Chapter Twenty-Two
Hours later they’d come to a tenuous treaty, involving concessions on everyone’s part, including Serge.
Jessie sat before Rafe, prepared and unafraid of having him question her.
Maddie, who had willingly agreed, much to Rafe’s visible upset, sat before Serge, who was required to question her openly about anything Ricard deemed appropriate should Rafe’s questioning go awry.
Aurelia, was seated beside Ricard. She had without prompting offered herself to Ricard for experimentation should Rafe’s questioning of Jessie become a problem.
Gabe was forced to stand at the opposite end of the room in a circle and was warned that if he left the circle, Aurelia would be used in some sort of experiment.
Jessie gazed at both women and tried not to laugh. She knew without one iota of worry that Rafe would not take advantage of her. There was not a bit of concern in her. Something about the way he’d so gingerly talked to her the last time made it perfectly clear he had no intention or desire to hurt her.
And, now that everyone’s mate was tied up in a kamikaze domino torture plan Jessie felt absolutely certain nothing bad would happen in this room.
She sighed.
“If you’re nervous, you don’t need to do this,” Ricard said.
“He’s right. We can stop now.” Rafe looked green.
“I’m all for stopping,” Gabe called from across the room where he paced the outer limits of the circle.
Serge sat with his arms folded over his chest.
“I’ve never seen a vampire look like he was going to throw up,” Aurelia said.
“Green is not his color,” Maddie said.
“I’m ready.” Jessie squared her shoulders and nodded.
“She’s ready. Are we going to wait all night to get this show on the road?” Aurelia asked.
One would think no one wanted the secret information she had. It was, at best, peculiar the way these men were behaving.
“Jessica.” The sound of Rafe’s voice caught Jessie off guard. His rich tone blanketed her like luxurious velvet and in an instant she felt the warm sleepiness like she’d felt the night before.
Her head tilted back, eyes closed.
“Jessica, open your eyes and sit up.”
When she did as he suggested, all she saw was Rafe. His wide body, tattooed neck, dark beard beneath dark, smoldering eyes.
“Good. Now do you remember the night we met?”
“Yes, at my apartment. It was the night Joshie died.” Her mind reverted back to that night, planting her firmly in the kitchen, holding him as he begged her to help him.
His vacant eyes sat in a gaunt face, black circles surrounding his eyes dipped below his cheekbones, cheeks sunken inward.
The pain of that night tore at her and a sob shook her.
“Jessica, I’m right here with you. Do you understand that you are not alone?” Rafe asked.
She nodded.
“Good. Step back from the moment. Do not fall into the memory. I want you to only see it, but not relive it. Can you do that? Can you distance yourself?” Rafe’s voice coached her back to a spectator’s seat. “You are no longer in the situation. It is past. Now, you are seeing something that no longer affects you.
“Take me through the apartment. Where are your father’s notes?”
Jessie shook her head. “Not there. I never kept anything important in the apartment. He told us to keep the valuables hidden.”
“Who?”
“Dad.” She smiled. “He believed Panthera watched us.”
“Where are the notes?”
“I hid them at Panthera. They’d never find them in their own lab.”
Something prickled Jessie’s skin and she pulled away. As quick as it happened the sensation ended. Jessie relaxed into the seat.
“Where in Panthera?”
“The patients’ wing where they treated Joshua. There’s a loose brick behind the headboard. No one would notice.”
A long pause occurred. During that time Jessie felt Ricard’s presence, felt his warmth hovering near the edges of her mind.
“What do you recall of the visits to Panthera?”
“Not a lot. I was not allowed beyond the staging area where the patients were prepared for treatment.”
Just as she answered the question the memory of the room appeared. A large white room with not a single picture on the white walls and no windows where sixteen beds lined the walls in rows of eight.
“Bed twelve. That’s where Joshua always stayed. Bed twelve was his.”
“Did they ever treat him right in bed twelve?”
“No. They took him beyond the doors.” Jessie’s heart ached to know she had allowed them to take him back there and do who-knew-what with him.
“Did they ever treat you at Panthera?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“What did your father—”
“Not at Panthera. Mr. Rollins helped me at the clinic in town.”
Jessie breathed in the scent of bleach. Everything at the clinic was bleached so much so she had ruined a couple pieces of clothing on two different occasions. She coughed, trying to clear her lungs.
“I saw him six times and he thought I’d be fine after the first one, but then I was not, I guess.”
“What did he treat you for?”
“The first time was hallucinations brought on by stress. Joshie was so sick. We were constantly in need of something. Every week we had a visit of some sort at a Panthera treatment center and every week we found out we’d need something else. It was costing us more than we could afford, and I was worried and losing sleep and then the hallucinations started.”
“What did you think you saw?”
“Men in our apartment at night. Men who…I don’t know what they did, but they spent time with Josh. They talked and brought him drinks and promised to take care of him.”
“What did they do to treat your hallucinations?”
“Some sort of therapy, though not as intense as shock treatments, but along those lines. Mr. Rollins called it memory strengthening. It was supposed to stop the hallucinations. It didn’t work right away. In fact I saw more men in my apartment, and I thought they were taking blood from both of us.”
Jessie shook her head. “I told Mr. Rollins. That’s when he gave me the SMR, which finally helped.”
“What’s the SMR?”
She pulled up her sleeve and twisted her arm over to show the backside of her triceps. “This. A Sub Muscular Responder. It releases little shots of some relaxant to help keep my mind from running wild.”
In the distance an animal roared, and Jessie thought about the last time she’d gone to a zoo. “Did you hear that?” she asked? She glanced in the direction she thought the animal might be. “I hope you heard it, too. What if it’s another hallucination?”
“Sleep, Jessica. Sleep deeply.”
Jessie’s thoughts jumbled together and she plummeted into a deep, comfortable slumber.