I can see that in the way she’s moving now, remember it from the way Hannah swayed so confidently. It was better, frankly, more real than this show of sultry.
“So pretty, Gray. Did you hurt her? Poor, little, pretty thing. Such a mess in a world of bad men.” A laugh tumbles out of her mouth, her eyes looking me over. “I thought she’d be ready for anything you could throw at her, but Malachi disagreed. He said you’d eat her alive because you were in love. It’s all very dramatic. Did you eat her alive?”
She grabs a robe and sits on the lounger near him, taking his champagne from him. “And are you in love? It’s truth time out here in the real world. Only truths. Everyone’s got to have someone to be truthful with.”
I watch them lean back into each other, annoyance, rage, and some fucking melancholy I can’t tolerate baring down on me, and turn to leave before someone here dies from my still building rage. Blame? I grunt and carry on, chastising myself for all this, and then turn back for them, not finished in the slightest.
“What the fuck is wrong with both of you?” snaps out of me.
“Us?” he says, laughing again. My spine straightens, body winding tighter. “You’re the one that plays with minds, Gray. How many was it so we could make my home’s amusement happen successfully?” He stands and pushes Faith sideways, moving her out of my view and the threat of my hands. “You caused this. Not me. All of it, as you well know. Right from the start. Your plan, your pills, your fun.”
Truth or not, that fucking opinion is not welcome at this point in time. “You should have screened her before you came back, and the red pill?” My gaze moves to Faith again, damn sure she would have been the instigator of that fucking move.
Malachi’s in my face again before I even think about moving into her, his hand coming up to my chest as if he might just try pushing me away. I tense, ready for it and damn ready to get into any form of aggression he wants.
“You should never have left her with me if you weren’t prepared for the options that presented me with.” He rolls his neck, as if trying to avoid the tension my anger is creating. “Believe it or not, I only want what’s best for you. I’m helpful like that, but if this is about to turn-”
The shove I send him makes him reel backwards, knocking into Faith and making her stumble too. “Best for me? You don’t give a damn about me.”
Slowly, he regains balance and pauses his mouth, perhaps trying to contain the volatility that will surely come if he doesn’t. I move forward, provoking it, asking for it so I can get some of this hatred into something rather than hold it back.
“That’s twice. Watch your fucking step before I lose it.” He sighs, as I continue to glare at him, knowing I don’t give a damn about him losing it or not. “The fact is that without what I have done you’d still be brooding and wrestling with the position you’re in, rather than now thinking about getting on with what needs doing.”
“Your help isn’t-“
“What? Wanted? Needed?” He snorts and holds his hand out for Faith, who slinks up beside him and tilts her head at me. “Fine. Then you should go, Gray. Go, make her better if it’s not too late to salvage something in her head, and then dismiss her again. Ignore it all. Pretend it never happened.”
They walk passed me, Faith giggling as Malachi shields her and sends a last look my way. “Either way, don’t curse me for your problem. Perhaps think about embracing it. Maybe you’ll find a way out of the fuck up your life’s become. It’s called truth. Living life.”
Asshole.
My feet hurry, part of me not finished, and then they stop because of the words that actually cut through the tirade I’m in. Living life and too late.
Too late.
Chapter 10
Hannah
M y eyes crack open slowly, blurred and weak. Blinking several times, I try to clear the fuzziness. It doesn’t help. And oh god, my head hurts. I try to move, try to lift my hand, but everything’s so feeble and unusable. Even my throat feels wretched and sore.
Another move to try getting me up, thighs and calves attempting movement, and a sickness sweeps over me forcing me back to the sheets. Waves of it ripple through my stomach, over my skin, until it’s in my mouth and there’s nothing I can do but retch and heave.
Nothing comes out, but the heaving continues, convulsing my stomach in cramps and pain. My legs curl up, attempting protection or avoidance, but it carries on and on without end. I’m shivering, trembling. So cold. Like ice and snow and wind. Bitter against me.
Malachi.
My eyes inch open again at the thought, spittle leaking out of my mouth, as I keep convulsing.
Gray.
White walls. White furniture. White everything.
No dark.
Panic grips me, my hazy vision frantically scanning, as I take in the room. Clinical. Sterile. Disinfectant. Hospital? No. I didn’t hurt myself. I don’t think I did, anyway. What looks like a small bunch of white flowers sits on a unit in the corner, a picture of blue above it. So bright. All of it. Sun streaming in from somewhere, flickers of it on the white linoleum floor beneath me. I squint and try moving again, try to get my stomach to stop its waves of sickness and pain, but nothing stops it.
I hear movement before I see it. It comes from behind me somewhere. Feet squeak against the floor, a scratching sound. Where am I? Doesn’t make any sense. I watch my hand shaking in front of me, my fingers shuddering violently in their haze, and follow the shake along my arm. Everything’s shaking. Shaking and trembling and shuddering. Sick. I want to be sick.
Another heave makes me groan and roll, perhaps trying to get away from the brightness in the room. It hurts me, makes this feeling worse.
“Good morning, Mrs Tanner.” A woman’s voice. I search for it in the room, eyes still squinting under the bright light. “Let me give you something for that.” Something pricks my arm, making another groan fall out of my lips. “There we go. You’ll feel a little better soon.”
Finally seeing some semblance of a human in the room, I try speaking. “Where …” The words won’t come out of me. They’re lost in my head. Won’t transfer to my mouth.
“It’s alright, Mrs Tanner. Take your time,” she says, as the shape moves closer. Something touches my head, a beep coming after it. “Your temperature is high, Mrs Tanner. That’s why you feel cold.” Is it? Why?
Another prick into my arm, another rally of beeps and sounds. Something pulls from my arm, and another thing feels odd, painful in between my thighs. Panic begins again, making the convulsing and tremors increase. “Keep calm, Mrs Tanner. I’ll be finished in a minute. It’s good to have you back with us.” A sharp pain forms in my stomach, fingers travelling over my legs, as the sound of a trolley on the floor moves, wheels squealing. “There we go. Relax now. I’ll be back soon and-“
The last of the words seem to trail off, as a door shuts. Thankfully, some semblance of clarity starts coming back soon after. Shapes and images begin to come clearer. Sharper. Still shivering, though. Still feel sick and weak. So cold. I huddle in the covers, gently pulling them closer to my chin, and keep my legs tucked in tight, as I stare into the room. Where was I last, before here? A car journey. I remember it. Don’t know where from, though. Don’t know why.
Or who with.
The door opens again, different feet coming into the room. They stop before they’ve carried on, nothing but silence echoing around the large, bright space, but I recognise the deep spice of the aftershave. All of it comes crashing into my mind, making me close my eyes and remember all his words to me. The elevator, the way he threw me out, the feel of him on my skin. So cold.
Like him.
The feet start moving again. Hard soles. Heavy. I recognise them, too, can remember them as they twirled me and turned me through a waltz. I shiver again, trying to dismiss the nicer memories, the connection and reactions to him. His hands on my skin. His lips on mine. The need buried and now beginning to erupt again.
“You’re i
n the Mount Cliff Therapy Centre, Mrs Tanner,” he says, quietly. “Do you recognise my voice?”
As if I could forget it.
It’s embedded. Imprinted. Part of me. I recognise everything about him. I can even feel him inside me, taste him on my lips. Still, I don’t move or talk, other than this shivering that continues. Nothing to say yet. No thoughts to articulate other than confusion and a fear I can’t process.
I grab the sheet tighter, scrunching it up to my chin further so I can find some skin to gain rhythm against. Thuds might come then. Real ones. Ones that make sense and match my own.
Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.
“Not feeling talkative anymore?” He walks around until he’s in front of me. “I thought you’d evolved passed dutiful and found a new you. The Mrs Tanner I know is never short of words.”
I stare at the cut of a vest over an open collar, ignoring my fascination with his hands as they go into his pockets. A chair gets pulled from the side of the room, turned backwards so he can sit across it and bring his face into my eye line. A breath pulls into me at the vision, the sickness I was feeling overwhelmed by some inherent harmony I can’t process either.
“You kept taking my pills out here. Rebellious.”
I stare, annoyed at the continued pull that makes me want to fall from this bed in the hope that he’ll catch me. I shouldn’t feel like that. He hurt me. Made me feel irrelevant and not worthy of him. “Why didn’t you listen to Malachi?” I did. But then Faith said things. Interesting things.
“You were …” I cough, barely able to speak. “Nasty to me.”
He nods, the side of his lip lifting slightly. “Yes. I can be more nasty if you’d like, especially when people won’t take no for an answer like you wouldn’t.” I keep shaking at that, unsure of no’s or not. What do they mean? Denial, regret, guilt? I don’t know. I’m not stopping my search, though. Not now, not ever. Not until I’ve got my truths.
My eyes narrow a little, legs relaxing under his gaze, as the trembling begins quieting.
“How do you feel?” he asks.
“Cold.”
“You’ll feel more like yourself soon,” he replies, sharply. “It takes to time. I’m running the reversal medications slowly to ease you out of them.” He grabs at a clipboard on the side of my bed, flipping pages of notes over.
“Medications?” labours out of me.
“Hmm. Four days’ worth so far. You really did have a party of your own.”
Four days?
“How did I get here?” I mumble
“Jackson brought you.”
He stands and walks to put the chair back, keeping his eyes away from me. Time seems stalled for a while. Just me and him in a room again. Only this time it’s filled with light and sunshine, no dark corners to fall into. My body hums at that, at odds with the vison and for some reason finding less sense in the daylight around him than it does in the shadows.
“Was it purposeful, or a mistake?” he suddenly asks.
I blink, unsure what he means, and keep watching as he looks out of a window. More time stalled. More sunshine streaming in, highlighting the sharp bones of his jaw, the almost luminescent chestnut colour in his eyes. It makes me think, remember more, and then question who I’ve been spending time with more than I already have done. So calm. Like a normal person. Other than this clinical room and the fact that I don’t know where I am because of him.
He sighs and looks back at me, a frown on his face. “Attempting to kill yourself?”
Kill myself? I didn’t do that, did I?
I search my scattered thoughts, trying to remember anything over his presence in front of me and the memories that brings. A muddled image of the cemetery gates comes to me eventually, dark and foreboding, no stars in the sky, foggy. Rick. Death. Betrayal. Pills in my hands, fingers tapping sharp gravel and stones. The red pill, the one that makes it all go away.
The images make me grumble to myself, more sickness rising. Gray did that, too. He gave me thoughts and feelings, then he took them away from me. He betrayed the very essence of what we were becoming, regardless of him telling me all along that it wasn’t real. It was real. Is real. It’s still here in me, towing me forcefully, churning my stomach with memories and connection. I just … I don’t know how to reach it or him. And I’m so tired.
Exhausted.
I shrug in tighter, wrapping the sheets around me, and roll over so I’m not looking at him anymore. I can’t process when he’s in my face. Too handsome. Too intoxicating. “I want to go home,” I mumble. I do. I did at the cemetery gates, and I still want that now. I’ll sleep there. Find sense. Or maybe I’ll stay forever and live in no sense at all. “Where’s Malachi?”
“Malachi is not your home, Mrs Tanner. He never was.”
My lips sneer at that, irritated with his self-righteous attitude and his continued use of a name that is not mine anymore. And how would he know where my home is, anyway? The only thing he apparently knows is that he is not it. “Where is then, Gray? You tell me where makes sense if there doesn’t.” I cough again, trying to clear my throat to carry on, then can’t be bothered explaining or asking anything anymore.
The sound of his shoes move, a door opening soon after. Silence. Good. Better. If he doesn’t have answers or truths, then I’d rather be on my own so I can wallow in this misery and try to work it out on my own. I groan and close my eyes, part happy to be rid of him for now. I can’t deal with him, can’t deal with the barrier he’s creating either. This isn’t my Gray. This is nothing but a replica missing parts, a fraud that lies and deceives.
“Here is,” he eventually says.
My brow arches, neck twisting to look back at him. No compassion on his features. No sense of home at all and no show of the man I remember. “Until you are ready to deal with reality, you’re not going anywhere else.”
Asshole.
***
Laughter. My eyes snap open at the sound of it. A woman laughing and then singing softly to herself. She sounds happy, content, as she hums her way around a lilting song, occasional lyrics coming from her mouth. Where is that? I turn and look at the window, keeping my body tight on this bed. It’s open slightly, low sun filtering in. It’s only after I’ve listened for a while that I realise everything’s clear now. Vibrant and alive. I am too. I feel better. Less muddled and disordered. Not shaking anymore either.
A new strength pulls me upright until I’m sitting on the edge of the bed and looking around clearly at my surroundings. Therapy Centre. Gray said something about that. Mount something. Can’t remember. Doesn’t matter. He’s here somewhere. Wherever here is.
I look back at the sides of the bed, noticing all the machines and devices that must have been by my side for however long. They’re all turned off, no sound coming from them or lights flashing on screens. My feet gingerly hit the floor beneath me, toes feeling pressure under them. Cool. I smile and ease forward, taking my full weight and testing my balance. Everything’s fine. Normal again.
Good.
Making my way to the window, I reach for the empty glass and jug of water. That’s the only thing that does feel at odds still. My throat hurts. Scratchy and painful. Long glugs of water soothe it, and I look out into the unknown. Fields of green expand in my view under bright blue skies. I stare, flummoxed at my location, and peer at a large house dominating the horizon, as crisp winter air filters back at me. I don’t know here. Never been here. Pretty, though.
I shiver and look around the room for a robe, anything to cover against the cold, and see a pile of clothes in the corner neatly folded. Underwear, T-shirt, hoodie, some track pants and sneakers. Where are my clothes? Still, I wander over and get dressed, wondering what to do next. Maybe I should leave now, but at the moment the sound of this woman’s voice still humming is calming, making me smile and relax, regardless of me not knowing where I am. I can’t see her. Just the noise. Gentle. Tender even.
“Mrs Tanner?” I jump at the sudden sound of ano
ther woman, body swinging around to look at her in my room. She smiles and waves her hand at me, a blue nurse’s uniform on. “Good to see you up. Would you like to have some dinner?”
“Um. Yes, I guess.”
She nods and turns out of the room, leaving the door open for me to follow. I peek out into the corridor and am immediately arrested by the sight of what seems to be a normal home. Pale colours decorate the walls, light oak furniture dotted around. “It’s alright, Mrs Tanner. Come along,” she calls back at me. “The other ladies are already eating.”
Others?
I end up following her slowly, intrigue pulling me rather than hunger, and eventually find myself in a room filled with other ladies chattering quietly. Some of them, anyway. Four of them talk, two simply sit quietly at a table, eyes downcast as they pick at food, and one sits off to the side of the room rocking back and forth in a chair.
Frowning at her and her pale fragility, I edge through the room with my arms wrapped tightly around me and take a chair at the table.
“Hello,” one of the chattering women says. I nod and look as a plate is put in front of me by another woman in a blue dress. “Who are you?”
“Hannah,” mumbles from me.
“Pretty. Pretty girls in pretty clothes. Do you like my dress?” I look at the light plate of food and pick up some cutlery to eat, ignoring her as best I can because she’s in the same track pants and hoodie as I am. As are all the rest. No dresses in sight. And I’m not ready for conversing, anyway. Don’t want to. Especially not with these odd people. I preferred the woman’s voice outside, the song she was humming to herself.
“You can’t have him. He’s mine,” someone else says. I side eye her across the table, wondering what that means and who she’s talking to. She looks directly at me, almost through me. “You do know that, don’t you?”
Another one of them stands at that, her drink thrown at the first one's face.
“He’s not yours, he’s mine,” she snarls, gripping the table.
A Sorrow of Truths Page 7
