Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 124341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
“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.