“Why on earth would they have beaten him?”

“Because, Jade, Larry is the one who helped Talon escape.”

Chapter Thirty

Talon

The dreams came again. I was back, walking on the outskirts of the Walkers’ small ranch, but it wasn’t Ryan with me, clutching at my hand. No. It was Jade. Jade, who looked up at me with innocent steely blue eyes, who trusted me to protect her.

But when the masked men came, and when they grabbed her, I wasn’t able to stop them. They dragged her away, all the while she was screaming, “Talon, help me! Help me! Help me!” Until she disappeared into the rundown shack.

I ran toward the shack, but my feet were stuck in mud. I was sinking in quicksand, and all around me, disembodied arms and legs came up from the mud to mock me.

“Help! Help!” I screamed. “I’m sinking! I’m sinking!”

In the abyss, a disembodied head floated upward, laughing at me.

“You couldn’t help me, Talon. I died anyway. You didn’t get here in time. And now you will die too.”

I stared into the dead eyes of Luke Walker.

“No!”

And then my head went under.

I held my breath as long as I could, but soon I was forced to breathe in. Mud, dirt, slime entered my mouth, my nose…

The end…

The—

 

I shot up in bed.

My heart was beating out of my chest. What the fuck? A new dream?

I had to talk to Dr. Carmichael. She had given me her number, but I had never used it, other than to call to make an appointment. She told me point blank that she didn’t normally give out her cell number except in rare cases. I guessed I was one of those rare cases.

I had come so far. I had told Jade everything, and she hadn’t turned away from me. I had to get through this. And I wasn’t going to be able to get through it if I continued to have horrible and disgusting dreams. I looked at my cell phone. Ten thirty. Not too early to call.

I punched in Dr. Carmichael’s number.

“This is Melanie.”

“Hi. It’s…Talon. Talon Steel.”

“Yes, Talon, I recognized your number. Did you want to try to get an appointment today?”

“No. I mean, I was wondering if you could talk to me now.”

“Of course. Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I mean no, but yeah. I’m not suicidal or anything. I’m not going to do anything stupid. But I’m a little freaked.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“I told Jade everything last night.”

“I see. And how did it go?”

“It was…hard. I mean, I knew it would be. But still it was hard.”

“How did she take it?”

“She bawled. I bawled. But we got through it.”

“And none of it mattered to her, did it?”

I sighed. “No.”

“Is that what you need to talk to me about?”

“No. I just had a really freaky dream.” As I told Dr. Carmichael about the dream, my skin chilled. “It’s different than any other dream I’ve had. I really don’t know why I would have it now, right after I told Jade.”

“Well, Talon, you’ve always been able to protect everyone. Everyone except yourself. Now you finally have the person who means everything to you, so you’re afraid that you won’t be able to protect her.”

“It can’t be that simple.”

“Dreams are never simple. But that’s my initial thought. You can come into the office if you want, and I can take you through guided hypnosis. That might give us more valuable information.”

“No, I don’t want to do that. At least not today. I guess I was just surprised by it all. I mean, I woke up in a cold sweat.”

“Understandable. But dreams are usually manifestation of fears, sometimes fears we don’t even realize we have. And that’s a very legitimate fear.”

“But she trusts me, Doc. She fucking trusts me.”

“Of course she does. With good reason. You’re a very trustworthy person.”

“But what if I can’t protect her?”

“There are no guarantees in life, Talon. I only wish that there were. But you will protect her. You protected her from her ex, remember? Even though he wasn’t a threat. And if there was a legitimate threat to her, you would do everything within your power to protect her. Your feet would not get caught in quicksand. It was just a dream.”

I suddenly felt very foolish. “Will the dreams ever stop?”

“They may never stop completely. But I feel certain that they will lessen. And you’ll find, in time, that they don’t bother you nearly as much. Even this time, I’ve talked you down in a matter of minutes. That wouldn’t have happened three months ago.”

I couldn’t disagree with her. “All right. I think I’m okay now. Thanks for talking to me, Doc.”

“I’ll always be here for you, Talon. For as long as you need me.”

And I knew she would be.

Just like Jade would be.

As I said goodbye and hung up, Jade came running into my bedroom, Roger at her heels.

“Talon, thank God you’re awake. You need to get up.”

“What’s going on, blue eyes?”

“I just got off the phone with Wendy Madigan.”

Wendy Madigan? That was a blast from the past. How did Jade know about her? “Wendy?”

“Yeah.”

“But how?”

“I found her name at the bottom of that local news article about your heroics when you came back from overseas.”

Okay. But that didn’t help me understand why Jade was on the phone with her.

“I’ll explain all this later, but right now we need to act quickly. You were right, Talon. Larry Wade was one of the three men who abducted you.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Jade

His eyes widened into circles. He said nothing. In fact, he looked almost catatonic for a few moments. When I got to the point where I was actually beginning to worry, he finally blinked.

“What?”

I sat down next to him on the bed and took his trembling hand. “I’ve been talking to Wendy for a while. After I found her name on the article about you, I figured she had some information, and she confirmed that she did. Today she decided to give it to me.”