The Mysterious Stranger (The Confidence Game 3)

She tried not to smile. “I don’t want to like you. I don’t like most people, so don’t go feeling special about that.”

He gave her a full-wattage smile, known to melt enraged mothers and lacy panties. “Got it. Not into people.”

Cadence flushed. “Rosie,” she yelled. “Come do something with your brother. He’s awful even when he’s clean.” Then she shut the door on him.

Mid-double take, Rory opened it. “Oh for God’s sake, come in.” She grabbed his arm and yanked him inside. “Cadence is just messing with you.”

“No, I’m not,” Cadence said. She was pacing in the space between the galley kitchen and the dining table. “I don’t want to go tonight.”

“So don’t,” Rory said.

“I’ll get a black mark against me if I don’t.”

He cut a look at Rory and she shook her head. Black marks were new intel. “Is that real?” he said. “You can earn black marks and someone keeps a tally of them?”

Cadence stopped dead. “I shouldn’t have said that.” She curled her arms over her head and bent at the waist. “They wouldn’t want you knowing that. Not yet. Oh God, I fucked up. I fucked up. I fucked up telling you. Black marks are real. You can get them easily. Too easily. I fucked up. I fucked up. I’ll get another black mark.”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. We won’t say anything. No one has to know.” Rory approached Cadence cautiously, but she reacted by straightening up and backing into the kitchen table making it bark on the floor.

“Don’t touch me. You’re bad enough, Rosie. You ask questions all the time. You’re supposed to be quiet, freaked out.” She gestured at Zeke. “He makes me anxious. I fucked

up telling you about black marks. I fucked up.”

Zeke pulled out one of the kitchen table chairs opposite where Cadence stood, her body rigid, arms wrapped around herself, breathing in tight hard gasps. He sat to make himself smaller, less threatening. “I’m sorry I make you nervous. I don’t mean to, but I understand how that might happen. Is there anything I can do to make you feel better right now?”

He figured she’d ask him to leave, point to the door. “This is my fault. I’m having a panic attack.”

“Tell me how to help.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. There’s nothing you can do.”

“Would it make you feel better if I left? If Rosie left? But we wouldn’t want you to be alone while you feel this way, unless that’s what you want.”

Cadence looked from him to Rory and back again. Her fear was visceral and present, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to talk her down. “Don’t go,” she said, covering her face with her hands.

“We’re not going anywhere till you feel better,” Rory said.

It was muttered and fragmented, but Cadence was berating herself, calling herself stupid over and over. A mantra made of her dread.

Rory moved a chair out and Cadence sat. She was sweating, eyes large and gaze unsteady, still breathing too fast. Rory settled beside her but made sure to put distance between their chairs.

“I have a friend called Halsey,” Zeke said. “He had panic attacks when we were kids.” Cadence gripped the table with both hands and locked her eyes on his. “They went for about twenty minutes. I used to hug him and make him breathe with me until he felt better.” Because it freaking scared the fuck out of him to see his kid brother drowning in fear. “After that he’d punch me.”

“Why?”

“Why did he get them? It’s just how he’s made. Why did he punch me?” Zeke shrugged. “Because I was a shitty friend and a slow learner. I did dumb things that scared him.”

“Does he still get them?”

“He still has anxiety, but he’s learned how to protect himself from the worst of it and lately he’s been more relaxed about leaving his comfort zone.”

Cadence softened her grip on the table, but her eyes filled with tears. “I get like this when I have to be social. I don’t like most people.” She hugged herself, rocking slightly. “I hate feeling like this. I hate that you saw me this way. You shouldn’t have come. It’s a mistake. It’s not what it seems. When you get a black mark, they make you do things you don’t want.”

He kept his attention on Cadence. “You don’t need to be afraid. You’re Rosie’s cabinmate, and Rosie is my world, has been since we were kids.” No lie in that. “I will protect her with my life.” Or that. “I’ll protect you too. I won’t let anyone make you do something you don’t want.”

“Why would you do that?”

He was momentarily stumped for a response. Cadence was every Continuer and every well-meaning person who’d been taken advantage of by someone with an evil agenda. She had his protection without question. That’s what being a Sherwood meant.