She frowned, then relaxed again.
“Do you have the door set in your mind?” Tanner asked.
“Yes,” she said, the tips of her fangs clearly visible.
“Relax, Sage,” he said softly. “We’re in no rush. Take a minute and center yourself. Concentrate on the door as you breathe in and out.”
That was the thing with Sage. All it took was a word or a noise or a bad memory, and the beast was off and running.
“Can you describe the door for me?” he asked.
Sage nodded. “It’s a white door with a pink unicorn hand-painted in the middle like the one to my sister’s bedroom. I can see it so clearly I feel like I can reach out and touch it.”
Tanner glanced at Zarina. She looked just as concerned as he was about Sage’s choice of imaginary doors. This wasn’t the one Sage usually described.
He didn’t know much in the way of details when it came to what Sage had been through during her captivity, because she refused to talk about it, but he was almost certain she’d watched her younger sister die a painful, horrible death as a result of being injected with a previous version of the hybrid serum. Focusing on her late sister’s bedroom door probably wasn’t a good idea for a hybrid who wanted to stay in control, but there wasn’t anything Tanner could do about it now. With the image already in her head, there was no way Sage would be able to forget it, even if she wanted to.
“That’s good, Sage,” he told her. “Remember that on your side of the door, you have a handle that you can open or close. On the other side, there is no handle. That’s where the beast is. It can’t get through the door unless you open it. You’re in charge, okay?”
Sage nodded.
“Can you feel the beast on the other side of the door?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered, her fingers tightening around the cross. “It’s always there.”
“It’s okay,” he said soothingly “You’re in control. And to prove that, I want you to open the door a crack.”
Sage tensed visibly but kept her eyes closed. “I thought you were going to show me how to keep it locked away forever?”
“That’s not something I can do,” he said. “You need to learn how to get the beast under control.”
“I can’t,” she said brokenly.
“Yes, you can.”
Sage chewed on her lower lip. “Maybe we should wait until Derek is here.”
Staff Sergeant Derek Mickens was the Special Forces soldier who had risked his life to save her from a burning building in Tajikistan. She only seemed truly in control of her animal side when she was with him or even talking to him on the phone. But Derek was deployed more than he was home, and he couldn’t be around as much Sage needed him. Even calling regularly could be difficult as hell for him.
“Sage, you need to learn how to do this on your own,” Tanner said gently. “Derek can’t be with you all the time. Now that he’s on deployment, he might not be back for a long time.”
Tanner realized he shouldn’t have said that the moment the words were out of his mouth, but by then, it was too late to do anything about it. Sage’s heart rate spiked immediately, and her body went as rigid as if she’d been hit with a live electrical wire.
Oh shit. She was going into full hybrid mode.
“Zarina, get out of here!” he ordered, jumping up.
Across from him, Sage did the same, claws out and eyes glowing bloodred.
“I can help,” Zarina insisted, getting to her feet.
“Get out,” he growled. “Now!”
He hadn’t intended the words to come out that way, but knowing Zarina was trapped with him in a prison cell with an out-of-control hybrid made his control slip a little.
Zarina looked like she wanted to argue but then turned and ran for the door. Tanner expected the guard to immediately jerk open the door, but when he glanced that way, the man was still fumbling with the keys on the ring, searching for the right one.
“Open the door, dammit!” Tanner shouted.
