Renegade (21 page)

Is the hound inside me killing?

Am I spiraling out of control?

My thoughts died away when I realized I was in a park. A park I did know. I wasn’t far from where I grew up. In fact, only blocks away. Across the street from the park was a small neighborhood and I darted toward the houses, trying to stay within the darkest areas of the yards. There had always been this one house that hung their laundry out to dry…

There!

I jogged toward the home, which thankfully had clothes on the line. A few more weeks and it would be too cold to dry them this way. I pulled down a pair of grey sweatpants and quickly stepped into them. They were still damp and freezing cold from hanging outside, but I wasn’t going to complain. At least I was no longer naked. I found a grey T-shirt also and pulled it over my head. It was too small, but it was better than nothing.

Then I melded back into the shadows of the yard to decide what to do. I don’t know how I ended up this far away. I must have run at a punishing pace to get here. I was tired—exhausted in fact, but that could be from never getting an actual night of sleep. Walking home would take forever and when I wasn’t there in the morning, Heven would worry.

I wanted to shield her from this.

I couldn’t anymore.

Heven.
I reached out to her mind, wondering if my voice would wake her.

Sam? Where are you?

I’m near my hometown.

What are you doing all the way over there? What happened? Are you hurt?

I looked down at the blood on my hands.
I
was fine.
No. I need you to come and get me.

I’m coming right now.

I told her where the park was and that I’d be waiting there near the trees. And then I waited. And waited.

I wondered what I would do if I discovered it really was me killing those people. How could I continue to live with Heven and Gran? I couldn’t put them in danger by being there. And then my thoughts turned to where I was. My hometown. My parents were just streets away. Did they ever wonder about me? About Logan? Did they ever regret chasing their sons away?

Did they deserve to know that one of us was dead?

I’m here, Sam,
Heven said and suddenly all I could think about wass seeing her. About touching her. Everything would be fine once I was with her.

She sat in her car, pulled on the side of the road beside the park. The sun was coming up now, but the sky remained gray. Maybe it would rain. When I stepped out of the trees and walked toward her she got out of the car and ran toward me. I didn’t run, but I did keep my eyes on her. I did feel the steady rhythm of my heart excel at the sight of her.

And then she stopped in front of me, looking at the clothes that weren’t mine, the smears of dried blood on my arms, and, no doubt, the empty look in my eyes.

“Oh, Sam,” she whispered and wrapped herself around me. Her skin was warm and she smelled like home.

I hugged her too tightly. I crushed her so close she made a small sound, but when I tried to pull away, she tightened her grip and murmured, “It’s okay,” into my ear. She often says I’m the one who saved her—from herself, from China, from Beelzebub… But in truth, she’s the one who saved me. She’s the one who loved a boy that no one else would. She’s the one who gave me her heart even though I didn’t deserve it, and she’s the one who made me feel like I was worth something more than nothing.

Without her I’d be a man with two halves. It’s her that binds both parts of me together. Maybe I hadn’t realized until that moment just how wholly hers I was, but I did now. It was there with a sparkling clarity that no dust could ever cover.

“Thanks for coming,” I whispered.

She pulled back and smiled. “Where you go, I follow.”

But I didn’t want her to have to follow me to places that very well could be crime scenes. My crimes. I wanted better for her.

“I think we should talk.”

She nodded, linking our fingers and tugging me toward the car.

I knew I would never give her up—I never could—so the only thing I could do was figure out a way to fix this. To stop what was happening. The reclaim control of the beast inside me.

But I wasn’t going to be able to do it alone. I glanced at Heven, who squeezed my hand reassuringly before letting go to climb in the driver’s seat, and I knew without a doubt I wouldn’t have to.

Chapter Eleven

The Vile

It seems sending that foolish Prince to Earth was one of my more brilliant ideas. He stirred things up, created chaos, and took away hope from many.

It made my job easier.

Twisting the souls of people, turning them against God is much more difficult when they are full of hope.

But once they have seen God can’t really protect them here, that my evil and corruption is like the plague, which has no cure, they are much more easily swayed to come to the dark side. After all, if they come willingly, there are many more benefits.

Like not being chained to the floor of my domain.

I looked into the field where the light one sat, just inside the cover of the trees. He was shaken. He doubted himself. He couldn’t understand why the beast in him was winning out over the carefully cultivated control he has enjoyed his entire life.

I took a deep breath, enjoying the stench of disquiet in the breeze.

Perhaps stomping out that light in him wouldn’t be as difficult as I first believed. Perhaps with just a few more nudges in the right direction, he would be eager to join me in my perusal of tipping the balance here on Earth in hell’s favor.

Perhaps with him and the dark one’s help, it would be a much faster pursuit than I thought.

I didn’t have to find Beelzebub and tell him to keep doing what he was doing. The idiot probably didn’t even know he had this desired effect on the hound. He was just doing what he always did, acting out of vengeance.

Not that there was anything wrong with vengeance.

Except vengeance was a dish best served cold.

As in the cold that only a dead body can feel.

If he really wanted vengeance, he would have just killed them all by now. Instead, he seeks something else, something I was sure had to do with power.

It wouldn’t take me long to figure it out.

And when I did…

I would serve my vengeance exactly the way it should be.

Cold.

Heven

He looks shaken up.
In all the time Sam and I have been together, I’ve seen him in just about every possible emotional state a person can go through. I’ve seen what he’s like angry, wounded, afraid, and devastated. I’ve seen him happy, in love, and carefree. I’ve even seen what he looks like in death (thank you, Airis).

In all the many ways I’ve seen Sam, I’ve never seen him quite like this. I wasn’t yet sure what it was I saw in him, but I knew it scared me.

That and the fact that he had dried blood all over him.

I went through a Starbuck’s drive-thru after we left the park and ordered some bagels and coffee. Sam didn’t really like coffee, but I ordered him the sweetest one they had and then asked for whipped cream in hopes he would drink it. Well, that and the sugar and caffeine would put some of that golden color back in his skin.

Once I paid and they handed out our order, I pulled forward into a parking spot for a few minutes to get out the bagels and stir my coffee. I watched Sam as he gave his white mocha a try and I waited for a reaction.

“Pretty good for coffee,” Sam said, but I barely heard his words because the red around his fingernails was slightly disturbing.

I pulled my attention away and smiled. “I knew you’d like that one.”

He looked at me with a grave expression on his face. “Are you afraid?”

A strangled sound ripped from the back of my throat and I set my coffee in the cup holders between us and turned in my seat to look at him. “No.” He had turned away, so I said, “Look at me.” When he did I continued. “I will never,
ever
be afraid of you, Sam.”

“Even if I’m a killer?”

Something inside me felt bruised at the fact he thought he was a killer and I wouldn’t love him anyway. “You could get out of this car right now and kill everyone in the parking lot, Sam. When you were done I’d drive your getaway car.”

He made a face. “That is seriously disturbing, Heven.”

“The truth disturbs,” I quipped.

He smiled and something inside me whispered he was going to be okay. “How about this, then.” I leaned over and touched his cheek. “There’s nothing you could say to me right now that would ever change the way I feel about you. I loved you yesterday. I love you today and every single tomorrow we get.” I ran a hand through his messy golden hair and he caught it to bring it to his lips and kiss my palm.

When I pulled back I handed him his coffee. “Drink your latte.” I pulled the car out of the lot and onto the main road. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I think I might be the one who’s leaving all those dead bodies the cops are finding.”

The bagel felt like a lump of rock scraping all the way down my throat, and I took a sip of my latte to help it along. After I swallowed I looked at him. “I don’t believe that.”

“I’ve been shifting unexpectedly, mostly at night, and then I wake up in places I don’t remember being and sometimes I’m covered in blood.”

Sam mentioned he was shifting a lot more lately, but he never said he couldn’t remember or that he was bloody. “How long have you been doing this?”

“A few days after Logan’s funeral.”

“So that’s probably what it is—stress and grief. A lot’s happened recently.”

“I thought that too. But a lot of stuff’s been happening for a long time, Heven. You died. Then someone tried to kill you. Then you almost died again. None of that sent me over the edge.”

“But Logan…” But I wasn’t his baby brother.

He shook his head. “No. I loved Logan. More than anyone… aside from you.”