Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Zayne
Iam back in the Institute, back in the room with restraints.
And all I can think about is Dr. Emily Beckett.
How crushed she must be after finding out her dog escaped.
I hid Daisy’s dead body deep in the Ozark woods so she can’t find her. I believe that giving her hope, the thought that she might return, hurts less than if she never will.
Am I falling in love?
No, I can’t love.
The plan is simple. It always was.
Lure her here, let her give me a clean diagnosis, something false enough to protect me, while Zeke would keep killing, so the trail points anywhere but any of us. And when the time comes, Rourke takes the fall. A copycat of Ezra Zane. A monster wearing another monster’s skin.
It would have worked.
But Detective Mara got too close. He started to notice that Rourke had changed. Almost as if he were a different man. The affair didn’t help either. Zeke had no idea it even happened. And when she confronted him, he told her he couldn’t remember sleeping with her.
What a fucking idiot.
Does he not know how to pretend?
He could have told her it was the best night of his life and walked away as if nothing had happened. Instead, for once in his life, he chooses honesty. And he tells her the truth.
He had no fucking clue.
And once again, I was there to clean up his mess.
With his doctor’s degree, he tried to recreate the cells our father used to impregnate our mother.
He wanted to cure the disease we are both supposed to inherit in two years.
But every scan we ran, over and over, turned up nothing.
I have already made peace with the fact that I have an expiration date. But he wanted to live.
And I... I had no reason to live until I met her.
I know one day I will wake up and finally say “fuck you to the world” and let myself die. My blood cells, the ones I share with Ezra Zane, made sure my contract was signed for a direct trip to hell.
But seeing her, wanting her, gave me a reason to want to live again. That’s the only reason why I help Zeke. To find a way to live again.
I sit on the edge of the bed, looking down at my gray tracksuit.
There is no sign that I am getting out. Every time I do, Zeke takes my place. Fooling them was so easy—even the doctor.
I wait for her to come back.
To tell me how they found the body of Mabel Kinsley. To tell me, Rourke visited her. To tell me she needs to know more about my childhood with her.
But she never comes.
Instead, a guard unlocks the door and says, “Detective Mara Collins is here to see you.”
This can’t be good.
I stand, turning my back to him as he cuffs my hands.
As soon as the metal clicks shut, he pushes me through the door and walks me down the hall, toward the room where they interview criminally insane patients.
He walks me inside. His palm presses hard against my shoulder, forcing me into the chair. Then he drags my hands back and chains them behind me.
They treat me like an animal. A beast they think they can chain, like that, will make them feel safe.
If they only knew I was going in and out, they would keep me in a straitjacket twenty-four-seven.
Finally, the guard leaves the room. The door barely finishes closing when Detective Mara Collins walks in. The smell of doughnuts follows her, as usual, mixed with sweat.
She sits across from me. Her fingers lace together as she rests her hands on the table.
“Where is she?” she asks.
I knit my brows, confused. “Who?”
“You know who.” She leans back, crossing her arms over her chest.
“No, detective,” I say. “I have no idea who.”
Her jaw tightens. Anger burns behind her eyes.
“Who are you working with, huh?”
I raise a brow. “You lost me.” I chuckle, leaning closer to the table. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Dr. Emily Beckett,” she shouts. “She’s been missing since last night.”
Questions crowd my head as I try to piece it together.
She can’t be missing.
I made sure she was in her bed when I left.
“How would I know?” I ask. My eyes search for her face, but all I see is truth.
She slams her hands on the table.
“Cut the crap, Mercer,” she shouts. “A neighbor saw someone identical to you coming and leaving her house.”
Fuck.
I laugh, forcing it, trying to smother the anger boiling inside me.
“How the fuck would I be able to leave this place, huh?” I ask, serious now, locking my eyes with hers.
Her jaw clenches. “You had someone to help you out.”
She moves her blazer aside and reaches into the inner pocket. An envelope slides out, and she pulls the photographs free, spreading them across the table.
“Her.” She taps a finger on top of the photograph. “She worked with your father, didn’t she?”
I say nothing. I lean back in the chair and watch her.
“She was seen entering her house yesterday, and suddenly she turns up dead?” Her voice sharpens. “And don’t fucking pretend you don’t know her.”
This is the part where I am supposed to ask for a lawyer. That would require being smart enough to pull it off.
Instead, I lean forward and slam my head against the metal table.
And as the sound rings, I laugh.
She steps back as I lift my head. Our eyes lock. Blood spills from my teeth and runs down my chin. I slam my head again, harder, and keep laughing.
“I don’t know,” I repeat. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
She stands near the wall now, staring at me. For the first time, fear breaks through her expression.
“She’s in the pictures with you when you were a boy,” she says. “That boy is you. It has to be.”
I keep laughing.
She moves back to the table and stops in front of me.
“I got the file last night,” she says. “All the information on Dr. Alistair Cermer Morrell.” She pauses. “Your father.”
I left that file with Zeke.
Everything clicks into place.
This was never about setting up Rourke so I can walk free. This is about setting me up. All this so he can keep wearing Rourke’s face. He would keep killing, searching for a cure, while I would rot in this place until I die. The thought settles heavily in my chest when I realize he took Emily, too.
She slams her fists against the table.
“You think you’re so smart,” she snaps. “Taking a name that was never registered so that we couldn’t find you. Zayne Mercer.”
She chuckles.
“You really thought twisting a couple of letters from Cermer would hide the truth.”
Then she shouts, “I know who you are. Zeke Cermer. I know everything about you, and you’re going to rot in jail.”
I crack my thumbs. The sound makes her step back from the table.
I stand and rush toward her. She turns for the door, but I am faster. My hand closes around her throat, and I slam her against the wall.
“And what about Rourke?” I say. “Did your lover feed you this theory so you’d come after me instead?”
“He has nothing to do with this,” she gasps as my grip tightens.
I growl. “You never wonder why he’s always first at the crime scene?” I chuckle. “You never think it might be him while he fucks you and asks for details about the victims?”
I laugh in her face. Blood still stains my teeth.
“Maybe he even imagines their faces while he’s inside you.”
She tries to punch me in the gut. The blow lands against my abs, but I don’t flinch.
“Where is he?” I ask through my teeth. “Tell me where he is, and I’ll let you go.”
“You’ll never find out,” she says, gasping for breath.
I reach behind her and pull the gun from the back of her belt, and I press it to her neck.
“We’ll see about that,” I say.
The thought of Dr. Emily Beckett with my brother twists my stomach.
Not the image of them together, but what he would do to her.
What he had already done to others before her.
He knows she is my weakness. He knows hurting her would reach me.
I will do whatever it takes to get her back, even if it means pretending to be sane again.
I knock twice on the door.
The guard opens it after seeing the detective’s face with a gun pressed under her throat.
He reaches for his radio.
“Hey,” I shout, pushing the gun harder against her neck, my other hand pinning her arms behind her back. “You say one word, and I’ll blow her face.”
The guard freezes, staring at me.
“Walk in front of us,” I say.
He does.
I move forward with the detective, her gun still locked under her throat. Heads spun as we passed by, eyes followed.
No one dares to raise a weapon. I shove her forward, then grab her under the arm and press the gun into her back.
“Move,” I tell the guard.
The moment he steps ahead, I drag her outside. The alarm starts screaming as we cross into the parking lot down the stairs.
“Which one’s your car?” I ask.
She nods toward a gray sedan, third on the right. I jab the gun harder into her back and force her forward.
“Get in.”
She slides into the driver’s seat, and I open the passenger door and sit beside her. The gun presses against her temple now.
“Drive.”
“Where?” she asks.
“Rourke’s address,” I say. Then louder. “Now.”
She starts the engine and pulls out. Her eyes stay on the road. She doesn’t look at me once.
“Why?” she asks. “What’s this war between you two?”
I push the gun harder against her temple.
“Your lover is locked a few feet underground, being tortured by the real Zeke Cermer while he wears his face.”
“No,” she says, a weak chuckle escaping her. “You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie, you dumb bitch?“ I say. “I have nothing to hide.”
“Why risk everything?” she asks. “No one even knows you left the hospital.”
She starts laughing, and a tear slips down her cheek.
“I was bluffing.”
I say nothing, I just stare out the window.
“Emily,” she whispers. She stops herself. “He took her.”
I nod.
“Did she know?” she asks quickly. “Was she helping you?”
I pull the gun back slightly.
“And get that gun off my face.”
“No,” I say, lowering it. “She had no idea.”
“And the bodies?” she asks. “That was all Zeke Cermer?”
I laugh.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” I turn and look at her. “I’m still a cold-blooded killer.”
“Why her?” she asks. “Why risk everything for her?”
I clench my jaw and keep my eyes on the road.
“All these years, I was alone. I had no one.” I inhale slowly. “And when you finally find someone, you make sure no one takes what’s yours.”
She clears her throat and looks at me, then back at the road.
“If what you’re saying is true, how far are you willing to go for her?”
I click the safety off and raise the gun toward her again.
“To hell and back.” A smile pulls at my mouth. “Even if I have to kill the devil himself.”
She blinks twice and says nothing.
“Drive,” I say. “And make sure you’re heading to Rourke’s address.”
She nods. Sweat beads along her forehead. I see it catch the light.
She’s afraid.
Good.
She should be.
When something that belongs to me is taken, I would burn the world down to get it back, with everyone in it. I’ve killed for less. I’ll kill more for just as little.
Dr. Emily Beckett is mine. And if anyone is going to kill her, it will be me. Not my psycho brother, who thinks he can save himself by eating the lungs of girls with his blood type.
If a single hair is missing from her head, I will burn him piece by piece until there’s nothing left but ruined flesh.
Trying to frame me and take her was the worst mistake he ever made.
And he is going to learn that very soon.