Chapter 8
RYKER
It had been a week since Ryan had dropped by, and no one else had visited. Quiet didn’t mean the world had stopped.
I spent the time chasing the only lead that mattered: the woman who’d gotten into my room while I was down. I didn’t remember her. The induced coma made sure of that. The gap didn’t make her imaginary.
My phone buzzed against the desk, and I scooped it up and grinned at the text message.
Mitchell:
You should be here this afternoon.
Me:
I don’t remember asking you to be bossy.
Mitchell:
Didn’t have to, motherfucker. Your smile the other day said you needed another game. See ya later.
Fuck. I had to work on locking down my expressions when I was around other people. If I was smiling, it wasn’t because I was happy. It was because my brain had found something to bite down on. Her. The game. The way she refused to break.
I turned off my computers before I took two steps at a time to go upstairs. Even though I would sweat like crazy during the Ritual, I had to shower before I went. I showered a lot. The heat helped. Soap helped. The feeling of clean helped. None of it lasted.
Maybe it was the days in the hospital bed with goddamn sponge baths when I was stitched from head to foot that had me scrubbing under the spray.
My nostrils flared as I strolled into my bedroom. I grabbed a pair of dark jeans and a dry-wick camo shirt. I wanted to stay as hidden as possible during the Ritual. My cock twitched in my shorts, and I glanced down. “Soon, buddy. Hang on.”
I set my clothes on the bathroom counter and located my toothbrush.
After I brushed my teeth and shaved, my reflection caught my attention.
Placing my palms on either side of the sink, I stared into my eyes.
They were hollow. Tired. A face that looked alive.
A man who didn’t. Even though I was back home, I wasn’t sleeping.
I wanted a joint. I wanted sleep. I wanted my brain to shut the fuck up. None of those were options anymore.
The corner of my eye twitched once.
Then the bathroom light went too bright, too white, and my hands locked around the sink in an attempt to keep myself grounded.
Fluorescent panels. Ceiling tiles. A monitor’s steady beep.
My throat burned like it had been scraped raw, and when I tried to swallow, something tugged deep inside me. Air moved in and out of my lungs, but it didn’t feel like mine.
I tried to lift my hand.
Pain snapped through my wrist.
Because it wasn’t free.
A cuff circled my forearm, snug enough to throb. Another at my ankle. With the casts and stitches, it made sense. One wrong jerk in a panic and I’d split myself open like a zipper.
A nurse leaned into my line of sight, a mask on her face, hair tucked under a cap. Only her eyes showed a practiced steadiness.
“Shh,” she murmured. “You’re okay. Don’t fight.”
Her gloved fingers checked my IV with quick efficiency, smoothing tape, adjusting a line. The beep stayed even. Everything looked like a hospital. Everything sounded like one.
Panic hit anyway, hot and immediate, and I strained against the cuffs hard enough to make my vision spark.
The nurse looked at my wrist.
Not to check my skin.
To check the restraint.
Then two fingers pressed to the side of my neck, steady. “There you go,” she said softly. “Breathe.”
The room tilted. Darkness crowded the edges.
And the last thing I felt before it took me was the cuff biting a fraction tighter as I went limp.
I blinked—
Suddenly, I was slammed back into my bathroom, knuckles white, breath stalling in my chest. The shift left me wrong-footed, as if my mind had slammed a door and my body was still on the other side.
I dragged in a breath through my nose, slow, controlled.
My wrist still throbbed as if it remembered.
I stayed braced over the sink, breathing like I could talk my body down with discipline.
In. Out. Again. The tiles under my feet didn’t change.
The mirror didn’t change, but a hot spear of pain drove into the base of my skull, and the world tipped again just enough to make me nauseous.
My mouth filled with spit. I swallowed it down hard.
“Fuck.”
I gripped the counter harder and forced my attention back to my reflection. My face was mine. The scar along my hairline, mine. The faint shadows under my eyes that never fully left, mine.
So why did it feel like my body belonged to that hospital bed more than it belonged to this house? Home wasn’t a location. It was permission to relax. I didn’t have that.
A sharp tremor ran through my forearm. My hands were steady enough to load a gun. Steady enough to kill. I shouldn’t like how good it felt, but I did.
My grip flexed, too tight. Then the thought hit, flat and brutal.
You didn’t die. You just didn’t get to keep living.
My neck tensed and I stretched, but it didn’t clear the pressure. It never did.
I forced air into my lungs until my ribs ached, then I pushed off the sink. My knees argued, went soft for half a step, and I corrected—shoulders back, spine straight. It was muscle memory. Performance. The version of me that didn’t crack.
The Ritual game was in a few hours, and I didn’t know if she’d be there.
I told myself it was about the game. The lie didn’t hold.
The mystery woman was the only thing that had cut through the static in my head in days …
the only thing that made me feel like I wasn’t just a ghost walking through my own damn life.
I stumbled once, catching the doorframe with my palm, and a pulse of pain throbbed in my head. The edges of the world blurred, then snapped back into place.
I dug my fingernails into the wood until the ache grounded me. Until the room stopped swimming again. Until the mirror didn’t feel like it was watching.
“Get it together,” I muttered, voice low and ugly. “You’re not back there.”
I rolled my shoulders, forcing them to loosen.
“You’re here. You’re armed. You’re functional.”
Today wasn’t about the past. Today was about finding her again, cornering her, earning that breathless little fuck you smile when she realized I had caught her again.
I turned on the shower. The spray hit my skin and steamed the bathroom, and I stood under it too long, letting the heat punish the chill that never fully left my bones.
When I stepped out, I didn’t look at my wrists again. I didn’t look at the faint red line that wasn’t there. Didn’t let myself think about cuffs tightening as my body went limp.
I dressed fast—jeans, camo, boots—then splashed cold water on my face until my eyes sharpened and the hollow look dulled into something sharper. Meaner. Useful.
By the time I reached the stairs, my pulse was steady. My expression was locked down.
Mitchell was right. I had to get better at not allowing others to truly see me. Because if she saw how close I was to unraveling, I’d lose her before I ever got the chance to catch her again.