Looking down at her, parallel lines of straight hair filtering one brown eye, the strands caught in her dark lashes, I accepted her love. Her professionalism was fine, but when she said she was doing it for me, I believed her.
“I don’t want to tell anyone else about this. Who’s not going to think I’m crazy?”
“Anyone in the field.”
“I’m not going on a hundred interviews.”
“I’ll find you someone right away. It’ll be easy.”
I kissed her temple. “All right.” I held her tight, resting my chin on her head.
“We’re going to be all right,” she said. “I promise.”
“So do I.”
Chapter Fourteen
Greyson - DECEMBER, 2006
Most non-medicinal PTSD treatments focus on desensitizing the patient to the trauma itself. They relive it endless times via sensory stimulation or verbal recall, until it’s old news. The therapies can seem cruel, but the outcomes are consistently good.
Caden wouldn’t take medication. You can educate a man out of his misinterpretations of data (these drugs do not effect one’s ability to perform surgery) but you cannot educate him out of his pride (tell that to the person on the table).
As terrible patients went, he would be the absolute worst.
“How did it go?” I asked from my desk one afternoon in early December. He’d called me after seeing another PTSD specialist.
“Fine.”
“Did you like him?”
“I don’t know. I was only there fifteen minutes.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I was late. Anyway, he wants to identify a specific trauma. I don’t have a specific trauma.”
“That may take work but—”
“I have to go.”
“Okay. I love you.”
“I love you too.” He hung up.
I stared at the plastic receiver as if that would keep us connected another moment, then I put it back in the cradle with a sigh.
Since he’d told me about what he called the Thing three weeks earlier, I’d defined behaviors that had seemed free-floating before. In the days before the fundraiser, he’d been cold and emotionless. He was so detached and robotic in some ways, yet temperamental and snippy in others. After the dark banquet room, where he dominated my body so brutally I had to hide his bite mark for a week, he was back to almost normal. Not as normal as when I met him in Iraq, but you get what you get and you don’t get upset.
As the weeks passed, he became more and more closed off. There had been three-plus weeks between the first rough encounter in the middle of the night and the banquet hall. I thought nothing of the timing except to note when he’d become alienated from his emotions.
I was about to call the next therapist on my list when Jenn called.
“I need a drink,” she said.
I looked at my watch. It was five thirty already. “I’ve had seven sessions today and my brain is full.”
“Meet you downstairs.”
* * *
That was the mood I met Jenn in.
That was how it began, really. Ronin and his classified secrets, breaking shit to fix it.
Caden had paperwork and opted not to join Jenn and me. Good. I was frustrated with him even though it wasn’t his fault. Never get frustrated with the patient, even if he’s your husband, slowing down before we got to a dead end. I wanted to speed up and find out what that wall was really made of.
I was relieved he didn’t want to come, and then guilty for wanting a reprieve from watching him go through the motions of life.
Jenn pushed her glasses up her nose. She’d shaved her kinky black hair down to the skin, which made her features statuesque. She held up her beer glass. I clinked my wine.
“To an empty brain,” she said.
“Cheers.”
The Wednesday crowd was subdued. The Wall Street douches had had a bad day apparently, and the art school kids huddled over pitchers of the cheap stuff.
“So,” I said. “You know anyone who can see a vet about identifying a trauma?”
“What about Warren?”
“I need someone to ID the incident so we can do CPT with Warren or whomever.” Cognitive Processing Therapy was a simple reliving of the trauma, but if the patient wasn’t sure what exactly had happened, or was in denial that a trauma had occurred, that was a different kettle of fish.
“Messy. What are the symptoms?”
“Patient thinks he’s being watched.”
“Oh, shit! I have to tell you something.” She leaned forward on her elbows. “This is apropos of nothing. Ronin’s working at Blackthorne Solutions.”
I should have told her no right there. Should have said I didn’t want anything to do with his crazy bullshit.
Instead, I raised my eyebrows and put on a face that said, “Tell me more.”
“I got a test subject request from Aberdeen for symptoms relating to… check this out… a feeling of being watched.” She pinched her fingers together at her forehead and spread them out, letting them flutter as they moved away from her head.
“And this leads to Ronin how?”
“It was an old form and his name was still on it.”
“So he was working on that when he left?”
“I think so. Do you want the form?”
“Maryland’s not an option.”
“But Ronin’s here…” she singsonged. “You could see what he’s got going at Blackthorne.”
“No.”
I was too quick to deny. Blackthorne was a military contractor that took payment from governments and corporations. They sent security personnel into war zones, used mercenaries and special operators to manage power vacuums in small countries, and developed weapons for the Pentagon.
I didn’t want the form, but if I really did have a patient like Caden, I’d get it.
“I mean, maybe.” I changed my answer.
“Let me know.”
We moved to other topics. She asked how my proposal from Tina was coming. I asked about art therapy and the NEA. We didn’t talk about Blackthorne or my patient again, but I didn’t stop thinking about it. Even after I found someone for Caden and he got his ass on a couch for a session, I made sure I had an updated number for Ronin.
* * *
Caden hadn’t wanted to meet Ronin for dinner. Hadn’t wanted to tell him a damn thing. Didn’t like him or trust him. But we were out of options, and he knew it.
When we got home from Gotham, Caden silently helped me with my coat. His fists were tight and his eyes burned. His muscles were taut under his shirt, and he smelled of need. My body reacted by sending a flood of fluid from my mouth, which had gone utterly dry, to my crotch, which was suddenly dripping.
“Greyson,” he said.
He reached around me and flipped the deadbolt, then stepped away enough to frame the whole of my body in his sight. His eyes coursed over my edges and curves while he flexed his fingers.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
No answer.
“Now? Is it the Thing?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I started unbuttoning my blouse, helpless against the smile creeping across my face.
“Say yes.” His fingers went from flex to fist over and over as if he was stopping himself from using them.
“Yes.”
I undid the second button but never got to the third before he ripped the shirt open, sending buttons flying. He pushed me against the wall, hand under my bra, squeezing my breast.
He shoved his other hand under my skirt and found my wetness. “That’s right, baby.”
I was pushed down onto my knees with my bra over my tits and my skirt half over my waist. He undid his jeans and pulled his cock out like a weapon. A drop glistened at the tip.
Pushing the back of my head forward, he guided himself into my mouth. “Take all of it. And make it wet. You’re going to need it.”
I opened my throat and let him fuck my
mouth. Spit dripped from my lower lip. I groaned, vibrating for him when he was deep in me. He came down my throat and watched as I swallowed.
Looking up at him, his still-erect cock in the foreground, I could tell we weren’t done. He was still half animal.
I was getting better at knowing which man I was looking at.
He stripped me down and we began in earnest.
Chapter Fifteen
CADEN
Blackthorne Solutions.
The dark room was about six feet by six feet and painted black. I sat in a chair in the center, a clicker in each hand, keeping my eyes on the dot of light on the wall in front of me. To the right and left, in my peripheral vision, photos were projected in pairs at a faster and faster pace.
RIGHT: A child in a pirate costume.
LEFT: A child with a black eye.
(click left)
I answered as I was told, choosing the more violent image without forethought. The Thing didn’t have a say. But it wanted one. It had opinions, and I had to think around it before I clicked.
RIGHT: Viet Cong shooting a man in the head.
LEFT: A flower with drooping petals.
(click right)
It was always there now, starting as a whisper in the shadows and growing into a scream in the darkness every day, every hour, every breath.
RIGHT: A dead fish on the shore.
LEFT: A dog with cigarette burns in its eyes.
(click left)
I was coping. I changed my methods as often as I could think of a new way to drive it away. Running out of ideas wasn’t an option, and Ronin’s call had come just in time.
RIGHT: The blood and guts of surgery.
LEFT: A butcher cutting a side of beef.
(click right)
The lights went on. I took the electrodes off my head. A young tech came in from the back and helped me with the wrist monitors. She was Korean without a trace of an accent. Her name was Mimi, and it belied her seriousness.
“Did I pass?” I asked.
“There’s no pass or fail,” she said.
I knew that. They kept saying it as if it was true.
I looked to the right, where a small one-way window hid the camera. “Ronin, did I pass?”
His voice came over the speakers. “I’ll meet you in the hall.”
* * *
Blackthorne Solutions could mean anything. The corporate name was so generic, and its parent company’s holdings so broad, you could research your heart out and never find out what was going on. But the offices took up three high floors in an expensive office building overlooking the East River.
Ronin met me by reception, dressed in jeans and a crisp white shirt. He led me to a stairway he accessed with a thumbprint. “Hope you don’t mind walking up two flights.”
“I think I’ll make it.”
I hadn’t spent long in the military compared to Ronin and Greyson, but I’d been there long enough to know I was considered some kind of indolent ass for not enduring basic training.
He had to use his fingerprint to get onto the next floor, and my retinas had to be scanned to get into the back offices. Everything was white and dark gray wood, glass, and chrome. Ronin walked slightly ahead, saying nothing until we arrived in his corner office and he closed the door.
He took a folder off the desk and sat on a tweed couch, indicating I should sit in the love seat opposite him. “Do you want anything? Coffee? Tea?”
I wanted coffee, but it was late in the day. I wanted him to just get to whatever was in that folder. “Water’s fine.”
He nodded but didn’t get up or call for anything. “So here’s the deal. You heard a little about what we do here.”
“You invent new ways to kill people.”
“We like to call it defense development.”
“How slippery.”
“You expected any less?” He looked up as if alerted. “Come in.”
There had been no knock, but the door behind me clicked open. A man in his early twenties brought in a tray with a coffee carafe, two cups, a bottle of water, and a glass of ice. He set them on the table between us, poured, and left without a word.
“That’s a neat trick.” I looped my finger in the cup’s handle. If he’d gone to the trouble of reading my mind, I might as well acknowledge it by having the coffee.
“Not really.” He dumped cream into his and drank.
“Greyson says you guys dated.”
“We met in basic.” He shrugged. “We were nineteen.”
“She was eighteen,” I corrected. He should have this shit down cold. “Do you have any feelings about what we told you?”
“I didn’t marry her. You did.”
“You’re not concerned about her on a personal level?”
“Have you met her?” His question came out with a cough of a laugh. “She can handle herself.”
“Then why take me on if you’re not doing her a favor?”
“I didn’t say she wasn’t my friend. I’ll do her favors, but you’re also a good candidate. Believe me, I couldn’t do a thing if you weren’t right for it.”
“Can you tell me what makes me right for it?”
“No. We’re under contract with a few government agencies. The program you’re looking to enter is paid for by Defense.” He put down the cup. “The DoD’s real particular about who we test on.”
“Liability, right?”
“Right. There are some pretty risky trials running right now. What we’re thinking for you isn’t on that list, but there are still hoops and a very strict NDA.” He pushed the folder toward me and picked up his coffee. “You might want to take it home, but if you leave it in the cab and the Times prints it, you could wind up in Leavenworth.”
“This isn’t Kansas anymore.” I opened the folder and skimmed. Hold harmless. Liability release. Federal arbitration in the DC courts. FOIA clause. I wasn’t a lawyer, but I’d seen versions of most of it before.
“There’s one thing that’s not in there because it’s a prerequisite.”
“What?” I closed the folder.
“You have to be active service.”
I tossed the folder on the table. It landed with a slap. “That’s out.”
“I can probably swing it with you on reserve duty. You’re IRR, right?”
“I was on a four-year MSO.”
“Crap,” Ronin said. “Surgeons get blown when they sign on.”
“Not quite.”
“You can still sign on for the reserves.”
“No.” I stood up to leave.
“IRR. Individual Ready Reserve,” he said as if I didn’t know what IRR stood for. “You stay home. No training. That’s the last carrot I have.”
“I’m not a root vegetable guy, but thanks.”
Having refused the carrot, I left without considering the stick.
* * *
I was losing her. I saw it happening and I’d stepped right into it.
No one, least of all a psychiatrist, wanted to live with a crazy person. I didn’t want to come home to open heart surgery either.
Yet the more I tried to get a handle on it, the worse it got. And the more I let loose and tried to stop worrying, the faster the Thing came back. It was always there now, and the days between breaking her got fewer and fewer. Sometimes we’d be at it on normal days and I’d get rough and demanding anyway. But unless I was on the edge, the Thing couldn’t see it.
“Did you do the test with Ronin today?” Greyson asked when she came upstairs from her last session. She’d had to take evening hours to accommodate patients with day jobs.
I held her close and kissed her. She tasted of the handful of almonds she’d wolfed down between patients.
“Yeah,” I said.
“What was it?”
“Trigger test. I don’t think I pass muster.”
“Maybe he’s working on something else.” She slid away from me.
Her optimism only highlighted the fact that she was l
osing hope. I couldn’t shatter it, nor could I bear to hear her ask me if I wanted to enlist in the reserves. I decided right then that I wouldn’t tell her. All her hope would flow there.
“He’s working on sending you every vet he comes across.”
“I have a hard time telling these guys they can’t see me.” She got a jug of OJ from the fridge and gave it a hard shake. “You see the hard time we’re having getting someone for you.”
The fridge clicked on, and I stiffened. I was so sick of hearing a voice in the hum of technology that I got annoyed at the appliances.
“‘Getting someone for me.’” I walked the length of the kitchen for no reason. “I’m a patient now. A run-of-the-mill nutcase with scheduling issues.”
“Caden.” She poured juice into a glass. “Don’t do this.”
“Do what? I’m the guy with a paranoid delusion that something’s watching me.”
Juice in hand, she came close to me, and I didn’t want her to. Not unless she wanted my dick in her ass.
It had been five days.
She didn’t take this seriously. She thought I was a case to be cured. I hadn’t told her everything because I didn’t want to scare her, but maybe that was the problem. She was coming at me, sliding her hand under my jacket, and with her big eyes and her perfume, it was risky. I was dangerous and she was pushing and pushing in ways she couldn’t understand.
Her perfume wasn’t soothing anymore. It boiled every emotion together. I didn’t even know which one I was reacting to anymore.
“Did I tell you this Thing wants to fuck you?”
She stopped the glass halfway to her lips.
I continued. “It’s obsessed with you. It thinks I don’t deserve you.”
“Caden.” She was level and serious, as if she was going to lay down the law. Speak the truth. Get the true fucking facts. “This is your fear that you don’t deserve good things.”
Dark Romance Collection: A Sexy, Dark Bundle Page 40