by Amie Gibbons
She sniffed. “No, you just didn’t want to do that for me. You didn’t want to bother. Because we’re not really friends. You just used me to get to Paul and Steven because you liked them when you guys met, and you wanted to be friends with them, and I came with them.”
He stared at her, shaking his head. “You post about me on Facebook. You tell our friends I can’t hang out while you’re there, basically cutting me off. You get me killed by a fucking ghost! And you wonder why I don’t like you? Why I don’t want to be friends with you? Why I don’t want to put up with the drama?”
Holy crap.
Zero to jackass in point oh three seconds.
She wrinkled her face up and sniffed again, closing her eyes tight for a long moment.
I took a step towards her before she forced the tears down and looked at him with red rimmed eyes, holding up a hand.
“Yeah, yeah, you said that. I hope it was worth it,” she said, voice rough, “because you lost the friendship of Jenny and Steven, and you know Paul thinks less of you. And it's not because I asked them to stop hanging with you. I specifically asked them to leave me out of the decision making process.
“All of them saw you do this to me, and decided they didn't think that was very gracious or kind. They saw you cut out and ditch a friend who’d been good to you, and said, ‘If he could throw her away, he could do that to me, and that's not someone I want to be attached to.’
“That is on you. As for what's on me? I'm dealing with my issues. Slowly, but I'm dealing. Can you say the same? Because we all know why you’re being so shitty towards me. Because your wife left you and you haven’t dealt, and you saw me as an easy target to take your anger out on.”
He opened his mouth and shut it as we both glared at him.
“Paul said it best, that night at trivia, I think,” AB said. “Guys pay for hookers all the time, but they don’t actually pay the girls for sex. They pay them to go away. You’ve been trying to get me to go away for seven years. Congrats. Mission accomplished.”
She yanked the door open and walked out.
“God, why the drama?” Thomas growled, tossing his hands up.
“If you weren't already injured, I'd slap you,” I said.
“Transference,” he said. “I already have one girl dumping crap on me, I will not take it from you, I don’t care how hot you are.”
“Yeah, I know I’ve got transference, no duh,” I said. “But I do mean I’d slap you. For her. Completely separate from my issues. You… how could you be so horrible to her? How could you be so nice to me and offer to help Carolyn, and then dump that crap on her? How can you be so evil when it comes to her?”
“She starts it! She starts drama. She drags up old shit. She brings out the worst in me.”
I snorted. “For a therapist, you’re really stupid about your own issues. How about a different question? Why did you sleep with her to begin with? When you didn’t feel anything towards her?”
He looked at me. “Because where I come from, you don’t have to have feelings to sleep with someone, and from what I knew at the time, all she wanted was to have sex with a friend, same as me.”
I glared at him.
“You’re so full of it!” I said. “Nobody’s that stupid! Nobody thinks a virgin just wants to have sex and have it be casual. And, even if you did, you still used a friend and then ditched her.”
He snorted. “Transference.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I waved a hand in front of me.
“You know I like crazy little blondes,” he said after a moment.
It was my turn to throw my hands up. “You can't possibly be hitting on me right now.”
“What?” He spread his hands and gave me a big smile.
“No,” I said. “And it's not even cuz I have a boyfriend, cuz he would share. It's cuz I like AB. I think we could be friends. And girl rules. No sex with a friend's ex. I do anything with you, that's stabbing her in the back. And no decent girl does that to a friend. And, because after how you just treated her, I don’t want anything to do with you, because as far as I know, you’d do the same to me.”
He didn't say anything.
“Anyway.” I held out my hand. “I’m glad you’re okay. Even if you are an ass, you didn’t deserve to die.”
He made a face but took my hand.
Flash.
A little boy, maybe six, hiding in the closet as his mom raged, throwing things across the room, screaming as something shattered against the wall.
Then the scream changed as something heavy moved across the room.
Someone.
The little boy closed his eyes and covered his ears.
Wishing he couldn’t hear the blows as they hit.
Wishing he couldn’t hear his mom crying and screaming, his dad cursing back and smacking her around.
The bottle as it smashed against his hiding spot.
He made himself as small as possible, curling in on himself and trying not to hear.
He knew when his mom went for the knives, like she always did, because his dad’s voice changed.
Became panicked.
And his dad ran.
But this time, he never came back.
He left his children with a woman he’d said time and again was crazy.
The vision turned off like an old TV, slowly fading away til just the real world was left.
“What was that?” Thomas asked.
“Vision,” I said. “Whenever I touch someone, I get the First Impression. The most important moment in their lives, at least according to them.”
His eyes went wide.
“You became a therapist because you wanted to fix what was broken inside you, didn’t you?” I asked.
He grinned, way too wide to be real.
Just like I did when I was nervous and tryin’ to cover it up.
“What did you see?” he asked.
“I saw why you ran the second you thought you saw crazy in AB.”
He looked away.
“She’s not your mom, Thomas,” I said. “AB isn’t crazy. She’s just… a little broken. And it has to do with you, but she’s not like that. And you… you have issues left from your parents I don’t think you ever dealt with. That’s something you may want to look into for yourself.”
“Anyone ever tell you, you’re really nosey?” he asked, staring me in the eyes with an intensity that could rival Grant’s.
“Yep,” I said. “I’m psychic. I get that a lot. And if there’s one thing this whole debacle has taught me, it’s that everyone has issues. It’s the people who know it and want to get over them that actually do. You won’t admit you have issues, or that you’ve done anything wrong. Til then, you’re gonna stay broken.”
“Now look who thinks she’s a psychiatrist,” he said in a joking tone.
It fell flat.
“Bye, Thomas.” I waved. “Oh, by the way, AB’s the one who came up with the crazy idea to save y'all, cuz she didn’t want you dead. We really were just saying y’all were dead and that was it, nothing could be done, until she said, yes, it could be. You’re alive because of her. You want to thank someone, start with her.”
I turned and left, barely glimpsing his mouth falling open.
I closed the door behind me.
I did love the dramatic exit.
“Hey, guys,” I said as I cleared the turn in the hall into the next line of rooms in the now extremely packed rehab floor of Vandy hospital.
AB looked at me, eyes red and puffy.
Carvi rubbed her arm. “AB, what did I just say?” he asked.
She sniffed and shook her head.
“Don’t get upset when someone’s a raging asshole,” Carvi said. “Be grateful they showed their hand and tipped you off that they are one. Now you know for sure you don’t need to be around that. And so does everyone who heard him say that, and saw how he treated you.”
“I know.” She nodded and leaned back against the wall.
“Yeah
, AB,” I said. “I’m with Carvi. When someone treats you like that, just walk away.”
Carvi leaned over her, whispering something in her ear.
AB jerked, blushing as she looked down and Carvi just straightened, grinning at me.
“Lea,” he said.
“How you doin’ with today?” I asked.
“Fine. Don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “I want to fuck.”
AB squeaked and Carvi grinned bigger. “Oh, you’ll enjoy it. Care to join us, lea?”
“Thought I was off limits while you were helping me deal with my issues,” I said.
“You are. But it’s still fun to ask,” he said.
I snorted. “No, thank you.”
“Um,” AB said.
“We’re cool,” I said, holding my hands up. “He’s off limits even if he wasn’t helping me. So he is all yours.”
She blushed, looking down.
“Ohhhh, you’re going to have to loosen the fuck up,” Carvi muttered, nuzzling her neck.
She giggled, pushing against him weakly.
“Not in public,” she gasped as he pulled back.
“We’ll see,” he said, tossing her a wink before looking back at me. “Lea, the protections working?”
I nodded. “So far.”
“Good. After I recharge, we can go back to tracking these assassins, but I think for now, we’ve beaten them back. Still have to find who put the hit on you.”
“We have another complication,” I said. “My daddy’s election is next week. He can’t stay in hidin’ and we don’t have time to keep him there while we track this thing.”
“I have my people playing security for him,” he said. “And Natalia has agreed to be security for you until we find who did this. But you’re right, we have to find whoever put out the hit, and fast. I’m in town until then. So, you get started on tracking today, and I’ll jump in when you hit a wall.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You just want to go play,” I said.
“Yep,” he said. “And after I had to play daddy to you in therapy, and it wasn’t sexual, I earned playing daddy with someone else.”
AB made a face. “That’s gross, don’t say that.”
He looked at her and she stared back.
“Direct,” he said. “I like it.”
He whispered something in her ear and she blushed redder than I could go all the way up to her roots and down to her button up top.
“I do want to talk to you for a moment before you run off though,” I said, jerking my thumb behind me.
He nodded, kissed AB’s hand, and followed me down the hall.
We went into the nearest bathroom and I closed the door, leaning against it.
“Why?” I asked as he settled against the small counter.
“Why what, lea?”
“Okay, two questions. First, when I was fightin’ the tulpa, I said something about you walking through the realms of thoughts between the worlds, but that I was made from the in-between. It just came out and I don’t know what it means. Do you?”
He stared at me. “No.”
“Why would I say it if I don’t know?”
He pinched his forehead, apparently chewing on that for a moment.
“I believe,” he finally said, “your abilities picked up on something subconsciously, and it came from that, but what it is, I have no idea.”
“Crap on a cracker! I was hopin’ you’d know. I… I kinda scared myself with all this. Carvi, I pulled the tulpa’s gun away with a thought, in the real world. How did I do that? Can psychics do that?”
He shook his head. “Whatever that was, it is not your psychic abilities. Maybe you have more power than merely that.”
“But how? Carvi, I barely started to learn how to be psychic, and now I’m moving things with my mind? What… what am I?”
He sighed, face painted with pity. “Lea, I do not know, but we will figure it out. This isn’t a bad thing. You have more power than you thought. You just need to learn how to control it. That’s all.”
I sighed. “I was really hopin’ you’d know.”
He shook his head.
“Okay, next question,” I said. “Why did you help so much on this whole thing? You weren’t just backing me up, you were pouring yourself into it, like it was your case. It’s not like you. So, why?”
He stared at me and finally sighed.
“Because Milo would have.”
I blinked, slouching against the door.
Oh.
“I had a realization when I was talking you down after your meltdown,” he said.
“It wasn’t a meltdown.”
He raised his eyebrows at me and I rolled my eyes.
“I realized,” he said, “that Milo would have helped. He would have helped you with your issues. He would have helped on the case just because he could. And, then I realized, that is what I can do to honor my brother. I can follow his example. I can help people like he would have.”
I sniffed, blinking fast for a completely different reason now.
“I know it’s not the same,” I said, “I mean, I barely knew him, but I miss him too.”
He nodded.
“Carvi, what do I do about Grant?”
“What do you mean?”
“After what he said, how cruel he was, I don’t know how to handle this,” I said. “What do I do? Tell me what to do.”
“You already know what to do,” Carvi said. “It’s just hard, so you don’t want to do it.”
“What?”
“What did you tell Annabeth to do? You said she should walk away.”
I bit my lip and nodded at the ground.
“Take your own advice, lea,” he said, “and just walk away.”
I sniffed, looking up.
“So, you gonna help AB with her issues?” I asked.
That wiped the serious look right off his face and he grinned wide. “Oh yeah.”
“I meant emotionally.” I chuckled.
“Yeah, that too.”
I gave Carvi a tight hug and he hugged me back.
“You know if you ever want to talk, I’m here,” I said.
“What if I don’t want to talk?” He jerked into my body and I pushed him back with a grin.
I rolled my eyes and we left.
“Everything okay?” AB asked, looking between us.
“Yes,” Carvi said. “Now, let’s go to my hotel room. I’m going to help you with your OCD.”
She met his eyes and I could practically hear her heart racing.
“I… I want to say something clever, but I got nothing,” she said.
“Bye, guys,” I said as Carvi took her hand and pulled her down the hall.
“Bye!” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I grinned.
Looks like I made a friend.
Speaking of.
I knocked on the second door down.
“Come in, Ryder,” Grant called.
One of these days, I was gonna figure out how he did that.
I opened the door and walked in, closing it behind me.
“Hey, Grant,” I said.
This time I was the one leaning up against the wall.
He still looked big and imposing, even propped up in a hospital bed.
“Ryder,” he said.
Just staring at me.
“Why make this easy, right?” I said. “Fine. I’ll start. What you said, it’s not okay. We’re not okay. You should have talked to me. You should have dealt with me. I may not be the most adult person, but here, neither were you. You should have talked to me.”
Except, I didn’t know what he could’ve said.
“Ryder,” Grant finally said, “there’s not much to say. You feel something. I don’t.”
I pressed my lips together and nodded. “I’m going to need some space then. To deal with this. I can’t be in the office for a few days because of the assassins after me thing anyway, and I al
ready had them off to help Daddy with his campaign, but after that, and after I deal with whoever sent those assassins after me, and I’m back in the office, I’d prefer not to see you.”
“Can’t do that,” he said. “We work in the same office. We are changing up the teams. Mender is taking over the first team, so you’ll still be with Jet and Dan. I will be training probies. I won’t be around as much. When I am, I expect you to be an adult and deal.”
I glared at him.
“You’re a cold bastard when you want to be,” I said.
He nodded. “Whatever works.”
I shook my head. “You… you know what, I’m gonna get this out. You let me down, Grant. I don’t care if you did it for a reason, you let me down. You should’ve dealt with this better. So should’ve I, but you’re the adult here. You should’ve figured out a better way.
“You ghosted me. You went to the director instead of talkin’ to me about any of this. And instead of trying to help me deal with all this and my issues, you just washed your hands of me and blew me off. We were friends. That is not how you treat a friend. I get you think you were backing off so you weren’t leading me on or whatever, but how you did it was not okay.”
He looked at me. “You done?”
“Yes,” I said, giving the word weight.
And stared him in the eyes.
Lettin’ him feel the power I put into the next words.
“I’m done.”
I turned and walked out, closing the door behind me.
I had assassins after me for God knew what reason. My boss had basically dumped me, and I had to go down to help Daddy with the last leg of his campaign because this run was huge. Not to mention the nineteen men who were in various stages of rehab and recovery from their injuries.
And poor Paige, who’d checked herself into Vandy’s mental ward yesterday after nearly taking a swan dive herself, and had who knew how much of a fight back from the depression that’d driven her to try that spell in the first place.
But we’d saved the lives of nineteen men.
Nineteen men who had been dead.
Most of whom didn’t deserve any punishment, let alone being killed and stuck in limbo forever.
