Chapter 19 #2
Pain spiked through Carter’s arm, his side, his head, where Ryan had delivered his blows. His heart. Darkness threatened again. He struggled to resist it, to understand what was going on around him. He had to. This was his job. Had to prove himself to Lincoln. Lincoln was coming.
“He and the professor agent figured it out,” Larry said. “But if you’ll turn yourself in, maybe I can—”
“What can you do, Lawrence? Nothing. I have to finish this.”
“Why didn’t you just leave? After the last time. After Jeff. Why didn’t you just leave like I told you to?”
“I was getting better. Going longer. I might not have ever needed to escape again if Jeff hadn’t gone and ruined it.
If you hadn’t lied to me. I just needed to finish my work.
” Except Jeff had interfered, had exposed the lie—that Ryan was covering up his true self, his fears—and now the ordered Dr. Fear was at an impasse.
“Now I have no choice,” Ryan said, dark and ominous.
“What are you going to do?” Larry asked. “Why’s he in a vest?”
Was that what was holding him up? That extra weight around his middle? What kind of vest? He’d try to sneak a peek through his lashes except his eyelids were still heavy, the sun still threatening, and the voices had moved closer, growing louder in volume.
“Escape, for good,” Ryan said.
“You’re leaving?”
“One way or the other.”
The smirk in his voice was evident. The expression on his face must have been devastating—deadly—because Larry returned to pleading, desperation heightened. “Ryan, no, please.” His words shook, and Carter would bet the chief was on the verge of tears. “We can make this better. I can help somehow.”
“Aww, Lawrence.” The light slap of skin on skin, as if Ryan was patting his best friend’s cheek. “Always trying to do right, no matter how much the world continues to shit on you.”
“You’re family, Ryan.”
“But I’m not. Not really.” Footsteps approaching, the sun dimming, someone—Ryan—blocking its rays. “Just like this one will never be anyone’s family. Never good enough.”
Carter couldn’t suppress the jolt at the spoken truth. The footsteps ceased. Ryan was close enough that Carter could hear him breathing.
Fuck.
“You should be with your family, Larry.” Ryan descended to his level, the last word spoken right next to Carter’s ear.
“Ryan, no!”
And then he was gone, Ryan hollering, “Get off me!”
Punches, a scuffle. Carter risked a look.
The two men were fighting, battling for Larry’s pistol.
Carter had to get up. Try to help. Try to stop Dr. Fear.
He moved to lean forward and was drawn back by pain in his arm and ropes around his wrists.
He was tied to something. Wood, but not big enough to be a tree.
A fence post? Maybe if he could get his feet under him, with enough force he could break the ropes, or the post, or get his arms up and off over it.
He’d just have to push through the pain.
He looked down, to check if his feet were tied, and froze at the sight around his middle.
The vest. Wired with explosives.
A door slammed inside the barn across the yard from where Carter sat.
He looked up before he could stop himself.
The barn where he’d been held by Ryan. The light had shifted and all he could see inside the open barn doors were shadows and darkness.
Had he put Barry and Trudy back in the basement?
With Larry too? Had that been the door that banged?
Ryan stepped out of the shadows, and Carter lowered his head, eyes closed, hoping the chancellor hadn’t noticed.
No such luck. “I know you’re awake, Special Agent Warren.”
He kept his lids lowered, peeking through his lashes, as he tensed his lower body for a fight. His bare feet weren’t tied. He could kick out at the very least.
Ryan read the tension and stopped just out of range. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Your arm is broken, you probably have a concussion, and you’re strapped into an explosive vest. You move too suddenly, you get dizzy and fall over, and you might go boom.”
Carter opened his eyes the rest of the way. Ryan crouched just beyond his feet, a syringe in one hand, the pistol in the other. “Parting gift from Larry,” he said, gesturing with the latter.
“What did you do with him?”
“Did you know he and your partner share a fear in common?” He tilted his head back and right, toward the barn, and Carter’s gaze followed. Smoke was starting to pour through the open doors. And backlighting the shadows, an eerie orange glow grew.
Fire. No.
“What will Lincoln think,” Ryan said, “if you can’t do your job and save them from fire? Will he ever trust you to have his back when he needs you? Or when his family needs you?”
He could prove himself. If he could just get free. He tested the bindings carefully, keeping one eye on Ryan, the other on the vest. He had to rescue Larry, Barry, and Trudy. Stop Dr. Fear. Then Lincoln could trust him, maybe even love—
“You said it yourself in my house,” Ryan carried on. “And why would he, when he doesn’t even know you? When you don’t know you?”
Lincoln’s words from the other night came back to him, the soft smile and look he gave Carter on his way to bed. “He likes me now. He said so.”
“Does he still, now that he knows you got it wrong?” A weight came down on his ankle, and on his heart. Fears compounding, hope dwindling, darkness encroaching. “That you got everything wrong. Maybe he got his feelings about you wrong too.”
Reality was the darkest truth of all. “I screwed up,” Carter confessed.
“That’s right.” A prick between his toes. “Now it’s time for you to face your fears.”
Darkness—fear—took him.