Page 34 of The Last True Hero

"I'm not a monster," he said, wondering who he was trying to convince. All of the calm that being with Mia brought him evaporated. "I just wanted to help."

"Okay. I believe you."

Didn't sound like Jake liked it though.

All of the weariness came crashing down upon Adam. He'd been going for days, forcing his body to the edge, running high on adrenaline. This moment wiped him.

"How?" he asked gruffly.

Jake audibly swallowed. Fabric rustled as he pushed away from the wall. "You hear things I can't hear, McClain. And see things I can't see. That first night when the revenants attacked you could see the lights from the reivers' camp, out there in the blackness. I couldn't make out shit and I'm good at what I do." Jake cleared his throat. "You didn't torture that reiver down there. I checked the body out. So how'd you make him talk, huh?"

With a sigh, Adam glanced down at his quivering hands. In his mind's eye, they looked like claws for a second. "You know how. Reivers aren't normal men. I've seen bands of them who've cut off their own fingers or hands even, to prove their loyalty to their crews. Torture wasn't going to break him. I needed him to be afraid of me."

"You threatened him." Jake's voice strengthened. "You threatened to make him one of the monsters."

McClain flinched. "Yeah. What's the one thing every man fears, whether he's a Wastelander or a reiver?"

"I've been putting the pieces together. And you heard me in that bar, back in Salvation Creek, talking about wargs who didn't change, wargs who hid in the towns. Looking back now, you couldn't have gotten out of there any quicker." Jake tipped his chin up. "Who are you?"

"I'm the warg from Absolution," he said, meeting the other man's eyes. "The one you were asking about."

"Then it's true." Jake looked stunned. "You've got some sort of medallion that keeps it at bay."

No point hiding it now. Adam grunted, and opened his shirt just wide enough for Jake to see the pewter.

"How's it work?"

"Don't know," he replied. "Just know it keeps the warg contained. If I lose this...."

"Yeah." Jake didn't quite shift his hand to the gun at his hip, but it was in his eyes. "I'll take care of it."

They stared at each other.

"What are you going to do now you know?"

Jake crossed his arms over his chest, leaning his back against the wall. The first hints of dawn began to lighten the sky. "Fuck. I don't know. I can't—I don't.... All I've ever known is that your kind are monsters. But then I remember how you saved all my friends at that tor, how you decided to ride along with us to save women and children you've never even met. How do I reconcile that?" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "And then there's the fact that we need you."

"To get your wife back."

"Thwaites is taking the rest of the men and women home. They're not cut out for this shit. And Jenny's injured, else she'd be at my back too."

"We're not a large enough group to attack a slave town," Adam replied in a weary voice. "Better off without them. Maybe a couple of us can blend in, pretend we're something we're not."

"And that's exactly why we need you. You think like I do. Fuck."

It set off another round of curses. Adam merely watched. Jake was no friend of his, that much was clear, but maybe, just maybe, he'd keep this secret.

For there was one person who wouldn't accept this.

"What are you going to tell her?" Adam asked.

He might as well have lit a match near a powder keg. Jake stabbed a finger in the air toward him. "You stay as far away from her as you can. Mia's not for you."

"Do you think I don't know that?" he growled, even though he couldn't help remembering the way she'd wrapped her arms around him. For a moment he could pretend that he was just a normal man with a chance at a normal life.

For a moment when she kissed him, he'd forgotten that he was anything else.

Now the truth reared its ugly head. He'd been wasting Mia's time. There was no future between them. Adam didn't have a future.