Page 232 of Jagged Souls

“Did you try –”

“I have triedeverything!”I yell.

“How many times?”

“Fucking hours! You are theworsttherapist!” I storm over to grab my laptop just so I can throw it at him again. “I bet you couldn’t even do it!”

“No, I couldn’t,” he says as he ducks under the flying computer. “I could get past the bomb; there is a little pixel of the screen that’s safe, and you can get past another thirty levels that are just as hard. But you can never get to the end because it’s impossible to win.”

My mouth drops open. He admitted it! “Then why give me it? Why make me play it, thinking there was a way to finish?”

“Because you needed to know that sometimes the world sucks, that there is no right choice.” He smiles, but it’s not his normal cocky grin. It’s one too knowledgeable for his years. “And when you played, did you blame yourself for making the wrong choices? Or did you blame the game?”

I stare at him, annoyed to all hel. “I blamed the game,” I admit through clenched teeth.

“Exactly. Because it was the game’s fault. All we can do is control ourselves,” he explains. He flashes a sly grin I do not like. “But if you don’t see that yet, you should play the game some –”

“Fuck you,” I snap. “I’m going to bed. That’s the only reason I come here.”

He laughs, and I flop down onto his bed.

The nightmares still come… but the weight in my chest lifts just a little.

My talking sessions with Maddox get shorter even as the length of time I spend in his room gets longer. Ten minutes to chat; four hours to sleep.

I’m slowly starting to feel more human as the days pass, but the nightmares stop me from feeling refreshed. I still haven’t managed to talk to Maddox about what I see when I sleep. What I remember… But we talk about other things. The guilt I have in taking so long to save her. In failing Leno and Krypto and Rudy.

I rise from Maddox’s bed two and a half weeks later, my head filled with another nightmare. “Where is she?”

“Downstairs with her sister.”

I head down to see her so I can ask if she wants to go to the portal with me in an hour, which is why I’ve cut my nap short today. We’re getting a new shipment of alexandrite, so I want to be there myself when it arrives. The stuff is not just fucking expensive, but it’s rare as all hel, and I don’t even trust my allies to keep their fingers to themselves.

The memory of my nightmares clings to me as I walk though, whispering dark secrets, filling my thoughts with things I would rather not remember. I need to focus on the incoming shipment, on my duties as Boss. I shake my head to try to free myself of them, but then I realize there is something wrong. The pull to my wife isn’t leading me in this direction.

Yanking the door to the basement open, I try not to panic when I only see Lou. “Where’s Micha?” I demand.

She jumps to her feet, her eyes widening. “Um, in the bathroom.”

My stomach drops. I push out with my senses, searching the heartbeats in the house, not wanting to use up the little amount of blood we have left in the bond in case I need it to find her; we haven’t exchanged any more blood since I fed from her on the super yacht. I can’t even feel her emotions anymore, not unless I really concentrate, and there’s only a couple more times I can do that before it’s gone. So I search for her with my senses.

But her heartbeat isn’t here.

“Where is my wife?” I ask again, and her face pales.

She takes a step back, and I try to control my rage so my Craving doesn’t break free. The last time I fed was when Maddox forced his blood in me to save my life, and it has become a constant hunger. I’m going to have to feed soon. I know it, but I want it to be with Micha, and she isn’t ready.

“Shit,” Lou says. “She just wanted some fresh air. She said she’d be back before you woke –”

“Where is she?”

She swallows. “I don’t know.”

I turn for the door, pulling on the blood bond to lead me to her. The urge to reach her isn’t strong, which means she isn’t far. And when I search to see what she’s feeling –

My heart breaks as I close my eyes for a single step. I know where she is even without the blood bond leading me to her.

“Don’t be mad at her!” Lou shouts after me as I climb the stairs.