Page 75 of Black Heart

She would have been terrified to tell him, but she would have been more terrified by the news and would have needed him. He always made her feel better and she knew that once he found out that she was losing her mind that he would do everything that he could to make this better. Just the thought of Tristan’s arms wrapped around her as he whispered in her ear that everything was going to be okay had her reconsidering holding off on telling him until she received an official diagnosis.

Maybe she should-

Any thoughts of confiding in Tristan evaporated when a rough, callused hand that definitely wasn’t Tristan’s, suddenly clamped down tightly around her ankle. It was also at that point that she realized that perhaps she wasn’t crazy after all.

* * *

“Areye sure that ye can’t hear that?” Shayne asked, letting Tristan know that the night of bullshit was far from over.

With a resigned sigh, he turned around and headed back downstairs. If he was going to be forced to hear Shayne bitch, then he was going to do it with an ice-cold beer and leftover pizza. Hopefully, Marty would be able to fall asleep in the meantime.

He’d check on her in a little while and if she was asleep, he’d leave her alone. He’d get some work done and then crash on the couch. He hated doing it, but she really needed some sleep and if she asked, he’d tell her that he’d passed on the couch by accident. It was a pretty believable lie since he was barely getting an hour of sleep a night, but he couldn’t completely blame the spirits for that.

Those damn dreams, on the other hand…

They were driving him out of his fucking mind. Every time he fell asleep, those damn dreams tormented him, making his heart ache and leaving him with a sense of loss and longing so damn powerful that he couldn’t breathe. More than once, he’d found himself in the bathroom, vomiting, the sense of grief too much to bear.

“Let it go, Shayne,” Tristan said as he strolled past Shayne and made his way to the kitchen.

“It’s a quick thumping sound,” Shayne said, obviously set on bugging the shit out of him tonight, so he simply tuned him out as he grabbed a beer and the aluminum-foil-covered plate of pizza leftover from dinner and headed for the living room, hoping that Shayne would be too focused on his noise obsession to notice.

“This is bugging the shit out of me,” Shayne bitched as he followed him.

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” Tristan said dryly as he placed his food on the coffee table and sat down on the couch.

“I know that I’ve heard it before, but I just can’t remember where,” Shayne said as though Tristan cared.

He didn’t, so he focused on the stack of folders in front of him.

“I can’t believe ye can’t hear it,” Shayne grumbled.

“Believe it,” Tristan said absently, taking a sip of his beer.

“Ye know, lad, I’m beginning to think that ye don’t care,” Shayne said with a heartfelt sigh.

“That’s probably because I don’t.”

“That hurts, lad. I’m being tortured by a phantom sound and ye-”

“Don’t care,” Tristan finished for him.

“Ye’d care if ye had to listen to this damn thumping day and night,” Shayne said, and Tristan didn’t need to look up from the folder on his lap to know that the man was pouting.

“Stop being such a baby and man up,” Tristan said, barely looking up from the file in front of him as he reached for his beer.

“I’m not being a baby! I…” Shayne’s words trailed off before he let out a chuckle. “I’m a fucking idiot, lad.”

“Agreed,” Tristan murmured, all of his attention on the latest kidnapping case.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Shayne said with a satisfied sigh.

“Uh-huh.”

“Ye don’t want to know what that sound is?” Shayne asked, sounding amused.

“Not really,” Tristan said, frowning down at the detective’s field notes as he tried to decipher scribble.

“Then, maybe I shouldn’t tell ye.”

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