Mine to Keep (Mine #2)(81)

Chapter Sixteen


Skye walked into the morgue. The police chief was at her side. Because of this case, because of who was involved, she’d warranted attention from the man in charge.

Maybe that was supposed to make her feel better. It didn’t. Nothing could make her feel better. Nothing could make her feel then. Her wounds were bandaged. The doctors had wanted to give her pain medication. She’d refused. There was no need for the drugs because a wall of ice surrounded her, numbing her. Each breath was an effort, sawing out of her lungs.

“I don’t want to be here,” Skye said. Her voice was wooden. As cold as she felt.

“We just need the identification process completed, Ms. Sullivan,” he told her. His eyes and his face were sympathetic. Everyone kept looking at her that way. With sympathy. Pity.

She hated those stares.

The first body waited. She glanced down at it. Felt no emotion stir. Not even rage. She’d locked her emotions away. She had to lock them away, or else she’d go crazy.

I’m more like my mother than I thought.

Because she wanted to kill. Wanted to destroy everyone in her path.

Skye cleared her throat as she stared at the body. “That’s Anna Jean Hurley. She was working with Reese Stokes. I believe they killed Ben Sharpe, Parker Jacobs, and Sara Kramer.”

“You believe?”

“Yes. Anna Jean told me they did, so I believed the bitch.”

He sucked in a sharp breath.

Skye glared at the body. For a minute there, rage had cracked through her surface. She couldn’t have that. Because her pain was hidden just behind the rage.

Her gaze slid to the next slab. To the body that was waiting for her. Her lips trembled. Her hands clenched tightly into fists, and her nails bit into her palms.

“That’s Reese Stokes.” And he was missing part of his head.

The chief’s shoulder brushed against hers. “Most people can’t handle seeing a dead body, not one like this.”

“Most people probably don’t stare at the dead and wish that they’d been the one to do the killing.” She looked up at him. “I do.”

His eyes widened.

“Reese was Anna Jean’s partner. I don’t know why. Maybe because he was a psychotic jerk. Maybe because he fell for the wrong woman, and she warped his mind.” Her gaze slid back to Reese. “I thought of him as family, and I hope the bastard is burning now.”

She stepped back. “Now I need to get back to Trace.” She’d been away from him too long already. Skye skirted around the police chief.

“I’m…very sorry, ma’am,” he called.

Her fingers hesitated above the door.

“The doctors briefed me on Weston’s injuries. I understand that he…he—”

Her spine snapped straight. “You don’t know anything about Trace Weston. Neither do they. But I know plenty.” She faced him. “He’s the strongest man I know. And he’s a man who keeps his promises. Trace isn’t going to leave me. He’s going to wake up. He’s going to open his eyes any time.” That was why she had to be there. “And he’s going to make a full recovery.”

The pity flashed in his eyes again. She hated that pity. She wouldn’t look at it anymore. She left the chief, hurrying from the room and running back to the only man who mattered to her.

***

She was only supposed to stay with Trace for fifteen minutes at a time. That was the rule in the ICU.

Skye was breaking their rules, and the doctors hadn’t tried to throw her out yet. Maybe they were afraid of the Weston name. Of the Weston money.

Or maybe…maybe they just had pity in their eyes, too, when they looked at her.

She stood by his bed. Stroked his fingers. They’d told her that machines were keeping him alive.

Skye wouldn’t believe that. He was alive.

His skin wasn’t warm to the touch, it was cool, too cold. So was hers. She rubbed his fingers, trying to force warmth back into him and wishing that she could be the one in that bed.

But she was there, at his side, helpless.

“Is this how you felt?” Skye asked him. “When I was taken and you were left behind, did you feel like this? Like you were being ripped apart, like you were losing your life…and there was nothing you could do but stand there and watch it all fall away?”

He didn’t answer her. He couldn’t. A tube was shoved down his throat. He couldn’t breathe on his own. They’d operated on him—three times. He hadn’t regained consciousness since the EMTs had hauled him out of that apartment.

It looked like something out of a horror movie.

“There’s no one for me to fight.” Her voice had gone hoarse. From the tears? Or from all the hours she’d talked to him?

Skye hadn’t slept. She couldn’t.

“I want to hurt the man who did this to you, but he’s gone.” And she was there. Holding him. “I need to confess something to you.”

She heard the rustle of the curtain behind her.

Skye didn’t look away from Trace.

“I would have killed Reese for you. I would have killed anyone to protect you.” She swallowed, trying to ease the ache in her throat so that she could keep talking. “I was never afraid of the darkness that you carried. Because inside, I’ve got that same darkness. I think…I think I just hide it better than you do.”