Liar!
Liam winced.
“What does the voice sound like?” Hawk asked.
Liam huffed out another laugh and scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Actually, it’s surprisingly childlike. Sort of simplistic. The last doctor I saw said that they thought I might have multiple personalities after all, because if it was a delusion that my mind had created, the voice would have matured when I did. But if I have multiple personalities then the voice could very well beoneof my personalities—the personality of a child.”
He caught his hand gesturing as he tried to explain, and quickly dropped it back to his lap. Waving his hands around like a crazy person—as Silas had mentioned one time—was not a good look.
“I don’t know, I mean at this stage, it kind of feels like they’re grasping at straws because they don’t really knowwhatto make of me.”
Both Eve and Hawk had become deathly quiet and perfectly still. Liam sighed.
“I’m sorry, I’m freaking you out, aren’t I? I mean, I know how difficult it must be for you to understand what it’s like to have a voice other than your own in your mind, talking to you all the time.”
“Actually, it’s not difficult at all,” Hawk said.
Eve glared at her colleague.
When unease poured out of the two agents in waves, Liam could have kicked himself. A black hole spread through his chest. He hadn’t wanted sympathy, but he’d at least hoped for a little empathy. Instead, they looked spooked and were probably thinking that he was going to try to murder them in their sleep or something along those lines. He wished he hadn’t told them anything. He understood that schizophrenia could be a touchy subject, and one that made most people nervous or uncomfortable, but he wasn’t psychotic. He didn’t go around wanting to murder everyone or harm himself. Was it too much to ask that once, just once, someone could accept him for who he was, warts and all?
Chapter Seven
Eve
“He’s a goddamn shifter,” Hawk said.
“Hawk!” Eve hissed. “Will you keep your voice down? What if he hears?”
Hawk waved away her concern. “He’s asleep.”
“Besides,” she said. “We don’t know that for sure.”
Hawk’s mouth fell open and he stared at her like she’d grown another head. “What else could it be?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, geez, I don’t know, um, schizophrenia maybe?”
“You don’t really believe that. I bet that’s just something the doctors told him to try to explain what they couldn’t understand.”
“Don’t you think they might have some idea what they were talking about?”
“Not if they’re human.”
Eve sighed. “When he was talking about the voice in his mind and how it sounds…” She shook her head and slumped into the seat. “He could have been describing my panther. It was spooky.”
“My bird, too. Plus, there are the other things he said. The blackouts, losing time. That’s probably when he shifts. People naturally fearing him? It all adds up.”
“But wouldn’t he know when he shifts? I mean, I know when I shift. It doesn’t happen to someone else, it happens to me. I’m in control of my body, whatever form it takes.”
“Right, but if he grew up in the care system, and had never been around shifters, he would never have been taught about them. About what to expect and evenhowto shift.”
Hawk flicked the switch on the kettle and got two mugs from the cupboard as he continued.
“And if the doctors are calling the voice in his mind a delusion, and telling him to ignore it, even giving him pills to try to get rid of it, then he would be suppressing his inner animal, wouldn’t he? And you know what happens when we ignore our shifter side. If we don’t let out animals out every once in a while, they will try to take over. They’ll push and they’ll push until they force their way out. It sounds to me like that’s what has been happening to him when he has blackouts and loses time.”
“You don’t think we might be grasping at straws?”
“Perhaps. We need to find out for sure.”
