own.”
My cheeseburger threatened to make a comeback. Worried the slightest
movement might encourage it, I held still. It took serious concentration to breathe through the nauseating paralysis as the reality of the dangers I faced set
in. “Was Ellery using Mike’s ability to try and heal himself?”
“It’s a possibility,” Delacourt said. “But if he did, it didn’t help.”
“It made it worse,” Kayden supplied.
The concept that I was being hunted by a schizophrenic sociopath had
poisonous fear seeping under my skin, burrowing through bone and sinew, only
to sink its fangs deep.
You’ve survived worse, my survival instinct whispered.
Barely.
Obviously unhappy with my lack luster response and eager to prove his
point, the stubborn little bastard started a twisted game of This Is Your Life, complete with a series of disturbing and painful vignettes inhabiting my past.
First to emerge, a pale, dark-haired child sitting on neatly painted porch steps, clutching a paper bag filled with clothes, while a woman huddled behind a
screen door and screamed at the police. “Get her out of here, she’s not natural.”
Next was the endless tour of foster homes and therapists, where no one could
reach the strange little girl trapped in her silent world.
Then when I met Kelsey, who turned out to be a godsend. She got through where all the adults failed. We became inseparable. Together, we navigated the
trials and tribulations of inattentive and, sometimes, too attentive, foster families until the Ardens had stepped up.
The years skipped forward until desert vistas and chaos dominated the
scenes, culminating in the nightmare of Flash’s death. His screams blended with
Kelsey’s fresh cries still echoing in my mind.
Fine, dammit, yes, I had survived worse. But here I was, arguing with the voices in my head.
A touch on my arm interrupted my interior dialog. Kayden. Uncomfortable, I
jerked my arm away. He opened his mouth to say something, but frustrated and
anxious, I flattened my palms against the table and shoved to my feet. The legs
of the chair scraped over the tiles with a harsh screech. Delacourt and Tag watched, their faces carefully blank. “I need a minute,” I muttered, not making
eye contact.
I pulled open the French doors and stepped on to the night-shrouded patio.
Gripping the wooden railing, I concentrated on the bite of the rough wood against my palms and sucked in the desert air. The scent of damp earth from the
nearby creek was overlaid with the spice of desert wildflowers. The combination helped corral my memories, pushing them back in the box where they belonged.
I heard someone approach but didn’t turn around.
Delacourt came up beside me, close, but with enough space between us to
keep me from feeling crowded. “Becca always loved Sedona. I used to tease her
that she loved it more than Carl.”
The implications of her comment took a moment to register. “You knew
them?”
“Met Carl when I first joined the Corps. Years later, before you and Kelsey
joined them, he introduced me to Becca. She was one of the few females who didn’t find me strange for pursuing a military command. She called me
courageous.” Her soft laugh drifted into the night. “I told her it took more courage to marry a marine than to be one. She just laughed.”
