“Strip her down first. Everything but her underwear and bra.” Bill speaks as he keeps his back to me and Sin.
Sin steps back, and I remove her boots, skinny jeans, and T-shirt. Then I start with her shoulders while Sin does her ankles. We meet in the middle, and I tighten the last one around her waist.
Bill turns around and nods to the door. “You may leave.”
“No.” I shake my head. Is he crazy? “I’m staying.”
“You’re leaving.” He looks at Easton as if he expects him to pull me out of here. Bill sighs when he sees Sin isn’t on his side here. “The sooner we get started, the sooner you can take her home.”
“What are you going to do to her?” I don’t think Bill will kill her, but I also don’t trust anyone with her other than myself right now.
“I’ve been instructed to administer a drug…” He trails off.
“You’re going to make her hallucinate,” Sin finishes, knowing exactly where he was going. “The mind is a powerful thing.”
Bill nods. “Yes. And I can’t do it with you in the room.”
“Why the fuck not?” I snap.
She begins to pull on the restraints, her body gently rocking back and forth, straining against the worn-out leather.
“You’re going to make it worse. Get the fuck out and let me do what they want before she wakes up.”
I watch her lashes start to flutter, and with reluctance, I back out of the room. The moment we step out, Bill locks it.
My hand goes to the knob, panic rising. “Unlock the door.” I bang on it, but he ignores me. “Bill. Open the fucking door.”
I hear her cry out on the other side of the door.
“Come on.” Sin grabs my arm and pulls me away. “There has to be a place where you can watch it.”
I rush into the room next door and flip on the light to see it’s an observation room. We have one at Carnage, and it makes me nauseous to think what they did to her in that room while others watched when she was here.
Bill fills a syringe and then walks over to her, administering the drug into her arm.
“I know it’s not much, but at least when it’s over, you can tell her it was only a hallucination.” Sin speaks softly as he watches Eve. “I had to look my wife in the eye when they forced me to break her heart.”
I don’t have anything to say about that because I couldn’t imagine having to make her think that she means nothing to me. But something tells me this won’t be any easier on her. If we’re lucky, it won’t be me she sees in her hallucination. Eve knows I love her, right? I haven’t given her any reason to see me as the bad guy. To make her think I’d cause her real harm. Except for in the woods. The Lords wanted her to hate me for forcing her hand in being here.
“Saint told me that you and Haidyn are fighting,” Sin says while we wait for her to react to the drug.
I run a hand down my face. I was here at Dollhouse with my brothers when I was notified that Eve had left Carnage. Thankfully, they rushed back home while I went to the motel to get her. “Yeah.”
“Over Eve?”
I nod.
He turns to face me. “She’s yours, Kash. Sometimes you have to remind someone to stay away from what isn’t theirs. I’d kill a brother over my wife. She will always come first.”
Sin thinks Haidyn wants to take her away from me. In a way, he does. He wants her on prescription drugs. I’ve seen her self-medicate with alcohol. She doesn’t need it. I’m what she needs. I can help her.
Sin thinks Haidyn wants her in a different way. He and the others don’t know that Eve is his sister and that Haidyn is afraid of losing her. That she will try to commit suicide again and succeed.
A silence falls over the room and Eve starts to move, but she’s still pretty out of it.
“How was therapy?” he asks. I know what he’s doing. Sin’s trying to keep my thoughts off the woman that I’m about to hurt. “Did it help?”
I snort. “Nope. She freaked. Ran out of the building and then punched me.” I smile. That’s the Everett I fell in love with. She’ll get back to that eventually. I’ll make sure of it.
