(Blood and Bone, #1) Blood and Bone (17 page)

Fuck him.
Guess I am back to not trusting him again. The back-and-forth is making me dizzy.

Before I go, I scrub my hands thoroughly to wash off the trash-bin filth. When I’ve dried my hands twice, I leave, constantly scanning the hall for him. In the seats for the gate to Austria I see him. His head cocks to the side, he lifts an eyebrow, and stands, walking toward me. He stops ten feet from me. “Plain Jane find her way home?”

The sentence makes me tremble. “What did you do to me?”

“I couldn’t kill you, Sam. I know I should have. I know I should have killed you and been done with it, but I couldn’t. And you wouldn’t listen, would you? You never do.”

“Oh God, you did this to me twice, didn’t you? This is the second time you’ve screwed with my brain. I’ve remembered already once, haven’t I? What was it that time?”

“We were in California, and there was something like the Ronald problem.” He shrugs, and I hate him. It’s less than I love him, but it’s enough to keep me from walking to him.

“You killed Ronald?” The answer is so obvious now. I suspect I always knew that. He smiles wide, making my hate grow. “You killed Ronald? Why are you doing this?” It’s the only question I have.

“Jane, I need you to understand that for me this isn’t over.” His sickening smile sells me on the severity of his disease, past the fog in my head and the way I make myself see him. For the first time I really and truly see the man behind the curtain. He nods. “It won’t ever be. You can run and you can hide, and I will chase you because we are meant to be. We are each other’s light.”

I follow his advice, turning and running as fast as I can. I don’t know what else to do.

12. WHAT WHIP MARKS?

W
hen I get to the gate for Colorado I pause. I recognize Antoine and Rory at once, but the woman they’re sitting by isn’t my aunt. She looks similar, but she is definitely not my aunt. I frown, bringing Rory to me with just the look. He smiles cautiously. “Hey!”

I look at the woman. “That’s not my aunt.”

He glances at her. “I know that.”

“Where’s my aunt?”

“In custody. She thinks you’re in danger, and she’s freaking out.” He looks past me. “Where’s Dash?”

I point behind me with my thumb. “Back there. He’s freaking out too. Mostly just freaking me out.” I look up into Rory’s dark-blue eyes and nod. “I need some answers from you—now. No holding back.”

“What do ya remember?”

“Not much.” I shake my head, not sure how to tell him what I do remember. But the crowded and noisy airport suddenly seems like the perfect place to blurt out something so horrid. If I’m lucky
the words will get lost in the noise and crowds of this hectic place. I need to say it aloud to rid myself of the burden of being the only one who knows, and he suddenly seems like the right person to tell. Taking a large breath, I prepare myself for the sentence as I say it. “I think I might have kil—murdered my father and hidden it like it was an accident.”

He glances at me in a funny way, clearly disbelieving my statement. “We were in Germany when your dad died. I know, because I was with ya when you got the call.”

“I remember torturing him. I burned him and cut him and made him scream.”

“Well, not to sound like you’re insane and remembering shit that never happened, but if the cuckoo shoe fits, ya might have to wear it.” He lifts a cynical eyebrow, and the disbelief thickens in his tone. “You couldn’t be in the same room as your dad, no matter what. I also know this for a fact because I was with you once when he showed up at Pat’s house. You started shaking and lost all the color in your face. Pat screamed at him and called the cops. He was calling ya a liar and screaming crazy things. I didn’t even know who he was until afterward, but during his two-minute stay at the front door, you became a different person.”

I know we dated or something, so I ask a question he might know the answer to. “Did I have nightmares? Did I do horrible things at night? Wake with blood on me and such?”

Rory sighs. “No. What is this?”

“I don’t know.” And God help me, but I don’t. I don’t understand how any of this is possible. I have woken with blood on my hands. I recall horrible things even if they seem very unlikely. “What was I like?”

He leans on the back of a chair next to us. I don’t know if he’s contemplating telling me the truth or if he’s trying to find the words. Either way, I have to assume it’s bad. “Sarcastic and bitchy. Sort of a
control freak. Ya never liked anyone to help ya with anything. You’d fuck something up six times and get it right on the seventh and still not take a hand from someone who knew how to do it. Ya drove me nuttier than squirrel shit. Ya slept with a night-light. That was odd and annoying to the people in the room who liked it dark.” His smile twists into a wry grin. “But ya were worth every second spent sleeping in a lit room.”

I sigh. “Can you try to be professional?”

“No, but I’ll be honest. Ya were a badass bitch who liked to do things her way and get fucked, hard. Ya didn’t like things soft or slow. Ya didn’t like men who were sweet, and ya didn’t cry, ever.”

I step back, sort of scared I might have actually been a man. “I never cried, not even with sad movies when animals were hurt or killed?” I don’t even want to touch on the sex.

His dark-blue eyes narrow. “I’m starting to think your memory isn’t back, Sam.”

I nod in agreement, completely lost on the things inside me.

He links his arm in mine, pulling me down the long corridor to the security checkpoint. “Let’s get out of here before ya go and start telling me how bad your period was last month.”

I glare at him. “I don’t get periods, ass.”

He pauses. “What? Ya were a right bitch every month—don’t tell me I don’t know ya.”

“I haven’t had a period since I can recall. Derek said I was injured in the car accident.”

He purses his lips. “We need to find out what the hell is going on.”

“I think we need to find out who Derek is. Or rather Benjamin or Dash or whatever his name is this week. Who he is will tell us more about what the hell happened to me.” I glance into Rory’s dark-blue eyes, saying the last thing I ever expected to say: “As soon as I see Pat and make sure she’s all right, I want to go to my father’s house.” The words even make me shudder.

He gives me a sideways look but doesn’t say a word. He leads me to the security desk, where Pat is sitting in a small room. When I get inside, she leaps at me, dragging the blonde wig off my head with her arm. “You’re okay!”

“I am. Look, Derek turned out to be a criminal, and apparently, I might have undergone the brain surgery by force. I don’t know what’s happened, but I am pretty determined to find out. Until he’s caught, we can’t let you run around for him to abduct in order to bribe me with. Can you stay with Antoine until I know what’s what?”

“Oh, uhm.” Her eyes fill with worry as she glances at Antoine. She looks worried, but he offers the nicest smile I’m sure he owns. “I don’t really know, my love. If he’s coming after you, maybe you should just stay here with me too.”

I smile, softening my face. “It’s okay, I swear. I’ll be safe. These guys aren’t going to let anything happen to me or you.”

“This isn’t the first time you done said that to me, my love.” Her eyes grow cold, made creepier by the different-colored anger in the different-colored eyes. She turns, directing all that freaky hate at Rory. “You better not let her get hurt or I’ll kill you with my bare hands.”

He swallows hard, looking nervous, but I suspect it’s more like he’s filtering the annoying responses he has for her threat. He nods, leaving it at that.

Antoine looks annoyed when I smile at him. “Take care of my aunt.” He sighs his answer to my request and offers her his arm. “Shall we?” His face is back to being sweet again.

“Stay safe.” She hugs me again before taking his arm and being led out the back doors.

Rory points after them at the doors. “We have a chopper out there. Let’s use that. I don’t feel like driving all the way back to Alabama.”

“Flying in a helicopter?” My fear of heights whispers through me, like wind echoing through a rocky tunnel.

He grabs my arm and drags me out the back door. “Ya used to fly them, for the love of Christ and all things holy.” His Irish accent thickens when he’s feisty.

When we get inside he pulls on a helmet and hands me one. My fingers ache with fear and hesitation as I take it, pulling it on. I feel like maybe we should have life jackets and better padding than regular clothing. He starts the engines, putting on sunglasses and grinning at me like an idiot.

As we lift off the ground I gag, closing my eyes and waiting for the tipping feeling from the lack of ground beneath me to subside. It doesn’t, so I don’t open my eyes.

“You’re missing everything. It’s beautiful up here.”

I lift a thumb into the air, not speaking or opening my eyes at all.

“Chickenshit.”

I switch to my middle finger, still with my eyes closed. He chuckles, and the sound tugs at my heartstrings.

I don’t know how long we fly. I honestly don’t even sneak a single peek, but I am bored out of my mind when we do finally land. He shuts it off, shoving me lightly. “Wakey wakey!”

I shake my head. “Not sleeping, just counting forward and backward from a hundred repeatedly.”

“You still do that?”

“Guess so.” I don’t open my eyes until I hear the spinny part on the top stop moving. I have a fear of having my head chopped off too.

He’s standing on the grass across the yard with his arms folded when I climb out slowly. My legs tremble with each step, threatening to buckle completely. When they do, I land on my knees, gripping the grass and heaving my breath.

“What the fuck did he do to you?”

I shake my head. “Look, heights combined with a flimsy little helicopter is a completely normal fear.” I gag a little bit, burping some of the bagel I had earlier as I pass gas out the back end. “I don’t think my stomach is so good. We should stay here.”

“No. Get up or I’ll leave you here.”

I wince, shudder, and fart again. At least they’re silent and he’s across the grass.

“Can we go? Today? Please?”

I drag myself up, wiping my hands across my face to clear the sweat. “I want to drive back.”

“Not a chance.” He turns and starts walking through the swampy woods. I contemplate staying, but the place makes me uncomfortable so I get up and stalk after him.

I don’t even know where we are until I see the small house in the distance. This is my backyard from when I was little. As we pass a shell of what used to be a house I pause, turning toward it. It pulls me to it, capturing me in its tractor beam of magnetism. Something about this house haunts my very soul. I stop just short of the overgrown grass, looking at the collapsing walls and sunken-in roof. An image trickles through my head in flashes and flares, but not a distinct picture. “Leona Larson lived in this house.” The words are mine and they aren’t. I don’t know how I remember it all, and yet still don’t remember much. This thought is just there, like something I know. Like a fact.

I hear Rory walking on the grass, crunching on the dead yard. It’s all around us. No one has cared for this house or yard in a long time. I don’t think he’s close, and yet I continue to speak to him. “He liked her better than me. He was nice to her. He gave her treats and made me play outside. She was supposed to babysit me, but I always had to go outside.” The words join the wind in a sinister whisper. “I hated her.”

“What are you doing? Do you see something?” He’s so loud and in the present, but I’m stuck in the past. It’s almost black-and-white—it’s so old and discolored in my brain.

“He liked her better than me.” My ’Bama accent is so thick I can hardly understand myself. “He gave her ice cream and told her she was real pretty.”

“The Larson family?”

I turn. “You know of them?”

He looks completely confused. “Of course I do. They’re the family whose eldest daughter went missing first in the area. Her family was interviewed during the whole
your dad turned out to be a monster
affair. Her father was a witness in the trial. Said he saw him beating the shit outta ya in the yard a few times and that he suspected your father in the case of his missing daughter. Nothing was ever proven.”

I shake my head. “I don’t remember that or what happened exactly, but I swear she was there. She was the one my father tortured.”

“I think you’re confused—the file says you were at school, telling one of the teachers why you didn’t get your homework done.” He says it like he’s desperately trying to recall it all. “Yeah, you told the teacher, in great detail, I might add, about what happened to you. About how your dad was making movies so you couldn’t do your homework. It was fucked up. Anyway, when your dad went to jail, the Larson family moved away. The house has been abandoned for a long time. Same as your house. No one wants some house where a pedo hurt little kids.”

I step back as her name brings a realization forward. “He never hurt me.”

He scoffs. “The whip marks on your back would disagree with you there. They may have faded, but they haven’t ever gone away completely.”