Chapter Seventeen
NIKKI
Two days since the graveyard, Cade simply showed up on my doorstep.
He must have walked, for I didn’t hear the tell-tale rumble of the truck pulling up and the tires hitting the sidewalk as he parked so as not to block the narrow street.
But the knock on the door was followed almost immediately by Cade calling my name, and I debated leaving him out in the rain.
His knocking was persistent, and I peeled myself off the couch, placing my almost empty beer on the coffee table before making my way to the door. I stared at the heavy old wooden slab that stood between Cade and me for too long, and he knocked again.
The second I had unlocked the deadbolt, he turned the handle, pushing the door inward and falling into the small foyer. I thought he was drunk and was ready on the precipice of rolling my eyes until I saw the blood.
Dropping to my knees. I rolled him over onto his back and cried out, slapping my hand over my mouth.
His face was pale, his shirt almost soaked through with blood, and I prayed the rain had exacerbated the effect, soaking the fabric of his T-shirt and spreading what I hoped was a misleadingly small amount of blood.
Even as I watched, the fabric darkened, spots continuing to flow, indicating a large wound beneath, centered on his chest. His arms were also covered in cuts, but while they were congealing as he healed, the chest wound was something else.
“Fuck, Cade, what happened to you?” I whispered.
He simply groaned, and his eyes opened blearily before he looked at me, a world of pain and regret behind those eyes.
I bit my lip. I was mad at the guy, but I didn’t want him to suffer like this.
Oh, please, Cade, tell me this isn’t some self-inflicted punishment.
Cade groaned again when I moved him and protested when I tried to drag him to his feet.
“Please help me, Cade. I need you on the couch so I can treat your wound.”
“Don’t look,” he muttered, the words slurred and whispered, barely making it past his lips.
“What?”
But he didn’t speak again and, with a herculean effort, pushed himself to his feet, leaning his weight heavily on my shoulder as I steered him toward the couch.
I barely made it without my legs buckling under his weight, and he fell back against it.
Cade didn’t protest as I removed his shoes and heaved his legs onto the couch so he was lying.
Muttering a stream of curses, my head started to ache when I jumped to my feet.
Days of drowning my sorrows in beer was catching up with me when I needed to have a clear head, and I forced myself to concentrate before running to the bathroom to grab the first-aid kit.
Kneeling back next to Cade, he weakly swatted my hands away as I tried to lift his shirt.
“If you didn’t want my help, why did you come here?
” I snapped, pushing his hands away so I could peel the blood-soaked fabric from him.
Cursing again, I grabbed some scissors and cut the T-shirt from his body, peeling it back to reveal his chest.
Fucking hell, Cade.
Large triangular cuts were sliced into his chest, and my stomach churned as I realized the skin had been peeled back before being replaced.
They were not clean cuts, and if they weren’t done with a serrated knife, he was torn apart by an animal.
But the placement was too calculated to be a wildlife attack.
Minor wounds I’d treated, but this… this was something else entirely.
“Cade.” I swallowed against the lump in my throat. “Cade, you need to go to the hospital.”
He was pale, his eyes closed and sweat glistening on his forehead, his hands and nails were covered in blood, and I wondered if it was his own from trying to stem the flow of blood or if he had fought against whoever did this. “No hospital.”
“Cade, please, you need stitches, and I don’t have the tools or the expertise. Let me call an ambulance.”
“No stitches. No hospital.”
Tears prickled against the back of my eyes as a wave of helplessness rushed over me.
Slapping my cheek lightly to bring myself into line, I steeled my nerves.
No hospital? Then I’d just need to do the best I could.
He wasn’t in my good books at the moment, but that didn’t mean I would let him bleed to death.
Although, this might be a good opportunity to ask some questions.
Did that make me an asshole, taking advantage of his weakened state like that?
Maybe. But I’d done nothing but wallow in my own self-pity and loathing for the past few days, and I’d had enough.
I needed to get back on track and figure out what I was going to do next.
I needed to know how Cade knew the things he claimed to be true.
Wiping the blood away with paper towels, Cade hissed through his teeth every time I passed over the exposed wound not covered by the jagged remains of his skin.
I told him to brace himself because this was going to hurt like hell, and he made a sound that almost seemed like a chuckle before I sprayed the antiseptic over his chest. Cade snarled at me, and I flinched, the sound so animalistic it caught me off guard.
“I think I need to stitch the skin back together…” I had no idea. Basic first-aid training didn’t cover this. Cade shook his head, his body trembling with the effort.
“Will heal,” he whispered.
Dabbing down the side of his ribs to dry off the excess antiseptic as it dripped toward the couch, I asked, “When did you know who my father was?”
The frown on Cade’s forehead deepened, but he didn’t move or look at me as he answered, each word an effort. “When I saw his picture on the gravestone.”
I huffed out a sigh, biting my tongue against reprimanding him for not telling me sooner.
While I understood his reasons—he claimed to care about me and didn’t want to hurt me—the way the information had come out cut deeply.
The fact I couldn’t seem to verify it one way or the other was only twisting the knife.
“How did you know him?” He didn’t answer, so I pushed forward. “Did you work together? You said you liked to fight. Were you some sort of a gun-for-hire or something?”
“I’m not a violent being.” Cade’s voice was strained, but I was finding it difficult to summon any additional sympathy. He owed me answers.
Slapping the gauze pad over his chest, probably harder than necessary, Cade growled again. “Then what?” I hissed out, glaring at him, “Did you run drugs? Were you his goddamn receptionist? Did you go out on the pull together, you as his wingman? What?”
Cade had started trembling again, the sign of weakness from his body in stark contrast to the hardness of his expression.
His face had gone blank and cold, and he was keeping his eyes shut, probably so he didn’t have to look at me and face the truth.
I placed a hand gently over the gauze on his chest, my other hand clenched around the bandages.
I’d need him to sit up to wrap it, but right now, I couldn’t draw my eyes away from his.
Under his eyelids, his pupils were darting wildly around as though he were asleep and having a nightmare.
“Cade?” I prompted.
I was pushing him.
I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t stop.
I had to know.
“I only met your father a year ago.”
Confusion welled up in my gut, churning quickly with the stomach acid and creating anger. “What? What are you talking about? He died three years ago!”
Now his lip was twitching, every motion exposing his teeth more.
I had never noticed his teeth were sharp before. How did I not notice that?
When he didn’t speak, I scoffed. “Please don’t tell me you think you’re some sort of psychic medium or something.” Nothing. “If you come back to me with that… if all of this is because of some vision you had or some bullshit, I’m going to blow my fucking top.”
“I met him in Hell.”
Numbness washed over my limbs, and now I didn’t even know what I felt. Pushing myself away from the couch, I stood, pacing the room. “You better start making sense right fucking now, Cade, or I swear to God—”
“You swear…”
My back was to him when the words came, but it wasn’t Cade, not the Cade I knew.
The voice was darkness in a soundwave that drifted through the air and touched my eardrums, sending shivers cascading down my spine.
Dropping the bandage, I ducked my chin against my chest, my shoulders trembling.
I didn’t want to turn around and see why he had spoken in such a voice that sounded as though it consisted of two tones at once.
I didn’t want to know what the cracking I heard was or why it sounded like his clothes were being shredded from his body.
The wall in front of me was obscured by a shadow larger than the man I had left on the couch.
Heart thumping a drum beat in my chest, I slowly turned around.