Jon's Downright Ridiculous Shooting Case

by A J Sherwood

  The thought that I wouldn’t have had this three weeks ago crossed my mind and it honestly scared me for a minute. I’d come so close to losing all of this. If I hadn’t gone and peeked at the guy being interviewed, if I hadn’t forced Jim into hiring him…there were too many if’s for my peace of mind. Just one of those was one too much.

  Maybe I’d acquired enough good karma in my lifetime to deserve him. Maybe that was it. I couldn’t explain my good fortune otherwise. “Hey, Donovan.”

  “Yeah?” he whispered against the back of my head.

  “After this, let’s take a long weekend. I feel like we need three days of peace to ourselves.”

  “I’m all for that. And I want more hands-on practice on being your anchor before you throw yourself into the lurch like this again.”

  I almost nodded before I thought better of it. “Okay. It’ll be easier on both of us if we do. We have to finish the process to get your license too. Jim needs to give us three days just to get all of that done.”

  “I must love you to do all that paperwork,” he groaned.

  Patting his hand in a consoling manner, I didn’t comment. I rather felt the same way about it, just in the reverse. The paperwork on my end was just as intense.

  “So after this, what happens?” Donovan mused aloud. “I’m assuming Alice Thompson is going straight into a psychiatric ward somewhere.”

  “Probably. When her alternate personalities are shooting at people, that’s a pretty safe bet. And it’s obvious she needs help and hasn’t really gotten it. At least in a psych ward, she’ll get it. I don’t know what Chen Li will do, though. He can try suing the family for damages, but…I mean, I understand they’re pretty poor. I can’t imagine he’ll get much out of it.”

  “I wouldn’t blame him for trying, though. He’s got hospital bills to cover, if nothing else.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t blame him for it. That whole family—well, aside from the sister—really screwed Alice over. I feel like they’re mostly responsible for this mess.” I lifted the mask a half inch and took a peek. Unlike previous times, when everything still looked shifty and bleeding around the corners, I stared at a normal wall. Next to a normal bed, with normal sheets. Lifting it a bit more, I took a better look around.

  Donovan leaned up onto an elbow, peering down at me. “How you doing?”

  “Odd,” I answered slowly, lifting the mask completely off. “I’m normally flat on my back with my vision screwing with me for hours, but right now everything looks normal.”

  “You’re welcome,” he told me smugly, rubbing a palm against my chest.

  I had to laugh at that, then groaned and held still. Okay, laughing while coming off a migraine was a poor life decision.

  His sharp eyes caught my reaction and he observed calmly, “You’re not ready to leave the room yet, though.”

  “No. But it gives me hope that I can face the world before midnight.”

  Settling back down, he cuddled in again. “That’s fine. We’ll just wait.”

  A soft knock at the door before it cracked open a half inch. “Hey, guys. Donovan’s mom is here with food?”

  I knew that Donovan had called his mother at some point so it didn’t surprise me that she arrived with food in hand. But the idea of seeing any of the Havili family without a blackout curtain around me nearly sent me right back into that migraine. Donovan was one thing. His family was a whole other story.

  Patting my shoulder, Donovan slipped out of the room, and I could hear the deep rumbles of his voice as he spoke. Several minutes passed before he slipped back in with a plate, utensils, and a bottle of water tucked under his arm. I shifted up to accept it, mouth-watering from the divine smell and look of all that lovely food. “I love your mother. I might leave you for her.”

  “This before you even take a bite,” he teased, eyes crinkling up in a laugh. “She’s really worried about you.”

  “I can tell, this is twice the amount of food she normally tries to feed me.” Not that I would complain. Breakfast was hours ago, I’d skipped lunch, and my stomach felt like a yawning pit of despair. I tucked in, moaning in bliss as the food distracted my body from the pounding in between my temples. The food helped, actually. “Tell her thank you for me?”

  “Sure.” Donovan stepped out again, speaking in a low, soothing voice, his mother’s lighter voice responding.

  I hummed happily as I continued to eat. Being cared for like this was very nice; I could definitely get used to it.

  Epilogue

  Sitting next to my boyfriend of three weeks, I tried very hard not to glower. Jon didn’t seem to have any issue with us being formally interviewed by a government official—a counsellor, actually—there to verify not only that we were bound, but that we had no issues with our change in relationship status either. It all made sense to me. I mean, just because people could be psychically linked to each other didn’t mean that everything would be hunky dory. I’d had enough disagreements with Jon over the past two weeks to make that very obvious, even if his mother’s history with Rodger didn’t serve as a warning. Technically, I understood why counsellors were assigned to newly bonded pairs and approved the process overall.

  Problem was, I really didn’t like the counsellor that we’d been handed.

  She’d insisted that we meet her at her office, despite Jon’s leeriness about being around all of the electronics in the building. It set him ever so slightly on edge, which I, in turn, didn’t appreciate. The building looked like most government offices—white walls, mass-produced furniture, touches of personal photographs and certifications scattered throughout to soften the impression of sterility. More than a few diplomas and awards graced the walls; maybe that experience gave her some sort of inflated ego. The way she greeted us when we came in was high-handed and put us immediately on the wrong footing.

  My boyfriend took this in stride. Jon’s personality type encouraged him to be polite to people, subtly charming, even when facing a hardened criminal. A bland smile lingered on his face as he sat in the chair across from Ms. Iris Heath, for all the world at ease. But I knew this man. I could read him—not as well as he could read me, of course, but I could see the strain. When Jon got uncomfortable, he became very still, tucking his arms in against his chest tightly, as if drawing himself into the smallest possible space. That smile told me he wasn’t comfortable too. My Jon was expressive, emotive, his smiles always bright. If he’d locked his expression down like this, then he didn’t like the situation or what he saw.

  And that told me all I really needed to know.

  He’d not flashed me either of our signs, though. This woman didn’t fall into the area of trouble, but I’d bet she wasn’t made of sugar and milk, either. I would be very careful in answering her questions.

  Heath sat in her plush, faux-leather chair and gave us a polished greeting. “Thank you for coming. This is just a routine interview, although of course, if I see something that needs to be addressed, we’ll continue with our sessions. Now, for the record, you’ve been bonded for how long exactly?”

  Yeah, that was the question, wasn’t it? In truth, we had no idea. It’d taken Carol to see it. I chose to count from that day, but Jon didn’t know where to count from. He was also a very terrible liar, so I took that question. “About nineteen days.”

  She gathered up a binder and scribbled a note one of the many forms. “I see. Tell me why you made that decision, what prompted you to offer yourself as anchor, Mr. Havili.”

  Aw damn. She would ask that. I shot Jon a look, questioning how he wanted to play this. He responded with a helpless shrug of the hands. Truth, then? Sighing in resignation, I braced myself. “Technically, I didn’t.”

  The pen paused and Heath shot me a surprised look. “You didn’t?”

  “We, ah, didn’t discuss bonding at all. It just sort of happened.” That expression on her face told me plenty about how she didn’t like that answer. “I really wanted to, but Jon’s got a bad history with anchor
s and bonding and stuff from his parents. He’s more cautious regarding that. We’d just started dating; neither of us really expected to have that conversation for a while.”

  In his soft tenor, Jon elaborated, “In fact, we’re not entirely sure when we bonded. It was another psychic who observed we were and said something. I didn’t consciously bond with him.”

  Heath sat back with a huff of astonishment. “You expect me to believe that? Psychics don’t subconsciously bond with people, Mr. Bane.”

  “Trust me, I know how it sounds. I was just as perturbed. But after discussing it at length with Donovan, I believe I know what happened. He wished very strongly to be my anchor. And even before we started dating, he acted much as an anchor should. I believe my mind subconsciously realized he would be the perfect person to anchor to, and it took matters from there. As you can see, the bond’s quite well formed.”

  Her eyes searched his, narrowing behind her glasses. “So do you wish to break the bond?”

  Alarm shot through me. Why did she jump to that conclusion? “NO.”

  She jumped as I barked out that word, startled. Jon put a hand over mine, squeezing reassuringly, and I latched onto him in turn. It didn’t matter that she had no power to break us apart. Just the idea scared me right down to my core. I refused to lose this man, no matter what form that took, and I wouldn’t leave him defenseless against the world. He’d pulled through alright on his own, but he didn’t need to fight that battle alone anymore. Not with me right here.

  Heath studied me curiously, like some bug under a microscope. “It’s a perfectly valid question, Mr. Havili. Please don’t get upset. If a psychic has formed a bond without your consent—”

  “What part of ‘I really wanted to’ did you not catch?” I cut her off, using my sergeant voice. Known to put the fear of God into privates, I was satisfied seeing her squirm as well. “I’m perfectly, one hundred percent okay with us being bonded. I absolutely do not want to break it.”

  She regarded our clasped hands, and I could see that she didn’t actually like the idea of us being together; there was a hint of distaste in the flat line of her lips and the way she went taut in her chair, but that didn’t come out of her mouth. Either she wasn’t strongly homophobic or she was too professional to let it slip. Instead, she asked Jon with cool appraisal, “And you, Mr. Bane? You didn’t make a conscious decision to bond. At this stage, we can—”

  “No,” Jon said firmly. He was never loud, my lover, and wasn’t now. Still, that word echoed through the room like a gunshot. I’d seen him mad before, upset and overwhelmed, but never like this. Wax figurines had more expression than Jon did at this moment. Some part of my mind catalogued that look for future reference: this was how he looked when perfectly furious.

  Holding up both hands in surrender, Heath glanced between us. “You understand why I have to ask.”

  “Maybe I do, but I don’t appreciate the question,” I bit off.

  Heath made another stand down motion with her hands. The woman was lucky I was not currently armed. What kind of counsellor jumped to conclusions without even listening to her patients? I’d undergone therapy after the acid attack, mostly for the anxiety that had built in me during rehab, but my therapist then had been a kind woman with a heart of gold. I adored her. Why couldn’t we have had one like that?

  Clearing her throat, she glanced down at her paperwork and forcefully moved on. “You’ve been bonded nineteen days. Any issues?”

  Like I was going to tell her that. “No.”

  She glanced up, half-over her glasses, then tucked a stray strand of blond hair behind her ear as she asked, “Mr. Bane here is completely incompatible with electronics. To the point that everyday life proves a challenge for him, and there have been no issues?”

  I stared back at her, mentally debating how to handle this. I’d been in enough therapy sessions to know that you couldn’t just give one-word answers to therapists. They didn’t take that well. You couldn’t just feed them BS either. They seemed to have a fine ear for that. The trick was giving them just enough information to appease them, make it seem rational, then hightail it as soon as possible. “I knew Jon’s limitations going in. We were work partners before we bonded, and he’s very upfront about what he can and can’t be around.”

  Jon nodded, supporting this. “It works to my advantage if everyone is aware of my effect on electronics. Donovan, especially, was my support at work, acting as an intermediary. As I said before, he was doing half the job of an anchor before we even bonded.”

  “So there’s no adjustment issues in that regard.” She made another note, the pen scratching along the paper. “Still, you’ve only known each other for—what—six weeks? Surely you have things you disagree about.”

  Only one, at the moment. I really wanted to move in with Jon. Really, really bad. But I didn’t ask, didn’t push the topic, because we’d already gone much faster than he was comfortable with. I spent half of my nights at his place, the other half remodeling my grandmother’s house. A nice, even balance. Mostly. I just didn’t feel as comfortable away from him, after everything we’d gone through. Part of my brain resided in that pre-battle stage, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I rested better if I had him with me.

  Would I tell her any of that? No way in hell.

  “He won’t let me drive,” I answered mock-seriously.

  Jon snorted and gave me that grin I adored, as if we shared a private joke just for us. “You shouldn’t text and drive, babe. It’s against the law, after all.”

  Seeing that we were kidding, Heath gave us an impatient look. “Please take that question seriously.”

  I shrugged, not willing to really help her fill out that form. “We don’t really argue.”

  “We don’t,” Jon confirmed with another soft smile at me that made my stomach do backflips. I swear, this man could stir me up with just a look. “We disagree on things sometimes, but neither of us are the argumentative sort. We find a way to talk it out, or someone compromises. If anything, my life is much easier with him in it. He can handle everything I can’t. Half of my workarounds are no longer necessary because Donovan takes care of it.”

  Heath’s mouth pursed, not agreeing. “You don’t argue at all. What about your personal relationship? Your family and friends are supportive of this?”

  I snorted a laugh, unable to stop myself. Jon snickered as well, shaking his head. “If you only knew,” he answered wryly. “My family were encouraging me to ask him out after their first meeting. His parents were excited when they learned we were dating.”

  Such an understatement. My mother was beside herself with happiness, and my father wanted to introduce Jon to everyone. And I do mean everyone. Even my sister liked him, often wanted to hang out with Jon more than me. While I knew that my family adored Jon, I also knew they felt relief for my sake. Dating had never been easy for me. Dating had been hell, in fact. I scared people by just standing there and breathing. Before meeting Jon, I’d half-given up on dating at all, on finding anyone for myself. Clubs, online dating, all of that hadn’t worked. It had only gotten worse after the acid attack, as the scars turned people further off.

  Only this man—this amazing, sweet-natured man—saw me and wanted me. I’d crushed on him initially, as he was exactly my type. I had a thing for the nerds. But it was the way he looked at me, the way he actively encouraged other people to trust me, that cemented my feelings for him. I would do anything for Jon’s sake.

  Heath tapped her pen against her chin, expression dubious. “Absolutely no one is against this?”

  “A few people on the police force aren’t really happy about it,” Jon admitted with a shrug. “But those people didn’t really like me to begin with. Our co-workers weren’t even surprised. Ms. Heath, you have to understand, I’m completely out. Have been for years. Anyone who was going to have an issue with Donovan and I being together have already had it out with me.”

  That, and the few who were stupid enough to
bring trouble to him had to deal with me. I took great pleasure in stomping them flat. “Honestly, the only problem that I have with this man is that he sometimes does things that scare the ever-living shit out of me.”

  Chuckling, he lifted my hand and kissed the back of it, eyes twinkling with laughter because, of course, he knew exactly what I referred to. I tried to stay upset with him, it was just hard to remember why I was peeved when he looked at me like that. Sunsets paled in comparison to him.

  “Now, now,” he murmured impishly. “Your sanity is my top priority, you know that.”

  “Yeah?” I challenged, determined to hold my ground. “Prove it.”

  “What are you referring to?” Heath inquired, pen poised.

  “Last case we were on, I was required to go deeper in my reading than normal,” Jon explained, still looking directly at me. “I half-collapsed afterwards and Donovan had to haul me off to recover. He wasn’t pleased.”

  Understatement of the century, right there. Jon had been curled in on himself, basically in a fetal position, radiating pain. Even though I knew what to do to help him, I still felt basically useless, and I didn’t deal well with that feeling. I hadn’t felt better until color had returned to his face and he’d stopped looking like something the cat dragged in. And that was with him doing only a ‘level two’ reading, as he puts it. What the hell happens to him at level three? Hospitalization?

  Of course, he was happy because this last time, it was easier on him. He recovered faster too, all because my anchoring gave him the shielding and grounding he needed to come back to himself. But me? It frankly scared me down to my bones. I didn’t want to see him like that ever again.

  “I see.” She scribbled some more, then paused and glanced between us thoughtfully. “Gentlemen, you’re putting up a very strong front, but there’s no such thing as a perfect partnership. I am here to help you mediate any differences.”

  Jon gave me that soft look that made me feel like I could move mountains. “I appreciate the offer, Ms. Heath, but we don’t need it.”