Dark

by Aleatha Romig

  I needed a small bit of information to figure this out. Whether my goal was revenge or something different, I needed a scattered crumb. With that, I’d find another and another until I’d created a trail. There was one person who could give me that crumb.

  I picked up my phone. The message was a response from Mason.

  * * *

  “NOT ANYMORE. LORNA?”

  * * *

  I texted back.

  * * *

  “MEET ME ON 2.”

  * * *

  I hadn’t considered the time of night until after my second text. It wouldn’t matter. This was what we did, all of us. When the calls or text messages came, we answered. It wasn’t as unique as a bat signal or some other form of communication, and yet it was secure. Our phones and means of communication were secured by the best firewalls and virtual networks on the planet.

  The clock on the bedside stand read 3:17 in large red numbers.

  Two hours of sleep should be enough.

  It would have to be.

  I let out a sigh as I covered Lorna with the blanket, laid another kiss to her head, and walked quietly through our apartment. The canvas soles aided in my quiet escape as I walked down our tiled hallway. In the living room, I stopped for a moment to peer out the giant walls of windows.

  Beyond our view was Chicago.

  A dark red hue colored the skyline.

  While we were getting closer to Andrew Jettison, my need to avenge could have a much closer target. Ten fucking years old. “Who are you? Are you still in my city? If you are, you won’t be for long.”

  As I opened the door to our apartment, the elevator doors across the common room began to close. Just before they did, a hand reached for one, reversing their direction.

  “You woke me,” Mason said. “Get your ass in here.”

  Getting closer to my brother-in-law, last night’s scene with Lorna replayed in my mind. I didn’t give a fuck what she chose to do with her hair. It’s her hair. I did care about why.

  As the doors shut, Mason’s green gaze narrowed. “What the hell happened? Is Lorna remembering too?”

  For a split second, my single-minded focus had a wider lens. There were others in our tower dealing with similar shit. “Did Laurel get home?”

  “Yeah, about two.”

  “How is Araneae? What does she remember?”

  Mason shrugged as the elevator descended. “A lot. Laurel was a bit freaked out. I think we may have a lead I never imagined. I need to hear back from Top.”

  “Good.” The doors opened to our cement hallway. I lifted my hand to the scanner before the steel door opened.

  “Really, Reid? I just told you about a lead and you say good?”

  The door shut behind us.

  I wasn’t surprised no one else was on 2. It sounded as if Sparrow was dealing with his own wife’s memories, and Patrick was no doubt with Madeline who was getting closer and closer to delivering. If I had been paying attention to time, I would say she had a little less than five weeks to go before what little sleep Patrick got was blown to hell.

  My mind went back to the crumb I needed. “Where was that one-room apartment Lorna talks about, the one you moved to with your mom after your grandmother died?”

  Mason lifted his chin and inhaled. “Fuck, South Side. It was an old house that was subdivided into too many units. Why?”

  I sat at my desk and brought my screens to life. “I need to know where it was. Were there men who lived there?”

  “Yeah. Singles, families, there were always people coming and going.”

  “Do you recall an address?”

  “Hell, we moved a lot.”

  “But Lorna talks about that place. It’s where she always mentions. Maybe it’s because it was where Missy also lived.” Mason visibly bristled at the sound of his sister’s name. “Or because it was where you first lived with your mother.”

  “What the hell is this about?” Mason asked, bringing the coffee maker to life.

  I inhaled, running my palm over my hair. “When I got upstairs last night, Lorna had...” I debated how to say what she had done.

  Was it really a big deal or was I blowing it out of proportion?

  Mason’s lips came together as he stared my direction. “If you woke me from a warm bed where I was sleeping beside my wife to give me hints, I think I’ll go back to bed.”

  Letting my chair roll back, I stood. “She cut her hair.” When he didn’t respond, I went on, “It’s shorter than I’ve ever seen it.”

  “So? Laurel—”

  “She also dyed it, dark brown.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Lorna dyed her hair?”

  “And she said that she doesn’t look like her anymore.”

  “Her?” Mason questioned. “Does she mean our mother?”

  “I thought that, but then she mentioned the name Anna. Didn’t she work with someone named Anna before you brought her here?”

  His green stare widened. “What the fuck?”

  “Lorna also told me something and made me promise not to tell you. She said she promised your mother she wouldn’t tell because it never happened.”

  Mason set his coffee on his desk and interlocking his fingers, brought them behind his head. “What never happened? You’re fucking making me nervous.”

  “Who is Anna?” I asked.

  “First, that one-room studio wasn’t the first place we lived with the bitch downstairs on ice. After DCFS took us from our grandmother’s house, they found Nancy. She was living in a house in Englewood.”

  “A house? Lorna’s never talked about a house.”

  “It wasn’t fucking much to talk about. Nancy was living with an asshole named Gordon Maples. I hated that son of a bitch.” Mason let out a long breath. “He had two daughters. One was named Anna, and as fate would have it, years later, the same Anna ran that run-down hotel where Lorna worked. The four of us lived there for about six months before one night when Nancy gathered us up and took us away.”

  “What happened?”

  “Fuck, I didn’t care. It was the middle of the night. She told us to be quiet and gather all we could carry. Then she took us to an old couple, friends of our grandparents. They let us stay for a few nights until we moved into that one-room apartment.”

  “Just left—in the middle of the night. Wasn’t that weird?”

  Mason shook his head. “Man, nothing was weird when it came to Nancy, or everything was. Hell, I didn’t give a fuck why we left. We were away from the sadistic fucker.”

  My pulse pumped faster. “What did he do to you?”

  “Maples was a fan of abuse in general. Screaming and hitting, usually accentuated with copious amounts of his drugs of choice—alcohol and tobacco. When Nancy wasn’t passed out, she was his target. I was his second. I remember purposely pissing him off to keep him from hurting Lorna and...” He debated about saying her name. “...Missy.”

  “And you were how old?” I asked.

  “About eleven. Yeah, eleven, because after we moved, that same year...is when she disappeared.”

  I began typing.

  Gordon Maples.

  “Can you give me more?”

  “Englewood. South Carpenter Street. I don’t remember the number.”

  I entered the information. As I did, Mason came behind me and gripped the back of my chair. “What does this have to do with Lorna’s hair?”

  Slowly, I turned my chair until he let go and we were facing one another. “She was talking oddly. I even thought she might have been drinking, but besides a few glasses of wine, she doesn’t drink.”

  Mason spun a nearby chair and straddling the back, sat down. “She wasn’t drinking.”

  “No, but she had taken sleeping pills. One, I hope.”

  “I told you I thought her reaction to seeing Nancy was too...even.”

  Collecting my thoughts, I went on, “I thought Lorna was talking about what happened when she was taken recently. I thought she meant the fight s
he gave Jettison, but then she said something that didn’t feel right. You know, I think it’s all of it, not one piece. Everything has come together in her head. She said more than once that she’s not her, she doesn’t look like her, and she’s not Anna.” I tried to remember. “Anna wanted it, so it was okay.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “Your mother told Lorna that as long as a man doesn’t put his dick inside her, it’s not rape. She even fucking specified that in her mouth was okay, and never to talk about it.”

  “Why would she...?” Mason bolted from his chair. “No. I fucking...watched. I...” He spun in place before making his way to the coffee maker. In one broad sweep of his arm, the three mugs on the counter’s surface flew, shattering on the concrete floor as ceramic splinters spewed in all directions.

  In no time, I was up and in front of him.

  My brother-in-law was a large man—not heavy, not an ounce of fat. He was made of muscle and even taller than me. Before his transformation, he was intimidating. After, he could be considered terrifying. It worked for him when he made his living on the dark web. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. His face could be considered handsome. It was what was beneath the facade that kept him gainfully employed. It also didn’t hurt in his current role as a Sparrow leader either. A fucking phoenix who rose from the literal ashes, if death couldn’t stop him, nothing could.

  “You were eleven years old. It wasn’t your job.”

  Rage roared, glowing like a warning siren in his green stare. “What did that motherfucker do?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I gather, he didn’t penetrate.”

  “That leaves a lot open to the imagination that I don’t want to think about.” Mason’s cowboy boots crunched shards of broken mugs as he stepped, and his chest inflated and deflated with each breath. “She never told me. I would have killed the bastard.”

  “That’s probably why she never said anything. I’m no expert at what she’s going through, but I think what happened with Jettison and seeing your mother’s body brought back the earlier memories.” I shook my head. “Man, I’ve been married to her for nine years, and I never got the feeling she had...someone had...” I took a deep breath, suddenly questioning everything over the past nine years. I looked at Mason. “I mean, is it fucking possible to bury a memory so deep that even you forget it?”

  His gaze met mine. “Yeah, it’s possible.” He looked to my keyboard. “Find out if that piece of shit is alive. I’m fucking twenty-five years late, but I’m paying him a visit.”

  “Not alone you’re not.”

  Lorna

  The bed dipped, pulling me from my slumber. Unlike nights before, I didn’t recall dreaming. It was as if once I finally closed my eyes, I simply faded into the dark abyss.

  “Lorna.”

  Reid’s call floated through my consciousness.

  Without opening my eyes, I turned toward him and inhaled. The aroma of my husband’s cologne mixed with his bodywash was clean and fresh. But that wasn’t what I inhaled.

  Trepidation infiltrated my serenity. Backing away from an unfamiliar stench, I held my breath as my mind sought to identify the rank odors.

  Cigarettes and liquor.

  “You’re a pretty girl. Open your eyes and mouth, Lorna.”

  The increase in my pulse sounded a warning siren.

  “No,” I screamed as I scrambled across the big bed, moving as if it were covered with the thousands of ants from my captivity. My heart raced as I fought the blankets and sheets tangled around my body. “Let go.”

  Still bound by the bedding, I slipped, falling and landing with a thud to the rug below. My feet kicked as I fought the restraint. “No.”

  I will fuck you in the ass.

  I continued to kick as the bindings slipped away.

  My eyes sprang open as with shaking hands I pulled the fallen sheet to my breast. Trembling from head to toe, I searched my surroundings. There was no cell and no man. I’d heard the dark-haired man, and yet...as I took ragged breaths, he was gone. I searched the corners of our room, the shadows, for that was where dark hid.

  The door to our bathroom flew open, flooding our room with artificial light.

  Standing in the doorframe, in his most Adonis-like form, was my husband. A cloud of fresh bodywash filtered into the bedroom, taking away unfamiliar scents as water dripped from his hair and handsome face and down his toned torso and muscular legs. Each drop glistened from the bright bathroom lights, creating sparkling diamonds on his skin. His wide chest expanded and contracted as he took deep breaths in rushed gulps. His arms were spread as he held tightly to the door and frame.

  With his dark brown eyes staring my way, he asked, “Lorna, what the fuck?”

  My chin sunk to my chest, as confusion settled over me.

  His footsteps came closer as he squatted down in front of me.

  I lifted my eyes from his toes on the soft rug. The way the water droplets clung to his skin had me mesmerized. My gaze moved higher to his bent legs and stalled as I took in what was between those legs—his cock, impressive even in rest.

  Reid cupped my chin and lifted my face toward his. “Hey, sweetheart, my eyes are up here.”

  My eyes closed as I leaned into his hand. Pulling me to his chest, Reid’s arms surrounded me. The trembling that had accompanied my waking ceased at the sound of his voice as I relished the comfort of his embrace. When he pushed me to arm’s length, my eyes were glassy. “I’m sorry.” I sniffled at my weakness. “You must think I’m a basket case.”

  Reid stood and offered me his hand. “I think you’re remarkable, Lorna. Never doubt that.”

  Once on my feet, I straightened the nightshirt I’d worn to bed, trying to remember what had caused me to fright. As I slowly turned, taking in our bedroom, I couldn’t recall exactly what had happened.

  “Will you talk to me?” he asked as I sat on the edge of our bed.

  “I wish I could.” I sighed, laying my hands in my lap. “I feel like I slept well and then as I was waking...it was you, but it wasn’t you.”

  “I was in the shower.”

  A grin came to my lips as my cheeks rose. “I figured that out from the water.” I ran my hand over his arm, smearing the diamonds. It was as I stood again and stared into his dark orbs that I saw the dark that was threatening me from the shadows clouding his eyes.

  Disappointment.

  Sadness.

  Unease.

  I couldn’t pinpoint the emotions, but I knew what caused them. Not what. Who.

  It was me.

  “Reid, I’m sorry. I don’t want you to worry about me.”

  His large palm came gently to my cheek. “Remember that day I asked you to marry me?”

  As I lifted my left hand, seeing the diamond ring he later gave me, the scene came back. Despite what had recently happened to Mason, Reid was my Prince Charming. As I was about to leave Chicago for what may have been forever, he charged in. Not on a white horse or wearing a crown. He didn’t need props. Even now, unclothed, he was my prince.

  I nodded.

  “Remember when we said our vows?”

  I nodded again.

  “I’d already begun worrying about you, Lorna, before either of those events. Worry is part of loving someone. And I love you, Lorna Murray. I have since I saw you at that huge-ass house in New York. The first time I laid eyes on you.” He teased a strand of my hair. “I knew you were too good for me. I suspected you were an heiress or royalty.”

  “I thought the same thing about you.”

  “An heiress?” he said as a grin curled his full lips. “Really? Was it my dress?”

  “Royalty,” I clarified, recalling how handsome he was in his tuxedo.

  “And then you were here,” he went on, “and I knew that even though I wasn’t looking for my forever, it had found me. I’ve never stopped loving you. I never will and hell, yes, I will worry. And I will do whatever I can to not only keep you safe, but more importantly, so that
once again, you can feel safe.”

  “I should. I mean, this tower is a fortress.”

  He ran the pad of his finger over my cheek. “Even in a fortress, I’ll worry.”

  “I know what you mean. I worry about you too. I know what you do is dangerous, and I don’t want to add to that. I’m fine. I’m still working through flashes.” A cold chill came to my skin. “I-I think I remember a cell-like room and a dark-haired man. I was fighting him.” My head shook as I closed my eyes. “I just don’t know.”

  “How about we eat breakfast here alone?”

  “Are you embarrassed by my hair?”

  Reid’s smile bloomed. “Hell no. I can’t wait to fuck a brunette.”

  Something so crass shouldn’t make me smile, really smile, but it did. And as I did, the dark shadows slithered away. I knew they weren’t gone. They would linger out of sight, not leaving me until they pulled me in, but for now, my husband was my lifeline and I was holding on with all my might.

  I lifted my arms to his wide shoulders. “I’m free right now.”

  “I guess that invitation depends on your answer about breakfast. If we’re going upstairs—”

  My lips covered his before I reached for the hem of my nightshirt and pulled it over my head. The cooler air beaded my nipples as Reid scanned me from head to toe.

  “Panties,” he said with a smirk. “Either they go or I rip them off.”

  My fingers snagged the waistband, and I pushed them down, over my thighs, my knees, and to my ankles until I kicked them away.

  Reid reached for my hand, lifting it and spinning me as if I were the dancer in a child’s jewelry box or we were dancing at that ball so many years ago. Instead of a gown and tuxedo, we were both completely nude. As I came to a stop, he ran his long finger along my collarbone, sending shivers scampering over my skin. “You’re stunningly beautiful no matter the color of your hair.”

  I couldn’t be sure if I led our dance or Reid was in the lead. We’d completed this waltz too many times not to anticipate each other’s steps. As his fingers wove through my hair, tilting my head and deepening our kiss, we moved from the floor to our large bed. Once there, his kisses continued, not only on my lips, but peppering my skin as more words of adoration filled my ears.