Scorch

by Nikki Rae

  I hated how glued I was to the seat as he sped down the dirt road where he’d wrestled me to the ground. Right now, I had a difficult time deciphering we were anywhere; everything around us was unsteady. I needed to gain a more stable stance before I could consider broaching the subject of my escape, let alone the new secret I was hiding.

  We didn’t speak or turn on the stereo. He wanted me to stew in my thoughts, the same as he had when I’d been tied up. We were somewhere with buildings after about an hour; a few more after that, a tiny town emerged with one-story houses and pruned shrubs. He stopped at a gas station not long after that, refueling and then leaving me in the locked car with the air conditioning on as he purchased more supplies. I supposed he didn’t want to stop for a while after this, yet I still had not a clue where we were going or what the rush was. I decided it couldn’t be anything other than me; he wanted to get me somewhere safer—a place I couldn’t so easily leave.

  When he came back with plastic bags and two paper cups, he handed one to me. “It’s chamomile,” he said. “Sometimes caffeine doesn’t react well to Cerberus withdrawal.”

  “I feel better,” I said, despite how the herbal scent already settled my stomach.

  He unwrapped a breakfast bar and gave it to me. “I don’t know the exact dose you took over the last few days.”

  We were quiet again as we ate, and the clock on the dashboard read noon. As we got back onto the highway, I couldn’t take the tension anymore.

  “Did Zoe do this?”

  Hands gripping the wheel, I wasn’t surprised when he looked like he didn’t want to tell me. Deep down, I’d known there was no other explanation.

  “Why?” My voice shook and I stared out the window.

  “We don’t know yet,” he said softly, more defeated than I’d ever heard him. “She will be handled.”

  “You could have let me speak to him,” I blurted, and my soft voice made Master Lyon clench his jaw. “I-I was worried about Marius, too. It’s cruel of you to keep him from me—no matter how angry you are.” My hands shook around my cup and I balanced it between my bare knees.

  He considered me a moment, expression unreadable. “I am not angry,” he practically whispered, not taking his eyes from the road.

  I toyed with the teabag string hanging between the lid, contemplating where I would go from here. “You said you were furious,” I reminded him, unable to look him in the eye. However, when he didn’t respond, I glanced in his direction and found his muscles had become rigid.

  “It’s over,” he said after a while. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” His gaze traveled to my hands clenched around the book, my bandages.

  “I wanted to help.” My voice cracked and I held back the urge to cry. “I just wanted to—”

  “It’s okay,” he interrupted, hand on my knee for the briefest of seconds. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he repeated, whatever frost that had formed around him melting. Carefully, he interwove our fingers. “We can only move forward. Do you understand?”

  His eyes bore through mine, needing me to believe him despite how haunted they looked. Something else was bothering him, and if I wanted to find out what it was, I couldn’t just ask about it. He was still too guarded, cautious of how much he told me, lest I trick him again.

  “You can help me now,” he said after a while.

  Although my Owner was blatantly changing the topic, getting him to talk would prove more useful at the moment.

  “You spoke to Odette before…” He didn’t finish, and he didn’t need to.

  “Yes.”

  Master Lyon stared at the road as it whizzed by. I was tempted to apologize, but that wasn’t what he was after.

  “Is there anything you can tell me?” he asked, sounding almost embarrassed that he couldn’t find his wife on his own. Or if he had, he hadn’t been able to bring her back safely.

  “Was there anything you discussed that…” He searched for the words, more desperate than he’d previously appeared. Taking a deep breath he struggled to contain, he tried again. “There are things she hasn’t told me.”

  I sat up straighter, no longer aware of the welts decorating my body. “Why would she confide in me? We barely know each other.”

  I caught the ticking of his jaw. “Because you needed to communicate with my wife in some fashion to go behind my back with her.” The bite had returned to his tone, but it was weaker. He needed answers—any answers.

  Then he reined himself in, deciding this wasn’t the way to get what he wanted. “Anything you believe could be helpful, Fawn.”

  I had more information than him, and without me, Odette would remain with the Wolves. I wasn’t certain who exactly I’d be helping.

  Noticing my hesitation, Master Lyon’s hand inched towards mine. “Please,” he whispered. “I want to work together.”

  “She added me to her plan last-minute,” I said with a shrug. “She said she didn’t expect me to follow her; it was my decision.”

  Light rain had begun to mist the windows and he flicked on the wipers as he turned down a road that eventually merged onto another section of highway. I intended to continue, but he spoke first.

  “And what did you decide, Fawn?”

  Although he focused on what was ahead, skillfully passing any other cars we encountered, I knew he could see me staring at him.

  “I decided that Gregor wouldn’t accept just her, and if I didn’t follow Odette, it would be worse for her.” My voice almost broke by the end, but so far, none of what I’d said was a lie.

  “I thought as much,” he said mostly to himself. “Did you want to go?”

  I opened my mouth to repeat the same answer but stopped myself. This was a different question altogether.

  “Of course not.” He shook his head, lighting a cigarette from his case. “Then why not stop her?” He wasn’t accusing me of anything, just needing to know. However, he seemed to realize the answer: there was no stopping her. She’d made up her mind the same way I had. “She wanted you to think you needed to follow her, no matter what she said.”

  No one willingly laid with wolves, but I didn’t believe Odette had manipulated me. This was my fight, and I should be the one to suffer. She was innocent in this.

  “She mentioned she was working with a woman named Elisa,” I forced myself to say. “That she would be safe until Gregor and his dogs were dealt with.”

  Master Lyon inhaled deeply, releasing the breath as if it were made of something much thicker. “Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate your honesty—really. But she told me all about that woman and her group.”

  I hadn’t expected this, and for whatever reason, I was glad that I hadn’t yet revealed just how I knew the Mainworld woman’s name. For now, I would keep it to myself.

  “Oh,” was the only way I could respond. “I’m sorry I don’t have more.”

  He swallowed, shook his head. “It isn’t your fault.”

  “She…didn’t really explain who they were,” I added quietly.

  Nodding, he didn’t look away from the seemingly endless stretch of road. “They contacted me shortly after Odette was taken by the Wolves the first time.” His voice had become deeper, like remembering it hurt. He silently cleared his throat and any trace of weakness was gone. “I discovered my wife had been hiding her relationship with the Rapunzel Project.”

  Another betrayal, and this one went back further than my time with House Chimera.

  I couldn’t imagine someone I loved being taken from me, let alone finding out they’d been living a life separate from how I viewed them. One hand lifted off the steering wheel, squeezing my thigh. He seemed to want to say something, but he couldn’t find the words.

  “Did they help you?” I prompted.

  He released a heavy breath, hand returning to the wheel.

  At an intersection, he stopped at a red light. He took this pause to retrieve another cigarette. I thought he was done when he took several drags; he didn’t speak again until
the traffic started moving.

  “The Rapunzel Project say they are one thing, but we cannot trust them. They follow the codes set before them by their superiors, and once their strategies collapse or they’re done using you for their own agenda, they either abandon you or lock you away.”

  The rain had started to come down harder, so he had to raise his voice slightly as he increased the speed of the windshield wipers.

  “They wouldn’t hesitate to put any of us in jail. They only need enough evidence, which is why they come to ex-Members; two birds, one stone.”

  He flung the butt of his cigarette out the window and rolled it up with the press of a button. Droplets of water still managed to soak into his jeans, and I watched them fade as he talked.

  “Santos and her people earn a living off of how many criminals they can capture. They do not make distinctions between us and them, and they do not care if there is a worthy cause.”

  Master Lyon sighed, checking something on his phone before getting off at the next exit. It looked the same as the last road we’d traveled, nothing for miles but tall grass.

  “Odette didn’t agree,” he finally said. “She set things into motion without me in order to rescue you once, and the second the Wolves emerged to snatch her up, the Rapunzel Project disappeared.”

  I struggled to understand how all of this could be true.

  “If they failed her once before,” I said, “why would she work with them again?”

  He released a short, silent laugh that possessed no humor. “That was what I asked her. Foolishly, I thought I had convinced my wife not to go to them this time. But I…”

  Master Lyon paused and realized I’d placed my hand on his knee.

  “I never thought she would do this.” He implied nothing, but we both knew he wasn’t only speaking about Odette. His eyes dragged across the highway, and in the warm glow of afternoon light I could see he was holding back tears.

  “No,” I said, wishing there was a way to fix what I’d help break. “Me, on the other hand…”

  It was forced, but the weak attempt at a joke seemed to bring him back to the present. Shortly after my Owner had purchased me, he’d told me he liked my sense of humor. I wondered now if he thought it was how I protected myself.

  He swallowed any lingering emotion before softly replying, “Yes, you’re the one who is always running.”

  As we sped down the road, no signs of where we were headed or what we’d do once we got there, we let the sound of the rain fill the cracks of silence between us. We didn’t feel much for conversation and it was a fragile time to correct him—at least on one point.

  We were both running, just in opposite directions.

  Thirteen

  May I ask where we’re going?”

  We’d been driving for the better part of the afternoon, and it had taken exactly as long to make the words leave my mouth.

  “Back to the cabin, as previously discussed.” Master Lyon had built walls around himself the entire ride, and it was evident in the flat, uninterested tone he used. However, his actions betrayed his voice, and he lit the third cigarette in the span of an hour. “We’re stopping when we get to Oregon.”

  My stomach dropped at the idea of stepping onto another plane. I hadn’t been able to eat much all day, lightheaded and achy the longer we were on the road. Master Lyon had assured me it would pass as both the Cerberus and its counter-drug continued to leave my system, but it was hard to ignore with my head pounding and vision doubling. It was better if I had something else to focus on.

  “An airport?”

  Like much of the journey, my surroundings didn’t provide much information. We’d bypassed the traffic via alerts on his phone and used more rural routes. Then there was another highway and another.

  “No, ma petite,” he said. “We’re driving. It’s safer.”

  I wasn’t sure whether he meant there was less of a chance I could slip away or for other reasons, and I didn’t bother to ask. However, remaining silent would only send my thoughts into a storm so I said the first thing that came to mind.

  “You cut your hair.”

  He appeared taken off guard, but then it disarmed him, if only for a moment. “Hardly recognize me, no?” Master Lyon glanced at me, flashing a tiny smirk.

  I attempted to return the gesture, but he was already staring back at the road.

  “Was that purposeful, sir?” I added his title to show him I just wanted to know.

  Master Lyon shrugged, but he didn’t exactly deny it. “I supposed it was time. Do you like it?”

  As if he would care about something so trivial. Still, I humored him.

  “I do,” I said. “You just look different.”

  His hand grazed my arm and then he tapped on the can of ginger ale in the cup holder; he’d gotten me a few at the gas station, knowing my stomach would be unsettled. It had been a while since I’d sipped it, so I obliged, keeping the can in my lap so I wouldn’t forget about it again.

  A moment passed between us, and I forced myself to speak.

  “It suits you,” I said, realizing I was repurposing the compliment he’d paid me this morning. “I like that I can see more of your face.”

  “Marius said the same thing the last time I cut my hair.”

  Now he sounded hollow, and the limited space made the silence all the more noticeable. Mentioning his name made my guts twist in knots; we hadn’t resolved anything, and I lacked the energy to start that conversation.

  It was true; he looked different, but he was still Elliot. Though the shorter length hung in his eyes every now and then, there were details I’d never known existed on his face. A slight dimple in his chin, the tiny scar on his jaw, so faded he most likely didn’t remember where it had come from. I imagined Marius teaching him to shave and my Owner being stubborn about doing things his way and hurting himself.

  The last time I’d brought it up, I hadn’t considered my words, but I did now.

  “How is he, sir?” I tried to sound as polite as possible, but when he glanced at me, I pretended to be preoccupied with my drink. “Marius, I mean,” I added once I’d swallowed.

  Despite how the other travelers hadn’t slowed their cars and there was no danger of an accident, he seemed overly concerned with what was in front of him. “Leave it be, Doe.”

  Shutting me out on this subject cut deeper than if he’d rejected my ideas. Now that he’d seen through my tactic of playing nice to get information, there was no use for all this pretense.

  “You lied.” It was the only response that would leave my parted lips. “You promised we could talk, that you would listen—that we would work together. It was all bullshit, wasn’t it?”

  I rarely cursed, but in some situations it was more than called for.

  “I hurt you, so you hurt me back? You’re going to do this again?” I wanted to scream from sheer frustration. I thought he’d known better by now. That he’d grown. “It’s not enough to beat me anymore? You have to take everything away, too? Take him away?”

  Had we been having this conversation at home, he would have retreated to his greenhouse. Master Lyon had no refuge from reality. A sign for another exit appeared up ahead, and he sped towards it as soon as it was within sight. From the corner of my eye, I could tell he was unable to remain cold and detached. I was getting to him. Good.

  He flew past a gas station and convenience store, through a neighborhood bathed in afternoon light. With no pedestrians, he sped through stop signs and payed no heed to the speed limits. When I was sure he would keep his mouth shut, I opened mine.

  “You said you weren’t angry. That it didn’t matter anymore.”

  My voice had become watery, so it was just as well he chose this moment to intervene.

  “Enough, Doe. It isn’t that simple.” He said this in a neutral tone, but he was anything but relaxed. “I’ve already told you we can discuss this later.”

  He wanted to shut me out; fine. I could do the same. Press
ing the lever on my seat, I laid it back and turned on my side so I could see nothing but the sky rushing past.

  On the endless drive stretched, and I didn’t say another word. Master Lyon could proclaim he wasn’t mad, that he wanted to hear what I had to say, but I knew the truth now. He wanted to punish me; make sure I hurt.

  I tried to close my eyes, but unable to sleep due to the rocking of the car, I settled for keeping them shut. Without the risk of looking at him, I wouldn’t cry. He didn’t deserve more of my pain. I’d atoned for what I’d done, and now he was going back on his word. Of course he had; I couldn’t be trusted. Not anymore.

  Sitting up, I realized a fine sheen of sweat had accumulated on my forehead, but I was freezing. I still didn’t know where I was when I glanced out the windshield, but it was dark. Once my vision adjusted, I could make out another road with streetlamps, and he pulled into a parking lot near another hotel.

  Master Lyon killed the engine and turned to me, but I couldn’t give him the same attention. Instead, I stared at his chest as the back of his hand rested against my cheek. “Let’s get you to bed.”

  He hopped out of the car, sticking nearby so I wouldn’t fall but not offering any help. I stood without thinking and the book almost fell from my lap. I caught it before I left the safety of my seat, where I waited for him to grab our luggage from the trunk.

  We’d been driving all day and for the most part, I hadn’t felt as awful as the night before.

  When I heard the sound of his footsteps, I followed him to the sidewalk, where his free arm wrapped around my shoulder to steady me.

  This building was taller than the last. More people; more eyes watching. He held me close, and I wasn’t sure it was for fear I’d run off or that he’d noticed how uneasy the crowd had made me. There couldn’t have been more than ten Mainworld men and women—travelers coming and going with and without children, maids, staff—but it might as well have been one hundred.

  The reception lounge was large and inviting, the linoleum laid out in the pattern of white and royal blue circles. In the middle, there was a concierge desk and sitting area, which was mercifully empty. However, as he left me within sight to check in and pay with cash, I couldn’t help but think I was sitting in the center of a bullseye. I was even more lightheaded now that I was stationary, which made it difficult to stand when he returned with our key.