Page 84 of Reckoning

Madeline

I roused from sleep noiselessly, still wrapped around Meyer. He had rolled over during the night and had his other arm around me now, trapping me against his chest. His heart beat against my ear.

I skated my fingers across the bruise on his arm, light enough not to cause him any additional pain. Still, he shifted. His forehead wrinkled, eyebrows meeting above his nose. I ran the tip of my finger down his nose and across his lips, and he relaxed. A little sigh slipped past his lips as I extricated myself and went into the main room.

In the kitchen, I found a glass and filled it from the tap, draining it twice. I dropped the glass into the sink, grimacing as it clattered loudly but resisting the urge to smash it.

My mother had hidden the truth about her past for years. I never knew why she hated Schaf Industries so much as they became more visible in the media along with the increasing violence in the Middle East, but she used it as a learning example. She opened my eyes to the dangers that lurked in our own country from men who would fund war simply because it lined their own pocketbooks and didn’t give a damn about the lives it cost. Instead of scaring me, it drove my passion. I set about solving the problems caused by men like Meyer and Conrad Schaf, determined to help the refugees affected by the violence they couldn’t escape or the sex trafficking they turned to as a means of escape.

“Never apologize for doing what you had to do in order to survive,” I told groups of survivors at galas and fundraisers focused on helping more women like them. Each individual had suffered enough trauma for a hundred lifetimes, but we told them to focus on what lay ahead—not what they left behind.

My mother, though, had left behind a little boy. And while she knew what she had done had been less than ideal, she never could have fathomed the betrayal he felt and the way it had twisted and grown inside him to create the monster I met a few short weeks ago.

The rational part of my brain, the one that insisted I not fault her for this, was fighting a losing battle against my heart. I had in front of me a victim that she had failed to help, and I wanted to know why. Why hadn’t she gone to the police? Surely, she’d been reported missing. She was below the age of consent. And the abuse that she and Meyer suffered would have been evident to anyone taking more than a moment to look. But instead of going for help, she’d picked up with my father and run across the country.

Was it possible that my mother was as much at fault for Meyer’s suffering as his father was?

Floorboards creaked, the only warning I had, and I turned around only to find myself trapped against the sink, Meyer’s damaged hands on my cheeks and his lips on my lips.

“I thought you’d gone,” he breathed.

I tried to reply, but he consumed me completely. My hands snaked around his neck, holding him back from destroying me. I had seen him come apart yesterday. Today, it felt like my turn.

He finally pulled back, looking at me quizzically.

“What’s wrong?”

I started, surprised that he picked up on my distress when he was the one in so much worse shape.

“I don’t want to burden you with anything else.”

His lips, swollen from pressing so deeply against mine, curled into a cruel sneer.

“Stop fucking doing that.”

Pushing back from the countertop, he walked to a window and threw it open. He leaned out into the winter air, trying to equalize his temperature. His breath didn’t even fog.

“I’m not a crippled baby animal, Madeline. I’ve made it this far. I can go another thirty years without your pity or anyone else’s.”

I crossed the room to him in two steps, grabbing his arm and turning him to face me. I fisted the material of his shirt at his neck, yanking his face down to mine again.

I bit his lip and spoke, not letting go. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

He wrapped me up again, uninjured hand in my hair, holding me in place as he pushed his tongue past my lips and traced the roof of my mouth as he had weeks ago in front of the entire world; the first night I let myself feel something besides hate and fear. I groaned, leaning into him. He bent me backward with the force of his kiss. My palm flattened against his chest, feeling for the ridges of his muscles beneath his shirt. I contemplated ripping it open at the collar.

When he broke away suddenly, I groaned again in frustration.

“You’re killing me,” I complained, my voice deeper than usual.

“Now you know how I’ve felt the last few weeks.” He pressed his forehead against mine, staring into my eyes. “Tell me what’s going on. I broke down in front of you yesterday. Let me show you I can be a decent person.”

He briefly nuzzled my neck, then stepped back, pulling me to the couch. He sat nearer to the window and wrapped me up against him, pulling a blanket around us to shield me from the air even if he didn’t have any warmth to give me.

I danced my fingers along his palm. “How is your pain?”

“Manageable. What’s bothering you?”

Still, I hesitated. We had been on the verge of throwing blows yesterday, and now he wanted me to open up to him.

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