Page 31 of Lovely Darkness

“So Nathan is the one who has to go?”

He doesn’t say it out loud, but I can almost hear his thoughts. Maybe I’m the one who needs to go? Maybe I’m Wendy’s Nathan.

“He deserves to go. Far more than I do. I saved her, ya know? She was at the auction. They had her in a cage. It was hanging from a crane and wrapped around the bars of the cage was the biggest fucking anaconda you could ever imagine. It was trying to eat her, Nick. Cage and all. And if I hadn’t bought her—well, if someone hadn’t bought her—that snake would’ve eaten her.”

“I heard there were lots of people bidding on her that night.”

“There were. Dozens, I think. Most of them calling in. But I gave her time, ya know? I gave her McKay. And McKay raised her good. I gave her Donovan. And Donovan kept her sane. She had homeschool, and this place, and even though I don’t want him around anymore, she had Nathan. She had Nathan because I let her have Nathan. We had a plan.”

“Adam. You don’t need to convince me you did your job the best way you knew how. I already know. You did everything right. And you did it a helluva lot better than Chek did, I will say that.”

“So why is Indie like this? Do you know?”

“They make them this way. It wasn’t you. It was Gerald Couture and that Machette guy in the Caribbean. It was the Company who did this.”

“We’re the Company, Nick.”

“Not back then, we weren’t.”

“Why are you really here? Is it just to cure Wendy?”

“Mostly.” He looks at me. “At least that’s why I came. But now…” He lets out a long breath. “We have work to do.”

“Such as?”

“You know Carter has more girls.”

“Nathan told us. He found a nest.”

“Yeah, I’m the one who sent him there.”

“Oh.”

“We need to kill them, Adam. All of them. Or this will never stop.”

I let those words roll around in my brain for a few minutes and Nick doesn’t bother me as I try to picture what this might entail and who might be involved. Nick might be the answer to my Nathan problem. If Nick takes Nathan away when he leaves, wouldn’t that solve something? Wouldn’t it make things easier? And if Nathan happened to die on the job, would that be the most terrible thing in the world?

But would Nathan go on that job? If I told him it was in Indie’s best interest, he probably would. He would go with Nick and they would take care of that shit. Those nests. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. I could never see myself hunting these girls the way Nick and Nathan do.

“I’ve lost people, ya know?” Nick says. “Good people. And that’s not counting the ones I gave up to save like Harper, and James, and Sasha, and Lauren. This cannot—” He pauses and I look at him, straight into those magic brown eyes of his. “This cannot all be for nothing. Do you understand me, Adam?”

I don’t. Not really.

But he might be saying that Indie needs to go. And I might…

No.

I shake my head.

“What part of that don’t you get?” Nick asks.

I sigh. Because he misunderstands. I’m agreeing with him. About Indie, maybe.

I just don’t like to think about it. After all these years, letting Indie die feels a lot like… well, a waste of time. And now I really need to change the subject. “I have something to show you.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“Come with me.”