Meet Me In The Dark: (A Dark Suspense) (21 page)

His eyes burn into me as he waits. I’m preoccupied by the music and the memory of my first time. I let out a long sigh and turn away, kick off my boots and step into a puddle of water that soaks my socks. I pull them off as well, unzip my jacket and shove that down my arms.

He stares at me the whole time.

I drop the jacket on the floor next to my boots and then work on the snow pants. This takes me several minutes, and I have to sit down on the bed once I get them over my hips. I throw those on the floor next to my coat. And then I’m in my jeans and long-sleeved shirt.

“Did I plan on letting you take my virginity?” I laugh a little and squirm in my seat. “No, Case. I don’t get to plan anything. I carry out orders.”

“So Garrett ordered you to sleep with me?”

“It was a message.”

“Yeah?” Case asks, setting the guitar down on the couch bed next to him. He scoots forward, so he’s no longer sprawled out and his feet are on the floor. “I’m not sure I speak that language, so why not enlighten me.” He’s pissed, I realize. For being tricked into this. I have no sympathy for that. But I can empathize. “Why not explain it, Syd. Just get it all out in the open so I can decide what to do with you.”

“If that’s supposed to scare me, it doesn’t.”

He smiles, but not in a nice way. “I’m sure.” He stands up and walks over to me. He reaches out before he’s close, and when he is, he cups my face and lifts my gaze up to meet his. “What. Was. The message, Syd?”

“You’re even now,” I say matter-of-factly. “That was the message.”

“How does he figure that?”

I shrug. This makes Case drop his hands. I take a deep breath. “I don’t know the story behind you two. None of it. So I have no idea.”

“You’re lying.” He stares into me and this makes me shift my position. “Is your job done, then? You were here to what? Trick me into taking your virginity to even up a score that was never uneven, in a game I was never playing?” He laughs. “Please.”

I don’t even know what that means. “I’m yours anyway. So what do you care?”

“You’re a gift then?”

I shrug again.

“So Brett? He’s in on this how?”

“He’s not.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Get out.”

“No.” I stand and point at the walls made of glass. “There’s nothing out there. There’s nowhere to go.”

“Get back in the Cat. Go back the way you came. And follow the trail I cleared for you. I’ve made arrangements.”

“No,” I say again. “I’m not leaving here. I’ve got questions. I’ve got a lot of fucking questions.” My voice rises. Not much. I’m not a yeller. I don’t lose control easily. “And I want answers. I want to know why you people have been fucking with my life since I was little. Why, Case? What the fuck did I ever do to you? Why take me? Why do any of this if you’re just going to send me away?”

“You want answers?” He bends down so we are eye level, placing his hands on his knees and leaning forward. “You sure about that, Sydney?”

I swallow down the fear that’s rising in my chest. “Yes.”

“Why would I give them to you?” He straightens up again, emphasizing the height difference between us. Like he needs this advantage.

There is no good answer for that. None at all. Why would he give them to me?

He laughs. “You don’t have any idea what’s going on here, do you? You’re so fucking lost.”

“So find me.”

He turns and walks over to the stairs. Walking out, I realize. “I can’t.” He looks over his shoulder at me. A flash of light catches in his amber eyes and sends a chill up my spine. “It’s too late for you. Too late for all of this. Everything—” He stops to take a breath. “Everything I feared would happen, well, it’s happening. No, it’s already done. And now I have to worry about me, Sydney Channing. And the people I actually care about, the few decent human beings on this goddamned planet I love, they are the only ones who matter now. Because if Garrett thinks this shit is over because he gave me his prize virgin, he’s mistaken. Fuck you and your boyfriend. Fuck you and your gift. Fuck you and your problems, Sydney. Just fuck you. This has gone on long enough. The only girl I’m interested in now is Sasha.”

And just like that, he walks away.

Again.

“When you find yourself alone with no options… lie.”

– Sydney

I
only get two steps towards the stairs when she hurls herself at my back. I lurch forward, grab the railing, and just barely stop a fall that could’ve broken my neck. I reach behind me, grab her upper arm, and swing her around. She hits the floor hard, her head cracking against the banister, and growls out something unintelligible.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

She’s back on her feet the moment it takes for me to say those words, and I get another direct hit. This time she charges me like a bull. I stumble backwards again, lose my footing on the stairs for real this time, and we both fall over sideways. I break her fall, and a sharp pain travels down the nerve that leads to my hand. But there’s no time to think about that, because she’s on top of me, her fists swinging wildly for my face. She connects once, and then I snap out of it.

Girl or not, I’m gonna end this now.

I sit up and grab her hands, then give her a head butt that would knock almost anyone out. She sways backwards, stunned. Blood runs down her face where I cut her forehead open, and I swing my legs up. She is propelled forward over my head and crashes on the landing a few stairs below.

I catch my breath for a moment, sitting sideways on the stairs, to see if she will get up. I stand, jump down the stairs, and straddle her limp body. Her eyes are open though. And she’s not dead.

I’ve been a soldier, a mercenary, and I’ve fought my way out of more bars in more countries than I can count.

That is a look of
enough
.

“You done?” I ask her, my chest still rising and falling, betraying how unsettled this has me. “You gonna stop? Because I can go all night, bitch.”

I can. I just don’t want to. I’m fucking sick of this girl.

She pulls herself up into a sitting position. Her back rests against the wall made of stacked logs. She’s breathing heavy too, and she looks just as pissed off as I do. But the longer she stays silent, the clearer this all becomes.

She’s mad, yeah. But she’s more than that. The tears well up in her eyes and she presses her lips together, like she’s trying to keep the words inside.

“Speak up,” I yell. Loud enough to make her jump and angry enough to make her afraid. “Because that was it, Syd. That right there? That was my line and you just crossed it.”

A trickle of blood seeps out of her mouth and I wonder, just for a split second, if she bit her tongue or if that’s a sign of something more serious. But she wipes it away with the back of her hand and then spits on my goddamned floor.

I take a deep breath and ask for patience. And then I turn and walk back up the stairs. I grab her coat and snow pants and throw them down at her. The zipper on the jacket catches her lip and she yelps.

“Take the shit I gave you. Get out of my house. Get your ass back in that Cat. And take the path I spent all damn day plowing for you until you get to the end. There’s two trucks there. One is yours. One is mine. Take yours. Leave mine. And never come back here. Do you understand me?” I hurl her boots next, and they hit the wall on each side of her head. Not by accident.

She stays still.

“Now!”

The tears fall down her cheeks before she can bow her head and hide them with her hair. “Just tell me why,” she whispers. “That’s all I want. One answer. Why?”

I hold up my hands with the urge to strangle her. “Why? What?”

“That night. Back at that cabin. The night you came to save me—”

“I never came to save you, Sydney. Let’s get that clear right now. I came to
get
you, yes. Because I got some information earlier in the day about you, Garrett, and your father. But it wasn’t anything good, Syd. In fact, I’ve never heard such disgusting filth in all my life. I thought—” I stop and thread my fingers through my hair. “I thought you were a victim. That you needed help. That Garrett was controlling you. But you proved to me tonight that you’re not. You don’t need help. At least not the kind I thought. And he isn’t controlling you, Sydney. You do his bidding because you want to. You’re in on his plans because you like it. And let me tell you something right now. I saw you, Sydney. I saw you. I watched you and Garrett after all that shit went down. You weren’t hard to find, either of you. Those two years you spent with him before he ‘disappeared’ should make you as sick as it makes me. And the fact that he kept you close, like a submissive dog, just made it all so much easier. I
saw
you.”

She stands up, grabs her coat and snow pants, and hugs them to her chest as she looks me in the eye. “That wasn’t me.”

“Right.” I laugh. “Let me guess. You have a twin?” I laugh again, then stop. Because hell, they all have twins, don’t they? Harper has one. James has one. Why can’t Sydney have one? Shit, maybe Sasha has one? I spin around and scrub my hand down my face as I consider this possibility.

“No,” she snarls. “That’s not what I meant.”

I spin back, relieved. “Then what the fuck are you talking about?”

She grabs her boots and walks across the landing, then jumps down the stairs two at a time.

I just watch her go.

Let her go
, that small bit of sanity left in my head tells me.
Just let her go
.

I do. I sit my ass down on the stairs and count the number of steps it takes her to get to the bottom. I’m still sitting there when she stops and then I listen to her pull on the snow gear. Two minutes go by, and then a rush of air through the house and the slam of the door down below tells me she took my advice.

But my curiosity is up now. I know this girl is not what she appears. I know she’s had a lot of fucked-up years. Before I showed up in her life, and after. And I know that everything about her is a wildcard. She represents everything that could go wrong with my last mission. But I can’t stop myself.

I follow her. I jump down to the next landing, and then take the stairs that lead to the first floor, hoping she’s still outside when I get to the foyer.

I pull the door open and… she is. The way she parked gives me a side view of her face. Her cheeks are already red under the interior dome light of the Cat, and she’s cursing under her breath as she presses the ignition button.

Her head spins towards me, then she drags her attention back to starting the Cat.

I grab a coat and gloves from the mudroom off to the right of the foyer and slip my feet into a pair of boots before pulling the door closed behind me and going outside. “Let me do it.” She slams the Cat’s door closed before I can get there and flips me off through the ice-covered window. I pull it back open. “Locks are broken, genius.”

“You want me to leave?” she growls. “Then back off and let me leave. I’m done with you. I’m done with all of this.”

I pull her out of the cab and throw her down into the snow so I can take her place, and then check the choke and press the ignition.

It whines.