STEP (The Senses) (8 page)

She escaped the room despite her husband’s shouts at her to stay. She hid in the sub-basement for hours. That was where Roarke found her. He sat with her, head on his shoulder while he gently stroked her hair. He told her he had upped the dosage of drugs to calm Ryker as soon as Anton had left the room.

Roarke carried her to her room and put her in bed. He’d kissed her temple, smoothed back her hair and said two words, “I’m sorry.”

“Hannah was the love of Ryker’s life.
The other half of his soul.” Anstice slid the card back in place. “They lived with Kilter, Sandor and Derek in Newfoundland.” Anstice paused to look at her before continuing. “Your husband’s men killed Derek, Sandor and Hannah. Ryker tried to . . . well, he couldn’t save her. Hannah was an angel with one hell of a kick-ass punch.” Anstice pulled out a few movies and piled them on the floor. “Ryker loved her more than anything. Now . . . anger eats away at him. I don’t know if he’ll ever recover.” She put her hand on Rayne’s arm. “I know it must be uncomfortable for you, with him being here, but he doesn’t hold you responsible for—”

“He’s here?” Rayne’s fear pulsated through her body
like a rocket blasting off. She scuttled backwards until the backs of her knees hit the couch. Anstice reached forward to offer assistance. “Don’t.” Rayne held up her hand.

He was in this house, maybe in the next room. Emotions were raw and debilitating as the memory flashed forward. The humiliation, the pain, the horror of him being used like an animal. Her voice quivering as she pretended to be the love of his life. His anguished screams.

She put her hand over her mouth as her stomach curdled. Anstice moved to assist her again, but the thought of anyone’s hands on her skin would be the end of her will to hold what little was in her stomach.

She stumbled
out of the room. Air. She needed fresh air, the wind, the sky.

“Rayne?” Anstice called.

She lost her balance. Her head hit a picture frame on the wall, and it crashed to the floor. It was as if someone had a grip on her lungs and was slowly clenching them in their hands until she had no breath left. Tingling heightened in her limbs, threatening to numb out her legs and arms, making her body a useless rag doll.

Her twin was at full throttle.

Kilter saw Rayne leaning up against the wall, picture broken on the floor beneath her feet, her face white and gaunt with eyes overflowing with panic. It took him three strides before he reached her and pulled her into his arms, locking her trembling body into his embrace.

“Please,” Rayne murmured against his chest, the flats of her palms pushing at him. “Let me go. I have to get out of here.”

“Kilter, maybe . . .” Anstice stopped herself.

“
I will ease her panic,”
Kilter said.
” Leave us.”

“
Kilter, I don’t think . . . oh, fine then. Just find out what set her off about Ryker. She was horrified, Kilter.”

Anstice walked past them and hesitated as if she was going to change her mind. He gave a
slight nod, and Anstice sighed and walked up the stairs.

“I want to leave,” Rayne whispered. “Please, I can’t stay here.”

Kilter continued stroking her hair; the instinct to soothe was too strong to ignore. “You can’t leave. You have no place to go.” Shit, maybe that wasn’t such a soothing thing to say to a woman who felt trapped. He sucked at nice.

But h
e’d never been one to beat around the bush, and he wasn’t about to start now, even though the woman he held was a fall leaf on a blustery day. Christ, just holding her he was afraid of breaking her in half.

He brushed back her hair from her temple. “You avoided touching Ryker when we were in the compound. You were afraid, weren’t you? Something makes you fear Ryker.” He put his finger under her chin to raise her head. “What is it?” When she tried to escape his arms again, he sighed. “Do not run from this.”

His thumb casually stroked her arm as he held her. “I’m honest and direct. I tell it like it is whether someone wants to hear the truth or not.” He paused, hating to bare his soul, but knew he needed to get her to confide in him. “I made a mistake, babe. I left you there when it was obvious you needed out. I ignored your cry for help and . . . I heard you scream and I couldn’t get back. I fuckin’ couldn’t get back.” He closed his eyes for a second. “I don’t make mistakes often, but with you, I was dead wrong.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I won’t make the same mistake. I can’t. It’s against my code.”

She tilted her head away and his fingers left the hold on her chin. Eyes downcast
, she said, “I want to be alone.” She stepped back and he reluctantly let her.

“It’s not happening, sweet cakes. If I leave you alone, you’ll fade into dust.” He could tell her mind was percolating like a coffee maker, wondering if she could trust his words. Whenever she was in fierce concentration, debating something in her head
, she’d pinch her pants. Someone else he knew did that, but he couldn’t put his finger on who.

“Ryker?” he urged.

Her gaze rose from staring at the hardwood floors to meet his eyes. The energy around her was rising again and he knew that, whatever it was, it would eat her alive with panic. Without asking—because if he did, she’d only refuse—he grabbed her hand and pulled her close again. His patience was that of a lion with his first meal in weeks under his paw. But he counted three minutes and ten seconds before she finally spoke.

“Ryker was a project.” It took everything in him to keep himself in check. “Your friend, he was what my husband wanted. He watched that house for months. He had Roarke—”

“Roarke?”

Her body tensed and he knew she was wondering how much she should tell him. Why she needed to protect anyone from that hellhole was beyond him. “He worked for Anton. I don’t know exactly what he did though.” She avoided his eyes. “He watched the house for weeks at a time
, giving my husband reports on each one of you. I don’t know what was in the reports, just that he decided on Ryker.”

“For what?”
When she hesitated for several minutes, he persisted, “Ryker? What did they want from him?”

She swallowed, and he felt the uneasiness in her body. All he could offer was the comfort of his strength to help appease her panic.

“They used him. They drugged him so heavily and I . . . Roarke had notes on Hannah. I had to . . . I had to . . .” He caressed her back in slow gentle strokes, trying to ease the tension. She was as stiff as an iron rod. “I had to pretend I was her.”
Jesus Christ.
“They put me in her clothes, did my hair like hers . . . I had to learn to talk like her.” A tear escaped from the corner of her eye. “I made him believe I was Hannah. The love I saw in his drug-filled eyes, the words . . .” Rayne took a deep haggard breath. “It calmed him when I was her,” she whispered.

“Why
, Rayne? Why did they want you to be Hannah?”

“I . . . I made him use his abilities,” she said. Her eyes refused to look at him, and her body flinched as she said the words. She was avoiding something.

“It felt like . . . like I was raping him,” Rayne said. “I hated it. I hated looking at Ryker and seeing his anguish, confusion, pain, and then . . . his love for Hannah, and I knew. I knew he’d never see her again.”
I’m going to be sick. I hate this. I can’t tell him.

Kilter tensed
as he heard her thoughts.

“Please, I can’t face him again . . . I have to leave.” Rayne looked up at him with such torment in her eyes that he softened his expression. Shit, she needed more help than expected, and he sure as hell wasn’t doing any good.

“Ryker doesn’t hold you responsible, and neither should you. It’s done. Forget it.”

How did he even think that he could help this woman? Why did he have this need to anyway? She was everything he despised—fearful, untrustworthy, submissive and thin as a railroad track. Christ, she was an utter mess.

But he also saw courage. That determined look in her eyes when she’d held his own knife to her throat, daring him to kill her. That flicker of rebellion when he told her to come downstairs and eat. The problem was that she had so many issues from living in that place. Issues he might never comprehend or be able to deal with. Did he even want to?

“Kilter?” Rayne’s voice quivered.

“What?”
Nicer, buddy.
“Yeah,” he corrected himself.

“
Can you tell . . . Ryker that I . . . I had no choice?”

“Shit
, babe.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, sure. But you don’t have to worry about him. He is here, but contained in a private room. You will not see him.”

He knew she was hiding inside herself and refrained from speaking her mind. Part of it had to be from the abuse; a woman would learn fast to keep her mouth
shut with a man like Anton.

Beneath the surface, deep beneath the surface, was what intrigued him, made him want to dig deeper until he released her from whatever cave she was buried
in. Those few moments he was gifted with her true self was what he wanted. No—craved.

There was no question she was ill. Whether anyone could reach the depths of her mind where she lay entombed, he didn’t know. What he did know was that he’d protect her from harm. He owed her that for leaving her behind the first time. A niggling thought of Gemma rose, and he quickly pushed it aside. This wasn’t about his past. Rayne had nothing to do with his failure to protect Gemma. This was about correcting his mistake, plain and simple.

What had gone on in that place? Who was this Roarke? How had Hannah, Ryker and the others not known they were being watched? Hannah had been a Sounder. She heard intruders for miles, and Sandor, a Taster—he should’ve been able to taste evil close by. Kilter ran his hand through his hair, frustrated with all the unanswered questions.

“Can I go upstairs now?” Rayne asked.

Kilter stopped in mid-stride. “Fuck babe, this isn’t a prison.”

As soon as she was out of sight, he wanted to bring her back, demand she stop hiding, order her to eat. Damn it to hell
, he wanted her to fight.

****

“She’s not eating,” Kilter shouted as he paced the length of the library.

It was Keir’s domain with floor
-to-ceiling cherry bookshelves. A Persian carpet lay underneath the large oak desk in corner of the room. A laptop sat on the polished surface along with a framed picture of Anstice and Grim. Keir sat in the leather swivel chair behind the desk, his eyes focused on the computer screen.

Anstice was leaning up against the rolling ladder, hands clasped together, and her foot resting on the last rail.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I heard you,” Keir said in a calm voice.

“I have to make her eat, damn it,” Kilter said, slamming his fist into the bookshelf.

“No,” Keir replied. “No one can force her, Kilter. Not even you.”

“Jesus Christ,” Kilter fumed. He had no recourse when it came to someone refusing to eat. He couldn’t very well shove food down her throat. He didn’t understand why she wasn’t eating. She should be diving into the food with the way she looked.

“I suspect she has an eating disorder,” Anstice said.

“What the fuck is that?” Kilter retorted.

“God, such a guy,” Anstice muttered. She rolled her eyes and walked over to the desk
for a book. “Read it.” She tossed it to him.

“I don’t want to read a bloody book. I want answers. Now.” Kilter dropped the book on the chaise longue. “Is she dying?”

Keir looked up from the computer and leaned back in his chair. “Yes, I suspect so. She will die if she continues to lose weight.”

Kilter ran his hand through his hair for the tenth time. “Explain it to me
.”

Anstice raised her brows. “Do you care enough to listen?”

“Of course I bloody well do.” Was he that insensitive to give her the impression that he wouldn’t listen? Why would she think otherwise? Because he’d avoided listening to any of them since the moment he stepped into this house.

“He’ll listen,” Keir said.

Anstice rested her lean frame against the front of the desk, her hands curled around the edge. “Anorexia nervosa is a psychological disorder. It is emotional. There are several explanations as to why it occurs. My guess for Rayne is that it was brought on by her husband’s constant need to have the perfect wife, but it could have started earlier than that. He may have instilled the odd comments in the beginning about her weight, or maybe he monitored what she ate. We know from what Quill said about the look of the compound that Anton was organized and methodical, so Rayne may have been in an environment where she’d be the same way.

“
At first, she may have discovered that by losing weight, she gained something, in a good way, but what she gained I don’t know. Later, it may have been more about her control. He may have told her what to do, what to look like, how to act, and she couldn’t find control in her life, but maybe she felt she could at least find control in her body. How can you escape? With food.” Anstice crossed her ankles. “No one can force someone to eat. It may sound odd to an outsider, but maybe she felt like she lost control every time she ate.”