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“No.”
Her tone altered subtly. “Saul, you know I don’t like it when people scare me, and you’re doing a damn good job. What happened?”
“Sorry, it’s just…it’s hard to wrap my tongue around.” He inhaled slowly. “I just found out that Caera has been withholding information from me. Apparently from you, too. Has she mentioned hearing voices to you?”
“I can’t discuss what she tells me in sessions, even if you’re part of the discussion from that side of the phone. But I can confirm that she has not mentioned anything about voices.” She paused briefly. “Do Thane and I need to take a road trip up there?”
“I don’t think it’s necessary yet.” Christ, this shouldn’t be so hard. “Fragments of her memory as a child seem to be popping up at random. They’re not pleasant, and they’re certainly building a sketchy picture of what she suffered through as a kid.”
“Do you believe these fragments are real, or a product of sleep-deprivation?”
“Fuck, I wish I could say they were hallucinations or dreams, but the detail…Connie, there’s not a huge volume of memory coming back, but what there is…it’s detailed.”
“All right. Give me everything you’ve got.”
With one eye on Caera, Saul recited everything he could remember, backtracking several times when he forgot something. Repeating it all made him want to smash faceless heads into bloody mush.
When he finished, he fell silent, giving Connie time to process the information.
“It doesn’t sound like something she would make up. Hell, there’s no reason to concoct anything. Which means that she’s spent the last thirteen years protecting herself from some kind of atrocity.”
Saul swore he heard her growl.
“What do we know about her parents?”
Connie tsked. “Middle-aged, middle-class, with small minds. Caera doesn’t talk about them often, other than to say that they essentially disowned her after she refused to admit herself to a psychiatric unit. They’re a touchy subject.”
He clenched his jaw. “Maybe it’s time to desensitize that subject. Who gets the honors?”
“Oh, that’s all yours, Saul. The bond between you and Caera is only strengthening as the days go by. Things are evolving twice as fast with you than they ever did over the months I’ve been counselling her.” Connie hummed thoughtfully. “She’ll tell you what you want to know because she feels safe with you.”
“Will she still feel safe if I start rummaging around in her family history to see if they’re responsible for…whatever the fuck went on when she was four?”
“She will unless you give her a reason not to. Do you suspect the parents?”
“They’re the only choice right now, and I need someone to put the blame on. I need the full fucking story, and her parents are…maybe I’m being unfair, but they’re the only ones I can see in my crosshairs.”
“Through the blinding rage?” Connie asked drily.
“It’s not blinding,” he muttered. “Just a bit red and hazy around the edges.”
“I get it, Saul. Honestly, I do. I’ve been here with Bodie, and with Alicia. It rips your guts out and, before the end of it, it’ll shred your heart. But this might take longer than you think. The crack in her memories could dry up. It could break wide open and sweep her away with a deluge of shit she’s not ready for.”
“I need to do something for her now,” he snapped, angered by the thought that Caera would suffer more.
“Feeling impotent is a horrible feeling, I know, but the truth is, you’re doing everything she needs you to do, Saul. Stabilizing her routines, making sure she eats and takes care of herself. Being there as her companion, her friend.”
It wasn’t enough. When he thought of the woman peeking from beneath the shell of the girl he’d met only a week ago, he imagined what she could be in another week. In a month. A fucking year from today.
Then he envisioned the dam bursting and over a decade’s worth of pain crashing down on shoulders already too slim to carry the burden of secrets weighing her down, and all he could see was that woman struggling to stay above water, then sinking like a fucking stone.
Suddenly, he felt…helpless. Shamefully, way down deep in his soul, helpless, and he didn’t know if he could kneel on safe ground, leaning out with his hand over the water to grab her, only to fail. “Can you…will you come, Connie? Here, to help her?”
“Her or you? Whatever happens, I know you have her back, Saul. I sent her to you because she needs a rock. Someone she can lean on, who can offer her shelter when she’s lost in the shitstorm rampaging through her head.” Connie spoke slowly, carefully. “I will bend over backwards to help both of you, but you don’t need me to charge up there, brandishing my psychology degree as a sword. Just stay with her, enjoy the time away, and take one step after another until we know more.”
Saul’s free hand fisted and bumped rhythmically on the arm of his chair. “All right.”
Connie’s voice gentled. “Remember you’re a man, Saul, beneath the Dominant. It’s natural to be scared of the unknown—we’ve survived for thousands of years by relying on our instincts. Are yours telling you to move forward, or cut and run?”
