He shifted the ice pack, seeming to be focusing on that instead of me. “Tell me something you don’t tell anyone. Lay yourself bare, and then I’ll know what I have to work with.”
I took a deep breath while my hands trembled. I didn’t know Horse, didn’t trust him, didn’t want to know him or trust him, but I needed to fix this problem, and the only thing to do with fear was to face it.
“I have night terrors. I’ve had them for as long as I can remember. My mother used to stay with me all night, but she killed herself, threw herself off the roof and tried to take me with her when I was four, so I’ve been dealing with them on my own since then. Naturally, I don’t sleep with people, since screaming is disruptive.”
He dropped the ice bag and stared at me, shock mixing with something else, his ice bag forgotten until he slowly picked it back up, studying me with fresh concern. “The pink hair doesn’t mesh with your willingness to dive right in and get dirty.”
“I’m very good at getting dirty, at least I used to be. Now, I can’t even pull a trigger to save myself.” Not to save someone else, either. What if it had been Toni instead of Minx? She wasn’t a sharpshooter, however good she was with her hands.
He studied me for a second and then shook his head. “I’m going to sit down. You sure know how to knock the legs out from under a man.”
“That’s true. Aren’t you supposed to tell me to sit down and relax?”
“Do what you want.” He collapsed onto an enormous dark leather couch that looked like butter. He put his feet up on thecushions and his head back on the arm, propping the bag of ice over both eyes, fully relaxed.
He was so comfortable. I felt neurotic standing by the window, like I’d jump out if he got too close. He was big, powerful, but not a threat to me at that particular time. Whether he was actually a therapist or not, I couldn’t tell, but I was here because I needed to talk to someone.
I curled up in an overstuffed chair with odd embroidered patches that had muted pictures of fairy tales beneath the soft throw over the arm. “This is a strange chair.”
He squinted at me before returning to ice his eye. “You chose it. Some therapists have ink blots; I have chairs.”
He did have a variety of different seating options in wildly different styles, but all dark and subtle. “I chose this chair because it faces the door, the windows, and you.”
“That also says something about you. Tell me about your best day.”
“My what?”
“Best day.”
“How is that relevant?”
“Humor me.”
The day with Dirk, learning how to drive like a respectable civilian, popped into my head, but I shook it away. What about the day I graduated from the academy and Toni was there with a big bouquet of balloons even though I hadn’t been able to have audiences at any of my final performances? That was a good day. We’d gone out and robbed a pawn shop afterwards, because they wouldn’t sell back her dad’s war medals she’d sold in a moment of weakness. Or conquering my fear of heights and kissing Dirk Dagger on top of a tower. No, Dirk Dagger didn’t get to be any of my happiest days.
“The first time I met my best friend was pretty good.”
“Why?”
I’d been in juvie, determined to show my grandfather that his money couldn’t control me. I’d gone the one route out of his grasp. “She was surrounded by a bunch of Hens. If you’re going to have a gang name, why wouldn’t you pick something with a little more bite? I was walking by when one of them bumped into me. Naturally, I stabbed her with her own fork and proceeded to pile up all five of them. Toni thought I was coming to her rescue. She followed me around for the rest of the day, telling me how awesome I was.” I smiled at the memory. Toni had streaks of blue in her hair that matched her big eyes as she looked at me worshipfully.
“Hens?” He raised his head and gave me a disbelieving look.
I shrugged. “Why did you want to hear that?”
He rubbed his chin. “Toni’s Nitro’s cousin? Did you teach her how to defend herself?”
“Of course. I don’t like using my hands.”
“It’s better for other people to do your dirty work?”
“No, I enjoy getting my hands dirty, but I’m a musician, and hands are delicate. I couldn’t play for a month once. I didn’t want that to ever happen again.” I pressed my lips together. I didn’t want to talk about the time I’d displeased Grandfather so much that he’d punished me the only way I really cared about. Horse wanted to talk about best memories. That certainly wasn’t one of those. I took a deep breath and forced myself to continue. “I couldn’t play last night, but that was from too many emotions. So, what’s the solution to my problem?”
He took a deep breath and then sat up, leaning on his knees and studying me intently with both eyes. “You aren’t here for your night terrors. They’ve been going on for a long time, but you’ve developed coping strategies, at least put them off as unimportant. Now it’s something else, something that scares you. You’ve been shockingly open for a first session because youwant to fix whatever’s wrong and get back to whatever it is you do. So tell me, what’s the real problem?”
I swallowed hard while my heart pounded faster than it had when Baldy was shooting at me. That hadn’t seemed like real danger, but this did. “Pulling the trigger,” I whispered. Why was that so hard to say? I sat up straight and forced myself to look him in the eye. “I had two targets, and I froze up on both of them. I ended up with a gun to my head for that. If you don’t hit first and hardest, you die. I’m a woman. I’m weaker and smaller than you. If you’re a threat, I have to eliminate you before you realize that you’re going to lose.” I shook my head. Did I have to tell him about my failure as a seductress? It was so humiliating, but that was where it all started. I cleared my throat and forced the words out. “I freeze up in other situations as well. For instance, when I decide it would be beneficial to exert charm on a man to achieve my designs, my body freezes and I can’t control it. The opposite is also true, acting impulsively against my better judgement, putting myself at risk when I know how dangerous the game is.”
He squinted and nodded. “You wouldn’t be able to seduce me?”
