“There’s no point. It’s his word against whose? Mercy’s? My speculation?” Liz’s tone contained the anger that Cain had been trying to control. She was as pissed off about this as he was.
“Dr. Payne claims she’s been unresponsive to meds, so now he’s shocked her twice in two days and still has her on enough meds to sedate an angry bull elephant. But you won’t find any of that on her official record. If it ain’t recorded, it didn’t happen.” Liz’s lips pinched so tight the tiny wrinkles around them turned into chasms. “At this stage, the damage isn’t permanent. Only short-term memory loss. But the longer she’s with him… I’m not risking my job so you can talk to her. She’s unable to talk. I’m risking it so you can save her life. You have to take her away from here before he destroys her.”
Liz’s words fell into his brain one by one, each lining up until the meaning finally hit him. He jerked back from Mercy and stood. “No way. You know I can’t.”
“You will.”
“I just wanted to ask her a question. Maybe two. That’s all. I can’t take her. Be responsible for her.” He was going to hit Liz with his best shot. “She wouldn’t want me to take her. I look too much like him.” Cain backed a few steps away from Liz and Mercy.
“Cain”—Liz had that take-no-attitude tone—“if you don’t take her, Dr. Payne is either going to turn her into a vegetable or kill her. Do you want her emotional or physical death on your hands? Because it will be if you walk away.”
His heart jerked. Liz’s words were a bull’s-eye straight through everything he feared most—being responsible for someone’s death. And Liz fucking knew it. In that moment, for the first time in his life, he hated her a little for using his fear against him. “I never thought you would stoop so damned low.”
She gave the wheelchair a shove toward him. “I can tolerate your anger, even your hatred, but I can’t endure sitting back and watching Dr. Payne kill her a little more each day. If I take her, they’ll just find her and put her back in here. Her best chance is with you. No one would ever think to look for her with you.”
Cain opened his mouth to say something, to argue the point, but his brain went devoid of thought. Liz slowly turned and walked back into the Center. She shut and locked the door behind her. Only when she was gone did Cain find the words.
“Holy fucking Christ!”
He was going to kidnap Mercy Ledger.
*
Cain had spent three hours, a third of a tank of gas, and a metric ton of worry driving across Ohio. The windshield wipers thwacked a steady rhythm—not from rain, but from a fog so thick it was like driving through cotton candy. Outside his Mustang, the world had completely vanished. Gone was the thin strip of curving blacktop, gone were the forests and low hills, gone was his ability to see more than three feet in front of the car’s headlights. The effect was eerie and alien and oddly serene. Almost the same way snow makes everything feel peaceful and quiet and transforms the landscape into something completely different.
He slowed to a pace just above turtle speed and searched the vapor for any indication of the turnoff leading to the cabin. Even on a bright, sunshiny day, it was hard to see the lane hidden in the woods.
Hours ago, he’d shifted his rearview mirror to aim at her, not out the window. She lay across the backseat, the same way she’d been the entire time, yet something inside him still couldn’t believe Mercy Ledger was in his car, and he was going to keep her hidden until…until when? He couldn’t hide her forever. Someone was going to notice she was missing. Someone was going to start searching for her. And that someone might even try to get her put back in the nut ward.
Just let them try. He gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles burned.
In her sleep, Mercy shuddered as if the temperature hovered in the frozen zone, yet her face was slicked with sweat and her pallor hung somewhere between gray and ghastly.
Withdrawals. From all the meds. Just how bad were her withdrawals going to get? He hadn’t thought to ask Liz, and she hadn’t bothered to tell him. Worst-case scenario was what? Seizures? Death? Could someone die from suddenly going off psych meds? No. He was not going to have Mercy’s death on his conscience. That was why he’d taken her in the first place. To save her.
“We’re almost there, Mercy.” Once again, saying her name calmed his mind. Her name seemed to contain magical properties.
He yanked his gaze away from her and back to the fog along the passenger side of the car. A break in the solid white line. A gap in the trees. Found it.
He pulled onto the rutted, gravel road squeezed in among the greenery. The car rocked from side to side, shifting and moving Mercy’s body along with it. She moaned, a long, low sound of primal pain that punctured his heart and popped the air in his lungs. He eased his foot down on the brake and slowed to lessen the jostling. And yet she still didn’t awaken.
How much pain must she be in for her to moan while unconscious?
A shadow formed in the gloom in front of the vehicle, then solidified into the shape of the cabin. The place looked quaint with its large windows and welcoming front porch. But to him, it wasn’t charming. It was a jail, a prison of sorts, a place where he locked away the nightmares. The one place where he didn’t have to hide the ugliness inside him—where he could purge himself and lance the festering thoughts in his head.
He parked alongside the structure and turned off the car. The sudden silence screamed in his ears as it always did after the constant roar of the Mustang’s engine.
“We’re here.” He had to speak. Couldn’t let the silence reign. Needed sound. Needed noise. Needed a distraction. “I, uh, have to go unlock the door.” Part truth. Part lie. He had to unlock the door, then he needed to hide his sketchbooks. He couldn’t allow her to find the evidence of the evil inside him. “I’ll be right back.”