Chapter 1
I lay in a hospital bed, and my skin itched as if I’d been infested by a thousand mites. I scratched my skin, picking at the scabs that had formed. I hated sitting on my hands, healing, and being forced to drink the green smoothies provided to me by the Sanctum staff.
“Stop it,” June, one of the medical staff said. They all wore the same formal-ish style drab gray shirt that was so unoffensive to the eyes it made me want to rage. “I’ll apply chamomile to it, but if you don’t stop itching, I might be forced to sedate you.”
“I’m calm,” I said, my hands curled up into near fists.
June hummed, looking at my chart. “Come on, Jacques, you know the only way to get medical clearance is to follow the orders,” she said, dotting her finger against the paper. “You’ve not been taking all your meds.”
“I have.” A lie. “How would you even know?”
“Your urine output,” she said. “There’s no trace of the sedative. It’s got an antihistamine in it that your body requires.”
“No.” I shook my head. “That shit makes me feel like I’m drunk. I don’t like to feel out of control. Tell Mercy I’m checking myself out and I’ll head to a local A&E so they can sort me out.”
It was my fault completely. I’d fallen into a bush of poison ivy and sumac—or whatever it was called.
It had covered most of my skin, even though I hadn’t been naked, but there was something about leaves, they were alive and shit, and they’d probably decided my entire body was the perfect place to rub their grubby little poisonous leaves.
“She’s not going to let you leave,” June said. “You’re not going to be able to explain to her why you were in a tree spying on someone. Unless you’d like to catch a stalking charge from the police.”
“I wasn’t stalking,” I said. “I was checking in on someone.”
“From the tree outside their apartment?” she smirked, looking at the chart.
Outside in the real world, people didn’t sass me, because they knew I’d punch their entire jaw clean of teeth.
Obviously, in here, violence wasn’t allowed, and this was June, she’d helped me through a lot—I’d never hurt her, or anyone here.
This place had rehabilitated me when I was at my worst.
I snatched the chart from her. “Is that all written on here?” I glanced over the medical mumbo jumbo.
“No,” she said. “It’s just what I’ve heard. You know we don’t just come in here to take care of you. We’ve got to report back to Mercy—well, Tabby, the medical suite manger. Just like you’ve got to debrief.” She sighed. “Now, let me go get you some of those tablets I want you to swallow.”
Rolling my eyes, I rubbed a hand across the edge of the clipboard.
It was so hard . . . and perfect for a good scratch on the raised, itchy patches of skin where my body had been touched by the ivy.
As she came back with them in a paper cup, she took the binder and watched as I tried my best not to take the pills.
I failed. The only time I’d ever been fine with being told what to do .
. . and five minutes later, I was out of it.
* * *
Mercy was in front of me the next time I woke up.
And a man and woman were standing around me, rubbing down my limbs with a thick floral-scented cream.
It was all a haze for a moment, before I came to and the ache of the canula in my arm reminded me those drugs were in my system.
And because me and pain had a good relationship, those drugs were tearing through like there was no tomorrow.
“You could’ve done a lot more damage,” Mercy said. “What the heck were you doing?”
“None of your business,” I mumbled, my mouth numb, almost unable to fully open. “I was . . . doing my business.”
“Reaper,” she said, placing a hand on my chin and turning my face. “Jeez. You do not seem well. Ever since Donovan left, you’ve taken his reckless streak. I don’t like it. You’re one of my best, and I have two requests for your services on my desk.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what you want. I don’t do drugs.” The words made sense in my head, but they weren’t coming out the way I was hoping. “I don’t do drugs.”
“I know, I know,” she said. “We know.” She gestured around and it was like my vision was inside a fishbowl with everyone looking at me.
I could barely feel my arms. I didn’t know if the cream had numbed them, or if it was those stupid tablets I’d been forced to swallow.
“But you need to make sure you’re better.
Let’s get the doctor in and see if we can speed this process up. ”
I’d been in these comfy Sanctum hospital beds many times, they were a second home to me, especially when it came to mending broken bones and gunshot wounds.
June appeared beside the doctor. “We’ve been giving him the solaphenidine hydrochloride.”
“And it’s working,” the male doctor said, flashing a small torch light in my face.
I tried my best to flinch or even stop him, but I was numb on the bed, and lifting a limb that was being massaged down with cream was practically impossible.
“You should sleep. The sedative in your system will help with the histamine response to the poison sumac on your skin. It’ll be a few weeks until you’re properly healed. ”
“No,” Mercy said from behind. “Do something faster.” She snapped her fingers. “I know you can do it. I don’t know, induce a coma, push him through.” That was all I caught of the conversation before falling asleep . . . for what seemed like forever.
* * *
Time didn’t operate the same in Sanctum as it did everywhere else.
It could’ve been five minutes but felt like five hours, or even five days.
This place had everything you could ever need, and some things you wouldn’t want, like to spend days attached to an IV in a hospital bed not knowing if they were going to discharge you or pump you full of drugs.
Not my first time here. Probably not my last either. When I’d broken bones, they’d fixed me up, rushed me through the healing process with whatever patented processes Sanctum had—pure oxygen chambers and what-nots.
I finally woke in my bed. It was comfy, soft, and the sensation on my skin was new. I hated it. I liked it when a hot shower or the sear of my skin being inked were the only sensations that could have me clenching my teeth and wincing.
There was nobody around to speak to me or tell me what day it was.
Throwing myself into a shower, I stayed under the hot water, letting memories spike through the back of my head.
The last actual memory I had was of the tree.
I was looking for Ezra. He hadn’t responded to any of my texts or calls.
I’d kept it all to myself. It was dangerous for someone to know you had a weakness, and Ezra .
. . after two dates, both involving sex, I was worried someone had noticed, someone was trying to get at me.
There was a plastic bag, with the things recovered from me when I’d called in the emergency rescue text.
I hadn’t been able to breath or move. My arms ached a little now, but there were no breaks.
I looked through the bag. I’d had a silver ring and matching chain on me.
Silver complemented me, according to all the guys whose legs I’d spread like butter across hotel mattresses.
“Fuck,” I grumbled to myself. My phone screen was smashed, though new phones weren’t an issue here.
But as it turned on I could see the date.
March eighteenth. I’d been out of it for ten days.
Ten whole days of not knowing where Ezra was.
He could be dead, and all because someone had spotted him with me.
The phone on the wall beside the door rang.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Harlan.” A chipper voice sounded. It was Claire, my usual eye in the sky and voice in my ear. “I hope you’re ok.”
“Hi, Claire,” I said. “I know I made a mistake.”
She chuckled. “It’s okay, sir.”
“You should’ve been in my ear, you should’ve been piloting a drone,” I grumbled.
“It’s really okay. I’m just glad we were able to get to you,” she said. “I was calling to ask if you needed anything?”
“A new phone,” I said. “Oh, and the name of that fucking drug.”
She hummed in her usually excited way. “I’m on it,” she said. “Stay with me one second while I pull up your records. And what type of phone? The same make and model as your previous one?”
“Yes, yes please,” I said, looking at my phone light up across the room from me. The screen was far too smashed for me to see anything on it, but after ten days it was probably notifications from those stupid games I played. Brain-numbing match games I was obsessed with.
“The drug they gave you was Nexzen,” she said. “I’ve got the information here. It’s a first-generation sedating antihistamine with topical soothing properties. Did you have a reaction to it? I can edit your file from here.”
“No, no, that’s okay,” I told her. I’d seen the name of it inside Ezra’s apartment.
He was looking into it. He hadn’t told me too much about it, but it didn’t sound good.
I must’ve heard the name while I was out of it and put up a fight.
Flickers of memories came through, but I couldn’t make heads nor tails of them.
“Thanks, Claire.” I hung up and threw my partially wet naked body onto the bed.
There was nothing I needed right now more than I needed answers to Ezra’s whereabouts.
The last time I saw him, he’d been on his knees, so sweet, begging me to stay the night. I couldn’t, he was my respite from work. The indulgence in life I hadn’t ever given into. He was a part of me nobody saw, and I knew too much of it might be a bad thing. And it was only our second date.
A knock came at the door after a little time passed again.
I’d dried off enough on my bed and answered the door in wearing only the towel, clinging to the bundled up front of it.
Mercy stood there in a red power suit with a matching bold red lipstick.
She held a wrapped phone in her hand, and tapped the tip of one of her fancy shoes on the tile.
“I thought you’d be better put together,” she said. “I’m not convinced about anything you’ve told us. Like, what were you doing in the East Village?”
I accepted the phone from her. I knew I didn’t have to tell her anything, but it was sometimes best if you did, not because of anything awful, but because she would always have your back. “I was seeing a friend,” I said.
“A friend I don’t know about?” she asked with a smirk. “All your friends are here, or dead.” She shrugged. “So, do you want to tell me more about this mysterious friend of yours?”
“Not really,” I said. “But if you’d like to watch me get changed? You can stay.”
“I’d rather not,” she said. “Although, I’d probably be too preoccupied by the tattoos to ever wonder what people see in those things men have between their legs.” She had a cackle that travelled.
I tried to laugh back, but it didn’t come close. “Not all of us enjoy women like you do,” I told her. “But I can appreciate a woman’s body and what it does.”
“You’re being gross now,” she said. “Go call your boyfriend, or whoever it is.” She winked at me. “And come see me when you’re done, I’ve got some work for you.”
The thing is, she wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t right.
Ezra wasn’t my boyfriend, at least in no official sense.
He was a guy I was very much obsessed with.
I wanted him, completely, every single part of him, and I recalled every single kiss I’d given him, every single part of his skin I’d touched with my tongue.
I opened the new phone, double wrapped to signal it was clean—no bugs in here.
I still never trusted them not to get into all my business, but that was the life here.
Make good money, have no privacy, but you can come and go as you please, as long as you give Mercy a pound of flesh and she can count on you for her high-paying gigs.
Slipping the sim card between phones as the new one set itself up, I managed to get a look at myself in the mirrors around the room.
It wasn’t often I could tell the difference between where I’d been tattooed and what was a bruise.
Another reason they were nice to have. I noticed dusty white marks and lines on my skin, fading some of the tattoos.
They must’ve been where I’d gotten more of the poison leaves on me. I didn’t even know that shit grew here.
Notifications came through, distracting me once again.
Ezra’s name appeared and I couldn’t focus on anything else.
Multiple texts from him, all asking how I was doing and where I was?
Requests for a third date, requests for me to spend the night.
They descended into chaotic ramblings about ghosting him, and how he knew nothing out of my mouth could’ve been true.
It stabbed through me like a hot knife, cauterizing just to keep me alive and strengthen the stabbing.
I called him, anger swimming through me. I wanted to crunch the phone in my hands.
Declined. He’d declined it.
Another call.
Another decline.
Answer the phone, please. I can explain. Please. I sent him a text once my thumbs had readjusted to just how tiny the keys were on the screen.
I spoke to my therapist, and they said they think I should cut the negative noise out of my life. He replied.
Answer the phone. Or I’m coming over.
I called again.
“Hello,” he answered. “I’m only doing this because I’m not sure I want to see you right now.”
“I’ll respect your wishes,” I told him. A lie. I was going to see him. “I’ve been sick. I was in hospital.”
“Liar!” he snapped. “I—I—I sound so fucking foolish, but I called the local accident and emergency rooms. I was worried. Your last texts to me were about needing to see me. Then nothing.”
“Ezra, please,” I said, sinking into a seat at the foot of my bed. “You didn’t respond to anything for days.”
“Two days,” he said. “I told you when you came to see me I was going to be in Vegas for a conference. I had no time.”
It was entirely possible, but that wasn’t my fault. He didn’t text back, at all. I had to climb his tree. I had to see inside his apartment to make sure. “If you say so,” I replied.
“I like you, Jacques, but you’re guarded. You’re a different person when you’re with me,” he said. “You make me feel like a dirty secret sometimes, and I’m dealing with something huge at work, and I really—I—I—” He started to sob down the phone.
“I’m coming over to you,” I whispered. “I’ll be twenty minutes.”
And that was if I raced—and managed to pass Mercy without her calling me in for whatever work she had. Ezra was the most important thing right now. He was where I needed to be.
He responded weakly. “Okay.” And that was all I needed to slip into sweatpants and a hoodie, skipping the boxers and undershirt.