afternoon? That her precious Gabriel will come out of this unscathed? No, she wants to believe that. I understand about that. “He needs help.”
She bites her lip. “Do you ever hear voices? Voices that aren’t there?”
All the time, but not the way she means. I think she has repressed memories, ones that are coming out to haunt her. My memories live on the surface. They keep me cold company, even when I’m alone. “You definitely can’t trust me.”
Her eyes widen. “What?”
I feel a little guilty for this, but I need Avery to be afraid.
Need her to understand the enemy the men are facing. It’s not that he doesn’t care about their souls. It’s his goal to burn them. I understand Jonathan Scott in a way no one else does, maybe even his son.
“Run and tell your daddy that Jonathan Scott is here.”
Sometimes I wish I could push the memories down, the way she does. But that would be such a complete aloneness. I guess they bring me some comfort after all, memories of the terrible Jonathan Scott. I think I’m finally getting through to her when we hear footsteps outside.
I watch with an aching chest the hope across her face.
The doctor comes into the kitchen. Hopes dashed.
He looks as rough and jagged-edged as ever, his shirt sleeves rolled up revealing thick forearms and some kind of pale tattoo on his smooth freckled skin.
“How are you feeling?” he asks me.
I like Anders, because I don’t have to pretend around him. Whatever’s in my head, he seems to understand. “I used to dream about trees,” I tell him, but I don’t mean trees. I mean the wild boy who lived in them. The pretend-life we could have lived if he stayed. “About sunshine. And dirt.”
He simply nods. “Better, then.”
I am doing better, strangely better than Avery herself. It seems strange, like maybe I should be more broken by what happened. Then again there’s no timetable for recovery. “I know it doesn’t sound pretty—dirt. The smell of it, thick and strong. It means you’re free.”
Even in my fantasies we don’t live in a castle. If he had stayed we would have lived in the woods, would have fished in the lake, would have walked barefoot and wild.
The good news is that Avery comes up with an elaborate plan to escape the mansion. That it’s such a secret confirms every fear I’ve had about our positions here. Prisoners.
The bad news is that she thinks she’s leaving without me.
I sneak after her and the security guard on her tail, making it into the trunk of the black SUV before the door closes.
“What are you doing?” Avery whispers, her eyes wide with surprise.
With a sigh I burrow myself into her body. She knows exactly what I’m doing.
After a moment her body relaxes, accepting me.
It’s actually pretty impressive, the feint she set up so they would think she left with a delivery truck from earlier. The security guard drives us off the property himself.
Less impressive when we sneak onto the streets of west side. That’s where her plan ends, with two young women stranded in the worst part of town with no money. Only a rich girl, honestly.
“Tanglewood Sober Ride,” I tell a surly bus driver, dragging Avery back with me before anyone can protest. The program is rarely used by people who actually should use it. More by people who want to joy ride on moldy old buses, which tells you everything you need to know about the state of the seats.