Page 315 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

‘Sometimes I say something and you don’t hear me. Sometimes you walk into a room and don’t know why you’re there. Last week, you asked me the same question twice inside five minutes.’

Fear tightens around his heart like razor wire.

‘I need to catch up on my sleep.’

Quietly, Jules says, ‘You haven’t been the same since he punished you.’

Lachlan’s heart stutters, then strikes once with such alien force it seems to belong to someone else. His hand presses instinctively to his chest, but the intrusion is already gone.

‘Julian—’

‘You won’t talk about what happened.’

‘There’s nothing to talk about.’

‘He hurt you.’

‘I don’t remember it.’

‘You don’t think that’s strange?’

‘I…’ He searches for what to give, finds little. ‘My mind sometimes tries to protect me from certain things, like on Sable Key. I don’t remember a lot of the waterboarding.’

‘Is that normal?’

‘RB teaches you to disconnect so you don’t give anything up. You have to shut down. Sometimes it’s…’ Lachlan frowns to himself, feeling oddly vulnerable admitting such a thing. ‘It’s like a defence mechanism. So yeah, it’s weird, but it’s normal for me.’

Jules is staring at him, has that look like he’s figuring things out.

Not good things.

‘So if someone was trying to get information from you,’ he says slowly, ‘your mind would shut down automatically?’

Lachlan shrugs. ‘More or less. It’s called interrogation resistance.’

‘What if you didn’t know someone was doing it?’

‘How would I not know?’

Jules has no answer for him.

Lachlan moves on.

‘It doesn’t matter what happened in that room. It only matters that I let you believe that lie, and I really am sorry, Jules. I’m so sorry. But we can’t do this,’ he adds, helplessly soft, the words painful to speak aloud. ‘I let it go too far.’

‘Loving me?’

‘I crossed the line.’

‘Don’t give me this bullshit. I deserve better than that.’

Lachlan makes a breathy sound of frustration. ‘What do you want me to say? I know how bad I fucked up. I know I did the wrong thing. I always do with you. No matter what, I always find a way to hurt you.’

‘You don’t get to hide behind that like it absolves you of anything! You could easily have said, No, Jules, I didn’t fuck Danya, but we need to talk.’

‘You’d never have believed that.’

‘So you let me think you betrayed me?’