Page 18 of Stronger Than Blood
“My horror started that night and has never really stopped,” he said, his legs still pulled up to his chest. “I keep seeing him… seeing the gun pointed at my face. I-I should’ve died that night. Part of me probably did.” He was rambling but couldn’t seem to stop.
“Mick,” I asked. “What happened? Who got shot?”
Mick squirmed but took a deep breath before continuing. “I-I didn’t know her well. My mom didn’t like coming home. She said they wanted to control her and keep her from having fun, but I liked it there. I wanted to go home to see my grandma, like kids in the books I read at school. I-I wanted to be like the other kids. Mom said Grandma wanted me to live with her, but that made Mom mad. We… we were just supposed to be there for a couple of hours, Mom said, then we were going to get some ice cream. I don’t know where we were going to get ice cream on Christmas, but that’d been Mom’s way to get me to do stuff. ‘We’ll go get ice cream.’ I still don’t like ice cream.”
He rested his head on his knees then, letting himself calm down. I scooted over and sat next to him, not touching. I didn’t dare do that for fear of igniting another memory. I didn’t know why we’d had such visions when I’d touched him, but I definitely didn’t want a repeat.
Mick’s breathing slowly calmed. The tears finally stopped rolling. Once again, he took a steadying breath before continuing. “My mother brought home a man she’d just met. His name was Preston Garrison. Sounds like a rich man’s name, but in truth, he was a serial killer; he’d already killed an entire family in Madison County, on the west side of Tennessee. Mom told the cops she met him through a friend, but that friend had been herdealer.” I shook my head. “I think she must’ve been one of his targets, but she invited him to spend Christmas with her family. Probably ’cause she thought he’d impress Granny Ida and her mother.”
He sighed and used his shoulder to wipe his eye. His voice was still monotone, emotionless. I recognized the defense mechanism this was. Remove yourself from the trauma so you could speak about it. Some of Madam’s clients did this when they were discussing really horrible things from their past.
“We’d only been there a short time. I’d hugged Grandma, my mother’s mom, and was sitting in her lap when he pulled out a pistol and shot her. I remember the blood splattering all over me, I remember looking up and seeing the gun aimed at me—” he turned toward me. “I remember his head exploding when Granny Ida shot him with her rifle. She saved my life.
He took a few steadying breaths then before he continued. “I remember my mother screaming, but not much after that. Just sitting in my dead grandmother’s lap until someone must’ve grabbed me and taken me to safety. The cops came, but I don’t remember much about them. In fact, the only memories I have of that time are the nightmares. Men coming into my room and shooting me, shooting Mom. I still have those dreams. But who they shoot is different, depending on who I’ve been thinking about from the day before or someone I care about.”
“Mick,” I asked, and he made eye contact with me. “Have you ever seen ghosts around the house?”
Mick froze, his spine going rigid. “W… why do you ask that?”
I sighed. “I-I think you’re the one who I came here to meet. The real reason I’m here.”
Mick shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why would you come to meet me?”
I smiled trying to comfort him before I continued, “Come on. Let’s get cleaned up, and I’ll explain over dinner. My treat this time.”
Mick appeared to be ready to argue, then I saw when he gave into the idea. I suspected he was both emotionally wrung out and vulnerable. He shouldn’t be alone when he felt like this. Madam herself often said trauma made people want to hide, but that was really when they needed people the most.
“Okay, um… I live in Chattanooga, but—”
“Come up to my hotel room. We can clean up there.”
He surprised me when he nodded and stood up, looking pointedly at my outstretched hand. “I’m not sure why what happened did, when we touched before, but I’m not ready for a repeat… if you don’t mind,” he said.
I pulled my hand away and tried to appear sympathetic. “I understand.”
We walked out of the building, and I asked, “Has anything like that happened before?”
“No,” he admitted. “Usually, it’s just me dealing with it… alone.”
Chapter twelve
Mick
Iwas shaken to my core after what happened. My skeleton literally felt like it was shaking inside my frame. It took all my effort and training to get myself back under control.Long deep breaths, I kept repeating…long deep breaths.
Finally, after what felt like forever, the images stopped flipping through my head and I was able to concentrate on the real world. The now, and not the horrors that plagued my past.
I swallowed hard as I focused on the handsome man whose touch had caused all this. Rory… There was something about him that felt… well, like he could keep me safe.
In my own head that didn’t make sense. I’d simply shaken his hand and all the past I’d crammed into the recesses of my mind came pouring out and back into my present.
Yet, here he was standing with me, watching me with those beautiful brown eyes. Safety wasn’t something I ever felt, at least not with anyone but my granny. Whatever was behind that was why I wasn’t running back to my apartment, my refuge, and curling into a ball to cry.
After he asked me to come with him, I kept a full six feet between us as we walked down the road and to his hotel. I knew I was being silly, but I had absolutely no interest in touching him again. Not when… well, when hell waited at the end of that touch. I glanced around his hotel room when we finally arrived. It was pretty. I hadn’t been here since they held an open house when it first opened to the public.
I smiled as Rory offered me a shirt and said I could change so I wouldn’t have to wear a filthy one to the café. I sighed with relief when he placed it on the bed without my asking. Clearly, he knew I didn’t want to accidentally stir that memory pot again.
I probably should’ve refused his invitation, and gone home, but I didn’t have enough energy to argue.
