Mitch. She sighed and opened up to him. Wiping tears from his cheeks as they fell, she absorbed his goodness until the police came.
CHAPTER XLVI
Mitch would have killed to get in the shower. But it would have to wait. Police officers marched around his house like termites, led by their king—or queen, wasn’t it? Queen Landon. Yeah, he’d love me to call him that—after 9-1-1 had received a frantic call from one of Mitch’s neighbors about the violent screaming coming from his place. Landon wandered through the house, leaving the other cops to do their work in Hyde’s room.
Mitch had gone downstairs with Eden and watched them patch up the damage Hyde and Jolie had inflicted on her. He’d barely spoken to her, ashamed of what he’d let happen. All of it. When he could no longer bear the way she stared at him, he went upstairs to see what—if anything—the cops had uncovered. It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered now. If they hauled his ass off, it would just be to a different prison cell, so who the hell cared anymore.
He stuck his head into Hyde’s room. Jolie’s body was on a gurney being rolled out of the room in a coroner’s bag. Not wanting to look at her, dwell on her deceit and his stupidity, he kept his eyes on the two cops who remained inside the room.
“We got a timetable here, gentlemen? I need a nap,” he said.
“That’s a nice cage you got there.” Landon’s voice was cordial, calm, unpleasant.
Even knowing approximately where the detective was standing, Mitch was startled when he saw him, no more than two feet away, reclining against the wall. And Mitch hated to be startled. He was also too tired to react with more than a momentary flinch. “Thank you kindly, Officer.”
“It was mentioned in your sister’s report, but the dimensions were off—inches instead of feet. Sounded more like a bird cage than what it actually is.” Rolling his eyes, Landon pushed himself off the wall and crossed to the cage, stepping around the shattered glass. “What exactly do you use that for, Turner?”
“It’s a sexual thing. You swing that way, Nick?”
“Experimented in college, but it didn’t do it for me.” He aimed a sarcastic sneer at Mitch.
Mitch didn’t know if he liked this guy or hated him. Probably hate. Yeah, almost definitely hate.
“Who makes this? Reiner’s?” He waited until Mitch nodded. “Yeah. Good company. Good customer service.”
Damn it, that startled him again. To Mitch’s knowledge, Reiner’s made only one thing—animal cages. Did they make prison cages as well? “You have them at the station?”
Landon shook his head. “No, they’re too expensive for the state to pay for. Humans don’t need them that strong anyway.” He gave Mitch a pointed glance and then continued his tour around the cage, brushing his hand along it. “I didn’t know they made them with the one-and-a-half-inch pipe though. Is that new?”
Mitch’s eyes bulged. “What did you say?”
The detective brought his gaze to the two police officers and then walked toward Mitch. He stopped about five inches away from Mitch’s face and whispered, “You think I don’t know what you are, Mitch?”
His body tightened. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“No? Hmm . . . We’ll have to chat.” He took a few steps back. “Maybe that bar. Heavenly? You were right about the Martinis. We should meet up there sometime soon.”
Mitch nodded, not knowing how much the cop actually knew, but eager to find out.
“Gentlemen,” Landon called out to the men. “Are we about done for tonight?” He turned to Mitch and lowered his voice. “I got a hot lead on a case I’m working on. Off the clock.”
“What case?” Mitch was suddenly warm, nervous. What is this bastard up to?
“Of course, we don’t need to tell you that this room is off-limits for the time being, do we?” Landon said nonchalantly, glancing at the other police officers and then flicking his head toward the door.
Mitch followed him downstairs. Eden was still on the couch, gauze and bandages wrapped over so much of her body.
The detective stepped outside, letting the other cops pass him. When they’d all gone, he said, “Oh, and if you see Chastity again, say hello for me.”
Mitch’s stomach dove a foot lower. Chastity knew this prick . . . “How do you know Chastity?”
“We met at a club. I love that girl. She sure knows how to have a good time, doesn’t she?”
“You know Chastity.” Not sure why he was repeating himself, but somehow the idea was so surreal, he thought if he kept saying it aloud, eventually it would sound even remotely possible. Yeah, it wasn’t working.
Landon nodded. “Of course, I had no idea she would get into so much trouble or I would’ve stuck around. Know what I mean?”
He wanted to wrap his hands around the cop’s neck and shake him until his brain came loose for touching her. If he touched her . . . “You are done with Chastity.”
“Is that a statement or a question?”
“Statement.”
“Thought so.” The detective sighed. “Now that I know who she is? Yeah, I’m done. I’m not a frigging rapist.”
Glad that’s clear. “You didn’t know about her . . . issues until this morning?”
“Correct,” Landon said with a nod.
“So why the hell didn’t you get here sooner?” He could have asked, ‘Why didn’t you stop Hyde from almost raping or killing her?’ but he didn’t. Good thing too, or else he might have thrown the guy against the wall at the same time. Which wouldn’t be smart. He was in enough trouble as it was.
Landon threw his hands up in the air. “I’m not omniscient.” He looked shocked at the volume of his voice and quickly leaned in and whispered, “If I’d known fifteen minutes earlier, I never would have let Eden leave the station.”
“What—”
The cop held up his hand to silence Mitch. “I don’t want to talk here. Later.”
Mitch gritted his teeth. “And then we can stop all this vague bullshit and talk straight?”
He smirked. “That vague bullshit got me a detective badge.”
“Well, it makes me want to beat it out of you.”
“Then perhaps we should meet elsewhere.”
Mitch paused. “You’re not taking me in?”
“Oh no, Mitch. I have too many things planned for you. Plus, I imagine your friends would have you out before I’d finished writing your name on the paperwork. So, don’t worry, we’ll have time for that beating.”
“The gym.” Mitch would have to find a way to discover who his ‘friends’ were. But, yeah, he could probably squeeze in a drink and a battle with the detective.
“Sounds lovely.” The fucking cop actually winked at him.
Piece of—
“Goodnight, Eden. Take care of yourself,” he said, looking over Mitch’s shoulder. “And stay in touch. Hopefully I’ll be calling you with good news soon.”
Mitch turned around to see her a few feet away. His body instinctually fought itself—part of it wanting to go to her and the other part wanting to back away as fast as his feet could carry him. Split down the middle.
When she saw his face, she tilted her head, confusion laying itself heavily on her brow. What did she see? She shook it off and smiled at Landon. “Thank you, Detective. I will.”
“Do you need a ride somewhere?” He didn’t bother to hide the suggestion that Eden would be safer elsewhere. In fact, Mitch agreed.
Mitch watched her eyes dart from his, to the floor, to the ceiling, to Landon’s, trying to make up her mind on which way to go. He let her off easy. “Why don’t you go see Carter for a while?”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Absolutely.” As much as he hated the thought of her being less than ten feet away from the cop, he liked the idea of her staying away from him even more. It was time to say goodbye—for both of their sakes.
Her nod was hesitant. “I have a lot to say to him when he wakes up. Then I’ll come back here, and we can
talk.” When her eyes flashed at the word “talk”, he knew it wouldn’t all be about Carter. Or Jolie, for that matter.
“I’ll be in my car,” Landon said. “What I said before still holds true, Turner, don’t worry. And I’ll be in touch. Soon.” He smiled insincerely to Mitch and walked toward his car.
Eden crossed the distance between them and pressed her body against his, wrapping her arms around him, wincing slightly as they made contact. When she stood on her tippy-toes to kiss him goodbye, he turned his face. Her lips grazed the corner of his mouth.
“Are you sure you don’t need me to stay?” she asked.
He kept his hands on the few places on her arms that weren’t covered in bandages, pushing her away gently, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Why would I need you to stay?”
“Because you’re in love with me.”
Deer. Meet headlights. Say something. Say anything. It doesn’t have to be sarcastic. Or even smart. Just say something, damn it! “No, I’m not.”
“You know, Mitch. The thing about liars is that they always have a tell.” Though her eyes looked tired, wounded even, she smirked up at him, her full lips playing at a smile.
Focus on what’s coming out of her mouth, not the mouth itself. “I don’t have a tell. I’m not lying.”
“Yes, you are.”
He peeled his hands off of her. “What’s my tell? I don’t have a tell.” He saw the slight bounce in her gait as she stepped outside and down the steps. She can’t leave like this. “Stop!”
Across the driveway, he saw Landon’s jump out of his car, his hand on his gun. For a moment their eyes met. Then Landon rolled his eyes dramatically, slid back into his seat, slammed the door and looked down, shaking his head.
Eden turned around slowly, trying to hide her grin, looking up at him through her lashes. “Are you kidding? If I tell you that, you might stop and I’ll never know when you’re lying.”
He threw his hands in the air. “You know what, fine. I have some feelings for you. Something like love, maybe.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what to call them.”
Her teasing grin turned into a teeth-flashing, see-it-from-Pluto smile. She came back to the front step.
He held out his hand to stop her. This was going to break her heart. But better it be broken than trapped. “The thing is, Eden. I can’t— I can’t be with you.” His chest fell at the look of bewilderment on her face.
“Why not?”
“Because . . .” For someone who claimed they were good with getting rid of people, he was doing a piss-poor job of thinking of any words to use. “Because, I can’t live like this. You can’t live like this.”
She searched his face, as if looking for some indication that he was joking. “We could—”
“Make it work? Sure.” His nod was exaggerated. “You’d come visit your boyfriend every few days who, oh yeah, lives in a cage. And we could lock each other up and spend our nights looking longingly at each other through the steel bars of our matching prison cells? That’s a great fucking idea, Eden.”
He pushed the words out of his mouth before he could think of an excuse to not say them. “Go be with Carter. He obviously loves you—he almost died for you, for shit’s sake. Go try to make that work. He can take care of you.”
She shook her head. “He was involved in all of this. Just because he tried to come clean—if that’s what it really was—doesn’t mean he made things right.” Her face looked flushed, her eyes glassy. “And I don’t want him to take care of me. I want us to take care of each other.”
Much more of this would have him on his knees, recanting every phrase. “I don’t want to spend my life not knowing who I am. I couldn’t trust myself to be with you.”
“But Hyde didn’t hurt me.”
Just get it over with, asshole. “Yeah, sure. Look at yourself, Eden. He could have killed you. I might not have been able to stop him.” Mitch had been there. Saw her terrified face as she called out to him for help. Understood exactly what Hyde planned on doing to her. Didn’t know what he’d done to stop the bastard, or if it would ever be possible again. And even if he could . . . “What about everybody else? Do you think he wouldn’t have killed Jolie if you hadn’t have done it first?” He ignored her flinch, ignored the fact that he’d reminded her of something best forgotten. “Do you think I can trust myself to be out of that cage knowing that you are the only one who is safe from him?”
The determination he’d grown to adore appeared on her face, in her stance. Making this all the more difficult.
“Wow, Mitch. I never thought you were a quitter.”
“I’m not quitting, I’m acknowledging the truth.”
“You just learned what truth was a day and a half ago!” she yelled. “Of course there’s a way. There’s always a way. We have information. We know Carter and Jolie were making us transform.”
“No, we know we were being manipulated, but that’s not enough.”
After the cops had shown up, Eden had whispered information in his ear, the caress of her lips only slightly distracting him from the knowledge of what Jolie and Carter had done to them. Fifteen years. Jolie had been doping him for the last fifteen-fucking-years. Probably in the damn coffee he drank every morning. In the soup she’d brought over. In the goddamn soda she always offered him when he was still in his teens. But he hadn’t even known Jolie when Hyde first started showing up. No, there was too much Mitch had to learn before he would let himself live his so-called ‘normal life’ again.
“There’s a lot more to figure out before we’re free,” he said. “If we’re ever going to be free.”
The calmness of his tone seemed to enrage her even further. But, thankfully, she kept her distance. “Mitch, please. We have a lead now. A big lead. Maybe a solution. You can’t give up.”
“I just did.”
“No, that’s unacceptable. You are mine, Mitch. All of you. Both of you are mine. If I have to prove it to you, then I will. I’m not giving up on us, even if you do. We can make our own freedom.”
Mitch felt his heart shut down, go back into hibernation in response to the pain he saw he’d caused her. That’s really fucking healthy. But she’d get over it. There was a chance he would too. A small chance. More pain to keep the beast at bay, I guess.
“I’m going to need you to check on me until I find another babysitter,” he said. “And until we get you set up elsewhere, you will sleep here just in case.” Great, so we can relive this moment daily. He couldn’t look at her anymore. Just couldn’t see the pleading of her eyes, the last bits of faith she had in him flushing away with her tears.
“Mitch, please don’t—”
Ignoring the despair sweeping through his body, he shut the door and rested his forehead on the wood. Dying with each whimper coming from his doorstep. When he could no longer hear her sobs, imagining she’d driven away with the cop, he steeled himself and went back to his cage.
CHAPTER XLVII
By the time Eden stumbled to Landon’s sedan and sagged into the seat, her tears were gone, leaving behind only salty trails on her cheeks. They prickled, itched. She didn’t lift her hand to scratch, didn’t have the strength to.
“What was that about?” Landon asked.
Her head moved slowly, a useless weight at the top of her neck. “He’s afraid.”
“He doesn’t seem like the type. Afraid of what?”
“Of life. Of who he really is.” Even her eyelids felt heavy.
“How very existential of him.”
She shrugged and leaned back in the seat. “He’s spent the last fifteen years believing he was in control of himself. Then he finds out that might not be the case. Believe me, it’s a tough pill to swallow.”
He gripped the steering wheel. “You mention this and I’ll kill you.”
She turned toward him. “Mention what?”
He reached under his seat and brought out a large manila envelope. “This,” he said, handing it to her.
Landon’s name was printed on the outside—no stamps, no address. It had been dropped off. By someone who spent time at the station. By someone whose handwriting she recognized the moment she saw it. Carter.
Before she unwound the tie keeping it closed, she stopped. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
He shook his head. “It’s from your boy, Carter.”
“He’s not my boy.” Inside the envelope was another. She read Carter’s message and stared at his neat signature below it, chuckling darkly. He always did things right, didn’t he?
Hyde, an Urban Fantasy Page 36
