Restrain (Siren Book 3) (12 page)

Chapter
Twenty-two

Milla

My heart's in my throat to see Allen do what I couldn't. And, after our last conversation, I understand him more. Understand what they had on him to make him do what he did. What he was hiding.

It's the second time I've been left boneless by a loving father's corpse.

A picture frame, falling from nerveless fingers. Blood spattered across the ceiling. His large hands twitching, the gun dropping heavily to the ground. A choked moan. He's still
alive
, somehow, as much as his shattered skull seems like it
should
contradict that possibility. Do I comfort him, try to shove the puzzle pieces back into the right spots and hope they fit? Do I risk him dying alone to run into the other room for the phone, or to run outside looking for Mom?

He must not have done it right. Must not have aimed right. So whatever happens to him, it's not on him, it's on
me
. I freeze, my hands clenched, nails biting into my palms.

“Daddy—”

There's too much blood, but still more coming. That means there's still more in him. He hasn't lost it all.

My thoughts skitter clunkily like pieces on an air hockey table, knocking into each other and out of my grasp.

I whisper a quiet apology, air whistling through numb lips, and charge back through the doorway to get the phone.

I have to bring my mind back to the present. Scenarios spring through my head, seeing that gun in Calder's hands. Him shooting me as an act of mercy, and turning the gun on himself. Him shooting me, then leaving through the open door when he finds it, relieved to avoid any loose ends, to not bear any responsibility to the woman who, for all he knows, might be pregnant from their time together. IUDs fail, after all. And I don't think he ever expressly felt for the string, to confirm I have one like I said. Him leaving, then coming back to shoot me when someone pieces together what I've done to him. Me keeping him here, pretending our own little world can exist, only for him to shoot me when I drug him too lightly one night and he wakes early.

That gun spells the endgame out.

My hand's forced. Do I seize the gun, and turn it on him? Or on myself?

Either way, I can't keep him here. I
can't
. I'm dead if I do.

Once again, he has the upper hand, and I'm waiting for his next move.

“Mil? Please talk to me.” He steps toward me, the revolver hanging limp at his side, and stretches his free hand toward me.

He's off balance, and I seize my opportunity. I barrel into him and seize the gun, bashing his hand against the handrail to shock him into letting it go.

He falls to his knees from the move, and I back away, barely remembering to step over Allen's body, to get some distance between us. I level the gun at him, and his eyes widen. “Mil,
please,
what are you doing? Birdie, talk to me. Why're you—”

I can't kill him, but the
Siren
can. I fight to put some force into my voice. “Climb over the rail, asshole, or I put a bullet in you.”

I can't take my eyes away from his. Those icy blue orbs plead with me more effectively than his voice
ever
could.

“Is this about yesterday, Mil? I know I hurt you—I know I overstepped. I betrayed you.”

“Shut the fuck up and start climbing. Five. Four—” I step closer, leading him with the pistol where I want him to go.

He takes one reluctant step toward it, then another. “
Please
, Mil. We can talk about this.”

My muscles are paralyzed, no matter how I try to force myself to pull the trigger.

“Mil, why are you doing this?
Please
—”

I know I'm crying, but for once, I can't muster any self-consciousness.

He swallows hard, and makes the last appeal he can. “
Please Mil.
I love you. Don't do this.”

I step closer, and gesture toward the rail again. “
Do it
.”

“
Red
, birdie.
Red.
Please, for the love of fuck,
red
.”

Chapter
Twenty-three

Calder

Milla's hand's trembles on the gun, but I don't trust myself to get it away from her before one or both of us ends up getting shot. And I'm not gonna hurt her again. I can't. Even accidentally.

My heart breaks seeing her dismiss my confession, seeing her disregard even the safeword. Seeing her as a creature of violence, no longer the vision who haunted my dreams with her innocence. She's the demon who lashed out at me tooth and nail, who was willing to let me rape her rather than compromise. Maybe she always was that demon, and her lies just obscured the core of her.

The first second, when she grabbed for it, I thought she might turn it on herself. Hell if the thought hadn't occurred to
me
too. But she means what she's doing; she wants me dead, and I only have a second or two left to incapacitate her and demand to know what the
fuck
is going on.

My moment comes suddenly, in the rattle of loosely-anchored grating slipping away from the corner of the frame it's supposed to be anchored to, trembling under her bare feet.

I only have a moment to decide what to do, but the decision comes easily. I risk the gunshot and charge toward her, leaping at what I
hope
is the edge of the broken grating. But it bucks under me, and I lose my momentum. Pain explodes in my shoulder and the world falls away under my feet. But I catch Milla around her hips and knock her back, and the last thing I see as I tumble to the ground is her face above me.

The narrow catwalks intersect randomly, and I fall about four flights before something breaks my fall. Ironically, it's the top of the pipe we bedded in.

My leg snaps with the initial impact, and a million other parts of me ache or throb. But I remain fixated on that pale face high above me.

She's okay. That's all that matters.

She's gonna be fine.

Chapter
Twenty-four

Milla

My hand feels empty without the gun's weight, but I'm inwardly relieved. Now I don't have to call myself a coward for not being able to kill him. I'm not sure where it fell, but it'll take me forever and a goddamn
day
to find it.

All that agonizing, and my choice was made for me.

The stairs clatter under my feet, and I know I'm not watching for any of my other little anklebiters. All that matters is the moment I hit the second floor, and can shimmy along a ridge in the wall until I'm standing on top of the pipe Calder's still collapsed on.

The tears come hard and fast seeing him; the side of the pipe is slippery with blood, almost a sheet of it pouring from a broken bone that's punched through his leg. It's
deja vu
, but not the good kind.

“Wh...what the—what the hell?” It takes him several seconds to get the question out. “What—”

I don't like the slur to his speech, and I cast my eyes about, frantically, for the gun. I doubt anyone would have time to get here, even if I ran to the decks for a cell phone signal. And if he dies... I don't want to live without him.

A lump by his ear is already swelling, explaining the distorted speech. I don't know much about head injuries, but it makes my breath come fast, and I sit near him, to at least keep him company in his final moments.

“Why, Mil? I
love
you.”

So in those crucial minutes, I give him the truth. Every last tear-soaked grain of it. I lay myself bear, and flagellate myself to the bones. Tears left unshed over dozens of funerals pour from me in a rush that leaves me dizzy.

I share all the mental scars, the ones too deep to show but too obvious to hide. I share all the memories that hurt too much to share before. My sister's broken body, and my dad's broken soul. My mother's fractured mind and my neighbors' fractured careers. A lifetime's worth of pain that eroded me, twisting my bones until even a moment of tenderness was a threatening loss of control.

His eyes can't focus on me, and I can't tell if he's even conscious, if he's even listening. Maybe it would be kinder to break his neck or stomp his skull, if he's in a coma, waiting to starve to death or suffer an aneurysm. But, once again, I'm frozen. I can't.

As the light fades from his eyes, I say the only thing left to say. The only thing I've been avoiding.

“I love you.”

And then there's a loud crash above me. Black-clad figures storm through the door I left unlocked. “
Help
, help, we're down here!” I scream as loud as I can, and wait for them to approach.

It's over. Now it all comes down to whether or not they believe I'm victim or captor.

And whether Calder lives to tell the truths I shared.

Fuck!
What will I do if Calder isn't dead?

Fuck!
What will I do if he
is
?

Thank you for reading Restrain. If you have a moment to
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Chapter
One

Camilla Greenwich

Once upon a time, Calder Roane was my life. Not in the forbidden crush sort of way, though we got there eventually, but in the arch-nemesis sort of way. I built my identity around the conceit that I would be the one to bring his whole family down, and their cronies. Instead, I barely got out alive, and only several months in the hospital have saved him.

Maybe that's a statement of strength, how close I came, but for me, it's a statement of weakness, for what I gave up.

I hated him so much I gave up my very identity to watch him suffer. And living with him, day in and day out, the old identity blistered and rotted, dead in every way but name only. I fell in love with him. And... it felt like he fell for me, too.

All that ended around 4:30 AM the morning we were rescued, with a sheet of intentionally loose grating, and a much-used gun.

At the end, he knew I wanted him dead. And he still knocked me out of the way, took both bullet and fall for me. Now, I don't know how much he remembers. I'm living on borrowed time.

The world looks at me as a fellow victim of the “
Siren
Kidnapper”, and while my coworkers respect my silence, the press hasn't faded fully into the background. Any one of them could connect the pieces, if Calder helps the right detail fall into place.

I pray to fuck he's forgotten everything of that last day.

I should accept what vengeance I got, and turn away from that path. But the pain still runs too deep, all the more without Calder's authoritative touch, and casual optimism. How can I reconcile myself, an obsessive killer of almost a dozen people, with myself, the victim, pining for a fellow survivor who wants nothing more than to forget his imprisonment and forget every promise forged in that crucible. Forget his words that we were as good as family.

I miss that gun. It was my dad's. I never asked where he got it; it certainly wasn't legal down the road, after I'd filed the serial numbers off it just in case... But he willed it to me after he used it to kill himself, and it was my most constant companion.

Now it's in police custody, if they found it on the ship. And even if it's still on the
Siren
, the ship has a regular security detail now, and I wouldn't be permitted to look for it.

Life moves on. I need to, as well.

I had my chance. Whether I blew it or gave it up, it's over.

It's Calder's world now.

*              *              *

The news reports still blare through my skull on replay, though at the time I only experienced them as a flurry of voices and lights as a SWAT team and paramedics pried myself and Calder Roane out of the
Siren
's belly. It wasn't until later, when coworkers started recording the coverage for me, that I found out the extent of it.

“—Police went in around 4:30 this morning after a resident came forward with a tip that Evan Duran had driven down this road on the day of his disappearance. His car was discovered not far from the scene, leading investigators to contact local law enforcement.

“Although it's not known the exact nature of events that transpired on board the decommissioned
USS
Siren
, early reports claim two survivors were found. One of them, a male, early thirties, is said to be in critical condition. My sources believe it may be Calder Roane, CEO of Roane Industries, who went missing nearly six months back. It's not known whether he's expected to survive the night. Another survivor, a female, mid-twenties, is said to be in stable condition. The ship remains roped off until all bodies can be cataloged and excavated.”

Click.

“Between seven and fifteen bodies are rumored to be on board the
Siren
, though officials haven't shared exact numbers or causes of death. They
have
however confirmed two of the victims to be State Senator George Roane and his chief of staff Marquel Donovan. Roane was in the process of running for the US House of Representatives, when he failed to show up at a campaign fundraiser four months ago. No charges have been brought as yet, with police citing a lack of evidence for their reticence to name a suspect.

“An internal source with the department, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that the preponderance of DNA at the scene made it impossible to isolate any DNA that would have belonged to the mastermind, and survivors' testimony indicates a combination of drugging, circadian rhythm disruption, and other factors that make it impossible to place an exact timeline on interactions aboard the
Siren
.”

Click. You could almost hear the tangible disappointment on that one.

“The scene in Winchester is
truly
a nightmare, with candlelight vigils for the ship's two survivors, and its many victims, protesting the lack of official communication on the direction of the case. What details have leaked have talked about nightmarish traps, hostages being pitted against each other brutally, and around-the-clock video surveillance, like something out of a horror movie.

“In particular, the community has rallied around Camilla Greenwich, a worker at the naval shipyards, who early reports had pegged as a suspect despite the evidence pointing to her having been abducted from her home. Locals believe her abduction to be related to a surge in organized crime in the area, and others have come forward with similar stories of violence.

“These events have cultivated a sense of unrest, that no one is safe, whether CEO or dockworker. Police are under intense pressure to finish gathering evidence and release information on the case, including the final number of victims, and their names.

“Brian Jeffreys, a lawyer representing Calder Roane, asked for the public's understanding and courtesy during these difficult times, as his client recovers from a traumatic ordeal. Camilla Greenwich has yet to speak to the press, and those around her have been notoriously close-lipped.”

Click
.

“The bizarre
Siren
murders seem likely to become cold cases, as no further evidence has emerged, and survivor accounts are not able to produce a suspect...”

Fucking vultures. The lot of them make me queasy. This is why I haven't bothered watching TV in years.

Mindf*ck is coming in October, 2016. Preorder it
here
.