Chaos and Communion

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Emma shook the snow from her hair and stamped her feet, knocking more snow off her boots and encouraging blood to return to her toes. She was ready for this winter to be over. She had never been more willing to put an entire season behind her. A part of her believed things would be better—things had to be better—in the spring.

“Is Jesse up here?” Michelle asked as she let herself into the door behind Emma.

All the lights in the office were still on, and Jesse’s desk still covered in books. Once that would have been a sign that though he was absent, he intended to come back. Jesse was careful with his books. But now it could mean anything.

“No…I…” Emma faltered a bit, her skin prickling as a wave of what could only be called pure anger washed over her. At the same time, she heard the unmistakable sound of a fist connecting with something solid. “Michelle…why don’t you just…make yourself comfortable? I’m going to see what’s going on.”

Michelle touched her arm. “Are you sure you want to go in there? Maybe you should just let him work it out.”

Emma was sure. She wasn’t scared of Gideon, even when he was obviously angry. And she was pretty sure she knew the source of his anger—this wasn’t the first time his frustration had erupted in violence. But if Gideon was acting out this way, Jesse must be in bed. Which meant they would all get a small respite and maybe Jesse would make it through the night without waking.

“I need to go check on him.”

Michelle’s lips pulled into a thin line, and Emma knew she wasn’t pleased with her answer, but ultimately, it wasn’t any of Michelle’s business. She stepped away from the older woman, and snow trailed behind her as she crossed the office and followed the sound to the playroom. She opened the door just as his fist slammed against a wooden post he once used when he was teaching Jesse how to fight. It snapped in two.

He wore only his pants, his upper body and feet bare. Blood ran down his knuckles from the force of his blows, but Gideon was oblivious to the mess he was making as it dripped onto the floor, splattered against the wall. The anger she’d sensed in the main office was a wall of heat in here, pulsing with as much power as the slams of his fists. Though she had spent the last nine months getting accustomed to being open around her two lovers, when the emotions were this strong, it still managed to smash into her gut and leave her shaking when she wasn’t fully prepared for it.

Her hand shot out to grip the doorjamb, using the solidity to keep from swaying. Her nails scraped across the wood, and Gideon paused in mid-swing, glancing in her direction. As soon as their dark eyes connected, his arm dropped. Everything in him seemed to sag, actually. That was harder than witnessing the violence.

“I told him.”

They had been discussing the inpatient treatment for over a week, trying to decide when and how they should broach it with Jesse, debating whether it would even work, fighting over if they should do it at all. She knew Gideon had pinned a lot of hope to the option because, in his view, the alternative plan was simply not acceptable.

“I guess he didn’t take it well?”

Gideon started to lift a hand to run it over his hair, his most common nervous gesture, and noticed the blood, seemingly for the first time. “He begged me not to make him go. Not to make him be alone.” He sucked at his knuckle, the sound hollow within the room, but after only seconds, he seemed to choke on the blood, snorting as he dropped his hand again. “Can we even blame him?” he demanded. “He spent how many days with Brooker? How many days alone, when I couldn’t help him, I couldn’t even find him. Of course, he doesn’t want to go.”

Emma would have predicted exactly that reaction, and she suspected Gideon would have, too, if he had been honest with himself. In the past six months, Jesse had somehow become more closed off, and at the same time, hyperaware of them. Emma didn’t miss the way Jesse’s eyes tracked either of them when they were in a room. He was always watching.

She closed the distance and gently touched Gideon’s shoulder, trying to push aside the force of his anger and replace it with something a little gentler. “Michelle is out in the office. If Jesse is asleep, maybe now is a good time to talk about her idea.”

He stiffened at her touch. Didn’t move. Watched her with the eyes of a predator who found himself cornered. “I bet she’s loving this. Getting to say I told you so.”

“Gideon, she’s not here because she wants to attack you. She’s here because she cares about Jesse, too. And he trusts her. There are only three people in the world he does trust right now. We need to work together.”

Emma knew Gideon didn’t believe that. Every day Jesse didn’t get stronger was a day Gideon blamed himself even more for not putting a stop to it in the first place. He thought it was his place to protect Jesse, to protect both of them. The fact that on one occasion, control had slipped away from him in such a shattering way was slowly eating him alive.

“Go put some coffee on for Michelle.” He rubbed at his torn knuckles. “I need to get cleaned up before she sees me. No point in giving her even more ammunition.”

Emma hesitated for a beat before nodding. She didn’t want to leave him, but the sooner he got himself cleaned up, the sooner they could get through this.

Michelle was still standing right where Emma had left her, her face marred with a frown. “What’s going on?”

“Gideon told Jesse about the treatment program.”

“And Jesse doesn’t want to go,” Michelle said flatly. “I told you he wouldn’t. Nothing is going to get him to that hospital short of force, and you can’t force somebody to get better.”

Emma sighed. “I know. But maybe you could not mention that to Gideon? He’s upset enough right now.”

Michelle waved her hand dismissively. “I’m not worried about Gideon’s feelings. I’m worried about Jesse. I wish I could just take him out of here.”

Emma’s lips pulled into a tight line. “Well, you can’t, so don’t mention that particular wish either.” She gestured at the couch. “You might as well get comfortable. I’m going to put some coffee on.”

The pot was nearly full by the time she heard the playroom door open and close. When Gideon appeared, he was dressed again, his immaculate shirt tucked into his waistband, expensive loafers back on his feet. His hands were clean as well, though the knuckles were still raw and red from where he’d been pounding at the post.

His mouth thinned as he locked eyes with Michelle, and he stopped just inside the room and folded his arms over his chest. “For the record,” he said, and his voice was cold and flat, “I don’t give a f**k about your feelings either. This is about Jesse and how we’re going to make this better for him, once and for all.”

Most people would be afraid of Gideon when he looked and sounded like that—and reasonably so, in Emma’s opinion. But the emotions she could pick up from Michelle never spiked into anything remotely resembling fear.

“Well, it’s good that you want to try to help Jesse,” Michelle said in a tone that bordered on dismissive. “We should have been talking this over much sooner.”

“You’re not Jesse’s keeper.”

“Maybe not. But who has he been talking to for the past several months? It hasn’t been…”

Before Michelle could finish her sentence, Emma thrust a hot cup of coffee into her hands. “Please. If Jesse wakes up, the last thing he needs is to hear the two of you fighting. Especially over him.”

In spite of her empathic abilities, reading Gideon was spotty at the best of times. Vampires were different from people, and without physical contact, she could only catch flashes of the most intense emotions. Facing his anger in the playroom had been daunting, more for the fact that she rarely was hit with his feelings so bluntly, but now that he looked back in control—albeit angry—she got next to nothing. It was both a relief and a worry, because it meant she had to rely upon visual cues and personal knowledge to keep these two from going at it.

While Michelle sipped at her coffee, Gideon didn’t move. “What Jesse needs—what he wants—is to not be scared anymore. To forget. Explain to me how putting him in Brooker’s path again is going to make that happen.”

“Jesse is too kind-hearted for his own good. You do realize he doesn’t hate Brooker, right? He thinks Brooker was a victim, too. He’s got a lot of anger and a lot of confusion, and he has nowhere to direct it, so he’s directing it back to himself. He won’t entertain the idea that the situation is your fault,” she looked directly at Gideon, “for a second. He knows Brooker was insane, but he’s convinced it didn’t have to be that way. And no, he didn’t tell me any of this. But it’s there, if you listen to the way he talks.”

“But won’t it make it worse if we send him to Brooker and confirm that Brooker was once a normal, non-werebear person?” Emma asked.

“Jesse wants to save everybody. I think he would like the chance to save Brooker from himself, even if it doesn’t change anything that happened in this dimension.”

Gideon scowled. “Jesse saves people all the time. It can’t be that simple.”

“But he couldn’t do anything to help Brooker, could he? Or you.”

“What do you mean, or me? I’m fine.”

Michelle snorted. “No, you’re not. The demons that haunt you are nothing less than what you deserve, but you can’t tell Jesse that. Believe me, I’ve tried. The only way you can save Brooker is by saving Mary. Jesse knows that she’s the focal point between you and him and Brooker.”

Mention of Mary made Gideon flinch, but he hid it by striding over to the coffee pot, turning his back to them while he poured himself a cup. Mary Straughn was the woman who had changed Gideon’s life over forty years earlier, a beautiful black civil rights activist who had convinced him to focus his power elsewhere, if only for a little while. Her murder, a death Gideon blamed himself for, had changed the spiral of his existence, and he focused all his efforts after that in saving the city she’d loved.

But Gideon had not been the only one to love Mary. Marcus Brooker had been the assistant pastor at her church, a follower who’d witnessed her savage death firsthand. He had sold his soul after that, but it was a chance encounter in New York City the previous fall that had spun their lives anew. Jesse had been unable to resist the history Marcus had lived. And Jesse had paid the price for his curiosity. A price they all bore, even six months after the fact.

“Messing with this kind of magic is dangerous,” he said. “I don’t like it.”

“Funny. You were perfectly willing to mess with that kind of magic one hundred years ago. Don’t tell me you actually learn from your mistakes.”

The cup shattered in Gideon’s hand, scalding coffee spilling over his fingers. Emma darted forward at his muttered curse, but when she grabbed a towel to try and help him wipe it away, Gideon retreated beyond her reach.

“Don’t go there, Michelle,” he warned. “I’ll lock him in that hospital myself if you keep this up.”

It was on the tip of Emma’s tongue to beg them not to fight a third time, but Michelle merely nodded. Emma didn’t know why the other woman was willing to back down, and she didn’t care, as long as they remained civil.

“We’ve been doing a lot of research,” Emma provided. “And Michelle knows what she’s doing. The magic is surprisingly straightforward.”

“She’s right. I’ve even been able to find a dimension that is nearly identical to this one. I can use my counterpart in that dimension as a sort of homing signal. You’ll be sent directly to her, and then she will be able to send you home.”

“You don’t like me in this world. What the hell makes you think another you is going to like me any more to help us?”

“I’ll see to that. The best time to do this is going to be in three nights. Which means you need to explain the plan to Jesse and see if he’ll agree soon. I need enough time to set everything up.”

“What if he doesn’t agree to it?” Emma asked.

“We have to make him agree to it.” The eyes Gideon turned to her were bleak. “I can’t watch him like this anymore, Em. I can’t.”

“I know.” Sometimes when she was with Jesse, he was almost his old self. Almost. She would see a glimmer of the easy smile he used to share with the world, hear a hint of the laughter, sense a bit of the quiet self-assurance that would allow him to submit to Gideon, or to her, completely. But then it would be gone, and he’d become withdrawn again. She thought a comparison to a ghost was apt—she thought what he did resembled haunting. “I can’t either.”

Michelle stood up. “Do what you have to do. I’ll come over and talk to him if I need to.” She looked at Gideon with an expression that might have been sympathetic. “I know this isn’t going to be easy, but I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Jesse. He’s one of the few good people I’ve ever known.”

Emma believed her, but there was no mistaking the doubt that warred on Gideon’s handsome features. He didn’t argue, though, simply nodding before turning his back and disappearing into his office. Michelle gave Emma one last small smile of support and followed his example, the main door closing quietly behind her.

Gideon stood in front of his desk, palms flat on the surface as he leaned heavily against it. His head was bowed, his shoulders curved, and though his face was hidden from her view, she knew the grief that would be reflected there.

“The only part about this that I like is that at least Jesse won’t be alone.” He said it without lifting his head, without looking back at her. “But it means you’re going to be. He’s going to use that as a weapon not to do it, and I can’t say that he’ll be wrong.”

“I won’t be completely alone. I’m going to stay with Michelle while you’re gone. And besides, I’ve been alone before.” She moved closer to him. “I can handle it as long as I know you’re both coming back.”

The slight shift in his shoulders was probably meant to be a reluctant agreement, but otherwise, Gideon remained where he was. “Can we not do it tonight? I don’t think…I’m not up to it.”

“If he’s asleep, we shouldn’t bother him. Come on. Let’s go downstairs. If he does wake up, we should be there in case he needs us.”

“You go. I need a few minutes.”

Emma nodded. She understood. The situation was difficult for her; it must have been nearly impossible for Gideon. She was sure the same sort of questions and doubts plagued him. It did seem like an impossibly huge risk for a result that was far from guaranteed. Maybe it would help Jesse psychologically if they had a sort of do-over. But what Michelle suggested did not actually change anything. It couldn’t take anything back. It couldn’t make the days of captivity disappear, like it never happened.

But at that point, Emma honestly believed it was worth it to try. She didn’t know what else they could do. The initial evaluation and medication Jesse had tried only upset him. He didn’t like talking to strangers. He didn’t like the way the drugs made him feel. There had been a noticeable spike in his anxiety. Ignoring it didn’t make the problem go away. And she could give him all the love in the world, but love wasn’t a magic elixir. It couldn’t cure these sorts of problems.

And Michelle was right about how Jesse viewed the world. He saw the entire situation as nothing but a series of victims. Mary had been a victim. Marcus had been a victim. Marcus had made him a victim. Even Gideon was a victim. Maybe it would help if Jesse knew things could be different. Things could be better. People could still be saved, somehow.

Jesse was curled on his side in the middle of the big bed when Emma reached the bedroom. She changed quickly and quietly, careful not to disturb him as she slipped between the sheets. Without opening his eyes, he moved closer, wrapped his arm around her, then settled again. Emma concentrated on sending every soothing, comforting feeling she could find. Sometimes, that was enough to get him through the night without waking.