by Reiss, CD
“I’m calm.”
“I didn’t say be calm. I said stay calm.”
The view through the window got clearer as we got closer. I could see the streaks and finger spots on the glass. By the time we stopped, the rest of the hall was dark and we were bathed in the light.
“Where’s Wifey?”
“Why? Do you have one of her people again?”
“Answer the question.”
“Is this what I’m staying calm about?”
“Major. You will answer the question.”
Damn that bird on her collar. I had no interest in admitting the answer to her any more than I had in admitting it to myself.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Okay. As long as she’s not here.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want her hearing this from anyone else.”
“If you wanted my attention—”
“That unit that just came in? The ones that were booby-trapped bloody?”
“Yeah?” She definitely had my attention.
“They were looking for the Al-Taqa Six.”
“They found them?” I wasn’t even finished before I knew I would have seen them if they’d been found or wired with C4. “Or… they were the bait?”
“Their dogtags were the bait, apparently. I couldn’t get more than that. But this unit raided the house thinking they’d found them. They were moved. The scene was a mess, then once they tried to take the tags…”
“Boom.”
“Blackthorne has ears everywhere.” She put her hand on my arm. “She’s going to find out. It should be from you.”
“Thank you,” I said, but it wasn’t enough, so I repeated it. “Thank you.”
“You have an early morning shift. Oh five hundred,” she said. “I need you here. No excuses.”
* * *
Greyson and I were safe in her apartment with the windows shuttered against the storm. I’d given her a sedative, but that seemed to only make her agitation worse. Telling her about her brother would send her through the ceiling.
“Have you tried the circular breathing?”
“At work.” She crossed from one side of the room to the other. “We did a session.”
“Can you do it now?”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Why not?” I sat on the sofa and invited her to join me.
She sat. “I can’t sit still for it.” She got up. “There’s so much I want to tell you, but it’s hard to keep my thoughts together to do it.” She cleared her throat and cringed against pain. “It’s hard to stay in this room.”
“What’s hard about it?”
“I need somewhere to go. Some purpose, you know? Or it’s so uncomfortable I can’t think.”
I got up and held her arms at the elbow, keeping her still. My gaze met hers. She looked like a caged animal. Frantic, panicked by her surroundings.
“Your purpose is to talk to me. That’s your goal. Do you hear me?”
She swallowed. Nodded. A little of the frenzy drained away.
“Say it.” I knew talking would hurt, and demanding it was unfair and sadistic, but it was for her own good. “Tell me what you’re here to do.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work.”
“Say it anyway. You know it’s true.”
Deep breath. “I have to tell you everything.”
“That’s your purpose.”
“That’s my purpose.”
“Now believe it.”
I held her stare for a while, trying to catch the frenetic energy as she released it and redirect it back with confidence.
“This,” she said. “This is me. Running and driving forward. It’s not mania so much, because I don’t feel all-powerful. I don’t have an unrealistic idea of my own abilities. But there’s this push. Like I have to advance some agenda even if it changes once I finish.”
“Stay with me. Right here.” I led her to the couch so she could sit as long as she was able.
“When you had this thing,” she said, “when Damon was around, did you feel incomplete? Like not a whole person?”
“Yes. I didn’t think of it that way. But yes.”
I ran my fingers over the top of her hand. She was in so much pain. I knew that pain, yet she seemed the worse for it.
“I feel like Respite took half of me and hid it behind a screen.” She tried to get up, but I held her hands in her lap and she stayed. “She wants to show me things, and Caden, I don’t know what they are, but I don’t want to see them. And this half of me is running while she’s just waiting. I feel it. It’s like a dead weight on me. How did you deal with it? How?”
I didn’t have an answer that would satisfy myself or her.
“Don’t let her own you. Don’t let her take over.”
“She’s not trying to be me. She’s trying to help me. That scares me more than anything.”
“Why? What’s going to happen if she helps you?”
“Then I’m alone with it. With something. I need her to stay, and I need her to stop. It’s both and neither. I can’t make her stop, and I can’t make myself stay still.”
Her brown eyes went glassy with a layer of tears, and her words bypassed her torn throat so she could speak in a breathy whisper. “If you took my arms and legs away, I’d know who I was. Take my eyes, my ears, I’d still be me. But my sanity?” She blinked, and the tears fell. “Who am I?”
I tried to hold her, but she pushed me away and stood.
“Even if I get this fixed,” she continued, “I know it can happen. I can be broken. There’s something wrong inside me. How will I ever be the same?”
I could barely hear her through the tears and the shredded throat. When I reached for her, she tried to get away, but I grabbed her and pulled her back onto the couch.
“Your job is to sit here.”
“That’s not a purpose.”
“Yes, it is.”
“It’s not forward.”
“You’re exhausted.” I wiped her tears, but there were so many I couldn’t dry her face completely.
“I can’t sleep. Not when I’m…” She hitched a breath. “Not when I’m this way.”
“The other one sleeps. Respite. And I think I know how to get her out.”
“No.” She shot up. “No, I don’t want her. I’ll be this until we figure it out.” Pacing. Again. To the closed window. To the door.
I jumped up and put my hand on the door to keep it closed. Her lips twisted into a snarl.
“Get out of my way.”
“I’ll tie you down whether you like it or not.” I pushed her against the door, hovering over her so closely I was a cage.
“You can’t control me, so you threaten me?”
“Keep feeling sorry for yourself, and they won’t be threats.”
She pushed me away, and I pushed her back.
“You’re crossing the line, Caden.”
“Oh, fuck the line.” I took her chin and made her look at me. “Fuck all the lines. Draw me a million fucking lines, and I’ll cross all of them to get to you.”
She swallowed against the pulse inside my wrist.
“Let me go,” she whispered.
“Let me help you.”
“Help what? I can’t take this. I can’t take another minute. I can’t live in my own head anymore. I don’t know who I am or what I think. I’m at my limit. I can’t take it. I’ll do anything to make it stop.”
“Let me help you.” My hand slid down to her chest. I held her in place gently, letting her know I was there without trapping her.
“Help me what? Tell me what, and I’ll do it.”
What did I want her to do? I was at as much of a loss as she was. I’d have done anything for her, but there was nothing to do. “You need to rest. We need to relieve the pressure from the other… Respite. Let her through. Let her help you.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You’re never going to get on the other side o
f this unless you do.”
“How do you know that?”
“You just told me. You just said she’d disappear when she was done.”
She pressed her mouth shut and averted her gaze from mine. She didn’t have an answer.
“I know how to switch it,” I said. “Damon was triggered by the sunset. The darkness. You have a different trigger.”
When she looked at me, she was open and curious. “What is it?”
I couldn’t help but smirk. “Orgasm.”
“Only you would come up with that.”
“Hardly. It was you.” I unbuttoned her fly with a twist of my fingers. “You flip when you come.”
She relaxed her shoulders, moving her head to the side as if she was considering the proposal. “I think you’re wrong, but it won’t hurt to try.”
“That’s my girl.”
I backed up to give her space, moving aside so we could go deeper into the room, but I’d underestimated her again.
She spun around, opened the door, and walked out.
When my wife decided to self-destruct, she went at it the same way she went at everything—with grit and resolve. I’d expected that. I hadn’t expected the speed.
She didn’t go out. She went up, and even if she didn’t know what she was doing, I did.
She didn’t want a rest. She wanted this to end. She was going to recreate her fear and face it.
The stairs were outside the building. Drifts of sand had accumulated in the corners. She took the steps two at a time, using the bannister to hoist herself up faster, with me at her heels.
“Greyson!” My voice sounded like wind.
My view of her narrowed and folded as she stepped from the stairs onto the roof. The wind was more powerful up there, and it came from every direction. She had her knees bent and her elbow crooked over her face.
I grabbed her free arm. “What the fuck are you doing?”
She didn’t answer. She stretched herself toward the edge of the building. I pulled her to me.
“I am not going to let you hurt yourself.”
She twisted away but didn’t run. She was out of her mind. Free of sound judgment. Listening to voices that wanted her to act without thinking. I knew those voices. They’d told me to punch a wall to break my wrist. They’d made me jerk my dick bloody. They weren’t foreign intruders but the voices that we dismissed when we were in our right minds.
We were both compelled to do something, anything, but we were being pushed in opposite directions. The difference between us was that for the moment, I was sane.
That was the final realization. I put my love away. My compassion took a back seat to professional detachment. There were things that had to be done to save her. She had to be stabilized before she could be cured.
She got two steps toward the edge of the building, crouching against the push of the storm.
The wind slowed her down enough to catch. I grabbed her arm, then her waist, pulling her back against my chest. We fell to our knees with her writhing and me trying to get control of her.
“Caden,” she said without reprimand. It was a call to her husband.
I put my hand into her waistband. “Let me, Greyson! Help me!”
She bent over, and I followed, jamming my hand all the way down until I felt where she was soft and wet. My weight held her down.
“I don’t want Respite.” Her voice was nearly lost in the wind, but I was close enough to hear.
“You need it.” I found her clit. It was hard and slick. My hand could barely move against the weight of our bodies and the restriction of her clothes. “Let me in. You want it too.”
“Don’t hurt me.”
I froze, processing the new request. My detachment shattered.
She was mine to protect. Mine to heal and love. No one should hurt her. Ever. Not me. Not her. No one should ever breach her wishes with their own.
“I won’t.”
I rubbed her, and she bucked under me. My cock pushed against her ass, raging to get inside her. Her legs relaxed and opened a little. My hand went lower and deeper, fingering her opening before finding her clit again. Flicking, squeezing, circling, until her hips gyrated under me and the sound of the wind seemed to move farther away.
The pressure to come from just the grinding motion was immense, especially when she pushed back against me to get her hand under her. It joined mine between her legs, directing my movements.
The last time I’d made her come when she was a woman in motion, she’d been on top, commanding the situation. I let her have control again, moving my hand with hers as we grinded against each other. Sand skittered across her cheeks and lips. Her face was lost in pleasure. Magnificent and mine alone.
“God, baby,” I growled. “You’re making me want to come.”
She answered with parted lips and a stiffened spine. The sight of her orgasm sent me over the edge, and I came with her, blowing it into my shorts like an adolescent.
We balled up on the roof, breathing against each other while the wind whipped around us. Who was under me? When she spoke, what would she say? Would it be active Greyson telling me how wrong I was about her trigger? Or would it be Respite, whose name was a lie?
I knew before she opened her eyes or spoke. I knew by the lack of tension in her joints and the easy rhythm in the rise and fall of her back. Getting up on my hands and knees, I observed her, and she opened her eyes, squinting against the flying sand.
“Respite?”
She smiled wanly. More awake than before. More aware and somehow more dangerous. “You’re saying it wrong.”
Part Two
RESPITE
Chapter Ten
RESPITE
Most people don’t know when they’re going to die, but I did.
I had an all-consuming drive—and it went backward.
When I was at the beginning, I was at the end. I’d have fulfilled my purpose, and past it, there was nothing but a void.
It didn’t matter. My will to survive was nothing compared to the will to go back.
When Caden got off me, I got to my feet. I was wobbly because I couldn’t pay attention to the act of standing. Every bit of energy went to remembering.
“Can you walk down?” He held me up by the waist.
I nodded, squeezing his hand. What a beautiful creature he was. With the orange sky behind him and his eyes squinting against the storm, he was deeply rooted in the world and all its troubles. He was a god causing the pain he cured.
“I can.”
He led me to the steps, keeping his hands on me as if I had the will to run away.
I was grateful to him, but he wouldn’t make me come again. Not until this was finished.
The screen flickered to life, and I was eighteen.
* * *
I could identify two separate cricket sounds and tell the difference between a breeze from the west and a wind from the north. I was more sober than I had any business being. The happy, swoony feeling was gone, as was the sick swimmy feeling. My lucidity was painful.
Nighttime was a devil of clarity. All the doors open. Owls. Crickets. Birds. Scuttling in the bushes. Things breathing. Hearts beating. Somewhere. Anywhere. The cracking of nail polish being worried off sounded like a jackhammer in slow motion. The moon and stars were hidden behind a thick layer of clouds that caught the lights from the ground, diffused it, and sent it back as a shadowless mass.
The lights were off, and the engine clicked as it cooled. In the passenger seat of Jake’s Chevy, I chipped my nails from solid purple to jagged gray.
Snick-snick-snick.
Waiting for my brother to get back, I congratulated myself when I got a big piece and brushed it off my skirt when it fell.
Snick-snick.
I got right back down to business. My full attention on cracking the polish meant I could move forward without looking back. This project in the cacophony of the night kept me from turning my mind back in time. Kept me from thinking about the
weird brokenness between my legs. The soreness that reminded me of my deep corruption. The thing that caused all the other things that…
Snick-snick-snick.
If I’d known where I was going, I could have run there. If I’d been avoiding something my whole life, I would have hurtled myself into it full force. But I’d been adrift. I had nothing to run to any more than I had anything to run from. Until now. Now I had something to run from, but it was everywhere. You can’t escape if you’re running in circles.
Snick-sni—
“Ow.” My voice sounded alien, and when I put my finger in my mouth, it tasted of enamel and blood.
I opened the glove compartment. The light went on. I wasn’t supposed to shine a light or make a sound, so I hurried to grab a Burger King napkin from the compartment before the light cut too much of the night.
I closed it softly. Maybe the shock of light woke up a part of my brain that had gotten used to the darkness. Maybe my corneas had a temporary burn. Maybe some higher power had something to say. I don’t know why the picture of what was under the napkin was imprinted in my mind, but even with the return of dark and the bleeding under control, it remained.
BE ALL YOU CAN BE.
Jake had enlisted six months before and had only been home a few days. He loved the military. The order. The routine. The challenges. Even the hierarchies.
ALL YOU CAN BE.
What was I?
Snick-snick-snick.
Was I who I had been yesterday? Or was I who I’d become in the past three hours?
YOU CAN BE.
I’d sneered at him when he came home, but he’d just smiled as if he knew something I didn’t.
CAN BE,
I considered myself a pretty shrewd customer. A real cynic. I could sniff out falsehood. I knew PR when I saw it. “Be All You Can Be” was pure public relations magic, even to a girl who had made eyeliner into an art and wanted hair so dark it could take out a city block.
BE- snick-ALL- snick-YOU- snick-CAN- snick-BE.
But what could I be?
Could I live in a straight line?
Could I have forward motion?
