“Pass it on.”
A rumble this time. Louder. Deeper.
Angrier.
“No medevacs.”
A snarl. Hissed out.
“No backup.”
Again and again it went on. Mutters, rumbles, snarls. Over and over. Until I jerked in surprise when he screamed, full blast, like something out of a horror movie. A scream so torn up that, though it was just a sound, it was like it had torn edges that were studded with blades. Blades that could rip through me faster than a bullet ever could.
Jumping to my feet, I almost skidded on the rug that lay beside the bed as I hurried out into the hall. He sounded like he was terrified, and my only desire was to soothe that, but I hesitated outside his door, the depth of the shadows messing with my mind as I pressed my forehead to the cool expanse of wood that separated me from my husband.
A husband who didn’t remember me.
A husband whose dreams sounded a thousand times worse than my own.
Anxious, I made claws with my hands, wanting to stop myself from invading his privacy, a privacy he’d made clear that he wanted to maintain because since he’d returned from the hospital this morning, I hadn’t seen him.
Not once.
I knew he’d left the bedroom to grab some food, but that was it.
I’d left him to it, knowing he needed to settle in, reacquaint himself with the new normal, but his distance wasn’t just metaphorical. It was tangible. As if there were bricks between us, solid and heavy. Impossible to break down. So maybe not bricks. Maybe concrete walls with steel rebar inside them.
His whimpers quieted down, the scream fading so I wondered if I’d imagined it, if I hadn’t heard it at all, but then it came again.
“No backup. Pass it on. No medevacs.”
On repeat, endlessly, until I felt sure I’d go insane with hearing it.
My breathing was ragged as panic hit me. I didn’t know what a medevac was, but I could guess as to its meaning.
Wherever he was in his dream, he was in a situation where backup was needed but wasn’t on its way, and his brothers in arms were being injured, possibly slain in action, with no incoming medical aid.
And he was stuck there.
Back in that time, that place.
My mouth worked when he screamed again, and uncaring about the walls he wanted to build between us, I shoved my way inside and rushed into the room. I thought the sound of the door opening was the reason for the scream breaking off, so I didn’t run in, just took careful steps inside his space.
The scent of perspiration was heavy in here, like he’d been sweating buckets to the point where it permeated each breath I took, filling me with the essence of his terror. Through the windows, the play of the water from the pool, how it moved thanks to the wave machine, sent dappled shadows and lights inside, illuminating my path as I approached his bedside.
Moving closer, I whispered, “Maverick?”
I didn’t want to touch him, not when his defenses were down and he was deep in a firefight, but he repeated those damn words again.
“No backup. Pass it on. No medevacs.”
They were haunting him, terrorizing him and, in turn, terrorizing me.
When the scream came next, I was ready for it, ready because he was deep in some twisted cycle I needed to break, and I grabbed his shoulder, trying to shake him awake.
It worked.
His head jerked like I’d punched him, and one second he was deep in another world, and the next he was here.
But his eyes weren’t. He was awake. Aware. But his eyes were dead. Vacant. Like he was staring a thousand yards away from me. Staring and staring, desperation oozing into the look. All of that hit me within a hundred milliseconds, and before I could plead with him to return to me, his hand was on mine, his fingers hard around my wrist.
One moment, I was standing beside the bed, hovering over him. Then, I was beneath him. His forearm went to my throat, the pressure so intense I gasped as the weight of it felt as if it could cave in my windpipe.
Choking and spluttering, I fought with him, but every time I tried, he snarled, “Bitch. Fuckin—Why won’t you die? Why won’t you goddamn die?”
The words would fuel a million nightmares if I lived that long, but I could feel the shadows starting to creep around my eyes as I struggled, kicking my legs out, trying to make him register that I wasn’t an enemy.
Wasn’t even a soldier.
I was just me.
A woman he’d forgotten.
A ghost even as she lived.
I let some words spew from my lips, words I didn’t even register. Words I didn’t recognize as my mother tongue.
But he did.
Somehow, as I pleaded with him in sputtered Ukrainian, he heard me. It penetrated the fog that had overcome him as if it was a noxious gas, and his eyes seemed to switch back into focus. When he stared at me, stared at us, how he was holding me, pinning me to the bed, he leaped back like I was fire and he was being scorched.
He reared back so hard and so fast he fell off the bed, rolling into a ball as he landed on the floor safely—was everyone around here a gymnast?
The stupid thought hit me even as I stared up at the ceiling, where the pool still made playful shadows as I gasped and coughed my way back to normalcy.
The pain in my throat was excruciating, but it was the pressure behind my eyes that hurt the most, and the stitch in my lungs that were starved of oxygen that had me rolling onto my side, curling into a fetal position. I thought it said it all that, instinctively, I didn’t move away from him and face the wall so I couldn’t look at him. No, I moved so I was staring at the other half of the mattress where he should be lying.
“I’m so sorry,” he rasped, the words coming from my husband even as the voice wasn’t one I knew. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Cat-like, he was back at my side again without the mattress even moving. I had no idea how that was possible when I knew he weighed a ton from experience, but he was there, his hand hovering above me, his heat a solid presence that loomed over me.
Was I just too drained to bat him away, to free myself from him?
I had no idea why I just lay there, why I just stared up at him, hurting emotionally and physically, aware he was in as much pain as I was.
“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, his hand moving to my throat where, with delicate fingers, he traced the skin that was red and raw from his hold on me. “I-I didn’t know it was you.”
Was that supposed to be some consolation?
Swallowing down my nerves, an autonomous gesture that hurt as well, enough to feel like I was burning there, I rasped, “Who did you think it was?”
His sudden tension, the torment in him, hit me hard. I knew he was back there, even as he had one foot in the present.
“Someone…” He coughed. “In the Taliban.”
My body still rebelling what I’d endured, half certain he’d attack me again, I dared to stare up at him and ask, “Who?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
“You thought I was him. You can tell me.”
“It wasn’t a him. It was a woman.” He shook his head. “Please, I don’t want to think about it.”
Confused, I stared up at him. “The Taliban had female soldiers?”
“They used anything and anyone as ammunition,” he said gruffly, flipping onto his back with an ease that stunned me.
Before, he’d always been careful. Like he thought his bones were made of glass. Even when he moved in bed, he moved slowly, like his joints were seizing.
Now, it was night and day, and it had me wondering if mentally he’d been more fragile than I’d realized.
“How do you move so well?”
“I don’t know.”
“Y-You were paralyzed.”
“I used to be, according to the doctors, but I must have been hiding my recovery. Either that or I was avoiding it. They said there was no physical reason I couldn’t recover. It wasn’t like my spi
nal cord was fused. I just refused to go through the PT I needed.”
“Refused the help, but did it in secret?”
“Must have,” he rumbled, releasing a soughing breath that hit me hard.
Beneath me, his sheets were damp with sweat, and the scent of him was raw, filling my nostrils with the pure essence of him.
Maybe someone else would find it unpleasant, but it was actually comforting.
It was him. And, mere moments ago, I’d been in sheets that scented of tropical flowers.
I much preferred this.
Even as I carried on cupping my throat with the one hand, with the other, I reached out. Knowing it was stupid, that he was still touchy and on edge, I had to connect with him.
I was a stranger to him.
He was what I needed to sleep at night.
He flinched when my fingers brushed his skin, but he didn’t attack me this time. “You shouldn’t touch me,” he said thickly.
“I-I need to.”
“I don’t know you.”
“But I know you.” Nerves hit me enough that I gulped, which brought with it a coughing fit as my abused throat protested the move.
He sat up, carefully helped me roll onto my back again, and then leaned over me. The pressure of him against my side, the feel of him so close made me want to push into him, hug him tightly, and have him hold me just as fiercely.
Only, he didn’t do any of that. Didn’t reach for me or try to hold me. Just grabbed the glass of water I realized was on his nightstand, the rim of which he pressed to my lips.
My skin felt tight and hot, red with the exertion of the coughing fit, and though I spluttered my way through, I swallowed a little that eased my suffering even as some trickled down the sides of my mouth, forming puddles around my neck.
“You should go back to your own bed,” he said gruffly when I’d stopped choking.
“I find it hard to sleep without you.”
He released a heavy sigh. “That was the Maverick of before. I assume he didn’t attack you if you dared touch him while he slept?”
His tone was loaded with a sarcasm I wasn’t used to hearing from him.
It hurt.
Everything about this did.
Not just from his attack, but that his dreams plagued him enough to have him behaving like that… In his mind, it was clear to me that he was fresh from the war. Fresh from the torment.
What had he done over there? What had he been made to do?
“No, he didn’t attack me, but sometimes we just slept together. It made it easier for both of us to drift off to sleep.”
“You have issues sleeping too?” I heard the disbelief in his voice, the strange scoff that had me wondering why he’d think he was the only person here who had a reason for nightmares, then he drawled, “As if a pretty little thing like you has anything inside her head that’d keep her up at night.”
Taken aback at his surety, I peered at him.
Pretty little thing?
What did that mean?
That my brain was vacant? That I was a doll who’d endured nothing in her life that was worthy of suffering nightmares?
To say I was offended was an understatement.
Then, the insult twisted around inside me.
I didn’t know this Maverick.
He didn’t know me either.
And… as much as I wanted him to be normal, to be the person I’d fallen in love with, he thought I was a ‘pretty little thing.’
One without a past.
Without a future.
I was a nonentity to him because he didn’t care about me.
Yes, that hurt. It stung so badly it was like a slash of a knife to my skin—and trust me, I’d had that happen to me more times than I could count—but more than that, I felt curiously free.
Free.
He didn’t know me. I was a blank slate to him. A canvas that had yet to be painted. One that wasn’t loaded down with lines which were shaped into images that spoke of a tragic past, a history that was to be pitied.
Free.
Though I could have answered, I didn’t. I wasn’t sure what to say. I needed to think about my next move. If I didn’t share with him the truth of my past, what should I share with him?
The doctors had spoken with the brothers who, in turn, had explained to Lodestar and me today what was wrong with him. Lodestar, of course, understood immediately, and when I’d left the kitchen to return to the poolhouse, I’d seen her draw up sites that were related to CTE, and saw she was researching it.
My English was good. But it wasn’t that good. As bad as I felt for not trying to look into what he was going through, what I’d learned from their serious expressions was that this Maverick could be the one who stayed with us forever.
That my worst fears might be realized—he might never remember me. I might always be forgotten by him.
Unless I suddenly became memorable.
And I wanted to.
I wanted to so much.
Not for a green card. That was irrelevant. If I had to return to Ukraine, so be it. But I needed to be the kind of woman this man remembered.
It mattered to me.
So, to buy myself some time, because I needed a moment to figure out what I could tell him about me that wasn’t about being a part of the slave trade, I asked, “Would you tell me about Nic?”
He tensed up at that, and though the question was cruel after his dreams, it was pertinent.
He’d left his hospital bed, had traveled for hours on the back of a bike while he was suffering with head injuries, all to get to a cemetery to visit the site of one man’s grave.
That meant something.
Nic meant something.
He was memorable.
I needed to learn why.
“I don’t want to talk about him,” he rasped stonily.
“No? Why not? Who better to talk about this stuff with? You don’t remember me, Maverick, but I know you. You forget that. You stonewalled Nic away for years, never letting him see the light of day to the point that, when you were injured, this was the only way your brain could let him live again—”
“What are you talking about? Live again?” he growled. “He’s dead. There’s no more living for Nic.”
“There is,” I countered, and though his anger should have had me cowering, it didn’t.
This was Maverick.
No, the Mav of before wouldn’t have tried to crush my windpipe. No, he hadn’t endured such violent nightmares, but I had to have faith in the man who had become the one I loved.
He wouldn’t hurt me.
He wouldn’t.
Not when he was in his right mind.
“How is there?” he snapped. “He’s gone. Buried in Virginia, dressed in white marble, and trodden on every fucking day as someone moves over his patch to get to their loved one.”
Maverick snarled under his breath, surging up into a sitting position as he raised his legs, dumped his arms on them, and buried his face there. His hair was a mess. He’d been growing it out ever since I met him, and now the short strands of silk had my fingers craving to reach for them, to stroke his head, to soothe him.
Stupid, I knew. He didn’t want my touch period. Here I was, wanting to make him hurt less like he was a child who needed a boo-boo kissed better.
“When someone dies,” I told him softly, my voice raw, “if you never think about them, never let them be free in your mind, they pass into the shadows. When you think about them, when you remember them, they live on. They can’t die if they hold a place in your memory.”
“I never forgot him. I just—it hurt to think of him,” he said gruffly.
“How do you know? You don’t remember who you are.”
He snarled under his breath. “Are you trying to piss me off? I wouldn’t have forgotten him, okay? Nic was too important to me to forget.”
“Why?” I questioned carefully, hoping he’d talk to me. Goodness, I more than hoped—I prayed. Pra
yed to a God I’d stopped believing in a long time ago, one I’d believe in again if it meant Maverick and I had a chance at being together.
The breath hovered in my lungs as I waited for him to reply, as I wondered if he would, and when he did, disappointment hit because he asked, “Why do you care?”
“I’m your wife,” I told him gently.
“So? Lots of wives hate their husbands, and vice versa.”
“I didn’t hate you. You didn’t hate me.” If I didn’t want him to know about what had brought me into his life, then I knew I’d have to lie. I didn’t want to, but I would—once I knew what to tell him instead of the truth.
The prospect of being Alessa, not Ghost, was too tantalizing a possibility. I wanted that more than I could say, more than I even wanted this man’s love. Because I deserved the chance to be free from my past. I deserved the chance to be the woman I could have always been.
I just needed to figure out exactly who that was.
“No? I guess I wasn’t a bad husband then.”
“You were a perfect husband—”
He snorted. “The last thing I’d be is perfect.”
“You were perfect for me.”
“I was lying to you about my mobility. That seem like I was good people?”
“I don’t care about that. You did everything for a reason.”
“A reason I don’t remember,” he scoffed. “Essentially, you fell for a man who was lying to you.”
How apt was it, then, that I was going to make him fall for a woman who was lying to him?
There’d be no malice in it, none at all, but I was taking the opportunity presented to me with both hands, and I wasn’t going to take the high road.
I was going to take my road.
The one that liberated Alessa and let her be herself.
“I fell for a good man,” I persisted. “One who comforted me when I had nightmares, who never rushed me into anything. Who held my hand when I needed him to, who made sure I ate when I forgot, and coaxed me to eat when the idea of food made me nauseous. One who was always patient with me, always gentle and kind—”
“That doesn’t sound like me.”
“Well, it was. Why would I have grown to love you if you weren’t all those things?”
That seemed to give him pause. “You loved me?”
Maverick: A Dark MC Romance (A Dark & Dirty Sinners' MC Series Book 6) Page 6