Once they were alone, Jack turned to him with a huge-ass smile on his face. “Wes, this is great!” He clapped his hands together. “This is really great, right? Wes?” Jack repeated, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Wes, are you—?”
“What did you call her?” Carter croaked. His airway squeezed, making him gasp. He pushed a slow hand to his chest where a tightness, the likes of which he’d never encountered, pulled taut and unforgiving.
“What?” Jack asked in confusion.
Carter’s eyes closed. He swallowed. “What did you call Miss Lane?”
Jack frowned. “I called her Katherine. Why?”
Katherine Lane. Katherine fucking Lane.
As the world around him tilted, making the room swim horrifically, Carter dropped his head like a lead weight to his knees. His breath hitched and tripped over itself as it fought to get to his lungs.
It couldn’t be. There was no way.
No.
What were the odds?
The chance was minute.
He grabbed at his scalp in disbelief.
“It can’t be her.”
He pulled in as much air as he could, but it was useless. The walls were closing in while panic and disbelief gripped him mercilessly by the throat. He was choking.
Jack dropped to his knees in front of him. “Who, Wes?” he urged. “Wes, talk to me. Who are you talking about?” He grasped Carter’s shoulder.
“It can’t be,” Carter mumbled.
“Who? Miss Lane?”
“No,” Carter replied, vaguely aware of the alarm creeping into Jack’s voice. “She’s not Miss Lane, she’s— Oh fuck.”
“Who?” Jack asked, tightening his grip on Carter’s shoulder.
Carter finally looked at his counselor through eyes that could barely see, his vision fogged with memories so thick he could almost touch them.
Thick, wavy hair. A blue dress. Gunshots. Screams.
He grabbed for Jack’s arm and squeezed, clinging for his life, needing to be grounded, needing something to keep him from falling apart completely. He choked back a sob.
Long gone was the strong, arrogant twenty-seven-year-old man. Once again, he was a scared shitless eleven-year-old, desperate for someone to love him, frantically trying to save the life of a tiny, petrified girl.
He tried to answer Jack. Fuck, he tried. He wanted to tell him everything. He wanted to beg him to get him out of the room before he lost his shit altogether. He was losing his shit. Was this what dying felt like?
Like a broken dam, Carter’s memory burst wide fucking open, each image like a firework exploding in his vision, whizzing around his brain, squealing in his ears. He dropped his head, squeezing his eyes shut and clutching the lapel of Jack’s jacket, scrunching the wool in his palm, willing his whole body to calm, to relax and back the fuck up. Infuriatingly, the more he tried to slow his breathing, the more his body closed up.
He grunted in terror when his throat shrank more and more, and slumped his sweating forehead heavily against his counselor’s shoulder, speaking the words he never thought he’d utter since that horrific night sixteen years before.
“Jack,” he whispered. “She’s my Peaches.”
7
“I have to get to my daddy!”
“Keep moving! We have to get away from them. They’ll kill you! Move!”
“Wes?”
“No! He needs me!”
“Wes. Can you open your eyes for me?”
“Stay still!”
“Wesley. You’re all right.”
Carter lunged up from the clinic bed into a sitting position, wide-eyed and gasping. He glanced around, almost frantic, and jumped when a hand touched his arm. He turned to see Jack standing next to the bed, his face creased with concern. He swallowed hard, trying like hell to coat his sandpaper throat. The fuzziness in his head was still front and center. Fuck, he felt like death.
“Where am I?” He blinked and looked around the room at the whitewashed walls and the surprised expressions of a doctor and two guards.
“You’re in the facility clinic, Wesley,” the doctor answered.
“It’s Carter, and who the hell was talking to you, Doc?” he snapped. The doctor flinched and took a step backward.
“Wes,” Jack said softly. “You had a panic attack.”
He coughed a laugh, ignoring the heat of embarrassment that crept up the center of his body. “Says who?”
“Says me,” the doctor interjected.
Carter stared at him for a beat. “I’m outta here.” He swung his legs to the right so they were hanging off the bed. “Where are my shoes?”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” the doctor began.
“I wasn’t asking!” Carter yelled.
His head pounded from deep inside his skull. His eardrums had pulled tight enough to split, and, oh, look at that, little black dots were hovering and dancing in his periphery. Fantastic. He scrunched his eyes shut for one split second to gain his bearings, listing forward.