Blinking, her gaze blurred at first, it had taken her precious seconds to focus her eyes on the man kneeling in the dirt about twenty feet away from her. He looked older somehow, and hurt. The bruises and blood on his face were horrifying to see.
“Mark?” Her voice had been weak, shaky. “Mark, I want to go home.”
She was so sorry she had left the house. She shouldn’t have. He’d have listened to her if she had just waited to talk to him again.
“I know, Gypsy.” He stared back at her, his eyes so sad, so filled with pain.
“You fucked up, McQuade. Trusted the wrong person.” The harsh voice of the Coyote who had knocked her out caused her to flinch in terror as her brother’s gaze suddenly became so bleak, so pain ridden that Gypsy knew she would never forget the sight of it.
“Let her go, Grody,” her brother demanded, though his voice wasn’t strong like it usually was. It sounded very defeated.
Grody just laughed, a sound so evil that Gypsy couldn’t help crying. And she hated those tears. Because when Mark saw them he grimaced, and she was certain he was disappointed in her. He always told her she was allowed to cry, that it was his job to be brave. That girls needed to cry. She could still think and plan, even with tears, he’d promised her. But her head hurt so bad, and she was so scared she couldn’t think.
“I couldn’t believe it was you, McQuade.” Grody laughed again as he moved from behind her and walked slowly to where her brother was kneeling. “I was shocked as hell when our contact identified you. You just didn’t seem like the geek type, ya know?”
Her brother wasn’t really a geek, he just knew how to make a computer do whatever he wanted it to do. His broad, strong hands could fly over the keyboard and within seconds he would be crooning to it, caressing it with his voice in a way that made Gypsy laugh at him.
“Who identified me?” Mark asked then, and even Gypsy could read the defeat in his voice, in his expression.
Oh God, if Mark was giving up, then this was really bad. Mark couldn’t give up.
She couldn’t hear what Grody said when he leaned close and whispered the name in her brother’s ear. But she watched his lips. She had paid very close attention to his lips, wanting to know who to kill later. The word was forming, as though in slow motion, and she knew, just as she always knew, what Grody was whispering to her brother. She knew, but somehow, for some reason, it was as though her gaze blanked, darkened, stealing the image. Except this time, it was shorter, the darkness more shadowed than absolute, almost giving her the secret she’d fought to remember for nine years. Then, Grody was straightening and chuckling at the tormented shock in Mark’s expression, and the betrayal.
She knew who it was, why couldn’t she see the name? She knew that the man who had betrayed her brother was his friend. She could tell from Mark’s expression it was someone very close to him.
Mark nodded slowly, his gaze meeting Gypsy’s as he stared back at her intently, a message in his green eyes that she fought to decipher.
“Any last words, kids?” Grody asked then, his amusement evil, his voice sending cold chills raking at her back.
“Mark?” Her voice trembled, terror shaking through her as she fought not to scream again, not to lose control, though she couldn’t stop her tears.
“Don’t cry, Gypsy,” he told her as the Coyote, Grody, had laughed at him. “Don’t cry, and be brave, Peanut. Do you hear me?”
Grody moved behind Mark then, gripping his long hair and suddenly jerking her brother’s head back until his neck was stretched painfully. And a second later a knife pressed against the side of his neck, so sharp that the edge immediately had blood welling against it.
“No! Oh God, please. Please. No!” Gypsy screamed, begging, crying as she struggled against the ropes holding her to the front bumper of the vehicle. “Oh God, please. Please don’t hurt him.”
“Listen to her beg, Mark,” Grody laughed as her brother’s gaze met hers.
Be brave, Peanut . . . he mouthed. I love you.
He never told her to be brave. He always comforted her and told her she was allowed to cry. That little sisters didn’t have to be brave, that was what brothers were for. And now, she had to be brave.
“Please. Please,” she cried out, screaming, begging as she fought the ropes until her wrists burned and she could feel the dampness of her blood. “Please don’t hurt him.”
“Will she beg so pretty when I’m fucking her, McQuade?”
Her brother didn’t have a chance to answer him. Immediately, Grody moved the knife, digging it in deep and slicing it over her precious brother’s throat.
She was screaming. Screaming and fighting the hard hands that were on her, shaking her as someone yelled her name . . .
...
“Wake the fuck up, goddammit. Gypsy, wake up now.”
Rule could feel something exploding in his soul as he fought to wake her, staring into her wild, unseeing green eyes as they had jerked open, the way she had gasped as though trying to scream, though no sound had emerged.
The terror in her eyes had drawn his animal instincts to the fore in a surge of such fury it would shock him later. Until then, he was determined to force her awake. Shaking her, holding her to him as he yelled at her, terrified he was losing her to whatever demon had control of her.
Just as quickly as her eyes had opened, unseeing, that terror an agonizing mask that had rage surging through him, she was awake.
Blinking, perspiration and silent tears running down her face, she parted her lips as she gasped for air. Rule could feel her nails suddenly pricking his flesh and watched as she quickly realized what had happened.
Nightmares of the night her brother had been murdered. The night she had been abducted into the desert, where a Coyote had not just murdered her brother before her eyes, but had nearly raped her before the Breeds had arrived to make certain he never murdered another brother or tried to rape another sister.
“My fault,” she whispered, her voice hoarse with tears as she stared up at him now, shuddering so hard he was surprised her teeth weren’t shattering. “My fault.”
...
Gypsy could feel the tears that still ran from her eyes, the pain that pushed them free of her control as she was jerked from the nightmare.
She had never been awakened by anyone while the nightmare held her in its grip. At first, because her parents hadn’t known about them. It was years before she had actually screamed through one of them. That happened only rarely. And never had they awakened her, then jerked her against them, their arms wrapping around her as Rule did now.
Her cheek was pressed to his bare chest, tears dampening the tough skin as one hand cupped the back of her head, while the other ran comfortingly up and down her back.
“I have you, baby,” he was whispering roughly, rocking her just a little bit. “It’s okay, Gypsy, I have you.”
He had her?
Her breathing hitched as she fought to get a handle on herself, to stop the tears she hadn’t shed before now.
She wanted to push him away from her. She was angry with him, she remembered that. But she couldn’t make herself do it. No one had comforted her since Mark’s death. Not because her parents hadn’t wanted to, they had tried. Because she hadn’t deserved to escape the pain and the remembered terror.