26. Meet the Alters
Chapter twenty-six
Meet the Alters
Emily
Kaz stopped right in front of the painting—this visual embodiment of my fractured soul.
I held my breath.
What does he think?
Forcing myself to exhale, I inched back to the window and twisted my fingers in one hand.
I knew he was judging it with a critical eye, and my heart pounded with nervousness.
Say something, baby. Please. . .
I watched the play of emotions across his face with bated breath.
Every stroke on the canvas was a piece of my confused mind, each color a whisper of my fears.
His gaze moved from one personality to the next, and I could see the dawning of realization, the awakening to my inner world’s chaos.
Oh God. This is excruciating.
My pulse picked up.
Shock hit his features first, like the initial cold plunge into an unknown sea, eyes widening as they took in Lunita’s fierce gaze, the innocent clutch of the little girl to her lion, and M’s brooding presence.
Jesus Christ.
I wanted to hide my face.
His expression twisted in hazy stupor as if he were seeing me for the first time again, peeling back layer upon layer to reveal the raw and unvarnished truths I’d hidden even from myself.
I know, baby. . .I know.
On his face, fear followed, a shadow flitting across that chiseled jawline and tightening the corners of his eyes.
Tension gathered in my shoulders.
Was it fear of the unknown depths within me?
Was it fear for us?
For Emilio and Paolo?
Or was he just scared to love me?
Here I was, laid bare in pigments and brush strokes, a mosaic of identities that defied conventional understanding.
Could love truly bridge the gap?
He said he loved me no matter what, but that was in the car with me half naked.
Now it was all in front of him—strangers staring.
I shivered.
Sadness crept in next, softening his features.
The Lion didn’t get sad much, and when he did, it usually had something to do with me or someone had died that he truly cared about.
But there it was. . .sadness.
Filling up his eyes.
Lining the sides of his cheeks.
My heart ached at the sight.
I looked back at the painting.
Did he see what I tried to hide?
The pain.
The trauma.
The disgusting things that had birthed each alter.
I could see it. Maybe he can. . .
Horrified, I put my view back on him.
A flicker of something indescribable passed on his face.
I blinked, not knowing what emotion it was.
Was it hope or despair?
Love or fear?
He took one step back, then another, and really studied it.
The silence stretched between us,
My fingers trembled as I twisted them.
Kaz’s next words would either be a balm to my frayed edges or the strike that would unravel me completely.
He raised his hand and pointed to Lunita. “Is that who I think it is?”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
He curved his lips into a smile. “Lunita.”
I didn’t like the way he said her name as if he was fond of her, as if he was happy to see her face.
Then, he nodded to himself as if finally understanding the whole picture.
Eventually, his gaze met mine, and this thick silent tension hung thick between us, like a fog that couldn’t be cut through with any sort of knife. His eyes searched mine as if he was looking for an answer—an answer I wasn’t sure I had myself.
Don’t look at me that way. . .
I gazed at the floor.
With each passing second, the silence grew louder, more intense.
Kaz finally broke the quiet. “They are all you.”
His words hit me like a wave of cold water.
“Yes,” I breathed out and lifted my view to him. “All parts of me.”
He put his gaze back on Lunita.
My throat felt like it was closing up.
To my shock, a sly smile crept onto Kaz’s face. “Lunita. Lunita.”
O-kay. Don’t be too happy.
While I was glad he wasn’t disgusted, I didn’t want him to get super excited about seeing her either.
His gaze softened. “You put flowers in her hair.”
“That’s what she looked like when I saw her.”
Shock and terror covered his face. “When. . .you saw her?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed and gestured to the painting. “When I took that drink, I went to this dark land and the building was there. . .”
He frowned. “You were there by yourself?”
“Yes.”
The frown deepened. “Delphine should have gone there with you.”
I blinked. “I say that I go into my head where there is some surreal place with a building and you’re mad Delphine didn’t walk with me.”
“I do not like that you were alone.”
My heart ached. “Well. . .as you can see. . .I wasn’t completely alone.”
He turned back to the painting and walked over to the little girl’s image. “What is her name?”
“They just kept saying, the little girl.”
“ Mysh .” He looked at me and a smile tugged at his lips. “She is holding a lion.”
I parted my lips.
“She likes me.”
“Well. . .I think so.”
“Definitely.”
“She did call him Kaz.”
“There you go.” He grinned and looked back at her. “She is happy that I am in your life and sees me as her comfort. Her protector.”
O-kay.
He sighed. “I just wish I could give her a bigger lion.”
Oh baby. . .
Some of the tension fled me.
He studied her for another minute, taking in every small detail. “Tell me more about the little girl.”
“W-we’re really going to do this?”
He glanced at me. “Do what?”
“Accept this?”
“Are there other options, mysh ?”
“You could grab the boys, run off, and race out of my life.”
“If you do not catch me, Lunita will.” A dark chuckle left him. “There is no escaping the Mouse.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It actually is.” He put his view back on the little girl. “Tell me about all of the versions of you, staring with her .”
Love.
This all-consuming love rushed into my heart.
All my life I had wanted a love like this—the sort talked about in books or shown in movies. The all accepting kind, where the man would truly do it all for the woman he loved.
And here, that love stood right in front of me.
My eyes watered. “Kaz. . .”
He put his attention on me. “Yes, mysh .”
“I-I love you.”
“And I love you.” He returned to the painting. “And now I will love them.”
Oh my God. I’m really going to take the Lion down the rabbit hole. Let’s just hope he doesn’t bomb Alice, the rabbit, and the rest.
I let go of my hands and stood straighter. “I saw the little girl before. I thought it was a dream, but I guess I had gone deeper into my head, my subconscious.”
“She is adorable.” He studied her. “Is she your lost innocence?”
“M-maybe.” I gulped down unease. “Apparently, she was the second alter.”
Smart as always, he slipped his gaze to the outline of a woman on the little girl’s left. “And this personality was the first?”
“Yes. She’s called Amber, but I never got to meet her.” Thinking about her made me uneasy again, I went back to twisting my fingers. “She. . .experienced most of the sexual abuse. That’s all that she remembers.”
He gazed at me, and rage flickered in his eyes. If that bastard who hurt me had still been around, Kaz would have tortured him longer than I would have.
Probably even longer than Lunita.
I could see the violence in his eyes.
And. . .I felt so fucking safe.
My nerves calmed. “So. . .there’s a tunnel, sewer thing under the building and Amber hides there a lot.”
“Like you used to hide in the sewers and abandoned tunnels in New York?”
I stiffened. “Y-yes. . .”
So much had occurred, I never put the similarities of that together.
“Amber is why you always felt safe down there.” Kaz nodded to himself, understanding me better than I understood myself. “She is the part of you that eagerly runs into the darkness.”
“Maybe.”
His eyes, always so piercing and discerning, lingered on each representation of my fragmented self with a reverence that made my heart swell and ache in equal measure.
He went over to Lunita, the embodiment of my rage and fighting survival instinct. Those vibrant flowers in her hair were a stark contrast to the darkness she was born from.
“You really did see her.” He pointed at her eyes. “You captured all of the anger in those pupils. The fierce terror.” His voice went low and thoughtful. “But you missed the knife in her hand. Or did she not have one?”
“I was the only one with a knife.”
Again, he snapped his view to me. “Did you cut her?”
I rolled my eyes. “Would you be mad if I did?”
Like the insane man that he was, he chuckled. “Very mad.”
“Well then be mad because I tried my best to kill her on the roof with that knife.”
His face went hard. The chuckling ceased. “And what happened?”
“Why do you forgive Lunita for Olga?”
“Because she is you, and for me, you can never do any wrong. So tell me. . .” The line of his jaw twitched. “What happened when you cut her?”
I felt like I was on the edge of being in trouble. A normal person would have been happy that he embraced their evil personality.
Clearly, there was nothing normal about me.
I stared back at him in defiance. “I beat her up—”
“She cannot fight like you.”
“Then, I sliced her, and petals came out instead of blood. And she laughed at me.”
He shrugged. “Lunita has a sick sense of humor.”
I frowned at him. “She is fucking crazy.”
“An acquired taste for sure.” He put his view back on Lunita. “She was the third alter?”
“Yes.” I considered all that she had done for us, and much of my jealousy and anger toward her dissipated. “Long ago, probably at the worst of all the abuse, she appeared to fight and kill for me. . .for us.”
He bobbed his head. “That is the other reason why I will always care for her. She killed that monster.”
My eyes watered. “They call her, the Monster.”
“They should call her, the Savior.”
I bet she is smiling right now in my head.
Kaz returned to the painting and walked over to M.
I cringed, wanting to jump out of the window. Would it have been too much for all personalities to be female and a little bit normal?
There you go, baby. The woman you want to make your wife. . .well. . .she has a man in her head. Thoughts?
I stirred as he took in M, with his broad shoulders and the shadow of a beard, a part of me that felt entirely alien.
For a moment, silence enveloped us, only broken by the distant jazz rising in the air outside.
“Hmmm.” Kaz continued to observe M, and I held my breath, waiting for his verdict in anxious anticipation.
When Kaz finally spoke, he surprised me once again with his insight. “For some reason, he reminds me of Maxwell. A Street Professor of sorts. Is he like Maxwell?”
“No. Well. . .they would get along.” I thought back to M. “But, yes, he’s. . .an academic. There are all these degrees on the walls in his office. . .which is. . .in my head, but anyway. . .I couldn’t read where the degrees came from.”
“Very interesting.”
“He has another room and it’s all these notes and him trying to piece together who we are.”
“Very, very interesting.” Kaz held his chin. “What did M tell you?”
I spilled it all out, telling him about M’s theory on the five F’s of trauma and how he figured that we each represented one of them. Everything I could remember, I made sure to include.
“You are fawn.” Kaz chuckled. “That is how the Mouse snared the Lion. Had it been Lunita. . .I might have killed all of you, but your mind knew who could capture me.”
“O-kay. . .that’s one way to look at all of this. The broken me.”
He left the painting and came over. “What did you say?”
“You heard me, Kaz.”
“You’re not broken.” He scowled. “Do not say it again.”
His words held such certainty; it nearly knocked the air from my lungs.
I swallowed hard against the lump formed in my throat. “I feel broken.”
“But you are not,” he repeated softly. “You are. . .multifaceted. Like a diamond.”
“Oh my God.” I laughed because I couldn’t think to do anything else.
He grabbed my arms and pulled me closer. His embrace was a fortress against the storm of doubts and fears that had haunted me. “I heard some of what you said to Baba, and it pissed me off.”
I pursed my lips together.
“You say you are scared of losing yourself in them. . .” He gestured to the painting. “But, the more you get to know them, I believe, the more you will find the solution. This. . . her . . .that is you.”
“But, Kaz, this shit is scaring me.”
“You are stronger than you think.”
“I don’t feel strong right now.”
“You should. You are standing in front of the Lion.”
I grinned. “Jesus Christ. What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“I would never fall in love with a weak woman. Only weak kids would come from her.”
“But, at least you wouldn’t wake up to her killing people around you.”
He breathed me in. “It sounds boring.”
I leaned my head against his chest. “You say I’m strong, but I don’t feel that way right now.”
“Strength is not always about feeling powerful. Sometimes it is just about facing the dark reality head-on.”
His words hit home hard. I couldn’t help but admit that there was truth in them—an undeniable truth that resonated within me from the deepest corners of my heart.
“I can do that.” I wrapped my arms around him, drawn by his warmth and understanding. “I just want to leave New Orleans. . .whole.”
“You are one woman who has been through so many experiences that they have shaped different aspects of your personality.” He put his finger on my chin and lifted my view to him. “You are complex, but that does not make you any less whole.”
His gaze was intense yet gentle as if trying to reassure me through mere eye contact.
A lump formed in my throat as I forced myself to maintain his gaze.
“Those parts make up you.” He smiled. “Just like different colors make up a painting.”
Tears brimmed.
“But most importantly. Let us return to what pissed me off.” To my shock, Kaz’s expression shifted to angry. “Do not ever question my love for you again.”
I blinked.
“I told you in the car last night that I accept you and your personalities, that I love you—”
“But, Kaz that’s before you really understood—”
“I understood then, but do you understand now—”
“You didn’t—”
“Do not question my love for you!” Hot rage blazed in his eyes.
I trembled.
“I would bomb and kill for you,” he spoke through clenched teeth. “I would fucking die for you.”
I tried to look away.
He tightened his grip on my chin, kept my view on him, and sneered. “I already told you that I love you. All of you. Every single personality that you hold within you is a part of the woman I’ve come to love deeply. And all of them are mine. Including this M.”
My bottom lip quivered.
His words washed over me like a balm, soothing the raw edges of my soul. Here was this man, who had seen the deepest, most hidden parts of me, and not only did he accept them—he embraced them. . .again and again and a-fucking-gain.
He sneered some more. “I told you this in the car.”
“I know. . .”
“And then I gave you some dick to solidify that point.”
I widened my eyes. “Oh my God.”
“Do you need more dick, mysh ?”
I melted right there. “A little later.”
Disgust rode his words. “Fucking asking Baba if I would stop loving you.”
“Hey.” I tried to step back from him, but he wouldn’t let me. “I’m raw with emotion right now.”
“Get un-raw, when it comes to thinking about my love for you.”
I sighed.
He dropped his hand and looked down at my still wearing his shirt. “Did you get some sleep?”
“I’m not tired. I think that drink put me in a deep sleep. When I woke up, I felt like I had over eight hours.”
“You want to stay in New Orleans?”
“Yes.”
He groaned. “I would like to leave and once we are in the air, drop a bomb on the witch’s house—”
“Kaz, relax.”
“She is disrespectful—”
“We’re not here for her respect.”
“You were on the ground with snakes sliding over you—”
“Man, I would sleep in a tank full of snakes to get whole—”
“Next time you go there, I will not leave your side.”
“Fine.” I smiled and left his embrace. “That would make me feel safer knowing you are next to my body while I’m on the inside. . .figuring shit out.”
“She said to give her three days before returning.”
I let out a long breath. “Okay.”
“She also wants us to get this special bottle of absinthe from some idiot that would want to throw a party for us.”
“Do we know where the idiot is at?”
“I am sure the pansy will know.”
“The pansy’s name is Rafael. I’ll call him to set up a meeting.”
Kaz crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you think she can put me in your head with you?”
Horror hit me. “Kaz. . .I hope not. It’s crazy enough that I’m in my head.”
“I will ask her, if she—”
“It would be too much.”
“You all need me. The little girl. Amber. Lunita. M. I want to meet them.”
“Oh my God.” I left him and walked off. “Don’t even say that—”
He called after me. “Why not?”
“Because they may just come out, and we don’t need me walking around New Orleans like a man, trying to fuck women on Bourbon Street.”
“Hmmm.”
I stopped and gazed over my shoulder. “Hmmm?”
“That might be interesting.”
I shook my head. “I’m going to check on Paolo and Emilio and get them ready for the day if Baba has not already. You go take a shower and get dressed too.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We’re in Nawlins, baby.” I grinned. “Time to do the tourist thing.”
God knows we need a break from all this heavy shit.