Mark of Cain

Chapter One

Lucas Cain could still remember the sound of

the heavy door closing behind him when he’d arrived at this place.

Back then, the noise had meant the end of freedom—the beginning of

a whole new kind of terror. Now, with Lucas on the other side of

the door and moving in the opposite direction, the clang sounded

just as threatening, and somehow seemed to mean the exact same

thing.

“Lukey!” he heard, first from one familiar

voice, and then from others.

“Luke!”

“Captain Cain!”

And from one unfortunate, quickly hushed

voice, “Killer!”

They were all there, waiting for him at the

prison’s outer doors like a family welcoming one of their own at

the airport. Well, Luke had never been in an airport and he’d never

had much of a family, but he’d seen it on TV, and this was as close

as he was ever likely to get to the original.

So he forced a smile and hoped it didn’t look

as fake as it felt. “Hey, guys,” he said, and let himself be pulled

into their rough embraces. Mikey was there, tall and wide and

grinning. Scotty, with a new scar on his pale face. Casey, Tinker,

Paul, all thumping Luke on his back and shoulders as if he were

some sort of hero. And there, a couple steps away, Sean Gage,

watching it all with fond amusement, waiting for the attention he

knew was his due.

“Sean,” Luke said, and now his smile was

beginning to feel natural.

“Luke,” Sean returned, and they stepped

forward at the same time, wrapping their arms around each other and

squeezing tight for a moment before beginning the ritual punching

and shoving.

“Let’s get out of here,” Sean said, his voice

thick with emotion he would never express. He kept one arm locked

around Lucas’s neck while he half-turned and gave the finger to the

guards watching the reunion. “Fuck you all!” he growled, then

pressed a hard kiss to Lucas’s temple. “We got our boy back, and

now you can all go fuck yourselves.”

It was pointless, at best. The guards had

just been doing their jobs, and they really hadn’t been a problem

for Lucas. But they were the closest symbol of the authority Sean

had spent his life resenting and resisting, and there was no point

trying to protect them from his random hostility. Lucas deflected

instead. “You said we were getting out of here?”

“Fuck, yeah,” Sean agreed, and he stopped

only long enough to light a cigarette before he led the way across

the parking lot.

Lucas tried to imagine what they looked like.

That had been one of the exercises the prison psychologist had

given him: try to look at yourself through someone else’s eyes. It

had been impossible at first, but the psychologist had prompted him

to expand his mind beyond the walls of the prison, and beyond the

boundaries of time. Try to imagine how your kindergarten teacher

saw you. How about your fifth grade teacher? High school principal?

Old lady on the street? Woman you try to pick up in a bar? Guy you

argue with in a bar…

That had been when Lucas had stalked out of

the office. Technically, the sessions were mandatory, but Dr. Clark

had let him go. And when she led him through the exercise in later

sessions, she never asked him to imagine the impression of the guy

in the bar again. It was too bad, because Lucas knew what the right

answer to the question would be. To the guy he fought with in a

bar, he looked like Death.

But this was supposed to be a happy occasion,

and Lucas tried to pull his brain away from the past. What did they

look like now? To that woman coming toward them, tucking her

daughter around to the other side so she was shielded by the

woman’s body, they clearly looked like trouble. Not a gang—nothing

so organized—just young men with too much energy and aggression and

not enough to do with their time. But, no, that was how Lucas saw

them. The exercise was to put himself in someone else’s shoes. And

from someone else’s shoes, they probably just looked like

thugs.

“Feels pretty good, huh?” Tinker asked. He’d

spent a couple months in juvie and a few more in the local jail, so

he considered himself the group’s expert on doing time. His crown

had obviously been stolen by Lucas after three years in a federal

prison, but if he could get Lucas talking to him as an equal, maybe

they could share the throne. “You’re a free man, now! You can do

anything you want.” He spread his arms wide. “Go anywhere.”

Too terrifying to even think about any of

that. But luckily, it wasn’t really true. “I have to report to my

parole officer twice a week.” He turned his head enough to make it

clear he was speaking to Sean. “You’re sure your mom’s okay with

this? With me staying with you? I’ve got to be somewhere they

approve of, but it doesn’t have to be your place, man.”

“Are you kidding? She’s thrilled. She’s at

home now, cooking your big homecoming feast.”

“I don’t want to put her out.”

“She’d be pissed to even hear you talking

like that, and you know it.” Sean’s arm tightened around Lucas’s

neck. “You’re family. Of course you’re staying with us.”

“She’d kick Sean out before she got rid of

you,” Mikey chimed in. “She wants to start charging him rent!”

Lucas grinned, thinking of Mrs. Gage’s last

visit to the prison. “She told me she used to worry about you

getting some girl knocked up, but now she’s praying for it so you’d

have to get your own place to raise the kid.”

“Fuck that,” Sean retorted. “If I had a kid,

I’d stay there for sure! I’d need Granny to take care of the little

bastard.”

“The baby’s mother might have a different

plan,” Lucas said.

“My women know their place,” Sean said, and

he made a crude gesture to show exactly where that place was. “If

she wants to have her own plan, she can get the fuck out and do it

herself.”

And there it was. Sean was actually angry,

not at his friends but at this imaginary woman with her imaginary

baby who’d had the nerve to imaginarily tell him she wanted them to

get their own apartment. It felt familiar, but it didn’t feel

natural. Not anymore.

Lucas didn’t want to think about it. “What’s

she making?” he asked, and at Sean’s blank look he added, “Your

mom. What’s my feast going to be?”

“Fucked if I know,” Sean responded, his good

mood easily restored. “Let’s go find out.”

“There’s roast beef, and those little

Yorkshire puddings that you like!” Mrs. Gage had looked the same

since Lucas had first met her when he and Sean had been in second

grade. Pale, tired, with too much skin sagging over too much fat,

but always ready with a warm smile for all of her boys, whether

hers by birth or only by affection. “And mashed potatoes with sour

cream and chives, and biscuits, and—”

“Mom, are these Luke’s favorites or yours?”

Sean asked, and the sound of Mrs. Gage’s hand smacking the back of

her son’s head was as much a sign of being home as any of the food

on the table.

Sean grinned ruefully and took his place at

the head of the table while Luke sat next to Stacey, across from

Corey and Tina. Mrs. Gage flopped into her own seat and beamed at

everyone. “Grace tonight,” she said just as Sean reached for a

serving bowl. “We have a lot to be thankful for.”

Nobody argued. It had been a long time since

Luke had held anyone’s hand, let alone a girl’s, but he let Stacey

wrap her fingers around his and reached out to find Mrs. Gage’s

grip as well.

He lowered his head as Mrs. Gage said, “Dear

Lord, thank you for your many blessings. This home, this food, and

all the love in our family. Thank you especially for returning

Lucas to us, safe and sound. It’s been a tough few years, Lord, but

we’ve made it through, and now we just want everything to get back

to normal.” She paused for only a moment before adding, “But it

would be great if you could send work for Stacey, something better

than part time at the grocery store. I don’t have to tell you what

a hard worker she is. And Sean could use something a bit more

reliable too. Seventy hours one week and twenty the next, Lord?

That is no way for him to learn how to settle down. Please let

Corey pass math even if Mr. Michaels is a total bastard who

couldn’t teach the Pope to pray, and Tina…” Lucas glanced up and

saw Mrs. Gage squinting critically at her youngest child. “Tina’s

doing okay right now, Lord, but she’s turning into a bit of a

flirt. Please help her to get through high school without a

disaster, if you know what I mean. Which, of course, you do.” She

paused again, obviously making sure she hadn’t missed anything.

Maybe she was going to mention that Lucas needed a haircut, as she

had the second he walked in the door, but apparently she decided he

could take care of that without divine intervention. “So, Amen,”

she declared, and the rest of the table echoed her sentiment.

“You’re going to be working with Sean,

right?” Tina asked Lucas as they all started heaping food onto

their plates. She’d been a little kid when he’d gone away, but now

she was a gangly teenager, with braces and giggles and low-cut

shirts. She’d been shy for about two minutes when he’d first

arrived but had gotten over it pretty quickly. “Roofing with Uncle

Dave?” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Are you going to like

that?”

Lucas shrugged. It was the same job he’d had

before. Back then, his work day had consisted mostly of showing up

late and hung over, getting yelled at, and trying to shirk as much

work as possible until they were allowed to go home. Lucas had

better intentions this time around, but he wasn’t quite sure what

the job would be like if he were actually trying to do it properly.

“It’ll be fine, I guess,” he managed.

“It’ll suck,” Sean promised. “But we’ll get

good tans this summer, and it’s a killer workout.” He grinned

wolfishly. “You’ve been away for a long time, Lucas. I bet I know

what you missed the most. We can take the edge off tonight, but

you’ve probably got lots to get out of your system, right?”

“Tonight? I’ve got a nine o’clock curfew.”

Better to use that as an excuse than to get into any deeper

discussions.

But Sean was not so easily persuaded. “Mom’ll

cover for you. For tonight, right Mom? His first day back?”

“No, Mrs. Gage, you don’t have to,” Lucas

said quickly. “I wouldn’t ask that. I don’t expect you to put

yourself out for me any more than you already have.”

But Sean just ignored Lucas. “Nine o’clock,

Mom? Half the town’s lining up to welcome him back. He won’t even

have said ‘hi’ to everyone by nine o’clock.”

“Half the town wants to welcome him back,”

Mrs. Gage said seriously. She gave her son a stern look. “And the

other half is angry that he’s out so soon. They’ll be watching him,

looking for anything they could report to get him in trouble.” She

smiled sadly at Lucas. “You need to be careful, Lukey. You need to

follow the rules. If it was just me, of course you could stay out a

bit later and visit with all your friends. But it’s not just

me.”

“I understand,” Lucas said. He tried to hide

his relief. “Absolutely. No problem.”

“It’s bullshit,” Sean objected. “What’s the

point of being out of jail if you can’t do what you want to?”

“I got out early. It’s conditional.” Lucas

looked at his old friend and tried to convey the full meaning of

the words as he said, “I’m not going back, Sean. Not ever. I’m

going to do what it takes to make sure I never go back.”

Sean’s nod was slow, but it came. “Yeah.

Okay.” He sighed as if he was amazed once again by the injustice of

the world. “Fuck. But, okay. We can still have some fun.” He

pointed his fork at Lucas’s plate. “Eat up and let’s get out of

here. If we’re having an early end, we’d better get an early

start.” He crammed a huge forkful of potatoes into his mouth as a

demonstration of the desired eating technique, and Lucas obeyed the

instructions.

For better or worse, he was home.