I can’t go there.
I won’t go there.
When I remain silent and refuse to look at her, Dr. Wessex sighs and says, “Have you ever heard of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR?”
I give her a blank stare and shake my head.
“It’s a fairly new, nontraditional psychotherapy that I’ve had great success with over the past year. The idea here is that you’ll go through your negative experiences while focusing on an external stimulus. Specifically, I’m going to ask you to track my hand movements with your eyes as you narrate a specific painful memory.”
I blink. “What?”
She smiles. “I’m going to do this”—she moves her hand rhythmically from side to side, as if checking my vision—“and you are going to track the movement with your eyes. Here, let’s practice.”
She resumes the side-to-side movement, and I follow her fingers with my gaze like a cat tracking a laser pointer. I don’t see how this is going to help anything, but I’m game to try.
“Okay, good,” she says when I have it down. “Now, let’s focus on a distressing memory… say, your most recent flashback. What was it that you saw earlier today? What event did you relive? Or if you’d rather not focus on that one, choose something else—or we can start from the beginning.”
I’m still tracking her hand movements with my eyes, and it somehow makes it easier to detach from the volcanic pressure building in my chest. I can feel the enormous weight of it, but it’s as if it’s happening to someone else.
My eyes dart from side to side, following her fingers as I begin speaking. Slowly, haltingly, I go through the events of that day, from the SWAT team showing up to the moment I first pulled the trigger.
It’s only there that I stop, unable to say another word because I’m shaking too violently. To my relief, Dr. Wessex doesn’t push it. Instead, she tells me to focus on how my body is reacting, and the thoughts I’m having in this moment. And all the while, she’s moving her hand back and forth, keeping me focused.
Keeping me distracted from the suffocating pain and grief.
By the time Peter comes inside the house to collect me, I’m so wrung out emotionally and physically that we go straight home, where I promptly fall asleep.
I wake up an hour and a half later to the muffled sound of male voices. Throwing on a robe, I creep up to the window and peek through the closed blinds.
It’s Kent, Esguerra, Peter, and Yan. They’re standing outside, discussing something.
Holding my breath, I try to make out what they’re saying.
“Nothing yet,” Kent says, looking disgusted. “Are we sure the message even got to him?”
“Oh, it got to him,” Peter says grimly. “The fucker’s just too chicken to do anything about it.”
Esguerra looks at Yan. “What about your hookup? When is she supposed to get here?”
Yan’s jaw tightens visibly, but then he seems to regain control. “Soon,” he says without any emotion. “Very soon.”
“Good.” A terrifying smile curves Esguerra’s lips. “Once we have her, it might not matter whether Henderson does the noble thing or not. We’ll find the snake bastard anyway.”
The men disperse, and I step away from the window, confused yet hopeful.
I still don’t know what exactly they’re doing, but it sounds like they’re making progress with Henderson—and as wrong as it is, I can’t wait for the former general to get his due.
76
Henderson
“You are a fucking psycho! You hear me? A psycho!” Bonnie screams, tears and snot running down her face. “Five people we care about are dead, and you don’t give a fuck!”
I duck as she throws a glass, and it crashes into the wall behind me, shattering on impact. Each word she flings in my direction is as lethal as her projectiles, and the answering rage combines with my migraine to dapple my vision with specks of red.
I shouldn’t have forgotten to refill her medication. She should’ve been doped up in bed, not going through my emails and watching the fucking news.
A plate whizzes by my ear, and I lose it.
“I do give a fuck!” I roar, rounding the table to grab her bony shoulders. “My cousin Lyle’s one of those dead people. But so what? They’ll kill all of them regardless. And you and Amber and Jimmy, too. You think I should just present myself to these killers on a silver platter? Is that what I should fucking do?”
I’m shaking her so hard her teeth are rattling in her empty skull, but she refuses to back off.
“Maybe you fucking should!” she screams, her spittle spraying in my face. “We’d all be better off if you were dead!”
Enraged, I shove her away—and she crashes into the fridge just as our daughter enters the kitchen.
“Mom? Dad?” Her wide blue eyes dart from me to Bonnie. “What’s going on?”