He let his mask fall back into place, shielding his emotions as he took a step back, taking Winter with him.
“Hey, Mark, it’s not like that, okay?” Danny said, taking a step forward, a worried look on his face, but the damage had already been done.
When he needed them, when he needed Dominic, when he had thought that he was finally coming home, it was to find that he wasn’t welcome.
“I’ll be out of here by the end of the day,” he said calmly, his words bland, but still biting against his tongue. Nodding to Rick who was glaring daggers at Dominic.
“Mark, please,” Christine said, she had tears in her eyes and although his heart went out to her, the woman standing behind him was his everything.
“Sir.” He nodded one last time to a man that had once been a brother.
Then he turned, his heart cracking as he walked out the door of Dominic’s house.
“Mark, wait,” Winter called to him softly once they were out of the house and headed down the path to what had once been his home.
Not anymore.
He didn’t answer. He just held tight to her hand. The only thing that mattered.
The only thing he hadleft.
What had she done?
She watched from where she was sitting, legs crossed on his bed, as Mark came out of the closet holding another suitcase that he started filling. Taking handful after handful of clothes out of his dresser, not bothering to fold them, before stuffing them in the bags that were now surrounding her on the floor.
He hadn’t said anything since leaving the house. He had just marched them through the woods to a house that she assumed was his. He had told her about it, but this wasn’t the way that she had wanted to see it for the first time.
“Mark?”
“I’ll be ready to go in a minute, Winter,” he said calmly.
Too calmly.
Ever since they had walked out of Dominic’s house, he had held that stupid mask in front of him. As if he was standing behind a wall, hiding, even from her. It hurt her heart to think of what he must be feeling, thinking, but he wasn’t sharing with her.
“Mark, can we talk for just a minute?” she asked softly.
“Nothing to talk about. We will get everything loaded and get out of here. I’m just glad my truck is here.”
Shortly after getting to Washington, he had bought a truck. Saying it was cheaper to buy one than to get his from across the country. But that wasn’t what she wanted to talk to him about.
“Where will you go?” she said eyeing his continual march back and forth from the closet.
“Wewill just find a place.” He all but snarled at her, turning to look at her over his shoulder, giving away the first bit of emotion she had gotten from him.
