43. Chapter 43
Chapter forty-three
JUDE GRAVES
Three Months Later
Rain taps steadily against the windows of Dr. Mercer’s office on this gray Oregon afternoon. My brain keeps trying to map the sound into patterns. Footsteps. Always fucking footsteps in that godforsaken basement.
I notice myself doing it halfway through and force my jaw to unclench.
The room smells like coffee, which is a smell that would make most people probably relax here.
There’s a bookshelf against the far wall packed with psychology texts and worn novels, a lamp glowing softly beside it, and a knitted blanket folded neatly over the arm of the couch I’m sitting on.
I suppose it’s to make people feel safer.
I haven’t touched it once.
My knee bounces relentlessly where I sit leaning forward, elbows braced against my thighs, fingers laced tightly together.
Dr. Mercer notices everything, but he doesn’t always call attention to it. “That’s the third time you’ve checked the window in the last minute,” he says calmly from the chair across from me.
My gaze flicks away from the rain-streaked glass. “I know.”
“You expecting someone?”
“No.” I exhale through my nose, rubbing my thumb absently against the scar near my palm. “My brain just…searches for exits a lot. Everywhere I go, I look for the exits.”
He nods once, like that makes perfect sense.
That’s the weird thing about therapy so far. I keep expecting him to be shocked whenever I open my mouth. Maybe even some judgment, horror, or a visible shift where he realizes exactly what kind of person he’s sitting across from.
But Dr. Mercer never looks shocked.
“And how have the nightmares been this week?” he asks.
I lean back into the couch cushions. “Better.”
“Different kind of better or actual better?”
I huff quietly despite myself. “Different kind.”
“Explain.”
I stare down at my hands for several seconds before answering. “I sleep longer now.” My voice comes out rougher than intended. “But when I wake up, sometimes I don’t know where I am.” I swallow hard. “Emma says I panic before I’m fully awake. She tries her best to calm me down.”
His expression remains steady. “Do you remember the episodes afterward?”
“Pieces.” I shrug slightly. “Usually I think someone’s in the house.” My jaw tightens. “Or I think she’s gone.”
“And the cravings?”
There it is. The bane of my fucking existence.
I drag a hand down my face slowly before answering. “Still there.”
“How strong?”
“Depends on the day.”
“That’s not an answer.”
My mouth twitches faintly. “If it’s a harder day, I’ll find myself wanting to escape.”
“But you’re still on Suboxone,” he supplies.
I nod once before staring back down at my hands again. The bandages are gone now, but sometimes I still swear I can feel Alexei’s blood drying beneath my fingernails all over again. His and Emma’s. Hate and love trapped together on my skin.
“It’s worse after nightmares,” I admit eventually. “Or when things are too quiet.”
“Why quiet?”
I think about that because he waits for real answers instead of convenient ones. I’ve learned that with this man.
“When things were bad…” My throat tightens slightly.
“I always knew what I needed to do next. Survive. Protect someone. Lie. Run. Whatever.” I stare toward the rain again.
“Now I wake up some mornings, and there’s coffee brewing, Emma’s reading on the couch, and the ocean’s outside the windows, and nothing terrible is happening. ”
Dr. Mercer stays quiet.
“And that should feel good,” I say softly. “But sometimes it just makes me anxious.”
“Because?”
My fingers tighten together. “Because I keep waiting for something to destroy it. When I allowed myself to be with her last time, it all fell apart and it almost killed us both.”
The words settle heavily between us.
Dr. Mercer leans back in his chair, studying me with that same calm that’s slowly becoming familiar to me. “You spent years training your nervous system to survive instability,” he says carefully. “Peace feels unfamiliar now. Your brain interprets unfamiliar as dangerous.”
I laugh quietly, but there’s nothing funny in it. “That’s bleak.”
“It’s temporary.”
“I still get episodes of derealization, I guess. I dissociate sometimes,” I admit quietly. “Usually in crowds. Or restaurants.” I rub at my jaw absently. “Sometimes Emma notices before I do.”
“And what does she do?”
The tension in my shoulders loosens a little at the thought of her. “She touches me. Like, just little things. My arm. My neck. She keeps talking until I come back.”
Dr. Mercer nods once slowly. “Sounds grounding. It certainly helps that she, too, is a therapist.”
“Yeah. The lady that she owns her business with has been helping her with a lot of her own trauma.”
“You mentioned on the phone that you’ve been thinking about seeing your family?”
My stomach tightens. “Yeah.”
“And how does that feel?”
“Horrible.”
He waits.
I shove a hand through my hair hard enough to pull slightly at the strands. “They saw everything online before the truth came out. And even after…” I laugh weakly. “How the fuck am I supposed to sit across from my mother after all this? I’ve…killed people.”
“You think they’ll see you differently.”
“I know they will.”
“Do you?”
The question hits me harder than I expect. I lean forward again, forearms braced against my thighs. “I…I don’t know who I am when I’m not surviving something,” I admit finally. The confession leaves me feeling strangely hollow.
Dr. Mercer watches me quietly for a moment before answering. “You’re learning, Jude.”
***
By the time I leave the office an hour later, the rain has softened into a mist drifting along the Oregon coast. My motorcycle waits near the curb, black paint still damp from the weather.
I bought this pretty much as soon as I could, craving the freedom it gives.
When I’m on it, I feel better. Emma is still a little nervous about riding, but I’ll get her on someday.
I slide my helmet on and swing a leg over the bike. Before I bother to turn the key, I stare ahead at the mountains framing the town. I’m a free man now. Truly.
I was acquitted of every charge. Vlad and Henrik were arrested, and Nolan became the dead scapegoat everyone was looking for, taking the blame for most of the murders I actually committed. Vlad’s trafficking empire collapsed, and countless women and girls were pulled out of that nightmare alive.
Rafe told me more than once that he could always kidnap Vlad and Henrik, drag them back to his cabin in Russia, and let me finish the job myself.
I was tempted.
Fuck, I was tempted.
But for the first time in my life, I don’t want to keep looking backward. I want to look ahead. Rafe is a crazy bastard who kills as casually as most people drink coffee. That’s his life. Not mine.
At least, not anymore.
So them going away for life is good enough for me.
The truth is, there are still moments when I feel that old hunger stirring beneath my skin.
Sometimes I catch myself craving violence, and I hate how familiar it feels.
I don’t know why it’s still there, and I know exactly how fucked up that sounds.
Dr. Mercer would probably have a fucking field day with it if I ever admitted it out loud.
But some things are easier to tell Emma.
She knows the parts of me that I hide from the rest of the world. The ugly, damaged, and dark parts. The pieces I’m still trying to make peace with. I’ve shown her every shadow I carry, and somehow she never flinches.
She just takes my hand and loves me anyway.
***
The windows above the sink are cracked open just enough to let the ocean air drift through the cottage.
Somewhere outside, gulls cry over the shoreline while the last traces of daylight melt slowly into deep blue across the horizon.
Spring has finally reached the Oregon coast again, carrying the smell of rain-soaked cedar and salt through the house.
I sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch with my guitar resting against my thigh, absently picking at the strings while sheets of paper lay scattered around me.
Some are crumpled. Others have words scratched out so aggressively that the pen nearly tore through them.
It feels good to pour my emotions into something good again.
Emma walks barefoot into the living room wearing one of my hoodies and soft sleep shorts, her hair still slightly damp from her shower.
My gaze lifts instinctively toward her the second she appears.
It always does now. Like, some part of my brain still can’t fully process that we’re together again and that there’s no looming threat waiting outside.
Her eyes flick toward the papers spread across the floor before settling back on me with adorable curiosity. “You’ve been staring at that same page for ten minutes.”
I huff softly through my nose. “It’s pissing me off.”
That earns a small laugh from her as she moves toward the kitchen counter.
I lower my gaze back toward the notebook balanced against my knee, fingers brushing absently across the strings again while warm light spills softly across the cottage around us.
The place feels different lately. Less haunted than it did before whenever I was here.
Nova stretches beside me, her paw pressing into my side hard enough that I need to shift. For the first week we were home, Nova slept between us in bed. They missed each other so much. And Mrs. Kent pops in periodically to check on us.
I pause what I’m doing and scratch Nova behind her fluffy ear, her black fur soft and clean. A small sigh leaves me at the normalcy of it.
Some nights are still bad.
There are nights I wake up choking on panic with sweat on my skin while Moscow crawls back up my throat in flashes of blood and smoke and Alexei’s fucking voice. Nights where Emma has to hold my face between her hands while I struggle to remember where I am.