AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He doesn’t trust them either.
* * *
“You are completely healthy,” I declare as I pull the blood pressure cuff off.
I knew she was, but I was hoping to find an excuse to give her some time to recover from what happened mentally before being pushed back into the very place where all her nightmares began.
“I could have told you that, doc,” she teases, getting to her feet. She stumbles a little but holds up her hand to ward me off when I go to help her. “Dead legs,” she explains, stretching. “Okay, where are my clothes so I can change?” She peers down at the ones she passed out in.
“Jonas selected some for you.”
She groans as I point to the chair. “It’s probably a thong and nothing else.”
“I had Dimitri help him to make sure it wasn’t.” I grin, having thought that myself.
Nova nods in thanks as she grabs the clothes and starts to strip. I turn away to give her privacy, not that she requested it, but just because she is getting naked doesn’t mean she’s giving me the consent to stare at her body.
No matter how much I want to.
Instead, needing to distract myself from the thought of her naked, mere inches away, I repeat drug names in my head until I’ve calmed down enough to talk.
“You know what we saw doesn’t change anything, right?” I don’t know why it’s what enters my head, but as soon as it comes out, I know I need her to understand this.
I hear her freeze, and I feel her eyes lock on me without even looking.
“I just mean . . . your past, Nova. It changes nothing. In fact, we think you are incredibly strong to have survived it—”
“So, you’ve been gossiping about my torture? Nice,” she spits.
“No, not at all,” I reply hurriedly before sighing. “There isn’t much privacy down here or between us at all. We’ve all seen each other at our worst and best, and shared pain and nightmares. Yours are no different, Nova. What I’m trying to say is that we understand.”
“Sure.” She snorts, annoyed at the way this conversation is going.
Knowing I’m losing all my progress with her, I try a different angle and expose myself so she doesn’t feel as embarrassed and, therefore, defensive. “Your father had specific experiments he did with me—”
“Isaac, you don’t have to—”
“I do. You need to understand you are not alone.” I turn to look at her then, keeping my eyes locked on hers and nowhere else. “He had specific experiments,” I repeat. This isn’t easy to discuss, even though I know it’s safe with her and she needs to hear this. “It would usually involve playing with my genetics and digging in my head to see what made me tick. He knew I liked medicine and wanted to be a healer, so he would devise scenarios to test my morality and abilities. He would pit self-preservation against my need to save others.”
“Isaac,” she whispers.
“Some of the choices I made . . .” I shake my head. “I will have to live with them forever. They will haunt me, and I promised myself if I made it out of there alive, I would earn back my soul and help as many as I could.”
“Isaac, we all did what we had to in order to survive. We were kids,” she reasons. “We should have been protected and learning right from wrong, not holding people’s lives in the balance.”
“Still, I knew some of the choices were wrong. I should have died instead of saving myself.” I let her see my pain, the one I hide. “I should have died before I let him hurt someone else. I never should have chosen my own survival over that of another. Child or not, I made those choices. Yes, he put me in those situations, and I will never forgive him for that, but I am the one who is haunted.” Swallowing, I look away. “So, I understand more than you might think. We blame ourselves, Nova. We hold the pain and guilt while he gets to forget and move on. My body is riddled with his scars.”
I pull back the sleeves of my shirt to show her the thick, mottled marks around my wrists.
“These are from his chains. He liked to take everything away but my brain. I hated it. I fought and got nothing for it but more pain. He wanted to expand the human mind, Nova, but all he did was destroy it.”
“I know,” she whispers.
“I survived, but at what cost? We all have these questions, these regrets, worries, and nightmares. I cannot begin to understand what you went through, but you are not alone. We all have our own horrors, things we wish we could forget but can’t. Look closely, and you will see we all may be different, but we all carry the same scars.”
“Thank you for telling me, Isaac,” she murmurs, laying her hand on my shoulder. “I know you won’t listen to what I’m going to say, because I wouldn’t either, but you need to forgive yourself. You need to accept what happened and find a way to live with it. It’s clearly still hurting you. Don’t let him. He’s dead, so the only way we can ever truly move on and let his pain die with him is to forget the ghosts he left inside of us.”
“It’s easier said than done, Nova. You know this yourself.” I cover her hand and smile at her. She smiles back sadly, and for a moment, nothing else exists except this emotionally scarred, intelligent, beautiful, brave woman staring at me as if I’m the reason she’s here—and then it’s over when she steps back, realising she is still half naked.
