by Lily White
He stared back at me with a face completely shrouded in shadow. His arm was extended to his side and he held CJ’s limp body by the hair.
“Don’t scream or I kill you both,” He warned.
I was struck silent with fear, completely unable to move or make a sound. Helpless to do anything, I watched as he tossed CJ’s body on the bed. Pulling a knife from where it was tucked into the belt on his back, he moved so quick to slit CJ’s throat. My eyes were frozen open, watching as the blade moved in slow motion across his throat, the head eventually let go to drop down on top of the mattress.
I fell to my knees, everything inside the room spinning on its axis. I think I screamed. I know my mouth was open, but I couldn’t hear anything. The hooded man watched me as I fell to the floor crying. I was so scared, too terrified to move and not able to understand anything that I was seeing.
Minutes passed and the man, stepped towards me, moving quickly to grab me off the floor. Pulling me up by my hair, he looked down at me and forced me across the room on my knees to the bed. He lifted me again to lay me across the mattress and my eyes stared at the lifelessness in CJ’s face. My pants were ripped from my body and…
“Alex! Fuck Alex! Yes, baby, just like that.”
My eyes flew open and I blinked the room into focus. Lights flickered above my head, but I couldn’t look up at them. I was on my stomach, my hips pulled up and my chest and face pushed against the mattress. My body moved with Jeremy above me, his cock filling me, pumping in and out with the speed and force of a man owning the woman below him. My head swam and I peered out at the room, confused and disoriented, but still feeling the euphoria of the drugs in my system and the orgasm slowly building inside me. The room was dark except for the flashing lights, the other areas casting shadows across the walls and floors.
Movement in the distance caught my eye and I narrowed my eyes trying to make out what was lurking in a shadowed corner of the room.
“You dirty little bitch. Just like that.” Jeremy’s words came out on a growl and he powered into me, the sound of skin slapping against skin, so loud that it jarred me enough to realize what was happening. I attempted to pull away, not remembering how we’d started having sex.
The movement in the room happened again, something darting across the space in the distance. It looked like any other shadow, but the speed with which it moved frightened me.
My body clenched over Jeremy’s cock, part terror and part pleasure. My orgasm strengthened as he moved without caution or fear of harming me. He was milking himself with my body, holding me in place and sheathing himself inside me so deep that I was helpless to the waves of my release that were building.
Over and over my muscles were stretched and used, the width of is cock filling every part of me. My mouth opened as I reached the peak of my release. Finally being pushed over the edge of ecstasy, I opened my eyes to see the hooded man standing by the curtain of the room.
My throat tore with a scream when I saw him, his face flashing with the flickering illumination in the room. His eyes were still shadowed by the hood, but his smile was sick with his enjoyment of watching me cum. Over and over, wave after wave of a release being forced through me, but I couldn’t ride it. I could only focus on the man who was staring down at me.
Screaming as loud as I could, I begged, “Jeremy! Jeremy stop!
Chapter Twenty-Five
Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.
― Sigmund Freud
“Alex! Wake up!”
My body was shaking back and forth and I could feel his hands gripping my shoulders. My breath left my lungs on a violent scream as my eyes popped open and I found Jeremy hovering above me. His glasses had been removed and his hair was out of place. His normally pressed white jacket was crumpled over his shoulders and his expression was one of urgency and concern.
“Wake up, Alex. Please.”
I shook my head in an attempt to bring myself into the present. Reality circled back to me reminding me that I was in a therapy room with Jeremy. I twisted my head to the side to look out across the room. Everything was normal. The lights still flashed, but not as violent as they’d been only a moment ago. The room was well lit and there was nothing moving in the distance.
“What the fuck?” I squeaked out. “What just happened?” My heart continued to pound in my chest and my lungs were desperate to draw in air. I was shaking all over, my trembling body forcing the springs of the bed to dance beneath me.
Looking down, I noticed that Jeremy straddled me, lifting himself on his knees so that the weight of his body didn’t crush me.
“You had a hallucination. Everything was fine, but then your heart sped up and your vitals were all over the place. You were screaming, Alex, and it took me more time than I liked to pull you out of that. What the hell did you see?”
“The man, the hooded man…”
“I know that part, Alex.” He spoke softer, finally calming down from his fight to bring me back to a conscious state. Pulling himself off of me, he sat down on the edge of the bed, reaching over to take my hand as he studied me. “After that though – you screamed my name…”
“I saw him, the man…he was here in the room with us…”
His eyes widened. “Alex, nobody has come in this room…”
“He was here!” I screamed. Shooting up, I pulled my legs to my chest, huddling over myself as tears ran in rivulets down my cheeks. “You were…” My voice trembled with fear and I fought to pull in deep calming breaths to stop my body from shaking.
“We were having sex…and he was here.” I finally forced out what I remembered, looking up at Jeremy to try to make sense of what I’d seen.
He scowled, staring at me for so long that I became terrified to find out what he was thinking.
Speaking slowly, he said, “We didn’t have sex, Alex.” Forcing his hand through his hair, he let out a frustrated breath. Finally, after several moments of heavy silence, guilt flooded his eyes and he mumbled, “And until you’re healed we won’t be having it again.”
He didn’t give his words a chance to sink in before standing up from the bed and leaving the area. I never heard the therapy door open and close, so I knew he remained in the room, but I had no idea why he’d walked off or where he’d gone. My body was still shaking from the terrifying mixture of emotions still coursing in my veins.
Hugging my knees to my chest, I sat on the bed and waited. I could hear Jeremy moving around outside of the curtained area.
Time dragged on, my curiosity and concern finally building enough to force me off the bed and out of the curtained area in search of Jeremy. I found him sitting at the circular desk in the center of the room. His head was held in his hands and he rubbed at his temples with his thumbs. The shoulders of his jacket were bunched over a tense body, his arms trembling lightly with restraint.
“Jeremy?”
He looked up and I saw pain behind the sapphire blue of his eyes. With a voice drowning in regret, he said, “I shouldn’t have had sex with you, Alex. Allowing for whatever this is between us to go that far while you’re still sick…” His face contorted into a pained expression. “It was wrong. I can’t help you if I’m creating a situation where you’re frightened of me.”
His words didn’t make sense and now that I’d recovered from the memory, I was reminded of how I felt about the man sitting in front of me. My body felt weak and I was shocked that I’d been able to walk this far across the room. The heartache I saw in him was enough to push me even farther until I could seat myself on the desk next to where he sat.
“I’m not scared of you,” I confessed.
“You are.” Taking my hands, he rubbed his thumb over my knuckles, staring at the only point where our bodies touched. A long pause occurred between us, neither of us speaking or moving. Chewing on my lip, I grew more anxious with each second that passed, finally feeling a rush of relief when he looked up at me
again.
“I don’t think your hooded man is real, Alex. I’ve noticed a pattern with your memories, a pattern that is tied closely to your emotions. It fits everything I believe about what’s going on with you.” Speaking quietly, his words were a confession. It wasn’t easy for him to tell me what he had to say and the difficulty was evident in his expression and guilt-shadowed eyes.
“So what’s wrong with me?”
He smiled, the expression not reaching his eyes to make it true, but at least he’d made the attempt.
“Nothing’s wrong with you. I’ve just noticed that your hooded man only seems to show up when you’re frightened or upset…or when someone is hurting you.” He added the last part on a whisper and I squeezed his hand to keep him talking. I could feel distance being placed between us, could feel his hesitancy at continuing forward with our newfound relationship.
“Did CJ hurt me?”
His lips pulled into a thin line and he shook his head in refusal to answer the question. My heart broke for not only Jeremy, but for myself.
After another long stretch of silence, he admitted, “I have my diagnosis, Alex. Now I just need to decide how I’m going to treat it. However, if you pull me into the problem because of what we’ve been doing, I’ll have to step back from that. I know I can help you, so I can’t take the chance…”
I placed a finger over his mouth to silence him. Slipping down into his lap, I straddled my legs on either side of his and wrapped an arm around his shoulder to balance myself over him. His eyes welled with tears and I was shocked at the display of emotion. I would have done anything at that moment to strip the pain away from him that I’d caused. It wasn’t fair for him to be hurt by me when all he’d attempted to do was help me.
Removing my finger, I pressed my lips to his, slowly moving my mouth over his until he opened and allowed me to deepen the kiss. His hands moved up my back, softly pulling me towards him. I was breathless by the time I pulled my head away and I rested my forehead on his, staring at him for several seconds before saying, “I won’t heal without you, Doc. If we have to figure out another way to do this, then fine. But I’m not letting you go.”
“Alex…”
“No.” I interrupted him as soon as I felt that he would try to object to what I was saying. “We’ll make this work. We have to.”
A loud buzz sounded in the room and I jumped. Jeremy’s arms tightened around me.
“It’s just the intercom, Beautiful. Calm down.”
I smiled and laughed at my reaction. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little jumpy from everything that just happened.
“Dr. Hutchins?”
Terrie’s voice came over the intercom, broken and filled with static. “Dr. Hutchins, we have a small emergency, please pick up.”
Reaching around me, Jeremy grabbed the receiver of the phone from the desk and pushed a button.
“What do you need, Terrie?”
His eyes widened and he gripped the phone tighter in his hand. “Tell him I’m leaving right now and I’ll be there shortly. I’ll need you to watch over Ms. Sutton while I’m gone.” A brief moment of silence and he ended the call, “Thank you, Terrie.”
Placing the phone on its cradle, he looked up at me.
“What?” Anxiety shot like a bolt of lightning along my spine. “What is it?”
“I have to leave for a little while. But Terrie will be here to watch after you.”
Nodding, I crawled off him quickly, not knowing how soon it would be before Terrie entered the room. “Is everything okay?”
He looked distracted as he stood up from his chair. I followed him to the therapy room where we’d just been and waited patiently for his response. Picking up his glasses from the table, he secured them over his nose and ran his hands through his hair to smooth it back into place.
“Everything’s fine. There’s been an incident in one of the wards and I need to go see to the problem.”
My heart felt like it stopped, my body swaying where I stood as a result of the fear coursing through me and the drugs I’d been given for the therapy. “Is it one of the patients?”
Sighing, he crossed the room to stand in front of me. As soon as he was within an arm’s length of me he reached up to grab my shoulders and give them a comforting squeeze. “Everything is fine, Alex. None of your friends are in trouble and nothing’s happened. The new patient has apparently had some issues adjusting. Dr. Ali is home for the night so I need to go evaluate the situation and prescribe whatever medications are necessary in order to calm her down. It will take a while, so just be sure to stay with Terrie, okay?”
Swallowing down my fear, I nodded in response. The door to the room opened and we both turned to look in Terrie’s direction. She smiled kindly and waited for me to cross the room. As we walked down the halls, I turned to look behind us and watched as Jeremy moved quickly in the opposite direction.
“Well, Alex, I guess I’ll take you to the rec room to see your friends while Dr. Hutchins attends to his other business.”
I stumbled over my own feet and felt woozy with every step I took forward. Terrie grabbed me, leading me to a bench on the side of the hallway to sit down. “Are you feeling all right?”
Her voice was filled with concern and I spoke quickly to reassure her that I was fine. “Yeah, I think I’m still just a bit off balance from the drugs he gave me for the therapy. I’ll be fine after a few seconds.”
She nodded, rubbing her hand in circles on my back. “I’ve been feeling off balance myself for the last couple hours. I must be exhausted if the coffee that Lisa made for me wasn’t enough to wake me up.”
Looing up, I noticed how her eyes appeared glazed. “Are you sure you’re not coming down with something, Terrie? Your eyes don’t look so good.”
She laughed softly. “Oh, honey, maybe it’s just age that’s catching up to me. Come on. We can’t sit here forever.”
Moving through the halls, I slowed my pace, noticing how Terrie would stumble over her own feet. Her shoes scraped against the floor as she moved and I continued watching her to ensure that she was okay. With each step, she grew weaker until we were holding on to each other to reach the end of the long hall.
Finally reaching the doors, Terrie’s breathing sounded harsh as she struggled to take a breath. Her hand clenched over her chest and she fell to her knees. Her body shook with every labored breath that took.
I screamed for help.
Dropping to my knees in front of her, I kept screaming, desperate for somebody to hear me and come running. Lisa rounded the corner, moving quickly to get to where we were sitting on the ground.
“What did you do to her?” Throwing me a scathing look, she held her fingers to Terrie’s throat to check her pulse. “Shit, I think she’s having a heart attack. Alex, you need to go out into the ward and find somebody. Go now!”
Completely in a state of shock over Terrie’s collapse, I did as I was told, not remembering or even thinking about the person who was telling me to run. My feet pounded beneath me, but I wasn’t able to move quickly due to the surge of dizziness I felt.
I braced my hand on the wall as I moved, desperate to remain upright despite the continued effects of the drugs that Jeremy had used on me during the therapy.
Reaching the counter of the nurse’s station, I was breathless and barely able to talk. Nurse Lara looked up from her computer screen and raced over to where I was huddled over the desk. “Alex?”
“Help…” I could barely get the words out. I was too frightened, too shook up to gain control of myself. “Lisa needs help. Terrie’s heart…” Taking a steadying breath, I clenched my teeth, desperate to control myself enough to tell Lara to get help. “Terrie’s having a heart attack.”
Lara took off towards the hall, leaving me huddled over the nurse’s station. My legs gave out beneath me and I slumped to the floor bracing my back against the wall of the desk.
My heart pounded in my chest and the resulting rush of blood sounded l
ike thunder in my head. With every heartbeat, my thoughts swam more and my eyes wavered in their focus. I knew it was the adrenaline coursing through me that made the room feel like it was spinning out of control.
Taking deeps breaths, I ignored the flickering of the lights and I closed my eyes in an attempt to take myself to a place where I could calm down. Nothing moved around me and I was smothered by the odd silence in the room.
A hand grabbed one of my wrists and another one covered my mouth. Opening my eyes wide, I saw Him. With a violent tremor, the lights flickered in the room as my vision tunneled from my fear.
I could feel my body weaken as I struggled to remain conscious. I screamed and kicked out, barely missing the man’s leg and he returned the gesture with his fist, knocking me out cold and delivering me to darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Six
A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.
- Jean de la Fontaine
“Well, well, well…”
A deep voice roused me from sleep. My head felt dense and weighted on my shoulders. My neck wasn’t strong enough to keep it from rolling around as I tried to lift it up.
“Alex…” The name was spoken slow, humor and menace combined in the cruel tone of his voice.
“Wakey, wakey…” A fingertip brushed along my jaw and my eyes flew open due to the familiarity of those words.
Joe’s face came into view and I jerked back, finding my arms strapped in cuffs to the armrests of a chair. I couldn’t kick out because my feet were also tied down.
Joe smiled.
“Fight all you want, but you’re not going anywhere.” He leaned back against a wall with one foot crossed over the other. The room was small, barely big enough to house the chair in which I was sitting and the medical equipment that caged me in on both sides.
“Do you know where you are?” He asked. Pushing up from the wall, he took two steps towards me, laughing when I attempted to pull out of the restraints.