by CD Reiss
“What’s in the case?”
“It’s confidential.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not going to do chem tests on it. I want to look at it.” She crossed her arms. “They’re in my hospital. I could tell you to just fuck off.”
She could, as a practical matter. If I wanted to challenge her, I’d have to make a series of phone calls I didn’t want to waste time on. I put the box on the desk and opened it.
Without asking, she pulled out the plastic bag with the syringe numbered for Specialist Gregory Linderman. “What is it?”
“It’s new. Experimental. And it partners with a lot of work he’s already put in.” Implying she owed it to the man to let him finish what he’d started.
“Why’s there only one?”
I reached into the side pocket for the placebo marked with Leslie Yarrow’s number. I didn’t want to get them mixed up.
“Prefilled? They don’t trust you to do your job?”
“Less transfer from container to container means less chance someone from Halliburton will get their hands on it.”
She handed back Linderman’s syringe. “If you weren’t married to Asshole Eyes, this wouldn’t fly, you know.”
“If you weren’t his CO, I’d throat punch you for calling him Asshole Eyes.”
She whooped a laugh, pointing at me after she clapped. “Wifey for the win. Come with me.”
Chapter Fifteen
CADEN
Fighting through a barrage of fire and explosives for control over the blocks around some royal palace or another, they’d found a basement of children tied to hooks in the cement floor. All were malnourished. Three were dead.
Linderman was a mess. He’d come off the chopper with a broken leg an Eagle Scout could have fixed, but he was shaking so hard we couldn’t set the bone. We gave him enough sedative to stop the shaking, but when it wore off, he stared in the middle distance with a notable lack of affect.
Yarrow seemed better at first. Burn wounds on her left side. They’d scar but heal. She started crying the next morning and couldn’t stop.
“What the fuck?” On the computer, DeLeon had been scanning their files before calling in the psychiatrist. She picked up the phone. “I’ll say hi to Wifey for you.”
I looked over her shoulder. Blackthorne subjects.
I wondered if I had the same red box in my file.
I wondered about the children in the basement.
I wondered if there had been blood from the dead ones and if it smelled of copper in the darkness.
I couldn’t get the children in the cellar out of my mind. The cold floor. The weight of the dark. The smell of blood and the dying ones.
The anger Greyson had helped me satisfy two days ago faded into consciousness, and I was left with the buzz of emotions as a separate thing fighting to push through the membrane of my defenses and swallow me in blackness.
It wanted her. It was drawn to her tears and her broken skin.
My better self needed her. She anchored me.
I hadn’t seen her in days, which was nothing. But at the same time… too long. I kept half an eye on her as long as she was sitting in the ICU.
“How old are you?” DeLeon asked.
“Thirty-seven, why?”
“You’re like a smitten teenager.” She pointed at Greyson, whom I’d surreptitiously been watching through a window.
From afar, I’d watched her speak to Linderman for an hour with little response. She’d talked to their CO about what they’d experienced and taken notes. She waved when she saw me, and I nodded then pretended to ignore her. Now she was taking out the syringe, talking to Miss Cheerypants.
“For Chrissakes.” DeLeon rolled her eyes. “Can you go over there and make sure she knows what she’s doing?”
“She knows what she’s doing.”
“Go watch her anyway before I puke.”
“I’m supposed to watch you,” I said as Greyson unwrapped Linderman’s shot.
He was still in his fugue in the ICU, one room over. Dana had scurried off to take notes on Yarrow.
“I’m capable of giving an injection. You should know that.” She checked the prefilled amount with the amount on her sheet.
“How’s he doing?”
“Bad. And she was one of mine, from New York.” She shook her head slightly. She cared about her people, and this bothered her.
“They’re both going home,” I said.
“Good. What they saw. What happened.” She put the needle in a tray. “I’d be traumatized.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“Caden.”
“Don’t. I’m fine.”
Still as a statue holding a metal tray with a single syringe, she clearly didn’t believe me.
“Go,” I said. “Before they send him home without your damn shot.”
She went, and I walked behind her. She was the light in the infinite darkness. The fiery star in the blackness of space. With her, there were no cellars.
And yet, the cellar wanted to eat her alive.
I watched from a safe distance as she administered Linderman’s injection. The base of the needle turned blue, and she placed it on the tray.
Then she went to talk to Yarrow, and I still watched her—not because DeLeon had told me to, but because I couldn’t take my attention off her. She sat at Yarrow’s bedside for over two hours, leaning forward the entire time as if she didn’t want to miss a single word.
That beautiful face, in a cry of pain. My pain. Pain I took from her. A part of me knew I was deep inside the darkest parts of the chasm I carried, but there was so much pleasure there for both of us.
DeLeon came up next to me and spoke softly. “Go look at Linderman.”
“Why?”
“Shut up and do it.”
I tore myself away from Greyson and went to the ICU, where Linderman was sitting up in bed, eating a cup of Jell-O, and joking with one of his buddies. He was animated, warm, seemingly unbroken.
It was as if the children in the cellar had never happened.
Could she erase the cellar for me? Could she make me normal?
Did I want to be?
I should have been happy for Linderman, but I didn’t know whether to envy him or resent him, so I cut off all my feelings about it and added it to the buzz that tried to push its way through me.
Chapter Sixteen
GREYSON
The sadness worked its way through Yarrow’s body, wracking it with sobs. For up to ten minutes at a time, she couldn’t form words. I sat with her and waited every time. I liked her. Whether or not I should have come to Iraq for Caden was a moot point. This woman needed a familiar face. She made it all worth it.
“Oh, man,” she said in an interstice between crying jags. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Do you want me to arrange a call to Molly?”
“Not yet. I don’t want her to hear me like this, and I can’t… I can’t tell her about those kids.” She folded a tissue into a square, absently creasing the edges. “She got upset when I told her about the bloody face. Couldn’t sleep for a week.”
The face was a man in her unit who’d died from a head wound. The had blood covered his face, his teeth, the whites of his eyes as he screamed. She’d stayed with him as he died and brought him home with her.
“When you were working with me, you said there had been this feeling of being watched. Like someone else was always with you.”
“Yeah.” The crying had slowed now that she was distracted.
“You were doing treatments at Blackthorne for it.”
“I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.”
“I know. But…” I held up the contractor ID that hung around my neck.
“Right. So, you know about it.”
Caden and Yarrow had experienced childhood abuse. If Caden’s work in the black room was painful, Yarrow’s might have been too. But outside that room, my husband’s results had been remarkable. The psychic overload had slowed. H
ad he been able to keep up with it, he would have had enough respite to work through the issue normally.
I’d been taught the timing and tone of the breathing in New York. I could help her even with a placebo.
“Did the sessions help?” I asked.
“Yeah. They did actually.”
“I know it’s busy in here and the lights are bright, but can you do the breathing if I guide you?”
“I think so.”
“If it gets too much, squeeze my hand, and I’ll bring you out.”
“Okay.”
I put my hand under hers. “You’re going to be all right.”
“When I close my eyes, I see them.”
“I’m going to give you other things to see.”
“Okay. I trust you.”
“Close your eyes and pretend you’re in the Blackthorne offices. Walk through the halls. Your arm hurts where they gave you the shot. The tech lets you into the small room. See the yellow light of the lamp. The way it makes the black walls look dark gray. You sit and feel the chair under you. You see the cameras. They make you feel safe because you know you’re not alone.”
Her face relaxed, and her breathing got shallow and clear of sobs.
“The tech hooks up your monitors and leaves. The door clicks closed behind her. You’re comfortable and safe.” I waited, watching to make sure she believed she was safe. “Begin the circular breathing with me. Soo-hoo. Soo-hoo.”
Yarrow was resting. She’d sobbed her way through the breathing, but it wasn’t fear or powerlessness. It was cathartic. She came out of it renewed enough to call her wife and give her the good news. She was going home.
Dana came up to me as I was leaving the ICU.
“Hey, you signed off on all these.” She handed me a clipboard with the signed releases. “We still have one in the bag.”
“I didn’t give her the shot yet.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a placebo.” I flipped through the pages, signing. “I wasn’t wasting time with it when she was in real pain. I’ll give it to her before she leaves.”
“Okay. Hey, have you seen Linderman?”
“I was about to go check on him.” I handed back the clipboard.
“It’s like a miracle.”
DeLeon had woken me at dawn. It was now midmorning. I was hungry and tired.
I was also elated.
Ronin had used me. He was a complete shit. Always was and always would be. But after seeing Linderman, I knew this thing worked. Long-term effects remained to be seen, but in the short term, it fucking worked.
When Caden and I had been deployed together, a million years ago in 2004, we’d had inconsistent schedules. They’d been posted on a white board behind the nurses’ station. If either of us noticed a crack of time where we could eat a meal together, we’d put a red dot by the other’s name for the cafeteria or a T to meet in his trailer.
Baghdad had a similar setup. I didn’t have my schedule posted, but there was a red R by Caden’s. He was calling me.
He opened the door and stood to the side so I could come in, then closed it behind me. I spun around and kissed him so hard and so fast it took him a second to catch up.
“It works,” I said, peppering him with kisses. “All of it. It works.”
“What—?”
“The breathing. The shot. Everything.” I dropped my voice, remembering the thin walls. “God, I need you to fuck me now.”
He threw me on the bed and stood over me, his cock tenting his pants. I hadn’t taken a second to look at him before kissing him, but at that angle, I saw a shadow of Cold Caden’s expression. The Not Damon. Always there, even with Damon gone.
I toed off my boots as he undid his belt.
“Caden,” I said, “if Damon’s gone, was he replaced with something else?”
He froze. I’d hit on something I hadn’t known I was aiming for.
“Tell me,” I said, opening my voice to accept an answer I wouldn’t like hearing.
“There’s something.” He whipped his belt out of the loops. “It doesn’t have a name.”
“Damon didn’t have one at first.”
He undid his button and zipper. “This one’s too angry to have a name. It wants to destroy everything. It’s dumb and pissed off, and I have a handle on it.”
“So, I shouldn’t be scared?” I didn’t feel scared. I felt sexy and vulnerable. Fiercely protected from and by a raging animal.
“I’ll let you know.” He bent over and yanked down my waistband, whispering with a rumble, “Get these off. Turn on the bed and spread your legs wide. I want to see how wet you are.”
He got up and opened his trunk as I slid out of my pants. The lid kept me from seeing what he was getting, so I turned to align with the bed and spread my legs.
“Knees up,” he said, his gaze still in the trunk. “Show me you want it.”
Tucking my hands under my knees, I brought them to my chest. The air cooled where I was wet, letting me know how exposed I was.
Caden stood, holding two clamps and latex surgical tubing. He looked my naked body up and down as if he were solving a problem. There was desire in it, but it was a calculation, not a passion. He was going to own my body with precision. “Hands over your head.”
I released my knees, but kept them up, and crossed my arms over my head. Coming between my eyes and the window’s light, he leaned over, casting me in shadow. He folded my arms together, inner wrist to inner wrist to protect my old injury, and wrapped the tubing around them. I smelled the latex as it snapped, his ground coffee scent as he leaned close to me. His dog tags hung outside his T-shirt, dangling from his neck and onto my cheek. The knee closest to him was tucked under his arm, folding me tighter into vulnerability.
“I can’t welt your ass, or everyone will hear,” he said. “But you’ll cry anyway. You’ll cry like you’ve never cried.”
This was Cold Caden.
I could fix this man, but when he talked like that, I didn’t want to.
“Always make me cry,” I said as he tied off the tubing. He looked down at me, mouth firm. “Always find my edge.”
“No talking.” He held up the surgical clamp so I could see it. “Not unless you’re telling me to stop. Understand?”
“Yes.”
He placed the business end of the clamp at the top of my forehead and ran it down my nose, my throat, making a path of tension over my chest before circling a hard nipple.
“The pain comes when the clamp is released and the blood flow rushes back.” He ran it around the other breast. “Do you want it on your nipple?” he asked softly, drawing it over my belly. “Or your clit?”
I clenched when he ran the tip over the nub jutting between my lips. I wasn’t supposed to answer unless I wanted him to stop, and I wanted him to keep going. My breathing got sharp and hard as he made a path inside my thighs, considering the red line it left in its wake.
“I saw Linderman.” He unbent my leg and ran the edge of the clamp behind my knee to the bottom of my foot. “And I saw you with Yarrow.” He changed the pressure from a tickle to not-quite-painful. “You want to do that to me. You want to make me your patient.”
“No, I…” My sentence fell away when he took the clamp off me. “Don’t stop, but that’s not true.”
He calculated, blue eyes flicking side to side across my defenseless body. “Let’s save something for later.”
So businesslike he could have been closing off a bleeding artery, he clamped my nipple. I clenched my jaw until the pain subsided, then he did the other one and stood over me as I writhed. He peeled off his shirt and stepped out of his pants until he was wearing nothing more than his dog tags.
Wedging himself between my legs, cock along the length of my seam, he kissed my cheek and murmured, “Your pain is beautiful.” He jerked his hips to rub his shaft along my clit and back down. “If you fix me, will I still think so?”
I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I couldn’t give him t
he shot, but I also couldn’t explain that right then. I just wanted his dick in me. I was pulsing for him, trying to suck it inside me, twisting to get his skin against the sensitive pink between my legs. Burning up, skin prickling—a few more strokes and I was going to come.
He adjusted the trajectory of his cock, sliding it into me, stretching me like a hand in a glove. Moving slowly, we built the foundations of my orgasm without releasing it.
Caden put the tip of his nose to mine. “You ready?”
I nodded furiously. He pushed deep inside. Down to the root. I grunted with the impact, then the extra stimulation blossomed when he moved against me. It flowered into… excruciating pain as he removed the clamps. The orgasm rode the edge of the pain, skipping over it like a rock on a lake before it rose in a tidal wave.
Knowing I couldn’t suppress the cry, he pressed his hand over my mouth and fucked me faster. I gave the orgasm to his palm, arching my body to be closer, ever closer to him.
“I want the shot you gave Linderman,” Caden said quickly, as if he didn’t want to think too hard about it.
The afternoon sun shot through the window grates. We were dressed and satisfied. He was himself again, the two halves joined by my pain.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
I took a deep breath. He hated talking about his childhood. “It’s for when you look like Linderman or Yarrow. Not for random Tuesdays.”
“I’ll have to get traumatized then.”
“Hush, you.” I poked him in the chest, and he held me tight.
“I want you to traumatize me.” He tickled me, and I laughed.
“Stop or you’ll traumatize me.” I pushed him away, but he caught me and threw me on the bed, laughing, kissing my face and neck.
The knock at the door interrupted us.
He snapped his head around. “What?”
“Um, hey!” It was Dana. “Is Dr. Greyson in there?”
Caden opened the door. My PA hugged a clipboard.
“What’s going on?” I asked her.
