Chapter 39 - HARPER-RAYN
HARPER-RAYN
Call me petty, but there’s nothing I hate more than having to admit when a man is right, especially when the thing he’s right about has everything to do with the fact that I’m losing my goddamn mind.
It’s official. I’m crazy. I’m certifiably insane.
I think. Well, I don’t know. It’s not as though I’ve been evaluated by Blackstone’s finest psychiatrist yet, but I’m sure that’s what they’re going to say.
It’s not as though there’s a completely viable reason to hallucinate a masked stalker who’s been trying to kill me for the past month.
Ugh. I can just see it now. They’re going to use words like psychotic break and episodes.
It’s going to be awful, and what’s worse is that Knight is going to insist on sitting right here by my side the whole damn time, hearing some doctor confirm that I’m a deranged nutcase.
How fucking humiliating. If he didn’t think I was too much to deal with before, I can guarantee he does now.
On the bright side, with the meds they’ve put me on, I’m probably not going to have any more sadistic hallucinations, and my non-existent stalker can wallow away into the dark abyss otherwise known as my memories.
I’ll file it away right between my childhood trauma and the vivid memory of seeing Laith’s body on my autopsy table.
Fuck, even knowing that wasn’t real doesn’t make the memory hurt less.
The only thing that really bothers me is the letters carved into my skin.
Knowing that I have the ability to hurt myself in that way terrifies me.
Am I only a threat to myself, or am I a threat to others?
I can’t be waking up in the middle of the night, assuming Knight is my stalker, and stabbing him right through the chest with a serrated kitchen knife.
Once I snapped out of my hallucination, I would never forgive myself.
“You’re gonna burst a blood vessel if you keep thinking that hard,” Knight murmurs from the chair beside my bed, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, despite how many times I’ve told him to go home and rest. Apparently, there’s no rest for the wicked.
I’ve been here a little over twenty-four hours, and while I’m dying to get home and back to normal life, a small part of me doesn’t want to leave.
I feel unpredictable. I can’t trust myself or even know what’s real, and while the psychiatrist will no doubt put me on some sort of meds to keep me from completely losing my mind, how am I supposed to trust that?
What if they don’t work for me? What if they’re not strong enough for my kind of crazy? What if I hurt someone?
“And you’re gonna find yourself with a brand-new bowtie made of your own intestines if you think for one second that you get to start being a bossy asshat again,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and being grateful that the restraints were never put back on.
“An intestine bowtie, huh?” he murmurs, lifting that dark gaze to meet mine. “I’d like to see you try.”
My jaw drops. Of course I don’t stand a chance against him.
He’s a fully trained, six-foot-whatever, mountain of a man.
He’s a complete beast. If it came down to survival of the fittest, Knight would kick my ass a million times over and still have energy to fuck after.
I wouldn’t stand a chance, but it’d be nice if he could at least pretend.
Though I don’t know why I’m surprised. Knight isn’t the type to sugarcoat things.
He gives it straight, and as a general rule, I appreciate that about him, but right now, it makes me want to kick his ass harder.
“You know, just because you were right, doesn’t mean that everything can just go back to how it was before,” I tell him, hoping he doesn’t have the wrong idea about what’s going on here, because honestly, I haven’t got a clue what I need right now. “I have some shit to work through first.”
“I’m well aware, doll.”
My face scrunches, and as I look at him, he arches a brow, wondering what the fuck I’m going to hit him with next.
“Why don’t you call me Morticia anymore?”
Knight grins. “With everything you should be concentrating on right now, that’s the question that’s circling that pretty mind of yours.”
I shrug my shoulders. “We’ve already worked out that my mind is a little fucked up at the moment, so I can’t be blamed for the stupid shit that comes out of my mouth,” I say, knowing damn well that’s a cop out. “So, hit me with it, Knight Slater. What happened to Morticia?”
He watches me for a moment, consideration deep in those dark eyes. “You don’t like doll?”
I scoff. “I have a voodoo doll tattooed behind my ear. I more than love doll,” I confirm, making sure he truly catches on to just how much I like it. “I just . . . equally love Morticia.”
Knight gets up from the chair and leans in toward me, his hand braced on the mattress beside my thigh, his face inching toward mine until his lips drop to my shoulder, gently kissing the curve of my neck.
“Morticia is well and truly alive,” he rumbles, dropping his tone low.
“That tends to come out when you’re being the sexy little morgue freak that you are. ”
My cheeks flush, and I clench my thighs beneath my blankets, the idea of being his sexy little morgue freak doing wicked things to me, but considering I pulled stitches yesterday and have barely even begun to heal after being jumped and having emergency surgery, that’s going to have to wait. “And doll?”
He takes a breath, pulling back just an inch and taking my chin between his skilled fingers, holding my stare. “Doll is . . . more.”
I nod, understanding exactly what he’s saying, then despite my declaration of things not going back to how they were before, he closes the gap between us and gently brushes his lips over mine in the sweetest kiss.
A soft moan slips from beneath my lips, and just as he pulls back, a knock sounds at the door.
Knight reluctantly pulls away and drops into the chair as my gaze sails toward the door, watching it open slowly. A head pops into the room with a wide grin, and I immediately smile back as the rest of her body eventually follows her in.
“Oh hey, you crazy bitch. I heard you were up here. I had to come check for myself,” Amelia—one of the doctors I suffered through med school with—says as she welcomes herself in with her lunch.
Her brow arches with intrigue as she notices the Adonis sitting beside me. “God damn. Who’s the juicy man-meat?”
Knight smirks to himself, but I jump in with a response before he gets a chance. “He’s just some asshole who thinks he knows what’s best for me.”
“Oh, tough break,” she teases. “I had one of those. Got rid of him so fast, he left scuff marks on my floor. But then, he didn’t look like that.”
I nod, understanding the dilemma more than she will ever know. “Yeah, he also fucks like a god, so it makes getting rid of him a real issue.”
“I can only imagine.”
Knight lifts his gaze, meeting mine and conveying every last thought in that brilliant mind of his without saying a single word. “Don’t think I won’t bend you over and spank that sweet ass just because you have company.”
A stupid grin stretches across my lips. “I’d like to see you try,” I say, mimicking his earlier comments.
His eyes flash with the challenge, but as Amelia makes herself comfortable on the end of my bed and dives into her lunch, he backs down, leaving me to catch up with my friend.
“Don’t stop on account of me,” Amelia mutters around her salad roll, shoveling it in as though she hasn’t eaten for two days straight—which is highly likely. “I’m down for a show.”
Knight laughs and reaches out a hand. “I’m Knight. The asshole who does in fact know what’s best for her.”
“Ahhh, I see,” she says, taking his hand and giving it a small shake. “Dr. Levine. The asshole who likes to think she knows what’s best for everyone, but you can call me Amelia.”
“Nice to meet you, Amelia.”
She gives him a polite smile before shifting her gaze back to me, but there’s a deep curiosity in her stare that makes me uneasy. I can tell she has more than just a few questions about how I ended up here.
“Haven’t seen you in forever,” I say, getting in with a diversion before she gets a chance to unleash on me, knowing that at some point, she’s going to be called to attend some Grey’s Anatomy bullshit sooner or later.
“Yeah,” she scoffs. “Because for some reason, you decided it would be a great idea to work night shift in the land of the dead, and everyone is too scared to go down there. You’re on your own, babe.
But it’s a two-way street, you could always venture up here to where people actually have heartbeats every now and then. ”
“But the people with heartbeats also have opinions and big mouths,” I mutter. “Down in the morgue it’s peaceful—most of the time.”
“Creepy is more like it,” she laughs, shamelessly scarfing down another bite. “So, what’d ya do to end up here? Are you actually crazy or just faking it to get a mini vacation? Because if you were just needing a few days off, there are much better ways to go about it, but I applaud the efforts.”
I can’t help but laugh before immediately regretting it as pain shoots through my midsection. “Apparently I’m the real deal,” I tell her, shrugging it off as though it’s not a big deal. “At least that’s what GI Joe over here thinks.”
“Ugh, men,” she mutters. “But don’t worry about it too much. I had my own little menty B a few months back and wound up in this very bed. They gave me a few weeks off, some stress relievers, and after some mind-blowing sex, I was good as new.”
“So, what you’re saying is that I just need to get dicked down on a beach in Barcelona, and I’ll be good?”
“Sounds perfect to me.”