life. And yet he breathed. He bled.
But no longer did he cry.
In the silence of the night, with a soft, willing body curled on her side of the bed the only tangible proof that even the moment was real, he wished he could simply die.
But he was a coward. So he lived. With a mind he'd numbed to the injustice. With emotions he'd conditioned himself not to feel. He'd reduced his human contact to the animal rutting Mary allowed. He gave his body release but kept his mind disengaged.
It was a way to survive the loss of what the doctors had given up on recovering. He would probably not remember, they'd said. Not after this long. Officially, he'd been written off as a man without a future because he was a man who had no past.
A siren howled in the distance, grew closer, then faded to nothing. The window air-conditioning unit wheezed little more than tepid air into the room and rustled the faded blue curtains. On the bed, Mary stirred in her sleep, whimpered, and he knew it was because he'd used her roughly. Remorse played a distant second to his own misery. A misery that had been compounded as he'd watched the eleven o'clock news several hours ago.
The Kincaid woman, with her camera crew and tape recorder and glossy lips, had brought it all back. The kernel of hope, the painful wish to know. She'd read his story in the newspapers a few months ago, she'd said. Sought him out to help him, she said. To tell his story to the world on television . She'd said.
Someone might recognize him. Didn't he want that? Didn't he want to know if there was a chance her story could draw national attention and possibly reach someone who would recognize him? Someone who would step forward and tell him who he was?
Pain lanced through his temple. His heartbeat ratcheted, slamming inside his chest.
Didn't he want to know?
Fear, stark and cutting, infiltrated his body like tainted air.
Didn't he want to know?
With everything in him, yes, he wanted to know. And with everything in him, he was afraid to know.
This was what Jillian Kincaid had done to him. She'd brought back the hope. And for John, hope was not a cause for elation and light. Hope was a horror of resurrected cravings for all things that were denied him. Hope was cruel. Hope bred insanity.
Jillian Kincaid, with her power and ambition, was not seeking his salvation. She was seeking her own fame.
She didn't care that his suffering had begun anew the day shehad approached him. She'd stirred, to a frenzy, the utter nothingness of his existence with her camera and her microphones and her pleas to let her interview him again as she filmed her documentary. About him, The Forgotten Man.
He drew a fractured breath. Settled himself and turned to the woman on the bed.
Mary offered relief from all the bleakness. Temporary.
Fleeting. He didn't believe her when she told him he was someone—someone important, someone vital—and he hated Jillian Kincaid for her relentless questions, her unnerving silences that prompted him to fill them and to speak of his sense of loss and despair.
Hers was a careless cruelty.
His would not be.
Just like he was not carelessly cruel when he awakened Mary with a harsh hand, then used her again until she begged him to stop.
8
IN LIGHT OF THE FACT THAT SHE HADN'T drunk enough wine last night to merit even a whisper of a headache, Jillian felt particularly uncharitable toward the hammers pounding away behind her eyelids when she swung her feet over the side of her bed at 7:30 Saturday morning.
To face the day with her bodyguard.
Oh, joy.
Grim and grouchy, she headed straight for the shower, telling herself to just deal with it. Whether this loony toons character was simply out to scare her, which she firmly believed, or he was for real, which she did not believe, she couldn't afford to let Garrett disrupt her life in the interim. Broken speed limits, biker bars, and bloody Rangers notwithstanding.
And let's not forget the beautiful body, her libido
But no longer did he cry.
In the silence of the night, with a soft, willing body curled on her side of the bed the only tangible proof that even the moment was real, he wished he could simply die.
But he was a coward. So he lived. With a mind he'd numbed to the injustice. With emotions he'd conditioned himself not to feel. He'd reduced his human contact to the animal rutting Mary allowed. He gave his body release but kept his mind disengaged.
It was a way to survive the loss of what the doctors had given up on recovering. He would probably not remember, they'd said. Not after this long. Officially, he'd been written off as a man without a future because he was a man who had no past.
A siren howled in the distance, grew closer, then faded to nothing. The window air-conditioning unit wheezed little more than tepid air into the room and rustled the faded blue curtains. On the bed, Mary stirred in her sleep, whimpered, and he knew it was because he'd used her roughly. Remorse played a distant second to his own misery. A misery that had been compounded as he'd watched the eleven o'clock news several hours ago.
The Kincaid woman, with her camera crew and tape recorder and glossy lips, had brought it all back. The kernel of hope, the painful wish to know. She'd read his story in the newspapers a few months ago, she'd said. Sought him out to help him, she said. To tell his story to the world on television . She'd said.
Someone might recognize him. Didn't he want that? Didn't he want to know if there was a chance her story could draw national attention and possibly reach someone who would recognize him? Someone who would step forward and tell him who he was?
Pain lanced through his temple. His heartbeat ratcheted, slamming inside his chest.
Didn't he want to know?
Fear, stark and cutting, infiltrated his body like tainted air.
Didn't he want to know?
With everything in him, yes, he wanted to know. And with everything in him, he was afraid to know.
This was what Jillian Kincaid had done to him. She'd brought back the hope. And for John, hope was not a cause for elation and light. Hope was a horror of resurrected cravings for all things that were denied him. Hope was cruel. Hope bred insanity.
Jillian Kincaid, with her power and ambition, was not seeking his salvation. She was seeking her own fame.
She didn't care that his suffering had begun anew the day shehad approached him. She'd stirred, to a frenzy, the utter nothingness of his existence with her camera and her microphones and her pleas to let her interview him again as she filmed her documentary. About him, The Forgotten Man.
He drew a fractured breath. Settled himself and turned to the woman on the bed.
Mary offered relief from all the bleakness. Temporary.
Fleeting. He didn't believe her when she told him he was someone—someone important, someone vital—and he hated Jillian Kincaid for her relentless questions, her unnerving silences that prompted him to fill them and to speak of his sense of loss and despair.
Hers was a careless cruelty.
His would not be.
Just like he was not carelessly cruel when he awakened Mary with a harsh hand, then used her again until she begged him to stop.
8
IN LIGHT OF THE FACT THAT SHE HADN'T drunk enough wine last night to merit even a whisper of a headache, Jillian felt particularly uncharitable toward the hammers pounding away behind her eyelids when she swung her feet over the side of her bed at 7:30 Saturday morning.
To face the day with her bodyguard.
Oh, joy.
Grim and grouchy, she headed straight for the shower, telling herself to just deal with it. Whether this loony toons character was simply out to scare her, which she firmly believed, or he was for real, which she did not believe, she couldn't afford to let Garrett disrupt her life in the interim. Broken speed limits, biker bars, and bloody Rangers notwithstanding.
And let's not forget the beautiful body, her libido
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