In the Air Tonight (12 page)

“But you’re not okay.”

“No, I’m not, and neither are you. Right now, I don’t really give a shit,” he said roughly. “Does that scare you?”

“I don’t want to think about any of this right now.”

“This is why you came here, Paige,” he told her. “You don’t get to pull that head-in-the-sand shit. You wanted the truth, now you have to handle it like a big girl.”

“I’m not a girl.” She moved to stand but he stopped her easily.

“No, you’re not.” His hands held her arms to her sides. Slid down to grasp her wrists. “You’re all woman, and I want to tie you up again. Want you
naked and spread out for me, just like I promised you downstairs. How does that sound to you?”

Mace’s words made her shiver, made her blood boil and her sex grow wet, and she wondered if she would always have that reaction to him.

It was all too much to process. Gray’s death, Caleb’s amnesia … Mace’s near-death experience, his torture. The scars on his back that she’d seen but not touched.

Before she could open her mouth again, he was letting go of her. “I want you, but I won’t do this. You have your information. It’s what you came for.”

It was. But watching Mace amble out of the room holding the bottle by the neck, she realized there was so much more she wanted to know.

M
ace stalked to the couch and slammed the bottle of whiskey onto the side table, then reconsidered and threw it into the fireplace, watching it smash among the burnt logs.

That would make for a nice fire later. For now, he laid out on the couch where Paige had slept last night and listened to the wind try to rip the house from its roots.

This storm, like so many others before it, would pass. It would claim power lines and landscaping, but hopefully not lives. Maybe it would get named like a few others, for the simple reason that it went beyond the scope of the meteorologists’ guesses or got the weary upstate New Yorkers talking about bad weather.

In the beginning, when he first moved here, each
storm like this one had scared the shit out of him. He’d dreaded the freezing cold, the hail that slammed as if trying to break in and just about every nook, cranny and creak in the place.

He had dreaded his grandparents more.

Over the years, the storms would pass and he’d barely noticed. But now this one threatened to take his defenses, which he couldn’t afford to lose. And maybe he already had.

“Sorry, Gray. I didn’t mean to.”

Ah, that was bullshit, complete and total, and Gray would’ve called him on it too. But he wasn’t here and the wind screamed as if looking for some kind of mercy.

Mace wondered if he’d ever find any for himself.

C
ael ran along the snow-encrusted paths through the backwoods behind the bar in the early morning light. He did this daily, a ritual he knew must’ve begun long before he’d come to live with Mace. It felt as right as breathing as he skimmed the icy surface with heavy boots, his air in white puffs as he tried to remain as silent as possible.

Sometimes, when the bar closed early, he’d run through the woods at night instead, testing to see if his reflexes were where they needed to be. He was remembering some of his early days as a Ranger—the bone-crushing training, the mental and physical exhaustion, the thrill of making it when you didn’t think you could.

It was all a good reminder, a way of making him feel closer to his past.

But instead of running last night … last night the
woman he’d been dancing with wanted him to come home with her. He’d driven her home, hadn’t even been sure of his own intentions until they were at her front door, kissing.

And, as it had the last few times he’d tried this, it hadn’t felt right. He didn’t know why, but he’d gone home and he’d slept. Or tried to, but instead he ended up in the storeroom, drawing pictures again. The two men and the woman.

When he came to, he was slumped over, with his head on a shelf. He dragged himself back to bed for a while and woke at dawn. Noted that Mace was sleeping on the couch, while Paige was in Mace’s bed, alone. And that was odd, considering the position he’d literally caught the two of them in last night.

He shifted his weight now to avoid crashing through the thick trees, maneuvering around instead to an open patch that began the path back toward the bar. But something stopped him in his tracks. A body, lying across the path about forty feet ahead of him … he took in the jeans and a black leather jacket.

The body was so still that Caleb knew the person was dead and had been for a while. He knew he’d seen enough dead in his life to know. He moved quickly anyway, until he stood over the man lying prone in the snow.

Big Harvey had nearly been decapitated. His chest was sliced open and his eyes stared up at Cael in a way he knew he’d seen before, but couldn’t place.

He checked around the immediate area until he saw the blood in the snow. Cautiously, he moved closer, saw a knife. Recognized it.

He wasn’t alone anymore … someone was sneaking
up on him. He could hear the footsteps like they were crashing cymbals in his brain—lately, everything was too loud, smells were too strong
.

It was all distorted, and even though he knew that, he couldn’t stop it
.

He would kill them all
.

When a hand grabbed at his arm, he moved fast, took hold of the wrist with the intention of breaking it—until he found himself slammed to the ground, hard. He fought for breath and struggled to rise, but a foot on his chest stopped him
.

He looked up and saw Mace standing over him
.

Mace
. Dressed for his own morning run through the woods—often, the men would run together.

“What the hell, Cael? I’ve been calling your name for five minutes.”

Caleb licked his lips, his throat dry as he realized the last part of his flashback hadn’t been a flashback at all. “The knife …”

“I saw it. I told you not to touch it, but you kept moving closer and closer.” Mace stuck out a hand and helped Caleb up from the snow. “Sorry about that—I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

Cael wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, but long enough for him to cool down considerably, for his muscles to ache from not being stretched properly. “I’ve seen that knife before.”

Mace didn’t say anything. Shoved his gloved hands under his arms and waited.

“It’s got a broken handle. It was in the trunk of Paige’s car the night before last when I grabbed her bags and brought them inside,” he said.

“Shit,” Mace muttered. “Let’s go call Ed.”

“Yeah.” He glanced back at the knife. “I’ve seen a knife like that before this too, Mace. There was a knife when I found you,” he said slowly, his voice pained. He looked down at his hand and then at the knife. “I was holding the knife. There was blood on it.”

Mace nodded, his face equally pained. But Cael couldn’t stop now, the words coming as fast as the images.

“They told me to kill you guys. They showed me your pictures. Brought me to your cells. Made me work out. Train, over and over. Tried convincing me that you and Reid and Gray were the enemy.”

“You never believed them.”

“How the hell do you know that?” he demanded harshly, got right in his friend’s face.

Mace blanched, but didn’t move. “Because I know.”

Caleb took a step back. “None of it makes sense, but I was so foggy all the time. I wasn’t myself.”

“It was the drugs,” Mace reminded him.

“Right.” Cael’s hands fisted tightly as his voice choked on that single word. “I don’t … I don’t remember why I had the knife. Where I’d come from. But I had a knife. That’s all I remember. And I know your throat was cut. So was Gray’s.” He paused. “What about the knife, the blood?”

“Mine and Gray’s, plus another type that they couldn’t match,” Mace admitted. “And they never found a trace of the two DMH guys; they haven’t been heard from since.”

“That means nothing,” Caleb said. “I just want to remember more about the knife.”

“Did you see someone using it on me?” Mace prodded.
Cael thought hard, blinked hard, then leveled his gaze on Mace.

The ground shifted beneath his feet as he clawed for the memories that were hidden by a shroud of fog. Everything he needed to know—things he had to know, for his own sanity—were out of his reach still. And the realization of what Mace had been holding back hit him like a bullet to the heart. “Do you think … fuck, Mace … do you think … did I …?”

C
ael couldn’t say it. Mace hadn’t been able to give voice to it either—he refused to speak about an option he would never believe without solid proof.

Even then he would question it. That was his nature. “You didn’t, Cael. There’s no way they broke you.”

“But you don’t know for sure. You weren’t conscious when it happened.”

“No.”

“So you don’t know anything for sure.”

“I know who you are. You saved my life. And Reid’s.”

Cael had a wild look in his eyes, like he’d been thrown completely off balance. He gripped Mace’s sweatshirt and shook him. “Is there anything else you’re not telling me?”

“As of now, you know everything I do.”

“You should’ve told me.”

“What, Cael? That I woke up with my throat slit? That you came into the room carrying a knife? I assumed you killed the men who tried to kill me.”

If there were bodies, Cael had hidden them well and Mace could only hope he would remember that eventually.
That would go a long way toward his healing, toward clearing himself of any wrongdoing if he was the one to take down their captors singlehandedly.

Mace wouldn’t put it past him.

But Cael was still freaked. “How the hell … you brought me here not knowing if I tried to kill you? Or if I’m responsible for Gray’s murder?”

“I brought you here to recover. To get your memory back. I’ve never thought you’d hurt any of us.”

“Correction, you didn’t
want
to think that I could.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Mace shot back and Caleb finally released him.

“Does Paige know?”

“She knows.”

“Jesus.” Cael rubbed his hands together. “You should’ve told me.”

“The doctor told me not to plant memories. He said you’d have a hard time differentiating between the true memories and the stories. When you remember things, I’m allowed to confirm that those memories are real.”

“I can’t see beyond the knife. How do you know I didn’t try to kill you, and realized what I was doing halfway through?”

“Cael—”

“You said yourself that I’ve been different since the mission. Wilder. Not like myself.”

Mace nodded. “You were pretty much on the straight and narrow. Now you’re sort of like … like your brother Zane. He used to never leave a party early.”

“Olivia really changed him,” Cael agreed. “At least that’s what he told me.”

“They saved each other. They found each other. I guess after you find the right woman, you want your parties to be more … private.”

Cael gave him a pointed look. “Did you and Paige have your own party?”

“No.”

“Because of the hand thing.”

“I guess. Gray knew a lot of my secrets. I don’t want anyone else to, not without my consent.”

“Gray. Jesus.” Cael shook his head and stared at his hands.

“Cael, you didn’t do it,” Mace told him. “There’s no way.”

“Right. There’s
no way
you know that for sure.”

“I know. So do you.”

“What if, Mace. If those drugs fucked me up enough. Maybe it’s not that I can’t remember. Maybe it’s that I don’t want to.”

Mace stared up at the storm-threatened sky for a long moment and then looked at his friend again.

“I should go,” Cael said. “Since Paige knows she won’t be comfortable with me here. Not after this. This”—he pointed to Harvey’s body—“is enough to spook anyone.”

“She doesn’t believe you’d harm Gray any more than I do,” Mace said fiercely. “You’re not going anywhere. You need to be around people you trust when you do remember. What they did to me wasn’t pretty, but what they did to you …”

Unspeakable. And yet, he was still standing.

“I need to … I need to run for longer,” Cael told him.

“That’s not a good idea. I’m sure Ed will want to talk to us,” Mace said quietly as he dialed the number
and waited for Ed to pick up. “Come on—come back into the bar and we’ll deal with everything, the way we’ve been dealing.”

“The way we’ve been dealing isn’t going to work anymore,” Cael said as Ed’s voice said, “Hello, police,” over the line.

Caleb was right, of course. But there was a killer in this town, in these woods, and Mace needed to catch that person, for all their sakes.

P
aige hadn’t gotten much sleep at all—tossed and turned with the horrors of what Mace had shared on her mind.

She’d asked for it, couldn’t blame Mace for telling her what she’d wanted to know. And she replayed his story over and over, the way Mace had obviously been doing for the past months. Thought about the way Gray died. The way Mace almost did.

The way Caleb couldn’t remember anything about it.

She felt so incredibly helpless, had sensed the same emotion from Mace. Something terrible had happened to all of them in that prison camp, something far worse than the story she’d imagined.

“Gray, I’m so sorry you suffered,” she said quietly. Thought about how much this information could hurt Caleb. He was the one who could truly fill in the gaps about what happened.

More than once, she thought about ignoring Mace’s instructions—and her better judgment—and telling Caleb she would use her ability to help him. Although that was more out of a selfish need to know.

Would she be comfortable staying here with Caleb
now? Mace didn’t think he could’ve harmed any of them; she wished she could be as sure.

So many times during the night, she’d wanted to pad out of the room and find Mace, bring him back into bed, exorcize their demons together. But they’d gone too far, too fast, at a time neither of them were ready.