AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She smiled her annoying, serene smile at me. “Everything. Because it tells me you’re still struggling.”
“Well spotted, Sherlock. Of course I’m still struggling. I still haven’t talked to Thea. And instead of flying to San Diego, I’m stuck in this fucking hospital bed.”
Another stupid, serene smile meant she was going to make me talk to her no matter what. And even though I knew what she was up to, I fell for it every time. “I understand you’re frustrated.”
“How could you possibly understand? You have two working legs.”
“You won’t be in the hospital forever. For now, concentrate on all the things you can do to get back to San Diego. And the first is to get better.”
I lowered my gaze to the keyboard. “Fine. Let’s get this over with, then. If you so desperately want to hear more about my depressing time in Guyana, I’ll tell you more.”
She flipped her pen through her fingers, something I noticed she did whenever we were progressing in a direction she liked. “You know you need to deal with what happened before you can move forward.”
“I know. Which is why I’m still talking to you.”
“Last time we spoke, you told me your captors left you without food for ten days. And they only gave you water every couple days.”
She talked about it so matter-of-factly that it seemed foolish of me to still wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat because I had a dream about my time in that hellhole. I’d been taken by mercenaries and human traffickers. And despite all the shit they put me through, I knew I wouldn’t be working for Locked Security now if it weren’t for them. So in a sense, I should thank them.
My captors might have tortured me at first, but after a few months of breaking me down, they trained me to become one of their soldiers. It included not only combat and weapons training but also a brainwashing that I’d nearly given in to.
Their leader was the meanest son-of-a-bitch I’d ever met. He enjoyed the pain he inflicted, a sick look of satisfaction on his face each time he maimed or killed someone.
“It was their way of making sure we were completely broken before they built us up again.”
But I’d somehow never broken completely, thoughts of Everleigh and Thea reminding me of what was important.
“Are you still having the nightmares?”
Of course she’d go there.
I nodded at her question. The nightmares had nearly disappeared while I was with Thea, but they were now back with a vengeance. “Almost every night.”
“Are you still meditating?”
I shot her a look, and she returned it with one of her own. “I want you to do imagery rehearsal therapy.”
I rolled my eyes, then focused back on the screen. “I have no idea what that is.”
“It’s a cognitive-behavioral therapy that can help reduce nightmares. Your identity isn’t tied to your nightmares, and the therapy will help you understand this. For example, you can create new dreams or change elements of your nightmares to make them less intense. You’re replacing the bad with something positive. But I’ll explain more when we do our first session.”
I talked more about my time in Guyana. It almost felt as if I was back there whenever I spoke about it. I smelled the stale air again, heard the near constant screams. They’d become background noise at some point, but shutting them out had been the only way not to lose my mind.
When the hour was up and our session ended, I closed the laptop with a relieved sigh. I always felt like I’d done a workout despite only talking since my body was tight the whole time, my senses on high alert.
There was no distraction in the room, and I was once again left with my thoughts, planning out ways I could see Thea. Because Iwouldsee her again. She was everything to me, and I’d do whatever it took to get her back.
And for the first time, I let myself think of Guyana and my time there. Because if I’d learned anything from my experience, it was to take life by the balls and make the most of the time I had left on this earth. For me, that included Thea.
One year ago
I saw the fist flying at my face but was too slow to duck. The loud crack told me that this time they might have actually broken something.
“Again,” our trainer yelled, not waiting for me to recover. “You’re dropping your arm. Keep it up high.”
Our assigned instructor for the day was a short, stocky guy with greasy, slicked back hair. They never introduced themselves and we never asked for their names. I’d been at the camp for months, but I was no more used to the poor conditions and even worse treatment than I had been when I first arrived.
Guyana was the only English-speaking country in South America, one of the reasons I’d chosen it as my first stop. The fact that only a few of the soldiers seemed to prefer speaking Spanish might have saved my life, since my Spanish skills were negligent.
