Blood Dark (26 page)

K
ane stopped less
than a foot away from her. He held up the note.

Her breath snagged. Her pulse raced. The ground no longer felt solid beneath her.

Rob.

Rob was involved
again
.

The room swayed with the prospect. She stared back at the bloodied throw. Arana wasn’t a one-off; a mistake. She had shared a bed with a monster. Both the men she had shared a bed with were potentially monsters.

‘Did you know?’ he demanded.

Caitlin searched Kane’s reddened eyes that brimmed with rage like she’d never seen.

If ever she had seen Kane wounded, it was then.

If ever she had believed there was a whole other side to Kane, it was then.

If she should ever have feared Kane, it was then.

But for some reason, she couldn’t. Even though her head was still haunted with Bea’s accusation, even after what she had just witnessed, she couldn’t.

Maybe she had stopped feeling at all.

‘Did you know he was out?’ Kane repeated, his tone dangerously low.

Perspiration coated her palms. Her head throbbed. Her chest ached. Her heart pounded harder.

‘
Did
you?’ he snapped.

She shook her head, Kane even having to ask the question telling her any semblance of trust they once had was now lost on both sides.

Her heart ached at the realisation that, finally, they were broken.

‘No,’ she said, it coming out more as a gasp.

He stared her down for a few seconds longer.

Grabbing her upper arms, he pinned her back against the wall. ‘What about the others?’ he demanded. ‘Xavier? Max?’

She slammed his hands away; pushed him away. ‘Xavier, I don’t know. But Max is dead.’

Kane’s eyes flared, the coldness in his eyes chilling her further.

‘He killed himself in his cell just a few hours ago,’ she added, the only thing she could to do defend her stepfather as she bit back the tears that threatened to surface.

For a split second, his eyes changed, even softened. For just a split-second, she could have sworn she detected a glint of sympathy. But it vanished before it solidified. He stepped away, his hands clenched around his neck.

‘Who is she to you, Kane? Why did Rob do this?’

‘She’s the one I got the book from. The book that held your soul.’

Sirius.

She stared back at the bed. At the form that lay beneath the throw. She clasped her throat, finding it hard to breathe.

Kane turned to face her again. ‘What are you doing here, Caitlin?’

She wasn’t even sure she knew how to explain, or if he’d even want to hear it; if she could bear to mention Bea’s accusation as his eyes leaked such distress.

He had cared about Tamara, and not in some superficial sense – he had really cared about her.

As her gaze lingered on his as she struggled for the words, he closed the gap between them. ‘I asked you a question!’

‘What are
you
doing here?’ she demanded.

His eyes narrowed. For a moment he seemed to be trying to second-guess her but swiftly relented.

He turned away abruptly. He marched over to the wardrobe and yanked it open. He tugged an oversized sweatshirt off a hanger. Clenching it in his hand, he reached for Caitlin’s lower arm.

She recoiled, snatching her arm away before he had a chance to get a grip, but Kane’s reflexes second time around were no match. His vice-like grip locked around her upper arm. He tugged her back towards the door, along the corridor and into the hallway.

‘Kane, what are you doing?’

As he reached the dog-legged steps and descended the first couple, she tried to pull back.

‘Where are you taking me?’

She tried not to stumble as he moved swiftly down the stairs. He took a left and stopped at a bookcase. He yanked it away from the wall, the books splaying on the floor as it fell against the wall opposite. He opened the concealed door inwards, revealing an abyss.

He switched on the torch on his phone, igniting what she could only assume was some kind of basement. She scanned the thick darkness beyond before Kane stopped at another door opposite. Taking the key off the hook beside it, he unlocked it before leading them up stone steps and out into an alleyway.

Tunneled by brick walls and an array of dilapidated gates either side, he took a left and then a right before he stopped outside one. He reached over the gate and drew back the bolt. Entering the small courtyard, he gave the paint-peeled back door a shove with his shoulder.

Caitlin stumbled into the musty room behind him, his grip on her arm unrelenting. She scanned the old sink and broken cabinets as she followed him across to another door ahead. The click of a door latch broke the silence.

‘Watch your footing,’ he warned as he pulled the door open to reveal wooden steps masked by the darkness beyond.

Crossing the basement to where a mattress rested against the wall to the left, Kane pulled it away from the wall. As it bounced to the floor, he reached for the makeshift handle on the plyboard panel. Sliding it sideways, he revealed a knocked-through gap in the wall.

Another dark abyss screamed silently back at them.

As he shone the phone light into the gaping black mouth, she caught a glint of the metal ladder. She looked back at him. But she wasn’t going to suffer the indignity of trying to fight back because, either way, she knew Kane would get her down there. She’d seen that look too many times.

And she also knew if he wanted her dead, she’d be dead already.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Somewhere we can talk. Properly.’

He cocked his head towards the ladder.

Caitlin put her foot on the first tread. Her hands clenched the icy rungs, her feet eager to reach solid ground as she descended swiftly, scanning the narrow tunnel that spanned either side.

Kane followed behind her; used the handle on the inside of the plyboard door to reclose it behind them.

He handed her his phone light and indicated to the left. The eight-foot-high arched bricked tunnel stretched ahead, a silent dankness echoing back towards her. Not wide enough for them to walk side-by-side, Kane clearly intended Caitlin to lead the way.

Her ears struggled to adjust to the all-consuming silence as well as the change in pressure. The drop in temperature was noticeable as was the slight decline underfoot, the roof descending with it. Pipes ran the length of the floor left and right, disappearing into further darkness in the tunnel beyond.

She checked the ignited screen, noting the absence of reception down there. There was no way of being traced or tracked – which was no doubt why he wanted to talk down there. This was one of them: one of the multitudes of maze-like tunnels that were a legend in Blackthorn. This was what they were going to use when the time came, if Sirius invaded. It would be their greatest advantage because whoever survived down there survived by their instincts alone – instincts that were far superior in the third species.

Reaching a point where the tunnel split left and right, she glanced over her shoulder.

‘Left,’ he said, the echo of his voice in the enclosed space sounding haunting. ‘Then a right and then another left.’

‘How far are we going?’

‘Far enough.’

As they came up against a steel door, Kane slipped past her, his body brushing against hers as he pulled the metal lever sideways to open it.

She stared left into further darkness before looking back at him, his palm flat beside her shoulder, his body masking the way back.

He indicated for her to continue.

She headed down the next tunnel, the chill wrapped around her even more, her hand numb as she held the phone light ahead.

As they passed through another steel door, the space opened into a twenty-by-twenty foot cavern.

Caitlin spun the phone up to scan the domed ceiling fifteen feet above at its pinnacle, the small shelf-like recess to her left five feet off the ground. To her right were what looked like old water tanks and some kind of generator. As the phone light ignited a third steel door ahead, she heard Kane lock the one behind them.

She turned to face him as he leaned back against the ledge, his arms folded. She guessed, for now, this was the furthest they were going.

A few feet away from him, she semi-perched on the box-like container of the low generator and placed the phone beside her to at least partially ignited the room. Mirroring him, she folded her arms. This time she wasn’t going to be the first to speak.

‘What were you doing there, Caitlin?’

She exhaled tersely as she shook her head. She looked him square in the eyes. ‘No more bullshit. No more lies. No more cover-ups. I want to know who you are. I want to know what you’re doing here. I want to know what’s really going on out there. For fuck’s sake, Kane, a woman is
dead
because she got caught up in this.’

Kane grasped the back of his neck as he paced in front of her. But it was a pace that was slow, purposeful, intense in its pensive execution.

‘What are you in the middle of, Kane? What am
I
in the middle of?’

‘Why did you go to Tamara?’

‘Why does it matter?’ The shaking in her right leg was beyond controllable. ‘Just tell me, Kane.’ She swallowed back the clogging in her throat. ‘You may as well. It’s not as though you’re planning on letting me back out again, is it? Not this time.’

His lack of protest against her last statement twisted the knife-edge that was deepening by the second.

‘Who
are
you, Caitlin?’ he asked.

She exhaled tersely. ‘Who am
I
?’

His eyes darkened. ‘I saw you with Morgan.’

The thought of what he had seen wrenched her stomach, because the look in his eyes told her he’d seen it all. It was the only thing that motivated her to justify herself. ‘I’d just learned about Max.’

He didn’t flinch. ‘And that’s your excuse?’

The calmness in his tone, the indifference, was a further twist of the knife that impaled her heart. ‘It’s not an excuse. I don’t owe you an
excuse
.’

‘How long has it been going on?’

She let out an unsteady breath. She didn’t know why she bothered to say it, but she did. ‘There’s nothing going on.’

‘Like there was nothing going on between us?’

She looked at the tension in his hands, his fingers bent at the knuckles as he grasped the shelf behind him again.

This mattered to him: whether personally or because he’d believed he’d been made a fool of. But she’d had enough of explaining herself. She’d had enough of justifying herself, of laying her heart out in front of him for it to be trampled on and abused in the name of his unknown cause.

‘Okay, I played you,’ she said, her defenses kicking in. ‘Is that what you want to hear? My job wasn’t done in bringing you in. Everything I did was for show. Because I work for Sirius. I fucked you for my
job
. I screwed you for information. I’ve been on the cusp of bringing you down the second you didn’t suspect it, just like I did in that corridor the first time.
That’s
who I am, Kane.
Your
turn.’

His glare lingered on hers. ‘Don’t make a mockery of my question.’

‘You asked a question and I gave you an answer. Does it really matter if it’s a truth or a lie? I’m
still
alive which begs the question what is it you need me for now, Kane, huh? What’s my next purpose?’

He shook his head and lowered his gaze.

‘What happened with Morgan was about
us
,’ she said as she took a step towards him, shocked by the calmness in her tone, in her volume, despite the tremor in her voice. ‘It was about me and
you
, not him and me.’ She could barely get the words out, each catching in her dry throat. ‘It’s about who we are now. What we’ve become. He was there, Kane. I’d just found out all that was left of my family was dead: my stepfather who
I’d
put away. And Matt was there for me. And he held me. And he kissed me. And he understood. He got it. And I did it because he is kind and he is gentle, and he’s loyal and dependable, and uncomplicated – so very,
very
uncomplicated. But it was the first time – and it’s the
only
time.’

‘Did you feel anything when he kissed you?’

And that was it: the question that proved this was about more than disloyalty; about more than him believing her capable of double-crossing him.

‘Did I like it? Did I want to go further? Did I realise he was the one for me all along?’

‘Did you did think about being with him?’

‘Of course I did! The same as I thought how easy it would be to be with someone like him and without all of this drama and angst; to have an easier life, security, more chance of longevity than we’ll ever have, where I can grow old with someone and there are none of these complications, none of this inevitable heartbreak. And who knows, maybe even a family of my own one day.’

His frown deepened. For the first time in a long time, she was certain his eyes were laced with hurt. And she couldn’t sustain it.

‘But do you want to know what I felt, Kane? I felt nothing but uncomfortable. I felt the lack of spark. Worse, it felt
wrong
. Wrong with the right guy as opposed to right with the wrong guy. Because with you is the only time it ever feels right. The first time you and I kissed, I knew. I can’t help that I feel what I do for you. And I have tried so hard not to. I’ve even tried to convince myself it’s just about the sex as if that makes it more justifiable than actually having fallen for someone who lies to me, who uses me, who deceives me, who might, beneath all that he says and does, even hate me. But if I could explain it, if I could define it, then I guess it wouldn’t be real.’ She paused only for a second. ‘I went to Tamara because I didn’t know what else to do, because I was too scared, too angry, to come and find you first.’

‘Too scared and angry about what?’

‘About what you did to Bea. I needed her to tell me it wasn’t true. I needed someone, anyone, to tell me you I didn’t feel this way about a monster.’