The room went hotter than an incinerator. Sweat dripped off his face and splatted onto the floor. The sounds coming out of him were as wretched as he felt. The phantom barfing lasted a short eternity.
He needed to reassure her that he intended no harm. He turned his head toward her corner, opened his mouth—
She was gone.
His eyes nearly leaped out of their sockets.
Shit.
He jumped to his feet, gaze darting around the cabin, at the same time he knew that she had run off while he’d been sick. “Mercy.” Her name came out on a sigh of defeat. He should just let her go. Let her run toward whatever fate awaited her. She didn’t want him. She preferred Dr. Payne over him, so let her have Dr. Payne.
No.
He might be a monster, but he wasn’t an asshole. Duty, obligation, and remorse propelled him out the door after her. To her, it wouldn’t be a positive sign that he was chasing her. But what other option did he have?
The night was starless and moonless, casting the world in varying shades of black. A sea of dense forest surrounded the clearing the cabin rested on. The woods were thick and dark, the kind that would claw and bite and close around you tighter than a prison. No, she wouldn’t have gone in there. She would’ve found the lane more appealing. She would’ve hoped to find a road. To find help. To find salvation.
He ran as if her life depended on it. And it did. If someone found her, she’d eventually end up back in the Center. And Dr. Payne would have a second try at frying her mind.
The late-spring night was too quiet and too still. Almost as if it were holding its breath waiting, waiting, waiting to see what was about to happen. Cain’s breath rasped, his footfalls pounded, his soul died a bit more.
Christ. He didn’t know how long she had been gone. How far away she could be. If she could even hear him.
“Mercy.” He tried to add a reassuring quality to his tone, but it was impossible while running and yelling. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not him. I’m Cain. I’m Liz’s friend. She asked me to save you from Dr. Payne. I won’t hurt you. I’d never hurt you. I’m trying to save you.”
The lane ended abruptly, dumping him out onto the solitary road. He looked right—nothing. Looked left—a shadow lying on the road. Any vehicle heading down the pavement would run right over her. “Shit.” He whispered the word and ran toward her.
She lay on her stomach, arms stretched up to her head as if she’d been trying to fucking crawl away after her legs couldn’t carry her any further.
Goddamn it.
He couldn’t deal with this. Yeah, he might be a masochist, but this was a level of suffering he couldn’t endure. Didn’t have it in him to let her keep stabbing his dying soul.
He went down on his knees beside her. Not daring to touch her, he let his head drop on his shoulders and stared at his lap. “Mercy.” He tried to make himself sound as harmless as possible without going falsetto. “I’m not going to hurt you, but I need to take you back to the cabin where you’ll be safe.”
When she didn’t say anything or move, he forced himself to look at her.
Her eyes were closed, her face relaxed. He touched her cheek. She didn’t flinch away from him.
For the first time since he’d taken her from Liz, he was grateful for her unconsciousness.
*
Cain stood in the farthest corner of the room from Mercy, staring at her tucked up under those covers. In the predawn light, the scar across her neck seemed to glow silver. Sleep had relaxed her features, making her look younger than her age. He could almost see the girl she’d once been.
When she had looked at him, she’d only seen his father and assumed he was the same. But had he really expected anything less? No. Yes. No. Yes. Stop it.
He might’ve saved her from the Center, but the way she’d looked at him locked him in a prison he’d always feared—being seen in the same light as his father. He’d been a big, dumbass idiot for thinking this would’ve worked out any other way than her being terrified of him.
He couldn’t do this with her again—couldn’t tolerate that fear on her face again when she woke up. Once was bad enough.
Cain nabbed his cell off the table, then walked out the door into the gray dawn light. A lone bird began singing a solitary song. He walked down the driveway, heading toward the road—the only place where he could pick up a cell signal. A woodpecker began rapping against a tree. Nature usually soothed him, but today it did nothing for him.
Ten feet from the road, he turned on his phone, waited until it booted up, and found a weak signal. At least there was a signal. He punched in Liz’s number.
It rang. Once. Twice. “Hello. You’ve reached Liz Sands—”
Cain hung up.
He shouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t, yet his finger hit Mac’s number. He braced himself for Mac’s reaction. Mac was smart enough to add. One Mercy missing plus one Cain missing equaled a whole hell of a lot of problems.
Mac picked up on the first ring. “I was just getting ready to call you. We caught a case. A bad one. I need to talk to you about it.”
Cain’s brain had trouble catching up with Mac’s words. He’d expected disappointment. Anger. Something. He hadn’t expected shop talk.
“Cain? You there? You all right?” Mac had the concerned tone again. The one he used far too often around Cain.
“Uh…uh…” Christ, what was he going to say? He should’ve taken two seconds to think about how this conversation was going to play out before he’d called Mac. “I don’t think I’ll be able to make it.”
“What’s wrong? I can hear it in your voice. Talk to me. Whatever it is, you’ll be fine. We’ll get through it. I’m here for you. Always have been. Always will be.” The words flowed out of Mac’s mouth as if he’d carefully rehearsed them for years.
And didn’t that just about suck. That Mac had suspected Cain would lose his shit at some point and had a pre-rehearsed set of platitudes.