Mine to Keep (Mine #2)(5)
Author: Cynthia Eden

She glanced over at Ben once more. His gaze was on her. That brown stare was unnerving. The fear was gone but…

Her breath caught.

I know that look.

She knew that look because she’d seen it in her mother’s eyes before.

Insanity.

Skye instinctively took a step back.

“She’s the reason, you know…” Now Ben seemed almost musing, but his eyes burned with an intensity that frightened her. “You revealed too much with her. The story was splashed in all the papers. It was on all the TVs. She’s your mistake, and she’s going to destroy you.”

In a flash, Trace was across the room. He’d shoved Ben back against the big, picture-frame window behind the couch. “You sure as hell had better not be threatening her.” His forearm thrust under Ben’s throat.

“Trace!” She rushed forward, but Reese stepped in her path.

“Not…me…” The words wheezed from Ben.

Trace lifted his arm.

Ben sucked in a deep gulp of air.

Trace’s shoulders tensed. “I let you up here because of the past. Reese told me you’d come by before. That you had a message for me. Deliver it, now.”

A rough bark of laughter escaped Ben as the redness slowly faded from his cheeks. “The past…that’s what we have to worry about. It’s not dead. It’s coming back, and it’s going to burn us all.”

The man wasn’t making any sense.

But Reese’s body had turned to stone beside her. So maybe the cryptic words made sense to him.

Skye could be the only one in the dark.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Ben asked as he blinked up at Trace.

“No.” Trace’s response was instant. “The dead are in the ground. They can’t hurt us anymore.”

“Don’t be too sure.” Ben’s lips twisted. “You took from him, and now he knows what to take from you. He’s coming after us all, and he won’t stop, not until he’s destroyed us…the same way we tried to destroy him.”

“Ben…” Now Trace’s voice had roughened. Deepened. “Have you been taking your meds?”

At that question, Ben’s eyes flashed angrily. “I don’t need them! I don’t need the f**kin’ things!” He shouldered past Trace and staggered across the room. “I know what’s happening. He’s here. Watching. I know!”

Skye bit her bottom lip to hold back the instinctive cry that wanted to break free. The way this Ben was acting…it’s so familiar.

“Have you been hearing the voices again?” Trace asked.

Tears stung Skye’s eyes. This was too much like her own past.

“Sometimes,” Ben said, his voice hoarse, as he turned back to stare at Trace. “But they’re just trying to warn me. Death is coming for us, Weston! We have to be ready.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Kill or be killed. Just like in the old days.”

Trace hadn’t told her about his “old days” in the military. He hadn’t talked about the military at all.

“You need to take your medication,” Trace said.

Her heart was aching.

Trace paced steadily toward Ben.

Ben shook his head. “It makes me…weak. Dulls my senses. I have to be ready.” He jabbed a finger toward Trace. “You have to be ready. He’s gonna make you suffer more. You’re the one who killed her. I-I wasn’t.”

Her?

Trace put his hands on Ben’s shoulders. “You’re confused again. The past is over. You need to let it go.”

Ben sucked in a sharp breath. Then he jerked away from Trace. His accusing finger pointed right at Skye. “She’ll die.”

This was not the homecoming that Skye had anticipated.

“No, she won’t.” Trace was certain. “Because I will destroy anyone who ever tries to hurt her.”

Goosebumps rose onto Skye’s arms.

“And that includes you,” Trace told the man. “Don’t ever come near her again, do you understand?”

Ben blinked. “I-I was warning you.” Confusion seemed to thicken his words. “Paying my debt.”

“Consider it paid.” Trace’s gaze flickered toward Reese. “Now Reese will escort you out. He can take you back home—”

“I don’t have a home. Don’t got nothing.” Again, a lost tone had entered Ben’s voice. “Maybe…you ever think you should’ve just let me die? Instead of dragging me out—”

“Reese will make sure you get set up at a hotel tonight. We’ll contact the VA.” Trace’s expression was grim. “They’ll get your meds going again.”

Ben’s mouth tightened. “Then I’ll be a dead man.” He turned on his heel. Hurried for the door.

Reese was right behind him.

But, before Ben left, he cast one last glance toward Skye. “You still look the same,” he told her. “Just like the picture Weston kept. An angel in hell…”

“I-I don’t understand,” Skye began.

“I hope you don’t die,” Ben said. “He’s coming and you need to be ready.”

“Out.” Trace snarled, his patience seemingly gone.

And…just like that…the mysterious Ben was gone. Reese followed him out, and Trace secured the door behind them.

Skye was left alone with Trace.

Only…

Trace was different.

He stalked toward her, his steps sure, but his eyes shone with an emotion that she couldn’t decipher.

“Wh-what was that about?” She hated the stutter in her voice as much as she hated the nervousness twisting her guts in knots.

“Ben Sharpe had a…hard time during his enlistment. The last mission went wrong, and he came back—”

“Broken?” Skye finished because that was how the man had looked.

And it’s the way my mother had appeared. So many times. There’d been no mistaking the look in Ben’s eyes.

“He wasn’t the same,” Trace said instead. Then he rolled his shoulders, as if trying to push the past away. “Reese will see to it that he’s taken care of. Don’t worry.”

“But Ben said someone was watching him.” And, not too long ago, she’d gone to Trace and told him the same thing. Someone is watching me. She’d been afraid that Trace wouldn’t believe her. The cops sure hadn’t bought her story.

But Trace had.