Darkest Before Dawn

“I should have known,” she said in a monotone. “That you would be the one bringing me to ANE, not Maksimov. Ironic, isn’t it? You ‘save’ me from ANE and you’re the one to return me to them. Full circle.”

Saying nothing further, she turned, struggling, emitting gasps of pain that her movement caused as she turned away from him and curled once more into a protective ball, shutting him out, retreating into herself and a place where she couldn’t hurt anymore.

His torment was tearing him with its vicious claws. He felt every word to his tainted soul. He ached to hold her. To comfort her. To tell her all that was in his heart. But she wouldn’t believe him. She’d never believe him. As with everything else so precious he’d lost, he’d lost her trust as well.

He nearly put his hand on her shoulder, drawing back at the last second, because he didn’t want to cause her further pain and he had yet to determine the extent of her injuries.

“What did that bastard do to you?” he demanded, barely able to keep back the roar of fury that threatened to erupt.

One small shoulder lifted in a shrug. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it goddamn matters! What did he do, Honor?”

She stiffened and he could feel her pain radiating from her tightly curled body, and it made him want to weep like a baby.

“You should know, Hancock,” she said, her tone weary, as if her barriers were slipping, as if the shields she’d constructed and the alternate reality she’d created in order to survive were slowly crumbling. “You told me what Maksimov would do. Just as you told me what ANE will do. Do you want all the gory details? Will it make you happy to know that I suffered? Are you concerned that he didn’t do all the things you said he would?”

He couldn’t breathe. His heart weighed a ton in his chest. Fear as he’d never known paralyzed him and he couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t get past all he’d told her that Maksimov and ANE would do. Things he’d sworn to her he wouldn’t allow to happen because he was pulling the plug on the mission. And she thought it had all been a lie.

“What did he do?” Hancock asked hoarsely, his voice thick with tears and so much emotion that it overwhelmed him, consumed him, rendered him incapable of the simplest of processes.

“Nothing worse than what’s been done before,” she said, as if it didn’t matter. “He didn’t hurt me, Hancock. You did that. You destroyed me. And I guess, in a way, I have you to thank. Because you hurt me in a way no one has ever hurt me, and the things Maksimov did paled in comparison. It hurt. I know it did. I mean it had to, right? But I didn’t feel it. Because the dead don’t feel. And I died the day you betrayed me. So whatever ANE has in store for me, I welcome. Because it won’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. And as with Maksimov, I can at least deprive them the pleasure of hearing me scream. Of hearing me beg. Because it will never happen. They’ll delight in breaking me, but as I told Maksimov when he smugly informed me that he would break me, you can’t break what’s already broken.”

Hancock’s heart shattered into tiny razor-sharp shards, inflicting permanent wounds he’d never recover from. He was bleeding on the inside. And it would never stop. Tears streaked down his cheeks, grief consuming him until there was simply nothing left. Just as Honor had said there was nothing left of her.

Broken.

He’d broken her when nothing else had been able to.

He’d destroyed this precious gift.

“I know you don’t care what I want,” she said in a tired voice. “But I do hurt, Hancock, and I know I don’t have much time until the end begins. Will you at least leave me in peace? Will you give me that at least? Seeing you, talking to you has destroyed the void I worked so hard to build. A place where nothing and no one can hurt me, touch me. Where I feel no pain. I feel . . . nothing. And I need that. You’ve gotten what you want. Will you please just leave me in peace so I can try to prepare myself for what is to come?”

Hancock rolled away, not daring to look back at her, knowing it would kill him. She was hurting. No matter that she’d said Maksimov hadn’t hurt her, she hadn’t meant it in the way he had. She’d only meant that Maksimov hadn’t been able to break her because Hancock had already done that.

He strode into the sitting area, and he knew everything he felt must be reflected in his eyes, his face, because the others visibly recoiled from whatever horror they saw in him.

He focused his attention on Maren and tried to be calm and composed when he was dying on the inside. Bleeding out from the thousands of cuts caused by his shattered heart.

“She’s hurting. I don’t know what he did to her, and she hates me. But she’s hurting and I need you to look her over. She needs pain medicine, and Maren, I want her sedated. She’s . . . broken. I broke her,” he choked out. “I did. Not Maksimov. Me. Every second she’s conscious, she’s hurting, dead on the inside. Please give her peace. For me. Please.”

Maren’s face was stricken and she, as Skylar had done, wrapped her arms around him and hugged him gently. He could feel the dampness of her tears soaking into his shirt. For him. God.

He gently tugged her away and then looked at her with dead eyes.

“Do not defend me, Maren. Don’t try to explain anything to her. If she thinks you are anything to me other than someone I paid to get her cleaned up before she’s turned over to ANE, she won’t trust you and she’ll refuse treatment, pain medication and especially sedation. Please, just make her as comfortable as possible and try to find out what that bastard did to her. I have to know. Goddamn it, I have to know because it will be my sin to bear for eternity.”