“Yes.”
“Close your eyes again and focus on that image that popped into your mind.”
Sucking in a breath, I bring the image to the front of my mind and focus on it as I nod.
“Now immerse yourself in it. What can you see?”
“The rain… my reflection in the window… I have tears running down my face… there’s a fire in the fireplace behind me…”
“Good. Now, what can you smell?”
I shake my head. “The fire… cleaning products… perfume…”
“You’re doing great, Juliette. Can you hear anything?”
My hands tremble and my stomach flips as I lose myself deeper in the memory, the fog surrounding it dissipating with each second that ticks by. “The rain… the cracking of the fire…”
“Anything else?”
“There’s something…” I say with a nod, focusing on what the other sound is. “It sounds like voices and music but it’s muffled… maybe a TV playing in another room…”
“Good. Now, this is the most important part. What do you feel?”
I gasp as a wave of despair washes over me. “Oh, God.”
“What is it, Juliette?”
“I’m so sad and scared…” I whisper, tears stinging my eyes as my heart hammers in my chest. “I want something… I’m desperate for it… and angry… so, so angry…”
“Okay. I want you to just focus on these feelings. Let them fill you up and see if you unlock anything else.”
Breathing deeply, I do as he says, letting the emotions pour in and tears begin pouring down my face as another image flickers across my vision. This time, I explore it myself, immersing myself in what I can see, what I can smell, and what I feel.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, gasping for breath and Fuzz grabs my hand, jerking me out of my memories. I open my eyes and meet his.
“What did you see, Juliette?”
I press my hand to my chest, shaking my head as I try to rein the emotions back in. “Gavin… he was holding me captive in the apartment. I found out something I wasn’t supposed to and when he realized I knew, he lost it….”
“Can you remember what you found out?”
“No,” I whisper, shaking my head, and he nods as the door to the war room bursts open. Sawyer charges in and sighs when he sees me.
“There you are.” His gaze drops to my hand in Fuzz’s grasp and his eyes narrow as he takes a menacing step forward. “What the fuck is going on in here?”
“Sawyer,” I whisper, more tears filling my eyes as I drop Fuzz’s hand. “Why are you back? I thought you had to go run an errand?”
He shakes his head. “Chance and Storm said they could handle it on their own. They thought I should be with my girl. Now, I’m going to ask again… What the fuck is going on here?”
“He was helping me remember.”
“Is it working?”
I nod and his eyes widen as he steps into the room and closes the door behind him. He rounds the table and sits on my other side, running his hand through his hair as he grabs my hand. “What do you remember?”
I relay everything I just discovered to him and he studies me before turning to Fuzz. “Sorry I almost killed you, brother.”
“It looked bad out of context,” Fuzz answers with a shrug.
“Can we keep going?” Sawyer asks, his gaze flicking between Fuzz and me. Fuzz nods.
“As long as Juliette can handle it.”
I suck in a breath and nod as my stomach rolls. “Let’s do it.”
“All right, Juliette,” Fuzz says. “Same thing as last time. Close your eyes and focus on the memory, then feel it, relive it.”
I nod and do as instructed, closing my eyes and letting the memory flood back in. I’m standing in my bedroom, staring at something but the words on the page are still blurry. Gavin walks in and our eyes meet…
“What the fuck is this?” I hiss, holding the paper up and he pales, taking a step toward me as he shakes his head.
“Please, baby. I can explain.”
My eyes widen. “You can explain? There’s no fucking reason you should have this information unless you were planning to use it against me!”
“I know it looks bad,” he replies, desperation flashing across his face. “But you have to let me…”
“I don’t have to let you do a damn thing!” I crumple the paper up in my hand and reach down to grab a file off the bed before charging past him into the living room. He follows me as I march over to the fireplace and toss everything inside, watching as the flames consume it.
“Jules, baby… please,” he pleads behind me. “I’ve made some mistakes and I’ll tell you everything but you have to know that I love you more than anything.”
I shake my head and turn back to him. “I don’t know that. I don’t know anything anymore.”
Staring at him across the room, I know there’s no way I could trust him again, not after what I just found and there’s too much at stake to take the chance that he won’t use the information he has against me. I shake my head and walk past him into the bedroom before grabbing my suitcase out of the closet and tossing it on the bed.
“Where are you going?” he asks as he walks into the room and I barely glance in his direction as I start pulling clothes off of the racks.
“My dad’s house.”
He shakes his head. “We can fix this.”
“No, there is no fixing this.” The only thing left to do is go to my dad and figure out how to clean up this mess. God, how did I allow this to happen? How did I not see the signs?
“I can’t let you leave me. Don’t you understand how much I love you? How much I’ve risked for you?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. This,” I gesture between the two of us before gesturing around the room. “All of this doesn’t matter anymore because it’s been a lie all from the start.”
I toss some clothes in my bag before brushing past him and walking into the bathroom to retrieve my toiletries.
“I’m going to make you see,” he murmurs and I glance over at him as he stands in the doorway to the bathroom. “You’re not leaving until I can make you understand.”
He takes a step back and as it registers what he’s planning to do, I jerk forward to stop him, but it’s too late. The bathroom door slams shut and when I try the handle it doesn’t move. My heart races as I pound on the door.
“Gavin!”
“I’m not the one you need to be worried about,” he says. “But don’t worry. I promise you I’m going to fix this.”
I open my eyes with a shudder and Sawyer squeezes my hand.
“What did you see, baby?”
“Gavin betrayed me. He has this file full of information on me and who knows what else… and when I tried to leave, he made me his prisoner.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Juliette
“And the last thing I remember is that he was holding me as his prisoner,” I say, my stomach rolling as the nine pairs of eyes stare at me with shocked expressions. We have been in the war room for the past twenty minutes going over everything we know about my case so far which isn’t much when you see it all pinned up on a cork board like Streak did. I swear, the more we dig into this, the more hopeless it feels and more than once I’ve found myself wondering if we’re seeing things that aren’t really there.