23 – Leilani Loses Herself

Leilani gasped, then pulled in another breath and another, and another. The overburden of oxygen came hard and fast, filling her brain with a light-headed confusion that even touching Jaggar couldn’t dispel. She was hyperventilating and she couldn’t stop it.

The cat meowed again, louder. The sounds of a chair scraping across the floor and then spilling to the floor came to her, like someone had stood so fast they knocked their chair over.

“Oh no, oh no,” Leilani said, understanding crushing her. “I did it to myself. I did it all to myself.”

She clawed at her throat, hating herself in that moment. What had she thought would happen? How had she expected her mother to deal with what she’d done?

The cat had died, and she’d gone back in time to get the cat before it died. She’d done it again and again, but the cat kept getting run over in the present, so she’d “stepped through,” destroying the world as it was and creating a time spur, where everyone else in the world did not live the future that she’d had to live. But that was dangerous, the dragen had said so. And she’d known it was dangerous long before she ever met the dragen, hadn’t she?

Leilani held her head. She’d never had any “instruction” with this power of hers, never had anyone to guide her, and she’d made such a mess of it. Had she really never even asked where the power had come from, why she was the only one who could do what she could do? Maybe when she was young, before she’d known her mother hated it.

“What’s going on?” she asked Jaggar in a small voice, knowing, but not knowing.

“Your mom and Grey are up and in the other room.” Jaggar pulled her in there, keeping her close so she didn’t run into anything. She could hear her mom crying, soft sounds, sad sounds.

“I don’t know what to do,” Maile said.

Jaggar growled, low and deep in his throat. “Bastard,” he swore. “Grey’s got his arm around your mother.”

Grey’s voice came. “I’ll tell you what to do,” he said. “You double her medication, and then you get her committed. I know a place in Texas.”

“Oh no,” Maile said.

“They can help her,” Grey said. “The doctors can keep her… sane. They can keep her from… doing whatever it is that is bothering you.”

“I mean, maybe, but I can’t let her out of the state. She’s… she’s my daughter.”

Leilani reeled? Her fault. Her fault. All her fault. What had she been thinking?

Leilani pulled away from Jaggar, wanting to get off alone by herself somewhere. She forgot she was blind, forgot everything but the need to just stop thinking about what was going on. Which wasn’t possible, but her own thought loop and emotions were stirring her anxiety, making her want to puke and scream at the same time. She’d started having panic attacks once they put her in the Roosevelt, then stronger ones when her mom had stopped visiting for good. She’d eventually gotten over them, maybe when they’d switched a medication, maybe when she’d stopped believing she would ever make it out of that place. But she felt one coming on hard and strong and she didn’t want Jaggar to see it.

So she pulled away. He wouldn’t let her go. She pulled and traveled at the same time, moving slightly, wanting only to get out of his grasp, to disappear so he couldn’t see her.

Jaggar would not let her go. “Stay with me, Lele,” he said, holding on to her tight around the waist. She fought him, not even knowing what she was doing, and the clock in her mind twitched, then grew to ten times its former size, the hands spinning endlessly.

“Why did I do that?” she moaned, unable to help herself, still trying to get out of Jaggar’s grip. She’d pulled him into a dark nowhere, and in the nowhere, time and space were suspended for them, a flat nothingness that threatened to smash them both flat. She struggled to breathe, wasting her precious breath with words because she couldn’t help it. “I always thought it was my mother. I always blamed her. But it was me. I did it. I caused it all.”

He tried to speak, clutching her around the middle, keeping her tucked in to his body. She cut him off. “You don’t understand. I’m not normal. Mom never sent me back to daycare. I never even gone to school. I’ve never been to a school dance. I’ve never even held a boy’s hand. I didn’t go to prom, never picked a college, never been on a date, never held a job.”

Jaggar pulled her in close to him in the nothingness. “None of that matters,” he whispered to her, his words fading in intensity. “None of it matters and none of it was your fault and it’s all over, it’s done, you were a child, learning your way around the world.” He struggled to get his words out. “You weren’t treated in a healthy way. You were drugged, your mother obviously did not have the strength to handle you. I’ll make it up to you, Lele, all of it. Just give me a chance to make it all right for you.”

He squeezed her closer to his tense body, pressing at her back with both hands, like he could make everything he was saying true with his strength and make her believe it with his will. “If there’s anyone to blame here, it’s Rhen. Rhen and Khain and that angel. And probably the catamount, too.” He stopped speaking, then started and stopped many times, like he kept searching for the perfect words to say. She realized all of a sudden, she didn’t have enough air. Neither did he. She had to get them out of where they were and quickly but she didn’t know if she could. Air hunger clawed at her insides. The clock suddenly seemed so far away, she didn’t think she could reach it.

“Leilani,” he rasped, pushing his voice out with the last of his breath. “I’ll die here with you, if that’s what you want. I’m not scared to die. But I need you to swear to me you believe me first. I can die happy if you tell me that you understand it wasn’t your fault and that there’s nothing wrong with you.”

Leilani cried again, barely believing it, but if that’s what he needed, she could give it to him. He deserved that much.

“I believe it,” she tried to say. “It wasn’t my fault.”

Silver flashed.

They traveled.

***

Leilani smelled disinfectant. Yuck. It burned her nose, telling her exactly where they were. The Roosevelt, a kind of institution for those society had given up on, and where she’d lived from the ages of twelve to twenty-five. She ran for the clock in her mind, praying for control over when or where they ended up, wanting to be anywhere but there, when Jaggar started growling and… shifting? His skin rippled under her fingers.

“Jaggar, no, I need you,” she cried, holding on as tight as she could. “Don’t leave me.”

He settled. “No, I won’t leave you,” he said, his voice dark and bitter, his arm around her the way she liked it. He nudged her until she walked with him.

She didn’t want to know what was going on, but he told her anyway. “We’re at the Roosevelt. Joel the orderly passed me. We’re following him. You keep us here, ok? Don’t take us anywhere else, this is right where we need to be.”

Leilani didn’t like the note in his voice, the tightness and the intention she heard there. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Not sure yet,” he said. “But someone’s going to church.” His tone was detached, like his mood was turning, changing, like he was pulling out of himself.

She held on to him even tighter. “Jaggar, you can’t do anything to him. You can’t even touch him.”

“I’m certain I can figure something out if you keep us here long enough. Just a couple hours is all I need,” he said, that coolness was still there. “Just let me square this away, Leilani, and you won’t have gone through any of it. Things can be different.”

“How?”

He didn’t answer. He stopped instead. “I see you. You’re in a small room on a bed. You’re watching TV.” His voice was still indifferent, like he was telling her the sun would come up in the morning. “He went in your room,” Jaggar said, and she felt like screaming at the way he sounded. Like he wasn’t even there, like he was a robot.

He lifted her hand, placed her fingers on a wall. “Get us inside this room, Lele, that’s all you need to do.”

She didn’t want to, but the clock vibrated. It was still pointed the same way it had been, 9:45, but it moved her from inside her mind, and then they were inside the room.

The growling started, low, deep, harsh in Jaggar’s chest. His voice grated. “He’s pulled a curtain across the window. He’s got his hand on your shoulders. He’s saying something in your ear.”

Leilani could hear the whisper of Joel’s voice, just barely, and she imagined/remembered what he was saying. Something ridiculous, like he was introducing himself to her, and asking her out on a date.

More shame burned at her. “He was so gross, I didn’t want him to touch me.” She held her breath, clutching at Jaggar to keep him in one spot. She didn’t want to face any of this, and she especially didn’t want Jaggar to see it. “I tried to tell the nurses. No one believed me, because, you know. They said there was no proof. It was my word against his.”

“How often did he do this?” Jaggar asked, his teeth clenched. “How far did it go?”

“Not often, and not far,” she was quick to say, not wanting to make excuses for Joel, but not wanting Jaggar to think things that weren’t true. “A few unwelcome touches, never… what you’re thinking, and he never...” She trailed off, about to say he’d never hurt her, but he had hurt her. He’d been the one to tape those electrodes on her skin. He’d been the one to hurt her the most. She groped to change the subject. The TV sound flared, and on it she heard Supernatural, one of her favorites shows. Dean was speaking in a low voice. “Garth’s missing, sounds wolfy to me.” “Pretty brazen, even for a werewolf,” Sam agreed.

The sound mellowed again. She grasped for something to say. “Is my hair braided?” she finally asked. She remembered this day well.

“Yes,” he said.

“I think I know when this was.” Her roommate had braided her hair for her. She’d loved it, until Joel showed up. It had been two years before Evie had found her at the Roosevelt. “I think it is the first time he ever… said anything to me. I held so still. I remember thinking I couldn’t move, that I was frozen there.”

Jaggar lurched in her arms, pulling one hand free and taking a swipe at something. He growled and pulled farther out of her arms. The clock flashed silver in her mind, making her thoughts spin crazily. She called out for her mate, not wanting to leave him behind… “Jaggar!”

He got to her just in time. She pulled him back to the present… she hoped.