Page 59 of Manacled Hearts

“Sometimes. More so in the past. Nowadays things are somehow calmer.”

I turn around to face him, as it seems the polite thing to do when the man answered my first remotely personal question.

“Baby girl, here you are!” Lulu’s melodic voice fills the expansive space of The Fightclub, but it’s followed by a peculiar grunt from the giant before me.

I fight a curious frown as I take in his expression. The calmness he spoke of has evaporated.

“Lulu, what are you doing here?” I ask.

“And how did you get in?” Maddox’s voice is an octave or two lower, a deep frown thickening the scar on his face.

The woman raises an almost frustrated eyebrow, giving him a quick once over pausing for only a moment. A very curious moment. But she quickly turns her attention to me.

“Your security knows me, obviously,” she answers, but her gaze is on me.

“Knowing you and being authorized to waltz in here are not the same thing.”

Wow! There’s nothing calm about the man now. I’ve never seen him like this. As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen Lulu like this either.

“Train them better, then,” she bites back.

Maddox grunts and turns to leave.

“You’re coming tomorrow, yes?” she shouts after him, but all she gets in response is a louder grunt. I don’t realize my eyebrows are raised in shocked surprise until Lulu gives me a stern look, and I quickly straighten.

“Do you need to change out of your training clothes?” she asks.

“Umm, maybe. Why?”

“I’ve been trying to find you. Did you forget you asked me to take you with me to the supermarket, to get the red paint thing?”

“Red food coloring, crap. Yes. I’m sorry. I just… time got away from me,” I apologize, quickly running to my bag.

I desperately need the food coloring for Morrigan’s birthday cake.

“It’s fine. I know you had a therapy session today. I figured you would be here afterward.”

I exhale sharply, frustration seeping through my tone. “Am I really that obvious?”

“What do you mean?” she asks as I whip around, clutching my bag to my chest.

“My therapist, Maddox, you… all of you seem to read me like a book. My thoughts, my emotions, my—hell, everything.”

She chews on her lips for a few moments, weighing her next words.

“The therapist is trained to read you, honey. But us… we tend to recognize our symptoms in others.”

Oh.

That stops me dead in my tracks.

“I didn’t—”

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying any of us went through the same thing as you did, but perhaps experienced the same or similar emotions. Some had it easier, some so much worse. Recognition comes from experience.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that, of Maddox and… you, recognizing from experience.”

“I’m just good at observing your behavioral patterns whenever you go to a session.”

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