Numb

by Dean Murray

  Numb

  by Dean Murray

  Copyright 2012 by Dean Murray

  Also by Dean Murray:

  The Reflections Series

  Broken (free)

  Torn (free if you sign up for Dean's Mailing List)

  Splintered

  Intrusion

  Numb

  Trapped

  Forsaken

  Riven

  The Greater Darkness (Writing as Eldon Murphy) (free)

  A Darkness Mirrored (Writing as Eldon Murphy)

  Driven The Dark Reflections Series

  Bound

  Hunted

  The Guadel Chronicles

  Frozen Prospects (free)

  Thawed Fortunes (free if you sign up for Dean's Mailing List)

  Brittle Bonds

  Shattered Ties

  Numb

  Author's Note: As I write this note, Alec and Adri's world has grown to include eleven published titles with another four novels to be released in the next eight months. Things are chugging along at quite the pace now, but back when I wrote the original two threads that make up this story, only Broken, Torn and Splintered had been released.

  Numb actually came about because I had the chance to join in a multi-author promo and agreed to write a short story to be posted on a website along with several other writers. Back then Alec and Adri's breakup was still very raw, and I felt like I needed to explore that more than I'd been able to in Intrusion and Trapped.

  I sat down to write, and got some unexpected surprises along the way. I knew that Alec was hurting, but I hadn't realized just how difficult it was for him to not be able to confide in any of his pack mates. I knew that Adri and Cindi had been best friends as well as sisters, but back then I hadn't realized how they managed to avoid all of the sibling rivalry so common in most families.

  Maybe it isn't fair to call this a story. It's more like shards of glass that have been put together into something that looks like it might be the beginnings of a stained glass window. There are hints in here that speak to the driving difference between the Reflections and the Dark Reflections books, and there are some insights into both Alec and Adri. There are some surprises—like a rare glimpse into the Paige family, happy and whole—but mostly these two fragments just contain a lot of pain.

  Adri deals with her pain by taking solace in a favorite memory, while Alec tries to confront his in a more direct manner, but really they are both hurting. That's okay though because trials just make our eventual victories all the sweeter.

  Adri Paige

  The Paige Residence

  Manhattan, New York

  Okay, here goes nothing. My assignment is to write about my favorite winter memory, and some of the idiots in my class—they call it a track here—complained that they always have a hard time starting, so we're supposed to do this stream-of-consciousness thing. I guess that means I'll just write whatever comes to mind and then I'll axe anything that I don't want my teacher to see.

  Sometimes it seems like the first three-quarters of my life is one long winter memory. Minnesota gets hot during the summers, but for some reason that isn't what has stuck with me. It's the cold that always comes to mind when I think of home—only I guess I can't call it home anymore.

  I remember one time when we went ice-skating on this lake an hour away from our house. It was maybe the worst idea ever. The temperature hadn't made it into double digits all week, but somebody had organized this town outing there and somehow my dad heard about it.

  Dad stuffed us all in the car as soon as he got home from work and we drove straight there. I think we even forgot to eat. Once we arrived, Dad rented skates for Cindi, him and me and then we went out on the ice while Mom took pictures of us.

  It was cold, I mean really, really cold. The if-I-stay-out-here-too-long-I'll-die-from-exposure kind of cold. It was a ton of fun though. The ice sucked and there were only half a dozen other people out there with us. Cindi and I fell down at least twenty times but Dad just kept picking us up and brushing the snow off of us.

  We were the last ones to leave the ice. Mom had even put her camera away by the time Dad finally made us go inside. It's funny though. Most of that night is just a blur of laughter and bruises, but the thing that made the biggest impression on me was the old man running the skate rental. I think it was a church-sponsored event or something, because he would have pretty much had to have been a saint to calmly stay out there waiting for us to get off of the ice.

  We stumbled off of the ice and sat down next to Mom on a rickety wooden bench. The old man was there before we managed to get our skates off and he actually knelt down in the snow and helped take them off of Cindi's feet. He said something to her, and she stiffened up like she'd been hit.

  She never did tell me what he'd told her, but I think it might have had something to do with me. It sounds stupid, but I caught her looking at me more than usual on the drive home. We were bundled up in a blanket in the back seat of the car with the heater going full blast and she just looked over at me and smiled.

  We hadn't been getting along all that well up to that point, so that would have been odd all by itself, but there was more. It was almost like that trip was the beginning of everything changing. It was a little while after that when Cindi and I started really becoming good friends.

  Before that, Dad had always been the glue that held our family together. Mom was always a little distracted, always viewing the world through her camera lens, and Cindi and I fought more than we got along, so it had always been Dad I'd been the closest to. After that, it was almost like we became a real family.

  Cindi and I became best friends and then it didn't matter so much that Mom spent most of her time off in a world of her own.

  I just checked my word count and I'm way far away from being done with the assignment, especially after I cut out all of the crap that I don't want anyone else to read, but I think I'm going to just leave it alone for tonight. It's past time for me to go to bed. Maybe I'll have a better idea tomorrow.

  Doctor Goldberg

  Bel Air

  Los Angeles, California

  The kid who walked into my office was muscular and paranoid as hell. Unfortunately that was all I really knew about him. His new patient questionnaire was on the desk in front of me, but the odds were that everything on it was a lie. It was par for the course for my clientele.

  Once you started charging a couple of thousand bucks an hour, you were into people who weren't inclined to trust doctor-patient privilege very far. It wouldn't surprise me if he'd flown in from out of town on a private jet just to see me.

  He was better than most though. Usually I could find half a dozen clues as to who I was dealing with, but I was coming up completely dry with him. His clothes were perfectly suited to the warm California winter that I planned on going out and enjoying as soon as our session was over.

  "Why don't you come in and have a seat…Brad."

  He dropped into the chair without saying anything and I suppressed a sigh. He was going to be more difficult than most.

  "What brings you here, Brad?"

  "Haven't you figured me out already from my questionnaire?"

  I shook my head and leaned back. He was testing me, but I'd been tested before. "The questionnaire is meant to give us a starting point for further discussion, but it can't even do that if you refuse to answer it truthfully."

  I got nothing more than a raised eyebrow in response to my accusation, but I waited him out.

  "It's actually all the truth, Doctor."

  We were on shaky ground now. I didn't want to let him get in the habit of lying to me, but he felt like the kind who would just get up and leave if I pushed too hard too soon.

  "Let's ignore the questionnaire for a moment and talk about the th
ings that are important to you."

  "I'm not sure I can answer that one, Doctor. I thought I knew what was important to me, but I've acted in a way recently that would tend to overturn those beliefs."

  "Okay, Brad. Let's back into the answer. You can often tell what someone values by seeing where they spend their time and money. What was the last major purchase you made?"

  I would have rather gone straight to the question of where he was spending his time, but the question of money tended to be less threatening with the kind of people who made it into my office. I was right; he didn't even pause before answering.

  "We just spent fifteen million on a large parcel of land that I think has major mineral deposits underneath it."

  "Was that an enjoyable purchase? Did it provide you with a sense of excitement, or maybe of power?"

  He rubbed his eyes and then leaned back and shook his head. Interesting. It wasn't late enough in the day for him to be tired already. It probably meant he wasn't sleeping well. Of course there were another dozen possibilities, but it wasn't the first clue that I'd recorded since he'd walked through the door. Each bit of information helped clarify what I was up against this time. That, more than anything, was the secret to my success. I had a photographic memory and the ability to put seemingly unrelated bits of information together to arrive at the answer I needed. It really was just a matter of time. If we spent enough time together I'd eventually figure out what was causing his underlying problems.

  He shook his head again and then looked at the window. "No, it was just another transaction. We've had our eye on the area for a couple of years now. Our best computer model says that there should be…let's just say that once it's developed it will pay for itself in short order. The owner of the land died a little while ago and we had the operating capital necessary to move so we approached his estate about purchasing the land."

  It was another interesting tidbit. There weren't many people and organizations in the U.S. who could come up with that kind of money at the drop of a hat, but those weren't the kinds of clues that I needed.

  "What about non-business purchases? What was the last thing you bought that you looked forward to?"

  He shook his head. "No, that's off-limits. I'm not interested in getting into that particular discussion, I'm here for other reasons."

  I leaned forward and gave him my best 'earnest concern' expression. "Brad, why are you here? I mean, why did you choose me out of everyone else you could have gone to?"

  He didn't like that question either, but this time it wasn't an emotional response. He knew where I was headed. That was okay though. In many ways it was easier to deal with the really smart patients. I wouldn't have to take him all the way through my logic; he'd see it for himself without needing to be spoon fed.

  "I'm here because you're the best. Even the psychiatrists who hate you agree that you're good at what you do."

  I leaned back in my chair and nodded. "Exactly, which means that you have a decision to make. You can either get up and walk out of my office, or you can answer my questions. It's entirely your call, but you came here because you knew you needed help."

  "Fine. The last big non-business purchase I made was a trip."

  "A trip?"

  He nodded and then cleared his throat. In someone else it might not have meant anything but this was the most rattled I'd seen him yet.

  "Yeah. I wanted to surprise a girl so I booked a skiing trip for our families."

  "By booked you mean that you had one of your people make the arrangements?"

  He closed his eyes briefly as if hiding from a memory, and then shook his head. "No, I flew out to the resort one evening after she'd gone to sleep and toured it. It was amazing. Not the skiing so much, I don't know much about that, but the cabins were gorgeous."

  It was the most passion I'd seen out of him yet, so I pursued the line of questioning. "Tell me about them."

  "It was almost like living outside despite the cold. They had a solarium off on one side, fireplaces in every room, and the master suite was situated at the top of the cabin and had a three hundred degree view. The night I was there you could see the snowflakes drifting down onto the skylight. It was the most peaceful thing I'd experienced in a long time."

  "Your families would have been okay with the two of you sharing the master suite?"

  He shook his head again, seemingly still lost in the memory of his trip. "No, it wasn't like that. Her mother would have freaked out. We would have slept in separate rooms, but the layout of the cabin sparked something inside of me. When I got back home I started looking into property so that I could start building something similar."

  Now was the time to pounce. He was finally relaxing. Regardless of whether or not his questionnaire was true, we were finally getting to his real issue. It had something to do with this girl. I couldn't even say for sure how I knew, but I knew. Teasing the details out of him and working through the issues might take weeks or even months still, but I finally had a target.

  "What happened after that?"

  "You mean after I started planning for the future? After I realized that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her? She left. Out of nowhere, with zero warning, she packed up and left."

  Brad stood up and started walking towards the door. I violated nearly every tenet of common sense and put myself between him and the exit. Something about him had made this case more important than our twenty-minute discussion could account for. He was obviously bigger and stronger than me, but I still stepped into his path and put my hand up.

  "Brad, you can't leave now. We're just starting to make some progress. We need to talk about what happened."

  For a second I thought he was going to hit me. He was angry enough that he was actually shaking, but he took a deep breath and shook his head instead.

  "No, Doctor. I really do believe that you're the best, but that just damns me more. If being healed is going to require that I talk about what happened with her, then the cure is worse than the disease. Stand aside. I'm leaving now and you won't see me back here."

  —The Story Continues in Trapped—

  Publisher's Note:

  If you've enjoyed this book, please consider signing up for the author's mailing list. By signing up you'll receive $10.00 worth of free books. We'll be offering a special discount to existing fans for the first week each new book is live, so signing up for his mailing list will mean that you'll always know about new releases with plenty of time to take advantage of the new release discount. As always, if you ever have any questions about the order of books in the series, the Reflections Reading Order Diagram is an excellent resource.

  Acknowledgments:

  The list of people who help out in this undertaking doesn't change much from book to book, but that doesn't mean that their effort is any less valuable as the months roll by.

  RJ Locksley and Amy Jirsa-Smith continue to do outstanding work when it comes to the editing side of things, and their help is much appreciated.

  My advance readers do great work when it comes to providing me story-focused feedback and finding the errors I introduce in the course of fixing some of Amy and RJ's finds. Mom, Dad, Shalese, Matthew, Mark, Mimi, Britney, Kim, Chris, Heather Tucker, Janelle Gordinier, and Jenine Anderson are some of the best readers a writer could hope to have and I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be able to work with them. Thank you all.

  Lastly, none of this could happen without my wife, Katie. She edits, provides feedback on my stories, and creates the covers all while juggling a ton of other responsibilities. Thanks, Katie.

  About the Author:

  Dean Murray is a prolific author with more than 25 titles across multiple pen names and more than 350,000 copies of his work currently in circulation.

  Dean started reading seriously in the second grade due to a competition and has spent most of the subsequent three decades lost in other people's worlds.

  Things worsened, or improved depending on your point of
view, when he first started experimenting with writing while finishing up his accounting degree. These days Dean has a wonderful wife and two lovely daughters to keep him rather more grounded, but the idea of bringing others along with him as he meets interesting new people in universes nobody else has ever seen tends to drag him back to his computer on a fairly regular basis.

  Keep up to speed on Dean's latest projects at deanwrites.com. If you want to interact with readers who love the series as much as you do, please consider checking out the Reflections Facebook page or Dean's Forum.

  Other Books by Dean Murray

  The Greater Darkness

  (Writing as Eldon Murphy)

  Something powerful is stirring in the darkness. Something so ancient that even creatures who've been alive for hundreds of years have long since discounted this new threat as nothing more than myth.

  Normal humans will be caught in the crossfire, but then that's always the way of things. Geoffrey has no memory of his past life or any idea how to survive in the violent, dangerous world in which he's trapped. Despite his best efforts, he's about to find himself in the middle of a conflict that threatens to sweep away everything, and everyone he's been fighting so hard to protect.

  Bound

  The only thing worse than having no family at all, is having a family that is out to hurt you. That would all be bad enough for a normal 17-year-old, but it's even worse for Alec Graves. A shape shifter's pack, his family, is the only thing stopping the other preternatural creatures out there from killing them.

  Alec's pack isn't just neglectful, he's pretty sure that his father wants him dead. Alec is about to be sent to the front lines of a war between his people and everything else that goes bump in the night. His only chance of survival is to convince everyone around him that he's the perfect soldier, but there are lines that Alec won't cross, not for any price.