All of the hairs on my arms stood up and the back of my neck tingled with awareness. I slowly turned my focus to him and met his steady gaze. “What?”
He sat on the floor with his hands tied behind his back. His black hair hung limply around his face, caked in grease and oils from days without bathing. His facial hair had grown out over these several days and his clothes were stretched out and dirty.
Linley was in no better shape.
Vaughan kept them fed with our dwindling food supply and gave them regular bathroom breaks, but they were given no other mercies. My heart ached at the sight of Kane. It wasn’t just that he was dirty and obviously exhausted. It was that there was something about the bleakness in his eyes and the frown that curved his full lips downward that made him seem worse than he was. He looked lost right now.
He looked confused and worried. But he also looked painfully alone.
“Matthias will be ready for you,” Kane repeated. “He’ll be ready for an attack.”
“Kane,” Linley hissed.
“Mama, don’t speak to me,” he rebuffed her with enough enthusiasm that she actually shut her mouth and turned away.
I thought I heard her mumble something about waiting for his daddy to hear about this, but Kane didn’t acknowledge her so I decided not to either. Instead, he struggled to his feet and walked over to me with careful scrutiny.
“Are you going to shoot me if I get too close?” he asked with an unmistakable amused glint in his eyes.
“Probably.”
He didn’t seem to care. He walked over anyway and stood inches away from me. I wanted to offer him my chair because he looked so pitiful as he tried to walk. His bones and muscles were obviously sore from being cramped and forced to sit on a hard floor for days at a time, but he didn’t complain.
I had decided to ignore him completely when he said in a low voice, “I could help you.”
“Help me do what?” I tried to mask my surprise with sarcastic apathy, but I didn’t think I entirely pulled it off.
He leaned in and whispered, “Kill Matthias.”
The last time I’d spoken with Kane he had refused to refer to his dad by anything but his first name. Now he was trying to help us plan murder? This didn’t add up right.
“You need a toothbrush,” I deflected.
He relaxed into a crooked smile. “Is that a ‘Yes, please, Kane?’”
“No. That’s a ‘We’ve kept you locked up for too long and now you’re delusional, Kane.’”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe everything you’ve said has finally started to make sense. Maybe I see your point.”
Against my better judgment I asked, “Why?”
He rolled his eyes and nudged my knee with his hip. “You know why.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“I’m not playing this game, Kane. I don’t know why you would help me. I don’t know why you suddenly want to play for Team Parker. And I don’t know why you would even consider helping people you hate to kill your father.” I kept my voice to a whisper to protect both of us. Considering everything that had happened to me recently and Hendrix’s current reluctance to get back together with me, this conversation should be the very last thing I should be having.
Yet, Kane had me intrigued and I couldn’t just walk away. I wanted all those answers. I wanted Kane to be straight up and honest with me. I wanted, against my better judgment and every lesson I’d learned, thus far, for Kane to be better than whom I thought he was and to make smart decisions.
I knew I was asking too much going in but I was a perpetual optimist and I couldn’t make myself stop hoping that his soul wasn’t entirely lost.
“I have my reasons, Reagan. And believe it or not, they’re all very good reasons. If you want my help, all you have to do is ask.”
“Ask you for help? I’m not an idiot! I know a trap when I see one.”
He dropped his head to stare at his feet and chuckled. “What can I do to convince you this isn’t a trap?”
“Probably not a damn thing,” I answered honestly.
That apparently encouraged him to take a step forward. “Reagan, my mom and I are your only bargaining chips with Matthias. If you have any hope of getting to him, it will have to be through us.”
“Kane, seriously, why are you trying to help us?”
He dipped his head so I was forced to look into those gray eyes that appeared completely black in this lighting. He smelled awful and looked worse, but underneath all that was a man I’d reluctantly come to know, and some might say, care for.
I didn’t want to care for him. I didn’t want to feel anything for him.
But I couldn’t stop the hammering of my heart and the butterflies in my stomach. I would never love Kane as I loved Hendrix. I knew that without a doubt. Whatever I felt for Kane was built by his force and domination in my life. Still, he’d made me see him as more than a kidnapper, more than a tyrant.
And I didn’t completely hate everything about him.
“I’m not helping them. I’m helping you.” His deep voice seemed hypnotic as it floated over me and wound around all my stubborn parts. He looked at me with that depthless, dark gaze and I felt myself fall into it.
“You shouldn’t be helping me though,” I argued with my heart in my throat.
“You’re helping me.”
“Not forever. I owed you a debt but as far as I’m concerned, I’ve paid it. We’re even. If they wanted to… If something happened to you, I wouldn’t try to stop it.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“What am I lying about?”
“You would stop it. Them. You would stop something from happening to me.”
I gave him a haughty look. “How can you be so sure?”
“We’re supposed to be enemies. You and me. We’re not supposed to have feelings for each other.”
“You didn’t answer my question. In fact, wait. This whole thing started because you have feelings for me! What do you mean we’re not supposed to have feelings for each other?”
He took another step towards me. “You ran away from me. You stabbed me. You threw me out of a moving car. And now you’ve handed me over to a group of mercenaries who want to kill me. I should hate you as much as you try to hate me.” His voice was whisper soft and his body radiated an intense heat that seemed to sink into my skin, into my bones. “But I can’t. I can’t hate you and you can’t hate me.”
“We’re screwed up. There’s something wrong with both of us.”
He gave me that crooked smile again. “Maybe.”
“Definitely. And two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely.”
“That doesn’t stop you from caring about me, Reagan.”
“But it does stop me from letting anything happen between us.”
Something flashed across his face and his eyes burned so brightly I thought he would scald me with his glare. “Maybe it’s me that won’t let anything happen between us.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Stop being so cryptic.”
“I’m not trying to be cryptic. I’m trying to tell you how I feel.” His intense demeanor shifted to vulnerable and I lost my breath watching him looking at me that way- like I was his hope and his salvation and anything and everything that made up his world.
“Why are you going to tell me how you feel about me?” I asked on a shaky whisper.
“Because then you’ll know why I want to help you. And you’ll know why I choose you over Matthias. Why I joined Team Parker as you call it, and turned my back on my family.”
I shook my head desperately. “No,” I pleaded. “Don’t.”
Hurt dimmed the brilliance of his eyes, but he squared his shoulders and pushed on. “You were right. You’ve always been right. I told you in the bunker that I regretted kidnapping you, and I do. More than anything, that’s my biggest regret. But I don’t regret getting to know you mor
e. And I don’t regret all that time you spent converting me to your way of thinking. I’ve been wrong about everything important in my life, but you, Reagan. You’re the only right thing I’ve ever done, ever believed in. It might not make sense to you, but I saw that within the first few minutes of being with you. You forced me to think differently. You forced me to be accountable. Then you forced me to feel when I didn’t think I was capable of caring for anything other than myself. You’ve changed me in ways I believed were impossible. And you’ve touched parts of me that I considered absolutely out of reach. I’m going to help you because I would never be able to live with myself if something happened to you. What little redemption I’ve found has been because of you. You didn’t just help me, you saved me. And I want to do that for you in whatever way I can.”
“Kane, I’m not those things. I didn’t do those-”
“You did,” he interrupted with a finality that gripped me. “You are those things to me. I’ve fallen in love with you, Reagan. It started happening the second I heard your voice and hasn’t stopped growing inside of me over all this time. And with whatever is left of my life I’m going to make up for what I did to you. I’m going to fix this.”
I shrugged and buried my nose in my shoulder to hide my unshed tears. “Kane, I don’t feel that way about you. And I’m not asking you to make up for anything.”
There were heavy moments of silence between us. My heart twisted and my stomach churned. I slammed my eyes shut and forced the tears back. Whispers and doubts afflicted me in an internal battle that I didn’t understand. My heart dipped uneasily, but I couldn’t tell if I felt that way because I was lying to Kane or lying to myself.
Did I love Kane?
No. I didn’t.
I didn’t.
“I’m not asking you to love me back,” he said eventually. “I’m asking you to let me help. Will you?”
I met his gray eyes again and saw everything I already felt. I had known that he thought he loved me for a while, but he had never said the words. And now that they were here, I hated the way they comforted my broken heart and mended my shattered soul. Those words had healing power. Apparently it didn’t matter where they came from.
Not to me.
Not when I so desperately needed to be healed.
“Yes,” I told him. I’d made a lot of mistakes in my life. A lot. And more so over the past six months than ever before. “Yes, please help me.”
He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “Okay.” His lips dropped to my ear. “And in case you already forgot, I love you, Reagan.”
Before I realized it, I had leaned into him. His lips brushed the shell of my ear and I shivered from the contact. I pulled back immediately and looked up at the handsome, disheveled face of my enemy. His glasses were off and I had direct access to those fathomless grays that held more mystery than anything I’d ever experienced before. He had given me a gift with his words, but I saw now that by letting him say them, I’d also given him a gift.
He was lighter. He was… freer. He was happy.
And I could tell myself that I didn’t love him all I wanted, but seeing Kane happier than I had ever seen him before made me… happy, too.
He gave me a big smile and started walking backward. “I’ll need to talk to Vaughan,” he said simply.
“Okay,” I agreed.
He sat down and waited. Apparently he was finished with me. Apparently he was going to help us kill his father.
Chapter Three
It took a lot of convincing to get Vaughan to talk to Kane. And I, without a doubt, did not make any more fans through the discussion. By the time I’d convinced Vaughn to remove Linley from the vicinity and sit down with Kane, I was pretty sure he wanted to leave me behind. Forever.
“He has five minutes,” Vaughan barked at me.
“I’m not bargaining for more time than that,” I shot back. “Just see what he has to say. He’s convinced he can help us.”
“You,” Vaughan clarified with a pointed finger in my face. “He’s convinced he can help you.”
“I’m not arguing with that either.”
“What’s your goal, Reagan? Why are you pushing me into this?”
We were alone, just the two of us. Gage had gone off to guard the prisoners and Hendrix had bolted the minute the name “Kane” came out of my mouth. The other boys wandered off when the color of Vaughan’s face turned eggplant purple.
I let out a long sigh. “I don’t have a goal, okay? I just… He wants to talk to you. He thinks he can help. I want something to help so we don’t lose anyone. Listen to what he has to say. If you want to trust him, trust him. If you want to pull out your gun and shoot him in the head, do that.”
His blue eyes narrowed on me, and he took me in with that intelligently scrutinizing way he had. “You don’t mean that. You’re not really that relaxed about killing him.”
I scrubbed two hands over my face and held back a frustrated sigh. “I’m not?”
“No,” he said sternly but then his tone softened. “Reagan, I don’t share my brother’s opinion about your feelings for Kane. I don’t think you feel what Hendrix thinks you feel for him. But I do think you feel something for him.”
Tears misted my eyes before I could talk myself out of being emotional. It was just every damn time I thought about breaking up with Hendrix I wanted to crawl into a giant bed, wrap myself in my old comforter and eat my weight in Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Obviously those thoughts would just lead me to more emotions because none of that was possible and the idea of how exactly impossible it was made me practically hysterical.
It also made me miss my mom with a life-ending fierceness. She was supposed to be here for these things. She was supposed to give me good advice and a comforting hug. She was not supposed to have lost her life to a pack of Feeders in the middle of Small Town Iowa.
Vaughan cleared his throat. “Shit, Reagan. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
Until the end of my life, I will never forgive myself for what happened next.
I burst into tears. Messy ones.
“I just miss my mom so much,” I sobbed.
Vaughan cleared his throat again. “I, er, what? I’m sorry; I don’t know where this is coming from? And I just, um, should I get someone for you? Haley maybe…”
His utter discomfort made me laugh, and the release of all that emotion cleaned me out some. I pulled in a steadying breath and wiped my face with the heels of my hands. “I’m so sorry,” I mumbled. “God, I’m so embarrassed. I’ve just had a really rough couple of weeks.”
Vaughan let out a strangled growl. “Oh, damn, I didn’t mean to be so insensitive. Geez, Reagan. I just don’t know what to do with tears. I’m sorry.”
I gave him a shaky smile. “I don’t really know what to do with them either. Let’s just forget that ever happened, yeah? It will completely destroy my bad-ass image if it gets around that I’m crying for my mom.”
Vaughan’s expression grew serious, and he said, “Despite my jackassery, you really can talk to me. You don’t always have to be strong. Believe it or not, we do care for you, Reagan. I trust my brother. I trust Hendrix to do what’s best for him and you and for the family. I don’t understand his decision, but I trust him. That doesn’t mean that I don’t feel for you. Because I do. None of us can begin to fathom what you’ve been through with the Allen family. And we don’t want to. That doesn’t mean you should go off and marry Kane, but… I guess, it means I can see where you’re coming from about the whole not wanting him dead thing. You’re a smart girl. And you’ve always done what’s best for my family even when you barely knew us. I trust you, too, Reagan. That hasn’t changed.”
I held back a fresh wave of tears because honestly it was getting ridiculous. “Really?”
“Really.”
More of those broken parts of my shattered heart pieced back together. “I just thought you’d… I assumed that-”
“Reagan, when I asked you to watch ov
er my little brothers and sister if something happened to Hendrix and me, it wasn’t contingent on you being with my brother. I asked you because I have never known someone to love my family as much as we do, except for maybe Haley. And like I said before, I trust you. I trust you to keep them safe, and I trust you to do what’s best for us. Always. Even now. Even when I’m sure you want to violently murder my idiot brother.”
“Vaughan,” I whispered, afraid the tears would start falling again, and he would take everything back on the belief that I was absolutely insane. “Thank you.”
His expression got even harder. “Don’t betray my trust.”
I shook my head expressively. “I won’t. I couldn’t. I love you guys too much. Even the brother that I want to violently murder.”
He cracked a smile. “Alright, Willow. Stay out of trouble while I go deal with this.” He nodded toward the front of the store where Kane and Linley were being held.
With my stomach in knots, I watched him walk away. I couldn’t let myself trust Kane. I couldn’t allow those emotions to take root inside of me because I didn’t know what else would bloom along with it. I had been fighting as hard as I could to hold on to myself during this entire Kane debacle, but if I let myself trust him and his intentions for me and those I love, I would lose myself. That would be it for me.
I wandered off to find Haley. If I were honest with myself, I could admit that I had been avoiding Haley since Hendrix dumped me. She had been supportive that first night, and I knew she would always be loyal, but I was afraid of what I would see in her eyes if I looked too long or hear in her words when she didn’t guard them perfectly. I was afraid of her judgment.
She and Nelson seemed so perfectly in love, without any issues or inane drama to muck things up between them.
And she’d already made it clear that if I left the Parkers, she would stay.
I wouldn’t though.
I had entertained some thoughts of that over the last few days, but I would never follow through. And especially not after Vaughan’s affirmation that he still trusted me, still thought of me as guardian-in-case-of-horrors-unknown.