Darker Than Desire (3 page)

Maybe it had all been a lie, though.

Brooding, he stared out into the night. It was past midnight. It was quiet, the air in the house cool and still. And his brain wouldn't shut down. He'd wanted to collapse and just sleep, but he couldn't.

There was too
much
inside him. The grief for Abraham, the need to leave here—
now
—and find Sybil, wrap himself around her so the nightmares wouldn't find him. They never did, not when he was with her.

He'd told himself that was why he let this go on so long.

Except it was a lie.

He knew it now, just like he'd known it then. The escape from the nightmares was a plus, but the reason he couldn't pull back was because it was Sybil. Because he enjoyed the way she felt, the way she smelled, the way she moved against him in her sleep and the way she looked him dead in the eye with that unflinching way she had.

Some part of him might think he loved her, but he knew that wasn't right. David was too flawed, too fucked-up, to love. He didn't buy into the shit that he'd done something to make his father hurt him, or that it had happened because of something David was—that wasn't why he couldn't love.

David couldn't love simply because he'd spent the past twenty years smothering those emotions inside him. He'd killed those urges until he might as well have destroyed the part of his soul that made him able to feel. Even with Abraham, a man David
wanted
to love, a man who had him grieving and hurting inside, he knew it wasn't love that he felt.

He did care, though. Because he did, and because he cared too much, he knew he needed to end things. Too much of the ugliness in his past was about ready to come spilling out, ready to stain and ruin everything he touched.

Once she really understood all of that—

His hands started to shake and he made a deliberate effort to block everything out. If he just didn't think about it, it was easier. That slow crawl of red didn't creep in on his vision and he didn't think about slipping out of the house, taking the old truck or even just making the hours-long walk into town and trying to find one of them.

Were there any left?

David didn't know, but there were times when he'd been ready to paint the town with swaths of murderous blood-red just to find one of them. Especially over the past few months. Because it hadn't stopped.

That, he knew, was what had him so close to the edge now.

Why he woke up choking and clawing his way out of the nightmares, still hearing their voices. Voices that echoed, lingered, a stain on his soul.

“Stop.” He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth and spun away from the window so he could pace.

The shaking would stop. The rage would ease.

Then he'd be able to think again, as long as he didn't give in to that rage.

He'd given in to it before. Just a couple of times. He'd never killed anybody … yet. But he'd taken back some of the blood, and he'd reveled in it as agonized cries managed to break through gags or muffling hands.

David didn't regret it. If he stood before a judge one day over it, they'd probably lock him away or send him to a home for the mentally unfit. He'd smile and say,
I'd do it again
.

Two men. Two men who'd never be able to tear into a boy the way they'd torn into him. Maybe he should be sorry for it, but regret was another emotion he couldn't feel.

As the edgy, broken rage spun inside him, he started to pace, the four walls of the plain home he'd built for himself closing in around him. Suffocating him. The silence beyond these walls was doing the same. Abruptly he turned and headed toward the closet where he'd been stowing boxes. Not many, just a few. But he didn't need more than that.

He grabbed them and hauled them out, dumped them on the bed.

There was duct tape in the truck and he went outside, the cool air washing over his overheated flesh. It brought little relief. He found the tape and a utility knife and headed back inside.

Within five minutes, all of the boxes were ready to be filled, and he went about do just that.

*   *   *

It took an hour for that red haze to melt back.

Having a task, a chore, something to accomplish, helped him focus, helped to center him.

Everything at the farm down at the bottom of the hill was quiet. A few days ago, during a family meal—the last he'd ever share with Abraham and Sarah—David had told them the truth he'd been keeping to himself over the past few weeks. It was time to leave here, time to return to the life he'd run from years ago.

Sarah had looked at him as though he'd slapped her.
Go back to the English? Why?

Abraham had simply studied him, but in the back of his eyes David had seen understanding. Abraham, unlike Sarah, had known the truth: David had never belonged here.

Now that Abraham was gone, there was nothing to hold David here and it would be better if he left before the mess in town followed him.

He couldn't let it happen.

Sarah would never understand that.

As he looked around the small house, he realized the entirety of his life had been packed away into five boxes. Twenty years of living and he'd tucked everything that mattered into a few boxes.

There was the furniture. He'd have to come back for it. Abraham had helped him build it and each piece mattered. Aside from those pieces they had built together, nothing else had any value.

This place had been for Caine, or the person Caine had pretended to be.

Caine was gone, buried under an explosion of ash the day the Frampton house burned down. Or maybe even the day those bones were revealed, under that rotting floor, when Trinity Ewing fell through the floorboards.

Caine was gone. David was back and David didn't belong here.

There was a quiet sound behind him as the door opened. She didn't knock, but then she never had. He'd gotten over being irritated by it a long time ago. Sarah was who she was and she wasn't going to change. Like her father, she loved David. Unlike her father, she thought loving David would somehow change him, make him fit in here, somehow. As if she prayed enough, it would somehow smooth out all the rough edges, fill in the void inside him.

That wouldn't happen.

She insisted it would, if he gave it time.

He had stopped fighting her a long time ago. Her words rolled over him and sank into the ground around him like rain. They meant nothing. And he suspected there was another watering to come.

“It's late, Sarah. You should be home asleep.”

“I buried my father today. I don't need you telling me what to do.” She looked around, stared at the boxes, her mouth pinched, her eyes dark and unhappy.

“I'm not trying to tell you what to do. But it's been a hard day. We could all use our rest.”

She flung out a hand. “That's what you are doing? Resting?” Nudging a box with the toe of a plain black shoe, she glared at him. “How can you leave me now? We've just buried my father. I need help. I need you here.”

He thought about just ignoring that simply spoken, soft statement but instead met Sarah's stark blue-grey eyes. She'd been pretty once. Time and unhappiness had worn that gentle beauty away. It wasn't right and he wondered how much of her unhappiness could be laid at his feet. “I don't belong here, Sarah. I always knew that. Your father knew it. And you don't need me. Your cousins are ready to help you. They've already told you that. Thomas will be here at dawn. He'll always be here for you.”

“
You
should be here. This is your home.”

“No. It's not.”

“It could be, if you would simply let it.” Sarah set her jaw and squared her shoulders under the plain blue dress she wore.

Was it as simple as that? He didn't waste more than a minute on it. If it were as simple as that, he would have found the peace that Abraham tried to offer him a hundred, no, a thousand times over the past twenty years.

“Then I guess I've chosen not to.” He shrugged and tucked the flaps of the boxes in, closing them up.

“Everything will change for you if you return to that life,” Sarah said, her voice stiff. “Nothing but trouble will be there. How will you explain the past twenty years?”

He jerked a shoulder in a shrug. “That's my concern.”

“You have—” She stopped, her mouth puckering with distaste. “It's been twenty years since you used that name. You've worked. You've made money. Under another name. Won't that cause problems?”

He saw what she was getting at, especially considering how he had just been thinking about some of those complications. Shrugging it off, he said, “I've always been aware it could be a problem. There was never any guarantee things from back then wouldn't come back to bite me. They have. Now I deal with it.”

That seemed to catch her off-guard. “So people already know.”

“By now?” He pretended to think it over. “Probably half the town, if not more.”

He had slipped into the hospital twice, but each time he'd gone in quietly, left the same way. There for one reason, to check on old Max. His condition was no longer critical, and the last time he'd opened his eyes they met David's. Max had recognized him. But other than Max and the handful of nurses who'd done their best to chase David out, nobody had seen him for long enough to say a word. Toot Jenkins had almost wrecked his truck when they'd passed each other at a four-way stop. All up and down Main Street, David had felt the eyes on him. He wasn't a fool. People knew.

Right now, Lana was in town facing the heat all on her own.

He'd planned to be there, dealing with it as well, but then Thomas had found him, told him about Abraham. So for four days David had been here.

He couldn't continue to linger, though. The longer he was here, the more likely it was that Sorenson was going to hunt him down. That was one thing he'd promised he'd never allow. David didn't want that evil to come here, taint this quiet, peaceful place.

“Why?”

He whipped his head up at the low, angry thread he heard in Sarah's voice. Narrowing his eyes, he studied her. “That's hardly your concern.”

“You're part of the family.” She paused, her head cocking as though she was thinking something through. “If you leave, people are going to want to know why. What made you run. You'll have to talk about it. Those are your secrets, secrets that should stay within the family. We always protected you. Stay here, and we'll continue to protect you.”

“Abraham was the closest thing to a father I'll ever have.” It was nothing but the truth. There was no way in hell he'd claim the monster who'd spawned him. He turned his back on her. “And yes, he spent a long time protecting me, but that time is over. I haven't needed protection for a long time, Sarah. And I'm not part of this family. I don't belong here. If I choose to talk about all those secrets, then that is my concern.”

He was quiet for a moment and then said, “But people already know.”

Sarah's lids flickered. “What do they know?”

“Who I really am.” He tried not to think about what
else
they might know, what they might be thinking—guessing. All the speculation … would it even come
close
to the reality?

“How do they know?”

At the soft, almost scared question, he looked up. “Because I stopped hiding.”

He'd only told the sheriff, the night Max was shot, but there were others around when he did it and in a town like Madison, news spread like wildfire.

“Why…” Sarah stopped and licked her lips, looking away. Her gaze roamed around the room and she stared at everything
but
him. Finally, she shook her head. “I don't understand why you would do that, Caine. We worked so hard to protect you, to give you peace here. Why would you
tell
?”

“It wasn't going to stay buried forever, Sarah.”

A static, almost heavy silence fell through the room and David stood there as Sarah stared at him, her gaze flat, blank as a mirror. He couldn't see a thing behind that gaze, had no idea what she was thinking. Not that he really cared. He knew what she wanted. For him to settle down here, stay here, probably take over the farm.

Abruptly she sighed and looked away. “Of course. I just don't know why you wanted to bring it all back up. You would be so much happier if you'd just let those troubles die.”

*   *   *

Her words haunted him.

He lay in his bedroom for probably the last time, staring up at the ceiling until his lids were too heavy, and when he slid into dreams they were anything but pleasant.

But then, his dreams never were.

Let those troubles die.…

In his dreams, those words echoed mockingly around him. Die. How could you let something die when it was a demon that lived inside you? He was facedown, tied to the bench again, while a whip cut into him.

Let those troubles die!
She screamed it this time, watching from the side, her hair falling from her prim white
kapp
—the little bonnet Amish women wore. And as she screamed, somebody came up behind him. He swore, jerking against the ropes. They couldn't do this to him again. Not now. He was bigger. Stronger. Stronger than they were.

There's always somebody stronger, boy
.

He jerked his head up, found himself looking at Sorenson.

Next to him stood Peter and one of the faceless monsters who'd joined in on the many, many times David had been dragged down into hell.
It's your turn now, boy. In time, you'll be a man and it will be your turn to join the brotherhood. Be ready to receive the honor we give you. In time, you'll pass it on to others. Just as we pass it on to you now.

The words echoed in his ears, repeating, louder and louder, and when a hand touched his spine he jerked against the ropes. This time, they snapped like threads and he came up, spun around, grabbed the neck of the person behind him, slammed him—