Sin & Suffer

My mathematical ease. My carefully trained conscience. Shit, every bank code, password, and trading algorithm had flown free, leaving my brain a forsaken wasteland.

I was … empty.

Mo shot a worried look at Grasshopper. “You got it, Kill.” Grabbing me around the nape, he guided me like a dog leads a blind man to the door. “Go get better, Prez. The war can wait. But your health and woman can’t.”

Without another word, I followed the doctor to her temporary examination room and passed the fuck out on the table.

Chapter Eleven

Cleo

Crap, I was in so much trouble.

Dad had caught us. He’d seen Arthur kissing me. Or rather, me kissing Arthur. God, it’d been so embarrassing. Why couldn’t Mom have caught us? She’d delivered the “sex talk” like an automated textbook with no giggling or embarrassment. But Dad … ugh. The fact that he’d sat me down and told me that Arthur had a penis and that I was to never—under any circumstances—let it come out of his pants was the singular most mortifying thing that’d ever happened to me. Only thing was … instead of being horrified at teenage pregnancy, now all I could think about was Arthur’s penis. —Cleo, diary entry, age thirteen

Funny how sleep had the power to erase the trauma of the previous day.

How dreams wash away grime and heal wounds in a way water and medicine never could.

I’d gone to bed achy, wrung out, and fretting myself stupid over Arthur.

Now I woke stiff, lethargic, and fuzzy—but revitalized enough that past concerns no longer gnawed so deeply.

The clock still ticked.

The world still spun.

We were alive and that was all that mattered.

Glancing around the room, I reacquainted myself with the space I’d slept in before I was stolen. The carpet was still the same. The layout hadn’t changed. The drapery hung open and inviting eager Florida sunshine to act as our alarm clock.

I waited for a flutter of panic at having a safe place breached. But it never came. I remained centered and content.

Stretching and sucking in a replenishing breath, I rolled over to face the man who’d been beside me when our safety had been compromised. My heart pattered with horrible memories of him being whacked over the head and left bleeding.

I hurt more for him than myself, and I cursed the world for damaging him yet again. The injustice he’d lived through—the betrayals he’d suffered.

But life doesn’t play favorites.

Just because I loved him didn’t mean he was exempt from bad things happening.

Life went on. Waited for nothing and no one. It was up to us to put the past in the past and grow stronger.

Looking at the world in such a way made me feel very insignificant, but at the same time, relieved. Relieved because no matter what atrocities happened, they could all be forgotten if we allowed the magic of a new day to wipe the slate clean and begin anew.

I smiled slightly, thinking about my progress from blankness to remembrance.

The doctor last night had been one of the best I’d ever talked to. Not only had she discussed the symptoms I’d suffer over the next few days as the swelling in my brain went down, but also put my fears to rest about my amnesia. She’d studied psychogenic amnesia at length as part of her thesis and promised to catch up to discuss possibilities of me ever having a relapse and how to patch up the final holes in my past.

She made me trust that I could be fixed … that I could become completely whole once again.

When she’d finished with me, I’d headed upstairs to wait for Arthur. I’d had good intentions, but the moment I climbed into bed, I was out.

I should’ve stayed up to make sure he was okay.

I bit my lip, guilt clouding inside. What if he’s worse and I didn’t notice?

Snuggling closer to Arthur, I feathered my fingers over the dark circles beneath his eyes. I held my breath, waiting for him to wake from the slightest touch.

He’d always been a light sleeper—explosively coming awake if he heard a noise or, as he used to say, “a disturbance in the force.” He wasn’t a Star Wars fanatic but he’d seen the movies enough in his youth to quote it at the strangest of times.

But … nothing happened.

Arthur …

His breathing hitched but he didn’t flinch away or open his eyes.

Ice entered my heart.

Wake up!

I slid my fingers over his cheekbones, moving to trace his mouth.

Still … nothing.

Oh, God.

Sitting upright, I swallowed back a rush of nausea and nudged his shoulder. “Arthur.”

Old wounds caused by eight years apart ruptured inside me, bleeding, drowning with panic.

I tapped his cheek harder. “Art. Wake up.”

My wounds continued bleeding, flowing with no tourniquet, filling me with horror.

“Arthur.” I shook him. “Wake up.”

His large body twisted, a lethargic arm swatting at me. He mumbled something, then slipped back into slumber.

He’s still alive at least. He could just be super tired from the stress of finding me and everything else that he refused to share. Or he could be slipping from me.

I would never let that happen. My veterinary training kicked in. I searched for vitals, sought out his pulse and temperature. What was the proper medical attention for a concussed man who couldn’t wake up?

My brain rushed with textbook solutions while my heart fisted and pained.

I shoved him hard. “Arthur Killian, wake up this instant!”