“I’d like to talk about a few things you shared yesterday,” Dr. McMann spoke from his cushy, brown chair behind his desk.
Lynx sat in the same chair as yesterday. He had on black scrubs, while I had on blue.
When we got into the room, the doctor told us that we would have a double session today. I didn’t care. When I opened my eyes this morning, all I could see was Drew happily holding his kid. I didn’t have the strength to argue. I just wanted this over with, this entire thing over with.
I answered, “What?”
His eyes widened before he looked down briefly then back at me. “You talked about watching a rape. Did that happen to you?”
It took me two seconds to know where he was going. He couldn’t come flat-out and tell Lynx what was going on with me because of doctor/patient crap, but if I talked about it in the sessions, he could bring it up and pry, which was what he was doing.
I said nothing, and neither did Lynx.
“How’d you feel watching that woman get hurt?”
When images from that night invaded me, I tried to blink them back, but it was no use. The woman’s screams as they tore her from the inside out, the moment when her cries for help stopped along with my heartbeat, wondering if she was dead—I was going to have to relive this shit, and it killed me.
My heart raced, and I could feel my body starting to burn from the panic.
“Do you get off on this shit?” I asked the doctor, focusing directly on him and ignoring Lynx.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Reign,” he responded.
“Get off on it. Enjoy hearing about others’ pain and hurt. Bringing up shit that needs to stay buried. You get off on it, don’t you?” Yep, I flipped from sadness to the spark I needed. It was better to deflect any hurt I felt with anger. Anger was always easier.
He set his hands calmly on the desk. “No, Reign. I’m here to help you.”
I let out a humph sound. “Bullshit.”
“Reign, I don’t enjoy for one moment hearing about you being hurt or seeing someone hurt. It’s my job to help you work through all of this.”
I had heard enough. “Whatever.”
“I’d like you to answer the question.”
Lynx stayed quiet through the whole exchange.
Enough was enough.
“I’m done,” I told him with finality, crossing my arms over my chest.
“You know you’ll get out of here a lot quicker if you just talk and get it over with,” Lynx said calmly. “Or do you want to be stuck in this place?”
My eyes focused on him. While handsome in the don’t-fuck-with-me way, he was seriously an ass.
He shrugged. “I don’t give a shit if you stay in here or don’t. All I know is that I have shit to do when I get out of here.”
“And what would that be, Lynx?” the doctor asked.
Lynx smiled in a sinful and devilish way, like he knew exactly what he was going to do and how to do it. I couldn’t help my curiosity of wanting to know what it was.
“Now, doc, I may have shit floating around in my head, but I’m not fucking stupid.”
I had to agree with him on that one. He might have issues—didn’t we all?—but he was smart. He seemed to know this system much better than I did. Was it wrong that I wanted to pick his brain and find the key to getting the hell out of here?
“I’d like to know,” I said quietly, but Lynx shook his head.
His gaze didn’t leave me. “No fucking way. Doc may be here to ‘help’ us, but don’t mistake that for him not burning your ass if you say something he thinks needs to involve authorities.”
I figured that, but I couldn’t help it. I really wanted to know, almost to a point that I would like to get him alone to find out. It kept spinning in my head the entire time I was there. Something in me needed to know, needed to get it. I didn’t know why at the time, but it was strong and pulsing, pulling me hard.
Five minutes before the session was over, the doc asked me, “Reign, want to tell us why you’re in here?”
I was tired from all the talking back and forth between Lynx and the doctor. I was tired of thinking. I was just plain, old tired.
“Because the guy I thought was dead for the past five years is alive and happy with a woman and a kid.” My words came out before I filtered them. I had been cruising on autopilot for the past hour or so, and my damn mouth got away from me.
Anger pulsed in the room like a thick shroud.
“You’re in here over a guy?” Lynx clipped at me. For the first time in that hour, the fog began to drift away. “You have got to be fucking shitting me. All that shit you’d seen.” He said the word like he didn’t believe me, causing the fire to come back into my veins. “All that and what put you over the fucking edge was a guy? You’ve got to be shittin’ me.” He rubbed both hands over his bald head in a manly act of frustration.
“Fuck off! No one asked you for your insightful comments,” I clipped, turning back to the doctor. “I have nothing in common with this man. I don’t want to have sessions with him anymore.”
“That isn’t your choice.” His calmness pissed me off more.
“Why the fuck won’t you just let me out of this damn nightmare so I can end it all!” I screamed aloud, standing from my chair and planting my hands on the doctor’s desk. “We are wasting all this fucking time on nothing!” I shrieked. “Do you think any of this is going to change what I’m going to do? Let me the fuck out of here!” I yelled loudly, so loudly the door opened and a big, beefy man came through, closed it, and then stood with his arms crossed over his chest. Great.
“Calm down,” the doctor told me.
“Fuck calm,” I bit back as I felt Lynx’s eyes on me while I glared at the doctor. “Let. Me. The. Fuck. Out. Of. Here,” I snarled.
“Reign, I can’t do that when you are telling me, as soon as I do, you are taking your life. It isn’t possible.”
I growled, seriously growled at the man.
“You do realize that all you have to do is tell him you don’t feel that way anymore.”
My head snapped to Lynx, his words penetrating. An escape.
“Lynx, don’t,” the doctor warned, but Lynx didn’t listen.
“They have to keep you for five days to make sure what you said is true, that you are not a danger, but then they have to let you go.”
My mind began filling in the blanks of what Lynx was saying yet wasn’t really saying. If I said those words, I would have to prove to all of them in the next five days that I was normal, whatever in the hell that was. After that, I could get out of here and see freedom again. Fuck yes.
As my mind processed this for long moments, the air in the room had a slight chill to it.
“I don’t feel that way anymore,” I told the doctor, looking at Lynx.
“I don’t believe that for a second,” the doctor stated, scowling at Lynx.
I didn’t understand why he was so pissed at him. The doctor was the one who forced us together.
“I’m afraid I can’t—” he continued, but was cut off.
“I’m a witness, and so is he.” Lynx nodded his head to big, brute man at the door. “Legally, you have to.” He never lost eye contact with me.
The doctor threw his pencil on the desk and ran his fingers through his not-so-there hair, clearly pissed off.
I turned to Lynx who, for some reason, had a small smirk on his face, like he was happy to piss the guy off.
The doctor huffed, “Fine. You have to prove it to me, though.”
I had no idea how I was going to do that, but I would give it a shot. It was my only way out.
“The session just got extended.”
Lynx groaned, and I sat back in my chair.
“Tell us about your childhood,” the doc ordered, down to business now.
A tight knot formed in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t do this. Could I? I had to, so I guess I could.
I tucked my feet under my ass and my lips began. “My parents hated me from the moment I was born and let me know it at every turn. I was taken away from them because, apparently, I needed my arms and legs broken at the same time for the authorities to step in. I went into foster care. It was its own kind of hell.” I blabbed on for what felt like forever, telling them everything that happened to me during those years. Bottom line, it was shit and hurt like hell to dredge up, but I did it.
“You’re probably thinking, why didn’t she tell anyone, right?” I didn’t wait for either of their responses, just kept going. “I did: my court-appointed liaison through the foster system. I learned quickly that telling her anything was a horrible idea. Not only did she tell my foster parents what I said, she gave suggestions of my punishments for talking. I never spoke of it again.”
I looked up at the ceiling at one point and could see a small speck of light flashing above me. I didn’t want to think that it was hope, but I wanted out of here, and if talking was what I had to do, so be it.
The past assaulted me as a recording of my life played before me. The feeling of being nothing, no one to anyone, kicked me in the gut, but I didn’t have a choice. I needed to get out.
“That’s when I met Drew,” I continued.
The doctor cut in, “And that is the perfect place to stop.”
I closed my lips. I was on such a roll the time had fizzled before my eyes. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but something inside me felt a little lighter getting it out, even if it was in front of two strangers.
“Why did your parents hate you so much?” Lynx asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
I stared at him, thinking, trying to remember. For some reason, it didn’t stick out in my head. I had never really thought of it.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
“You never went and found out?” he asked, carrying on.
“No. Why in the hell would I want to hunt down two people who already hated me, who hurt me? No, thank you.”
“Your perception of things may be skewed.” He placed his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, eyeing me with an intensity that filled the room. “Because knowledge is power.”
“That’s all we have time for,” the doctor said abruptly, standing from his seat.
That night, those four little words rolled, trotted, and burned into my brain. Because knowledge is power. Power was something I had never had in my life.
***
The door opened, and Nurse Hatchet came in with a bright smile on her face, reminding me instantly of Andi. I wanted to be mad at her and I was, but I also missed her … desperately.
“Seems you’re on the fast track to getting out of here.”
I felt myself smile inside at that small thought. I could get out. There was an end to this. I just needed to tell the doctor what he wanted, and I could be done with all of this.
I shrugged.
She sat on the bed next to me, not saying anything for a long time. Finally, I broke the silence.
“What?” I prompted.
“I tried to take my own life when I was sixteen.”
I sat perfectly still. This was not what I had expected to come out of her mouth. At. All.
“I had wonderful parents.” My gut twisted as she continued on. “But they were killed by a drunk driver. I was in the car with them and the only one who survived.” Her voice broke as she continued. “I saw them: their bodies, the blood. I still see it at night when I close my eyes.” She shook her head. “The driver of the other car lived, actually walked out of her car while I was on a stretcher.”
I really didn’t know how to feel about that situation. I had enough pain of my own without trying to process someone else’s. As she spoke, though, the words penetrated somewhere deep. Thoughts of Drew or even Andi in the same situation collided, and I felt it. I felt the pain for them, for Nurse Hatchet. I had been too caught up in my own head to see it, so it hit me with the force of a wrecking ball.
“I hated that woman. I had to sit in court and watch her cry because of how sorry she was, because she was stupid enough to get behind the wheel of a car that night. I had to listen to her sob that her life would never be the same and that she lived with it every day. I even had to listen to her beg the judge for leniency because she didn’t want to go to jail.” Tears rolled down her eyes, and for some strange reason, I wanted to reach out and wrap my arms around her, but I refrained. Instead, I listened.
“The judge determined that it was her first offence and granted it to her. She was charged with vehicular homicide and got five years in prison. The kicker? She was out in twenty-seven months and two days for good behavior.”
Damn.
I scooted a little closer to her and tentatively placed my hand on hers. It was like she knew it was all I could give her, and she gave me a soft smile in thanks without a word about it.
“I was down a rabbit hole, as I called it. I had to move in with my grandparents, go to a new school, plus deal with everything else. I didn’t fit in, and I had so much weighing me down I felt like I was rooted in cement.”
I could totally relate to what she was saying. I never fit in at any school. I never had the right clothes, hair, makeup, nothing.
“Anyway, one night, I’d had enough, so I downed a bottle of my grandfather’s heart medication. I had no idea what it would do to me; I was just hoping everything in my head would stop.” I understood that. “It did until I was brought back. I spent two years in a place like this. Because I was a minor, I had no say so.”
She turned to me. “Reign, being in that place was horrible, having to relive things over and over and over again every day. I hated it. I hated my grandparents for putting me there. I hated the world. I hated me. I mean, why did I have to live while my family died? I get it,” she said, putting her other hand on top of mine.
I started, breathed deeply, and left my hand where it was.
“I learned something during my time there. I learned I had control of what I did with my life. I had none when it came to the woman who destroyed my life. I had none when it came to my parents being alive, but I could control what I did with me. That was the point in my life when I picked myself up from the ground and began to take control of my life.”
I said nothing. I couldn’t. I was stunned, shocked, and just in awe of everything she had said.
“Enough of that. Let’s go to your appointment.”
Nurse Hatchet felt it. She felt the darkness. She understood it, lived it, and she was there right then, helping me. She broke through it to become … happy. She tried to end it, just like me, to end the pain, but look at her. She was helping others, and I never would have guessed she had lived that past.
Something twitched in my soul, but I was too afraid to put a name to it. Afraid of that “H” word that meant there was a way to get through it, to see the light, just like Nurse Hatchet had done. Was it possible?
The walk down to Dr. McMann’s office was spent with thoughts of Nurse Hatchet and the words power and control banging around like drums. I wanted them both. I needed them both. I had never had either, at least not fully. Even living and working, I never felt like I was in control of anything. I always felt that everything could blow up at any minute, and I would be dragged back into physical hell.
Lynx sat in his chair, his tattooed arms crossed over his wide chest, legs outstretched, looking like he owned the space. Dr. McMann sat behind his desk as usual, and I took my seat as Nurse Hatchet left me.
Power and control. Power and control.
The doctor inspected me like looking at me would show him the window to my soul. “How are you today, Reign?”
“Fine.” I used the universal language of women. Fine meant so many things it needed to have three pages in the dictionary.
He turned to Lynx, “You?”
“Great.” His voice was utterly sarcastic, and that little spot inside me wanted to smile again.
Before the doctor asked any more questions, I turned to Lynx. “Knowledge is power. How would knowing why my parents treated me the way they did give me that?”
Lynx smirked, tipping up the side of his mouth that had the scar. For the first time since Drew, my stomach did a small spasm, although I ignored it.
“That was what started you on this path in life. Why wouldn’t you want to know?” he retorted.
“I’d never really put any thought into it. I took it at face value.”
He and I carried on this conversation like the doctor wasn’t in the room, watching the back and forth. I really didn’t care. All that mattered was getting the information from Lynx, finding out what to do with these small tingles of feelings that were beginning to invade me and how to use them.
He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth then popped it out. “That’s what you need to realize. Everything is deeper than face value. You have to get the whole story.”
I pulled my legs up underneath my butt, giving Lynx my full attention. “But why does it matter now?”
He leaned forward, yet I didn’t feel threatened by it as I normally would have. If anything, I had to stop my body from moving closer to hear what he was going to say.
“Because you never know what you might uncover,” he said mysteriously. I didn’t really know how to take that. “Getting back your power will pull you up to the light.”
My breath caught as my eyes widened. The light? Did I want the light? I thought back to Andi and how her light made me feel when the warmth of it wrapped around me.
I sat there for a long time, just processing what he had said. Then it hit me.
“You’ve been inside one of these places before,” I stated as I began to figure out my new therapy partner.
“This is my fourth time, and I’m sure it won’t be my last.” He leaned back, lacing his fingers together and putting them behind his head. “Most of this shit”—he nodded to the room and I guessed he was talking about being here—“is common sense. It’s just we get in our heads from time to time and have a hard time getting out.”
“Is that how you got so smart?” I teased, my breath catching.
Did I just tease this man? Holy shit, I did. What in the hell was wrong with me? Where in the hell did this easy camaraderie between Lynx and me come from?
I realized in that moment how I had totally lost control; the roller-coaster emotions were taking me for the ride of my life, going up and down, killing me slowly. I felt like I was unraveling.
When his smirk came back out like he knew exactly what was running through my head, I didn’t like that at all. He needed to stay far out of there if we were going to make it through this session.
“Babe, you have no idea.”
Babe? I did not know why his calling me that clicked in my brain, but it did. I liked it. Holy hell, how could I like that?
“All right. Let’s get down to it,” the doctor interrupted. “Tell us about Drew.”
The one name snapped me out of my thoughts of power and control, the hard rock of my life falling heavily in my gut.
Drew. My Drew. Reign, you want out of here … talk.
“I met Drew when I was fourteen when we were placed in the same foster home. I didn’t talk for the first two months there. I wanted to be invisible, but Drew pushed. We connected on several levels, but mainly because we were both alone in this world. We had no one, and eventually, all we had was each other.” As I spoke, neither man in the room said anything, as if they wanted to hear what I had to say, and once I got going, I didn’t want to stop. It was nice reliving the old me and Drew, remembering the happier times. It had been a long time since I had allowed those thoughts to come through instead of the final ones I had.
“I ran away that night.” I told them after reliving again that fateful night. “I hated living on the streets, but it was better than where I was. At least, out there, I could choose whom I slept with and what I got for it in return.” I surprised the hell out of myself by refusing to dwell and continuing. “Anyway, I saw some crazy shit out there, but I survived.”
“You sure did,” the doctor said. “I know there is more to your time on the streets, but I’d like to get to the point where you learned Drew was alive.”
“My best friend Andi wanted me to have closure with Drew and suggested I go to his grave.”
Lynx said nothing, only uncrossing and crossing his arms or legs every once in a while as I dredged up all those feelings again and felt the hollow get deeper in my soul. It was pulling me back under, and I couldn’t stop it as I spoke. The dreams I had when I was young with Drew vanished in a puff of smoke.
Lynx leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “Why don’t you just talk to him?”
“Pardon?”
He shrugged. “You know, talk to the guy. Even if he has a woman and kid, you could still talk to him, get your closure another way.”
Talk to him, another thing I either hadn’t thought of or was pushing from my head. I wasn’t sure which.
“I can’t,” I told him.
His brow furrowed as he challenged, “Why not?”
“Do you think I want to hear about his happy life? His wife, kid, and how he’s got this perfect life going on? Do you think that will help me in any way?”
He shrugged. “You never know.”
“I think,” the doctor started, snapping my attention to him, “that before you talk with Drew, you need to find you—the woman you are inside. You may be surprised.” His cryptic words freaked me out.
“I have no idea who I am, doc, and I’m not sure I’ll ever find out,” I said honestly. I hadn’t ever known.
“That is why you need knowledge. It’ll give you power. The power will give you strength. In that strength, you can find you,” Lynx said.
I gaped at him in shock. Who the hell was this guy, and what planet had he beamed down from?
“How? Where do you propose I start on this information quest, oh knowledgeable one?” I asked.
He let out a surprised chuckle then covered it up. “Your mother, of course.”
I wanted to take what he had said as a smart-ass ‘duh,’ but it wasn’t that. He was being totally serious. Deep down, I could feel that he really wanted to help me, which was bizarre.
“You’re in luck. I’m a wiz at finding out information.”
I raised my brow in question, and he gave me a one-armed shrug.
“I wasn’t just killing guys in the Army. I picked up a few things.”
Surely, I had heard him wrong. “You’re telling me you’d help me?”
“As long as you don’t bitch too much,” he quipped, but I knew he was teasing me because his eyes were light-hearted.
I didn’t know what to make of it, but I knew that a favor always granted a favor, at least in my world.
“What do I have to do in return?” I demanded.
“Not a damn thing.”