Chapter Two

 

Nelson clutched Page as tightly to his chest as he could without making her pass out. Matthias took a few steps closer to the pair and eyed her over the bridge of his nose.

Page’s arms were wrapped around Nelson’s neck while he held her like a baby, but her vulnerable position didn’t seem to bother her at all. She glared at Matthias with a level of vehemence and disgust I didn’t know she was capable of.

“So you’re what all the fuss is about?” he said to her.

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“You survived a Zombie bite, little girl. That sounds like a pretty big deal to me.”

“I survived your ugly wife,” Page snarled. “That was worse.”

I pressed my lips together and tried not to laugh. I didn’t entirely succeed. Matthias’s eyes turned into slits of fury. Linley let out an outraged huff and stomped over to her husband.

“Get these off me,” she hissed. She spun around and presented her bound hands to Matthias.

He took out a pocket knife and with a quick flick of the blade, the plastic tie fell to the ground. Her arms bounced uselessly at her side until she’d rubbed enough feeling into them that they worked again. Her wrists were bloodied and torn from where the plastic had dug into her skin and I could see from where I stood that she would have to work to get her full strength back.

Matthias slid his pocketknife back into his pocket and laid both of his hands on her shoulders. He had rubbed them soothingly before his hands slipped down her biceps and over her forearms. He seemed to be caressing feeling back into her arms, helping her recover. The gesture looked sweetly intimate, and I found myself shocked that Matthias did actually seem capable of love.

At least for Linley.

His children were a different story.

Someone walked up behind Kane and cut his ties loose as well. He rubbed at his own bloodied, bruised wrists, but I didn’t offer to help, although I could tell he wanted me to. It would have been way too awkward though. I would play enough of this game with him to aid my own survival and the escape of my friends, but I wasn’t going to make a spectacle of myself or flaunt Kane’s feelings for me in front of this collectively evil audience.

Or in front of Hendrix.

“Everything go as planned?” Matthias asked Kane. The glint in his eyes revealed exactly what he was talking about. He even smiled. And it was gross and creepy and super perverted.

I hated it. Yuck.

Kane didn’t hesitate. “It did.”

Matthias bent down and pressed a kiss to his wife’s temple. “You’re a trooper, Darlin’.”

I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. I could see that Matthias thought everything went according to his plan. And in his eyes, it probably did. Kane had managed to kidnap me, and seduce me. Or something along that line. Plus, the Parkers and Gage had been lured out of the compound just in time for Matthias to take it over. Meanwhile, we walked right back into his trap and basically handed ourselves over to him.

Matthias had gotten everything he set out to get.

Oh, only he’d lost one major asset. Kane.

And we were here to kill him, not join his brutal crusade to take over the world.

I glanced at Kane nervously. Matthias had lost him, right? Kane was playing him, not us. Right?

Kane looked down at me and met my concerned gaze with the cocky arrogance of a man that could conquer anything and anyone. Without warning, he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to my closed lips. He tasted like sweat and dirt and… him. I squeezed my eyes together to keep the fears at bay. He loved me. He really loved me. He was on our side now because he loved me. This was all an act. He played his part perfectly.

That was all.

We had not been double-crossed.

“You’re mine now,” Kane murmured to me. His mouth slid up my jawline and came to rest on the shell of my ear. “I taste it on you. You’re mine.”

My heart crashed to my toes, and my fears became a living, breathing, tangible monster inside me. It ate at my flesh and clawed at my insides. It opened its mouth and devoured me whole. It consumed me. Every part of me.

Was he right?

And if so, was I his by force or choice?

I couldn’t form words to reply to him. More questions swirled in my head and fluttered in my stomach, but they spun too fast for me to make sense of them or come up with any kind of intelligent answer.

“Load them up,” Matthias ordered.

The gunmen moved on us, but the Parkers bristled with instinctive defense. It took one more order from Matthias and a deadly weapon trained on Page’s head for the brothers to submit to their captors. Her brothers were smart enough to know that their compliance would keep her safe.

Page. Our weakness. Our greatest hope.

Miller was not as wise, even though he probably understood his dad’s actions the best. He rushed in front of her and tilted his head up in a defiant posture. He spread his skinny arms out and glared at his father. “Touch her and I’ll kill you.”

Matthias’s expression turned black with some vile emotion I had never even seen before. No matter how much I hated Matthias and Linley, or the Feeders that plagued my life, I had never hated something as strongly as Matthias hated Miller. He closed the distance between his son and him and backhanded Miller across the face so hard, that the younger boy crumpled to the ground unconscious.

“Stupid little shit,” Matthias grumbled, standing triumphant over his son’s unmoving body.

I gasped at the sight of Miller lying there, helpless, beaten. Matthias just picked him up and tossed him over his shoulder and motioned for the rest of us to follow him.

They herded us to the road and loaded us into separate vehicles. The ride to the compound was a blur while my nerves and fears blinded me to everything but “what ifs.” I stayed close to Kane, I followed the plan. I couldn’t tell if we were still going by script or not, but I wasn’t going to deviate until I absolutely had to.

Kane wrapped his arm around me and held me close against his body. We rode in Matthias’s vehicle while the rest of my group did not. Linley sat up front with him and relayed everything that happened over the last couple weeks.

“And they believed you, Son?” Matthias asked over his shoulder to Kane when Linley got to the part about Kane helping the Parkers.

This was the part of the story I was unclear about. This. Right here.

This is where doubt and uncertainty settled into my bones and made me paranoid.

“Obviously,” Kane chuckled. “I delivered them right to you, didn’t I?”

“That you did.” Matthias squeezed the steering wheel in his grip. “What do you think about it, Reagan? You think my son’s a smart man? You think he got what he wanted?”

I stared out the windshield and refused to acknowledge him. I didn’t know what Kane got. I didn’t know if he got what he wanted or not. I didn’t know if he was still on my side or not. I didn’t know anything anymore.

“Answer me, girl, or I’ll find creative ways to make you answer. And trust me when I say my methods are not nearly as kind as Kane’s.”

I swallowed down the bile pushing its way up my throat and said, “I’m not afraid of what you can do to me.”

Matthias barked out a burst of laughter. “Ain’t nobody said I would do anything to you, little girl. My son wants you to stay pretty. And I can’t say that I blame him.”

The innuendo that he would hurt someone I loved was enough to cow me. I didn’t need any more persuasion to obey. “Your son is very smart.”

Matthias seemed pleased but Kane did not. “What else am I?” he teased me. His arm tightened around my shoulders, and he pulled me closer to his body. “Tell me what else I am.”

His words were a demanding whisper, so I felt justification when I replied just as softly. “Cocky,” I told him. “Reckless. Inconsiderate. Dominating. Tyrannical. Ugly.”

“You don’t think I’m ugly,” he chuckled.

I pursed my lips and argued with myself not to say anything that would encourage him.

“You don’t think I’m ugly,” he said again, but the timber of his voice had deepened and stretched out. “At least you don’t look at me like I’m ugly.”

Unable to stifle the curiosity, I asked, “How do I look at you?”

“Like I came from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” I quirked my brow at him and waited for an explanation. “A tree in the Garden of Eden. The fruit Eve picked and ate was from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Delicious, eye-opening, and powerful, but forbidden.”

“And deadly,” I added. “Eve took a bite of that fruit and died.”

“Not right away,” he whispered in my ear, his lips grazing my skin. “First she realized she was naked.”

Okay, it was so not right that Kane could make me shiver with stories about the Bible. That was wrong, right?

Oh, so wrong.

I fell silent for the rest of the trip. I didn’t know how to talk to Kane or interact with him with his parents so close.

He let me stay quiet, and we drove in relative peace until the compound was in sight. Okay, it wasn’t exactly peace, more like mutual silence. Matthias gloated in the front seat while Linley licked her wounds. Miller lay unconscious in the back of the SUV and Kane kept me tightly to his side. I didn’t have anything to say, at least that wouldn’t get me smacked around a little bit, and I wanted to keep my strength.

I would need it later.

Unlike when Gage ran things, the compound walls were swarming with men. They balanced along the thick cement ledge with annoying ease. Their guns blinked at me in the afternoon sunlight, and their faces crinkled with barely restrained disgust. They knew the cargo these vehicles carried, and they were not our fans.

Once inside the gates, Matthias parked the older SUV in a long line with other cars and trucks and instructed us to get out. He barked orders at his men and had the Parkers and Haley marched away to their holding cell.

Kane kept me prisoner inside our vehicle, so I was forced to watch everyone I love march away without being able to say or convey anything to them. They looked back for me, and I watched a few expressions- especially Haley’s- darken when they couldn’t find me. I hated that they left. I hated that I had to stay with Kane. I didn’t know what to think anymore. I didn’t know if Kane was truly still bad or if this was part of the plan.

And I hated not knowing more than I hated anything else.

Eventually, the courtyard cleared out, and Kane allowed me to exit the SUV. We followed Matthias into the lobby where he stopped and spun around to face me. Linley wandered off to get cleaned up. One of their henchmen carried Miller behind her. He still hadn’t woken up yet.

“Your home is under new management,” he smiled.

“I can see that.”

“Your friends are going to pay for the headache they’ve caused me.”

I stayed silent. Nothing I had to say would help them at this point. I would just piss him off even more. Kane seemed to sense that and stepped up behind me. His chest pressed into my back, and his hands rested on my shoulders.

I hated to admit that his presence did calm me. He made me feel safer. He made me feel protected.

“You will be spared some of their punishment, Reagan. You have my son to thank for that.” Matthias motioned to one of his men and they disappeared into the main body of the storage facility. I tensed in horrified anticipation. I could tell the man had gone to retrieve something… to bring something back. If it was one of my friends… if Matthias intended to “punish” one of the Parkers or Haley right now, right in front of me, I would lose my mind. I would literally lose my mind.

I knew there would be no salvaging whatever was left of me at that point.

“Thank him,” Matthias growled when I didn’t respond to his verbal command.

But in my defense, I’d thought he was being rhetorical.

I turned to Kane and met those steely grays one more time. “Thank you.”

He drew his middle finger over the curve of my jaw and across my bottom lip. “You’re welcome.”

I swallowed thickly and returned my attention to Matthias. “You are not to leave Kane’s side. He is your only protection here. Should you find it in your rebellious heart to disobey me, you will notice that this is not like my Colony. This is a small space with giant walls to keep what I want inside and what I don’t want outside. My men will be instructed to gun you down immediately should you be found without Kane at your side.”

“What if he doesn’t want me around him? What if he’s the reason I’m alone?” My hands had started to tremble and I was seconds from throwing up. I really needed to pull myself together, but the uncertainty and fear were too much.

I wasn’t strong enough.

I could survive two years of Zombie hell, but I wouldn’t survive a day here. I wasn’t meant to be captured, I wasn’t meant to be imprisoned.

I was too wild.

I was too savage.

“Kane won’t leave your side,” Matthias said simply, like it was the most obvious truth in the world. “And if he needs to, he has access to my guards and can post them outside your… room. For now anyway, until you relocate. I’m not talking about ‘what ifs’ though, Reagan. I’m talking real life with real circumstances. Don’t be caught out and about without Kane. It will not end well for you.”

“Alright,” I heard myself say, but couldn’t remember forming the words or putting a voice behind them.

Matthias’s man returned, pushing the scientist from earlier to the ground in front of me. I glared at the middle-aged man with a balding head and a face full of acne scars. His shoulders were rounded and stooped over from a lifetime at a computer that had given him nothing but back pain and a reason to betray innocent people.

“This man wants the little girl,” Matthias announced happily. “I think I’m going to give her to him. I think I should give her to him.”

Oh, god. Was I about to get the forecast for upcoming schemes? Of the evil villain variety?

Dear Zombie gods, shoot me now. Please. For the love of all that is cannibal and brain dead.

“That’s a great idea.” I smiled sweetly and took the biggest gamble of my life. “Then he can cure Zombieism and we can get this whole mess cleaned up. That’s what you want right? You want to cure the infection and develop a vaccine so we don’t have to worry about this threat anymore, right?”

His eyes narrowed and he raised his hand as if to backhand me. I leaned back against Kane and his arms wrapped around my stomach. He squeezed me to him and rested his chin on my shoulder. The gesture was clear. I was under Kane’s protection. And no matter how much Matthias hated me, he believed Kane was still on his side and I was the prize that his son had won.

I hoped he was wrong about Kane’s loyalties.

But either way, I would take Kane’s protection at this moment. I saw how hard he hit Miller earlier. I’d rather avoid that.

At least for as long as I could.

Matthias’s angry gaze swung to the hunched over scientist. I thought his name was Jim, but I couldn’t remember exactly.

“You didn’t tell me about all that,” Matthias accused him while sounding thoroughly interested.

Jim, who looked extremely disheveled and dirty, far dirtier than he’d ever been when he stayed with us, ducked his head and stared at the ground. A weak whimper shuddered through his chest and he shook his head. “We can’t do that with one child. That’s impossible.”

Matthias did not look convinced. I smiled. Jim might not have been lying. In fact, unless he was a very skilled pathological liar, his words came out genuine and honest. Bobbie Jo had explained a little bit of how they would use Page, but she’d never told us exactly what they could do with Page’s blood to develop any of those things. Maybe Jim was telling the truth. Maybe Bobbi Jo had been stabbing at the dark, hoping to catch a break, some miracle cure that would need a miracle to create. Either way, Matthias’s paranoia and greed for power made him easy to manipulate.

I would do anything I could to protect Page. I couldn’t let Matthias hand her off to some back-stabbing scientists that couldn’t take care of themselves. By herself, Page wasn’t a threat to anything. It was her immunity in the hands of the right people that posed a threat to Matthias’s agenda. It wasn’t like she could just walk around healing people. As long as Page was in Matthias’s custody, she was absolutely no threat to him.

I realized I might have just condemned a man to die. I might have been the nail in this scientist’s coffin, but his plot to take Page from me was just as evil and unforgivable as anything Matthias had planned for us. And he had sold us out to the Colony, which was a death sentence in its own right.

Eye for an eye.

“You lied to me,” Matthias growled.

“We didn’t,” Jim pleaded. “We told you the truth. We want the little girl for experiments. We want to take her away from here!”

Matthias pulled a gun from the back of his pants and shoved it into the nape of the stooped scientist’s neck. “Nobody lies to me.”

“Wait!” I gasped with a last-second desperation. “Why did you betray us? Why didn’t you listen when we told you this way was dangerous? Why did you just steal our car and leave? You’re going to die now and it was all for nothing. Don’t you get it? You died for nothing because you were selfish!”

“What would you have had me to do?” the man demanded. He still stared at the ground while his whole body shook with fear. “They stopped us. Page was our only hope for survival. She was all we had to barter.”

“But you didn’t have her!” I shouted at him. “She wasn’t yours to bargain with! You should have stayed with us. You should have tried to fight!”

He finally lifted his head and glared at me. His pale blue eyes shot daggers my direction as if they could kill me from there. His body started shaking from rage now, not fear. “We’re not like you! We can’t just throw guns around and get our way! We’re not freedom fighters. We are intellectuals. Our war is waged through research! Research that can’t be carried out unless we’re alive to study it. We need to live. We have to live. If we die a meaningless death because we run into people that can’t understand the importance of our work then what will happen to this world? Our goal is bigger than you stupid power-hungry peons. We’re trying to save civilization! We’re trying to rescue humanity! You’re just trying to save your skin. You can’t even understand the consequences of keeping us from our work. Nor can you see the full repercussions in giving us a meaningless death.”

I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me anymore or not. His speech seemed to have shifted to another audience. But he was on a roll right now, and I didn’t want to interrupt. Not when he was doing such a good job of digging his own grave.

Rule number one to handling a psychotic sociopath like Matthias Allen: Never belittle his agenda by praising your own. He does not like to play second fiddle to someone else’s world domination plot. If you want to be allies with Matthias, then you have to learn to play by his pecking order.

Rule number two: Probably don’t tell him you want to eradicate the earth of Feeders by using someone in his custody. Matthias Allen had no intention of destroying the infection or the Feeders. They were what gave him so much power. He would never allow that incontestable authority to be taken from him.

At least not by choice.

I looked at the scientist and let my pity show. “Just remember, we tried to help you. This was not what we wanted for you.”

Matthias snorted and pushed his long-barreled handgun roughly into the back of Jim’s neck until he bent forward on a grunt of pain. Matthias casually checked over the bowed man while the scientist started to freak the hell out. I had known what was coming for him the moment I saw they’d turned themselves over to the Colony. I felt bad for him that he was just now catching up.

“Why?” Jim pleaded desperately. “Why would you kill me? It doesn’t make any sense!”

Matthias cocked his head to the side and examined his victim with cold indifference. “You want something of mine, but you don’t have anything of worth to trade me for it.”

“We told you about your son and wife and where to find them! We handed these people over to you!”

Matthias chuckled. “No.” He dragged the word out in a singsong voice and almost smiled. “They came right to me. I barely had to lift a finger.”

Jim’s face drained of color and his entire body started to convulse. “You can’t hurt us! We’re the only hope this planet has! We can save you! We can save your people!”

“I doubt you’re the only hope this planet has. I’m sure there are others. Others that are still breathing.” Matthias pulled his gun back and the scientist lifted his head. It didn’t take another second before Matthias pressed the gun right in between Jim’s eyebrows. I turned into Kane and buried my face in his chest. I didn’t want to watch this. Matthias continued, “I’d like to ease your pain as you leave this world. You asked me a question. Why would I kill you? The answer is simple. You don’t have anything to offer me. But you want to take from me anyway. That’s the reason. That’s why I’m going to kill you. Nobody takes from me. And nobody makes a bad deal with me.”

“Please!” the scientist screamed. “Think about what you’re doing! This is murder!”

Matthias let out an unnaturally amused laugh and Kane’s arm wrapped around my head and pressed me into him so I could hardly breathe. There was a moment of heavy, weighted silence before the gunshot blasted through our quiet space.

My scream ripped through the air on the tails of the bullet. I screamed again when the body slumped lifelessly to the ground and I could hear the body hit the tile. Kane held me tighter, crushed me against his chest as if his essence could shield me from the horror of this moment.

“Kurt will show you to your room.” I felt Matthias’s presence but kept my head buried in Kane’s chest. I couldn’t let go of him. Not even for a second or I would crumble to the ground and fall to pieces. “I’m glad to have you back, Son. I’m glad to see you succeeded so impressively.”

I shivered at his words, even while I wondered if they were true.

“I’m glad to be back,” Kane told him again. “I’m glad everything worked out nicely. Tell mom I’ll find her later. I was pretty rude to her over the last few days; I just want her to know that-”

Matthias interrupted him before he could say anything else. “She knows, Kane. She’s been through this before. She knows it’s an act. She knows it’s a means to an end. Don’t worry about her. You just get you and your companion settled and we’ll figure the rest out later.”

“Yes, sir,” Kane answered obediently.

“Oh, and Reagan?” Matthias’s voice registered authority and I knew what he wanted… What he wanted to do or teach or prove, but I couldn’t make myself look at him.

“Yes?” I kept my head buried in Hendrix’s chest and mentally prepared myself for what came next.

“Look at me,” came his sharp reply.

I clutched Kane’s t-shirt in my shaking hands and pressed my face to his chest.

“Look at me,” Matthias demanded.

When I didn’t immediately comply, Kane took a step back and turned me bodily. “Look at him,” he ordered me in a firm, cold tone.

I swallowed and steeled my courage. I still couldn’t figure out if Kane were playing a part or revealing his true self. I didn’t know how hard to push my luck, but with Kane physically placing me in front of Matthias, I didn’t have much of a choice except to obey.

Plus, standing there with my eyes shut tight and my fingers stuck in my ears probably wasn’t the best way to establish my bad-ass legitimacy.

I talked myself into opening my eyes and stared at Matthias. He stood just to the right of the dead body slumped over, utterly unmoving and lifeless. I couldn’t help but notice it on the ground, too still, too awkward. I couldn’t help but notice the spray of blood on the wall behind it or the pooling crimson as it crawled along the tiled floor.

When Matthias had my attention, he spoke again. “Ah, there she is.” I stared into those cold, dead eyes and felt part of my soul get sucked up into a great unknown beyond. It was like the good parts of me, the wholesome, pure, innocent parts of me, took one look at this monster in front of me, packed up their shit and ran.

Don’t abandon me now, guys!

I wanted to go with them. I wanted to turn on my heel and get the hell out of Dodge. I wanted to never look back at this place or think about these cruel, heartless monsters ever again.

Instead, I had to stand here and pretend not to be terrified for my life, for my friends’ lives, for the lives of every living human being left on this continent. I had to pretend I was strong and brave and resilient. And I had to pretend that I didn’t want to take Kane’s manhood and slice it off with a dull razor and feed it to a Zombie for making me go through this.

That was probably the hardest part.

Acting or not, I hated him all over again for going along with his father’s commands.

“What lesson did we learn?” Matthias asked me.

Oh, how I wished that question was rhetorical. I really did. I really did not want to answer him.

No such luck. He stared at me expectantly and I got an impatient elbow in my back from Kane. Granted, it was a soft, subtle elbow. Still, it did not bode well for his twig and berries.

I cleared my throat. “Not to expect kindness from you?”

Matthias smiled at me, amused by my boldness. Or maybe it was my stupidity that impressed him.

“And what else?”

“He shouldn’t have tried to take something from you.”

Matthias nodded and I felt Kane relax behind me, as if some of the tension-tightened air around us released and spread out.

“We also learned that I only keep around those people that I need, the people that can give me something. He was neither of those people.” There was a charged silence in which I could feel Matthias weigh me, decide which side of the scale I sat on and whether it tipped in my favor or in his. His gaze flashed to his son for a long moment before returning to me. “You, little girl, are one of the lucky ones that I have decided I need.”

Prompted by some survival instinct that I seriously hated, I forced myself to say, “Thank you.”

Those two simple words made the arrogant smirk on Matthias’s face spread to a sick, twisted, victorious grin. He laughed outright and I tried not to flinch from the sound coming from such a perverse, psychotic man.

“Well, I’ll be damned, Kane! Now if that ain’t something to be proud of.” He sobered just a little bit when he told me, “The moment you become someone I don’t need, I’m going to blow your goddamn head off. And if you so much as step out of line once, I’ll make sure it’s one of your friends that suffer. And that they suffer good. Maybe I’ll even start with the child, the key to civilization and what not. Just give me one excuse to put her down. Just once. I won’t waste it. I promise.”

I tilted my chin with courage and resolve I did not feel. I narrowed my eyes and squared my shoulders, not because I was that resilient or that brave, but because if I didn’t put on a show of some kind of attitude, if I didn’t fake this… I would crumble. I would fall to my knees in defeat and tears and hysteria and I would give up.

This was a fake-it-till-you-make-it kind of moment. And the worst kind. The life-or-death kind.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Matthias asked me, completely serious by now.

“Perfectly,” I choked out.

Another winning smile came from the man in charge, this one accompanied with a nod of approval. Kane took that as our dismissal and wrapped his hand around my bicep. He guided me forward and we followed one of Matthias’s henchmen into the main body of the storage facility, up three flights of stairs and to an apartment that had been set aside for Kane.

It also contained all of my belongings.

We stepped inside and the soldier went around the room turning on lanterns and lighting a few candles.

There wasn’t much to the room, but what was here was in excellent condition. I supposed Matthias’s son could only have the best of the best. A double bed, complete with a frame and headboard, a couch in great condition, a long dresser and a nightstand next to the bed furnished the small space and turned concrete walls and floor into an apartment. There was a mirror hanging over the dresser and several buckets in the corner- the bathroom, medieval style apparently. There was also a very small table set against one wall decorated with a vase and flowers on the top.

How domestic.

Kane dismissed our tour guide and closed the garage-style door immediately.

We were alone.

Kane and me.

For the first time since the cabin.

For the first time since I was officially a single girl.

I had imagined this scenario a few times since he declared his love for me. Not exactly with anticipation. More like curious daydreams that got the better of me.

I had no idea how I would respond or what I would do. I didn’t know what he would do either. And I was interested to see both of our reactions.

Except now, all this felt wrong. This felt like the first time we were alone together… in his house. This felt like I was the prisoner again and he was my captor. This felt like all the other times before.

He had not changed. He had not swapped his darkness for a soul.

He’d lied and cheated and did whatever he could to trap me.

And it had worked.

I cleared my throat and attempted to confront him. “It was an act?”

His gray eyes met mine, partially hidden behind his glasses. He had pulled them out once he wasn’t cuffed anymore and even though this part of me that felt unnaturally attracted to him when he wore his glasses and loved the mysterious quirkiness they gave him, right now hated them. I hated that they seemed to disguise his true thoughts and hide the clarity of his emotions. I hated that they hid him from me.

He was a different person with them on, a person I didn’t know at all.

“No,” he denied.

We stood apart. He on one side of the dark room, me on the other. Soft light flickered over his face, casting his strong features in a shadow and leaving only his lips illuminated and a flash of light where his glasses reflected the candlelight. His broad shoulders tensed with my accusation and his strong arms bulged as he crossed them against his chest.

“Yes,” I argued. “It was an act before. You lied to Vaughan. You lied to me. You tricked us into coming here and you played this perfect part of the vulnerable, reformed sociopath so that I would listen to you. You’re not real. You’ve never been real.”

“I am,” he promised. “With you, I am. I’ve always been honest with you. I’ve always been real with you, even when you didn’t like me. I’ve always told you the truth, no matter how painful or destructive it was.”

“Not about this.”

“About everything. I told you I would do anything to have you. I would do whatever it took to make you mine.”

“You told me you loved me.”

He let out a frustrated growl. “I do love you.” He closed the distance between us in three long strides and put his hands on my biceps. He ducked his head so he could look me directly in the eyes and squeezed my arms in his encompassing grip aggressively. “You don’t understand love. That’s the problem. You think it’s giving and sacrificial. You think if a person loves you, they will do anything for you. That they will give you everything you want and bend over backward to make sure you have what you need and want and desire. You think if they love you, it should be about you.” He paused to suck in a breath and my head spun with his accusation.

“That’s because that is love. I believe in those things because they are love.”

He shook his head once, hard. “No. It’s not. Love is selfish. Love is possessive and all-consuming. I want you with me because I can’t live without you. I can’t breathe without you. You think because I love you, I should give you up; I should let you go so you can be happy. But I know you won’t be happy without me. I love you enough to keep you. I won’t let you go. That’s love. Love is devotion and obsession and worship. I can’t worship you unless I have you. Unless you’re mine.”

“You’re wrong.” My heart grew wings that beat heavily in my chest. “You’re describing something unhealthy. That’s not love… That’s something else. Something… scary.”

His grip tightened and I felt his fingertips dig into my flesh, bruising and punishing. “Why did Hendrix breakup with you, Reagan? He wanted you for himself. You wanted him to ignore your feelings for me. You wanted him to be sacrificial. But he couldn’t be. He was selfish. Love is selfish. And I am selfish too. I will always be selfish with you. The difference between Hendrix and me is that he was weak enough to give you a choice. I won’t do that. I love you enough to take the choice away from you.”

“It can be selfish,” I admitted. “But it’s not controlling. I can’t love someone who tries to control me. I can’t love someone who is selfish enough to not realize what I need, or see who I am.”

He dipped his head until we were just a half inch apart. “I see you, Reagan. I see exactly who you are.”

“Then you know I won’t love you if you keep me caged. If you keep me prisoner, I can’t. I won’t.”

“It doesn’t matter. None of that matters.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have you. Because you’re mine.” He released me with a powerful poignancy I felt in the center of my bones. Then he walked to the rolling door. He bent over and pulled it up quickly. There were three armed men on the other side of the door. I flinched at the heavy weaponry waiting for me to make one wrong move. Kane gave them a look that told me he had expected them to be there. Without looking at me, he said, “I’ll send some water. Clean up. Stay here. I’ll give you an hour of privacy. Don’t waste it.”

Then he walked away.

I watched him go, my head spinning, my sanity cracking.

If I believed everything Kane said, I had to believe he was as crazy as ever. I had to believe he was a traitor.

But instinct told me something different.

Instinct told me there was truth in his confessions and actions; it wasn’t as transparent as he wanted me to believe.