Page 51 of Atone in Darkness
He maintained his hold on her pants for another few seconds before finally surrendering them to her. “I’m handling this badly.”
She wasn’t going to dispute that. Instead, she concentrated on getting dressed. Despite having spent the night skin to skin with the man, right now her feelings were too raw to want to remainso exposed both physically and emotionally. Chase turned away and also started putting on his clothes, perhaps sensing her need for a little privacy.
When they were both done tying their shoes, he stood and then offered her a hand up from the ground. Even that small touch hurt. It didn’t help that he wouldn’t let go.
“About what you said—”
Oh no, they weren’t going there. Not now, when it wastoo late. Frustration and embarrassment had her fighting to get free. “Let. Go. Of. Me.”
He did, but he continued to crowd close as if he was worried that she’d break and run.
“Let me explain, Marisol.” He lifted his hand as if to touch her face, but then let it drop back down to his side before adding one more word. “Please.”
She took a small step backward to give herself some breathing room.“Fine, I’m listening.”
Chase stared past her for a long moment before finally turning those intensely blue eyes back in her direction. “There are reasons why you shouldn’t get too attached to me, but none of them are because I don’t care. I have strong feelings for you, too, but my life... Well, let’s just say I have commitments I can’t just walk away from and wouldn’tchoose to even if Icould. It has to do with all the effects those anomalies in my DNA have on me. They make me better suited to do certain things than humans who lack that marker you’ve been studying.”
As if she hadn’t figured out that much on her own. “You mean your ability to heal at an accelerated rate, not to mention that you can come back from fatal wounds.”
“Yeah. Although like I told you, there’s no tellinghow long my luck in that area will hold out. I’m pretty sure that what the guards did to me may have accelerated that process. That means I’m not safe to be around, especially if I sustain another major wound. The man I am now would never hurt you. The crazed killer I’d become would love to. Hopefully, I’ll learn more about the effects of what they did to me once I get back to our headquarters.”
Okay, that scared her. “Isn’t there anything that can be done to reverse the effects?”
He shrugged. “They’re working on that, but no one has found a magic cure as yet. They’ve got some of the smartest people I’ve ever met working on the problem, and I’m confident they’ll eventually find the answer. But I won’t lie to you, honey. By the time they do, it will likely be too late for me.”
Her mindflashed back to that last day in the compound when he’d ordered her out of his cell for her own sake. “Because your eyes are already flashing orange?”
He nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. “Yeah, so it wouldn’t be fair of me to pretend we could build any kind of future together when we know the countdown to disaster has already started.”
For the second time that morning, her eyes startedleaking a steady stream of tears. She swiped at them with the palms of her hands as she tried to come to terms with what he was telling her. It wasn’t fair. Not to her, and most certainly not to him.
The distance between them was too much. She took a hesitant step forward and was instantly rewarded by Chase reaching out for her, pulling her into the safe harbor of his arms. “What if I want whatevertime we could have together?”
The noble jerk was already shaking his head. “I can’t ask that of you.”
She rested her face against his powerful chest. “But that’s what I’m offering, Chase.”
“You deserve to go back to your own world, not a screwed-up one like mine.”
She laughed even though there was nothing funny about the situation. “You think my world was perfect before all of this happened?Like when my father walked out on my mother and me when I was little? One day he was there with us. Things weren’t perfect, but at least we had food on the table and a roof over our heads. The next day he left to get smokes. They must have been some special cigarettes, because he’s still out there somewhere looking for them.”
Chase’s arms tightened around her. “Only a fool would walk away froma daughter like you.”
She appreciated the sentiment, but it wasn’t one her mother would ever agree with. “My mom always insisted he left because of me. Evidently before they got saddled with a screaming brat, they’d had a lot of fun together. Then I came along, and there was never enough money for the good stufflike alcohol and drugs. She never forgave me. It took her a long time to accept hewasn’t coming back, and it was up to her to be the adult in the house. Unfortunately, she never finished high school, so she could only get dead-end jobs, each worse than the one before. I still have nightmares about waking up alone in the house and not knowing where my mother was or when she’d be home. Or if she’d be home at all. After all, my dad left. No reason she wouldn’t, too.”
“I’d liketo kick both their asses for them.”
Chase’s anger on her behalf eased some of the pain she’d never quite been able to shake. He didn’t really need to hear all about her pathetic past, but the words kept coming. “That wasn’t even the worst part. She started bringing one loser after another to the house. At first, they’d stay for a few months; eventually, only for a few hours. They’d leave a littlemoney on the kitchen table on their way out. I did my best to ignore the revolving door of ‘uncles’ and buried myself in schoolwork. I figured out early on that education would be my ticket out of there. I graduated from high school early and never looked back.”
“Have you had any contact with your mom since then?”
“I tried a couple of times. The last time, she barely recognized me and didn’teven invite me in.”
Might as well lay it all out there. “She did ask if I had the money I owed her. You know, to pay her back for all the years she had to support me. When I said no, she said I was still worthless and not to bother coming back again. I took her at her word and haven’t reached out to her since.”
“Good. She doesn’t deserve to have a gift like you in her life. She never did.”
She lifted her eyes to meet his gaze. “Thanks for listening.”
