Numb

Copyright 2012 by Dean Murray

Author's
Note:
As I write this
note, Alec and Adri's world has grown to include eleven published
titles with another four novels to be released in the next eight
months. Things are chugging along at quite the pace now, but back
when I wrote the original two threads that make up this story, only
Broken
,
Torn
and
Splintered
had been released.

Numb
actually came about because I had the chance to join in a
multi-author promo and agreed to write a short story to be posted on
a website along with several other writers. Back then Alec and Adri's
breakup was still very raw, and I felt like I needed to explore that
more than I'd been able to in
Intrusion
and
Trapped
.

I sat down to
write, and got some unexpected surprises along the way. I knew that
Alec was hurting, but I hadn't realized just how difficult it was for
him to not be able to confide in any of his pack mates. I knew that
Adri and Cindi had been best friends as well as sisters, but back
then I hadn't realized how they managed to avoid all of the sibling
rivalry so common in most families.

Maybe it isn't
fair to call this a story. It's more like shards of glass that have
been put together into something that looks like it might be the
beginnings of a stained glass window. There are hints in here that
speak to the driving difference between the Reflections and the Dark
Reflections books, and there are some insights into both Alec and
Adri. There are some surprises—like a rare glimpse into the
Paige family, happy and whole—but mostly these two fragments
just contain a lot of pain.

Adri deals with
her pain by taking solace in a favorite memory, while Alec tries to
confront his in a more direct manner, but really they are both
hurting. That's okay though because trials just make our eventual
victories all the sweeter.

Adri Paige
The Paige Residence
Manhattan, New York

Okay, here goes
nothing. My assignment is to write about my favorite winter memory,
and some of the idiots in my class—they call it a track
here—complained that they always have a hard time starting, so
we're supposed to do this stream-of-consciousness thing. I guess that
means I'll just write whatever comes to mind and then I'll axe
anything that I don't want my teacher to see.

Sometimes it
seems like the first three-quarters of my life is one long winter
memory. Minnesota gets hot during the summers, but for some reason
that isn't what has stuck with me. It's the cold that always comes to
mind when I think of home—only I guess I can't call it home
anymore.

I remember one
time when we went ice-skating on this lake an hour away from our
house. It was maybe the worst idea ever. The temperature hadn't made
it into double digits all week, but somebody had organized this town
outing there and somehow my dad heard about it.

Dad stuffed us
all in the car as soon as he got home from work and we drove straight
there. I think we even forgot to eat. Once we arrived, Dad rented
skates for Cindi, him and me and then we went out on the ice while
Mom took pictures of us.

It was cold, I
mean really, really cold. The
if-I-stay-out-here-too-long-I'll-die-from-exposure kind of cold. It
was a ton of fun though. The ice sucked and there were only half a
dozen other people out there with us. Cindi and I fell down at least
twenty times but Dad just kept picking us up and brushing the snow
off of us.

We were the
last ones to leave the ice. Mom had even put her camera away by the
time Dad finally made us go inside. It's funny though. Most of that
night is just a blur of laughter and bruises, but the thing that made
the biggest impression on me was the old man running the skate
rental. I think it was a church-sponsored event or something, because
he would have pretty much had to have been a saint to calmly stay out
there waiting for us to get off of the ice.

We stumbled off
of the ice and sat down next to Mom on a rickety wooden bench. The
old man was there before we managed to get our skates off and he
actually knelt down in the snow and helped take them off of Cindi's
feet. He said something to her, and she stiffened up like she'd been
hit.

She never did
tell me what he'd told her, but I think it might have had something
to do with me. It sounds stupid, but I caught her looking at me more
than usual on the drive home. We were bundled up in a blanket in the
back seat of the car with the heater going full blast and she just
looked over at me and smiled.

We hadn't been
getting along all that well up to that point, so that would have been
odd all by itself, but there was more. It was almost like that trip
was the beginning of everything changing. It was a little while after
that when Cindi and I started really becoming good friends.

Before that,
Dad had always been the glue that held our family together. Mom was
always a little distracted, always viewing the world through her
camera lens, and Cindi and I fought more than we got along, so it had
always been Dad I'd been the closest to. After that, it was almost
like we became a real family.

Cindi and I
became best friends and then it didn't matter so much that Mom spent
most of her time off in a world of her own.

I just checked
my word count and I'm way far away from being done with the
assignment, especially after I cut out all of the crap that I don't
want anyone else to read, but I think I'm going to just leave it
alone for tonight. It's past time for me to go to bed. Maybe I'll
have a better idea tomorrow.

Doctor Goldberg
Bel Air
Los Angeles, California

The kid who
walked into my office was muscular and paranoid as hell.
Unfortunately that was all I really knew about him. His new patient
questionnaire was on the desk in front of me, but the odds were that
everything on it was a lie. It was par for the course for my
clientele.

Once you started charging a couple of thousand bucks an hour, you
were into people who weren't inclined to trust doctor-patient
privilege very far. It wouldn't surprise me if he'd flown in from out
of town on a private jet just to see me.

He was better
than most though. Usually I could find half a dozen clues as to who I
was dealing with, but I was coming up completely dry with him. His
clothes were perfectly suited to the warm California winter that I
planned on going out and enjoying as soon as our session was over.

"Why don't
you come in and have a seat…Brad."

He dropped into
the chair without saying anything and I suppressed a sigh. He was
going to be more difficult than most.

"What
brings you here, Brad?"

"Haven't
you figured me out already from my questionnaire?"

I shook my head
and leaned back. He was testing me, but I'd been tested before. "The
questionnaire is meant to give us a starting point for further
discussion, but it can't even do that if you refuse to answer it
truthfully."

I got nothing
more than a raised eyebrow in response to my accusation, but I waited
him out.

"It's
actually all the truth, Doctor."

We were on
shaky ground now. I didn't want to let him get in the habit of lying
to me, but he felt like the kind who would just get up and leave if I
pushed too hard too soon.

"Let's
ignore the questionnaire for a moment and talk about the things that
are important to you."

"I'm not
sure I can answer that one, Doctor. I thought I knew what was
important to me, but I've acted in a way recently that would tend to
overturn those beliefs."

"Okay,
Brad. Let's back into the answer. You can often tell what someone
values by seeing where they spend their time and money. What was the
last major purchase you made?"

I would have
rather gone straight to the question of where he was spending his
time, but the question of money tended to be less threatening with
the kind of people who made it into my office. I was right; he didn't
even pause before answering.

"We just
spent fifteen million on a large parcel of land that I think has
major mineral deposits underneath it."

"Was that
an enjoyable purchase? Did it provide you with a sense of excitement,
or maybe of power?"

He rubbed his
eyes and then leaned back and shook his head. Interesting. It wasn't
late enough in the day for him to be tired already. It probably meant
he wasn't sleeping well. Of course there were another dozen
possibilities, but it wasn't the first clue that I'd recorded since
he'd walked through the door. Each bit of information helped clarify
what I was up against this time. That, more than anything, was the
secret to my success. I had a photographic memory and the ability to
put seemingly unrelated bits of information together to arrive at the
answer I needed. It really was just a matter of time. If we spent
enough time together I'd eventually figure out what was causing his
underlying problems.

He shook his
head again and then looked at the window. "No, it was just
another transaction. We've had our eye on the area for a couple of
years now. Our best computer model says that there should be…let's
just say that once it's developed it will pay for itself in short
order. The owner of the land died a little while ago and we had the
operating capital necessary to move so we approached his estate about
purchasing the land."

It was another
interesting tidbit. There weren't many people and organizations in
the U.S. who could come up with that kind of money at the drop of a
hat, but those weren't the kinds of clues that I needed.

"What
about non-business purchases? What was the last thing you bought that
you looked forward to?"

He shook his
head. "No, that's off-limits. I'm not interested in getting into
that particular discussion, I'm here for other reasons."

I leaned
forward and gave him my best 'earnest concern' expression. "Brad,
why are you here? I mean, why did you choose me out of everyone else
you could have gone to?"

He didn't like
that question either, but this time it wasn't an emotional response.
He knew where I was headed. That was okay though. In many ways it was
easier to deal with the really smart patients. I wouldn't have to
take him all the way through my logic; he'd see it for himself
without needing to be spoon fed.

"I'm here
because you're the best. Even the psychiatrists who hate you agree
that you're good at what you do."

I leaned back
in my chair and nodded. "Exactly, which means that you have a
decision to make. You can either get up and walk out of my office, or
you can answer my questions. It's entirely your call, but you came
here because you knew you needed help."

"Fine. The
last big non-business purchase I made was a trip."

"A trip?"

He nodded and
then cleared his throat. In someone else it might not have meant
anything but this was the most rattled I'd seen him yet.

"Yeah. I
wanted to surprise a girl so I booked a skiing trip for our
families."

"By booked
you mean that you had one of your people make the arrangements?"

He closed his
eyes briefly as if hiding from a memory, and then shook his head.
"No, I flew out to the resort one evening after she'd gone to
sleep and toured it. It was amazing. Not the skiing so much, I don't
know much about that, but the cabins were gorgeous."

It was the most
passion I'd seen out of him yet, so I pursued the line of
questioning. "Tell me about them."

"It was
almost like living outside despite the cold. They had a solarium off
on one side, fireplaces in every room, and the master suite was
situated at the top of the cabin and had a three hundred degree view.
The night I was there you could see the snowflakes drifting down onto
the skylight. It was the most peaceful thing I'd experienced in a
long time."

"Your
families would have been okay with the two of you sharing the master
suite?"