Page 81 of Heal Me

Thinking for a moment, it clicks. “That first time we ran into each other outside of the library. You weren’t really meeting a witness, were you?”

“No,” he admits as he runs his hand down his face in frustration. “I just wanted an excuse to see you again.”

“Why?”

“Because when I first saw you at Memphis Magic, it felt like one of Sam’s sucker punches to the stomach. I knew I’d do anything to make you mine.”

“Including lying, stalking, and gathering intel?” I spit.

“Call it what you will; I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat,” he says, appearing before me and grabbing my hands. “Would you have let me walk you to your car if you knew I’d tracked you down intentionally? You and I both know the answer to that.”

“So the ends justify the means?” Dropping his hands, I walk over to the couch and have a seat, tucking my knees to my chest. “I need time to work through this. Please give me that.”

“My love, I’ll give you whatever you need.” He crouches down before me so that I’ll look at him. “The only reason I read the police report is because I suspected something terrible happened to you, and I didn’t want to do or say anything that might hurt you.”

“You promised you’d never do anything to hurt me.” He told me that the first time he escorted me home. “You didn’t keep that promise,” I toss at him.

He flinches like I’ve slapped him across the face. Giving me a sad nod, he vanishes.

Oh my God, it’s just too much! Wanting to escape these terrible feelings, I walk to the kitchen and grab a pint of ice cream out of the freezer and a spoon. And then I throw the spoon across the room in frustration, deciding now’s as good a time as any to deal with my emotions as opposed to shoving them down with sugar.

Tossing the ice cream into the freezer and slamming the door, I shout, “And holy shit, there’s a lot of them to deal with! Betrayal! Anger! Sadness! Rage! Embarrassment!” Embarrassment’s the biggie. Imagine privately telling your therapist your deepest and darkest fears and insecurities, only to find out it wasn’t private at all, that all the Watchers might as well have been sitting in on each session.

Grabbing my phone, I text Sam:

Me: Let’s train right now.

A.H.A.: Alright, little girl. But just remember, you asked for it.

Sam’s contact in my phone is A.H.A., for “Asshole Angel.” Someone pounds on the back patio door, and I hustle over, double-checking to ensure it’s really the asshole in question before joining him.

Sam silently holds out his hand, and I take it, moving to knee him in the balls. He blocks me easily enough, which makes me even madder. “You’re still falling back. When you strike, use your entire body and propel yourself forward. You’re much more powerful working with gravity as opposed to fighting it.”

“Why the hell did all the Watchers read my therapist’s file?” I yell, throwing a hook and getting him in the ribs, only because he didn’t bother to block me.

“Nice form that time,” he says, but then he grabs me and turns me so fast, I’m back to the uncomfortable position of his arm banded around my neck. I hate this position. “Still work to do, though.”

He releases me with a little shove, but I manage to stay on my feet. “Answer my question!” I spin around, hands up in defensive stance.

“Not here,” he says, holding out his hand. Reluctantly, I grab it, and we’re now standing on an empty black-sand beach. The sound of the waves crashing against the shore would be serene if I weren’t mad as hell. Checking my surroundings, I see the Watchers’ training facility in the distance. “I didn’t want to read your damn therapist’s file. None of us did, except Rumel. And that’s only because he doesn’t understand why he shouldn’t,” Sam says, shaking his head.

“Then why did you?” I grit, my hands balled into fists by my waist.

“We were as one when Rumel read it. We had no choice.”

“What do you mean ‘as one’?”

“I can’t tell you more. You’ll just have to trust me when I say we didn’t want to.” He then charges me, and I drop into defensive stance, but he disappears. Feeling him behind me, I can’t react quickly enough before he places a hand over my mouth and pulls me back by my left arm. I try to bite his hand, but he’s positioned his fingers to where I can’t sink my teeth down on them. “Nice idea, but now what?” Pulling forward with all my might, I try to elbow him with my free arm. I’m at a bad angle, and it doesn’t do much. “Fight smarter, not necessarily harder.” He drops his hand from my mouth. “Lean into me.”

“But I’m trying to get away from you!”

“Yes. But in this scenario, it’s better to work with my energy than against it. Lean your weight into me, and when I take a step back, you step back, raising your free arm up with a fist and your thumb out, to gouge my eye.”

He releases me, and then grabs me again in the same position. Moving back with him, I launch my free arm back over my shoulder, slicing through thin air. I stumble back and land on my ass. Jumping up, I cry, “That’s cheating!”

“I’d rather you not gouge my eye out, if it’s all the same to you,” he calls, a few paces away.

He then charges me. Shit! Before I can decide whether to fight or flight, he’s tackling me, knocking the wind out of me as I hit the sand. He sits on me, pinning both arms to my sides. Bucking wildly beneath him, he simply squeezes my wrists tighter. “Smarter, not harder. Fight me now when it’s futile, and you won’t have any energy to fight me when it counts.”

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