Omega (30 page)

“When we got back to the hatch after visiting my dad, we stumbled on Shelton standing near the hatch to Omega.” Randa picked up the story, and Will closed his eyes, reliving it. “He was acting weird, sort of hinting that he’d had a falling-out with Matthias and wasn’t going to try to stop us. We couldn’t let him go back to Penton, though. So Will took him down.”

Will blinked at her attempt to cover for him. What was it she’d said her father always taught her?
Own what you do
. “I didn’t take him down. I murdered him. He didn’t even pull a weapon on us.” He looked at Aidan. “I stabbed him so many times I lost count. I couldn’t stop.”

Aidan steepled his hands in front of his face, elbows on the table, and didn’t speak aloud. His voice came through loud and clear in Will’s head.
I know why you did it. I know what he did to you. I’m proud of you. Now, you have to let it go.

Will couldn’t raise his voice above a whisper. “How?”

Did he really know, or was he guessing? Will wanted to sink under the table. Cage must have put it together from that smart-ass comment he’d made a while back and gone blabbing to Aidan.

None of it was your fault. And Cage was right to tell me.

Will couldn’t look at him, but nodded.

“Now, Randa, let’s talk about your father.” Aidan moved on, and Randa gave a thorough replay of the meeting with her dad. When Will finally lifted his gaze, he found Mirren staring at him. The big guy gave him a solemn, slow nod before turning his attention back to Aidan. Did he know? Or did he just think Will had finally grown a pair of balls big enough to kill somebody who needed it?

“What’s your take on the colonel, Will?” Aidan’s subtext:
Get your ass back in the game.

Will cleared his throat, forcing the whole Shelton issue to the back of his mind and mentally locking it down. He’d done it for decades, after all. What were a few minutes more?

“I think Colonel Thomas loves his daughter, enough so that he was able to be more open-minded and accepting than I expected.” Randa’s hand squeezed his knee under the table,
and he hazarded a glance at her. Instead of the fear or doubt he deserved, her face showed only warmth. “I do believe he’ll show up tomorrow night. And I think he probably stayed up all night after we left—he’s probably still up—weighing different options.”

Aidan nodded. “We only have an hour until daysleep, but spend that time asking yourself some questions, all of you. We’ll have a little time to talk again tomorrow night before you go to pick him up.”

The questions were the ones Will had considered himself, plus a few others. Would it be better to reveal the vampire world to the public at large, to a limited group of officials that included military and political figures, or only to the colonel and enough men to help Penton out of its current crisis?

How much, if anything, should their allies on the Tribunal be told?

If the Tribunal suspected the Penton scathe was about to make their whole society public, would they retaliate fast and end up killing Colonel Thomas and his men as well as everyone who’d ever been involved with Penton?

What was the endgame?

Will lagged behind after the meeting. Randa paused in the doorway and smiled at him before disappearing into the hall, headed for the room they still shared. He had to figure out what to tell her. Or maybe he should just come clean and accept that they’d had a great thing together while it lasted.

He owed her an explanation for what she’d seen tonight. And then he owed her the respect of walking away and not
trying to force himself on her. Once he let her see who and what he really was, she’d be glad to see him go. All the empty rooms had been taken up by sick people, but maybe he could sleep in the silver cell.

Finally, he hoisted himself out of the chair and walked into the hallway.

“Good, I’d hoped to run into you.” Cage was reentering Omega from the exit tunnel.

Will sighed. “You told Aidan.” He was too tired of the whole drama to be angry. Hell, he should have told Aidan himself. Instead, he’d only hinted that his hatred for Matthias went deeper than what had happened with his mom and Cathy. “It’s OK. He needed to know.”

“How are you?” Cage put a hand on his arm, but when Will tensed, he removed it.

How did he expect Will to feel? He’d just turned into a slathering sociopath in front of the one person in the world besides Aidan and Mirren who he wanted to think well of him. “Just terrific. I’m going to try to explain to Randa why I turned into a nutjob, and then I’m going in search of a place to bed down for the day.”

He brushed past Cage, but the vampire grabbed his arm. “You didn’t ask for it, but I’m going to give you a little advice. Tell her the truth—all of it, even the stuff you’ve never told another soul. It’ll be good for both of you. And let her decide how she responds to it. Don’t decide for her.”

Fucking shrink.
Will jerked his arm away and walked down the hall toward his room. Their room.

He took a deep breath outside the door, knocked softly, and turned the knob. Randa sat on the bed in her army T-shirt, her legs bare. “Thought you’d want to wash some of that blood off.”
She pointed to a couple of gallon jugs of water she’d set next to the bathroom door.

Well, he wouldn’t pass on an opportunity to procrastinate. He nodded, pulling the blood-soaked sweater over his head, balling it up, looking around to throw it…where?

Randa stood up and held out her hand. “Here, I’ll take it to the trash room.”

“No, I…” He didn’t want her tainted with Shelton’s blood. She’d already had to get Cage to clean up the mess he’d made outside. He couldn’t let her take this too.

She pulled it out of his hands. “Go ahead and clean up.” The door closed behind her with a soft click, and Will was alone.

He shed the rest of his clothes, pulled out some clean jogging pants, and went into the small bathroom. Since the vampires weren’t susceptible to the poisoned spring water, they probably could have continued using the water supply and saving the bottled water for the humans to drink and cook with, but there was a fear they’d somehow pass it on to the humans who fed from them, that it might somehow live on their skin or in their clothing.

They’d never had hot water in Omega, though, but instead of chilling him as it usually did, tonight the bottled water helped clear his head of the fog he’d been trapped in since he saw Shelton in that clearing.

The shirt had been what pushed him over the edge. Shelton had been wearing a blue silk shirt under his jacket tonight—not just blue, but a clear cerulean, wet and clinging to his body as if he’d been sweating. The man always liked wearing that shade. He thought it made him look handsome with his blue eyes. Thought it made him look safe to the boys he’d…

Shit.
Will stuck his head under a cold stream of water—more like a trickle since he didn’t want to waste any—and let it wash the thoughts away.

Finally, he dumped the rest of the second bottle over his head. There couldn’t be more than forty-five minutes left before dawn, and he wanted to talk to Randa before daysleep. That way, they could start fresh tomorrow night, coworkers again, partners in work only. If she still trusted him.

He’d killed Shelton Porterfield tonight, but Shelton and Matthias had killed some part of him a long, long time ago. He’d been deluded to think he could come out of it whole.

After drying off and shaking as much water as he could from his hair, Will pulled on the clean pants, gathered his courage, and opened the door to the bedroom. Randa had returned to her previous spot, her face calm.

He sat on the other bed, facing her. “I owe you an explanation for what happened tonight.”

“Only if you want to talk about it. Only if you’re ready.”

He’d never be ready, but she needed to know. Hell, maybe he needed to say the words. “Shelton has been in charge of my dad’s Virginia estate for years. He was already bonded to him when my dad turned my mom and my sister and me.”

Randa picked at the light blanket that stretched across the bed. “What happened that summer, the one Shelton mentioned?”

Will kept his eyes on the floor, trying not to let the ghosts back in but failing. “Shelton likes—liked—young boys. By
like
, I mean…” He couldn’t say it.

“He likes to sexually abuse young boys.” Randa’s voice didn’t hold judgment or anger or disgust. Just calm. It helped Will go on.

“I’d been turned about a month and was twenty-two but looked younger. I was angry at everyone. At my dad for turning us. At my mom for going along with it so that Cathy and I would go along with it too. At Cathy for dying. At myself for helping her die.”

Will got up and paced the room. “I acted out. Fought my dad on everything, just to piss him off. I hadn’t…hadn’t learned how to read that well, so he said he couldn’t give me a place in his business in New York. That I was too stupid, even if he’d been able to trust me.”

Randa grabbed his wrist on one of his paces past her, and tugged until he sat beside her. “So Matthias sent you to Virginia.”

“Matthias sent me to Virginia.” Matthias had lured him there with the promise of some light work on the property and the chance to stay in a house removed from authority. “As soon as I got there, Shelton had me in silver cuffs and threw me in that silver-barred cell in the basement.”

Again, calm voice. Quiet. “How long did he keep you there?”

“Until I broke.”
Like a pretty little girl
, as Shelton had said. He’d still been able to cry then, and he’d cried. Begged. Until he’d been beaten enough, until he’d been violated enough, that he finally admitted it was his fault, that he was as useless as Matthias had always told him, that he deserved whatever Shelton did to him, that he wanted it.

“Did he rape you?”

“It wasn’t rape. I wasn’t a helpless kid.” That’s what Shelton kept reminding him.
You’re an adult, William. You want this, or you’d find a way to leave. You just pretend to fight it because that makes it more exciting for both of us.

“Age has nothing to do with rape.” Randa shifted on the bed until she faced him, and laid a hand on his arm. He pulled away. He didn’t want her touching him.

Randa’s voice was soft. “Here’s what rape is. It’s when one person takes power over another person, against his or her will. The rapist might take that power physically, by restraint or force. Or he might take it emotionally, by telling lies and then convincing his victim he wanted it and it’s his or her fault.”

Will swallowed hard. He kept his eyes on the floor, but he didn’t avoid her this time when she took his hand. He needed her warmth.

He thought about her words. Shelton had taken his power. He’d used the whip, waited until Will healed a few hours later, then used it again. He’d withheld food, which right after transition was painful. He’d cuffed him facedown to the bed and left him for days before he came and took him, pants around his ankles and one of those goddamned blue shirts hanging open.

“Will, did Shelton rape you?”

He took a deep breath, let it out. Closed his eyes.

“Yes.”

Randa’s voice was vicious. “Then I’m glad you killed the son of a bitch. If he could die twice, I’d go out there and do him myself.”

Will finally looked at her, and her fierce expression shocked him. He’d expected disgust or pity, and he’d rather disgust than have her feel sorry for him. But she looked like she wanted to put a serious beat-down on somebody. He couldn’t help but smile a little. “You look like a she-bear.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment and not that you’re insinuating that I’m big and hairy.”

He kissed her hand, the one she’d kept locked on his, and stood up. “Is it OK with you if I get the rest of my stuff tomorrow night?” He felt dawn approaching. Maybe fifteen minutes, but no more. He needed to find a spot to crash.

“You’re not going anywhere.” Randa stood up, grasped the hem of her T-shirt, and pulled it over her head. He paused at the sight of those breasts that fit perfectly into his palm, then dropped his gaze to a black lace bikini.

His mouth suddenly felt dry. “Where’d those come from?”

“Funny thing about superstores. You never know what you might find when you go in late at night looking for hair dye.”

Will closed his eyes. He’d just killed a man, in a brutal way. Yeah, maybe he deserved it, but there was still blood on his hands, not taken in self-defense. He’d just told her what had been done to him and his part in it. Maybe he had been raped, but it was going to take Will a while to get used to the idea of himself as a total victim. He’d spent too many years hearing Shelton’s words and believing them.

Her hands felt warm as they slid around his waist, her breasts pressed against him, her mouth planting open kisses on his collarbone. “Randa, I—”

“Shut up, Will.” She smiled up at him. “You thought telling me all that was going to make me hate you?”

He shrugged, realizing he’d probably sold her short. Again. “Or just be disgusted. How do you know all that stuff? I mean, were you ever…?”

“Raped?” She shook her head. “But I was a counselor at my division’s rape crisis center. Those victims were not children, either, Will. And they weren’t all women. You don’t disgust me. In fact, I think you’re the bravest, smartest guy I know. Not to mention sexy.”