Page 26 of Unnatural (Men and Monsters #2)

Sam was back in the hospital, about to go under the knife.

Again. His soul wailed, body flailing as the pain enveloped him.

Hot. Scalding. Crushing. The pain not only made his nerve endings sizzle torturously, but it also made him feel so lonely.

Forgotten. He bellowed, the sound of a trapped animal. Misery.

Shh, my moonlight boy. You’re okay. Stop moving, and you won’t keep ripping out your stitches.

A tiny prick in his arm, small and painless.

He calmed, the silkiness of her voice wrapping him like a cocoon.

Safety. Beauty. So many times, he’d recited her words in his mind, but he’d never been able to conjure the sound of her voice.

Maybe he’d finally lost his mind. It was a relief.

How often he’d prayed to find relief in the void of insanity, but his prayers had never been answered.

Now they finally had been. God did see him.

He’d gifted Sam madness, and even sweeter, she still remained.

He hadn’t been asked to leave her behind.

Mercy. He finally knew what it felt like.

He heard a man’s voice briefly, and he didn’t like it, but then he was gone, and it was only her.

“What can I do?” she asked.

“Whisper in my ear,” he begged. He wanted her to touch him, but he couldn’t bear the feel of human hands, so he asked for her voice, the touch of her breath.

“What would you have me whisper?”

“Tell me that I’m human.” Tell me that I haven’t been drained of the last bit of it. He wanted to hear it from her, even if it wasn’t true.

A pause. Had she left him already as he plunged lower into the depths of insanity? “You’re very human,” she said. “Do you know how I know?”

No, he didn’t know, and he suddenly couldn’t remember how to speak. He felt a very light weight on his chest, the warmth of flesh. She’d placed her hand on his heart. He felt a gust of breath at his ear.

“I know ,” she whispered, “because your heart is beating beneath my palm. And I know because you cared enough to save me once. And now I’m going to save you.”

If saving me means I have to leave this place—leave you —then I don’t want to be saved.

He drifted, and when he came to, there was a slight weight on his shoulder, and he felt the tickle of hair.

A faint snore, breath on his skin. She’d fallen asleep on his shoulder.

His heart sang. He inhaled her hair. Not strawberry Jell-O.

It made him want to laugh that he had once thought that.

She smelled nothing like a strawberry. And definitely not the gelatin variety. “Madagascar,” he murmured.

He felt her stir. “What?”

“In Madagascar,” he slurred. “There was a boy in the street…selling…vanilla beans from a basket.” He saw it, pictured it as if he’d floated there and was again standing in that street.

“There was a flower box filled with…white flowers in a window.” He swallowed.

His throat burned. “I could smell their scent mixed with the…vanilla.” He inhaled again.

Heaven. “That’s what you smell like.” A peaceful street in Madagascar, under an orange sky.

“Why were you in Madagascar?”

To kill a man. Someone’s enemy. But he kept that to himself.

He didn’t want her to know. He didn’t want to say that he had no idea whose enemy and that it hadn’t mattered anyway.

But it did, didn’t it? In his sane life, it was all that mattered.

The mission—whatever mission that might be—and his role in carrying it out.

He’d spent his life being taught that the mission mattered: the individual missions and the overall mission.

His purpose. His only purpose. No wonder they’d cast him aside.

He was worthless and weak. So why didn’t he care?

Why didn’t he want to try to be better at the missions?

Why would he rather die than be brought back again?

What happened in Macau, Sam?

He moaned. He felt pain, but not the physical kind.

He didn’t want to think about missions or Macau.

He only wanted to think about baskets of vanilla beans cast in a citrus glow.

And her. Always her. He didn’t like the way his thoughts were clearing, taking shape.

He wanted to drop back into the abyss of insanity where only good memories lived.

Her sweet-smelling hair tickled his shoulder again.

He drifted once more, further this time, that cocoon drawing tighter, the silkiness cradling him.

He felt warm. Happy maybe, though he couldn’t well remember the feeling or if this was it.

He liked it though, whatever it was. Here he could let go of missions and enemies and Macau.

Yes, he thought. I enjoy madness very much.

***

The pain was back. He bellowed again, swatting at the fiery brand running across his skin.

“Stop it now,” she said. “Lie still, and you’ll be fine.”

Her voice. He stilled as she told him to, the pain lessening. Not unbearable, just…uncomfortable. And itchy. And hot. Strange. But not painful.

“Shh.” Her breath against his ear. He sighed. “Trust me.”

Something tugged at his lips, and if he could have lifted his arms, he’d have batted it away.

“Well, look at that,” she said. “A smile. Goal attained. I wasn’t sure you were capable.”

Whatever hot thing was on his skin was uncomfortable and…wet. He started to raise his hand to bat it away, but she caught it, pressed it down.

“You need a bath. A proper one,” she mumbled, and he heard the sound of water hitting water. “But this will have to do for now.”

The warmth again. Her voice as she hummed. He liked being crazy. He liked it very much. Thank you, God. He felt that tug once more. He believed in God now? He even talked to him? Yes, being crazy was very nice. He would definitely stay here.

***

The moaning sound filled his brain, and he had an odd rising sensation as though he was floating upward. Only not floating…exactly because whatever he was immersed in was sludgy and dark.

Where am I?

His thoughts scrambled as his mind searched for something that would anchor him. Her. Her voice. Where is she?

A feeling of panic took over. Was he emerging from the safety of insanity? Was she gone? The moaning again.

Me. It’s me.

He tried desperately to sink back down into oblivion, but his panicked thoughts had only worked to bring him more fully awake.

Awake? Am I asleep?

This did feel slightly familiar. Drugged. I’m drugged.

Oh God. Am I waking from another surgery?

No, no. Please no. He struggled to remember, to orient himself.

Amon. The schoolyard. The gun. The children. The pain.

“Help me. Please. Get me out of here.”

Her. She’d been there. She’d been there .

He lifted his heavy lids, blinking at the scene before him, trying to make sense of it.

It was a cabin, the walls and ceiling made of planks.

There was a fire blazing in the fireplace directly across from him, snapping and crackling.

He could smell the barest hint of smoke.

His gaze shot from one side of the cozy room to the other.

There were uncovered windows on each wall, and he could see that it was dim outside but not dark.

Early morning or early evening? He didn’t know.

He could see the tops of trees and the cloud-filled sky but nothing else.

Sam attempted to pull himself upright, but the pain in his abdomen stopped him. He collapsed with a grunt, looking down at himself. There was a red-and-black-checkered blanket covering his bottom half, and extensive bandaging covered where he’d been shot in his chest.

It was steadily trickling in now. The memories, the screams. Who?

Who could have possibly been the enemy Amon had been sent to kill?

Sam had heard of others sent to kill children in foreign lands as reprisal for the sins of the father.

Reprisals the details of which they weren’t meant to question or understand.

But Amon had fired randomly at a schoolyard of children. Why?

Sam let his eyes fall shut for a moment, but now that his memory had returned, the visions were more vivid behind his lids. So he opened his eyes once more.

The door squeaked, and he tensed. She entered, and his heart nearly stopped.

Her. In the flesh. He’d seen her there, on the playground, but he’d thought it was some sort of vision or hallucination brought on by shock.

He’d kept her there with him, guiding him to his truck, because he was so weak, he couldn’t do it alone.

He wouldn’t have made it otherwise. So he’d pretended.

He’d brought her forth to help him cope as he’d done so many times before.

Yes, she’d seemed brighter, more vivid, but he’d been very, very hurt.

He’d expected to die. And that would have been okay. He was supposed to be dead anyway.

Maybe I am.

She had a small pile of firewood in her arms, and she put it down next to the fire, humming as she added a piece. She hadn’t looked at him yet.

Am I in heaven?

But that couldn’t be it, because if there was a heaven, he certainly wouldn’t have been sent there.

Her hair was dark and wavy, and she had it twisted up on the top of her head. She was wearing jeans and a green-and-gray flannel shirt that looked far too big for her.

She was still her , but she was a woman. He watched her, trying to orient himself, attempting to merge the girl she’d been with the woman she was, even while disbelief and fear and wonder overwhelmed him.

She stood, brushing her hands together and turning. She did look at him then, and her eyes widened in surprise. Her cheeks were rosy from what must be the cold outside, and for several beats, they simply stared. Wide eyes, narrow chin, the most perfectly shaped mouth he’d ever seen. Autumn.