Page 15 of Lose Me In The Shadows

You don’t deserve it, asshole. If Luke dies, that’s on you.

If Kara gets hurt, that’s on you.

It’s all on you.

He should’ve known. A man who left two young kids orphaned without mercy—especially when he knew what it was like to lose your anchor—was a man who only deserved punishment.

“Why was it Luke you were so angry at, Conor?”

“Because,” Conor said, as helplessly as he felt watching the Doctor and Marcus hook up an IV to Luke’s arm, “he never lied. Not when he was loyal to you. And so when he lied to me about her, it meant that his loyalty had changed. And I wasn’t just worried I’d lost her to him… I knew I’d lost him to her.”

Micah cleared his throat. “We haven’t lost either of them.”

Conor laughed, the sound ugly and bitter. He was familiar with loss. “Doesn’t look that way to me. Looks like one escaped and the other could die on us.”

“No.” Micah was adamant. “Life has taken a lot from us. It doesn’t get to take them, too.” He rose to his feet, his usual calm shattered not only by the events of the day, Conor thought, but by Conor’s pessimism. “I need some air.”

With one last glance at Luke, Micah left the kitchen.

Conor thought back to that day when he’d gotten back from his mission, excited to hear about Kara, only to find Luke sitting in his kitchen, head in his hands.

“I fucked up, boss,” Luke had said, and then confessed to everything. Conor had listened silently, waiting until Luke was done before punching him. Micah had shown up twenty minutes later, only to find the two men rolling around on the floor, trading hits and insults as everything Conor owned crashed to the floor around them.

“Enough, both of you,” Micah had barked. “There’s enough of her to go around.”

That had deserved a punch, and Conor had only been too glad to grant it, dragging Micah into the mix.

Finally, when there was enough blood on the carpet, they stopped.

“You took her from me,” Conor had spat. “You weren’t supposed to fucking touch her. She’s not yours.”

Luke had glared at him. “She’s not yours, either.”

She’s not yours.

Kara had made that clear tonight, hadn’t she? And Luke, who was his, was paying the price for Conor’s hubris. Even if Luke recovered, even if they got her back, where did they go from here?

“What do I do now?” Conor choked out the words, not even sure who he was speaking to.

The Doctor glanced up. “Sometimes people pray.”

That sounded like bullshit, but then what other options did he have? He’d take anything at this point.

So Conor, who didn’t believe in prayer, prayed that Luke would be okay, and that Kara, wherever she’d run off to, however badly she needed to be punished, whatever she truly wanted, was safe.

5

Something smelled bad. Wet, dank, moldy.

And her arms and head were killing her. What the hell was going on? The last thing she remembered, she’d passed out in the motel room, too tired to even strip the gross comforter cover off the bed.

Oh fuck. Her arms hurt because they were tied behind her back, which meant that her head must hurt because she hadn’t been dreaming—she’d been drugged again. And kidnapped. Again.

God fucking damn it. What did I do in a past life to deserve this?

Kara tried to pry her eyes open, not sure what she was expecting to see, but knowing that it wasn’t the cabin—Micah was too fastidious for mold. And the motel room had smelled fine.

Even though her eyes felt glued shut, she finally managed to open them. What she saw only confirmed her suspicion. She was somewhere unfamiliar.

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