Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(141)

How devastated she was that he refused to see her.

He let out his breath in a harsh sigh, trying to exhale the pain that gripped him when he thought of her. Launched into his rationalization for the millionth time. It had dug a groove in his mind.

Nah. More like a f*cking trough, at this point.

He’d done what he had to do. He couldn’t bear to look at her, in the condition he was in. He hadn’t been that much of a prize even before Osterman had mind-raped him. Add on the nightmares, the stress flashbacks of torturing her, killing her, and oh, Jesus.

It was a stain on his soul that he couldn’t scrub clean. It scared him out of his wits. His mind shied away in horror from the thought of hurting her.

He couldn’t risk it. Liv was alive and well. Miraculously. That was how she was going to stay. Without him, if necessary. Whatever it took.

Hey, princess, take a chance on me? C’mon. Live dangerously.

Hah. Right. He lifted his hand to the cord around his throat, the tiny leather bag that hung on it, like a totem. The diamond earring.

She’d stuck it in a padded envelope, and mailed it back to him after he refused to see her. No accompanying note. He didn’t blame her.

It was like that scene in the jail, all over again. But far worse.

He put his hand to the buzzed-off hair, the indentations on his skull where they’d opened him up, f*cked around in there. He was sure they’d done their best, but he felt like a jerry-rigged pile of shit.

He dragged himself onto his knees. His head spun. Every breath was a knife stab. He staggered up to the crest, and stepped up onto the highest point to look down over the long, curving sweep of gray shale—

The rock tipped, dumped him off. He did a crazy dance trying to scramble onto something solid, but everything was moving, he was—

falling down the rocks, thudding and bouncing, and no way would he make it back up in time to save Liv from T-Rex, he just kept falling, falling, with a terrible unstoppable momentum, past all hope…

He drifted back, some time later, to a vague awareness of cold. He put his hand to his face. Sticky. He wondered if he’d snapped his spine.

The hiss in the back of his head had gotten louder.

He pried his eyes open. Liv stood before him in the shifting mist.

Joy surged in his chest. T-Rex hadn’t killed her. Her hair looked like a dark cloud. His hands ached to touch it.

“Get up, you idiot.” She smiled at him, held out her slender hand.

He scrambled to her feet and seized her, starving to taste those soft lips, drink in her fragrant breath, fill his hands with her warm—

Her eyes froze wide. She made a choked sound, and the color in her cheeks drained away. She sagged, and he caught her. Liv slipped to one side, because he’d only caught her with one hand.

The other hand held the knife he’d just driven into her chest.

Stark horror spread through him like blood from a severed artery.

He lowered her down, but there was no place to put her on the steep slopes, the jagged, sliding rocks. Osterman’s mocking laughter echoed through his head. The hiss became a deafening roar.

He finally recognized it. It was the blowtorch.

He staggered away, his howls swallowed by muffling fog, stumbling over stones, head dangling, sobbing for breath—

Stop it. You dumb ass.

He was so startled, he slipped, and clutched a spur of rock to keep from sliding further. He looked up. It was Kev. The older, scarred, grim-looking Kev with haunted eyes that he’d seen in that freaky vision. Kev’s dimple was forever hidden in the grooves of his unsmiling face.

“Leave me alone,” Sean said dully. “I can’t take any more.”

I see that. You can’t take much of anything.

Sean was stung at the flinty judgment in Kev’s voice. “What would you know about it?” he snapped. “You’re dead. Stop criticizing.”

Kev’s cool expression did not change. So put a gun in your mouth, already, if dead’s what you want. Don’t stage some * accident.

“I shouldn’t even talk to you. I’m just encouraging you.” Sean shut his eyes, counted ten firebursts of pain, willing the apparition to be gone when he opened them. Still there. Stubborn pain in the ass.

If you go over the edge, Osterman’s won. Kev’s voice was harsh. He’ll be laughing in hell. You want to be the butt of his joke?

“So what the hell am I supposed to do?” Sean roared.

Kev’s tight mouth barely quirked. The hard thing.

That pissed him off, in a big way. “I am, butthead,” Sean snarled. “What do you think I’m doing up here? Playing with my dick?”

Kev looked unimpressed. Dying is easy. It’s living that’s hard.

That logic struck Sean as dubious, coming from a dead guy, but he didn’t have it in him to argue. He was too f*cking miserable.

He buried his head in his arms. Might even have slept for a while.

The sound of his own teeth chattering woke him. The wind had picked up, whipping the thick fog away into fine, transparent shreds.

He blinked, focused…and gasped. His gut yawned with terror.

He was perched on a cliff. One foot dangled over it. One arm. An entire shoulder. He stared, gaping, a thousand feet straight down.

He froze, scared shitless. He’d been flirting with death for a week, but this was the first time that death had made a move.