Ian pulled back his shoulders, knowing, without a doubt, that the Watchman wasn't going to like his plan. "I'm not going back to the compound."
Scott looked at him as if he'd gone crazy. "You're going home?" he growled. "If you go back to your apartment, she'll still be in danger. Molly knows where you live, Buchanan. She'll come after you."
He shook his head. "You're right, but that's not where I'm headed."
"Then where are you going?" Kellan asked, rasping his palm against his bristled jaw.
Taking a deep breath, Ian said, "I'm going back to the beginning."
Kellan sent a comical look of confusion toward his brother. "What the hell does that mean?"
But Ian could tell Scott knew exactly what he meant. That pale green gaze drilled into him with piercing intensity, and then the Watchman slowly said, "You're going back to Elaina's.
Back to South Carolina, aren't you?"
Ian nodded. "Molly doesn't know about the house there, so she can't follow after me. And you told me the other day that this thing is tuned in to me. That it would know I was here, would know if I left, would know where I went. That wherever I go, the Casus will follow me. That's what I'm counting on. And when it does, I'll use the Marker to put an end to it."
To make this work, he needed to get far enough away that Molly couldn't get to him--needed to draw this thing onto his own ground, and face it there. Though they'd talked about his childhood, he'd never told her where he'd grown up. And he knew from their conversations that Elaina hadn't talked to her about his upbringing, much less about where they'd lived, which meant that she didn't know about the house. Riley had said that Saige was planning on using it, but thanks to the Watchmen, he knew that she was still down in South America.
Which meant that his childhood home was empty...just sitting there, waiting. So he'd go back to the place where he'd first heard the stories of the Merrick and the Casus, and wait for this thing to come to him.
Something in Ian's gut told him that it wouldn't take long.
And maybe...just maybe, the Marker he carried in his pocket would be enough to save his ass, even without the strength of his Merrick.
Scott ground his jaw, forcing his words through his clenched teeth. "Even if you can get the cross to work, you'll be easy for him to kill in human form, and you won't be able to change because you still haven't fed. You may kill it, Buchanan, but he'll end up taking you with him."
"If you don't hear from me in a few days, then you'll know that's what happened," he rasped.
"And no matter what, keep an eye on my brother. Don't leave him hanging out in the wind.
He's a tough son of a bitch, but if more of these things are on the way, then he's going to need your help."
With that said, Ian turned to head for the door, until Scott's next words brought him to a stop.
"And what are you going to tell Molly?" the Watchman asked.
Hunching his shoulders, Ian shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. "I can't get near her right now. I'm not going to tell her anything."
And she's going to hate you for that.
Most likely, but he couldn't think about that right now. He couldn't think about her at all, or he was going to go out of his mind.
"Then what am I supposed to tell her?" Scott growled.
Working his jaw, he said, "Tell her I said to go home."
"That's it?" the Watchman scoffed, shaking his head.
Ian could think of about a million other things he wanted to tell her, but couldn't. "Tell her I said that she did what she came here to do, and now it's time to get on with her life."
Trite, he knew, but what else was he going to say?
As if sensing his determination, Scott cursed something foul under his breath, then quietly said, "You better hope you know what you're doing, Merrick. If not, you're going to find yourself in hell."
"Then I'll be right at home," Ian drawled, and with a hard smile, he turned, opened the door and walked out into the falling night.
WITH A COLDPLAY SONG playing softly on her radio, Aubrey Rodgers made her way home down the narrow stretch of highway, her headlights cutting two stark beams through the inky darkness. She sang softly under her breath, one hand thumping against the wheel of her Honda in perfect rhythm with the music, her mind miles away, stuck on the man she'd run into earlier that evening on her way into Nate's. When she'd first spotted Ian Buchanan in the parking lot of the local hangout, she'd been so sure he was on the prowl. He'd had that predatory look in his dark blue eyes--the one she'd learned to recognize and had come to love during the two months they'd dated last year. Two months that had left her wilted with pleasure--her body sore from his ravenous sexual appetite, but more alive than she'd ever felt in her entire life.
Aubrey hadn't been surprised to see him at the bar tonight. If anyone had a reason to drink, it was Ian. She'd heard about what had happened to Kendra Wilcox, and she'd been more than ready to console him, even knowing he wouldn't want her for more than the time it'd take him to work out his tension and grief.
He'd sent her a tight smile when she'd approached him, her uncomfortable heels clicking against the gritty asphalt, hoping she wasn't about to make a fool out of herself--and that's when the second man had climbed out of Ian's truck. Aubrey had faltered for a moment, knowing Ian wasn't one to socialize. When he went to a bar, he went alone, though he rarely left that way. The stranger had been more than easy on the eyes, though no friendlier than Ian, as if she was interrupting something important. He'd walked away a few steps, making a call on his cell phone, affording her and Ian some privacy, and though they'd chatted for a moment, the conversation had been awkward and flat. It'd been painfully obvious he wasn't interested in any solace she had to offer, and she'd wanted to kick him in the shins for being such a jerk, but had stifled the impulse. Instead, she'd tried to play it cool when he'd told her they had to meet up with some friends. She'd said goodbye, walked into the bar, and then watched through one of the tinted front windows as he and the auburn-haired man had headed next door, toward the motel.
Bastard. She could imagine just what kind of "friends" they'd met up with.
"Arrogant jerk," she muttered under her breath, hating that he still held the power to make her weak in the knees. When their brief affair had ended, she'd decided, over a bottle of shared tequila with a group of girlfriends, that men like Ian Buchanan were the sexual equivalent of chocolate. Even when you knew they were bad for you, when faced with the temptation, you couldn't help but crave them.
Following a long bend in the road, Aubrey had just reached down to crank the music louder, when a man stepped into the middle of her lane, only a handful of meters in front of her car.
Screaming, she jerked the wheel in reaction, sending the car onto two wheels as it careered off the side of the road. The front end hit the shallow ditch that lined the highway, sending the car tumbling end over end, before it slammed to a jarring stop against the heavy trunk of a tree.
Hanging upside down, pinned by her seat belt, Aubrey slowly opened her eyes, aware of a pain unlike anything she'd ever known filling her up inside, pulsing from one end of her body to the other. She wanted to scream, but there was too much blood in her mouth, dripping down her face, into her eyes, staining her vision with crimson strips of terror. The engine was still running, the stringent smell of gasoline filling the mountain air. She knew she had to get out of the car before it burst into flames, but she couldn't move.
Do it! she silently screamed. Move your goddamn arms! But they remained limp...useless...broken, the messages lost somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind. She'd have feared she was paralyzed, if it wasn't for the excruciating pain seizing her in a pulsing clutch of agony.
And then she saw something crouch down onto the ground, just beyond the shattered driver's side window. Blinking from the blood dripping into her eyes, Aubrey stared into the palest gaze she'd ever seen. Angel's eyes. Perfect and beautiful and blue.
"Help me," she whimpered, giving a silent prayer of thanks that she'd been saved. "It h-hurts."
"Not for long," purred the gorgeous blond, reaching his hand toward her, a slow, tender smile melting across his sensual mouth, just seconds before his hands transformed into terrifying, deadly claws. They ripped through the seat belt, the expensive silk of her new dress, before slicing effortlessly through her right breast. The scream that had been buried inside of her forced its way out, painful and scraping against her throat, pouring out of her mouth as she felt him grab hold of her hair.
In the next moment, Aubrey Rodgers was pulled from her car, into the fertile heat of the night, and delivered into hell.
Laurente, South Carolina, Saturday Morning
IAN SAT on the hardwood floor in nothing but a pair of jeans--his back propped against the wall, long legs bent at the knee--and stared through the dingy living-room window. Though the humidity was climbing, the floor was still cold on his ass as he watched the depressingly gray cut of sky bleeding orange, the sun rising in the distance like a Phoenix soaring from the flames. It struck him as a strange, ill-fitting analogy, considering nothing was being reborn here. No second chance at life. This was an ending, a conclusion, the final act in a macabre nightmare that had, looking back, no doubt been a long time coming.
A cold beer was perched on his abs, the bottle icy against his hand--and yet, a thick layer of frustration covered his body, sticky and damp against his skin. No matter how many beers he downed, reality was still a blunt, dull blade hacking its way through his gut, relentless and without mercy.
He knew he'd done the right thing by coming here--coming home to the house he'd grown up in--but he still felt bad over the way he'd done it. He should have told Molly goodbye rather than leaving Scott to deliver that lame-ass, cop-out message. But, God, he didn't think he could have handled facing her. Not when he knew it probably would've been the last time he'd ever see her.
Crazy, that after spending so many years feeling nothing, a riot of fractured emotions now stormed through his system, as ruthless as they were cruel, leaving him sucking wind while he struggled to deal with them. No, he knew he couldn't have told her goodbye--because if he'd tried, he never would have done it. He'd have grabbed hold of her, and that would have been it. He'd have ended up taking her...and no matter how much he cared about her--and he knew that he did care about her--he still didn't trust the seething darkness inside of him. So he'd taken off like a thief in the night, just like his old man.
And now you'll never see little Miss Molly Stratton again. Happy, jackass?
A sharp curse hissed past his lips, and Ian hurled the beer bottle against the far wall, the violent shattering of broken glass the perfect complement to his foul mood.
Leaning his head back against the wall, he pushed his hands into his hair. Gripping the sweat-damp strands, Ian closed his eyes, but instead of peaceful nothingness, visions of Molly's soft, radiant smiles kept screwing with his mind. Of that luminous look of longing in her big brown eyes every time she'd glanced at him. He hadn't wanted to hurt her, dammit, but he hadn't had a choice.
Still, he hated that it felt like a betrayal--the heavy, sour feeling of guilt sitting in his gut like something rancid, making him ill. Scrubbing his hands down his battered face, as if the simple action could wipe away his bitter frustration, Ian accepted that he didn't know what the future would bring, but he had to face the fact that he'd thrown away the best damn thing that had ever happened to him.
Not that it mattered. Hell, he probably wasn't going to survive the weekend, so what difference did it make that he wasn't ever going to see her again? Even if he did make it through alive, he wouldn't know where to look for her. Like the stubborn bastard he was, he'd made it a point, once he'd realized she actually meant something to him, not to ask where she lived. He hadn't even looked in her purse and glanced at her driver's license.
No, he'd known, right from the start, that this woman was dangerous to his peace of mind--
that it was best not to tempt fate and ensure that when they cut their ties, whether it was her or him, he wouldn't be able to go crawling after her later on.
Sitting on the floor a few feet from his hip, his cell phone suddenly vibrated with a low buzzing noise that grated on his already frayed nerves, but Ian ignored it, same as he'd been doing since he'd left Colorado. It would be another message from Riley, ranting and raving, wanting to know why he hadn't been in touch. He could deal with that later.
He'd been listening to the radio on his way to the airport on Thursday night, and had heard the breaking news story about another victim in Henning. With a sick feeling in his gut, Ian had called the Sheriff's Department for information, and though Riley was at the crime scene, he'd talked to the dispatch operator, who told him that the woman's name was Aubrey Rodgers. Barely able to speak over his rage, he'd left a message for Riley with the operator, saying that if he didn't hear from him by the end of the weekend, to contact a man named Kierland Scott. He knew, if something happened to him, that Scott would be able to give his brother the answers he needed.
Not that Ian planned to go down without a fight. He'd brought his knife, the one he'd carried with him in L.A.--in the circles he'd moved in while out there, you didn't tread without a weapon--and he was good with a blade. If the cross didn't work and he couldn't send the bastard to hell, he at least planned on gutting it, returning its sadistic ass back to the Casus holding ground. But even then, even if he survived the weekend and managed to take down the Casus, he didn't know what the future would hold. He hadn't fed, didn't plan on feeding, so where did that leave him? Would his hunger eventually drain him to the point that he just faded away? Or would it overtake him completely, turning him into something as ugly and vile as the monster he'd come there to kill?