The Mercenary and the Mortician (The Silent Hollow #1)

68. Cal Walker

Alexa, play: Medicine - Daughter

I fell asleep almost immediately after eating. My body felt like it was made of lead and sharp pieces of glass. Everything was heavy, and I hurt, but I was almost too tired to care about it. As I drifted in and out of sleep, I was vaguely aware of Ryan coming in to check on me. Around what felt like mid-day, he woke me up, telling me I needed to eat again.

I managed to eat the soup he brought me and gulped down some more pills. T3s and an antibiotic, he told me.

I think I asked him what the antibiotic was for, but my eyes were so heavy, and I felt so warm and safe with him stroking my hair beside me that I didn’t hear him answer. Before I knew it, I had passed out again, snuggled into Ryan’s cool silk sheets with his fingers stroking through my hair.

I woke up in the tub.

Frowning, I jerked my chains, panic rising into my chest.

No, no, no… How did I get here? I was just with Ryan!

“Mr. Walker.” Fear shot through my veins as I raised my eyes to see Damian sitting on the edge of the tub, looking down at me with that sadistic look he always seemed to get in his eyes when he was about to hurt me.

My lip trembled, and my throat suddenly had a lump in it.

“ Please, Damian. Don’t hurt me again,” I whimpered. My voice was much higher than normal. I looked down at my hands and jerked in surprise when I realized how small they were.

Was this a dream? Or a memory?

“Mr. Walker, you know this type of behavior can’t go unpunished.”

“But she was innocent! She didn’t do anything. I don’t want to kill innocent people, Damian,” I protested; tears were streaming down my face now as I remembered the woman on her knees before me, begging me to spare her life while Damian watched me hold a gun to her head.

He grabbed my face so hard it hurt, and I cried out.

“That’s not for you to decide, is it, Callum?” He snarled inches from my face. I tried to curl away from him, sobbing.

He struck me across the face so hard I saw stars, which only made me cry harder.

“Big boys don’t cry! You’re a mercenary, Callum. It’s time you start acting like it.”

I heard a buzzing noise, and one of Damian’s goons came in with a long black stick that was sparking at the end. I didn’t know what it was, but I didn’t like it.

“Now, Mr. McGreggor is going to hurt you, and you’re going to take it until you learn how to control yourself. Do you understand?”

“No… please no…” I sobbed, covering my face with my tiny hands and cowering in the bottom of the tub.

My pleas did nothing to stop them. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see the first blow coming. When McGreggor rammed it into my side, I screamed so loud my voice broke like it was made of hard plastic.

There was the soft tink and chime of a belt being undone, though I barely heard it over my screams.

“Again,” Damiam grunted, and it sounded like he ripped open a zipper as he spoke. I curled deeper into myself, tensing in anticipation of the horrible electric shock that I knew was coming.

The second blow was even worse than the first. My voice cracked and broke until my screams were nearly silent.

All I could hear was a strange grunting sound coming from Damian as he watched his goon strike me again and again with the prodder. I didn’t know what Damian was doing, but something told me I didn’t want to see. So I kept my face hidden and pretended I couldn’t hear the fleshy sounds and the soft, ragged breaths that felt out of place in this horrible, damp, concrete room.

Was I going to die like this? I wondered as another blow connected with my ribs.

“That’s it, Mr. Walker. Take your punishment.” Damian panted. The fleshy slapping sound increased in intensity.

“Callum!”

I couldn’t die like this… not without saying goodbye to… someone.

“Cal! Angel! Wake up! You’re dreaming!”

Someone was shaking me. I groaned and pulled away.

“No, please… no more. Don’t hurt me again. I’ll be good, I’ll do better…”

“CALLUM!”

The voice roared, and suddenly, my eyes flew open. I didn’t know where the fuck I was, but my whole body was alight with pain, and I was gasping with anxiety.

There was someone shaking me. It was dark, and I was hurt.

I snarled and attacked.

I was an adult again, so it was easy to wrap my hand around the throat of the man who was threatening me. I flipped him beneath me, ignoring the screaming wave of agony that ripped through my side with the effort.

“Callum, stop, it’s just me!” The man was screaming, but I straddled his chest, crushing him down into the bed by the throat.

“You think you can fucking touch me and live? I’ll fucking kill you!” I roared, wrapping my other hand around the monster’s throat. I began to squeeze as my attacker choked and thrashed beneath me.

He clawed at my wrists, and his eyes rolled back into his head as I strangled the life out of him.

‘ Die, die, die!’ my mind chanted.

Eliminate the threat! Kill the target!

Kill, Kill, Kill!

Kill him, then you can rest.

No one can hurt you if you kill him.

“A-angel—” The monster coughed.

Wait.

Angel?

That word rattled through my triggered mind, and I froze.

Angel… Angel. Only one person had ever called me that before.

The inky black fog that had completely melted my brain began to recede, and my racing heart skipped a beat as I realized who it was I was trying to strangle to death.

It was Ryan…

“G-ginger snap?” I rasped, and despite the fact that his face was beet red and it looked like I had popped a blood vessel in his right eye, he smiled at me.

“Yeah, baby. It’s me. It’s your ginger snap. You’re safe now. Let me go, please.”

I launched myself off of him, not caring that the stitches in my side definitely tore with the movement.

“Fuck, Ryan, I’m so sorry… I…” Stumbling toward the door, my vision blurred.

Holy fucking shit… I had almost just killed him! I almost just killed my ginger boy…

My hands were shaking. I couldn’t get them to stop, and my stomach hurt. Not just from the bullet wound, I felt like I was going to throw up.

The blood drained from my face, and my mouth flooded with bile. Yeah… definitely going to throw up…

I needed to get the fuck out of here…

But as much as my mind was screaming at me to get away from Ryan in case I hurt him again, my body wouldn’t cooperate.

I fell to my hands and knees, and a strange sound ripped from my throat. It sounded suspiciously like a sob, but that didn’t make any sense.

I didn’t cry.

I was a mercenary. Mercenaries didn’t cry.

A cold sweat broke out over my skin, and I heaved, doing my best to force the vomit down, but I couldn’t stop it. I puked all over the floor. Before I could try to apologize again, Ryan was kneeling next to me, his large, warm hand rubbing down my sweat-slicked back in soft, soothing motions.

“Shhh, it’s okay, angel. Don’t apologize. You’re safe. I’ve got you,” he murmured.

I heaved again, but thankfully, I didn’t seem to have anything left in my stomach to puke up. Turning away from my sick, I looked at Ryan, my heart breaking as I took in the ring of bruises already forming around his neck and the way the white in his right eye was full of blood.

I did that to him… I hurt my baby…

“I should go. I didn’t mean to… Ryan, I’m so sorry.” My voice was a croak. It was rough from being sick and maybe screaming, but there was also a painful lump in my throat that no matter how many times I swallowed, wouldn’t go away.

“I can’t stay here…” I muttered, trying to get to my feet, but Ryan wrapped his arms around me and crushed me against him. I winced as his arms jostled my wound, which was bleeding again, but I didn’t have the strength to pull away.

I was so tired.

“You’re not going anywhere, angel. Come on, let’s get you back in bed.”

I shook my head against his shoulder, biting back what I was almost positive was a sob.

“No. I just almost killed you in my sleep, Ryan. We can’t sleep in the same bed.”

He chuckled and tugged me to my feet, positioning my body so I could lean on him.

“I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting you to try to off me for trying to wake you up from a nightmare, but now I know better. It’ll just be a bit of a learning curve, baby. We’ll figure it out. Do you have nightmares often?”

“Yeah, I—” I paused as I took a minute to process his words. “Wait… did you just call me baby?” I asked, completely flabbergasted.

He smiled at me as he steered me back into bed.

“Yeah. Is that okay?”

I gaped at him.

Was that okay!?

I swallowed and nodded.

“Of course it’s okay, ginger snap.”

He beamed at me and gave me a kiss on the forehead as he settled me on the edge of the mattress.

“I’m going to clean this up.” He gestured back to where I had been sick on the floor. “And I’ll bring you a toothbrush and a cup of water. Here, you can rinse and spit in this cup you used earlier to take your pills…” He was already in what I was now affectionately calling ‘Ryan Mode.’ It was this no-nonsense, straight-to-business persona that he seemed to fall into when there were tasks that needed to get done.

When he was like this, he wouldn’t stop until his checklist was complete, and I knew there was no fighting it.

“I can walk to the bathroom, you know…”

He shot me a withering glare and nearly snarled.

“You will do no such thing. You definitely tore a stitch, if not while you were suffering through that PTSD response, then you definitely did when you tried to bolt for the door. I’m going to have to get Dr. Callahan in here to check you out…”

“Dr. Callahan?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.

Ryan bustled into the hall and reappeared with paper towels and a mop.

I watched him get to work cleaning up my mess, and he nodded.

“Yeah, he’s a doctor Cass knows. You owe him your life. He’s the one who patched you up.”

Huh. Interesting.

“I thought you patched me up, ginger snap.” I smirked at him as he finished up and brought me a toothbrush with some paste already squeezed on it. I got to work brushing my teeth while he shrugged.

“I just kept you alive until he got here.”

Spitting out my toothpaste into the cup Ryan had instructed me to use, I cocked my head to the side.

“Just kept me alive until he got here?” I reached out and brushed a strand of ginger hair out of his gorgeous, brandy eyes. “That sounds pretty heroic to me, baby.”

Tugging him down to sit next to me on the bed, I gave him a gentle smile, which he returned with one of his soft, pink blushes. Leaning forward, I kissed his warm cheek gently, rubbing my thumb along his jaw and reveling in the rough bristle of stubble that was already growing there.

His clean scent surrounded me, and I leaned into him, depositing the cup and toothbrush on the end table as I worked him closer to the mattress.

“I’m so sorry I hurt you, baby. You have no idea. You’re the last person on the planet that I would ever want to hurt.”

“Shh, shh.” Ryan kissed me back, nipping at my lips until they became puffy and swollen. He ran his fingers up the back of my neck and into my hair, causing me to shudder as I lay on top of him, pressing him into the soft mattress.

“It’s not your fault, angel. It was a PTSD response.”

I broke the kiss and pressed my forehead into his, letting out a shaky breath as I crushed my eyes closed with regret.

“I’m sorry I’m so fucked up,” I whispered, and he swept his thumb over my cheek, wiping away something wet that I pretended wasn’t a tear.

“You’re not fucked up, Callum. What happened to you is fucked up, yes… but you’re safe now. We’ll work through it together.”

I huffed out what I think was supposed to be a laugh but somehow wasn’t. Wincing against the pain in my side, I sat up, straddling Ryan’s hips and looking down at him with regret.

“How can I sleep here knowing I might hurt you again?” I whispered, and he got up on his elbows, pursing his lips.

“Now that we know, we’ll take precautions. Do you have night terrors often?”

I nodded. “Yeah. That’s why I used to always sleep at Apex instead of at home with Naomi. My screams always woke her up.”

Ryan’s eyes darkened. He didn’t like that.

Reaching up with one hand, he gently ran a thumb over my kiss-swollen lips.

“From now on, you will sleep here, in the same bed as me. That is not up for debate,” he said, using his stern businessman voice. I raised an eyebrow at that.

If I wasn’t so afraid I might accidentally kill him in a triggered rage, I would have found his little power trip adorable.

“If I agree to stay here, you have to promise not to wake me up again if I have a nightmare. I’m serious, Ryan.” I dropped my hand to gently trace the already purpling bruise around his throat. “If I hurt you again, I don’t think I could ever forgive myself.”

“I’m not letting you suffer through a fucking night terror while I sit here and do nothing, Callum,” he snapped. “I’ll wake you up with an air horn from across the room if I have to, but I’m not letting that fucker ever touch you again. Not even in your dreams.”

My eyebrows shot up into my hairline at his tone.

He sounded angry.

“How do you know the dream was about him?” I whispered, and Ryan gave a ‘is that a serious question?’ look.

“Who else would it be about? That man has been torturing and brainwashing you since you were a child. Of course your nightmares are about him.”

I bit my lip, feeling exposed. I had never talked about my nightmares before… Hell, no one had ever asked about them before, let alone had a theory on what they were about or why I had them.

“They used to be about my mom,” I admitted. I didn’t dream of Damian often; this was the first time he’d made an appearance in a while. But I guess it made sense, considering recent events.

“This one was more like a memory from when I was a kid. He had me in the tub, and… it was the first time they used the cattle prodder on me,” I whispered, shocking myself by telling him the truth.

Understanding crossed Ryan’s face, and he pushed up from his elbows onto his hands so he could sit up straighter. I shimmied down his lap to give him more room.

“So that’s why you were afraid of the tub…” he muttered to himself, and I frowned.

“What do you mean?”

He glanced at me, his mouth a firm line. “The other night, after your surgery, I was trying to get you cleaned up, but you refused to go anywhere near the bathtub.

“Oh…” I wrung my hands together in my lap, feeling really awkward and uncomfortable talking about this. “Yeah. Most of the torture happens in a bathtub in the basement of Apex. It’s so they can use water torture methods. A lot of pressure washing and waterboarding, and it makes the cattle prodder hurt more if you’re wet first.”

Ryan’s face was white, and his fists were clenched in the blankets on each side of his body. I reached out and touched one of his fists in an effort to comfort him.

“It’s not that bad, baby. Nothing I can’t handle.”

A vein was pulsing in Ryan’s forehead.

“Not that bad? Cal, you’re talking about fucking torture. It’s bad… Why was he torturing you in this dream?”

I winced. He already looked like he wanted to kill someone. I didn’t think hearing the rest of my dream was going to help at all.

Seeming to understand why I was hesitating, he forced himself to relax, slid his hand up my chest, and cupped his hand around my nape.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I think talking about it will help. It might make it easier to sleep if you let the nightmares out of your head and into the open,” he murmured. Taking a shaky breath, I nodded.

I could do this. I could tell Ryan the truth.

“It was one of the first missions he sent me on where the victim wasn’t a killer themselves. She was… just a regular woman. She’d divorced a powerful man, and it pissed him off that she wanted to leave him, so he hired Apex to kill her. Damian chose me for the job.”

I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe through the guilt that was humming through my body. This was why I never asked questions when taking out marks. I didn’t want to know what they did or didn’t do to end up on my list.

This woman was my first lesson in that respect. I hadn’t thought of her in years… If I was being honest with myself, I think my mind repressed the memory.

“The way she begged me not to kill her…” My eyes flew open and met Ryan’s brandy gaze. I was expecting him to be looking at me like I was some kind of monster. But he wasn’t. There was nothing but compassion and… something else I couldn’t put my finger on… but it was nice.

“I didn’t want to kill her.” I choked, and Ryan squeezed my hand gently, refusing to look anywhere but my face. “When I told Damian I couldn’t do it, he shot her in the face right in front of me, then he chained me to the bathtub for almost two weeks as punishment. It was the first time I had to suffer through recalibration.”

We stared at each other in the dark for several beats. I held my breath and waited for the outrage to come. I waited for him to tell me I was the devil, and he thought I was a disgusting, evil thing that killed innocent people.

Instead, he did something strange.

He glanced over my shoulder, and he seemed so focused that I glanced back to see if there was someone there—there wasn’t; the room was empty.

He smiled at me and brought my knuckles to his lips, leaving a gentle kiss on my hand.

“If she were here right now, she would want you to know that she forgives you, and she would want you to know that what happened wasn’t your fault. You were just a little boy. Damian is to blame,” Ryan said, and my lower lip trembled.

“You can’t know that…’

Ryan gave me a strange, sad smile and kissed my fingers again. “Sure I do. I have a sense about these things.” He winked. Ignoring my baffled expression, he tapped me on the hip and jerked his head to the side.

“Lie down, angel,” he whispered. Feeling like I was in some sort of dream or alternate reality, I slid off his legs and lay down on my back next to him.

He slipped under my arm and rested his head on my chest, tangling his legs with mine.

“You’re never going back there,” he whispered, kissing me gently on my peck, right over the bandaid that covered up my brand.

“We’ll see.” I hummed, feeling choked up and so fucking lucky to have this perfect man cuddled up in my arms.

“No, Callum. You are never going back there. I will kill him myself if I have to,” he growled, causing me to let out a low chuckle as I stroked his soft, citrus-scented hair. I placed a kiss on the top of his head and squeezed him tighter against me.

“My brave, brave, ginger snap.” I smiled as my eyes fluttered closed.

“I’m serious, Cal. I won’t let him hurt you. You’re safe now.”

Ryan’s words floated around me like feathers on a balmy summer breeze. Even though I knew he couldn’t protect me from the demons that held my chains, it was nice to have someone care about me enough to want to try.