by Abbie Roads
“Where’s Lathan? Where am I? I need to go to him.” Her voice cracked and broke over Lathaniel’s name. She tried to get up, her effort too weak and feeble to be effectual. “Where is he? I can heal him. Make him better. Where is he?”
James didn’t meet her eyes—counted on his body language to send a message she would recognize. Her hand found his arm. He froze. Her skin was clammy. He imagined he could feel the intricacy of her lifeline melding into his flesh, marking him. No one ever willingly touched him. All his subjects shrank from him. But this—a touch freely given—was something he’d been missing his entire life.
He shooed the bizarre thought out of his mind and allowed his gaze to meet hers, but did not speak, just blinked and blinked, like the movement of his eyelids held back great emotion. The wait would make her feelings more intense. The more emotional he made her, the more vulnerable she would be to his influence. Finally, he looked down at the floor and shook his head once.
“No. No. No.” Giant tears welled in her eyes, then spilled over. “Where is he? I need to see him. I need to heal him. I need to…” Her words slurred, and her eyes lost their focus. She would be unconscious again in less than five seconds.
James stroked her damp cheek with the back of his finger. Goose bumps peaked across her skin at his touch. Her reaction could be a fear response. Many of his subjects had that reaction, but it was usually paired with a flinch, a recoil. Could it be a pleasurable sensation? No way to know until she was fully awake, and right now, she could either be deeply unconscious or riding just below the surface of consciousness.
“You’re hurt. I’m going to treat your wounds.” If she was semiconscious, she would hear him, understand his actions. If she was out, well, at worst he was talking to himself. He spread antibiotic salve over the bite on her breast. The rough ridges of skin were swollen and had to be painful. She needed stitches, but she wasn’t going to get them. He fought the urge to bend down and lick the raw wound. “I hope I’m not hurting you.”
He placed a large bandage on her breast and taped it in place. “All done. You’ll start feeling better soon.” He wrangled a button-down shirt onto her limp form and then covered her with a blanket.
“Lathan?” she whispered.
He hadn’t realized she was awake.
“Lathan? God, my head hurts. Lathan? Where’s Lathan?”
James held a bottle of water to her mouth. “Drink.”
“Don’t want any.” There was no petulance in her tone, just a thin hopelessness.
“You’re going to drink two swallows. I’m not letting you die of dehydration.”
Without further question, she drank the offered water.
“Lathan.” Her voice was full of knowing.
“I’m sorry. He’s…he’s…gone.” James breathed the last word for effect.
Anguish contorted her face. Sobs racked her body. Sorrow poured from her eyes.
He held her hand while she cried. It was too soon to offer any further comfort. Finally, the sobs ebbed to simple tears.
“Where am I?” she asked, closed her eyes, losing the fight to remain conscious.
“Safe. Where no one will hurt you,” he answered, not sure if she heard him.
She didn’t say anything else.
He sat next to her on the bed, caressing her wet cheeks with the back of his finger. It felt so strange to be touching her—skin to skin—when he’d spent so much of his life not daring to come into contact with anything that could ever be traced back to him.
The wireless in his ear pinged. He moved into the bathroom and shut the door so she couldn’t hear.
He had known this call would come, knew exactly how to handle it. He hit the receiver to pick up the call, but didn’t say a word. A breathy groan escaped his lips.
“Eric here. Major doings with Lathan Montgomery in Ohio. Leaving Quantico in forty-five minutes. Briefing on the way.”
James remained quiet.
“You hear me?”
Just like Eric not to even notice something was wrong.
“I won’t be attending. Stomach flu.” He forced weakness into his tone. Stomach flu was always a free pass. No one wanted someone vomiting all over the crime scene. Let alone their fear of him being contagious. “I’ll pass the message on.”
Click.
James spent the next few moments making the necessary arrangements to free his calendar. He wouldn’t go back to work until after the weekend. Until she was on the mend. Until he convinced her that she wanted to stay with him.
Chapter 15
Awareness returned to Evanee, but coherent thought refused to form. Her entire existence had degenerated into two elements: sensation and pain. She felt horizontal on a soft surface, felt the weight of blankets on her body, and yet her limbs quaked partially from cold, partially from pain. A thick, obtuse throbbing resonated from inside her head. Her chest burned with serrated agony. Heartbreak tormented her.
She floated in misery for eons until fragments of thought and memory finally collided, coalescing, forcing her to remember what she most wanted to forget.
Lathan was dead.
He was dead because of her. She’d brought Junior into his life. She’d relied on Lathan to protect her like he was ten feet tall and bulletproof.
Guilt pulled her too taut, threatening to tear her apart.
As long as the light shines in one of you, the other will live. Maybe he was alive. Even as the thought rose inside her, she recognized it for what it was: denial, hope’s best and worst friend. Hope warmed her cold body and inflated her heart until the muscle threatened to burst. Hope forced her eyelids open.
Light pierced her brain, so she peeked out through the fringe of her lashes. A man sat beside the bed watching her. She willed his features to sharpen into the chiseled lines of Lathan’s face, his eyes to morph into silver, his skin to darken with thick freckles. No matter how long she stared, he didn’t change.
“Oh, you’re awake.” He placed his hand on her forehead like a mother—not her mother, of course—checking a child’s temperature. “It’s been almost three days. I was worried.” When she couldn’t find any words to say, he continued. “I’m not sure how much you remember from before. I’m James.” He spoke in a perfectly articulate manner—so different from the slight distortion of Lathan’s speech.
“Where’s Lathan?” Her words were a frantic whisper. “Where is he? Where am I?”
James patted her hand. “You’re safe from whoever hurt you. No one will find you here. But Lathan…” James’s voice trailed off, his eyes aimed at a spot on the wall. “I-I don’t know his exact location, but I-I…assume a morgue or maybe a funeral home.” He winced as if he could see how his words broke her.
He kept talking, but she wasn’t capable of listening.
The last fragile thread bearing the full weight of her sanity snapped. Evanee heard the soft snap, felt the pressure release resonating through her body. Hopelessness smothered her, killing the will to live. But her heart continued to pump and her lungs continued to suck. Her stupid body hadn’t gotten the message her mind was sending. She was done. Done with life. Done with death. Done with all of it.
She came back to reality when James picked her up and carried her across the room to the bathroom. He settled her on the toilet. She let loose of her bladder. He wiped her like a child. She didn’t care. He was a stranger, touching her intimately, and yet she couldn’t find the will—a reason—to care. He could torture her, rape her, kill her, but he’d never be able to hurt her as badly as she ached for Lathan.
Without any emotion, she watched as he filled the tub with water. He unbuttoned her shirt, removed it, then picked her up and settled her in the water. She wanted to go back to sleep, and more than anything, she wanted never to wake up, but Mr. Sandman wasn’t cooperating with the first of her wishes, so the asshole probably wo
uldn’t comply with the second.
James washed her as tenderly as a child. She didn’t care she was naked and he was seeing her body or scrubbing her private places. Her body didn’t matter; her mind didn’t matter. The only thing worth caring about was gone.
“I can’t live without him,” she whispered, afraid to say the words too loud.
James paused in his washing and met her gaze. “Hush now. The darkest night always births the most breathtaking dawn.”
She sensed his words held a profound meaning, but couldn’t see beyond her pain.
After the bath, he dried her off, re-bandaged her chest, dressed her, and tucked her into bed.
“Now go to sleep, Evanee. You’ll feel better the next time you wake.”
She closed her eyes but knew nothing was ever going to make her feel better.
* * *
“Evanee. I need you to wake up. Come on. Open your eyes, Evanee. You can do it. Just for a little while.” James’s voice wheedled and droned on and on and on, keeping her just awake enough to know how awful she felt. Finally, she gave in and opened her eyes, just to shut him up.
“Good girl. I knew you could wake up.” He held a glass full of a white liquid. A jaunty pink straw poked out the top. “I need you to drink all of this. You haven’t eaten anything in four days. Your body needs calories, protein, vitamins, and minerals to heal itself.” He held the straw to her lips.
Took too much effort to argue, so she began to slurp it down. The drink was cold and slimy in her mouth, and she suspected it was a blessing that she couldn’t taste it. When almost two-thirds of the drink was gone, she paused. “Where’s Lathan?” she asked.
James stared into her eyes. “I know you remember. What I don’t know is why you keep torturing yourself.”
“So I don’t ever forget it’s my fault he’s dead.” She sucked down the rest of the drink. After the last swallow, she said, “My fault. All my fault.”
Mr. Sandman must’ve been in a good mood because he granted her sleep the moment she closed her eyes.
* * *
Infinite, incessant, infernal whiteness in every direction.
The White Place.
No longer possessing enough energy to hold herself upright, she felt her legs fold beneath her. She didn’t brace herself against the fall, but the ground rose up, capturing her body in a cushioned embrace. Even that novel experience wasn’t enough to make her care. Nor was the sensation of not being alone anymore.
She felt a presence with her. The presence didn’t possess the terrible wrongness she normally felt in the White Place, but it sure didn’t feel benign. It wanted something from her and was frustrated with her. And then she recognized the presence. It was the Thing that could control her body, The Thing that hurt her. And still she didn’t care. Maybe this time it would kill her and she could be reunited with Lathan in whatever form the afterlife took.
Kill me. Kill me. Kill me. The words were a benediction.
A bizarre kind of silence halted all her thoughts—turned them off completely, leaving a fearful void where her mind used to be.
You will overcome. The Thing spoke, but it didn’t. The words bypassed her ears and originated from deep within her brain in a soundless voice. You are the Bearer of Dreams. You are required.
Her thoughts floated out of the abyss. I don’t care.
You are needed.
I don’t care.
I will force you.
I know.
So why fight?
I’m not fighting. I’m submitting. I give up. But this is the last time. For some moments, she was completely alone in the blank space where her thoughts used to be. Maybe the Thing had left.
No. Its energy charged the air, and she could feel its invasion in her brain—taking her thoughts.
You would end your existence?
Yes.
Because you are absent your protector? The Thing sounded attitudinal, like she was a recalcitrant kid it had to put up with. Open your eyes, Dream Bearer.
When she didn’t bother complying, the Thing pried them open for her. No surprise there. She expected to see white, or a body, or something gory and frightening and horrifying.
Her eyes took in the image, but her brain had trouble with the translation.
Lying next to her, mere inches away, and looking so breathtakingly alive was Lathan. He wiped at the tears wetting her cheeks. His touch was electric, jump-starting her dead heart.
She settled her hand over his tattoo. Underneath her fingers, the scratch of his whiskers, the warmth of his skin, the suppleness of his flesh teamed up and tried to convince her that he was real. “Am I dreaming inside this dream?” she whispered around the stone of grief choking her throat.
“I don’t know.” His hand wandered into her hair and settled over her temple, the source of the constant ache in her head. Warmth and comfort and safety flowed from him into her. The pain eased.
“Are you…”—she struggled to say the word—“dead?”
“Honey, I don’t know.” Sincerity and sadness shone in his silver eyes. “All I know is I’m here with you right now, in this moment, the only moment that matters.”
Her chin trembled, and a fresh flow of tears fell from her eyes. “I don’t want to wake up. I want to stay here with you. Forever.”
She placed her hand on his heart, over the gunshot wound she refused to look at. She couldn’t bear the confirmation that he was as dead as everyone else she’d ever seen in the White Place. “I’m sorry. So sorry. It’s all my fault. All of it.”
He gathered her tight into him and draped his leg over her hips, encasing her body with his. They didn’t speak. Words weren’t needed. They fulfilled each other in such a way that they were one united entity, not requiring speech because they were inside each other’s thoughts and feelings.
He witnessed her guilt and grief and absolved her of it. He saw inside her soul to the damage Junior had done and healed her with his understanding. He showed her an image of herself, one reflected through his eyes, and what she saw filled her with awe. Her soul was a beautiful tangle of fragility and tenacity and bravery.
She reached into Lathan’s mind. Felt his fear. Fear of a world overlaid with images—memories—that weren’t his own. Fear of being attacked again. Fear of her rejecting him. She banished his fear and allowed him to see himself as she saw him. As a man of courage, strength, and kindness, with a little bit of superhero tossed in.
Chapter 16
James sat next to the bed, watching her, vigilant for any indication of distress. Sleep for her was continually fitful.
Behind her closed eyelids, her eyes darted. REM sleep. Dreaming. Was she having a nightmare? Could she possibly be dreaming of the person who’d been taking such tender care of her? It was too soon for him to be having such thoughts, yet his mind wandered in sentimental circles around her. He couldn’t help it.
The past days of caring for her had endeared her to him in a way he never would have suspected possible. On a fundamental level, she appealed to him because of her total dependence on him for shelter, food, cleanliness. She even needed him for her mental acumen. If he let her, she’d slip off the slope of sanity into suicide. The desperate sadness around her told him as much. But he held her in a firm, unwavering grip, and he didn’t intend to let go. He planned to heal her. Put her back together in such a way as to make him her other half.
She flinched and cried out a small animal sound of pain. He grasped her hand and held it tightly in both of his. Instantly, she calmed and tightened her grip on him. Her hand might as well have been wrapped around his heart, the way the muscle contracted from her touch.
Because he couldn’t resist, he stroked her cheek with the back of his finger. Instinctively, she turned into his touch until he opened his hand, allowing her to nestle her face against his palm. She receiv
ed comfort from him, and he gloried in the novel experience. So different from how people flinched and fought him. And why wouldn’t they? He specialized in ending life—Death had been his life.
As a naive, traumatized kid, he hadn’t seen any other option but to follow Death. Now the adult version of him saw a new path. Taking her pushed him over the finish line and through the starting gates of something new.
To her, he could be whatever he wanted to be. He could be her tormentor or her savior. He could make her need him or want him. He could make her hate him or love him. She changed all his rules.
Even the cold concrete walls of his bunker no longer seemed so drab. The utilitarian furniture not so sparse. The quiet of being underground no longer lonely.
In her sleep, she lurched, a full-body jerk so violent and unexpected that he startled. And he didn’t startle easy. This woman was full of surprises.
“Shh…” The left side of her face was a rainbow of painful bruises, and her eyes were puffed and pink. He contented himself with simply stroking her cheek with the back of his finger. “You’re here with me. Safe.”
Her tortured eyes locked with his. Guilt and sadness lived in the dark-blue irises, but something new had begun to grow—a fragile bud of trust in him. He expected her to ask about Lathaniel again, but she didn’t.
Finally, he’d taken the lead in the race against Lathaniel’s ghost. It’d only taken five days.
Victory pumped inside his chest, warming him like he’d just downed a shot of whiskey.
Her gaze shifted away from him to where he still held her hand in one of his. “Do you feel it too?” Her voice was scratchy from disuse.
“What do you mean?” The moment he spoke, he felt it. A warm, hard nub between their palms. An object that hadn’t existed moments before was suddenly, undeniably, unexplainably there. He yanked away from her. In a fluid motion, she scooped the item out of his palm before he had a chance to see it and clasped it in her fist. “What is it?”
“A bullet.” Tears welled in her eyes. “The bullet that killed Lathan.” She cradled her fist to her heart, wincing when she touched her injured breast.