(Blood and Bone, #1) Blood and Bone (9 page)

And then there’s the fact he’s in love with me.

But according to them, not me the way I was, me the way I am now. He likes me broken and needy. He made me needy on purpose. He made me soft and took away everything I was. I don’t know how to feel about that, if it’s true.

And even if it is, it’s not like he took much away in reality. Looking back at the file I realize I wasn’t much better off. I was stronger, more independent, and braver. But I was alone, working all the time. I was single. In every one of those pictures I looked sad or hard. I don’t recognize that girl. She’s sad and distant, and I don’t feel that way anymore. So maybe he saved me from myself?

In all honesty I feel like I will wake any second and it will all be a bad dream caused by watching late-night TV again.

I feel sick that Derek has lied to me, but I see why, in a sick and twisted sort of way. I was lying first. I am still lying; we just didn’t know it.

I ride the bus home with my last couple of dollars. I’m cold and hungry and exhausted. I can’t kid myself—the moment I see the house, I’m elated. I know he’s in there, cooking or waiting for me. I know he’s worried and misses me. And I miss him. I miss who we were yesterday.

I don’t even make the driveway and I see the handle on the door turning. Quickly, I slip my hand into my pocket, pulling out the
magnet, and as I walk past the car I attach it to the back of it, just on the metal at the trunk. It doesn’t look like anything but a tiny magnet, so it blends. I don’t want to do it, but I think I need to. I need him to be innocent, and I need to prove he is. They’re wrong, and I have to show them.

When he opens the door, Derek’s face is pinched and his dark greenish-gray eyes are mostly gray. He looks cold and hard. “You okay?”

I shake my head, pausing on the cement. The light from inside shines behind him, taunting me with its warmth. I only have to sell my soul to the devil to go inside and be warm again.

He opens his arms for me. “You scared me.”

I walk to him. Those arms are beacons of warmth and love. The only thing we’ve lost so far is the trust, but I think we might be able to get it back if I can prove he’s innocent.

When I melt into them I feel different. I melt all the way without him forcing me. I pause, wondering if he feels it—the difference in me.

But he kisses the top of my head, smelling me. He hovers there, taking gulps of me like he has been starved all day of the life force I give off.

“I missed you all day. I was terrified. I thought I scared you away with the truth.” He pulls me back. “Sam, I don’t want to ruin what we have. You’re my everything.”

I shake my head. “Jane. Don’t call me Sam.”

He smiles, making everything okay. He blankets us in that smile and the love inside it, and I don’t believe a single thing I read. I believe whatever he wants me to. He’s perfect, and they’re wrong. And when he leads me inside, kissing my cheeks and closing the door on us, I feel like he’s closed the door on everything else. He’s brought us into our safe haven and made us protected again.

I don’t care about anything but that.

He drags my clothes off there at the door, stripping me naked, and scoops me up into his arms. He carries me to the bathroom and undresses himself, pulling us both into the shower. He protects me from the cold water until it’s warm and then steps aside so I am blasted with heat. He wraps himself around me, letting the hot water wash it all away.

I close my eyes and breathe him in too, the same way he does me. I get it now—the dose he gets when he takes a breath pushes everything else away.

“Where did you go?”

I shake my head. “I rode the bus for a long time. Then I got a ride back with the cops. They were at a house on the outskirts of the city. So they drove me back, thinking I was a crackhead. I had to clear on the system before they would let me come home.”

He kisses my neck. “Did you clear?”

“Yup. No Jane Spears in the system.”

He pauses, mimicking the stiffened feel of my back. We are both aware of something suddenly, I just don’t know what I’m aware of. I’m still lost, regardless of how my body reacts. “So, you never confessed to being Samantha Barnes?”

I turn to face him, looking up into his beautiful face. “I didn’t. I don’t think I am Samantha Barnes. I think she died a long time ago. I like being Jane. What good is going to come of being Samantha? She clearly has issues.”

He drags his hand down my face, brushing his thumb against my lips. “I was so worried you hated me for lying to you.”

I shake my head slowly. “I just needed to get some air and some distance. I needed to swallow the truth whole so I could digest the fact I’ve killed things in my sleep. That’s haunting me. It makes me sick. I just think about the people looking for their animals that I’ve killed. It makes me ill.”

His brow knits, and I see the hurt in his eyes. “It’s not your fault. I swear, you are asleep. You don’t know.”

“We have to do something to make it stop.”

He nods. “I will start sedating you again.” He winces. “It’s just—that’s how you got into the accident last time. I sedated you and left the house. You got up, drove the car, and crashed it.”

My wicked brain wonders if it’s true. My eyes are mesmerized by his. They believe everything he says. But my brain whispers that there is no way a small, sedated woman got up and drove a car. If my scars are old, Derek is lying about it. But I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. I just don’t know how far to follow him down this path, nodding my head like a smitten schoolgirl.

There is one thing I want to do, on the off chance everything Rory has said is true and my life is a complete lie. I lift my hands to his cheeks, cupping his face. I say the one thing I haven’t ever said to him, not aloud. I have written it and texted it and whispered it when I thought he was sleeping. But I haven’t ever said it. “I love you.”

He winces. “Why did you say that?”

“Because you are everything I ever wanted in the world. I don’t know how I know this. I don’t remember ever wishing for you, but I know I did. In my soul and my being, I know I did.”

He looks lost. “I love you, Jane. I always have.”

I nod, believing it completely. “I know you have.” And that’s the truth of the matter. I know he has loved me since the dawn of our time.

I just don’t know what to do with it.

7. GOING ROGUE

W
hen we make love, I relax completely. I savor the feel of his body inside and on top of mine. The feel of him pressing me into the bed is magical.

The pill I pretend to swallow isn’t.

He kisses me good night. I slip the pill into my pillowcase and close my eyes when he turns the light off.

I pretend to fall asleep, feigning the deep breathing and then the slack face. In the light of the alarm clock I can see him staring at me when I glance under my lashes. The look on his face is frightening. It’s the first time I have ever seen anything like it. He looks detached from me completely.

After a while, I don’t know how long, he climbs from the bed and dresses silently. Somewhere in the dark, my heart breaks with fear that he’s actually the monster they say he is.

When he slips from the room I wait for the sound of the door closing to the outside before I sit up. Something immediately tells me to lie back down, so I do. I breathe deeply, suddenly afraid of every
choice I have made. I lie there still and terrified, only to have it all confirmed by his sudden appearance as a silhouette in the doorway.

I don’t hold my breath or inhale sharply, both movements I want to make. Instead, I continue to breathe as softly as I can. He stands there for a moment, a shadow in the doorway, before he turns and leaves the house for real.

I am near tears when I hear the car out front.

He either knew I was faking my sleep or suspected it. There’s a real possibility he’s a killer. Even in the warmth of our bed, I have to admit it.

I grab the pill and take it to the toilet, walking slowly through the dark room. I flush the pill, take a pee, and flush again. When I turn on the light it’s gone, but I don’t know how to continue with the plan I have formed in my feeble brain.

I get dressed quickly, pressing 911 on my phone as I walk out the front door in my all-black clothing. I feel like an idiot, but my body moves with stealth and my instincts are sharp.

“Tell me he’s gone to work and ya need someone to keep that bed warm with ya!” Rory answers cheekily.

Ignoring his bravado I mutter, “He’s left in the car.”

“I know. I see the beacon moving on my screen. Come climb in.” A black van down the road flashes me with its light as a door slides open. My insides twist and churn, but I walk to the van and climb in. Rory nods at me from behind a small laptop in the front passenger seat. “He’s headed for Bellevue.” A young man in the driver’s seat starts the van and drives, jerking me back into a seat.

Rory nods at the young man, the only other occupant of the vehicle. “This is Antoine.”

The young man waves back at me, glancing with dark eyes in the rearview. “Hi, Sam. We actually met eight years ago, but I know you don’t remember me.”

Rory hands me a black handgun. “You remember how to use this?”

I am about to say no when my hand reaches for it. The weight is more than familiar. I pull the clip, glance at it, and hammer it back in, in one smooth movement. Rory nods. “I’ll go with yes.”

Holding the gun is so foreign to me, and yet completely natural to my body. But my brain wins, and I start to hand it back to him. “I’d rather not have it, if it’s all the same to you.”

He shrugs. “It’s not. I want you to have my back.”

I turn, still holding the gun but pointing it at the floor. It trembles against my leg, weighing more and more by the second. I hold it by the handle, not going anywhere near the trigger.

“He’s stopping. Chism Beach Park, it looks like.” Rory turns, offering me a sympathetic look. “Ya know he’s bad, right? Ya do understand that?”

I shake my head. “I know you think he’s bad, but I’ve been with him for years. He hasn’t ever been anything but perfect.”

The sympathy leaves his face, replaced by disgust. “Ya don’t really believe that, do ya? He’s an evil man. He’s conned ya.”

Tension starts to build inside me. “You can’t pretend to be amazing for years. He would have slipped up. I would have seen it.”

“Love is blind, Sam. You see what you want.”

There is no point in arguing. We’re here for two different reasons. He wants Derek taken in on charges of murder. I just want Derek cleared so I can go back to my regular life. Whatever that is. When we cross the bridge my body starts to hum, vibrating with anxious energy and the bumpy ride of the van. There is a small part of me that’s terrified of what we’ll find. The other part of me assumes it’ll be nothing.

But who leaves in the middle of the night after sedating his loved one? Who double-checks that his girlfriend is sleeping?

I know the answer to the question, but I refuse to believe in his guilt.

Antoine parks a mile from the beach and hops out. Rory jumps out with him, and they both give me a look. Rory is dressed in dark jeans and a black skintight jacket. It looks like Lululemon. His dark hair is styled perfectly, coiffed as if he were going on a date instead of a mission.

Antoine is the same. He looks about thirty and completely adorable. He’s clearly Italian and I would imagine smooth in a dangerous way. The sort of guy who would be looking for love in all the wrong places.

Seeing them both reminds me of what Rory said to Angie. I scowl. “Why did you tell my friend you were looking for love in all the wrong places?”

“That was our code.” He says it with a dirty smirk.

I cock an eyebrow, disgusted, as I step from the van, placing the gun on the seat when they’re not looking, and close the door quickly.

They break into a run along the beach, making me wrinkle my nose and start after them with a slow jog. Rory glances back, shaking his head under a streetlight. “Haul some ass, Barnes.”

I try to pick up the pace but get a cramp instantly and end up walking. Antoine turns back, jogging up to me. “Samantha Barnes walking? Damn, you
are
different.” I’m gripping my side and wincing at the stitch when Antoine lifts my hands in the air, touching me like we know each other well. “Arms in the air, Barnes. A side stitch needs arms in the air.” He walks next to me in the dark, nudging me a little. “You and Dash are fully together?”

“Derek, not Dash.” I nod, feeling like a moron with my arms in the air but noticing the difference it’s making.

“That’s so nasty. He’s insane.”

“You don’t know him.”

Antoine gives me a skeptical stare with his dark eyes. “Trust me, if either of us is in the dark, it’s not me.” He grabs my hand and
drags me into a run, much faster than my comfort level is set. When we get to the parking lot for the beach I’m winded and nauseated.

Rory glares at me from behind a tree. “Ya need to get in shape.”

I take a knee, breathing like Ronald when he caught me. “I’m not in bad shape. I walk all the time. I just hate running.”