Dark Legacy

by Anna DeStefano

  “Honey, please—”

  Maddie punched the phone off.

  Perfect Maddie…the voice mocked.

  “Get out,” she snarled at the voice and her unwanted guest.

  “You’re a lot feistier now.” Jarred smiled, not seeming to mind. “Rude, even.”

  Actually, Maddie wasn’t rude. Ever. She didn’t think of people as assholes, and she didn’t scream at her mother. Sarah was the unpredictable, disrespectful twin. She’d never cared who saw the crazy inside her. Or maybe she’d just been too far gone to hide it by the time Maddie had been old enough to really notice. And Maddie had convinced herself that the same thing wouldn’t happen to her. That if she just tried hard enough, let herself buy her mother’s warped view of the world and shoved down all the questions and the confusion of the past, she could have this wonderful life that was dying before her eyes.

  Maddie didn’t bother wiping at her tears. “Look, I know today was a disaster. I’ll e-mail the chief of staff my resignation in the morning. Consider yourself off the hook.”

  She was at the door. The door Jarred had left open, as if he’d sensed she’d feel safer that way. She yanked it wider. Stared at the floor. Waited for him to catch a clue. Jarred walked closer, but stopped in front of her instead of leaving. She could feel him staring. Wondering. Leaning in.

  She flinched away.

  Whimpered.

  Relax…

  The word, in Jarred’s voice this time, echoed through her mind.

  “So, it’s not just when you touch a patient?” he said out loud.

  She left him and the door behind.

  “Get out!” Her body was shaking. She couldn’t fall apart like this in front of him.

  “If being around other people is this difficult, how do you handle the ER?”

  His voice was so soothing, brushing across her frazzled nerves. Where had soothing come from? She wanted smug back. She needed smug back.

  “You want to tell me what happened with that patient today?” he pressed. “Don’t bother saying it was nothing, because I felt it, too. At least some of it. Like I felt your anger during our appointment when I tried to make you talk about your twin. Even if you don’t want to analyze what’s happening to you, I do. Whatever this is, I’m a part of it now. Accept that and—”

  He paused when she stumbled farther out of reach. Away from the instinct to trust him. To let this dangerous, tempting man even further in. To scream her confusion and keep on screaming until something, anything made sense.

  “Okay.” He slowly followed her across the room. “Let’s talk about tomorrow, then.”

  The hallway bathroom was just behind her. The kitchen to her right, and beyond it the side door of her corner, ground-floor apartment. She’d left the dead bolt off. If she ran fast enough—

  “Where will you go?” he asked, as if he knew what she was thinking.

  Don’t run from me, Maddie, his thoughts pleaded. Thoughts that she shouldn’t be able to feel so clearly—not without Sarah there to fuel the kind of emotional connection Maddie had never achieved on her own.

  “Stop doing that,” she begged.

  “Doing what?”

  She sprinted for the back door. Hard hands yanked her to a halt from behind. Jarred’s breath brushed her cheek. Needs from long ago, from when she’d been sixteen and still let herself need, rushed back.

  No more barriers.

  No more safe.

  No more careful.

  “Talk to me, Temple,” Jarred insisted.

  Trust me just this once, was his unspoken plea.

  “No!” Maddie lifted a fist to her pounding head. Pressed her other hand to her churning stomach. It was too much. All of it, too much. His thoughts. Her patient’s. Sarah’s…

  None of them should be in her head.

  “You’re making yourself sick.” He steered her toward the couch and let her slide down until she crumpled into her snowy-white blankets and pillows. “Just like at the hospital this morning when I thought you were going to beat Britton to a pulp, which I personally would have enjoyed watching. But then you almost passed out in the hallway.”

  “You’re making me sick.”

  Jarred and the thought of what it must have been like for her twin to go through this their entire childhood. Always open. No way out. The panic attacks and the constant fear. It had driven Sarah over the edge. Maddie panted. Swallowed. Pulled the blanket to her chin. She was so cold.

  “You’re…” She had no idea what to say next.

  “How am I making you sick?” Jarred planted his hands on his hips, just above the age-worn jeans he always wore beneath his lab coat. “I’m offering a friend the courtesy of my best professional advice. But you seem convinced there’s nothing I can do to help you.”

  There was nothing anyone could do, Maddie finally accepted. The nightmares were going to win. The guilt and the pain. The confusion. Feeling and knowing things she shouldn’t. Other people’s things. The same darkness Sarah had fallen into—the sister no one at St. Chris but this man knew about. Because Maddie had had been so determined to believe that there was no legacy of gifts the women in her family couldn’t control. No spiraling need to—

  Die!

  “Don’t.” Jarred pried Maddie’s left hand away from her other wrist.

  Her nails had been scratching. Scraping. The bloody slashes on her skin oozed sullenly. Maddie flinched, horrified by what she’d done, and by the terrifying calm that came with the pain. The craving inside for more.

  Jarred let her go, taking his heat with him. When he knelt in front of the couch, his eyes were an infinite crystal blue. Confused. Worried. Kind. Saying, Trust me, Maddie…

  “I can feel it, too.” His voice was a whisper now. “I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it, and it’s getting stronger. I don’t understand, but…” He studied her abused wrist. Pulled out a clean handkerchief and covered the scrapes, pressing gently. Maddie was too drained to resist. Too stunned by the peace seeping into her from Jarred’s touch.

  I can feel it, too…his voice whispered through her mind.

  When she could only stare, he sighed.

  “I want to know how you do it,” he said out loud. “How you do whatever you did for that man this morning. I saw it, I felt it. But a part of me still can’t believe it. Let me help you deal with whatever this is, Maddie. Screw your job at St. Chris and what the administration thinks. I’ll figure out some way to deal with them. To buy you more time. But you have to stop insisting that you can fix this…whatever this is…yourself. You’re the most instinctive healer I’ve ever met, and you’re on the edge of a complete breakdown that’s about to take away everything you’ve worked for. Is that what you want? Do you want to be locked up for the rest of your life, just like Sarah?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Die!”

  The command echoed through the night. Not the Raven’s voice. The darkness had never been about the Raven. Sarah could feel him fighting to stop it. To stop her. But the dream’s control belonged to neither of them.

  The command to kill was too powerful. Impossible to deny no matter how strong her mind had become. And it was all the Raven’s fault. He’d promised she’d never be here. She’d never become what they wanted her to be.

  Sarah fought the drugs and the simulation protocol. The shadows. The dark impulse to kill. She wasn’t doing this. She wasn’t Death. It was just a dream that she should be able to stop, the same way she had last time. But this time she couldn’t halt the inevitable. She’d never be able to, without…

  Maddie…

  Sarah’s mind reached for her last resort. For her twin’s emotional balance. The opposite of the weak, uncontrollable destruction that Sarah was becoming. But even though Maddie’s mind was there, on the fringes of the dream, she was closed off now. Resisting Sarah’s call. Determined not to let her in ever again.

  So, like a good little girl, Sarah triggered Kayla Lawrence’s death. Choking on useless
tears, soundlessly screaming, she painted her host’s dream world with a nightmare programmed by a psychotic master. Then she was trapped, no way out, watching the dream unfold. A lucid nightmare, because her host was awake now. Daydreaming.

  Like a captive, horrified conductor, Sarah watched Kayla reach into the bedside table drawer. Remove the gun she’d thought she’d thrown away after waking from last night’s simulation. Check to ensure it was loaded. Smile in satisfaction. Peace. Relief. Seductive emotions that had been planted to give the host a false sense of safety, once everything was in place.

  But Kayla was cringing now, aware that something was wrong…straining to regain control from the dream. Failing. Because Sarah’s mind was dutifully pushing the nightmare toward its predesigned end…

  The Raven screamed in denial. His wings spread.

  Bare tree limbs swayed.

  The gun fired.

  A scream ripped through the night.

  “No!”

  Sarah bolted from her prone position. Upright. Blind. The tug of tubes and embedded wires bit into her arms. Her chest. Her face and scalp.

  “Daddy!”

  She’d killed him. Her father had been dead forever. But in her shadow dreams she killed him again. Over and over. And this time, she’d taken another life, too.

  “Oh, God,” she sobbed. She’d killed him. She’d killed Kayla. She was Death now, just like they wanted.

  “Damn it, take her down!” demanded the voice that had refused to let her go.

  Sarah’s Raven.

  The voice that had called into her darkness and pulled her mind back. Then he’d made her dream. Told her it was the only way. Her only chance to live again. He’d promised to teach her. Train her. Give her the strength she’d never had before. Make sure she stayed free of the darkness forever.

  “What the hell…” He was muttering. But she couldn’t focus on the words. “…doing awake!”

  His voice wasn’t echoing through her mind, she realized. He was above her this time, beyond the nightmare. She recoiled. Panicked. Grasped for the clarity that came only with her simulations. But her host was gone. The gentle spirit the Raven had taught her to link with. Kayla was dead. There was nothing out there for Sarah to immerse herself in. Nothing to see, to feel, that wasn’t her own mind or the Raven’s. And she’d never trust him again.

  No host. No Maddie. No dreams. Because…

  God! I’m awake!

  Sarah fought against the arms forcing her down.

  “Secure her leads,” the Raven commanded. “Reset audio stimuli.”

  Her ears were covered.

  The sound of wind and storm and haunted rustling returned. Weakness stole through her veins as the drugs took hold. But their pull was weaker than before. Or was she growing stronger? Was that even possible? She’d been dreaming for so long. Forever. Believing it would free her. Believing the Raven. Performing on command. Meanwhile, she’d been trained to kill, too. To become Death.

  She shuddered, nightmarish screams haunting her.

  “Reset, Alpha,” the Raven whispered into her ear. Into her mind. Her programming lured her into a resting state, and in her mind she saw the Raven spread his black wings. She heard the wind howling through rustling, skeletal branches.

  “Reset to zero,” he insisted.

  Zero—Dream protocol complete.

  Time to rest, until the Raven was ready for her to dream again. Maybe another dream of death. A dream she would find a way to control next time. Because for a moment just now, she’d been beyond anyone’s reach. And whatever it took, she would find her way back to that place.

  They called her Alpha. The beginning of their plans. But one day very soon, she would be the end. Even if she had to disappear back into the darkness to make sure the nightmares stopped. But this time she wouldn’t be going alone.

  This time, Death would be taking the Raven with her.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Do you want to be locked up for the rest of your life, just like Sarah?

  Jarred joined Maddie on the couch as his question visibly shook her. He was holding his breath, he realized. Willing Maddie to try. To keep fighting whatever was consuming her.

  The serenity of her apartment finally registered. Muted colors of pure white and soothing blues surrounded them. Every edge was softened by pillows or billowing fabric. A full moon shined its ethereal light through opaque sheers. This place was more than Maddie’s home. Her apartment was a protective cocoon for a battered healer. Somewhere to recharge after the day’s fighting was done. This was Maddie’s sanctuary. At least it had been at one time. She looked anything but tranquil now.

  “Your sister was sixteen when she had her first psychotic break.” He eyed Maddie’s reaction to him picking up where their conversation had left off in that morning’s session. “She’d likely been bipolar for years before that. Increasingly altered, according to the records I read. The tendency to disassociate is hereditary, Maddie, but—”

  “Hereditary?” She shrank into the cushions. Then in a rush, she was in his face, grabbing fists full of his sweater. “A tendency to dissociate? Is that really the best you’ve got, Doctor!”

  She pushed him away, stronger than she appeared. Then she stumbled to her feet. When she tried to run, she tripped over the blanket. Jarred caught her before she hit the floor. He broke her fall with his body, then rolled her to her back.

  “Stop it, or you’ll—”

  “Hurt myself?” Her nails dug into his forearms. “Hurt you?”

  “Like Sarah hurt people?”

  The startled fear on Maddie’s face sliced into his heart. “Please,” she begged. “Don’t. I—”

  “Like your sister hurt you and your family?” he continued, hating the pain he was piling on top of the landslide of emotions she was already enduring.

  “St…Stop it.” Tears trickled down her cheek. A violent shiver roamed her body.

  “I can’t help you, if you won’t tell me how this started. I’m betting the two of you were close, before your twin’s condition spiraled out of control. Now you seem to almost hate her.”

  The archived news articles he’d dug up when he should have been plowing through paperwork hadn’t revealed much about Sarah beyond what her medical records told him. But he’d learned more than enough about what had happened to Maddie’s family, to understand why the instant attraction between the two of them had spooked her. Of course letting anyone close again would seem threatening, after losing her sister and her father that way.

  “You didn’t just see what happened when Sarah began to lose herself,” he pressed. He couldn’t believe he was entertaining such an outlandish explanation. But somehow he knew he was right. “You…felt what happened to your twin, didn’t you? Like you felt that patient’s injuries this morning.”

  Maddie’s fingers slid from his arms. Her body fell slack as she withdrew into that mind he wanted—needed—to understand.

  “Somehow,” he added, “you survived what happened to your family. You thrived. Excelled, after a trauma that should have devastated you. But something happened along the way. At some point over the last year, you stopped being able to deal with people and their feelings. With the patients and doctors constantly streaming in and out of the ER. And…” It was difficult to believe. “…No matter how much you’ve resisted my help or Yates’s, I think you’ve known what’s been happening since it started. Because…you felt the same thing happen before—to Sarah.”

  He let Maddie slide from beneath him.

  “I c-c-can’t do this.” She trembled as she stood. Instead of bolting for the door again she slowly headed for the kitchen, her expression a devastating blank. “I tried. I thought I could take the control back. Focus. Get better so I could get back to work…But I can’t. I…need…I need to…”

  Jarred could hear her teeth chattering. But nothing showed on her face when she turned toward him. That degree of internalization could rip a mind apart.

  “Stop tr
ying to handle this on your own.” He reached his feet, too, but he didn’t shadow her this time. He’d already pushed too hard. Too much. Be her doctor, man. Keep her safe. Nothing else matters right now. “Whatever condition you and your twin share, it’s better to face it than keep hiding. Once we’re sure what we’re dealing with, we can figure out a solution.”

  “We?”

  “Together,” he promised.

  Jarred had no business promising her anything—not when it was clear that his involvement was part of what was terrifying Maddie. He should leave and transfer her case to another doctor who would monitor and manage it more professionally. He’d almost convinced himself to do just that, screw his selfish compulsion to keep this woman close, when Maddie drew a revolver from the drawer of the cabinet she’d stopped beside.

  Fuck!

  “Temple…” He breathed her name calmly, while he mentally kicked his own ass for not hospitalizing her when he’d had the chance. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I don’t want to…” She stared at the gun, gone from him.

  He felt it, as if she were someone else, somewhere else, and the nightmarish image before him was just a dream. She didn’t see him slide closer as she lifted the deadly monster. Turned it. Pointed it at her head.

  “I can’t m-make it s-s-stop,” she said. “I-I have to—”

  He grabbed her hand and pulled the gun away from her head.

  “No!” She fought him.

  “Drop it!” He yanked her arm down. Pried her fingers back until he could rip the weapon away. “You’re smarter than this, Maddie. You’re a fighter. You battled for that father’s life today. What the hell are you doing trying to throw yours away!”

  “Like you care.” Her voice was deeper. Not her own. “Like any of you fuckers care. Just let me die, before—”