Piece Us Together (Monstrous Survivors #3)

33. Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

Maison

I feel fucking hollowed out. Raw and open and empty. My eyes are sore, the skin around them chapped. My chest has a near-permanent burn inside it. My throat aches from fighting off tears.

Not to mention the graze on my arm that oscillates from dull throbs to sharp zings.

Hunter barely leaves my side all day. He keeps me in bed, settled in the middle. There’s a TV in his room that I never noticed. We don’t talk about what to watch. He chooses, putting on a competitive baking show. Nolan curls up beside me, sometimes just watching the show, sometimes turning his face to look at me. I try to stroke his hair, but my arm doesn’t let me reach around like that. He does it to me instead. It feels unbelievably nice.

I’m never left alone, the two of them taking turns when they need to use the bathroom or get food. Nolan forces me to eat protein bars and take sips of juice. They kiss me a lot. Not much on the mouth, but on my cheeks and forehead, my jaw, my throat, my chest, my shoulders, my fingers, and my good arm.

The sun is setting when Hunter speaks, not about food or the bathroom or pain meds. He says, “Where were you?”

It’s suddenly very easy to be honest with him. “Baltimore.”

“Why?”

“A friend of mine asked me to help him do a rescue. Two brothers. We retrieved them and the others at the brothel they were being kept at.”

I don’t say we killed the men keeping them there. I don’t think I need to. It’s not like the survivors shot me, and it’s not like we would have left until the threats were handled. He’s smart.

“It wasn’t related to the operation?”

“No. That’s over. Completely. As completely as it will be, on my end, at least. The major loose ends are tied up. The rest were given to task forces around the world to handle.”

“Are you in a contract still? With the man in charge?”

I hesitate. Then, “No. This wasn’t for him. My friend—he doesn’t work for him. He’s separate. Doesn’t even know about my operation or any of that.”

“So, you can stop.”

There it is.

I close my eyes. “Not exactly.”

“Why?”

“I—I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I just—I don’t know.” I wince before forcing myself to look at him. “I promise, I really don’t know. It’s like this panic wells up inside me thinking I’ll never do another rescue, but then when Keats told me about this mission I felt just as anxious. I just kept thinking I didn’t want to go. I was desperate not to go. But then, thinking this was the last rescue, that I’ll never do it again—that’s—it’s awful, Hunter.”

He hums softly, thoughtfully, his hand brushing locks of hair off my forehead. “Have you ever thought of talking to someone about that? About any of this?”

I laugh, just a little. “We have a therapist, yeah. Dr. Singh.”

“He doesn’t know about you yet,” Nolan says before looking at me with a furrowed brow. “Unless you told him?”

“I’ve been avoiding that man like the fucking plague. So, no.”

Now they’re both frowning at me. Fuck .

“No more avoiding,” Hunter says firmly. “You need to talk to him. Or at least talk to someone . He can help you sort things out. Help you cope.”

“I can do that with you guys.”

“No, Maison. I’m not a therapist.”

“You see everything, just like he does. See right fucking through me.”

He smiles sardonically. “You’re right. I’m good at watching and analyzing. Good at picking up cues. It’s a skill many doms would kill to have. What I can’t do, though? I can’t even begin to know the ways to help you. Hell, I don’t even know if the hand on your throat thing is ethical or not. After what you’ve been through…”

“No. Don’t do that. Don’t take that away.” I feel cold again. Hollowed. I grab at his shirt. It’s a new one. I ripped the other. Nolan kisses my shoulder, whispering that it’s okay. “Please. It makes the world go quiet. It’s one of the only things that makes it all go quiet.”

“Hey, shh. It’s okay. I won’t stop. But there might be other things I need to do, or a different way to do it, or you might need to at least talk it out. I don’t know. I have absolutely no idea. And that terrifies me, sweetheart. I can’t be a good dom without knowing.”

I can’t help but feel pouty, which is probably why I sound like a petulant child as I grumble, “Then you should see him.”

“Maybe I will. Hell, maybe the three of us will. Before then, you need to go on your own.”

“But I hate it.”

“I know.” He pushes himself up on his elbow, slightly hovering over me. His eyes are golden brown today, just a few flecks of green showing. “Will you do it anyway?”

The words are an echo. It nearly steals my breath to think of how far we’ve come. To think of all the things I’ve done for him anyway. For all the things I’ll do in the future.

“Do I get a reward?” I ask, feeling better about myself if I don’t just give in. I might not be able to be an asshole and say he isn’t my dom anymore, but I don’t have to make it easy for him. At least not when it comes to fucking Dr. Singh’s bullshit.

Hunter chuckles. “Sure, kitten. If you go talk to Dr. Singh and come back to me with a plan—you don’t have to share the plan, just tell me you’ve made one with him—then I’ll give you a very nice reward.”

I like the sound of that, but…

“What do you mean, a plan?”

“A plan for you to move forward, I suppose. You have so much to process. Things I think you’ve spent a long time avoiding facing. Maybe he’ll want you to choose something specific to work on or maybe it’ll be more open-ended. I don’t know. Whatever he thinks is best.” He takes a breath, his eyes darting away from me. I lock up inside. Hunter almost never looks away. Whatever he’s going to say, I’m pretty fucking sure I’m going to hate it. “I’d like you to talk to him about kink and its place in your healing. Both of you likely need that.”

“I have,” Nolan says. I know he’s not being a brat, not being the kid who did his homework when no one else did, but for just a second I feel a flash of anger, of annoyance. Then it fades, replaced by relief that at least one of us is getting better. “I can talk to him more, though. I haven’t talked to him since we added you into things either. It’d probably be good to do that.”

I give him a half-playful glare. “Traitor.”

“Yup.” He sticks his tongue out at me. Any lingering upset is gone, replaced by the overwhelming feeling of how much I love him. “So sorry for wanting what’s best for you.”

“Fine. I’ll tell him about us and about—about kink. We’ll talk.”

For some reason, Hunter still isn’t looking at me though. As if that’s not what he wanted. As if there’s something worse he wants to ask of me.

Oh no.

“Maison, I’d also like—” He stops himself though, taking a deep breath. Then he looks at me. It’s rare for him to show so much emotion in his expressions, in his eyes. He’s so good at keeping it all in check. Not right now, though. Right now I can read him loud and clear. His voice trembles as he continues. It makes me fucking ache . “I’d like you to talk to him about the self-harm. And the drinking.”

I look away from him, wishing I could sit up without making my shoulder set fire with pain. My jaw ticks as I try to get my anger out through clenched teeth and sharp breaths through my nose.

“Self-harm is a little fucking dramatic,” I say when I can trust myself to speak with a clear voice.

“Your knuckles alone, sweetheart…”

“The not eating,” Nolan adds, his voice soft, sad. “The not sleeping. The drinking. Refusing proper care. Purposely aggravating your injuries. Maybe even—I think maybe it’s why you can’t stop, Maison. Stop working.”

I sit up. The pain is sharp, zinging its way to my mind until my head swims. It’s good, though. The men I love are hurt. I’ve hurt them with my shit. I should hurt too.

Oh.

I close my eyes as the terrible fucking realization that they’re right washes over me.

I suddenly feel very small. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, you don’t have to be sorry. We don’t want you to be sorry. We just want you to be okay,” Hunter says.

Nolan nods. “Just try, okay? Can you try?”

It’s not hard, in the end. It’s not hard at all. “I’ll try.”

Dr. Singh takes his clients in his small cabin half a mile into the woods behind the house. It’s a winding trail through the trees, snow-covered and picturesque as dusk falls over the forest. I keep my hands stuffed in my pockets, telling myself that I’m not hoping he won’t be home.

My stomach drops when he answers his door. He smirks, one eyebrow raised. “Wow, you look so happy to see me. I’m honored.”

“I hate you,” I say honestly.

He nods. “I get that a lot. It’s okay. Come on in.”

I follow him, kicking snow off my boots before taking them off completely. He gestures for me to hang my coat on a hook. It’s stupid, really, but I feel more vulnerable once I’ve removed the layer. I try to sink deeper into Hunter’s sweatshirt, the collar purposely sprayed with a spritz of his cologne. It’s hard to sink into something two sizes smaller than your usual, though.

Dr. Singh eyes the sweatshirt, his smirk softening into a smile. He doesn’t say anything, but he knows. I can already tell he knows.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Yeah. Something strong.” He’s halfway to the cupboard when I remember that something strong isn’t supposed to be an option anymore. “Wait, no. I’m not drinking. I’ll—uh. I’ll just do water, I guess.”

“I have a tea that’s supposed to be calming.”

“Sure. Yeah. Why not.”

“Go on in the room. Get comfortable. I’ll bring our mugs in.”

My legs feel like they belong to someone else as I walk into the room he pointed to. It’s warm and inviting, but it might as well be Siberia for how I feel entering it.

I sit on the couch. Then I stand and start to pace. Then I sit in one of the armchairs. I’ve just stood up again when he walks in, a mug in each hand. I freeze. He doesn’t.

“Would you say you have more of an issue feeling small and lost when you’re emotional, or feeling crowded and suffocated?”

“Uh—suffocated, I guess. Like the world is pressing down on me.”

He nods. “Take the couch. In the center.”

Figuring it’s worth a shot, I go and settle on the center cushion of the three-cushion couch. It’s softer than I expected, the leather not as stiff. I don’t grab the mug he puts on a coaster in front of me. My knee is already bouncing anxiously. The last thing I need is to start spilling hot liquid all over myself.

Dr. Singh settles in the armchair slightly to the left across from me. He eyes me, not my face. My knee bounces harder.

“I hear you were hurt.”

I barely manage to cut myself off from startling. I’d expected him to bring up the sweatshirt. Not this. “How’d you hear that?”

“That’s confidential.”

So, not through talk at the house, but through someone coming here for a session. Was it Carter? Travis? Someone else?

“Are you alright?” he asks.

I nearly laugh. “Yeah, Doc. I’m fucking great.”

“Physically?”

“Yeah. It’s just a graze.”

“Then I’ll assume that your huff was because you’re not alright mentally.”

I drop my gaze to the front of the sweatshirt. It has me tilting my chin enough to get a fresh whiff of Hunter’s cologne. I close my eyes, pretending he’s beside me. Pretending he and Nolan both are.

“Nolan and I have found someone. He’s—well, he’s a dom. For the kink stuff we were trying. I couldn’t do it, so we thought we’d try having someone else come in.” When he doesn’t say anything, I peek my eyes open. He’s just stroking the tip of his thumb against his lip, looking thoughtful. I hate him for being able to hide his emotions so well. At least with Hunter, I can poke at him until emotion breaks through. I don’t think I want to know what would happen if I poked at Singh. I have a feeling he’d poke right back.

“That must have been incredibly hard, trusting someone like that.”

“Yeah.” I frown though, because that’s not exactly right. “Actually—I mean, yes, but also…no?”

“Can you try to explain that?”

“There’s always been something about him. Something that just…settled me, I guess. It’s stupid. I didn’t even know him, but I trusted him enough to let him touch Nolan. It should have been something that ate me alive, you know? That kept me up at night and had me on edge whenever we were with him.”

He tilts his head. “But?”

“But the world goes quiet, with Hunter.” I laugh at myself, feeling idiotic. “I told you, it’s stupid.”

“That doesn’t sound stupid at all. That sounds wonderful.”

I sink into the couch, inhaling deeply to get more of Hunter’s cologne. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“Hunter is the man that was at Thanksgiving, right?”

“Yeah. He’s friends with Travis and Carter.”

He smiles. “Yes, I’m aware of Hunter’s back story. It’s nice that he seems to have gotten something good out of his collision with our group.”

I laugh, just realizing that he knows I’ve pulled a gun on Hunter. Then the image pops in my head and I’m suddenly not laughing at all. I feel sick.

“Mmm.” Dr. Singh leans back, lifting his leg to rest the ankle on the opposite knee. “What did you just think about?”

“I didn’t know him, when I was there that night. The night with Carter. I’d never point a gun at him now.”

“I have no doubt about that.” When I say nothing, he asks, “Does he doubt that? Is he afraid of you?”

I huff in amusement. “No. He’s pretty much got me wrapped around his finger, actually.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Like I don’t deserve it.”

“Can you tell me why that is?”

“I—” I look down at my hands, thinking about how Travis believed they were relatively clean. It isn’t all of the blood I’ve spilled that really haunts me, though. It’s not even the innocent lives I lost over the years. Not really. It’s Carter’s blood. Carter’s tears. Carter’s heart, torn apart and bleeding out in the palms of my hands. “I say it’s my fault, what happened to Carter. And everyone gives me these reasons why it’s not true. Logically, I get it. I get that even if I hadn’t joined the operation, he may have had something else horrible happen to him, maybe something I couldn’t have saved him from. I get that there’s no way of knowing if he really could have handled the truth right away. I get that the head would have killed him—and probably me—if I went rogue and pulled him out of there early. I get all of it, you know? I get it.”

“But?”

I close my eyes and I’m there again. My arms had been so fucking sore, pulled around the back of the chair and so loosely tied in a knot I could easily escape. My body was on the verge of all sorts of meltdowns. I’d been bleeding from places I didn’t want to think about. I’d been bleeding from places people could see. I couldn’t breathe because of my ribs, because of my bruised throat, because of my panic.

And then there was Carter.

“I sat there and watched.” I open my eyes, forcing myself to look at him. “What kind of man—what kind of brother —sits there and watches?”

He considers me for a moment. “I’d say a very strong one.”

I duck my head, moving my hands to the sweatshirt. I push against my healed ribs. I tug the sleeves up enough to see my wrists aren’t bruised or bleeding. I swallow, and it doesn’t hurt. I clench my hole and it isn’t desperate, awful pain.

“Like I said, I get it,” I mumble. “But how do I forgive myself for it? How do I live with that?”

“Have you spoken about it with Carter?”

I swallow. “No. Not recently.”

“Maybe you should. The two of you have come a long way since the safehouse. You both knew the conversation would need to be had eventually.” Something about the possibility makes me feel itchy, like down to the bone itchy. I grab my tea for something to do. “Do you think you’d be able to forgive yourself, if he forgives you?”

I try very hard not to squeeze my mug. “I don’t know.”

“What do you think scares you more, that you’ll be able to, or that you won’t?”

“Why would I be scared of being able to forgive myself?” I ask incredulously.

He adjusts his glasses. It’s such a Hunter thing to do, my chest aching at the sight of it. “Maybe you’re not ready to forgive yourself.”

“You think I shouldn’t? I know I—I know I should have to earn it…”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. Not at all. Maison—” He leans forward, placing both feet on the ground again. His elbows rest on his thighs, hands clasping loosely together. His eyebrows are bunched tight. “Maison, how would you earn it?”

I run my fingertip around the rim of the mug, over and over. It’s stopped steaming.

“Maison?”

“I didn’t go to the doctor until everyone else had. At the safehouse, I mean. I hid things. Hid how bad my injuries were. I didn’t ask for help.” I take a sip of the tea to buy myself time. It tastes awful. It doesn’t help that it’s practically cold by now too. I don’t get rid of it, though. It feels better to have something to hold. “I—um. I’d hurt myself, I guess. I don’t know. I didn’t—I don’t know.”

He takes a breath, watching me carefully. “How would you hurt yourself?”

“I didn’t, like—I didn’t really—just, you know, avoiding self-care. Being a little harder on myself than necessary.”

“How?”

I shrug, my knee bouncing again. I put the mug down and curl my hands into fists, the cotton of Hunter’s sweatshirt pressed firmly between my fingers and palm. “Burning hot showers. Not eating. Not sleeping. I’d—I’d press on my wounds. Aggravate them. I’d hit the heavy bag until I could barely walk. Use my bare fists. Just—little stuff. Little—I don’t know, little penances, I guess.”

“Maison, none of that is little.”

“It’s—”

“If Nolan told you he took a shower hot enough to burn because he felt guilty about something, would you consider that little?” I don’t answer, my knee bouncing harder. “If Hunter skipped meals and rest until he was weak from it, would that be little, too?” I close my eyes. “What about Carter? If Carter came to you with bloody fists or purposely kept splitting open his wounds?”

He lets us sit in the silence until I swear my skin is crawling.

“Do you still do these things?”

That, at least, is easier to answer. “No.”

“No?”

“I—” I glance at him, then quickly shake my head and look away. “Not…really.”

“Maison, your knuckles are split right now.”

I curl my hands further into the stomach of the sweatshirt, but it’s too late. Childish, almost, to even bother.

“You’ve got a bullet wound on your arm.”

“A bullet graze,” I grumble. “And that was from a mission.”

“One you volunteered for, yes?”

I close my eyes again.

“Do they know?” he asks very softly. “Your partners?”

“A little.”

“Okay.” He breathes loudly enough for me to hear. “Can you tell me—is there a limit? An endpoint?”

I frown. “What?”

“Well, when do you decide it’s enough? When do you get to quit?”

“I…don’t know.”

“Would you stop if Carter forgave you?”

I hunch my shoulders forward. “I don’t know.”

“Okay.” There’s a few seconds of silence. I can feel his gaze on me. Heavy. Analyzing. “Okay.”

I wonder if he’d be opposed to me pulling out my phone and texting Nolan and Hunter. If he’d let me wait until they get here. If he’d let them hold me while we finish.

I remember what Hunter said. I cling to it like a lifeline. “I want a plan.”

“A plan,” he echoes.

“A—I don’t know. A plan. Goals. Steps to take. I need—” I give up hiding from him, leaning forward and looking right at him. “I need structure. I feel like I’m just fucking—I feel like the last ten years have been step after step, one goal, then the next, then the next, and now I’m here, I survived, and I don’t fucking think I deserved to and I’m scared and I need to know what the fuck to do.”

I don’t realize I’m sobbing until the last few words come out as a shout.

I slide off the couch, tucking myself between the front of it and the coffee table. I wrap my arms around my knees and bury my head. I let myself cry. Hard. Huge, gasping, awful things that make my whole body heave and ache.

Someone touches me. I flinch away, eyes searching out the danger.

Hunter is squatting beside me. I suck in a water-logged breath as he shows me his hand and places it on the back of my neck. I dig my fingers into his wrist and pull until it’s my throat instead. His eyes flicker over to Dr. Singh, but then he settles his hand more comfortably and presses his fingertips in just enough to make me really feel them.

Someone presses against my back, an arm wrapping around me. I don’t have to look to know it’s Nolan. He kisses the skin around where Hunter’s fingertips are pressed.

I look up to find Dr. Singh seated again. He gives me a sad smile when our eyes meet.

“Sorry,” I croak. I don’t even know who I’m apologizing to.

He shakes his head, not accepting the apology if it’s meant for him. “You’re okay. I can’t let you walk out of here, though. Not yet. I need to get you grounded. I need to understand your mindset. Do you want them to wait for you at the house or stay?”

“Stay,” I say immediately.

He nods, not seeming surprised. “Do you want to continue talking, or would you like to be quiet for a while? I can play some music, if you’d like. Rain sounds. Waves. Whales, even.”

“I don’t want to listen to whales, Doc.”

“Fair enough.”

“I want the plan.” I glance at Hunter, then Nolan, then look back at Singh. “Can I make the plan with them here?”

“Actually, the plan is going to be your homework. Well—your goals will be your homework. I want you to come up with at least three goals. No more than five. I want you to bring it tomorrow. They can help you, if you want, but the goals need to be solely yours. Solely for you.” He looks at them now. “It’s his plan. It has to be his. He’s been living his life this past decade for the people who he planned to save. For his operatives, too. The past six months added Carter. Added the two of you. It’s time Maison decides to live for himself. The goals are going to help him do that. It’ll help him visualize the life he’d find worth living. You can be involved in the goals, but they have to be because he wants them.”

“I’m sorry, can you give an example?” Hunter asks, sounding all polite-professor in a way that makes me feel unbelievably calm. “Not of any goal, but of a goal that would involve us but still be alright?”

Dr. Singh smiles, seemingly pleased with Hunter’s concern. “Absolutely. This will be simple, but it works for demonstrative purposes. Nolan enjoys cooking, yes? Say Maison’s trauma involved oranges. If Maison loves oranges and wants very badly to be able to enjoy them again, a goal could be for him to start trying foods with oranges. But if Maison doesn’t much care either way about oranges and he knows Nolan likes cooking with oranges, that’s a goal he would be setting for Nolan. Does that make a bit more sense?”

“Yes, it does. Thank you.”

“I’ll discuss the goals with you when you bring them, Maison. In fact, we’ll discuss them rather extensively. It’s okay if a goal ends up not being about you. We’ll fix it. Just do your best.”

“Okay.”

He eyes Hunter’s hand on my throat before meeting my eyes. “What you told me before about your behaviors toward yourself—that’s not a goal, Maison. That is a thing that needs to stop now. Do you understand?”

I drop my chin as much as I can with Hunter’s hand beneath it. “Yes.”

“We can talk about replacements for those actions if needed. Coping mechanisms. We’ll talk more about forgiveness as well. For tonight, I want you to let these two take very good care of you. I want you to be kind to yourself. Tomorrow, we’ll get to work.”

“Okay.”

“I—” He pauses, his eyes finding the hand on my throat again. Then he looks at Hunter. “Are you hurting him? I understand the dynamic, I understand consensual pain, I’m asking if that’s something the two of you are doing.”

Hunter shakes his head. “No. He doesn’t want me to hurt him. This—” He pauses, looking at his hand too. His lips quirk slightly, his thumb stroking the skin beneath it. “This isn’t about pain.”

“Maison?” I look at him, fear bubbling up inside of me at the thought that he might take this away from me. But Dr. Singh is smiling. “Does that make it go quiet?”

My stupid chin and bottom lip start to go wobbly. “Y-yeah. Real quiet.”

“Good.” He smiles like I’ve never seen him before. “I’m very glad.”