Faith (A Dark Romance Novel) (17 page)

Chapter 23

Emily

I remained frozen as I stared at him in horror. His face was drained of color and sweat was coating his body. Shame washed over me. I’d stooped to a whole new low. What was I becoming?

“Emily, I need your help. I need you to get the first aid box and a glass of water. I need it now. I suspect you’re going to need to put in some stitches.”

Getting to my feet, tears streaking my eyes, I rushed over to him, slipping an arm around his waist and helping him to the bed. He was in bad shape, very bad. I’d say worse than when I’d stabbed him. I could run, get away, he might die here. But that would make me a murderer and that wasn’t who I was. I needed to hold tight to the remaining slivers of my soul; I’d given up so much already.

Once to the bed, Tanner flopped face-first down onto it and the wounds became visible. A gasp escaped me, I’d been so consumed with rage, with getting revenge on him, that I hadn’t even noticed how badly his back had become as I was whipping him. Far, far worse than mine. My stomach clenched and I began to feel the need to vomit. But I couldn’t, he needed my help and I had to fix him – fix this.

“I’ll be right back.”

My hands were shaking as I opened the cabinet under the bathroom sink and retrieve the required items, first aid kit and basin. Filling the basin with warm water, I grabbed a face cloth and rushed from the bathroom, the water slopping over the rim of the bowl as I ran.

“I’m so sorry, Tanner.”

He grunted, ignoring my apology. “Give me some painkillers. The pale blue ones.”

Opening the kit I searched the numerous bottles of pills until I found the requested ones.

“Clean the blood away. Get a look at how bad it is. The ones that are really deep, where the strike marks cross or double up, you’ll need to stitch up.”

I did as told, cleaning each wound. It didn’t take long for the basin of water to turn red, forcing me to leave him and refill it. He didn’t say anything and I honestly didn’t know what to say to him.

“You’ve said your family moved a lot?”

I let out a breath of relief when Tanner broke the silence and paused in my stitching of the worst of the wounds. “Yes.”

“How often did you move?”

“Every year and a half. Two years maybe. It varied.”

“Where have you lived?”

I relaxed a little more, grateful for the conversation. “The first place I remembered living was Boston, I think I was six. Father prefers churches that are big; he says he can reach more people with his word.”

“I see.”

“After that…” I chewed at my lower lip, trying to remember. “After that, there was Orlando, Birmingham, San Diego, Seattle, D.C, Dallas and then here, Portland.”

“Did you all decide to move or did he just tell you?”

I laughed. The idea of Father asking permission from his family was crazy. “Father never asked, Father did and expected us to follow. He would tell us that he was the gatekeeper of the family and as such we were to do as told.”

“Even your mother?”

“Yes, of course. It’s the duty of the wife to obey her husband. He made the decisions for the family, in the best interests of us all.”

He huffed. “So starting at age six you went from Boston to Orlando, Birmingham, San Diego, Seattle, D.C., Dallas and Portland.”

“Yeah, you writing a book?” I asked, laughing lightly.

“Just making conversation. It must have been hard making and keeping friends.”

“We were only allowed to be friends with the children who attended the church. This was the first time I’d actually been allowed to go to public school and make friends outside the church. Since I was going to college this fall, Father gave in, allowing me to go to public school and make friends who didn’t attend his sermons.”

“Right. It seems to me rather oppressive.” He turned his head to look at me. “How could you live like that?”

“Like a captive, you mean?”

A faint smile curled the corners of his lips. “Something like that.”

“It was my life. He provided everything I needed. He was doing what he felt was right, to make sure I was safe and my heart and soul pure for my future husband. So I could have my choice of the best Christian man available.”

“I see. And you don’t think that perhaps he was a domineering narcissistic asshole that was keeping his family under his thumb to stroke his own ego?”

I cocked a brow up at him. “Unlike someone else I know?”

“Well there is the saying that women tend to fall for men that remind them of their father.”

“There’s a problem with your assumption.”

“That being?”

“You’re assuming I have emotions other than hate for you.”

“You don’t?”

I stopped sewing up his back and knotted it off. He was done aside from bandaging. I didn’t answer, not because I was being obtuse, but because I didn’t know the answer. I’d thought I’d known the answer, but I didn’t anymore. Grabbing the bandages, I began to dress his wounds.

“You’ve had numerous opportunities to leave, but here you are, nursing me back to health.”

“It’s only the Christian thing to do. You’ve already succeeded in darkening much of my soul. I’m not going to have being a murderer by letting you die or have the life of another woman who would no doubt take my place on my hands.”

“So still the martyr, huh? Not because there’s a part of you that connects with me?”

“This…” I motioned between us. “This is so disgustingly broken.”

“Says who?” With the bandages secure he attempted to roll to his side facing me, grimaced and rolled back onto his stomach. “If anything this is one of the purest relationships either of us will or would have ever been in.”

Laughing hard at the insanity of his statement I gave my head a shake. “I think those little blue pills have really made you loopy.”

“Couples spend every moment of their time together lying to each other, pretending to be what they’re not. It’s all a game, whether they believe it or not. You talk about purity. What we have is pure.”

I sat, my mouth dropping open. He really had gone off of the rails.

He grunted as he shifted positions, turning to his side despite the pain. “It’s pure because neither of us is putting on a show for the other person. I don’t hide who I am, regardless of how repulsive it may be to you, and neither do you. You can fuck me, hate me, hurt me and enjoy it without shame You can be the worst version of yourself without judgement. We may clash, but ultimately we fit together.”

He reached out and ran his fingers through a lock of my hair. “This isn’t a crock of shit I’m saying to get you into bed. I’ll fuck you when I want. This is the truth. My darkness needs your light, and as much as you need my darkness to help you discover you really are. In time, you’ll see it as I do. What we have is complicated, savage, primal, but we’re real.”

Was he right? Or was I being pulled into his delusions? Not wanting to dive down that rabbit hole, I turned the tables on him. “How can I possibly love a man who’s too scared to love me back?”

His eyes narrowed at me, his jaw clenching. “I’m not scared, Emily. We’ve already discussed this. It’s not in me to feel that.”

“Bullshit!” Anger began to well up in me. I don’t know why it made me so angry; perhaps it was because there was a fucked-up part of me that wanted his love. Actually, if I were to be honest with myself, despite all the disgusting, horrible things this man was, the answer was yes. Yes, I wanted his love, I wanted the fairy tale and I was falling for a man who refused to give it to me. “I call bullshit on that.”

His expression turned angry. “You know nothing about it.”

“I know what you’ve told me. You’ve told me you could change it if you wanted. If you tried.”

Tanner huffed. “I was drunk.”

“You’re full of shit. You knew exactly what you were talking about.” We stared at each other, tempers flaring. After a minute I stood, ending the standoff. “I’m going to the living room to watch some television. Yell if you need me.”

Not waiting for an answer, I went to his closet and pulled it open, grabbing a T-shirt and then a pair of jogging pants. Screw him if he wanted me naked; it wasn’t like he could do anything about it at the moment. When he recovered maybe, but for now I was the boss. A surge of self-satisfaction raced through me. Looking over my shoulder, I gave him a smirk; he didn’t protest, but did wag a finger at me, which made my smile widen.

Scurrying from the bedroom, I made my way into the living room. He didn’t yell after me, but I heard a soft groan and the crush of the mattress as he moved on the bed. I really didn’t know what to think about what had gone down. Every moment with Tanner was a rollercoaster ride of emotion. I’d never felt such extreme highs and lows in my life – everything I felt was amplified, from anger to lust to everything in between. He was right, he brought something out in me, though I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not – I suspected not.

~*~*~*~*~

Tanner

It fucking sucked to be bedridden. The past couple of days had been spent in a drug-induced haze, but this was day three after the whipping incident and it was time to get to the bottom of the mystery that was Pastor William. The man could be very dangerous, and if he was what I suspected he may be, then there was a chance he’d be out searching for Emily and me. I didn’t take chances and a little injury certainly wouldn’t have me taking one.

“Thanks, Emily.” I accepted the laptop from Emily and settled it on my lap.

She didn’t move from my bedside and so I looked back up and met her gaze. “Need anything else?” she asked.

My eyes slowly scanned the T-shirt and jogging pants she was wearing. She’d been wandering around the house fully clothed, her dark hair tied up in a ponytail for the past few days, secure in the knowledge I couldn’t do a damned thing about it. I know she got off on knowing it pissed me off to no end. But at the same time it was amusing. She was acting like she was the one in control – untouchable. I suppose she was, for now. “You realize that your days strutting around here looking like that are numbered.”

She shrugged. “But you’re not going to do a damned thing about it today, and I’m guessing not tomorrow either.”

“Don’t count on it. And just so you know, the first thing I do when I’m up and about – which should be tomorrow – is to tear those clothes from your body and fuck you till you’re too sore to be prancing around here like you own the place.” Despite my words, a smile spread across my lips.

“But that won’t be today.” The little bitch gave me a wink, twirled on her heel and practically skipped from the bedroom. No, that’s inaccurate – she didn’t
practically
skip, she DID skip from the room as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

Giving my head a shake, I looked back down at the computer screen and booted up the laptop. Time to get down to business and find out all about Pastor Williams. The laptop hummed to life and the log-in screen appeared. Typing in my password, I waited for the internet to connect. Once it did, I began typing. I’d been giving it some thought as I laid in bed – fuck, that was all I was able to do – and decided to start searching big crimes first, murders and such, in all of the cities during the years Emily’s family lived there, and then narrow it down. It would be like a needle in a haystack and maybe a big motherfucking waste of time, but…

I swear, it was like the gods were looking down on me.

After six hours of digging, my eyes burning from staring at the computer screen for so long, I found a connection. Boston, Orlando, Seattle… All of the cities Emily had mentioned to me, during the years that she’d said they had lived there, had one thing in common.

The Proverbs 31 Killer.

The M.O. was the same for each murder. A hooker, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, all murdered roughly twenty months apart and spanning over twenty years. All were found on the steps of a church – none of which were his – naked, raped and with the numbers 31:10-31 across their chest, cut with what the FBI suspected was a scalpel. The FBI had no leads at this time and were not disclosing any information they had on him aside from the fact that the man was right-handed and suspected to be between the ages of forty and fifty-five.

“Well, fuck me.” I released a breath of air in a loud puff.

“Are you all right?”

I glanced over to see Emily standing in the doorway. Quickly, I X’d out of the screen I was in and gave her a smile. “Fine, baby. I’ll come out in a bit for supper.”

She leaned against the doorjamb and chewed at her lower lip, eyeing me. “I can bring it in, no need to play the hero.”

“Hardly the hero, love. Have you already forgotten I’m the villain?”

“But sometimes the villain can change.”

“Not usually. Usually they die a horrid death or find themselves behind bars.”

“Is it so bad that I want to believe in the fairy tale?”

“I suppose not.” Giving her a smile, my gaze locked with hers and I could see the flickers of affection in her gaze, and she wasn’t even attempting to hide it. Something had changed between us over the past few days of her nursing me back to health and I liked it. We’d been together for close to two months now and we’d just gotten to the point where I wanted us to be and I was going to be forced to fuck it all up when I put a bullet in the head of the Proverbs 31 Killer.