Chapter Two

Three days later, he was back at the gym for his first appointment with Zeus, the god of meatheads across the universe. Mason chuckled at the latest private nickname he’d given to his physical therapist, pretty sure the guy wouldn’t approve of any of them. But Jesus, the man was a solid wall of muscle. The testosterone wafting off of him was so thick Mason could have cut it off in planks and served it up as a steak dinner.

“Poke me with a fork, I think I’m done,” Mason mumbled as Bruce led him down the same hallway he’d been in the other day towards the back rooms and offices.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch what you said.” Bruce opened up a room on their left and motioned for Mason to enter first.

“I was talking to myself,” Mason said and shrugged.

Bruce flipped a switch on the wall, illuminating their surroundings with dim, overhead lighting as Mason scanned the area. The room was rectangular in shape, but not overly large, and had steel-gray walls with no windows. A massage table was set up towards the back of the room, and a big whirlpool tub with water bubbling inside was off to the side. On the right was a small sitting area with a couch and a comfortable looking chair, with a door for the changing room merely feet away.

“Did you pack a pair of gym shorts in that bag?” Bruce asked.

“I’m wearing them under my running pants,” Mason answered.

“Good enough,” Bruce said and smiled. “Why don’t you strip down to the shorts, and I’ll help you up onto the table.”

Mason sat down on the couch and removed his brace, then reached for the laces of his sneakers. His mind began to overthink what he was getting himself into with this therapy; even the simple task of untying his shoes was taking far too long. Was it possible to feel phantom pains from something that hadn’t happened yet? His skin was sometimes overly sensitive near the area of the injury and the subsequent skin graft surgeries that followed. There were also the new patches of pink skin where he’d been burned that were hyper-reactive to touch. When he was finally ready, Bruce was right there to help him up and over to the table.

“Today is going to be more of an evaluation for me to check out your ROM,” Bruce explained.

“What the hell is that?” Mason questioned.

“Range of motion,” Bruce answered. “I’m basically going to test your flexibility to give us a starting point to where you are in mobility. This will allow me to gauge your improvement as we work through the weeks ahead.” Bruce hooked an arm under Mason’s armpit and lifted him up onto the table like he weighed nothing.

“Is this going to hurt?” Mason heard himself ask.

Bruce grinned and made a scoffing sound. “I’m not here to hurt you, Mason. I’m here to give you the means to take back your life. That’s what you said your goal was in our initial meeting, right?”

“Hell, yeah,” Mason said and nodded. “I’m tired of staring at the walls in my apartment. I want to get back to work before I lose my mind completely.”

“Then, you’ve come to the right place,” Bruce stated with conviction.

Mason cringed when Bruce began to ease him flat onto his back. Even after Bruce used soothing words to get him to relax, Mason could still feel all his muscles protesting by seizing up tight. This couldn’t be as bad as he’d made it out to be in his mind, could it?

“How’d you break your leg?” Bruce asked as he worked to get Mason’s body straight on the table.

“I fell through the floor of an old concert hall in Europe,” Mason replied.

“Did you get the burns at the same time?”

Mason nodded and swallowed hard. He hated talking about that night more than anything else he’d gone through in his life.

“Wait. Is that the same fire that made the headlines here in the States?” BB asked. “I think I remember hearing that Black Ice and another band were involved.”

“I can’t really talk about the specifics of who was there, but yeah, that was the fire.”

“Jesus, that must have been like something straight out of a horror movie,” Bruce admitted. Mason was slow to nod and BB touched his arm. “It’s okay. I’ve worked with firefighters after they’ve been burned on the job. I can help you with this. It’s difficult in the beginning to get the new skin to stretch, but not impossible. We’ll go slow and easy.”

Mason’s throat suddenly felt thick. The ability to talk was lost to the lump growing there. He could barely swallow, and the only response to Bruce he could manage was a nod as he tried to calm his racing heart.

He hated talking about what happened that night, which was why he rarely allowed the subject to come up in conversation. The few people that he’d discussed this with were either there in the stairwell with him, or up above them in the theater trying to get to them while saving the others. He’d learned early on that most people couldn’t fully understand what he’d gone through during those horrific, painful hours, and they couldn’t handle the raw details, either. Most of them had the same stupid look of pity on their faces, and a few even acted as if they wanted to dismiss it all together. He guessed it was easier for some to pretend it hadn’t happened than to try and have a conversation about it, and that was just as well for Mason.

There was no fucking way Mason could dismiss what happened though nor could he pretend it’d never occurred. It was there in the full-length bathroom mirror every time he went in there to shower or shave, and he felt the effects of it with every single step he took, and with the night terrors that visited him too often to count. Nope, this dark shadow would be his wingman for the rest of his days, following him like an unwanted acquaintance he couldn’t shake off, lurking in wait every time he closed his fucking eyes. Like the physical pain that came along from surviving this, the emotional baggage was all laid bare just below the surface of his skin.

Mason gasped loudly and tried to fold up into himself on top of the table. That’s when he realized he’d been so entrenched in his own dark thoughts, he’d missed it when Bruce’s fingers began to move over the skin of his wrecked leg. The touch felt like a thousand razor blades slicing into his healing skin in quick succession, like each nerve was being systematically cut one at a time with surgical precision. He could hardly catch his breath or hear the words he could see coming out of Bruce’s mouth. The only sound he heard was his heartbeat pounding inside his head like a bass drum, which grew louder and seemed to echo around the room the faster it thumped beneath his ribs.

Was Bruce sitting on his chest? Was he having a heart attack? Why was he struggling to breathe?

Mason shoved Bruce’s hands off of him and threw his legs over the edge of the table. His skin was suddenly sweaty, and dragging in his next breath felt like trying to suck in air through a pillow. He did his best to pull in big gulps of air like a fish washed up on the beach and started to see white dots appear in his line of vision.

Fuck! He knew what this was. It was a panic attack, and he couldn’t stop it from stampeding right over him. He’d had enough of them by now that he should have recognized the signs ahead of time, but he’d missed it because he was trying to relax his mind and body to let Bruce do his job. Their conversation had drawn his thoughts right to the one place he wished he could forget.

“Mason! Breathe with me, nice and slow,” Bruce instructed in a voice that sounded like it was coming from miles away. “In . . . and out. In . . . and out.”

Bruce’s hand was on his back rubbing slow circles. Mason felt like an idiot. How had he let this get ahead of him like that? He couldn’t imagine what Bruce must think of him. Their first session had barely started, and Mason was heading into a full-on meltdown.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry,” Mason apologized once he could catch his breath again.

“No need to apologize,” Bruce said. He took a nearby towel and soaked it with the water from a plastic bottle that sat on a rack next to the massage table and began to press the cool fabric onto Mason’s face and neck. God, that feels good, Mason thought and let his eyes close. As the panic started melting from his body, it was quickly being replaced with embarrassment.

“Do you get a lot of panic attacks?” Bruce asked, still working the wet towel around Mason’s neck and down onto his chest.

“I never had a problem until . . . after the fire,” Mason stated. “Since then, I’ve been dealing with all kinds of crap I’ve never experienced before in my life. That says a lot, since I’ve done a couple of tours in Afghanistan and seen shit no one should ever have to see.”

“Are you working with a therapist for this?” Bruce asked.

“On and off,” Mason admitted and shrugged.

“See if you can get an appointment this week,” Bruce suggested. “What you suffered in the fire sounds like it was pretty traumatic. It’s going to take quite a while to come back from that, both physically and mentally. I can help you with the physical part of the process, but it would be a good idea if you were also working simultaneously with a therapist on the emotional aspects of that event. We’ll get you there, Mason, but I won’t lie, this is going to take plenty of work and long term endurance on your part.” Bruce helped Mason off the table and back over to the couch, then sat in the chair beside it.

Mason glanced at Bruce’s face. He saw none of the judgment that he anticipated nor did he see any pity. Jesus, how I hate pity. What he saw, instead, was compassion and a level of professionalism that Mason, honestly, hadn’t expected from a meathead like Bruce. Maybe he’d been too quick in rushing to judge or stereotype him—the same way he hated when others did.

“How are you feeling now?” Bruce asked politely. “Better?”

Mason nodded. He still felt too raw to communicate what he was really feeling or the depth of it. My god, it went so damn deep inside of me, Mason thought. It sometimes felt like his bone marrow was marred with the effects from that goddamned fire.

“I think this is probably a good point for us to stop for today,” Bruce said. “Go home and get some rest; maybe give your therapist a call for that appointment we discussed, and we’ll pick up where we left off at your next appointment. Sound good?”

What would sound even better is if Bruce would clear him to go home and never have to return. But Mason knew that would serve no purpose for him. He was here to regain his strength and take back his life. He wouldn’t be able to do that hiding out at home and feeling sorry for himself. There was only one way to achieve his goal and that was to push through this bullshit in the same way he pushed himself through boot camp, even surviving the Crucible event. After that, he could do anything he set his mind to—and then some.

Fucking oorah, Marine. Get your shit together before you lose it all.

Failure was not an option with this. He didn’t survive the hell of Afghanistan to let the aftermath of the fire swallow him up whole. It was time Mason dug deep and turned things around for himself. No one else was going to do that for him. It was time for him to seize the fucking day.

“I’ll see you in a couple of days, Mason.”

“I’m going to come back ready to kick some ass, so watch out,” Mason said and tried to force a grin onto his face.

“I’m going to look forward to that,” Bruce said and patted Mason on his back.