Living in Shadow (Living In…) Page 16

  A rush of heat went through him at the thought.

  You’re going to have to tell her if that’s going to happen.

  No, fuck off, he didn’t have to. Yes, she knew something was going on with him, she was too sharp, too intelligent not to. But he’d already made it clear he wasn’t going to talk about it. He was going to keep those years in the past, where they belonged.

  Shit, he’d been doing that pretty successfully for the past eight years. No reason he couldn’t keep on doing so.

  He’d planned on doing something special tonight. Take her out on a proper date. They’d walk down the hill through the park, enjoying the festival. Then he’d take her to dinner at an expensive restaurant near the waterfront. Afterwards they could go back to his place and, well…he had many ideas on what they could do then. Many, many ideas.

  After two weeks of coffee dates, he was fucking dying for the chance to touch her like he wanted. Not that having coffee with her had been bad at all. They’d had quite a few discussions about things other than law and he’d enjoyed getting to know her better.

  He still thought she’d make a good human rights lawyer. There was a deep well of caring to her that would make her formidable if she ever wanted to take her passion and her intelligence into the courtroom.

  At that moment, the phone in the pocket of his jeans buzzed and he pulled it out, glancing down at the screen. A text from Eleanor. Where are you?

  Quickly, he responded. I’m at the gate opposite the admin building.

  A minute later the crowd swirled, and he saw a flash of blonde hair, the knots of people parting to reveal Eleanor’s small figure making her way toward him.

  His heart tightened strangely. Her blonde hair was loose and gleaming over her shoulders, and tonight she wore a pair of dark-blue skinny jeans, a white T-shirt that molded to her breasts and a cardigan in soft, charcoal-gray wool.

  So goddamn beautiful.

  You don’t have the right to touch all that beauty.

  He ignored the thought. Of course he had the right. She’d given him her trust. He was worthy.

  Yeah, but she wouldn’t have given you that trust if she’d known what was inside you.

  No, he wasn’t going to think of that. She didn’t have to know. And shit, it wasn’t relevant anyway, right?

  Eleanor came to a stop, her gray eyes meeting his. And for a moment she just looked at him. Then she smiled and the tight feeling in his chest became a sharp ache.

  He had to move to get rid of it, but by then she was already walking forward, closing the distance between them. She rose up on her toes, her arms reaching for him, sliding them around his neck, pulling him down for a kiss that stole his breath and blew his fucking mind.

  Kissing him in the middle of a whole crowd of people, where everyone could see, with no holding back. Her mouth was hot and he tasted her hunger, her desperation. And her surrender.

  Instantly, he was as hard as a rock.

  He pulled away, tearing his mouth from hers, looking down into her face. Her eyes were dark and smoky with desire, her cheeks flushed.

  “Jesus, soleil,” he murmured. “Getting me hard in front of all these people is going to earn you a punishment.”

  Her hands tightened on the back of his neck. “Excellent. Exactly what I was hoping for.”

  “Not excellent. I have plans. Dinner, for a start.”

  “Sorry, but fuck dinner.” Her eyes glittered in the light from the lanterns around them. “How about you fuck me instead?”

  He tightened his grip on her. “I give the orders here, not you.”

  “I’m not apologizing. When a girl has certain needs, she gets demanding.”

  “In that case you need to get your ass in my bed right now.”

  “Too far away.” The fierce gleam in her gaze held him as tightly as he held her. “I have a better idea.”

  “Where?”

  She pushed at him and he released her. But she didn’t move away. Instead, she kept her hand in his then turned and began leading him through the crowds around the park gates and across the street to the university buildings opposite.

  As they pushed through the tightly packed knots of people, there came a loud bang behind him, like the report of a rifle.

  Instincts he’d thought long since buried, gripped him in a choke hold. Insane. It was only a fucking firework. And they were in Auckland. In New Zealand. This wasn’t the broken streets of the town he’d once lived in, the one the militia overran and had gun battles with government troops in.

  Jesus, he hated festivals.

  Shaking off the tension that threatened to lock his muscles, Luc concentrated on the woman who was leading him through the crowds.

  Her warm hand in his. The scent of her perfume. The sound of her footsteps. The shining fall of blonde hair down her back that swayed as she walked.

  Another firework went off, color exploding through the sky, light flicking across the faces of the people around them. Grenades sometimes sounded like that and the light of the explosion…

  What if she gets hit? Protect her.

  Fear lodged deep inside him. Completely illogical when intellectually he knew where they were and that what sounded like gunfire wasn’t. That there was no way Eleanor would get hurt here. You couldn’t carry a gun here in public, for a start.

  And yet…he was afraid. Suddenly completely afraid. For her.

  He tightened his fingers around hers and she glanced back in response, giving him a smile.

  A bullet could end that smile. He knew what happened when you fired a gun at close range at someone. He’d seen the damage.

  You dealt it.

  He shook his head, trying to get rid of that voice. Those days were over. Gone. He was here in Auckland now. And he had Eleanor with him.

  You’re still one of them. You’re still dead inside.

  Fuck no, he wasn’t. How could he be dead when she was around? She was his sun. She chased away the shadows. She made him feel…

  A shrieking in the sky, a skyrocket whistling. Then a massive bang as it exploded right overhead.

  Rocket launcher. Watch out for the fucking shell.

  His breathing was fast, his muscles tense. His Kalashnikov was slung over his shoulder… No, fuck, that was his backpack. What the hell was going on?

  Eleanor turned down a pathway that threaded through the campus buildings. There were a lot of trees, a lot of shadows. Places for ambush. The pathway lighting was bright and he could hear the crowds back in the main street. A series of loud reports as someone let off what must have been a rope of firecrackers. He tensed at each sound.

  “Luc?”

  He blinked and realized she’d stopped and was looking at him, an expression of concern on her face.

  “Nothing.” His mouth had gone dry. “I…don’t like fireworks much. Come on.”

  She opened her mouth, clearly wanting to ask a question, but at that moment a group of shadows loomed up behind her.

  A firework went off again, a series of bright, white flashes like a magnesium flare.

  Lighting up the night as one of the shadows reached for Eleanor.

  Protect her. They’ll hurt her.

  Instinct took over.

  His gun was gone, which left only his knife. Luc reached for the blade he always carried in his boot and lunged. Someone screamed but he ignored it. Ignoring the screaming was one of his first lessons. Any distractions and you were dead.

  You had to detach yourself. You had to move. Otherwise you were dead.

  There were more sounds but he tuned them out, concentrating on incapacitating his enemy. Gripping the man’s head, he delivered a knee to the stomach then pushed him to the ground and leaned over him, pressing the point of the knife against his jugular.

  The man was screaming, the whites of his eyes noticeable even in the dark.

  A government soldier. They were always fucking cowards.

  “Luc!” Someone was shouting at him but he tuned that out t
oo because that was another distraction. He’d take this guy out first then he’d deal with whatever other problem was happening.

  Someone pulled on his arm. Hard. What the fuck? He snarled and whirled around, finding another soldier at his elbow, still tugging on his arm. Prick. Why hadn’t he spotted the second guy?

  He reached out quickly with his free hand, grabbing the man by the throat. The guy on the ground was still screaming, which meant Luc could probably leave him until he’d dealt with the fucker trying to get his knife.

  Springing to his feet, he propelled the gasping soldier up against the wall of a ruined building and brought his knife under the man’s throat. A dark trickle of blood began winding down the pale skin.

  Wait. Pale skin?

  In the sky above, light flashed. Red and green and blue.

  Illuminating Eleanor’s terrified face.

  Chapter Fourteen

  She kept saying his name, over and over again. Because this wasn’t him, she could see it wasn’t. There was a horrifyingly blank look on his face and a dead expression in his eyes.

  She didn’t know where this man had come from or why, but she knew Luc was in there, somewhere behind that terrifying expression. And if she kept saying his name she’d reach him.

  She could feel the knife at her throat, the slight pain of the blade against her skin. The trickle of blood. But she forced down the fear. Because she knew that this man wouldn’t hurt her intentionally. Knew it with absolute certainty.

  All she had to do was reach him.

  The drunks that had lumbered into her, including the one that Luc had taken to the ground, had long since run. There was no one around except this man, who had her up against one of the campus buildings, his fingers around her throat, the point of his knife under her chin.

  Fireworks exploded above her, but she kept saying his name.

  And then something must have clicked in his head because his eyes widened suddenly. And she knew he’d finally seen her.

  Horror flooded through his face. “No,” he whispered. “Oh fuck no.” The knife fell away, dropping to the ground as he stumbled back. Then he gave an anguished groan and covered his face with his hands.

  Her heart twisted at the sound. Something was very, very wrong.

  Luc hadn’t been in Auckland. He’d been somewhere else, seeing something else. And she didn’t know where or why, but she was going to find out.

  Ignoring the sting of the cut on her throat and the fear echoing through her, Eleanor propelled herself away from the building. Crossing the distance between them, she took his wrists in a strong grip and pulled them away from his face.

  “Something happened to you in Africa, didn’t it?” Because she was now pretty sure of that. “Tell me.”

  His eyes were black holes, sucking in light. The pain in them depthless. “You don’t want to know.” His voice was hoarse, ragged. He shook her hand away, reaching to touch the line of blood now drying on her skin. “Fuck, I only wanted to protect you, but…I hurt you.”

  Eleanor gripped his wrist. Held it. “I do want to know. You pushed me up against a building and held a knife to my throat. Don’t you think I deserve to know why?” It was brutal, but she had the sense that if she wanted to get anything out of him at all she needed to be brutal.

  Luc stared at her for a long moment and the anguish in his expression made her chest hurt far worse than any stupid knife prick. “I never wanted this to happen. I tried…fuck…” Abruptly he turned, taking a few steps away from her as if he wanted to put distance between them. “After my parents were killed, I was recruited into one of the antigovernment militias, headed by an ex-general, Charles Inza. They needed fighters and they took everyone. They took me.”

  “But…” she couldn’t quite get her head around it, “…you were a kid.”

  “I was twelve. They took a few younger than me too.” His voice sounded flat, lifeless. “Kids make good soldiers. They’re obedient. You don’t need to pay them. And you can mold them into whomever you want them to be.” He paused. “The first six months were the worst. They gave you a week’s worth of training, put a gun in your hand and then told you to kill people. And if you didn’t, you were shot. If you protested, you were shot. If you cried, you were shot. The only way to survive was to do what they told you to.”

  Shock and grief rose in her throat, choking her. The cold sound of his voice… Jesus. He was detailing things no child should ever have to go through. “And you had to…” Her voice failed and she couldn’t make herself say it.

  “Kill people? Yes. I was lucky in that most of the villages around the city had already been emptied out, so there were no civilians left to kill. Only government soldiers.” He lifted his hand, the fabric cuff around it sliding down his forearm. “You wanted to know what this was? It’s a reminder. I threw up after my first kill, where no one could see because they would have shot me for being weak. And after that I swore I would remember every single person. Remember every single face. I didn’t want to become like Inza, like the rest of the militia, because, Christ, they weren’t even human anymore. But…I had to shoot so many.” His voice had lost the cold edge, becoming rough. “It hurt, it all hurt and I had to protect myself. So I learned not to feel. But I didn’t want to forget either, so I took the material from their clothes and tied it around my wrist so I wouldn’t. So I could keep them with me.”

  The shock was settling into her bones, making her shiver and she couldn’t stop herself from looking at that cuff around his wrist. At all the fabric strands. So many strands…

  “I didn’t want to be one of them, Eleanor. I didn’t want to be a monster like they were,” Luc said softly and turned, the quiet agony on his face bringing tears to her eyes. “But I am, aren’t I? I am.”

  Something shattered in her heart, cutting her to pieces, and she couldn’t speak because of the pain she felt for him. For what had been done to him.

  “No,” she said hoarsely, “of course you’re not—”

  “Yes I am.” His voice was certain. “If I weren’t, I would never have hurt you.”

  “Luc…” She took a step toward him, not knowing what else to do other than touch him.

  But he held up a hand, warding her off. “No. Don’t…don’t come near me. It’s not safe. I’m not safe.”

  “You can’t believe that—”

  “No.” The look in his eyes stopped her in her tracks. “I can’t do this, Eleanor. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  “What do you mean ‘this’?”

  “You. Me. It can’t happen.”

  She didn’t think it was possible to hurt any more than she was already, but apparently it was perfectly possible. “Honey,” she said softly, “we need to talk about this.”

  “What’s there to talk about?” That cold, dead look had come back into his face. “I’m a killer, Eleanor. A killer who’s very good at pretending not to be one.”

  “That’s not who you are, Luc. You were made to be one. There’s a difference!”

  He said nothing for a long moment, looking at her. “We lost lots of units in a big push. Inza needed more men and he had this refugee camp a few days away under surveillance. He wanted us to go in, kill everyone in it but the boys we could take for the army. There were women there, smaller children, babies…” The look in his eyes was terrible. “I was one of his lieutenants. He wanted me to lead the mission. And I said yes.”

  Horror stole her breath. “You didn’t, Luc.” He couldn’t have; she wouldn’t believe it.

  “They weren’t people to me anymore. They weren’t even kids. They’d become targets. And that’s how I thought of them. Targets to hit, obstacles to get rid of. And I felt nothing at the thought of killing them.” His voice became a whisper. “I felt fucking nothing.”

  “Luc—”

  “I don’t even know what it was that made me think ‘I can’t do this’. Some survival instinct maybe. But after planning that mission, I knew I had to get out. I had to leave, o
therwise I’d…truly become one of them. So I took some of my squad and escaped during an ambush that night. We walked for days, hiding from the militia patrols sent to look for us. Eventually we ran into some UN troops and they rescued us. Got UNICEF involved and shipped us to Ghana. I thought…I thought I’d escaped. But…” he turned away abruptly, “…I haven’t… Shit, I’m still there.”

  She didn’t know what to say, not when there was so much despair in his voice. Not when words meant nothing at all. “Luc,” she whispered.

  More fireworks went off, exploding against the black velvet of the sky. And she saw him flinch.

  “Luc, please…”

  But he didn’t say anything, only began to walk away. Not toward the festival but in the other direction. Slowly at first. Then faster.

  Her heart tightened. “Lucien.”

  He shifted into a jog, going faster. Away from her.

  Pain bit deep in her heart, as sharp and unexpected as that knife. “Lucien!”

  He didn’t stop. Or turn. The jog shifting into a run. Carrying him away.

  Leaving her alone.

  Eleanor was still shaking when she got back to her car. And she had to sit there for a good five minutes before she felt ready to turn the key and start the engine.

  She felt like an earthquake had happened, the ground unsteady with aftershocks.

  The point of the knife pressing against her skin. The look of horror on Luc’s face. The fabric cuff on his arm and what it meant. All those threads…

  I was recruited by the militia. I’m a killer.

  She drove home and didn’t remember even a minute of the drive, becoming aware she was in the driveway of her St. Mary’s Bay home only when the engine stopped.

  Inside, she dropped her bag and keys beside the hall table and stood in the hallway with its polished wooden floors and white walls covered in art, staring at nothing, struggling to process what had happened with Luc.

  Eventually she made herself move down the hallway and into the kitchen. Grabbing a wineglass from the cupboard and a bottle of white from the fridge, she went into her lounge and sat down on the couch, pouring herself a huge glass.