Nocturne

by Heather McKenzie

  It went against every manly instinct I had to obey him, but weeks of worry and no sleep had left me with nothing. I had nothing left. Even the daydream of Kaya at my side, the two of us old, grey, and happy, was becoming impossible to conjure.

  I fell backward, head hitting the pillow. Oliver shoved the dramamine into my mouth and insisted I chase it with warm orange juice.

  And then it was him who sat in the chair by the window, watching the sky.

  It was Louisa’s first outing since I’d rescued her at the train station. I’d run out the door with her the day I’d rescued her from Claude, worried she might make strange with me and try to squirm out of my arms. But now, on this sunny afternoon in the near-vacant produce department of the local food mart, she held my hand tightly and wouldn’t leave my side. She looked so cute in her mermaid dress and princess shoes, giggling at Seth’s attempts to use vegetables as puppets, grinning madly at all the junk food he was sneaking into the cart. I pretended not to notice that underneath the potatoes and apples were cookies, licorice, and a massive bag of gummy bears, but Louisa practically squealed with delight when she saw the Rice Krispie treats he’d hidden under the lettuce.

  “Seth, really. You’re not going to eat all that garbage, are you? It’s so bad for you,” I said, adoring the mischievous look on his scraggly, weathered face.

  We were so different. I was a health nut, and he was content to eat everything deep fried. I wore my heart on my sleeve, my feelings and intentions obvious, and Seth was reserved. Sly. Crafty. Always seeming up to something. I had youth on my side, endless energy, and the desire to know everything. Seth was older, wise already, and content to sleep away the day. Sometimes these things made me crazy, but I was falling hard for him regardless. The hurdles in our blossoming relationship weren’t going to be about secrets or our age gap; it was going to be the fact that he used to be a cop and my experience with police was the stuff of nightmares.

  He kneeled before little Louisa, tenderly tapping her nose with a grin as wide as the ocean. “All kids need to have some fun foods. Treats are good for the soul. Right, Louisa May?”

  Louisa grinned with the innocence only a child can possess. “I like treats,” she said in her heart-breakingly sweet voice. Head tilting, lashes fluttering, she sought my approval. “But… if Lisa says they’re bad, maybe we should only have five.”

  “Five?” Seth stood and laughed. It was a boisterous, hearty laugh that made a lady squeezing melons speed off with her cart. “I guess I’m fine with five. It is an excellent number.”

  “Or maybe we should get eleven. Cause Regan will want some, too,” she added.

  Luke’s little sister had taken it upon herself to care for Regan. At the house, she played nurse while he remained immobilized with his leg in a cast, bringing him food and taking his temperature with her plastic thermometer. Regan talked incessantly about medicine, his school days, his family, and his deep hatred for Henry Lowen, and Louisa pretended to listen while she decorated his cast with her crayons and brushed his lust-worthy red hair. It was amazing to me that after all the child had been through, she still found it in her heart to be nurturing to a stranger. To be trusting.

  She was just like her brother.

  “What should we get for Regan then?” Seth asked with a bag of candy in one hand and a pomegranate in the other.

  “Let’s get him some cake. He likes chocolate,” Louisa said, and she started to wander toward the bakery.

  Her hand left mine. She took about ten steps forward while Seth and I watched wordlessly. She seemed like any other kid eager to get their hands on a cookie until a large man with a cart headed her way. It was then her cheeks paled, and a look of terror came across her face. She ran back to me, crying. The scars of Louisa’s past were still so horribly fresh, and I could relate. Mine still felt like gaping wounds sometimes.

  I held her tight and wished I could bring Claude back from the dead to kill him. And then kill him again, again, and again… and I’d make sure each time was more horrifically painful than the last.

  The drive back to the ranch was peaceful. Country music softly played over the truck stereo, and Louisa slept in my arms. I admired Seth while he drove. He was different now. His gaze softer, his words kinder, and his actions now his own. Not like before. Not like when we planned Kaya’s kidnapping and worked together in the Death Race. Back then, I had admired the strength and masculinity that emanated from him in the purest form—but he was mean. His heart was cold, and his mind was controlled by a woman who had used him for years to nurture hate and revenge. Rayna was just as evil and cunning as Henry Lowen. She’d taken over his mind. Dominated him.

  I liked to think I was the reason Seth came to his senses. That I was the one who brought about the change in him and made him stop taking orders from her and her Right Choice Group minions. But if I recalled the expression on his face when he brought Kaya into the house that day, her limp body in his arms as he yelled at the doctor on call to tend to her immediately… I wondered.

  “Whatcha thinking bout, Lees?” he asked, catching me staring.

  I didn’t want to talk about Kaya because that would lead to a discussion about Luke, and that would just reinforce the pain of how much I missed him.

  “Just thinking about dinner,” I said.

  The truck rattled onto a secondary road. “I like how your mind works,” he said with a wink.

  The sun was just going down. Soon, it would disappear behind the golden mountains. It hit me suddenly, as the car inched through the picturesque valley, that I felt like I was going home. And then it hit me that I’d never, ever, felt that way before. But as we approached the house, my warm fuzzies were replaced with dread. Someone had been here while we were out; Brutus didn’t come running to the truck, the front door was wide open, and tire tracks had gashed through the grass and flung dirt onto the porch.

  “Oh my God. Regan…” I muttered.

  Seth had his gun out of the glove box as soon as we stopped. I carefully pried Louisa off me, laid her down on the seat, and hoped she wouldn’t wake up. Heart pounding, I imagined the worst. Seth and I exchanged glances; we knew who had been here and what the insufferable woman was capable of.

  “Keep the truck running. If I’m not out in five minutes—”

  I didn’t let him finish. “Then I’m coming to get you.”

  He was about to argue, then changed his mind and bolted for the porch. I watched him swing open the kitchen door before tentatively going inside.

  I waited.

  I studied the child on the seat next to me. Her golden hair hung in loose curls around her face, her heavily fringed eyelids were shut, and her berry-red mouth slightly parted… she looked so much like Luke. God, I loved her. Loved her like she was my own child. If anything happened to her, I would never forgive myself. And if anything happened to Seth…

  It had been two minutes and there was no sign of him. A bee buzzed past the open window. The grass rustled in the breeze. The heat of the engine waffled the air above the hood.

  Another two minutes. Still nothing.

  I was going in.

  I locked the truck and pocketed the keys. Bolting across the lawn to the porch where we’d sat every night taking in the sunset, I could smell the blood before I even saw it, before I even pulled the squeaky door open and took a step into the kitchen…

  It was everywhere. Red streaks of it running down the walls and the cupboards, splatters of it on the fridge and lace curtains. My stomach came up into my throat. Was it Regan’s blood? I took in a breath and gagged. Then I noticed the source; the remains of a mutilated rabbit artfully displayed on the kitchen table. The innards very clearly formed the letters RCG.

  “That bitch,” I said.

  Clumps of hair and skin were impaled to the drywall with steak knives. The head of the rabbit, eyes missing, was perched atop my favorite teapot.

  “Seth?” I called, feeling my veins pulse with anger.

  His voice d
rifted to me from the other end of the house. “I’m in my office. Regan’s here. It’s all clear.”

  In the living room where we’d left Regan asleep in his recliner, the curtains were completely shredded, the couch slashed to bits and everything else that could be smashed or thrown was. The first bedroom was empty but destroyed, and the second one contained an agitated Brutus—thankfully unharmed—waiting patiently to be let out. He bolted past me and headed for Seth’s office, sniffing out where his master was. I followed. When I saw Seth kneeling before Regan, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Is he all right?” I asked.

  Regan was tied to a kitchen chair in the corner of Seth’s office. His head hung forward, and his thick red hair blanketed his face. The cast that ran from his toes to his thigh made his leg stick straight out. Seth was on his knees, knife in hand, working frantically at a zillion knots binding his cast leg to the other. Both of Regan’s feet were frighteningly purple.

  “I don’t know what happened. My dog didn’t get slaughtered, and Regan is still alive. But my gun stash is gone,” Seth said, hands steady but anger shaking his voice.

  “Man, he`s really out of it.” I put a hand under Regan’s chin and lifted—not a scratch to his gorgeous face, thank heavens—but his eyes were rolling around in his head and the tape that Seth had peeled from his mouth had left behind patches of red skin. “Can you hear me, Regan?”

  He moaned.

  “Get his hands untied, Lees.”

  Seth had left that task for last so that the barely conscious Regan wouldn’t fall over. I circled around, getting behind the kitchen chair while gently patting Regan on the shoulder. What had they done to him? Was he drugged? Why was he so out of it? “It’s okay, you’ll be fine,” I said, trying to be comforting. But when I looked down, my feet were in a pool of blood. My breath caught.

  “Oh my God,” I said, now dizzy.

  Finally freeing Regan’s legs and standing, Seth’s eyes grew wide at the horror on my face. “What is it?” he asked.

  I gulped back the vomit rising into my throat. “She took two of his fingers.”

  My explanation to the very intelligent doctor about how a man in a cast from his ankle to his hip had an accident with a table saw wasn’t one of my better lies. Luckily, the doctor eventually lost interest and decided he didn’t care how Regan lost his fingers.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when we left the dismal building into the fresh morning air. Regan would never be the same; his ring and pinkie finger were gone. But as we maneuvered our way through the parking lot with him complaining about the state of the crumbling pavement, I wondered if I was more upset about it than he was.

  None of us had slept—except Louisa, who was quite happy dozing in my arms—and tension was high. We hadn’t spoken of Rayna. Not in the hospital room, the crappy café with the burned coffee, or in the slowest elevator in the world. But now that we would not be over heard, Seth let loose. He started swearing like a sailor while he helped Regan into the backseat of the truck.

  “I’m sorry that bitch did this to you,” he said, adding in extra expletives under his breath.

  “Yeah, whatever. Not your fault,” Regan said nonchalantly, wincing as he got comfortable. “I don’t get it, though. Why didn’t Rayna kill me? She just trashed the house, chopped up some poor bunny, and left her mark everywhere like a pissing dog. Doesn’t make sense.”

  “She’s just trying to mess with me,” Seth said, starting the truck.

  There was a nervous tick in the corner of his eye. A tremble in his voice. I was surprised how much Rayna had gotten under his skin. The sun shone as we headed out of town toward the mountains posing in the distance, lighting up his hands gripping the steering wheel like they were gripping her neck.

  “I mean, really,” Regan slurred from all the painkillers pumped into him. “If she really wanted to get back at you Seth, she could have shredded Brutus. Spread his guts all over the kitchen table. Or at least done something a little more sinister to me besides taking two fingers. There are ways to torture somebody that could have made a much bigger mess for you to clean up.”

  The child in my arms was thankfully still asleep and not listening to this. “Maybe Rayna has a soft spot for you, Regan,” I said. “Or for the both of you.”

  Seth laughed, but it was nervous. “Not in a million years. Even as cute as Doctor Death is back there, that woman is fueled by hate and revenge. She’s playing mind games. She wants me to be on edge and waiting for her next move. Trust me, the only soft spot on that woman is…” I raised an eyebrow at Seth, imagining him thinking about Rayna’s gorgeous body. “Well, nowhere.”

  Regan squirmed around, trying to get comfortable. “Well, she didn’t even ask me any questions. Just had her goons tie me up and then sat at your computer while they trashed the house. I figured I was in the clear until she pulled out the metal cutters. She did it herself, too, smiling the whole time. See what Henry Lowen does to people? He poisons them. He turns them into crazed, hate-fueled demons.”

  “Not Kaya,” I said softly.

  Regan let loose a long breath. “And that’s a bloody miracle.”

  “She’s caught up in this mess, and it’s not fair. Does she even know who we were working with? Does she know Rayna is her mother?” I said, feeling horrible we’d kept that from her.

  Seth fidgeted with the heat and kept quiet. I couldn’t read him. There was something he was keeping from me; I could just feel it.

  Regan piped up. “I hate Henry Lowen as much as the next guy, but I can’t believe we all worked for that bitch. It’s probably best if Kaya doesn’t know her mother likes cutting off appendages with metal cutters.”

  My stomach churned. I’d gotten involved with The Right Choice Group for Luke. As a means of getting his sister back. As a means of seeking justice for his mother’s death. I had never given much thought about who was calling the shots or the innocents who might end up involved. But now it was eating away at me like acid. I wouldn’t change what I had done—as I gazed at the child in my arms, I certainly had no regrets—but I would make things right going forward. Louisa was safe now. And I would make it up to Kaya for all the hell we put her through.

  “…I heard the bone snap before I passed out the first time,” Regan was saying.

  I put a hand over Louisa’s ear. “How can you even talk about it, Regan? Aren’t you kinda freaked out?”

  I twisted around to look at him. His freckles stood out even more against his pale skin. To a stranger, he probably appeared the sweetest boy in the world. His attractive exterior was an incredible cover up for a ruthless, cold, calculating, and brilliant mind.

  “Bloody right I’m freaked out,” he said slowly. “But I’m high on revenge. It’s my dream to watch Henry Lowen suffer, even though that dream cost me a few things I’ll never get back. It’s a small price to pay, and it’s nothing compared to what I’ve lost that was dearer to me than anything in the entire world. I’ll get revenge for my sister’s death, and for all those women who died taking drugs they thought were helping them. I’ll get revenge for Rayna, too… It’s not her fault her mind has been poisoned by him. I get it. I’d take a couple of fingers, too, if I had to.”

  The conviction in Regan’s voice gave me the shivers. I remembered him talking about injecting Kaya with Cecalitrin. Filming her while she lost her mind and then handing her a knife to end it all. Now there was no doubt in my mind he would have done exactly that if it hadn’t been for Luke.

  I held Louisa a little closer.

  Regan kept talking. “I can’t believe you were married to her, Seth. I’m surprised she didn’t cut off your ba—”

  “Whoa,” Seth interrupted, clearly uncomfortable. “I didn’t know what a good woman was until I found one.” His calloused fingers reached for my hand. “And now I do. I’ll never let her go.”

  The truck hit a bump, and Regan groaned. “Right. Well, we better let Luke know Rayna is on the warpath. Have you guys even
heard from him? Have any idea where he is? If something happens to him, I’ll—”

  “He’s fine,” I said quickly.

  Truthfully, I only had a couple of very quick calls from Luke checking in on Louisa. I could tell he was hiding something from me, too. His voice was strained and his answers vague when I asked about Kaya. He was always in a rush, having to go without answering any of my questions. I never told Regan this because his worry didn’t mix well with mine. When it came to Luke, he got very worked up.

  “Good,” Regan said with a cough. “I’m hungry. And thirsty. Got any sandwiches, Lees? Coffee? I think I need to lie down; my head is a bit fuzzy. And where is Luke? Where is he?”

  The painkillers were messing with him now. “We will be home soon, and you can lie down. There are no sandwiches in the truck but I will make you the best grilled cheese you’ve ever had soon, okay? As for Luke, like I said, he’s fine. Seth’s keeping track of his whereabouts by his credit card purchases. Apparently, he’s in a motel in Saskatchewan, of all places. I thought he’d take Kaya out west to see the ocean or something… that’s what I would have done.”

  Regan, in his foggy-minded state, muttered something about wanting parmesan on his sandwich and insisted the house be sanitized before he stepped one foot in the door. “I sure hope you don’t keep track of those credit card purchases on the computer in your office, Seth. There’s no password protecting it.” He was slightly breathless now, eyelids barely open. “Only an idiot would do that. Rayna would have figured that out and be half a day ahead of us on her way to revenge-execute her daughter and my best friend by now.”

  Seth almost ran the truck off the road. “Oh, crap.”

  It killed me to leave Louisa behind with Regan and his brother Ellis, but I knew the child would be in good hands. Ellis was doting and loving, and Regan was fiercely protective. Still, I worried. As the sun left the sky and the mountains slipped away behind us, Seth reached for my hand. His skin, covered in scars and sun spots, was so weathered and aged compared to mine. I loved everything about it.