Their host seemed undisturbed. “I’m fully prepared to demonstrate what I can offer you.” He took a deep breath; when he spoke again there was a smile behind his words. “And how deeply impossible it will be to resist.”
“Now you’re just getting cocky,” Mac muttered, more to see Gwen rise to it than through any impulse to mouth off. And still the unidentified terror, bundled in with the bizarre nature of this man...his minions...the emotions battering at him...
Time to go.
He looked straight up at the screen. “I’d say I appreciate the effort, but I don’t. I’d say no offense, but I don’t give a damn. We’re leaving. You know that I could have taken your guys out anytime I wanted between here and there, right?”
“In fact, I do.” That rich voice sounded—inexplicably—amused.
“They won’t be as lucky another time. You know that, too, right?”
That voice gave nothing away. “Circumstances vary.”
“Is that a door?” Gwen squinted at it, finally understanding. “Hell, yes. Let’s get outta here!”
“That’s your option,” the man said. “But I believe your companion will choose to stay.”
Mac snorted. “The hell I—”
—fresh terror, pure spurting pain—
A scream, short and harsh.
Mac stiffened, assaulted from within, the blade going sharp and hard and past all his defenses. Wanting.
“Mac,” Gwen said, desperation in her tone as she tugged at him to no effect, “he’s playing you. You know he’s playing you.”
“It’s real,” he said, his voice gone raspy, the want of the blade so deep and fierce he could barely think. “Whatever they’re doing is real.”
“She is,” the man said modestly, “entirely for you.”
That jerked him back to himself—against the pull of the blade, propelling him toward a future he didn’t want. Going beyond what had always satisfied it: the moments of revenge, the vigilante justice that kept it fed while keeping everyone else safe. “No,” he said. “No.”
“You still think you have a choice?”
“Mac?” Gwen said, and doubt crept into her voice.
The man laughed. “Your decision to trust him was premature, my dear.”
And Gwen didn’t spit at him for saying my dear, which—in some hazy corner of Mac’s even hazier thoughts—was how he knew just how far gone he was.
The wild road.
Chapter 8
Gwen sent a desperate glance at the door. Freedom. So close. The two men were gone, and the third did nothing but stand up there behind his screen and gloat and posture.
And Mac stood, still rooted to the ground like a tree. Mesmerized—or locked in some deep struggle.
One she was no longer sure he would win. If he was even still sane. And he had a sword in his hand. A big, gently curved, gleaming sharp, glowing sword.
Step back, Gwen. Just one step. Then two. Then, the door.
But she didn’t move. And that damned gut instinct of hers, born of blood and loss...it shouted of intent, but it spoke nothing of her.
A door beneath that man’s catwalk opened—a brief slash of light in the dimness through which Mac saw so well. Mac took three swift steps and froze again, trembling. She had no idea why.
I am nine years old, and I don’t understand what’s going on.
Nothing ever changed, it seemed.
A woman stumbled into the middle of the warehouse—hunched over herself, cradling her hand to her stout body. She wore mom jeans over ample hips, a basic purse clutched tightly over her shoulder, her dark hair caught in a careless clip in the back. Her complexion spoke of mixed blood and her faintly plumping jowls spoke of her age.
An average woman, plucked out of her errands and dropped into this nightmare.
She saw Gwen and her eyes lit with hope. “Please,” the woman said, holding out her hands in entreaty—one slashed wide-open and dripping blood. “Help me.”
Mac made a low sound, like a man inexplicably stretched too far.
Gwen glared up at the screened corner. “I don’t know the rules to this sick game,” she said, “but we’re leaving.”
“You should have done that very thing when I gave you the chance.” There was little regret in that voice. “Now you’re part of ‘this sick game,’ which I have been playing for longer than you can even imagine. You may or may not survive.”
Gwen said something very, very rude indeed, tossed her head, and marched up to grab the woman’s arm—ignoring her questions and fears and heading to march right out the door.
Until Mac growled.
Like an animal.
Growled.
Gwen froze. Slowly, she turned—just her head, looking over her shoulder.
This man, she didn’t know. Wouldn’t have kissed. Wouldn’t have spoken to. Wouldn’t have ever gotten that close.
Not with that made-for-a-grin mouth twisted in a snarl and that dangerous stance and the sword flowing out from his hand like an extension of his arm and the shadows gathered darkly around him like close companions.
“Mac,” she said, trying not to let the uncertainty out.
The woman tugged Gwen’s arm, little whimpering sounds in her throat, and Gwen turned on her. “Stop it!” she snapped, her words as much of a command as she could make them—thinking about the high emotions of the park, of the gas station. That’s when Mac had been so staggered before. Then, and those times when the ugly, viscous wash of feeling had crept over her. “Stop it! You’ll make things worse!”
“Clever woman,” the man told her, both approving and unmoved.
The woman clutched at her, unable to comprehend, little sounds stuck in her throat where she might have been trying for words.
Mac’s inhuman growling had ceased; his breath came hard and fast through clenched jaws.
Gwen doubted it was an improvement. She cast a desperate glance at him. The sword shone even brighter, she thought, as impossible as it was to be there at all.
“Pretend,” she told the woman, not taking her eyes off Mac. “Pretend. You’re not frightened. We’re going to walk out of here. Think about it—us walking out of here.” And then she held the woman back as she took a single step, certain that any greater movement would push Mac over the edge of whatever line he walked. “In your head. Imagine it. We’re walking out of here. There’s nothing to stop us, is there? We can leave when we’re ready.” The whimpering had stopped; Gwen gave the woman’s arm an encouraging squeeze. “That’s right. Calm. Breathe deeply. Think kittens and unicorns and double rainbows.”
But she didn’t look away from Mac. Not anymore. Not as she calmed the woman—breathing deeply, murmuring reassurance...feeling some of the uncontrollable hysteria ease. Seeing the reflection of it in Mac—the slow return of sanity to his expression.
“You,” the man said, now more annoyed than approving, “have been a mistake all along.” A pause, too meaningful to amount to anything good, and then he added, “Or did you think I was too stupid to have a gun?”
Gwen’s carefully even breathing stuttered to a stop, leaving her lungs instantly aching. The woman beside her exploded back into fear, from silence to a gasping cry, and Gwen—
Gwen just plain couldn’t blame her. In some part of her mind, Gwen was gasping right along with her. But she never took her eyes off Mac, not even as she tightened her hold on the woman, giving her a little shake—