fast, and they tried to swim out. It was believed Jude lost his footing on one of the rocks.” The groove in her forehead deepens, and she shakes her head. “Wasn’t until Lucian was safely out that he watched his friend get swept out to sea. It took a number of years to get over the death of Jude. Even as he got older, he had vivid hallucinations of him. Rand would catch him down in the cave, sometimes, talking to himself.”
“Lucian had bad hallucinations?”
“The doctors called it trauma. But then I had him admitted, and they just … stopped.” Gaze cast to the side, it’s like she’s trying to avoid looking at me. “I don’t know what they did. But it worked.” The more she talks, the more troubled her expression turns. “Until it stopped working.”
She shifts on the bed and tugs the blankets up higher. “On second thought, I’d rather you didn’t read. I’m just going to sleep.”
Chapter 21
Lucian
Fifteen years ago …
“Lucian.” At the sound of my mother’s voice, I turn to find her standing alongside me. “This is Dr. Voigt. He’s going to help you.”
“Help?” Whatever was given to me has rendered me weak and listless, where I lie flat on my back with bright fluorescent lights blinding me. “Wh … where am I?”
“We’re in a hospital.” The unfamiliar voice belonging to a man answers this time. “We treat young men and women with your afflictions.”
“Affliction?”
“Sexual deviances.” At the side of the bed, a tall, slim man with dark hair and spectacles stands with his hands crossed over a clipboard in front of him, and on his finger, I notice the ring. The same one my father wears.
Ice curls through my veins, and eyes wide, I shake my head.
“I don’t … belong here.” Tugging at the straps on my arms is futile, as they don’t seem to give, the leather biting into my skin.
“For God’s sake, Lucian, you drowned.” My mother opens her purse, rifling around until she pulls out a Kleenex that she lifts to her nose, and it’s then I notice tears in her eyes. “You had to be revived. Don’t pretend like it didn’t happen. Do you have any idea what we’ve been through, the last couple of weeks? How this looks?”
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”
“I wish you were! Do you honestly think the alternative sounds better?”
Through the haze of drugs, I vaguely remember the bath. Holding my breath. Getting off. Consumed by my loss of Solange. “Mother, I was just playing around. I don’t need to be admitted for this.”
“Your father insisted that you be admitted here, and I pray to God they can help you. I’ll not have my only son engaging in sick and disgusting acts. You’re sick, Lucian. You need therapy.”
“I’m not sick! Did it ever occur to you that it might’ve fucked me up a little seeing a dead woman?”
“That was years ago. You were just a little boy. You wouldn’t have remembered.”
“What are you talking about? It was a week ago! I saw her in that cave!”
“Lucian, there was no woman in that cave. Rand investigated himself. There was no woman tied to the post.”
“There was! It was Solange! I know what I saw!”
“Who’s Solange?” Dr. Voigt asks, tipping his head with the same curiosity I imagine he’d have for a lab rat curled over the tip of a syringe needle.
“I honestly haven’t a clue what he’s talking about.” Lifting her chin, my mother diverts her eyes away, as if she can’t stand to look at me through the lies.
“No. No, no, no. You know who she is. You know who she is!”
“Tell me, Lucian. Who is she?” Dr. Voigt’s tone suggests he’s humoring me. That he doesn’t believe me any more than I believe my mother’s bullshit right now.
“The maid!” Lifting my head from the bed, I stare at the side of her face, forcing her to look at me, to give in to whatever facade she’s creating, trying to make me look crazy. “You hated her. You wouldn’t spare her the slightest bit of your attention.”
“We’ve never had a maid named Solange.”
“We did.” The rage inside of me festers, in spite of the drugs. My whole body trembles, my head on the verge of exploding from the tension. “And you hated her. So much, you had her killed.”
When she finally sets her gaze on mine, a tear slips down her cheek. “She was a hallucination, Lucian. Just like Jude.”