No Control by Shannon K. Butcher

Author:Shannon K. Butcher [Butcher, Shannon K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-09-14T23:43:30+00:00

Grant’s body stiled. “You did what?”

Caleb’s stomach knotted at the memory. He didn’t want to tel Grant what he’d done, but if there was even a slim chance that the knowledge could help Lana, he owed it to her to suck it up and tel Grant his shame.

Caleb’s voice was low, and he couldn’t look Grant in the eye as he told him. “I watched a man beat her. I stood there and let it happen. I heard every one of her screams.

Every one of her bones break. I was right there the whole time and I couldn’t do a damn thing.”

“God, Caleb. Why?”

He’d asked himself the same thing a thousand times, and al he could come up with was the same pitiful answer. “I was undercover. The Swarm had bombed a school bus the week before, kiling three kids and wounding ten more. Their next target was a school. We had to find out which one, so I went in posing as a demolitions expert for hire.

One of our teams had taken out the real Miles Gentry, and I took his place.”

“And the real Miles Gentry wouldn’t have given a shit if they’d beaten a woman to death, since he was wiling to blow up a whole fucking school,” guessed Grant. His mouth flattened, and Caleb saw something like pity pass through his expression. He hid it quickly, but Caleb saw it anyway, and it made him want to crawl in a dark hole and never come out.

“I should have done something. Kiled them al before they hurt her.”

“They would have taken you down before you’d had time, and then what would have happened to al those kids? Where would they be?”

“I know. I try to remind myself about that part, but it doesn’t make it any easier.”

“But you saved her. That’s what matters.”

“I thought I’d saved her, but I didn’t. These nightmares she has, Grant . . .” He swalowed past the anger that burned his throat. “She relives it every night. I kept her from being kiled, but I didn’t save her.”

“You can now. We can find these bastards and take them down. Make sure she knows she’s safe. Maybe then her nightmares wil go away.”

“Whatever I do now it wil never make up for what I had to do then.”

“Does she know why you couldn’t act?”

Caleb nodded. “Monroe told Lana.”

“Monroe told me what?” Lana asked as she walked out of the bedroom. She was wearing that giant, droopy robe over her short pajamas. Surgical scars crisscrossed her legs, reminding Caleb of just how much she’d suffered in her struggle to walk again. Her hair was a mess, her eyes were stil puffy from sleep, and she had the imprint of her wrinkled sheet on one cheek, but she gave him a warm smile.

Caleb’s heart clenched at the sight of her. Al this talk had brought back vivid memories of her broken body and battered face. Seeing her whole and alive made him ache to pul her into his arms and beg for forgiveness.

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