Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64366 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64366 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“You’re inside, too,” I said. “You know him.”
“Not as well as I should. Because of selfish reasons, I’ve let things go that I should have done something about. I should never have let Santori talk me into coming to see you that day, before you left to go back to school. I didn’t want to do it. I knew how he felt about you, and I did it anyway.”
I walked over to the window and stared out, feeling a twinge in my belly at the sight of the clear balcony where Kage had made me come so hard. Where he’d asked me if I would risk my life for him. Now he’d forced me to prove it, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
He was mine, and I loved him. But fuck if the man wasn’t dangerous.
Chapter 11
(JAMIE)
HOURS later, after the sun had come up and exposed us all in our misery, Kage started talking. He started talking, and what he said changed all of our lives forever.
“Mommy,” he mumbled, and Dr. Tanner and I both started.
“Yes, baby,” she said, moving to his side and taking his hand.
I grimaced, wondering what the hell she thought she was doing, and at the same time thinking it might just work to get some information out of him. Coercion of a catatonic guy in the throes of a PTSD attack seemed sketchy at best, but Dr. Tanner had said she couldn’t treat him without knowing what she was up against. At this point, I was all for anything that would help Kage deal with whatever it was that was destroying him inside. And now that my life had been threatened, it seemed even more important to get at the truth. Otherwise, I’d be dead, and Kage would be in prison.
Kage didn’t fall for the bait-and-switch, though. “Dr. Tanner, I fucked up.” His words were slurry and slow coming out.
“What did you do, Michael?”
“Nothing.”
“If you tell me, I can help you.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Maybe if you’d tell me—”
“I didn’t do it!” he screamed. Then his voice was quiet. “I didn’t do it.”
“Of course you didn’t,” she said calmly.
I stalked away from the bed, fighting the anxiety that coiled up in my chest and made the back of my neck tingle.
Dr. Tanner continued to talk to him in a controlled voice. “I need you to stay calm for me, Michael. Everything is going to be okay. Isn’t everything always okay after we talk?”
He nodded, and I could see his tight swallow from where I was standing near the window. He was on his back again, and Dr. Tanner had propped him up with an extra pillow under his shoulders. His body looked relaxed, but his throat kept pulsing with those hard swallows, and his eyebrows were drawn inward.
“I know how to make everything okay, right?” Dr. Tanner asked.
“Right,” Kage said.
“That’s why you call me when you’re in trouble.”
He nodded again.
“I want you to do something for me,” she said. “A relaxation exercise. I want you to keep your eyes closed and take a deep breath. Then let it out at your own slow pace.”
He did as she instructed, and she led him through a series of five more breaths. By the time she was finished, his brows had relaxed, and he was swallowing normally.
She continued in that gentle, even voice. “I want you to picture yourself, Michael. You’re seven years old now. Just picture yourself as that seven-year-old boy, standing outside the Alcazar with your family on the first day you arrived to Las Vegas.”
“I can’t picture my mom there,” he said. “She’s dead. She never got to see Vegas.”
“Yes, I’m sorry to hear that. Can you picture your dad and your brother Evan?”
“Yes. They can be there.”
“Good. Now, I don’t want you to feel, Michael. There’s no need for you to feel right now. You only need to see and report. Can you do that?”
“You don’t want me to feel? You always encourage me to feel, even if it’s bad.”
“I know that. But today, I don’t want you to feel. I’m letting you off the hook, because I’ve someone here who can do the feeling for you.” She spared a glance at me. “So just seeing and reporting, not feeling, tell me what you see. Are you standing outside the Alcazar?”
“Yes. It’s big.”
“And who is with you?”
His head moved almost imperceptibly from side to side, as if in his mind he was really looking. “My dad and Evan. God, I’d forgotten how dirty they were. How their clothes were old. How my dad wore a plaid shirt under that Army jacket, and his corduroy pants smelled like cigarettes when I leaned against his leg. How Evan’s hair was greasy and stuck up in places,” he laughed, and it dissolved into something like a whimper.