Watching Derrick flee, Janine didn’t give chase. Sometimes, a good therapist had to let a patient get angry. Anger was better than complacency, unless the anger turned destructive.

In Derrick’s case, she didn’t think he would harm himself or others. Not intentionally at least. His decision to avoid his family might seem selfish, on the surface at least, but she was trained to look past the words to the cause. Derrick is afraid of hurting his family. Not physically, but emotionally. Within close-knit families, if one person hurt, they all hurt.

Derrick understood his family would grieve his loss of mobility with him. Understood they’d do anything to make him feel as if nothing had changed. Would give up their lives to help him.

He didn’t want them to do that.

Add to that the shame he felt, a shame that people could tell him he shouldn’t feel but still did. You couldn’t ask a man who’d spent thirty years of his life with vitality and an active lifestyle to suddenly accept restrictions. It would take time for him to swallow the bitter fact that one of the things he felt defined him as a man, his penis, no longer worked.

Impotence was a hard thing for anyone to accept. Some never did. All she could do, all anyone could do, was teach him that there were other things he could undertake to satisfy the urges he would still feel.

First, however, she had to get him to listen. Right now, his pride had him stubbornly shunning all help. Pride wouldn’t stop her determination to get through to him.

The phone in her hand buzzed, and she glanced at it as she entered the building that offered rooms for the staff. Given the rehab center had patients twenty-four-seven and that specialists often flew in to give their expertise, a whole building, three stories in height, was dedicated to giving them a place to crash and call their own.

A quick press of her thumbprint and her screen lit up with a text message, which read: Why aren’t you answering my messages? You know I detest rudeness.

The latest text to Janine from her ex, and par for the course since Brian detested many things. Most of them petty in the grand scheme, such as the fact that she liked a messy bed.

How Brian had freaked when she deliberately yanked the comforter down after he made it. Perhaps it was petty of her, but the same way he couldn’t stand it looking messy, she couldn’t stand a tidy bed. It made no sense to her. After all, why spread and tuck the sheets every day when they would just get ruined that same night?

She didn’t have to look too far as to why she felt so strongly about it. She’d grown up in a home where beds had to be made. Father insisted. Father wanted the beds done tight and to perfection.

“If you can’t bounce a quarter, then you didn’t do it right.”

Daddy didn’t like slackers. He also didn’t like himself after his last tour.

“What’s wrong with Daddy?” she asked, the doll clutched under her arm. She couldn’t get the stroller out of her closet because of her father. He crouched in there, arms around his knees, silently rocking.

“It’s called PTSD. Something that happens to soldiers when they’ve seen bad things,” her mother explained with an arm wrapped around her shoulders. She turned her away from Daddy that day, just like she turned her from the casket less than six months later.

But her daddy issues weren’t why she dumped Brian and his military-made beds. The man was a control freak. Where are you going? With who? Followed later by, Why didn’t you answer my calls or texts? Because after the third one in an hour asking when she was coming home got to be embarrassing. As for now, his constant texts acting as if they still dated were worrisome. She’d heard of guys having a hard time letting go, but this now bordered on ridiculous. She’d made herself clear weeks ago she wanted nothing to do with him, and yet, he still acted as if they were a couple, even showing up at the hospital she worked at the previous week, looking tanned from his business trip down south and expecting her to greet him with smiles.

“What are you doing here?”

“Is that any way to greet your boyfriend?”

Apparently, his escort out of the building by security hadn’t hampered his delusion. He still kept calling and texting.

At least Brian didn’t know where she currently was. She’d taken a three-month sabbatical from her regular position at her local hospital. She hoped it would be enough time to get Derrick on to a more even keel with the world and himself.

Such an angry man. Hurting and broken. A part of her wanted to wrap her arms around him, hold him, brush his hair back, and soothe him with kisses. Completely and utterly unacceptable. She was here to do a job, not do him.

It’s unethical to even think it.

When she’d studied to become a therapist, she’d undertaken a certain oath, and part of that promise involved not taking advantage of emotionally vulnerable people. She was supposed to help them, not help herself.

The problem with being a psychologist was the annoying habit of diagnosing her own actions.

In getting suffering veterans to veer from suicide and self-harm, aren’t I just, in fact, trying to atone for the reality I couldn’t save my own daddy?

Funny how she told patients to not let their past govern their future, and yet, for her, it had decided her life path.

But I’m doing a good thing. Justification, the shield the righteous used to excuse their actions.

Having left Derrick to change, she took a moment to put in a call to her stepfather to report, yet it was her mother who answered. “June-bug, are you okay?”

She frowned. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Your boyfriend, Brian, contacted us and—”

“He’s not my boyfriend, Mom. We broke up awhile ago.” Something she’d not divulged to her mother because sometimes keeping quiet just seemed easier than explaining she’d made a mistake.

“I guess that would explain why you stopped bringing him to dinner.”

“You could say that.” The fact that Brian brown-nosed her stepdad so hard they really should get a room also irritated her to no end. She preferred a man with a little more pride.

Like Derrick.

No, not like Derrick. He suffered from having too much pride.

“So I guess giving him the exact address where you’re staying because he lost it and wanted to surprise you wasn’t a good idea.”

She sighed and closed her eyes as her fingers pinched the bridge of her nose. “No. It’s all right. I can handle Brian. If he shows up, I’ll just send him packing.”

A few more reassurances were bandied about, as well as a promise not to miss their wedding anniversary party because her great aunt Fiona—who said for years Orson and her mom wouldn’t make it—was showing and possibly about to change her mind. Mom wanted Janine to catch it on video.

Hanging up, she noted she’d arrived at her door. She tapped the card to get in and swiftly shut it, leaning against the portal with a sigh.

Despite what she’d told her mother, she wasn’t unconcerned about Brian’s possible appearance at the rehab center. With his credentials, they’d let him in. Why wouldn’t they? He still looked like the captain of a football team—blond, tanned, and fit with a thousand-watt smile. A fierce mountain cat inside a suit and he wasn’t afraid to use his claws.

She should have known better than to date a shifter. They were possessive and territorial. Brian even more so than most. About a month or so after they began dating, she realized just how possessive he was. Meeting him in the lobby of her building for a date, she’d noticed him emerging from the alley, hand still tugging at his zipper.

“What were you doing?” she’d asked.

“Showing the world you’re mine.” As in marking his territory with urine. Romantic at the time, now pretty damned creepy. Funny how perspective changed things.

Enough, though, about Brian. She’d deal with him if he appeared. Big if. What kind of jilted guy chased a girl hours away?

A shower, a change of clothes, and a sandwich later, she went looking for her patient. She caught up to Derrick in the rehabilitation gym. He was lying on his back, the vinyl-covered bench supporting his body while he held over his head a heavily loaded barbell.

When her libido perked with interest at the bulging muscles and slightly sweaty body, she slammed her fist into her thigh.

No. She’d kicked her candy-bar-a-day habit. She could kick this craving for Derrick too.

The guy acting as spotter and trainer wasn’t doing a very intense job. He sat straddling a second bench scrolling through his phone. Derrick pumped weight. Over and over. Without pause. Without strain.

The man was possibly part machine.

She came to a stop by his bench and frowned, first at the guy on his phone then at Derrick. “Shouldn’t you be spotting Derrick in case he runs into trouble?” If he dropped that bar, he’d crush his chest.

The trainer peeked at her then Derrick. “You need help?”

“No.”

“He’s fine.” And he went back to his phone.

She, on the other hand, was not fine and not about to leave it alone. This wasn’t how things worked. “Aren’t you supposed to be on him to work harder? To not give up? To, I don’t know, make this challenging for him?”

“Are you accusing me of not doing my job?” Tucking the phone away, the other guy stood, and towered. She crossed her arms and stared right back. But the growling didn’t come from her.

She tossed a startled glance at Derrick, whose eyes literally glowed with golden ire. The corner of his lip pulled back in a snarl, showing teeth, much more pointed than usual teeth.

Did the trainer know what Derrick was? She assumed he did, given the majority of the patients split their bodies with an animal. Yet, she knew humans worked here too. She couldn’t tell if a man was shifter or not, and she knew nothing about this so-called trainer since she’d not read anything on the rehab center support staff, wanting to get a first impression as she met them before rendering judgment.

So far you’re not getting a good grade, buddy.

“Ben, meet my new head shrink, Janine.” Pump. The bar, laden with weights, rose and lowered. “She’s young and idealistic and has all these grand ideas of how she’s going to fix me.”

“Only you can fix what’s broken.” She said the words, and both guys laughed.

“Red, that is funny. Your optimism is cute, but so misplaced. Some things get too broken for repair. You have no idea what it’s like to have seen what we’ve seen. To have endured. And, for some, live with the physical results daily.”

“You might have suffered a fall and cracked like Humpty Dumpty, but you can glue some parts back together and go on.”

“Did you just compare me to an egg?”

“She did,” Ben snickered.

“It might not have been my best analogy, but the meaning is unchanged. You’re broken, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pull the undamaged parts of yourself together and live a full life.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fuck me, do you have to start with the feel-good shit already?” Clang. Derrick tucked the bar back onto the Y bracket. He pulled himself to a seated position and leaned forward, hands braced on his thighs. “If you’re going to insist on following me around, then you need to do something more than blow happy rainbow smoke up my ass.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t feel a need to be so positive if you’d stop it with the woe-is-me shtick.”

“You call these a shtick?” He slammed his legs with his fist. “I think I’m allowed to be a little pissed.”

“Yup. And you are also allowed to be a dick, just like I’m allowed to tell you that you’re being a dick.”

“Doc, if I was a dick, you’d feel it.” He leered at her, trying to sound and look ugly. Trying so hard to push her away.

“That’s just crude. How would you like it if I made dirty jokes like that during a serious conversation?” She wasn’t truly offended. Guys were sexual creatures, and some of them were more vocally expressive than others. However, given their doctor-patient relationship, she needed to establish a certain boundary.

Laughter startled them both as the trainer, who stopped skimming his phone again to chuckle at them. “Damn, you guys fight like a married couple.”

“Out.” Derrick pointed to the door. “I’m having a session with my therapist.”

“That is the most fucked-up session I ever saw,” muttered the trainer as he took his leave.

“And that’s the guy they paired you with?”

“He’s like the third one. The first two kept trying to tell me what to do. He lets me do my own thing.”

“Why even schedule physio with a trainer at all if you’re not going to use him?”

“It keeps the shrinks and other doctors from harassing me. They seem to think if I’m left alone to my own devices I’ll turn into a lazy ass.”

“I don’t think you know the definition of lazy.”

He gave an exaggerated sniff of the air. “I smell smoke.”

“That wasn’t a false compliment. You keep asking for the truth. I’m giving it to you. Sorry if it doesn’t mesh with your perception of who you are.”

“I know exactly who I am.”

“A stubborn donkey.”

“How is name calling suppose to cure me?” he asked as he leaned forward to snag his wheelchair. She deliberately irritated him by grabbing it and parking it close to him.

Heave-ho. He made the transition with ease.

“It wasn’t name calling, more like image association.”

He cast her a glance. “Seriously? Is that what you’re going with?”

A giggle left her. “Oh come on. That was funny.”

“To who? I think you failed with the joke part.”

“Have I? Later on, you’ll think about me comparing you to a donkey and smile.”

“No, I won’t.”

Having kept pace with Derrick’s chair, she suddenly noted they’d traded the gym for the hall.

“Where are we going now?”

“I was going to take a shower.”

“Do I need to call someone?”

“Nope. I’m a big boy.”

“You’re planning to shower by yourself?”

“Depends, are you offering to help?”

Yes! She almost said it. Almost slapped herself, too, for thinking it. “No, I’m not offering, just wondering. Your doctor’s recommendation is you stay at the rehab center for additional support. Yet, from what I’ve seen, you seem pretty capable of taking care of yourself.”

“Didn’t do your homework? It’s all in my file,” he said, jabbing the elevator button that would take him down a floor to his level.

“I didn’t want to taint my impressions. I’ll read the entire file later, but for now, I want to get to know you, not some other person’s summary.”

“Well, if you had read it, then you’d know I have bad dreams.”

“What kind of bad dreams?” she asked.

“The kind I wish I didn’t wake from.”

With those words, he exited the elevator toward his room, leaving her to stare after him, even after the doors closed.

At least he didn’t try to avoid her after he’d showered and changed—without her help. Not avoiding, though, didn’t mean they made progress. Their session that afternoon didn’t prove very productive. Derrick wasn’t in the mood to talk about what had happened to him overseas. Wouldn’t open up about his family. Wouldn’t talk about much other than the fact that he was fine and just wanted to be left alone. Normal behavior really for a guy like him who didn’t want to let anyone get close.

Yet some of the tidbits he dropped, inadvertent ones, such as the fact that he had night terrors, sent her to bed that night to finally read his file and not just skim the basics.

It was hard to remain detached when she saw the pictures clipped within that showed his emaciated and abused frame when he’d been rescued. It truly sickened her to find out just how inhumane people could be. And for what? To claim a strip of land as their own? To say their God was better than another? Sharing and caring. Two simple concepts that, if adopted worldwide, would end so much of the strife and suffering.

Alas, nothing about the world was ever simple. Just like Derrick wasn’t simple. A man of complexity, he would require careful handling.

Two hands, I’ll bet.

Gasp. She blushed, even if she sat alone in her bed. How quickly and dirty her thoughts turned when thinking of the man. How utterly wrong. Here she read about how he’d survived something horrific and she couldn’t help but see his bravery—and found him the more attractive for it.

A knock at the door startled her. “Who is it?” she called.

“Harold. The doctor on duty sent me to fetch you.”

Opening the door, she noted the man dressed in blue scrubs with a receding hairline. “Where are you supposed to take me and why?” she questioned.

“We had a note left at the station saying if it happened again to let you know. Well, it’s happening.”

It involving Derrick, of course.

She grabbed a robe and followed the orderly as he led her through a basement level passage that linked the staff quarters and offices to the main rehab center. Entering the secured building, she noted the burly nighttime security guards flanking the doors and armed with Tasers. It made her think of a song by the Eagles. Something about checking in but forget about leaving.

The elevator waited for her, and she stepped in, only to notice the orderly didn’t.

“Aren’t you coming?”

He shook his head. “I’ve seen it before. And it’s not pretty.”

The elevator shuddered as it rose. The doors swooshed opened on her designated floor, and she immediately heard an eerie howl. Mournful, angry, and utterly uncanny. A shiver crossed her skin, raising the flesh in goose pimples.

Trepidation made her hesitate. What would she see? The file couldn’t say what exactly happened at night just in case the humans got a hold of it. All the reports said was that the patient suffered from extreme night terrors. Of what, no one knew for sure. Derrick wouldn’t talk about them. The prognosis? He relived some of the torture he experienced, a common side effect in trauma cases.

But why was there howling?

Upon stepping into Derrick’s room, she noted a few things. First, his arms were bound to his bed, thick leather straps buckled around his wrists and secured with another buckle to the metal frame. Second item of note, Derrick’s upper body heaved, arching high off the mattress while his head thrashed. Low, guttural sounds escaped him as his skin rippled. His eyes were shut, but she could see the rapid flutter of the orbs, a sure sign he was caught in the throes of a nightmare that he couldn’t escape.

What worried her more, though, given the inhuman sounds rolling off his tongue, was the beast that thought it could burst free. If that happened, and someone saw, or worse, got hurt, even she might not be able to save him—or herself if she was in his path.