Lost and Found (Masters & Mercenaries: The Forgotten #2)(98)

That place. The one she’d been sent to. The one she’d thought was all a horrible dream.

If she’d had anything in her stomach, she would have been sick again.

“I need…I need to breathe.” She stood up.

Owen was right by her side. “I’ll take you outside.”

She didn’t fight with him. She simply followed him because if she sat there for one minute more, she was going to explode.

Everything she’d worked for…everything she’d needed…

She turned the corner and there he was. Steven Reasor sat at a table with two other men. There was a beer in front of him and he looked haggard.

She stopped and stared at the monster who’d haunted her dreams.

“Dr. Walsh,” he began.

“She wiped your mind, didn’t she?”

“I don’t know.” Three simple words, but there was a world of pain in them. “I only know that if I hurt you…”

She couldn’t right now. She couldn’t do this with him. Her heart started to race and her hands were shaking.

Owen picked her up. He hauled her up into his arms and carried her through the cabin. He managed to get the door open and she was outside. Cool air hit her and it didn’t matter that he’d lied to her. It didn’t matter that he’d used her.

All that mattered was that years of her life, her research, her soul had been warped and used to hurt others, used to hurt him.

A sob tore through her, making her body shake, and if Owen hadn’t been holding her so tight, she would have fallen from his arms to the porch. He didn’t let go. He kept walking, leaving the slight glow from the porch for the moonlight.

She sobbed against his chest. She’d been stupid. So fucking stupid. She should have seen what was happening, but she’d been flattered and then frightened.

She’d run like a coward and she hadn’t looked back. Because of her weakness, a whole group of men had been confined to Hell, and she’d had a hand in putting them there.

“Keep going, love. You don’t have to stop but I’m going to sit us down here.”

He sat and she looked around. They were in a gazebo-like structure. He sat them down on a bench, and she could see silvery moonlight reflected on water.

She had no idea where they were, but then that wasn’t a surprise. He could tell her where they were and it wouldn’t mean a thing because she hadn’t left the lab in years. Since that day when she’d fled Kronberg she’d buried herself.

Had she done it because deep down she’d known what had really happened? That was almost easier to deal with than the idea that she’d merely been a coward.

What would her mother think of her?

Owen’s arms tightened around her as though he feared if he let go even for a second that she would disappear. “Forgive me. Please forgive me.”

For lying to her? She shuddered and forced herself to sit up. “You thought I was responsible for what happened to you.”

She wanted to stop talking. If they didn’t talk, she might be able to stay in his arms. If they didn’t talk, she might be able to pretend.

“You didn’t know.” His words were hoarse. “I always knew you didn’t know. Forgive me for doubting you, Becca. When I heard you’d treated Theo, it triggered something in me. But I can easily see how she manipulated you. You’re not the villain in this.”

But she was. “I knew something was happening. I thought it was Steven. If I’d said anything at all, maybe she gets caught.”

“Or the pharmaceutical company she worked for covers it up and she moves on and they very likely have you and anyone you’d talked to about it killed. It was how they worked. They only cut her loose when she wouldn’t fall in line. I doubt any one person with one complaint could have taken her down.”

“Let me up, please.” It was time to put some distance between them.

His arms tightened almost painfully. “I don’t want to let you go.”

“You have to. You said it was my choice. Did you lie about that, too?”

His arms dropped and she stood, the wood of the gazebo creaking under her feet. Weariness invaded her limbs and when she looked back at him, his head was in his hands.

His eyes gleamed in the moonlight, and she could have sworn there was a sheen of tears there. “Forgive me. I didn’t go into this with the thought to hurt you. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”

“It doesn’t matter now.” She wasn’t even sure what to do. Her life was in ruins. There was apparently a warrant out for her arrest. Everything she’d ever worked for was gone and all because she’d taken a job so she could spend time in Europe. All because she’d been arrogant.

“Of course it does.”

She stared out at the water. It was dark, and she had no idea how deep it went. It looked peaceful on the surface. What horrors did it hide? “The scars on your body, you didn’t get them the way you said you did, did you?”

He was quiet for a moment, the silence emphasizing the distance between them. “I had a bad reaction to the drug. I don’t know if it was the one that wiped my mind. I think she used the other one on me, too. I don’t know. I get flashes of things now, and I don’t know if they’re real or not. I hope some of them aren’t. I hope they’re dreams. From what I can tell I wasn’t there for long. A little more than a day.”