“We need to call the police,” I reasoned.
“No,” he repeated. “We can’t risk them finding out who you are. We need to go.”
“Cain, no,” I said.
He ignored me and pulled me to my feet as he stood. He wiped at his face with his arm. His hand was covered in blood from where he’d been holding onto his mother, but that was it since most of her blood had been and still was seeping into the carpet.
Cain held onto my hand as he wiped the bloody one on his jeans. He tugged his shirt off and led me around Jimmy’s body after grabbing his gun from the dead man’s waistband. “Don’t step in the blood,” he said. I did as he said and followed him from the room. He used his shirt to wipe at the doorknob. “Did you touch anything on your way in here?”
“No, nothing,” I said.
As we made our way back downstairs, he wiped the bannisterdown. At the front door, he used the shirt to open it, peered outside and then quickly wiped the knob behind us as he locked the door and pulled it shut.
He was too calm for my liking, but I knew he was focused on getting us out of there. “Get in,” he ordered as we reached the car. He went to the trunk where he dumped his shirt and grabbed another one from his bag. By the time he got in the driver’s seat, he was wearing it.
“Cain, we need to call someone,” I said as he got the car started.
“Someone probably heard the shots,” he said roughly. “I’ll have Daisy monitor the police scanners and if they don’t get a call, I’ll have her place an anonymous one.”
“I’m sorry about your mom-”
“I need to focus, Ethan.” The comment stung, but I knew where it was coming from. He was in shock at the turn of events. He might have hated what his mother had done, but he hadn’t hatedher.
I remained silent for the rest of the drive and only half-listened as he called Ronan and told him what had happened. I couldn’t hear Ronan’s side of the conversation, but based on Cain’s clipped one-word answers, I doubted anything the other man had said got through. Cain hung up after telling Ronan to have Daisy monitor things to make sure the cops were notified, but he still refused to talk to me or even look at me. It took a couple of hours to get back to the hotel in West Virginia. Even though we ended up in a different room, the layout was the same as the one we’d been in.
Cain disappeared into the bathroom as soon as we got inside. I heard the water in the shower come on. Disappointment flared that he hadn’t wanted me to join him, even just to be with him to provide comfort, but I pushed the useless emotion away. I cleaned up the little bit of blood that had sprayed on me using the sink outside the bathroom and then changed into a clean shirt and a pair of sweats. It was close to dinner time, but I wasn’t hungry and I doubted Cain was either so I didn’t order any room service. I sat down on the edge of the bed and waited, but it was a good twenty minutes before I finally heard the bathroom door open.
If I’d thought Cain would be calmer, I was both right andwrong. To someone who didn’t know him, he appeared outwardly calm. But I’d been around him enough to see the telltale signs that he was agitated. The way his hands fisted, the tiny tick in his jaw, the way he swallowed hard over and over. He ignored me as he started to rifle through his bag.
“Cain, talk to me,” I said softly, but he didn’t respond.
When I went to stand next to him, he jerked away as soon as I touched his hand to stop him from yanking stuff out of his bag.
“Don’t,” he snapped. “I’m not…I’m not a good person to be around right now,” he said angrily.
Ignoring his statement, I said, “It wasn’t your fault. You know that, right?”
“No, I don’t know that!” he shouted. “What I know is that my mother is dead. She wouldn’t be if I hadn’t gone there!”
“Yes, she would,” I countered. “You and I both know he would have killed her the second she refused to give him what he wanted – when she finally stood up to him. Today, tomorrow, six months from now! You said it yourself, he was sick! What they had wasn’t love. It was obsession. It was ownership. It was him needing her to make him feel powerful and in control.”
Cain let out a hoarse shout just before he swiped his hand at the bag on the table, knocking it and its contents to the floor. His anger should have frightened me, but it didn’t. I knew it wasn’t directed at me and even if it had been, he wouldn’t have hurt me.
“God, she was such a fucking fool!” he snarled. His anger was like a living thing, but I heard the subtle crack in his voice.
“She couldn’t see him the way the rest of the world did,” I said softly as I reached out to stroke his back. I was glad when he didn’t lash out at me for the touch. I knew he was okay with physical contact between us when he was calm and relaxed, but I hadn’t tested the theory when he was agitated.
Until now.
“I kept telling myself I didn’t care what happened to her…”
“I know you did,” I murmured as I urged him forward into my arms. “She knew it too. She cared about you too or she wouldn’t have tried to protect you back there.”
Cain’s arms wrapped around me. His body was still shaking and I had no doubt it was a mix of the adrenaline wearing off and the emotion that came with realizing his mother was really gone.
“I need you,” he murmured against my neck.
“I know,” I said softly and then I was searching out his lips.
