Page 93 of Heart Sick

The life is sucked back into me as quickly as it left and when I peer down at Dutch, I remember him. “Bowie?”

His mouth parts because he sees it too. “You remember?”

Tears slide down my cheeks because I don’t remember everything, but I rememberher.

“I’m here to help,” Dr. Norton says as she approaches us. But she doesn’t help anyone but herself.

“You’re the one who did this to me, aren’t you?” I snarl, locking eyes with her and wishing to slap that smug smirk from her face.

A gasp leaves Dutch. He didn’t know, but I can see that he believes me.

“You’re confused. We will get you back to Parkfields and everything will be all right.”

Dutch looks at me, really looks at me, and realizes I’m telling the truth.

He springs to his feet, shielding me with his body as three orderlies follow behind Dr. Norton. When he sees one man, in particular, he reaches for me and presses me into his back.

“Why is he here?” he demands, and I know this man has done some horrible things to us both. “You promised she wouldn’t be harmed. You fucking lied!”

Dr. Norton smiles, but there’s no warmth behind her eyes. “I’m going to take care of you both.”

“Over my dead body!” Dutch only pulls me in tighter.

“That can be arranged.”

“Noah, enough!”

Noah?

“I give the orders. You obey. We clear, crazy bitch?”

Images and voices flash before me so quickly I think I’m going to be sick. It’s like I’m on a merry-go-round that is moving in fast-forward. I can’t make sense of any of the images, but what I see makes me want to run.

“How could you do this?” I twist out of Dutch’s arms, feeling nothing but betrayal.

He turns around, trying to touch me, but I take two steps back.

“I trusted you. And you calledher? She’s a monster. She—” The wind gets ripped from my lungs when an image of her having sex with a man who resembles a corpse smashes into me so hard, my knees buckle and I hold on to the altar for support.

That image is soon replaced with another of her having her way with a comatose Dutch. “Oh my god,” I gasp, holding back my vomit. “Do you fuck all your patients?”

“We’ll be all right again. I love you, Jonathan. Please come back to me.”

That’s what she said to Dutch. She called him Jonathan. I don’t know who anyone is anymore.

“Luna.” Dutch reaches for me, but I recoil backward, shaking my head.

“Stay away from me! I don’t know who you are! Your name is Jonathan?”

“What?No,” he replies, raising his hands in surrender. “What I’ve told you is the truth. I swear to you. My feelings for you are real.”

“How can I believe you?” Tears fall down my cheeks because the one person I trusted has betrayed me and I don’t even know why. “Why? What happened at that house?”

I don’t need him to draw me a diagram. Something shifted the moment he entered Jack’s house. I then remember he put something into his back pocket.

“What did she show you?”

Dutch’s guilt has me launching forward and reaching for whatever he has stowed away in his pocket. It’s a photograph.

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