Zyah buried her face in his throat. He was always so warm, his body comforting. “My instincts are very strong about this, Player, telling me we can’t be separated. From the very beginning I felt we had to be together.” At no time had that changed. If anything, her feeling had grown even stronger that they needed to stay together for safety.
“I believe this man has something to do with the bomb,” Player said. “I just don’t know what. I don’t understand how he managed to get into this room. I had to have brought him here, but I don’t recognize him. Can you sketch those eyes? It’s possible Czar might recognize him from his eyes, but I sure as hell don’t.”
The eyes had been very dark brown. Zyah slid off his lap and reached for the notebook and pen so she could hastily sketch the eyes while she had them in her head so starkly. Very heavily lashed. There were lines around the outside corners of his eyes as if he’d seen a great deal of sun, but because the eyes sat right in the middle of an empty black hole, it was difficult to even see those. That was more of an impression.
“I think you’re right, Player, but how would he know about the bomb? How could anyone know unless he saw you building them as a child?” She put the notebook down and rubbed her chin on her knee. “He would have had to know about not only your illusions but the fact that your illusions can morph into reality if you suffer a brain injury.”
He shook his head. “It can happen if I hold an illusion too long.”
“Not even your brothers and sisters knew that, right? Czar didn’t know. You went there the other night to tell him. You were so upset that you’d held that information back from him. If none of them knew, who could have known? An instructor at the school? Did Sorbacov know? Could he have told someone?”
Player tilted his neck until he rested the back of his head against the headboard. “That’s a lot of questions, babe. I have no idea who could have known. Not one of the instructors. Certainly, none of the other students. My people had eyes on me, and they didn’t catch on. The other kids didn’t know me that well. They wouldn’t have had a clue even if a life-sized bunny hopped through the room. Sorbacov is a different story. It’s difficult to say what he knew. He had cameras planted everywhere. Once we began to kill . . .” He broke off and glanced at her.
Zyah pressed her lips together and then looked down at her hands. Player had lived a horrific life. They couldn’t pretend he hadn’t, and they couldn’t tiptoe around it, not if they were going to be together in the way she needed to be with him. She wanted a total connection. A total sharing between them. She wasn’t the kind of woman to be in a partial relationship. It was all or nothing for her. If he didn’t feel the same way, she needed to know that now.
“I realize you and the others had no choice, Player. Not only do I believe you had no choice to do what you did, I think there was justice in it. I don’t like the fact that you were children—babies, really—but there was no one else. If you were going to survive, how else were you going to do it? Ask nicely? I doubt if that would have gotten you anywhere.”
Player touched her face with gentle fingers, brushed across her lips and then down her chin. “I don’t know how I got so lucky to meet someone like you. I don’t like that you have to share what happened to me when I have nightmares—and I have them all the time. I don’t normally build real bombs. I build bombs that don’t work just to clear my mind. But you shouldn’t have to see that world I grew up in, and if you stick with me, Zyah, it will continue to happen.”
Zyah shrugged. “I like the intimacy of telepathic communication, which means being in your mind. I like knowing things about you that you don’t share with others.” Not even his Torpedo Ink brothers and sisters, but she didn’t say that aloud. “If you’re going to have a real relationship with me, and I’m not saying you are because I just don’t know if I can trust this yet, I won’t settle for second best. I won’t settle for halfway. That means occasionally neither one of us is going to be comfortable.”
“I said you shouldn’t have to see the world I grew up in, baby, I didn’t say I wasn’t willing for you to see it. I think it’s a little late to pretend I’m Prince Charming.” He gave her a little half smile that tugged at the corners of her heart. “I’m willing to take you any way I can get you. One tiny piece of you at a time. And I’m not so proud I won’t tell you so.”
She lowered her lashes, veiling the expression in her eyes. He could read her so easily. That gift he’d given her. The basket was right there. So close. The contents exactly right for her and thoughtful. “You have to stop saying things like that.”
Deliberately, she turned her attention back to her grandfather’s drawing. “Do you really believe that you can see something in his drawing that I haven’t, when I’ve looked at it for all these years? And my grandmother. If she knew, surely she would have said something to me.”
“I’ve considered that,” Player said. He slid from the bed again and walked over to where the picture was hung on the wall.
Zyah’s heart accelerated, pounding hard. She hadn’t wanted to believe her grandfather’s art had anything to do with the entity that had been in her bedroom, but now that she wasn’t certain, she didn’t want Player anywhere near it. She jumped up and quickly turned on the light, dispelling the shadows, hopefully making it impossible for the thing—or person—to sneak back.
Player glanced at her over his shoulder. “He can’t get back right now.”
“How do you know?”
She came up to him, quite close, one arm sliding around his waist, not-so-subtly hinting. He reacted exactly the way she knew he would—he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, her front to his ribs, tucking her close the way he so often did. She took a deep breath, inhaling him into her lungs, and then turned her head to look at the picture.
Every line, thin or thick, was so familiar to her. She knew them by heart. The frame, that beautifully rolled frame, carved with such loving detail into an intricate scroll of ancient time, complete with symbols. She’d traced every one of them a thousand times and pressed kisses onto her fingertips and then onto those etchings just to connect with her father. She moved her head from side to side, fast and then slow, to try to see if the lines in the drawing changed at all. Once or twice she thought they did, but nothing very significant, and it could have been an illusion, simply because Player had suggested it.
“What do you see when you look at the print?”
“I see the schematics for a bomb.” He delivered the news softly. Gently. That same low voice he spoke with every day. Not like he was crushing her. Or would be crushing her grandmother if what he said was the truth.
She tried to pull away from him, but his arm tightened around her.
“Don’t, Zyah. We want honesty between us. I don’t have to be right. You asked me a question, and I answered you truthfully. I didn’t want to. I could have lied to you. I know if I’m right this is really fucked up. But my brain works out puzzles. I don’t even consciously do it half the time. I stared at this drawing from the bed for hours when I first came here. It intrigued me. I couldn’t look away. Sometimes I thought it was pulling me into it.”
“Your mind automatically goes to putting together bombs when you’re upset, Player,” she pointed out, looking for a reasonable explanation. There were many. There had to be many. “You had a massive brain injury. It was natural for your brain to go to the one thing that’s your fallback when you are severely injured and traumatized.”
He didn’t just dismiss her explanation out of hand. He considered it carefully. “That’s reasonable, Zyah. I thought of that too. But it doesn’t explain the fact that this bomb is one I’d never seen before. And it’s very real. It works. Or that I studied the picture for hours from every angle while I was in this room and I could see it very differently. I’ve been here for weeks now. I know there has to be a device to read it somewhere. An object that the drawin
g is viewed through. Your grandfather was a genius to create this picture and have it be right out in the open and no one suspect.”
Zyah did her best to have an open mind and process what he was telling her. Was it possible? “If my grandfather actually did what you’re saying he did, that means he came up with the plans for building a new bomb, right?”
“He was a physicist, right?”
She was silent for a while, staring at the drawing that had suddenly taken on a sinister implication. She sighed. “I don’t want to sleep in this room, Player. We should put a cover over this until we figure out what really is going on. Or better yet, get it out of the house.”
“I agree. I think it’s gotten to a very dangerous stage. I need to know who that man is. He isn’t an entity from another world or another time period. That’s a flesh-and-blood man from the here and now. He knows us. He looked right at us.”
“Do you think he has anything to do with the robberies? Or the attempted kidnapping?” An icy shiver crept down her spine.
“No, I think this is entirely separate. I’d be surprised if he knows about the robberies or attempted kidnapping. He wants the bomb.”
“I just don’t understand how he got into the bedroom.” She forced herself to look at the drawing again. She didn’t want to touch it. Nothing about the entire matter made any sense to her. She knew about psychic gifts. She believed in them. She had experienced evidence of them. She’d even seen what the repercussions of talents going wrong could do just in Player with his brain injury and migraines. This was an entirely different level of psychic phenomenon, and it creeped her out.
Player was silent. She could tell he was studying the drawing carefully, his eyes moving over it line by line, quadrant by quadrant. There was no hurry. He did the same with the frame. “I would like to ask your grandmother if we could show this to Czar.”
Zyah turned her face up to his, completely horrified. “You cannot take this drawing over to Czar’s house, where Blythe and those children are. I was considering burning it.”
Player’s blue eyes warmed, crinkled around the edges. “Babe. Really? You’re going to burn our mystery? I thought the clubhouse or my house, where no one is. Czar might be able to identify him. I caught a few more details than you did. You didn’t read all of my notes. I also want to ask your grandmother a few questions. I think your grandfather had an item that was used to view the drawing through that would show the schematics of the bomb. It’s far too intricate for anyone to just take a chance for someone like me to come along.”
“I doubt there are very many people like you, Player.” Zyah didn’t think there was anyone like him. If that drawing really did have the plans for making a bomb, she doubted if anyone else ever would have seen it. “I’m not sleeping in here.”
“We’ll go in the guest room. Tomorrow, let’s take your grandmother out. She’s really tired of being cooped up. I can ask her if we can take the drawing to show Czar and the others and see if she’ll talk about it. She’d like the Floating Hat. I’d also like to take her to Crow 287. She’s so much stronger now, and if she stays inside much longer, she’ll get depressed. You could call a few of her friends to meet us at the restaurant. Let’s make this happen for her, Zyah.”
There was an odd melting sensation in the region of her heart. He was making it impossible not to fall harder for him. He had been very caring of her grandmother even when his brain injury was at its most severe. Now he was so thoughtful in the midst of some man staring at them malevolently right in the room he’d been sleeping in.
“Let’s take the picture off the wall, cover it and put it in the garage until we can get it out of here,” Zyah decided. “We’ll go to sleep in the guest room and figure the rest out in the morning. I’m so tired I can hardly stand up.”
“I’ll take care of the picture, baby. You crawl into bed. I’ll be right back up.”
That was Player. Always thinking about her. She was gratified he was no longer pushing her away. She didn’t know why he’d suddenly made the decision to let her all the way in, but when she needed him the most, he was there for her. Still, she wanted to be a little cautious. Just a little, in case at the end of all of this he pulled back, or worse, he wanted her more for the wrong reasons than the right ones. She sighed. She was tired and she was overthinking. She did that and she had to stop.
SIXTEEN
Player settled Anat’s wheelchair right up to the table close to the window so she could look out onto the street of Sea Haven yet see everything taking place in the Floating Hat. She nearly glowed, her dark eyes bright. He knew Zyah would be like her as she aged. A woman always positive, always bringing the sun with her everywhere she went.
He recognized Sabelia, the clerk, immediately when she came to take their order. She was extremely sweet to Anat and Zyah, engaging them in conversation about various teas and scones. He realized, as he inhaled the fragrance in the shop, that he’d been looking forward to bringing the two women there, not dreading it.
Blythe was meeting them, which would make it easier for him to fade into the background and just enjoy watching Zyah make new friends. That was what he wanted for her. She hadn’t had the time since she’d been back to connect with other women. Anat told him Zyah stayed very close to her, rarely leaving her those first few days, and then she was working. Player wanted her to have her own circle of women friends and feel comfortable reaching out to them if she needed to. He knew he wasn’t going to always be the easiest man to live with.
When Blythe walked in, she wasn’t alone. Anya, Reaper’s woman, was with her. Anya had long wavy dark hair and emerald-green eyes. She was tall like Blythe, and worked as a bartender with Preacher in Caspar at their very popular bar. No one knew how she’d managed to tame Reaper, but she had. She was definitely the center of Reaper’s world.
Player made the introductions. “Anat, these are two of the women I consider family: Blythe, Czar’s wife, and Anya, Reaper’s woman. This is Anat and Zyah.” Where Anya was tall and dark, Blythe was tall and blond.
“I know Blythe,” Anat said. “Inez introduced us.”
Blythe nodded. “We did meet. It was quite a while ago. You have a good memory, Anat. You came to one of the classes I was teaching on spinning yarn. And, of course, Zyah and I met the other night. It’s so nice to see you again.”
“Lovely to meet you, Anya,” Zyah greeted. “Have you been here before?”
“I haven’t,” Anya admitted. “Blythe told us about it. I wanted to meet you, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to get to do both.”
The women at once began to talk, laughing together as if they were good friends. Player found himself watching Zyah’s face, the way her eyes lit up. He enjoyed hearing her genuine laughter. After the fear in her from the night before, he was grateful that he’d thought to bring them to Hannah’s tea shop. There was something very magical about her shop. He couldn’t say what it was, but he felt it and knew the women did as well.
“Before I leave you to it, ladies, I want to ask Blythe a quick question,” he interrupted. “You know quite a bit about physical therapy, don’t you? At least Czar told me you do.”
She nodded. “I’m certified as a therapist. Hopefully, I can answer your question if you have one for me.”
“Anat has been doing therapy on her arm, and she’s been doing quite well. Before, she’d been doing therapy on her leg and it became very painful. When Zyah took her back in for more X-rays, they had to reset her leg. She’ll have to start over again and is about to do so. When she’d told the therapist that it was hurting her to do the exercises, the therapist dismissed her concerns and told her a little pain was necessary. She’s been going along all this time, doing great with her arm. I’ve stayed in the room with her. Lately, the therapist has been trying to get me to leave. She insisted yesterday, and I finally did, but then Anat told me the exercises were very painful an
d the therapist said the same thing to her—that pain was necessary for improvement. I didn’t like that she insisted I leave the room. Why would that be necessary when Anat always did the work with me there? And why is pain so necessary?”
Zyah leaned toward her grandmother. “You didn’t tell me about this.”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
Zyah sighed. “You should have told me immediately. You should have called me when I was at work. And, Player, that therapist can’t order you out of the room. If you feel something’s wrong, don’t leave her. The therapist can leave. We’ll find someone else.”
“Actually, Zyah’s right, Player,” Blythe agreed. “There is no need for Anat to hurt when she’s doing her exercises. And certainly no reason for you to be out of the room, especially when you’ve been there all along and she’s worked without a problem. I don’t ever want to say anything against another therapist, but she doesn’t seem the right fit for Anat.”
“I have to agree with that,” Player said. He smiled at the older woman. “You’re always so sweet to everyone, Anat. It isn’t that she’d get fired. She just wouldn’t work for you specifically. There are a lot of other patients for her to work with. She travels, remember? The clinic hired her to work with their overflow of patients. We’ll find someone much more suited to you, especially now that you’re going to start work on your leg again. Zyah can call your doctor for another reference.”
“I really don’t want that poor girl to lose her job, Player. She’s very nice. She just gets so rough at times,” Anat said. “She tells the most interesting stories. I really like her.”
“You like everyone, Mama Anat,” Zyah pointed out. “That’s why everyone loves you so much.” She covered her grandmother’s hand with her own. “My grandfather was so crazy in love with her, he spent months drawing her a picture for their anniversary. Months. It was done in charcoal. When she left everything behind and came to the United States, she brought me and the picture.”
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