by Abbie Roads
Half of her recognized she had felt safe with Lathan from the moment she’d met him. And when they made love, it was… She almost couldn’t put words to it. It was fresh, exciting, and new, but comfortable, easy, and familiar. Like lovers reuniting.
The other half of her scoffed. “Everything you want me—us—to believe defies reality. How can any of this exist?”
“It doesn’t matter how it exists. It does. If you don’t believe me, remove your hand from Mr. Montgomery’s face. The pain will hit in seconds. That is reality.”
“She’s not moving her hand.” Lathan’s tone carried his true meaning—I’ll fucking kill anyone who causes her pain.
“Maybe I have a psychological problem that makes me believe I feel better when I touch him.”
“How do you explain Mr. Montgomery’s ability to hear?” Dr. Stone shot an arrow straight through her defenses. He’d just hit upon the one thing she couldn’t explain away. Lathan could hear. His eyes, always colored in a layer of sadness, now shone bright as silver. For him, she wanted to believe everything the doctor said, but two people blocked her way.
“What about Xander and Isleen? They are Fearless and Bear.”
Dr. Stone’s brows rose—the only indication that her leap of logic was right on. “What makes you certain there can only be one pair?”
“Because there were only Fearless and Bear in the story.”
“What if their power is too great to be carried by one couple? What if the power had to be split and divided? What if—”
“It’s all a giant what-if, isn’t it? You’re asking me to believe in something I don’t understand, accept something I want to reject, and trust in something that could hurt me.”
“Honey.” The way Lathan spoke her name carried an urgency and a yearning for her to understand. “For months now, I’ve been drawn to that bear carving. Compelled to stop there, but every damned time I left feeling stupid because it was just an inanimate hunk of wood. This explains it.” His phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen. “That’s Gill telling me he’s arrived.”
“Now? Why’s he here now? You two just had a fight.” She noticed the split in his lip was completely healed. Gone. Like it had never been there.
Lathan must’ve followed the path of her gaze. With his free hand, he touched his mouth, probing to find the injury that was no longer there. “I texted him to pick up the ring you brought back from dreamland. I have to let him in. I’ll hurry—be gone no more than thirty seconds.” She could tell he was worried about leaving her in pain.
“I’ll be fine.” She leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the lips, but he deepened the kiss until she felt boneless and breathless and weightless. Then he was gone, his boots thudding down the stairs.
The pain was low grade, a minor annoyance. “Are Isleen’s dreams the same as mine?”
“Hers are very different. She is taken to a place she says looks like heaven—”
“The White Place.”
“—but then it changes. She’s shown a series of events and how they will play out if someone doesn’t intervene. And she has somnambulism—she’s a sleepwalker. Xander’s up half the night following her around, making certain she doesn’t hurt herself. Sometimes she acts out parts of her dreams.”
“Why doesn’t Xander wake her up? If it were me, I’d want to be woken up.”
“As long as her life isn’t at risk—that’s why Xander follows her to make certain she is safe—she wants to use her dreams to help people.”
“My dreams are of murdered people. My dreams aren’t helping anyone.”
“Are you sure about that? These things you bring back aren’t random. They serve a purpose.”
What purpose? As soon as she asked herself the question, Lathan’s words played through her mind. Because of the lead you gave Gill about Guadalupe Mountains National Park—and after a preliminary DNA confirmation—a team was sent there to search for the body of Juanita Valdez. She went missing from her home in Salt Flats, Texas, the night you dreamed about her.
Lathan hurried back into the room before she could devote some brainpower to puzzling over what that meant. His gaze was immediately on her, assessing her for pain.
“Barely hurts anymore.” She raised her splinted hand and mimicked a cheesy dance move, then pointed at him. “You. Come here.”
He resumed his spot on the bed next to her. After everything he’d done for her, there was no way she’d deny him the ability to hear, and she couldn’t very well get out of bed. She was fairly certain she wasn’t wearing anything underneath his sweatshirt.
Gill walked into the room. Stopped. Took in everything. “Dr. Stone, what you doing here?”
“Mr. Montgomery called when Evanee wouldn’t wake up.”
“Looks like she’s awake now.” Muttered sarcasm made a wide trail through Gill’s words.
“Wow.” She matched Gill’s sarcasm and raised him one. “Seriously?”
Lathan threw his words at Gill. “You’re pissed at me—fine. Be pissed at me. But stop being an ass to everyone else.”
Gill faced Lathan, surprise lit his eyes. Guess he hadn’t expected Lathan to hear his mutterings.
“When she touches my cheek, I can hear.” Unrestrained excitement filled his voice. And she was happy for him. So happy to give him the gift with her touch.
Gill didn’t say anything, but disbelief narrowed his eyes.
“I’m not bullshitting. Thought you deserved fair warning. Talking behind my back won’t be tolerated.”
Gill mock-saluted him with his middle finger.
Instead of inflaming the already tense situation, the disrespectful gesture made Lathan chuckle.
Dr. Stone’s cell phone rang. He checked the screen and then answered it. “Matt?” He listened for a moment, then his gaze darted to Evanee. “I’m with her right now.” He held the phone out to her. “It’s Matt.”
Matt? Why the hell did he want to talk to her? She didn’t want to talk to him, and she didn’t want to take her hand off Lathan’s cheek to hold the phone. “Hello?” Her voice came out harsh and laced with attitude.
“Thomas called me. He doesn’t have your phone number and thought I’d know how to get hold of you.” His tone was an accusation.
“Okay.” What was she supposed to say? “I’ll call him in a few days.”
“Evanee.” Matt’s voice softened and she heard the echo of past affection, but he didn’t say anything else. The seconds ticked by.
This was ridiculous. As if she didn’t have enough shit going on in her life. She sure didn’t need to be having random phone calls with Matt. “I’m hanging up.”
“Thomas said…” The volume of Matt’s voice trailed off. “He said your mom’s dying.”
Only three words—Your mom’s dying—but they weighed more than any others ever spoken to her. They settled on her shoulders, binding her to the awful moment.
“He said your mom has only a few hours left, and she wants to see you. She’s at home.”
The line fell silent.
Evanee couldn’t think of anything to say. No words seemed to exist. She handed the phone back to the doctor.
Lathan placed her hand on his cheek. “What is it?”
She met his gaze and couldn’t look away. “I need to call Ernie. I’m not going to be at work tonight.”
“What’s going on?” All of Lathan’s attention was on her.
“I need to go to my mom’s. Right now.”
“What’s wrong?”
“She’s. Dying.” She spoke each word separately, yet they still added up to the same meaning as when Matt had uttered them.
“I didn’t realize she was sick.”
“Neither did I.”
Chapter 12
Six hundred ninety-six Dandelion Lane.
A strangeness cam
e over Evanee. Numb, but hypersensitive. Dizzy, but steady. Disconnected, but coherent. Anger mixed with fear, desperation, and shame. No words could adequately describe the emotions waxing and waning inside her.
Every time she visited she entered an endurance test for her masochistic side. Long ago, she had discovered her masochistic side was quite small and fragile.
The Victorian mini-mansion was painted lively yellow, trimmed in pristine white, with red, blue, and green striped awnings covering all three of its expansive porches. Its design was distinctive in a town where most of the residents cobbled together their homes room by room.
On either side of the front porch pillars, Rob’s traditional autumnal display presented a magazine-perfect picture—bundles of cornstalks, pumpkins, and mums. Behind the decor, ugly memories crouched in the shadows.
“If you don’t want to be here, we can leave.” Lathan shifted to see her face, his eyes full of understanding he couldn’t possibly possess.
“I don’t want to be here, but I can’t leave.” She wasn’t making any sense, but Lathan accepted her words.
She forced her feet to move up the sidewalk, flanked by Lathan and Gill, who insisted on coming to watch his friend’s back. Gill might be an asshole, but he was a good friend to Lathan—most of the time.
Lathan knocked on the door. Good thing, since knocking hadn’t occurred to her.
An older woman answered. Her thinning gray hair was twirled into a tiny bun and perched on the tippy top of her head like a bird’s nest. She wore autumn-themed scrubs and a heavyhearted smile of compassion. “You must be Rosemary’s daughter. You look just like her.” She motioned for them to come inside. “She has been waiting to see you. I’ve administered another dose of morphine so she’s resting quieter now.”
Evanee walked across the threshold and felt diminished—like she was three feet tall, a helpless little girl again. She hated the feeling, but it settled into her, nestling beneath her skin and burrowing into her brain. Nothing ever changed in the house. Maybe that was why she always felt like she’d never grown up whenever she entered it.
Gleaming hardwood floors. Ornate antiques—a Victorian collector’s dream. No dust. No dirt. Nothing out of place. She didn’t need to look to know the wedding photo was over the mantel. The entire home was designed to produce a picture of family happiness. All of it a lie.
Lathan tucked her tightly to his side, his arm a steel band of strength and protection across her back.
“Why didn’t she tell me she was sick?” The words blurted out of her mouth.
The lady drew in a slow, deep breath through her nose, then answered. “I’ve been encouraging her to reach out to you and your brother, but she was adamant that you not be burdened. It wasn’t until today, until she felt the end was close, that she requested to see you both.”
Evanee didn’t have any words to say in response so she just nodded.
“She’s upstairs—” The nurse kept talking, but Evanee wasn’t listening as she started up the ornate staircase.
And suddenly she was standing in the doorway, staring at the nightmarish figure reclining in the raised bed.
That thing couldn’t be Mom.
It was a skeleton covered by a thin layer of blue-tinged flesh. The ridges and contours of its skull were apparent through the skin. Its cheekbones jutted out at sharp, angry angles. Dark, sunken-in hollows where cheeks should be. Its mouth open, gasping for each breath. Tongue thrusting out like it needed to taste the oxygen. Wheezing, slurpy sounds as if it inhaled through water. The sound was a fresh kind of horror.
Evanee’s head buzzed. Her stomach soured. She felt terrified and sickened at the same time.
How could that be her mom?
Yet it was. Evanee recognized the thick mass of black hair—a legacy that she and Thomas had inherited from their mother.
Lathan hugged Evanee to his chest, a powerful wall insulating her, but she couldn’t look away from Mom. He spoke against her hair. “Ahhh. Honey.”
Everyone in the room turned toward them. Rob and Junior were on one side of Mom’s bed. Thomas—her baby brother—on the other. He was taller and broader than she was, his face more heavily chiseled than hers, but they shared the same color hair and eyes. Only his eyes turned down a bit at the edges, giving him an expression that resided somewhere between kindness and sadness. And his face was a splotchy red, like it always got when he was upset.
An excited pang resonated through her heart at the sight of him. They’d never been close, but she’d missed him.
Her brother glanced up at her. The look he gave her said Please don’t make a scene.
Rob looked the same as he always did. He must’ve made a deal with a demon so he’d never age. As usual, his casual clothes were a uniform of their own. Starched khakis and a polo shirt. The perfect combination of casual and professional.
A lumpy raspberry bruise spanned up Junior’s cheek and down his neck. Must be from the fight at the motel where Lathan didn’t kick his ass but apparently kicked his face.
“Dad. That’s Lathaniel Montgomery.”
“Aren’t you a little old to be a tattletale?” Evanee pulled away from Lathan to stand in front of him, blocking him from Junior and Rob.
Rob puffed up into his sheriff stance and walked leisurely toward them. “Son, you’re in a lot of trouble. You need to leave before I call the boys and have you removed.”
Anger colored Evanee’s tone. “Don’t call him son. He’s nothing like your son. Call your boys. They can witness how fucked-up this family really is without the varnish and shine you layer over the shit. I’m done pretending. If they come, I’ll talk. And I’ve got a lot to say.”
Rob stopped halfway across the room as if he’d run into an invisible force field. His eyes widened, his mouth opened, but no words came out.
“I’m not taking any more of your shit.” She pointed at Junior. “Yours either.”
“Ev, stop it. Now is not the time for your drama.” Thomas’s big, blue puppy-dog eyes turned on her, but she was immune to their charm.
“My drama?” Evanee’s volume was too high, but she couldn’t control it. “Are you blind or stupid or in on it?”
Thomas flinched away from her as if she’d just slapped him. The expression on his face was one she couldn’t quite read—confusion, sadness, and the hard realization of something he hadn’t let himself acknowledge until just now.
“Ev, I need you to tell me what you’re talking about.” Thomas’s tone was equal parts urgent and serious.
“Ehhvv…” The gasp of sound came from Mom.
One moment Evanee was in the doorway, the next she shoved in next to Thomas. Lathan bracketed her safely into his side.
“I’m here.” A harsh undertone spiked each word. She forced her voice to go soft. “I’m here, Mom.”
“We both are.” Thomas sounded huskier than usual.
“Mom, I’m here too,” Junior said and grasped Mom’s hand.
Mom coughed. Wet and choking and struggling.
Evanee flinched, and Lathan’s arm around her tightened. The sound of her mom dying wormed into her brain, latching on to her memory banks.
Mom’s eyes were partially open. The blue irises slid over, focusing on her.
The nurse stood at the end of the bed, gently rubbing Mom’s leg. “You can talk to her. She can hear you. Her body just can’t respond.”
What was she supposed to say to her dying mother? Why did you let Junior hurt me? Why didn’t you love me? Why didn’t you tell me you were dying? “Why, Mom? Why?”
Mom’s eyes never left her. Evanee bent closer, searching for something like remorse, but saw nothing. She hadn’t really expected Mom to pop off with an explanation that made everything all right, but a tiny piece of her had hoped. Obviously, the time for answers had passed.
A good daughter wo
uld tell her mom she loved her, would even say she forgave all the bad, but she supposed she had never been a good daughter and couldn’t make herself say words she didn’t mean. How could she love someone who had condoned Junior hurting her?
“Mom. I’m here.” Junior’s voice cracked with emotion. If he had been anyone else, Evanee might’ve felt sorry for him. “Mom. Mom. Look at meeee.”
In this, Mom’s last moment, she completely ignored Junior. Evanee couldn’t help feeling a bit triumphant.
A tear slipped from Mom’s eye, slid down the hollow of her cheek where it trembled on the ridge of her jawbone. She heaved a great undulating breath that seemed impossible for such a frail body.
Life faded from Mom’s eyes. And then…
Stillness.
Silence so quiet it ached. A hush so bitter it hurt.
* * *
Death.
Lathan had smelled it the moment he entered the house.
And now he stood with his arm around the woman he cherished at the bedside of a living corpse—a decaying, rotting body whose heart just realized it was pumping blood to dead organs.
He turned his attention to the SMs. One day when he told Honey about his genetic defect, he could share her mother’s last memories. Choosing an SM was as easy as selecting a DVD off a shelf. Watching it would only take a few seconds. He inhaled deeply through his nose and allowed her mom’s SM to encompass both eyes.
A full moon hung above them, casting silver over the world and illuminating the shadows in shades of midnight. The night sounds—insects and tree frogs—were the perfect accompaniment to Evan’s low humming. He held her tightly to him, swaying in a slow dance under the dome of the sky.
She pressed her nose against his bare chest and inhaled the smell of him. There weren’t any words she could use to describe his actual scent, but warm and smooth fit best.
She kissed him right over his heart. Her lips swollen from his kisses, her body aching in that delicious way only a well-fucked woman can feel.
Evan whispered. “A hundred years from now, when we’re dead and gone, somewhere in time, in space, maybe in heaven, this moment will continue to exist.”
