Race the Darkness (7 page)

From the moment he'd found her, their futures had woven together, then tied themselves in a double knot. The only question: What kind of future was it? The fluffy friendship kind or the I-want-your-sex kind? His dick went all rah-rah, sis-boom-bah for the sex kind. He rearranged his hold on her so she wouldn't feel his pecker poking her in the ass cheek—no telling how she'd react. No telling if she'd been sexually abused on top of the obvious mental and physical damage. A single beat of his heart pumped the urge to kill Queen—again—through his system. The Bastard in His Brain fell in love with the idea, sending a shock of electrical energy pulsing through him as if Xander had just jammed his finger in a light socket.

A powerful need to murder the already dead nearly overwhelmed him. Queen's quick, easy death carried no justice. She deserved to suffer. She deserved to be stripped of her flesh inch by inch, deserved to have each muscle ripped from its tendon, each bone broken. The torture he wanted to put her through was boundless. Nothing could ever make up for what she'd done to Isleen.

Isleen tightened her grip on him, the action dissolving his anger.

A mere shuffling of fabric from the doorway caught Xander's attention. His innards twitched in surprise. It had been a long time since someone had been able to sneak up on him without his ears alerting him.
Damn.

Uncle Matt stood just inside the room, arms crossed spoiled-kid style, lips pinched into a belligerent grin. Matt's plastic-surgery-made-perfect nose wrinkled as if Xander and Isleen smelled worse than a roadkill skunk on a foggy morning. It amazed Xander that Matt and Kent weren't besties—their level of continuous contempt for Xander could've been the foundation for a great friendship.

“You fucking kidding me?” Anger and asshole dominated Matt's tone. “What is it with you and your dad? A genetic anomaly that turns you both into pussies around these women?”

Inside the circle of his arms, Isleen tensed and then withdrew from him. That his uncle's words had pulled her away from him hit the ignition switch on Xander's anger—after he'd just gotten it under control. “It's been a long time. Too long, probably. But you keep talking like that, and we'll be finishing this conversation with our fists.”

“I assume you mean Gran and me, but I don't know you.” Isleen's voice was surprisingly strong. “Explain why you hate us.”

Isleen's words hit the brakes on Xander's anger.
Damn.
She was holding her own against Uncle Matt. It was a lovely thing.

“You're right.
We've
never met, but I know Gale. I've seen the heartlessness at her core. I've dealt with the devastation she leaves in her wake. And you are”—his gaze traveled from her to Xander and back again—“her granddaughter. That's enough for me.”

“I don't know what you're talking about. How do you know Gran?”

The way Matt's mouth fell open might've made Xander laugh, if he hadn't felt his own mouth do the same. She must not have made the family connection quite yet.

“This is Matt. Alex's brother,” Xander said.

She shifted further away from him, but continued to aim her gaze at him. “Okay, but who is Alex?” Her face was washed in total ignorance.

“You've got to be goddamned kidding me!” The words exploded from Matt's mouth, too loud to be socially acceptable in a hospital. “Gale never fucking mentioned Alex. Not once?” He didn't wait for Isleen's reply. “Xan, if you don't see this as the warning sign it is, you deserve the same fate as your father.”

“Who's Alex? And what happened to him?” Isleen's voice carried obvious concern.

Matt snapped his lips closed, Xander's cue to explain. “Alex is your grandmother's husband.” This time Isleen's lips parted and an airy whisper of sound escaped. “He's Matt's brother. And my father.”

Her head jerked as if she'd been delivered an invisible slap. “Are you sure?”

What was going on that Gale hadn't told her anything? “Yeah, I'm sure.”

She started shaking her head and looked down at the bedding. “I can't believe we're
family
.” She spoke the last word as if she'd just uttered the world's worse curse.

“Yeah. I guess that's one way of putting it.” Okay, that wasn't the kind of response he would've expected from her finding out her grandmother had been married. Though he couldn't quite say what a normal response would've been. He just suspected this wasn't it.

Matt started speaking, despite her continued head shaking. “The doctor is comfortable releasing her—especially with the facility being right there. We're leaving as soon as you sign the payment arrangement papers at the nurse's station. Alex is already on the way home with Gale—they're traveling via medical van.”

“Home?” Isleen's attention snapped to Matt. “After all this time, I don't think we have a home anymore.”

“Baby, he means our home.” Technically, not his home, but he didn't feel like complicating an already crazy situation. “Gale and Alex's home. The Institute. Gale must've mentioned the Institute. She's still part-owner.”

Isleen's gaze met his. There was something in her eyes, something he couldn't name that seemed to be pleading for—for what? He was lost, didn't understand what was happening.

Her chin began to quiver and her eyes went wet, but she blinked rapidly, fanning away the tears. She shifted away from him on the bed, out of touching range, and stared down at the mass of sheets and covers. “When do we leave?” Her voice was steadier than her chin.

“Ten minutes.” Matt turned and headed for the door, then stopped. “Reporters are stationed at the lobby entrance and employee entrance, so you'll meet me at the ambulance entrance.”

“Okay,” she said. The word itself wasn't bad, the tone of her voice wasn't bad, so why did Xander feel bad like they were taking her back to the torture trailer or some equally terrible fate?

Isleen lifted her chin and aimed her words at Matt. “I need some clothes.”

What was going on? Why was she talking to the family asshole when the guy who'd found her, the guy who hadn't left her side—except for a moment—was sitting a foot away?

One side of Matt's top lip curled up in an Elvis-worthy sneer. “Xander's in charge of that shit.” He tossed Xander a WTF look and left the room.

Neither of them moved.

“Baby, what's wrong?” He scooted closer, but Isleen raised her hand in the universal sign for
stop
.

“I need clothes.” She looked everywhere except at him.

He reached over, opened the drawer beside the bed, and took out a set of clothes Row had brought for her. He held out the bundle. “Tell me what's wrong.” No, that was not the sound of pleading in his voice. He didn't plead. He didn't beg—at least not since he was child and his dad stopped speaking to him. Since then, Xander hadn't let himself care about anyone because this was exactly what happened whenever he cared.

“Isleen. Wake up.”

The richness of Xander's voice poured into her sluggish, sleepy mind like hot fudge. She basked in the warm sweetness of that special moment between sleep and waking, the muted crunching of gravel under the car tires a surprising lullaby.

“We're almost home.” Xander shook her leg, his touch firm and full of reassurance. Every one of Isleen's nerve endings electrified and stood at attention, wanting and waiting for more of him. She could feel the energy of his body colliding with hers, pulling her toward him. Only there was something wrong with that, wasn't there? She searched her memory for why Xander's touch would be wrong, when all her dreams of him had been so—

Alex is your grandmother's husband…my father.
Xander's father. Which meant Xander was her grandmother's son. Which meant he was Isleen's uncle. That made every dream she had of him—every feeling—sick, twisted, and wrong.

Her eyes popped open so fast she nearly lost her lids inside her brainpan.

She yanked her leg from his grasp and threw her body as far from him as the car door would allow. “Don't touch me. I just can't…can't…” Her mind searched for a socially acceptable explanation for her words, but no thoughts floated out of the abyss other than the scream echoing inside her head:
You're my uncle. You're my uncle.

She shouldn't be surprised Gran had left out that humongous detail—that she'd had a son. Gran never spoke about her daughter, Isleen's mom, either. Or the past. Never. Not ever. Gran's motto—her rule—had always been “Focus forward.”

“Understood.” Fully aimed at her, his face was all hard lines and sharp angles. He probably intimidated most people, but to her, his face—seen so often in her dreams—had always been a salvation. Even his scars. They weren't angry or ugly; they were beautiful with their intricate, fernlike pattern spreading up his neck to decorate half his face.

He shifted his attention from her and aimed it out the windshield. She wanted to do something, say something, so he'd turn those gorgeous tawny eyes on her again, but that was stupid and risky. It wouldn't take a Mensa member to see she was love-starved and Xander was her favorite food. With effort, she forced herself to look forward at the driveway leading to her new life.

Xander drove them through an emerald forest toward a rainbow of color. The woods surrounding the car were a painter's palette of greens, from chartreuse to deepest sage. Dusk hugged the edges of the landscape, and ahead of them at a large opening in the trees, violent hues of scarlet tipped bruised clouds. A breathy gasp escaped her lips. She didn't want to look away. Monochromatic color had dominated her existence for so long that she had to blink back tears at the overstimulation.

Emotion burned the back of her throat and watered her eyes. She swiped away the wetness before it could streak down her cheeks. “It's stunning.”

“Wait until you actually see the house,” Matt said from the backseat, his tone slightly sarcastic and laced with a dash of admiration. At least he wasn't being nasty.

They rounded a sharp curve, leaving the forest canopy behind to make room for the behemoth-sized house perched on the side of the hill. But the word
house
was too miniscule to contain the structure. The word
mansion
only fit because of the size. The word
castle
was close, but too harsh and cold to convey the whimsy of all the windows and wood.

Gables overshot the expansive second story, and a wide porch wrapped itself around the place like a hug. Plush wicker chairs and a porch swing invited her to sit and watch the sunset to completion.

“Wow,” Isleen whispered. “This is where I'm going to live?” She stared out the window, straining her neck to take in the entire structure. Everything here seemed so large, so great, so unreal.

Xander parked in front of the massive arched entryway.

“Yep. This is your stop.” Matt's tone carried a false lightness. “Unless you want to go home with Xander.”

“She's staying here.” Without a word to her or a glance in her direction, Xander got out of the car, slamming the door so hard it rocked the vehicle. He walked to the drive that went on past the house and farther up the hill. His shoulders strained the fabric of his T-shirt, and his legs consumed the ground in paces so large she would have to run to keep up. That's exactly what she wanted to do. Run after him.

All her muscles and tendons were poised, ready to chase him down and set a world record in the hundred-yard dash. She grabbed for the door handle, the explanations flooding her mouth:
Your touch means everything to me, makes me feel whole and healthy and wanting so much more. You're my uncle and it's wrong to feel this way and I don't know how else to not want you.

No. If she said that, she'd come off sounding like the love child of the demented and the perverted. She wouldn't go after him. She forced herself to let go of the door.

Restrained, unused energy vibrated through her, triggering a thousand memories. Memories of feeling that exact way inside their prison and the only relief, the only escape, was when Queen had beaten the feeling out of her. Physical pain was a distraction from the mental anguish and so much easier to handle.

Isleen clenched her fists tight, so tight they shook, so tight the slender, barely there muscles in her arms strained. Before her mind could decipher her body's intent, she punched down onto the fleshy part of her legs. Pain bloomed, a blessed distraction. She hit herself again. The desperate energy, the horrible urge to chase after him, eased. She beat her legs over and over—

Matt captured her wrists, locking them in his grip. “Stop it.”

His voice punched her out of the trance she'd been in. She shrank back from him, but he didn't let go and didn't look away from her, refusing her the dignity of denial.

Shame blistered her face with its warmth, and the tip of her nose tingled. How had she not thought about Matt in the backseat? She'd been so absorbed in herself that she'd clean forgotten him. She yanked on her wrists imprisoned by his hands, but it was like fighting a pair of handcuffs.

“You done hurting yourself?” Matt's words themselves weren't kind, but the way they were spoken, slowly and deliberately, contained latent compassion.

She bobbed her head up and down, uncertain her voice was functional.

“I'm going to let you go, and if you hit yourself again, I'm taking you back to the hospital for an evaluation and immediate admission to the psych unit. Got it?”

He eased his grip on her wrists little by little, as if hypervigilant about waiting for her to start thumping on herself again. When she remained mostly paralyzed by humiliation, he released her from his hold, but not from his penetrating gaze.

His eyes were the color of a clear summer sky, but they contained none of the carefree happiness of a June day. He assessed her, judged her, challenged her. This she could handle. She'd known hate and intimidation at Queen's hand, and Matt's efforts were majorly lacking. She met him glare for glare, locked in a strange staring contest that she wouldn't lose.

Without warning, he stepped back out of the open car door and whispered, “Pull your shit together and pretend to be normal. Someone wants to meet you.”

She barely had time to digest his words.

A woman stepped up beside Matt, and everything that had just happened vanished out of existence. The woman's hair was a captivating shade of lavender—the kind of color that could be both happy and sad at the same time. She wore a completely normal pair of shorts and a tank top, but what wasn't normal was her body covered from the collar down with brilliant, flowing tattoos. And with her face full of crumpled construction-paper wrinkles, the woman had to be pushing mid-seventies, maybe early eighties.

Isleen mouthed the only word that came to mind. “Wow.” It was impolite to stare, but she couldn't stop looking. This old lady wasn't a sweet, kindly looking grandma. She was insanely spectacular.

“Isleen! Holy hell balls, girl! You're looking so much better.” The woman's tone was that of a long-lost friend, as if they'd already met and known each other for years. “I sneaked some peeks at you while you were in the hospital, but you were always asleep. Christ on the crapper, look at your hair! It's grown at least three inches. How is that even possible?”

The woman paused to take in some oxygen.

“I need to get caught up on all the Institute work that's been back burnered since—” Matt moved away from them.

“Go. Shoo. Move. Get the fuck outta here.” The woman flicked her hands in his direction but spoke to Isleen. “Sorry, sorry, sorry—you're probably wondering who the hell I am. I'm Roweena, but everyone calls me Row. I'm the maid, the cook, the laundress, and goddamned keeper of order around here.”

Isleen sat stunned. She'd never in her life heard a woman cuss so much—and do it so good-naturedly. Row bent into the car, pulling Isleen out and into a warm hug filled with genuine affection. For some reason, tears burned in Isleen's sinuses. No, she knew the reason for her emotion. Gran used to hug her like this, but once her mind was gone… Well, it'd been too long since Isleen had experienced motherly affection. Without thinking about Row being a stranger with lavender hair and covered in tattoos, Isleen hugged her back, earning an even tighter squeeze.

Row shifted away and Isleen didn't mean to stare, but her gaze roamed over the vivid colors inked onto Row's skin.

“This one—” Row pointed to the beautiful cameo-esque tattoo in the middle of her delicately wrinkled chest. Shades of gold, orange, and sepia colored the image. Isleen moved closer to take in the intricate details. “—is a portrait of my Granny Maude. She swore like a sailor, smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, and was kind as a saint until she died in her sleep at ninety-eight years old.”

Isleen straightened from her examination of Row's tattoo. “You've got the swear-like-a-sailor thing down.”

A smile fired on Row's face, but it was no ordinary smile. It was the kind of smile that surpassed age and transformed her wrinkled visage into timeless beauty. “That's a great compliment. Granny Maude refused to grow old gracefully—said that was for the unimaginative. So like her, I'm growing old fabulously.” She laughed and ran a gnarled hand through her lavender hair. “One of the gifts of age is not caring what anyone thinks.”

This woman was exactly what Isleen needed. Someone to care for her. Someone to care about. Someone it was easy to be around. “Thank you, Row.” Isleen's vision got a little watery. “For being so awesome, so nice.”

“Aww…” Row snatched her up in another hug and Isleen clung to the older woman, soaking up the affection.

“I'm all right,” Isleen finally said. “I think I'm a happy crier.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” Row pulled back and visually checked Isleen over like any good grandmother would, then nodded as if confirming Isleen's words. “You've got be just about peeing your pants to see Gale. Alex, he's such a dumbass sometimes, didn't think about how badly you might want to see Gale before they left the hospital.” Row's tone wasn't harsh or angry, but filled with teasing affection that ticked the corners of Isleen's mouth up a notch. Her cheeks were stiff, and it felt weird and right to be smiling for the first time since… She couldn't even remember the last time.

Row linked her arm with Isleen's and they headed toward the magnificent house. “I've got Gale set up in the library. It's the only private room on the first floor. After we visit with her…”

Isleen lost Row's words as they moved closer to the house, toward her new beginning.

There was so much about her life she didn't want to remember. The bad stuff in her past was too immense and diverse and horrific for her to analyze. If she wanted to make this new life work, she needed an amputation of everything up to the moment she met Row. But an amputation meant not only losing the bad memories, but the good ones—the happy moments of the time before they had been captured. Was she willing to sacrifice the good just to forget the bad? Yes. It would be worth it to be rid of the past, the pain.

Start here. Start fresh. Start focusing forward, just like Gran always did. Gran never spoke about painful things in her past. Never. Isleen didn't know how Gran did it, but she was going to bury all the bad under the rich, dark earth of her mind, then place the grave in the center of an endless labyrinth. If the bad ever escaped, it would be lost in the twisting, turning boundlessness of the maze and never find its way to her.

“Focus forward” had always been Gran's life motto. Now, Isleen was going to adopt it, coddle it, and care for it too.

Row pushed open the massive front door and motioned for Isleen to enter first.

She sucked in a breath of focus-forward determination and entered her shiny new life. One step across the threshold, her feet refused to move. The expanse and extent of the house held her captive in its cathedral-like majesty. Overhead, the ceiling soared so high it seemed a part of the sky. She felt miniscule compared to the wide-open space.

“Wow. Oh wow. Wow.” She was stuck on repeat, not able to find any other words. The giant room possessed a hominess she didn't expect in such a large place. A kitchen was to the left, with a huge island and an even larger table that looked like it belonged in a fancy castle. The rest of the open space was filled with clusters of seating areas, some in front of windows, some in front of the fireplace, and some in the middle. It was the oddest, neatest place she'd ever seen.

Across the vastness, a spiral staircase wound up, up, up to an open second-floor family room. Cozy couches and chairs were set in front of a TV the size of a small movie screen. Wow. On either side of the loft ran open hallways with three doors on each side. Bedrooms she supposed. One of those was probably hers. Her own private place. How long had it been since she'd had privacy?