by J. A. Huss
It’s a great open space with a few rooms scattered around. Bedrooms, I think. A bathroom. I walk past those and head towards the second staircase. The music is louder here, so that’s where he is. Up in the very top. In the crow’s nest thing I saw from outside.
I climb up two steps, stop, listen, then climb all the way up until I get to the top.
The room is circular, nothing but glass on all sides. The ceiling is taller than it looked outside, also glass. Merric Case is stretched out on a half-moon—bed, couch—covered in fluffy white blankets and pillows that line the windows. His feet and chest are bare, his jeans faded and ripped. His fingers never stop playing and he never looks away as I leave the stairwell and enter the room.
I’m burning up from heat in this coat.
I stop and wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. Just keeps playing that song.
I look down at my feet, a self-conscious move—a show of doubt, if I’m being honest—and see that my boots have tracked up snow. It melts into a little puddle beneath my feet. When I look back up he’s staring at my boots too, frowning.
It’s absurd to think he cares about the water damaging his hardwood floors, but that’s the impression I get. “Should I take them off?”
He looks back up at me and the strumming stops. “Why are you here?”
I don’t have anything to say to that. So I just stare at him.
“Did you at least enjoy it?”
“What?”
He resumes his playing and looks down at the fingers on his right hand as they pluck the strings. A new tune. Something simple. Just a melody.
“The sex,” he says, still paying attention to his instrument.
“Oh.”
“It was planned then, huh?”
His eyes burn into me as he waits. I’m preoccupied by the music and the memory of my first time. I let out a long sigh and turn away, kick off my boots and step into a puddle of water that soaks my socks. I pull them off as well, unzip my jacket and shove that down my arms.
He stares at me the whole time.
I drop the jacket on the floor next to my boots and then work on the snow pants. This takes me several minutes, and I have to sit down on the bed once I get them over my hips. I throw those on the floor next to my coat. And then I’m in my jeans and long-sleeved shirt.
“Did I plan on letting you take my virginity?” I laugh a little and squirm in my seat. “No, Case. I don’t get to plan anything. I carry out orders.”
“So Garrett ordered you to sleep with me?”
“It was a message.”
“Yeah?” Case asks, setting the guitar down on the couch bed next to him. He scoots forward, so he’s no longer sprawled out and his feet are on the floor. “I’m not sure I speak that language, so why not enlighten me.” He’s pissed, I realize. For being tricked into this. I have no sympathy for that. But I can empathize. “Why not explain it, Syd. Just get it all out in the open so I can decide what to do with you.”
“If that’s supposed to scare me, it doesn’t.”
He smiles, but not in a nice way. “I’m sure.” He stands up and walks over to me. He reaches out before he’s close, and when he is, he cups my face and lifts my gaze up to meet his. “What. Was. The message, Syd?”
“You’re even now,” I say matter-of-factly. “That was the message.”
“How does he figure that?”
I shrug. This makes Case drop his hands. I take a deep breath. “I don’t know the story behind you two. None of it. So I have no idea.”
“You’re lying.” He stares into me and this makes me shift my position. “Is your job done, then? You were here to what? Trick me into taking your virginity to even up a score that was never uneven, in a game I was never playing?” He laughs. “Please.”
I don’t even know what that means. “I’m yours anyway. So what do you care?”
“You’re a gift then?”
I shrug again.
“So Brett? He’s in on this how?”
“He’s not.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Get out.”
“No.” I stand and point at the walls made of glass. “There’s nothing out there. There’s nowhere to go.”
“Get back in the Cat. Go back the way you came. And follow the trail I cleared for you. I’ve made arrangements.”
“No,” I say again. “I’m not leaving here. I’ve got questions. I’ve got a lot of fucking questions.” My voice rises. Not much. I’m not a yeller. I don’t lose control easily. “And I want answers. I want to know why you people have been fucking with my life since I was little. Why, Case? What the fuck did I ever do to you? Why take me? Why do any of this if you’re just going to send me away?”
“You want answers?” He bends down so we are eye level, placing his hands on his knees and leaning forward. “You sure about that, Sydney?”
I swallow down the fear that’s rising in my chest. “Yes.”
“Why would I give them to you?” He straightens up again, emphasizing the height difference between us. Like he needs this advantage.
There is no good answer for that. None at all. Why would he give them to me?
He laughs. “You don’t have any idea what’s going on here, do you? You’re so fucking lost.”
“So find me.”
He turns and walks over to the stairs. Walking out, I realize. “I can’t.” He looks over his shoulder at me. A flash of light catches in his amber eyes and sends a chill up my spine. “It’s too late for you. Too late for all of this. Everything—” He stops to take a breath. “Everything I feared would happen, well, it’s happening. No, it’s already done. And now I have to worry about me, Sydney Channing. And the people I actually care about, the few decent human beings on this goddamned planet I love, they are the only ones who matter now. Because if Garrett thinks this shit is over because he gave me his prize virgin, he’s mistaken. Fuck you and your boyfriend. Fuck you and your gift. Fuck you and your problems, Sydney. Just fuck you. This has gone on long enough. The only girl I’m interested in now is Sasha.”
And just like that, he walks away.
Again.
“When you find yourself alone with no options… lie.”
– Sydney
I only get two steps towards the stairs when she hurls herself at my back. I lurch forward, grab the railing, and just barely stop a fall that could’ve broken my neck. I reach behind me, grab her upper arm, and swing her around. She hits the floor hard, her head cracking against the banister, and growls out something unintelligible.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
She’s back on her feet the moment it takes for me to say those words, and I get another direct hit. This time she charges me like a bull. I stumble backwards again, lose my footing on the stairs for real this time, and we both fall over sideways. I break her fall, and a sharp pain travels down the nerve that leads to my hand. But there’s no time to think about that, because she’s on top of me, her fists swinging wildly for my face. She connects once, and then I snap out of it.
Girl or not, I’m gonna end this now.
I sit up and grab her hands, then give her a head butt that would knock almost anyone out. She sways backwards, stunned. Blood runs down her face where I cut her forehead open, and I swing my legs up. She is propelled forward over my head and crashes on the landing a few stairs below.
I catch my breath for a moment, sitting sideways on the stairs, to see if she will get up. I stand, jump down the stairs, and straddle her limp body. Her eyes are open though. And she’s not dead.
I’ve been a soldier, a mercenary, and I’ve fought my way out of more bars in more countries than I can count.
That is a look of enough.
“You done?” I ask her, my chest still rising and falling, betraying how unsettled this has me. “You gonna stop? Because I can go all night, bitch.”
I can. I just don’t want to. I’m fucking si
ck of this girl.
She pulls herself up into a sitting position. Her back rests against the wall made of stacked logs. She’s breathing heavy too, and she looks just as pissed off as I do. But the longer she stays silent, the clearer this all becomes.
She’s mad, yeah. But she’s more than that. The tears well up in her eyes and she presses her lips together, like she’s trying to keep the words inside.
“Speak up,” I yell. Loud enough to make her jump and angry enough to make her afraid. “Because that was it, Syd. That right there? That was my line and you just crossed it.”
A trickle of blood seeps out of her mouth and I wonder, just for a split second, if she bit her tongue or if that’s a sign of something more serious. But she wipes it away with the back of her hand and then spits on my goddamned floor.
I take a deep breath and ask for patience. And then I turn and walk back up the stairs. I grab her coat and snow pants and throw them down at her. The zipper on the jacket catches her lip and she yelps.
“Take the shit I gave you. Get out of my house. Get your ass back in that Cat. And take the path I spent all damn day plowing for you until you get to the end. There’s two trucks there. One is yours. One is mine. Take yours. Leave mine. And never come back here. Do you understand me?” I hurl her boots next, and they hit the wall on each side of her head. Not by accident.
She stays still.
“Now!”
The tears fall down her cheeks before she can bow her head and hide them with her hair. “Just tell me why,” she whispers. “That’s all I want. One answer. Why?”
I hold up my hands with the urge to strangle her. “Why? What?”
“That night. Back at that cabin. The night you came to save me—”
“I never came to save you, Sydney. Let’s get that clear right now. I came to get you, yes. Because I got some information earlier in the day about you, Garrett, and your father. But it wasn’t anything good, Syd. In fact, I’ve never heard such disgusting filth in all my life. I thought—” I stop and thread my fingers through my hair. “I thought you were a victim. That you needed help. That Garrett was controlling you. But you proved to me tonight that you’re not. You don’t need help. At least not the kind I thought. And he isn’t controlling you, Sydney. You do his bidding because you want to. You’re in on his plans because you like it. And let me tell you something right now. I saw you, Sydney. I saw you. I watched you and Garrett after all that shit went down. You weren’t hard to find, either of you. Those two years you spent with him before he ‘disappeared’ should make you as sick as it makes me. And the fact that he kept you close, like a submissive dog, just made it all so much easier. I saw you.”
She stands up, grabs her coat and snow pants, and hugs them to her chest as she looks me in the eye. “That wasn’t me.”
“Right.” I laugh. “Let me guess. You have a twin?” I laugh again, then stop. Because hell, they all have twins, don’t they? Harper has one. James has one. Why can’t Sydney have one? Shit, maybe Sasha has one? I spin around and scrub my hand down my face as I consider this possibility.
“No,” she snarls. “That’s not what I meant.”
I spin back, relieved. “Then what the fuck are you talking about?”
She grabs her boots and walks across the landing, then jumps down the stairs two at a time.
I just watch her go.
Let her go, that small bit of sanity left in my head tells me. Just let her go.
I do. I sit my ass down on the stairs and count the number of steps it takes her to get to the bottom. I’m still sitting there when she stops and then I listen to her pull on the snow gear. Two minutes go by, and then a rush of air through the house and the slam of the door down below tells me she took my advice.
But my curiosity is up now. I know this girl is not what she appears. I know she’s had a lot of fucked-up years. Before I showed up in her life, and after. And I know that everything about her is a wildcard. She represents everything that could go wrong with my last mission. But I can’t stop myself.
I follow her. I jump down to the next landing, and then take the stairs that lead to the first floor, hoping she’s still outside when I get to the foyer.
I pull the door open and… she is. The way she parked gives me a side view of her face. Her cheeks are already red under the interior dome light of the Cat, and she’s cursing under her breath as she presses the ignition button.
Her head spins towards me, then she drags her attention back to starting the Cat.
I grab a coat and gloves from the mudroom off to the right of the foyer and slip my feet into a pair of boots before pulling the door closed behind me and going outside. “Let me do it.” She slams the Cat’s door closed before I can get there and flips me off through the ice-covered window. I pull it back open. “Locks are broken, genius.”
“You want me to leave?” she growls. “Then back off and let me leave. I’m done with you. I’m done with all of this.”
I pull her out of the cab and throw her down into the snow so I can take her place, and then check the choke and press the ignition.
It whines.
I look over at her and she’s still lying down in the snow, her arms and legs spread wide, like she’s a kid about to make a snow angel. “What’d you do to it?”
“Just go back inside, Case. I can take care of myself. You want me to leave, I’ll leave.”
I try the ignition again. Same shit. So I get out and slam the door. “Look, I don’t know what you think is going on here, but you’re crazy. Why didn’t you leave? Huh? Why didn’t you just follow the fucking path and go?”
“Because I need answers.” She says it so softly, I almost miss it.
“I don’t have any answers, Sydney.” I cross the short distance between us and stand over her. “You’re the one with the answers. You people—”
“I’m not one of them.”
“The fuck you aren’t! You’re all the same. And I’ll tell you something right now, I’m not falling for this act you’ve got going. I’m not falling for this pathetic girl thing you’re pulling anymore. I told you. I know you. I’ve been watching you for years. I’ve seen you do so many despicable things. I’ve seen you at your worst.”
“Well, I guess you have it all figured out then, don’t you.” She props herself up on her elbows so she can see me better. “You have nothing figured out, Case—”
“Quit fucking calling me Case.” I can’t stand that name. “No one calls me Case.”
She considers this for a moment, letting me fume internally. “That’s why I call you that. Because to everyone else you’re Merc the killer. But ever since the day my father told me you were coming, I made you into Case the savior.”
“You’re sick.”
“Yup,” she says, getting to her feet after a few moments of struggle in the thick winter clothes. “I’m definitely that.” And then she turns her back and starts walking towards the woods.
I wait it out. Wait for her to turn back so I can call her bluff. But she doesn’t. She keeps walking. Right into the darkness.
And now what? I’m gonna let a girl walk out into the woods at night? Even this girl? I’m gonna let the wolves get a whiff of the blood running down her face? Let her fall in the snow and break an ankle?
An ankle, Merc?
I huff out a small laugh. I’m crazy. I’ve always been a little bit off, that’s no secret. All the anger, and the violence, and the revenge. All the planning, and the waiting, and the watching. It’s all crazy.
But this girl is far, far beyond any kind of crazy I’m used to dealing with. She’s gone, man. Gone.
And yet I walk to the garage where my snow machine is. I’m gonna go get her ass. I’m gonna give this one more shot before I give up. I’m gonna suck in my pride and bring her back.
Because this is it. Eight years have passed since we took down the Company. Eight years since Harper was freed, Nick was taken into the jungle never to be seen again, and James
quit being one of the hunters.
I am so filled with envy for that guy. How does he get to walk away? How does he sleep at night knowing we never figured out the final puzzle? How do I live with myself if I don’t finish the job?
I can’t.
I can’t live with myself. Because I know it’s not over. And there’s only one target left.
Not me. Fuck, if this was just about me, I’d be out. Just like James.
This is all about Sasha. And they’re still coming for her, I know it. She knows too much. She’s seen too much. And even though her father did his best and her mother gave up her life to protect her from this shit—she didn’t escape her fate.
She just postponed it.
“She lost her mind in the dark that night. But she carried that seed of hope like it was gold.”
– Case
Even though it’s been fifteen minutes tops since Sydney took off on foot, her bootprints have all but disappeared. It’s not really snowing, but the wind is blowing, and that’s all it takes to cover up her tracks.
Still, I have a snow machine with a headlight. So she cannot have gotten far enough away to avoid me.
I tell myself that, anyway. Because while I have my suspicions about Sydney Channing’s many talents, I’ve really never seen them in action. Tonight on the stairs was just a sample, of that I’m sure. Garrett made her do his dirty work. I watched her approach people. Women. No, I laugh. Not women. Women are too smart. Girls. He needs them weak and dumb. He needs them helpless and scared to get them to participate in his sick sexual fantasies. Sydney was part of his trap. She looks innocent and sweet. She looks vulnerable and honest.
But she is none of those things.
And she knows what she’s doing out here too. They spent a lot of time in the woods. But the secret to success in the snow is a shovel. A shovel can save your life out here. Dig a hole in the snow and make a shelter that hides you from predators and keeps you warmer than you ever thought possible when surrounded by ice. And she does not have one.
I go slow as I enter the woods, concentrating on what’s left of her footprints. This goes on for a hundred yards or so, and that’s when the doubts start creeping in. No way did she get this far on foot.