He hid his thoughts in the furthest corner of his mind, relaxed the tension in his face, and turned to her.
Her eyes were focused on him, and inside those dark-blue depths, he saw fear. Was she afraid of him rejecting her? Or was it something else, something he couldn’t fathom right now. His feet moved his body back to the bedside, and he sat in the same spot where he’d held vigil over her for the past five days. “Tell me everything.”
She told him about three dreams and how dead people really did give her things and how she really did wake up with them in her hand and how her brain overloaded when that happened. Each thing she brought back from a dream pointed to the Strategist. Each thing carried a clue—some new lead.
James was fully aware she’d left out the dream that led to her having the bullet that killed Lathaniel. Later, when she fully trusted him, he’d ask. For the moment, he’d grant her this secret.
She said there was a name for what she did. Oneirokinesis. He’d Google it, but he already believed her. Not only did she have no reason to lie, but she didn’t have the mental strength and fortitude to formulate such an intricate deception about something so bizarre.
If he boiled everything that had been said down to one base concept, she had been dreaming about his kills. His.
Her dreams—the evidence she brought back from those dreams—brought them together. From that first dream of hers, they had been destined. That feeling of fulfillment with her was the recognition that they were fated to meet. Fated to have this time, these moments. The upside-down, one-click-off feeling dissipated, then re-formed into a peculiar bond with her.
She cradled the spent round to her chest.
“I’ll get rid of that.” He held out his hand to her.
“I want to keep it.” She fisted her fingers around it. “It touched his heart,” she whispered, emotion strangling her voice, but her eyes remained on him, telling him she wouldn’t give it up voluntarily. When he made no move to try to take it from her, she asked, “James, where am I?”
He translated the deeper meaning behind the question. Distraction.
A smile stretched his mouth wide. She was healing, and millions of questions were going to be part of the process. One of the tricks to gaining trust was to offer information so it appeared he had nothing to hide. “You’re in an underground bomb shelter my grandpa built during the Cold War.” The lie slipped out smooth as a strawberry milkshake, but strawberry wasn’t his favorite flavor.
He disliked lying to her, playing with her mind, but he’d dislike it more if she fought him, tried to escape, or was frightened of him. The lies he would tell were necessary. Once this brief moment of history was over, once he built the foundation that would sustain them, there’d be no more deceit between them.
“You had a concussion and were pretty out of it so I brought you here, where no one would find you.”
She listened, but she was distracted. Her gaze perused the bunker, paused on the kitchen area, then returned to him.
“I tried to take you to the hospital, but you said not to.” Another necessary lie. He squished his brows together to convey a look of confusion. “Don’t you remember what you said when I found you?” He forced an expectant look on his face, a look that said You should remember this.
She looked up and to the left—a classic sign of searching her memory. But she would never find the memory. It didn’t exist.
“You were wandering around in the woods naked. Covered in blood. I was going to take you to the hospital, but you said if I did, he would find you. Kill you. You looked like he’d already tried. Terror rode you. And I believed you.” He searched her bloodshot eyes. “Don’t you remember any of this?”
She looked up and to the left again. “None of it. Why would I be in the woods just wandering around? Why would I leave Lathan?”
“I don’t know those answers. Maybe the concussion has affected your memory.”
She half nodded, a look of pure concentration on her face.
“Right now, it’s safest for you here. At least until you feel good enough to begin making decisions about your future.” Decisions he would influence, mold, and shape. He waited for her to comment, but witnessed the distraction on her face. It was in the way her gaze perused the bunker, the way it paused at the kitchenette like she was searching for something before moving on.
“Decisions about my future? What do you mean?” she finally asked.
“The police are searching for you. They say you killed Robby Malone and Lathaniel Montgomery.”
“They’re saying I killed Lathan?” She bolted upright. Gasped. Swayed. Cradled her head between her hands like she expected brain matter to leak out her ears. Her facial muscles tensed—not from grief. From pain. James recognized the victory. Physical pain had finally taken precedence over grief. So many victories today.
“Slowly. You’ve been horizontal for five days.” He placed a pillow behind her back, then guided her shoulder back so she leaned against the headboard.
“Five days? It’s been five days since…”
“Yes.” He answered when she didn’t finish her sentence.
“I didn’t kill Lathan. Junior shot Lathan, attacked me, and then… I don’t remember what happened. Maybe I did kill Junior. He deserved it.”
“You did say it was your fault he was dead. I assumed you meant Lathaniel, but maybe you were talking about Robby Malone.” Sprinkling truth around a lie was like fertilizer. It made the lie stronger, heartier, more believable. “I taped some of the news reports. Figured when you were feeling better, you might want to see them. To know what you’re up against.”