Black Heart

by R. L. Mathewson

  Her grip on the comforter tightened as she pulled it up to her chin, her eyes darting to the left when the sounds of softly spoken whispers reached her ears. Swallowing hard, she squeezed her eyes shut and yanked the comforter over her head all while telling herself that she wasn’t scared. She wasn’t. It was late, she was tired and everyone knew that sleeping with a comforter pulled over your head was the best way to sleep.

  Within minutes the air trapped beneath the comforter became stifling, but she ignored it along with her suddenly parched throat and the pounding of her heart as she strained her ears to listen for any sounds that would let her know that she wasn’t alone.

  She opened her mouth to call out for Tristan, but thought better of it and settled for curling up into a tight ball instead, careful not to dislodge the protective comforter from her body.

  She couldn’t call Tristan, because he’d probably have her committed. Not that she could blame him. She was hearing voices after all, she thought unhappily as she held her breath, hoping that whatever it was would just go away and leave her alone. But, she knew that it wouldn’t.

  It didn’t matter if she ignored the voices or tried to flee the room, they followed her, screamed at her and cried, breaking her heart and terrifying her at the same time. She didn’t know what to do or how much longer she was going to be able to keep this up. To be honest, she was surprised that she’d been able to keep it up this long. She’d thought by now that Tristan would have picked up on her strange behavior and asked what was going on.

  Then again, it wasn’t as though she responded to the voices or was acting crazy so maybe she shouldn’t be too surprised that he hadn’t noticed that anything was wrong. As far as Tristan was concerned, she was just having a little trouble going to sleep. He didn’t know that she was probably going crazy.

  As the whispering became louder, she wondered how she was going to explain this one to Tristan. She could lie to him and tell him that she was freezing, but that would only end with him cranking up the heat and her struggling not to pass out from heat exhaustion. Then again, she could try playing it off like she was being playful, but that would just end with them making love all night.

  Not that making love to her husband all night was an unpleasant thought. It wasn’t. If the circumstances were different, the idea of spending the night between the sheets with Tristan until the alarm forced them apart would have sent shivers of anticipation through her instead of making her feel like she was going to be sick.

  She couldn’t do this any longer. She just couldn’t. Since the voices started haunting her, she’d lost too much sleep to be healthy, lost weight, her nerves were fried and, for the past week, she hadn’t been able to hold anything down. The only time she’d managed to get any sleep was when Tristan drove her to work, but most mornings that wasn’t nearly enough to help get her through her day. It was only thanks to her frayed nerves and the fear of experiencing more of those heart-wrenching dreams that kept her from falling asleep at work.

  Every time she felt her eyes begin to close she forced them open and if that didn’t work, the voices that would suddenly scream in her ear usually did the trick. Once the voices started, they usually didn’t stop. The only time that she could escape them was if she was in a car or another voice, a man’s voice that from what she could tell so far was obsessed with Gilligan’s Island, porn, and harassing Tristan, which was odd, appeared.

  Then again, was there really anything about this situation that was normal?

  She was married to a man that had spent more than a decade pretending that he didn’t know she’d existed and then made her life a living hell once he was forced to acknowledge her. Tristan was an equal opportunity asshole, she thought with a small smile that quickly disappeared with a grimace as her stomach chose that moment to perform somersaults.

  Clamping a hand over her mouth, she squeezed her eyes shut and willed her too sensitive stomach to calm down. There was no way that she was going to leave the safety of her comforter when she knew that something in the dark was waiting for her.

  As her stomach began to settle, she couldn’t help but will a certain voice with an Irish brogue to come to her rescue and yes, sadly enough she did think of that voice as a protector of sorts. He seemed to be able to handle the voices and make them go away. In her book that made the man’s voice a godsend. The only problem was that he normally didn’t come around unless Tristan was with her.

  She should be comforted by the fact that her hallucinations liked Tristan, but oddly enough she wasn’t. It probably had something to do with the fact that she was going crazy and wouldn’t be able to hide it for very much longer. No doubt by this time next week she’d be fitted for a straight jacket while Tristan filed for divorce. Her stomach rolled violently with the thought of never seeing Tristan again.

  This wasn’t right. After everything they’d been through, they deserved a better ending than this. They deserved a real chance. They should get a chance to celebrate anniversaries, have babies and grow old together, but none of those things were going to happen now.

  When Tristan had finally managed to convince her to take a chance on him, mostly by exhausting her with sex until the point where she would have done or said anything to get some rest, she’d been afraid that Tristan would quickly regret marrying her and leave her. Never in a million years would she have ever thought that she would be the reason why things ended.

  She loved him so much and it killed her to hide this from him, but what choice did she have? Whether Tristan decided to stay with her or not, she’d already made her own decision about their marriage. She was going to leave him. It would be the hardest thing that she’d ever done, but if Tristan tried to be noble and stick it out with her, she would be forced to do what was right.

  She knew from her studies and internships what most likely waited for her. If she didn’t spend the rest of her life in and out of institutions then she’d live her life completely dependent on pills and therapy, hoping, hell, praying that she didn’t have another setback. It wasn’t an ideal life. She knew that a lot of people with mental illness managed to lead somewhat productive lives and that she’d most likely figure out how to do that with time and help, but she just couldn’t put Tristan through that.

  If he stayed with her, they would always be waiting for the day when her medication no longer worked or her problem escalated to the point that medication no longer helped her. It wasn’t the kind of life that she wanted for Tristan. She wanted him to have a real chance at happiness and if he stayed with her, he would never get that chance.

  How sad was it that she wished that those tests she’d taken when the voices first started had come back differently? she wondered with a choked sob. At least a tumor or a blockage would have explained why this was suddenly happening to her. It would have also been a lot easier to tell Tristan.

  She would have been terrified to tell him, but she would have been more terrified by the news and would have needed him. He always made her feel better and she knew that once he found out that she was losing it that he would do everything that he could to make her feel better. Just the thought of Tristan’s arms wrapped around her as he whispered in her ear that everything was going to be okay had her reconsidering holding off on telling him until she received an official diagnosis.

  Maybe she should-

  Any thoughts of confiding in Tristan evaporated when a rough, callused hand that definitely was not Tristan’s, suddenly clamped down tightly around her ankle. It was also at that point that she realized that perhaps she wasn’t crazy after all.

  *-*-*-*

  “Are ye sure that ye can’t hear that?” Shayne demanded, letting Tristan know that the night of bullshit was far from over.

  With a resigned sigh, he turned around and headed back downstairs. If he was going to be forced to hear Shayne bitch, then he was going to do it with an ice cold beer and leftover pizza. Hopefully Marty would be able to fall asleep in the meantime.

  He�
��d go check on her in a little while and if she was asleep, he’d leave her alone. He’d get some work done and then crash on the couch. He hated to do it, but she really needed some sleep and if she asked, he’d tell her that he’d fallen asleep by accident. It was a pretty believable lie since he was barely getting an hour of sleep a night, but he couldn’t completely blame the spirits for that.

  Those damn dreams on the other hand….

  They were driving him out of his fucking mind. Every time he fell asleep those damn dreams tormented him, making his heart ache and leaving him with a sense of loss and longing that left him on edge all day. On more than one occasion he’d actually found himself in the bathroom, vomiting, the sense of grief too much to bear.

  “Let it go, Shayne,” he said as he strolled past Shayne and made his way to the kitchen.

  “It’s a quick thumping sound,” Shayne said, obviously set on bugging the shit out of him so he simply tuned him out as he grabbed a beer and the aluminum foil covered plate of pizza left over from dinner and headed for the living room, hoping that Shayne would be too focused on his little noise obsession to notice.

  “This is bugging the shit out of me,” Shayne whined as he followed after him.

  “Really? I couldn’t tell,” Tristan said dryly as he placed his food on the coffee table and sat down on the couch.

  “I know that I’ve heard it before, but I just can’t remember where,” Shayne said as though Tristan cared.

  He didn’t, so he focused on the stack of folders in front of him.

  “I can’t believe that ye can’t hear it,” Shayne grumbled.

  “Believe it,” Tristan said absently, taking a sip of his beer.

  “Ye know, lad, I’m beginning to think that ye don’t care,” Shayne said with a putout sigh.

  “That’s probably because I don’t”

  “That hurts, lad. I’m being tortured by a phantom sound and ye-“

  “Don’t care,” Tristan said, cutting him off.

  “Ye’d care if ye had to listen to this damn thumping day and night,” Shayne said and Tristan didn’t need to look up from the folder on his lap to know that the man was pouting.

  “Stop being such a baby and man up,” he said, barely looking up from the file in front of him as he reached for his beer.

  “I’m not being a baby! I………..,” Shayne’s words trailed off before he let out a chuckle. “I’m a fucking idiot, lad.”

  “Agreed,” Tristan murmured, all of his attention on the latest kidnapping case.

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Shayne with a satisfied sigh.

  “Uh huh.”

  “Ye don’t want to know what that sound is?” Shayne asked, sounding amused.

  “Not really,” Tristan said, frowning down at the detective’s field notes and trying to decipher scribble.

  “Then maybe I shouldn’t tell ye.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “It involves Marty,” Shayne said after a slight pause, grabbing Tristan’s attention in a big way.

  “What about her?” Tristan asked, looking up, folder forgotten as all of his attention went to his grinning friend.

  “Looks like ye got a babe on the lass,” Shayne announced proudly seconds before his own words seemed to sink in and when they did, his pleased expression turned horrified.

  Tristan was too stunned to respond at first, but when Shayne let out a vile curse and suddenly disappeared, he found himself frozen on the spot.

  Marty was pregnant?

  He was having a little difficulty processing that thought when the screams for help started.

  Chapter 26

  “Open the fucking door!” Tristan shouted, panic taking over as Marty’s screams for help abruptly stopped and the sounds of men fighting grew louder.

  “Marty!” he shouted, slamming his bad shoulder into the bedroom door, barely aware of the sharp pain shooting down his shoulder and into the tips of his fingers.

  After a few more failed attempts, he swore as he stepped back and slammed his foot in the door. The door gave way after two kicks. Before the door had the chance to bounce off the wall, Tristan was making his way inside and ready to kill whoever had broken into his house with his bare hands.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Tristan bit out in disgust when he spotted Shayne fighting with the spirit of a large man by the bed.

  He shook his head in disgust as he looked around the room for his wife. When he spotted her in the bathroom, kneeling in front of the toilet, looking pale, he wanted to kick his own ass for not taking better care of her. She was running herself ragged and it was starting to take its toll on her. She couldn’t keep going like this, not with a baby on the way.

  A baby…….

  They were having a baby. It didn’t seem real, not at all. Only a month ago he was prepared to step back and allow her to go on with her life and now they were bringing a child into this world and starting a family. He honestly didn’t know what to think about that. It didn’t seem possible that someone like him could be this blessed.

  The only thing that he was certain of was that it was past time that he took better care of his wife. After shooting one last glance at Shayne as the man took the intruding spirit down with an impressive chokehold, Tristan moved to go help Marty.

  “Baby, are you-“

  His words were cut off when a large man stepped in front of him and struck him in the chest, sending him flying across the room before he could get a good look at the bastard’s face or react. The air was forced from his lungs as his back slammed into the wall, his bad shoulder connecting with the edge of the windowsill as his head slammed back into the wall with a sickening crack.

  “Tristan!” he heard Marty scream as he fell to the floor, the plush carpet doing little to protect his battered body.

  His vision blacked out as he struggled to get to his feet. It took several attempts before he could manage it. His legs gave out on him several times before he accepted the fact that he couldn’t walk, but he didn’t let that stop him from going to his wife.

  Squinting, he moved forward, crawling as he struggled to remain conscious. He couldn’t see anything so he moved towards the sounds of Marty’s cries. Someone had her, was hurting her and he was helpless to do anything to stop them so he did the only thing that he could think of before he lost consciousness.

  “Protect……..her, Shayne.”

  *-*-*-*

  “Tristan!” Marty screamed, watching helplessly as Tristan dropped to the ground. She moved to help him when the voice that she’d come to think of as her protector spoke, drawing her attention to a large and very handsome man with short black hair and killer green eyes. Then again, all the men in the room, seven the last time she counted, were handsome with jet black hair and killer green eyes and no doubt related.

  “Was that really necessary?” the familiar voice demanded with a put out sigh as he moved to Tristan’s side.

  “Aye,” the large man, who’d wrapped her up in a sheet and carried her into the bathroom only moments earlier, replied flatly.

  When Marty tried to walk past the man to go to Tristan, she was surprised that he didn’t try to stop her. She learned the reason for that barely a split second later when four of the large men who’d been leaning against the wall suddenly vanished only to reappear by Tristan’s side before she could blink.

  “Oh, come on now, lads!” the man who’d been looking Tristan over snapped as two of the men grabbed him by his arms and yanked him to his feet and away from Tristan.

  “Bring them downstairs.”

  “Wait!” Marty said as she rushed to go to Tristan, desperate to make sure that he was okay. Before she could reach him, two of the men reached down, grabbed him by the arms and disappeared, leaving her stumbling forward as her heart skipped a beat and she forgot how to breathe. The rest of the men quickly followed until she found herself alone.

  “When you’re ready, we’ll be downstairs waiting for you, Macha,” t
he large man who’d helped her to bathroom said softly from behind her, making her realize that she wasn’t as alone as she’d thought.

  “That’s not my name,” she found herself saying as her mind struggled to grasp what just happened.

  “Everything will be okay, Macha,” he promised softly with a sympathetic smile that struck her as vaguely familiar.

  She wanted to point out that everything had been fine before he’d showed up, but at that moment her stomach decided that everything definitely was not okay.

  *-*-*-*

  “What’s she doing?” Liam asked as Quinn materialized in the kitchen, his glare never leaving Tristan who sat slumped forward in the kitchen chair with his hands cuffed behind his back.

  “Still getting sick,” Quinn said with a sneer of disgust. Shayne knew that if they’d still been human that Quinn would have been joining Marty. He’d always had a weak stomach, something they used to taunt and tease him about constantly. It was a pity that he couldn’t use that against Quinn right now, Shayne thought with a sigh.

  “Find something to settle her stomach,” Liam ordered as he folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the counter.

  “What were those things that she liked the last time she was pregnant?” Declean asked as he moved into the kitchen.

  “Apples?” Finn suggested with a frown as he moved to join his brother in the search for something that would settle Marty’s stomach.

  Aidan nodded as he joined them. “Aye, the lass has always been partial to apples.”

  Fergus shook his head as he left Shayne’s side to help with the search. “She doesn’t like the green ones, lads, unless they’re the sweet ones.”

  Shayne rolled his eyes as he pulled up a chair next to Tristan, who was still unconscious, and said, “She can’t stomach raw apples when she’s pregnant. They have to be cooked.”