Murdered? Emily murdered someone?
That was impossible. She knew Emily, loved Emily. There was no way. The surprise and shock on Jenna’s face must have convinced Will of her sincerity, because he stopped looking at her so suspiciously.
“This was fun, Jenna,” he said, his tone lighter. “I’d like to visit with you again, if that’s okay.”
Jenna laughed. Such the gentleman. He could see her whenever the hell he wanted, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. So it was sweet for him to ask, almost like he’d asked her out on a date.
“I’d like that,” she said.
When he left, she sat down, trying to absorb everything new she had just learned. Maybe she really should talk to the other girls on the Tracks.
And maybe they really should get the hell out of Grand Central.
OH MY God, Emily thought, feeling the walls of the New York State Psychiatric Institute closing in on her. Chaz and his psych patient girlfriend Amy were cannibals.
The sight of the human carcass on the hospital bed with chunks of meat filleted off of it was too much to bear. Emily turned and threw up bile onto the floor, her stomach cramping painfully.
Maggots were crawling through the corpse’s rotting flesh. Chaz had apparently been cutting meat from the thighs to cook for him and Amy that evening.
“You’re welcome to eat,” Chaz said. “Eat! It’s good.”
Emily felt like she might cry. Did Chaz and Amy even understand what they were doing? She didn’t think so. Off their medications, they were so far gone they believed that their friends and doctors and nurses were still with them, albeit quieter.
Mason took Emily firmly by the hand and led her out of the room. “Chaz,” he said, “is there anyone left who still moves and talks?”
“No.” Chaz grinned again, and Emily felt another wave of nausea come over her.
Mason looked at her, concern creasing his forehead, and took her hand again. “Thank you, Chaz, for your hospitality. Say good-bye to Amy for us.”
They ran, rushing down the hall, trying not to see the corpses or smell the urine and feces and rotting flesh. Mason pushed the door open and they flew out of the building, gasping for fresh air.
“Keep going,” Mason said, urging her forward. She ran with him until they were back on the Hudson River Parkway, where they slowed to a steady pace.
It was starting to get dark, and colder.
“I can’t believe that,” she whispered, when she felt able to speak again.
“I knew something wasn’t right, for him to be looking so well fed.”
“Are others doing that, you think? Eating the dead?”
He nodded. “Yes, I imagine they are. But there’s something that feels so wrong about it, you know? I remember hearing that story about the people who survived a plane crash in the middle of nowhere, and there was no food, just frozen dead people, and they ate the dead people to live. I don’t know if I could do that.”
“I don’t think I would be able to keep it down. I’d vomit at the thought, much less actually having it in my mouth.” Bile rose in her throat again, as if to prove her point.
“If I thought you were going to die, though, from starvation, I’d want you to eat a person,” Mason said, looking at her even as he kept walking.
“I wouldn’t do it.”
“I wouldn’t be giving you a choice, I imagine,” he said softly.
“There’s no point in talking about it,” she said, although she feared if they kept walking without food for much longer, they would get to a desperate situation. “I know you want to get out of the city, but we need to find someplace to spend the night. It’s going to get cold and dark and I can’t imagine continuing like this.”
He sighed. “All right. And we need to find some food, too.”
She nearly laughed with exhilaration. “Great.”
“Where do you think we should take shelter?” Mason looked around at the numerous stalled cars.
“I have an idea,” she said. “We’re not far from Fort Tryon Park, and The Cloisters. We can stay there.”
“That sounds perfect.”
“I haven’t been there since I was a kid,” she said. “We went on a field trip there. It’s incredible—it’s all devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. They have a medieval garden, even, with stuff growing in it that would have grown back then. It was pretty cool.”
“I hope punks haven’t vandalized it the way they’ve vandalized everything else,” Mason said. They walked faster now that they had a place to rest in mind.
“Maybe you’ll find some squirrels or pigeons or something—anything—in the park.”
“It’ll depend on how many people have already hunted the area,” he said, as they found their destination. A huge sign said FORT TRYON PARK. Underneath, in smaller letters, it said THE CLOISTERS, HEATHER GARDEN, CAFÉ. And underneath that, it said A DIVISION OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART.
“Huh,” Mason said as they walked past into the park. “I didn’t know it was a branch of the Met. I wonder if there’s anything left in that café?”
“Doubtful, but worth a look.” Something moved in the corner of her vision, and she froze. “I think I saw something. A rabbit, maybe.” She pointed to a patch of trees about ten yards away.
Mason picked up his rifle, looking through the scope. “I don’t see anything. But I can set a few traps in the woods around here, and we can check them in a few hours.”
* * *
Mason wished Emily would walk faster. She couldn’t help the fact that her legs were much shorter than his, he knew. But it was still frustrating as all hell. Night approached quickly this time of year, and they needed to get inside. Already the spring air felt uncomfortably cold as the sun set.
The Cloisters loomed in front of them. The building lay relatively low compared to the skyscrapers in Manhattan, but a tower jutted up from the bricks menacingly. From what Mason could see, the building was made of stone and bricks and had a distinctly old feel to it.
They entered an area that looked like a cathedral. Mason looked up at the arches in the ceiling. Stone pillars surrounded them. “This place is amazing.”
“There’s a whole bunch of different sections,” Emily said. “I wonder if the art is still here?”
Walking through, they came across a huge tapestry hung on a stone wall. It was of a unicorn in a corralled area. “That fence is pretty low,” Mason said, pointing to the corral. “I bet that unicorn could jump over it if he wanted to.”
“Maybe he likes being there. Or, maybe it makes him feel safe.” She peered closer to the tapestry. “Is the unicorn wounded?”
Mason pointed to the woven tree depicted above the animal in the tapestry. “Pomegranates are dripping on him. The unicorn’s fine,” he said, laughing.
“You know,” she said, “if we’re going to sleep here, we need to build a fire where it can’t hurt any of the art.”
“Of course,” Mason said, slightly offended. He may have been a convict but that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the value of art. He was glad vandals hadn’t destroyed the place.
Emily turned and looked up at him, but then her expression changed. Her mouth dropped open in surprise as he heard something whiz past his ear.
Something—a rock?—hit Emily in the face, causing a burst of blood.
She screamed and grabbed her face as Mason whirled around, his finger on the trigger of his rifle. Rocks continued to fly, one hitting him hard in the shoulder
An old man stood his ground, pelting rocks with the ferocity of a cornered animal.
Mason lifted his weapon. “I’ll shoot!” he shouted.
The old man didn’t listen, instead, he charged forward, hefting something in his hand, a club of some sort. He threw it, probably aiming for Mason, but it clattered past him, ricocheting off of Emily’s leg. Her scream echoed in the chamber.
Mason pulled the trigger. The old man flew backward from the
force of the bullet, a surprised look crossing his face. Emily screamed again, covering her ears at the sound of the shot.
He looked around, keeping his rifle up. If the old man had any friends, Mason didn’t want to find out the hard way. Emily had fallen silent. “Emily?”
She didn’t respond. Mason knelt by her side. “Are you okay?”
She held her face, blood seeping between her fingers, and didn’t answer him. Mason pulled her hand away from her face to look at the damage.
All he could see was blood. “Emily, come on, let’s clean you up.”
She pulled out of his grasp angrily. Was she in shock? Was she really that injured?
She shook her head, her eyes blazing. “Get away from me.”
Mason stood, confused. He looked over at the fallen old man who attacked them. Poor guy—he was probably the reason The Cloisters hadn’t been desecrated. If only Mason hadn’t needed to shoot him. But he’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant protecting Emily.
“Let’s go to the other side of the building,” he suggested, “so we’re not sleeping with a corpse.”
“I can’t believe you… killed him. You just… shot him. You didn’t even think about it.”
Mason shook his head in surprise. “He attacked you, I had no choice.”
She didn’t respond.
“Emily, I’m going to get you some water and you’re going to wash off that blood. You’re the nurse, not me, so you need to figure out how badly he hurt you.”
Emily shook her head, avoiding his gaze. “Just leave.”
This was ridiculous. She had to be under some kind of emotional trauma from being attacked. She got hit in the face with a rock—what if she had a concussion?
Mason couldn’t leave her bleeding and alone with a corpse while she was so upset. And he had no way of knowing if the dead old man had companions who might be a further danger to her.
Mason stood over Emily, staring down at her. She looked so tiny, curled on the marble floor like that, still holding her face in her hands. The blood flow seemed to have stopped, but then again, what did he know. He needed her to look at it herself. “Emily, I’m not asking. Get up.”
She looked up at him now in anger, finally acknowledging his presence, but she refused to get up.
“I’m bigger than you,” he said calmly, “and don’t think I won’t use that to my advantage if I think it will protect you. If you don’t get up, I’m carrying you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
At this, Emily screamed, a howl of anger that shocked him with its intensity. “Fuck you, Mason!”
Mason picked her up, holding her easily even as she swung her arms and legs in anger. Her sudden fear toward him couldn’t be real, could it? He was only trying to help her.
The thought that Emily would seriously want him to leave and not stay with her, protect her, at least until she got someplace safe, made him feel all mixed up inside. On one hand, he’d never asked to be burdened with the responsibility of protecting this woman. On the other hand, now that he had the mission it felt wrong to give it up before she was truly safe.
What if something happened to her? Even seeing her get attacked, seeing her now, with blood on her face, got him so upset… and scared. If he was honest with himself, then yes, he felt scared. As stubborn as Emily was, she’d started to grow on him. He didn’t want anything to happen to her.
And he wasn’t ready to not be around her—at least for now. He’d been a loner his whole life, so he imagined he would die that way too. But for the time being, her star was hitched to his wagon—whether she liked it or not.
Judging by the way she carried on, at the moment she most definitely did not like it.
Even as she pounded his chest with her fists, getting blood on his shirt, he noticed how beautiful The Cloisters looked. His footsteps down the stone hallway were loud, echoing in the high, arched ceilings.
There was a garden in the middle of the building, in a courtyard of some sort. He carried her out into the chilly night air, setting her down at the edge of a stone fountain with a large cross on top of it.
She made no move to run away.
“I’m worried about you, Em,” he said. “Can I wash your face?”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t say no.
He reached into his pocket and found a relatively clean handkerchief made out of a piece of an old T-shirt. Dipping it in the freezing-cold water, he tried to clean it a bit before getting it wet again and wiping it over her face carefully.
She winced. And she still wouldn’t look him in the eye.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Do you want to do it?”
She shook her head. “I’d need a mirror. You do it. How bad is it?” As she asked, she reached up and carefully touched her face, lightly tapping along her face and around her eyes. “I don’t think I broke any bones, which is like a miracle. I’ll probably have one hell of a black eye, if I don’t already. Does it look awful?”
Mason was so happy she was talking to him again he forgot to lie to spare her feelings. “You look like you were attacked. Which you were.” Gently, he finished wiping off the last of the blood.
“Yeah.” She fell quiet again.
“I had to kill that man, Emily. I’m not a murderer. Well… it’s not like I do it for sport. It was self-defense. To protect you.”
“You couldn’t punch him out or something? Why shoot him?”
“He charged us. He’d already really hurt you, and I wasn’t about to take any chances. I’m sorry you feel I overreacted, but it was a split-second decision I had to make.”
She huffed. “An overreaction. So that’s what we’re calling murder these days? Nice.”
Mason shook his head. “I’m going to check the traps I set for food, and while I’m gone you need to hang on to your gun and stay put.”
“There’s a medieval garden here, you know,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard him. The fragile skin below her eye was already blossoming into a dark bruise. “I’ll find us something in case the traps don’t work out.”
He wanted her to stay put and stay safe, but he doubted she’d listen anyway. Sighing, he nodded. “I’ll meet you in the garden in twenty minutes. Don’t shoot me when I come in—wait till you see what you’re shooting at.”
As he walked away, he heard her grumble, “If I’m still here when you get back.”
* * *
Emily touched her face gingerly, wincing at the pain. Damn old man had come out of nowhere. It had been a terrifying experience, being pelted with rocks. She could have been stoned to death.
But when Mason shot the man . . . She shuddered, remembering the loud bang echoing through The Cloisters. What had she expected? Before the Pulse, he’d been locked up. A convicted murderer. Just because she was spending all this time with him, sleeping with him, didn’t change who he truly was. What was the old saying? A leopard couldn’t change its spots.
And now he had killed again, so easily. Emily held the damp cloth to her bruised eye. The cold wetness had already warmed against her body heat. She dipped it into the fountain once more, not bothering to wring it out. Instead, she let the rivulets of cool water drip down her face as she pressed the cloth to her face. Maybe she could ward off some of the swelling.
The pain in her face was nothing compared to the pain she felt inside, the stab of guilt she felt every time she thought about killing Andrews, no matter how much he deserved it. Why didn’t Mason feel the same way about the old man? Especially since the old man probably didn’t even deserve to die—not like Andrews did, anyway.
The image of Andrews on the floor, covered in blood, melded together in her mind with the image of the old man shot dead.
Pull yourself together, Emily.
For the time being at least, Mason wasn’t going anywhere. He made that perfectly clear. All that strength, all that power—he’d used it on her without a second thought, picking her up in his arms and carrying her around like a doll. Befor
e the Pulse, men had respected the fact that she was smaller than them, and didn’t manhandle her just because they could. That wasn’t the case anymore. Her punches and kicks hadn’t deterred him a bit.
And that was scary as well.
Emily walked through The Cloisters to the medieval garden. She remembered it clearly from her childhood field trip, simply because the idea that weeds were grown on purpose and eaten interested her.
Now, the paved floor of the garden was cracked, weeds and plants growing up between the bricks, the garden completely chaotic and unkempt. Fortunately the plants were hardy, and most of them were edible. Emily started gathering the plants for a salad, the moonlight making the leaves in her hands seem to shimmer.
She couldn’t stay with Mason, not if he really was a cold-blooded killer.
But he protected you.
She nudged the little voice in the back of her mind away, trying to stay rational. If she let her feelings into this, she’d be lost. His broad shoulders, muscular chest, and incredible blue eyes made her go crazy with lust, true. And he made her come harder than she ever had before in her life.
Having him with her to protect her was what she wanted, though, right? Emily realized she had never stopped to really think about what that actually meant, just like she’d never stopped to think about what it actually meant to walk, on foot, out of New York.
With Mason as her bodyguard, people might die. People did die.
Could she live with that?
Mason walked carefully through the grounds outside The Cloisters, grateful for the moonlit night. He’d have to make a fire for them, both for warmth and to cook the squirrel he’d caught. It was a skinny little thing, but better than nothing.
“Emily?” he called, not wanting to startle her and wind up dead from a misplaced bullet. Although, the way Emily had been acting, he’d have to wonder if she wouldn’t try to shoot him on purpose. She seemed horrified he’d killed a man to protect her.
“Over here,” she replied. She came in from the garden, her shirt up, holding a whole bunch of what looked like weeds. Her flat white belly shone above her waistband, and his cock stirred. “I got enough for breakfast tomorrow too.”
The Pulse: Book 1 in the Pulse Trilogy Page 14
