Chapter 7 – Morgan
Seven
A Therapist, A Mugger & Her Dead Husband Walk Into a Bar
Morgan
"Can you tell me what brought you here today?" she asked gently.
Never let it be said that I didn't listen. Look at me trying to heal. Seriously, everyone should be very impressed. I was back at work. And I’d even forced myself to have a whole conversation with Sam.
I was doing all the things. Aiming for normal.
Whatever the fuck that was.
And now I was in therapy.
Dr. Chen was staring at me expectantly. Hell, where did I even start? The sex dreams? The paranoia? The feeling like I'm slowly disappearing into my own grief?
"My husband died six weeks ago," I said, the words feeling strange and heavy in my mouth. "Car bomb. And I've been having... symptoms since then. Concerning symptoms that are making my family worry I'm having some kind of breakdown."
"I'm so sorry for your loss. That must have been devastating." Her voice was warm, genuine. "What kind of symptoms have you been experiencing?"
Here we go. Time to sound completely insane.
"I've found something," I said slowly. "A message. In his journal. Written in his handwriting. But it wasn't there before."
Dr. Chen nodded, making notes on her tablet without any change in expression. Professional poker face.
"Can you tell me more about this message?"
"It appeared in his journal. It said, 'Spitfire, you're stronger than you know, don't give up on us.' My family thinks I just missed it before, but I've read that journal cover to cover multiple times. I know what was in there."
"And you're certain this message wasn't there before?"
"Positive. I've memorized every page of that journal." I twisted my hands in my lap. "Everyone thinks I'm having grief-induced hallucinations. That my mind is protecting me by revealing things when I'm emotionally ready to process them."
"What do you think?"
That my dead husband is somehow communicating with me. Which sounds insane even to me.
"I don't know what to think anymore. That's why I'm here."
"Have you been experiencing other symptoms? Changes in sleep, appetite, daily functioning?"
Oh, where do I start?
"I've been having really vivid dreams about him," I said, heat flooding my face. "Sexual dreams. And they feel too real. I wake up feeling satisfied in ways that shouldn't be possible from just dreams."
She continued making notes without any change in expression.
“Sexual dreams about a deceased partner are extremely common, especially when the loss was sudden. Your brain is processing both grief and the loss of physical intimacy."
Realistic. Right. That's all it is.
"What about other symptoms?" Dr. Chen asked. "Anxiety, hyper-vigilance, changes in your daily routine?"
Now we're getting to the really crazy stuff.
"I think someone's watching me." The words tumbled out in a rush. "I know how that sounds, but I feel eyes on me constantly when I'm out. It's this crawling sensation between my shoulder blades, like someone's staring at me from a distance."
"That's also very common after a sudden, violent loss," she said gently. "Your nervous system is on high alert, scanning for threats constantly. It's a normal trauma response."
So I'm not crazy. Just traumatized.
"I'm starting to think I'm having some kind of psychotic break," I admitted. "Like my grip on reality is just... slipping."
The doctor leaned forward slightly. "Morgan, these are all normal responses to an abnormal situation.
Losing a spouse suddenly and violently is one of the most traumatic experiences a person can have.
Your reactions, the vivid dreams, the hypervigilance, even finding comfort in what feels like messages from him.
These are ways your mind is trying to process an impossible loss. "
Then why does it feel like I'm losing my mind?
"Do you want him to be gone?" she asked suddenly.
The question jarred me. "What?"
"It's a simple question, but an important one. Do you want Lance to be dead? Do you want to move on and forget about him?"
"No." The word tore out of me like a sob. "God, no. I would do anything to have him back. Anything."
"Then it makes perfect sense that your subconscious would create scenarios where he's still with you in some way. Where you can still feel connected to him, still experience intimacy with him. Your mind is trying to give you what you need to survive the loss."
That makes sense. It's rational.
So why didn't it feel normal?
We talked for another twenty minutes about coping strategies and grounding techniques. She taught me something called the "5-4-3-2-1" method for when I felt overwhelmed or paranoid. Five things I could see, four I could hear, three I could touch, two I could smell, one I could taste.
By the time I left, I had a handful of breathing exercises I'd probably never use, a list of "homework" assignments that sounded like torture, and a follow-up appointment I wasn't sure I'd keep.
At least she didn't suggest I be committed.
The afternoon sun was brutal after the dim office, making me squint as I fumbled for sunglasses. My bodyguard, Anthony, was waiting by the car, scanning the crowd with that particular kind of alertness that came from years of professional paranoia.
I pulled my purse strap higher on my shoulder and headed toward the pedestrian crossing. I was halfway across the street when everything went to shit.
"Hey!" A rough hand grabbed my purse strap, yanking hard enough to send me stumbling. "Let go!"
You've got to be kidding me.
The mugger was young, maybe early twenties, with the jittery energy of someone desperate or high. He was stronger than he looked, jerking my purse with enough force to make the strap bite into my shoulder.
"Just take it," I said automatically, trying to keep my voice steady. But then I remembered what was in the purse, and my heart stopped.
Lance's journal.
The last one he'd written in. The one I'd been carrying everywhere like a talisman. Full of his thoughts about our future, about the life we were building together. The only piece of him I had left that felt real, that still smelled like his cologne.
No. Absolutely fucking not.
I grabbed the strap back, refusing to let go. That's when I saw the flash of metal.
The knife caught the afternoon light for just a second before it sliced across my palm. Pain exploded through my hand as I felt the blade bite deep, warm blood immediately welling up and running down my wrist.
"I said let go!" he snarled.
Before I could react, he shoved me hard. My wedges, stupid, impractical wedges. Couldn't find purchase on the pavement. I went down hard, my knees hitting the concrete first, then my shoulder. The impact knocked the air from my lungs.
The mugger took off running, my purse. Lance's journal. Clutched in his bloodstained hand.
No. No, no, no.
Ignoring the screaming pain in my hand and the ache in my knees, I scrambled to my feet. Blood dripped steadily from my palm, leaving a trail behind me, but I didn't care.
"Actually, hell no," I heard myself say, and then I was chasing him.
In wedges.
With a bleeding hand.
This is the stupidest thing you've ever done.
But my feet were already moving, adrenaline overriding both pain and common sense. The mugger had a head start, but he kept looking back like he couldn't believe I was still coming, and my rage was giving me speed I didn't know I possessed.
This piece of shit was not taking the last piece of him I had.
He ducked into an alley between two buildings, probably thinking he could lose me in the maze of dumpsters and fire escapes. I followed, my heels clicking against the concrete like gunshots, my injured hand clutched against my chest.
This is how people die in movies. Chasing criminals into dark alleys like complete idiots.
But I could see him ahead of me, still clutching my purse. Just a few more steps and maybe I could—
The sound that came from deeper in the alley was wet and brutal. Like meat hitting concrete. My heart trembled. The mugger's forward momentum stopped abruptly, and he made a noise like all the air had been punched out of his lungs.
Then silence.
What the hell?
I slowed, suddenly aware that I was alone in an alley with, what? Another criminal? Someone worse than the mugger?
A figure stepped back into the shadows, tall, broad-shouldered, moving with the kind of controlled precision that made my breath catch.
That movement. That silhouette.
Something about the way he moved was familiar. The economical violence. The way he melted back into the darkness like he belonged there, like shadows were his natural habitat.
I crept closer to where the mugger lay crumpled against a dumpster. Alive but barely conscious, blood trickling from his nose. Arm twisted in an unnatural position, nose definitely misaligned. My purse lay beside him, intact and unharmed.
I grabbed it with my good hand, clutching it against my chest like a lifeline. Blood from my cut palm smeared across the leather.
"Hello?" I called into the shadows, my voice echoing off the brick walls. "I know someone's there."
Show yourself. Please.
But there was only silence and the sound of my own hammering heart.
I knelt beside the mugger, checking his pulse with my uninjured hand. Still alive, but he'd been taken down with surgical precision. Hit exactly where it would incapacitate without killing. Professional work.
Lance used to move like that.
But so did Hector, my rational brain offered up. So did anyone trained in the same deadly arts Lance had learned as a child.
But why wouldn't he just say something?
"Morgan!"
Anthony's voice echoed off the alley walls. He was running toward me, weapon drawn, looking ready to take on an army.
"I'm okay," I called back, my voice unsteady. Blood was still dripping from my hand. "I'm okay, but someone else was here. Someone helped me."
Someone who fights like a DuLac.
By the time Anthony reached me with enough commotion to wake the dead, whoever had been in the shadows was gone. He secured the mugger and called the paramedics.
I did not leave the scene, knowing they would arrive in a couple of minutes. I tried not to dwell on the situation, but something nagged at me. The way that figure had moved. Controlled, lethal, and trained.
But why the secrecy? Why not just reveal himself?
The realization filled me with more confusion than relief.
Is someone from Lance's family protecting me? Or am I completely losing my mind?
Anthony was asking questions about the mugger, calling for police. But my thoughts were spinning in circles.
I thought about the explosion that killed Lance. About the enemies he'd made. About all the things he'd never told me about his family's business, all the secrets he'd kept to protect me.
I'd seen the car explode. I'd been to his funeral. I'd watched them lower his casket into the ground.
But you never saw a body. The explosion was too severe.
Stop it. Dead is dead. You're not in a soap opera.
But as the EMTs loaded the unconscious mugger into an ambulance and Anthony fussed over me like a mother hen, I couldn't shake the feeling that nothing about today had been random.