“Sure. I’ll start with the most obvious to ease into it.” Dr. Harper only raised an eyebrow but didn’t interrupt. “Veseli.”
Dr. Harper’s face cleared a bit. “Ah, yes. He does seem to be central in your dreams. What do you make of the changes?”
“I follow him because I feel guilty. It could be my mind trying to work out the fact that I wanted to go with him but stayed behind. I obeyed orders like a good little girl, and that bothers me. Maybe I even feel survivor’s guilt for not going with him. He died, and I didn’t, and it was because I stayed behind.”
Dr. Harper nodded. “Okay, so far, so good. What about the conversations you carried on with him? They’re specific. What do you think your brain is trying to tell you?”
“That I really did love him like a father. I should’ve told him when he was alive, but I didn’t realize it until it was too late.”
“And now you spend your nights seeking the closure they robbed you of.”
I nodded, picking at Kaz’s bracelet before stopping myself. The fragile twine had begun to unravel, and my habit of playing with it only exasperated the process. I cleared my throat. “That’s what I assume, but it makes sense to me in some twisted way. It’s like I can only care for him when he’s gone.”
“And who can blame you? There’s bound to be some mixed feelings for him. He kidnapped you from your childhood. He smuggled you out of the country. As his personal weapon, he used your computer skills to his gain with very little repayment to you.”
I shrugged, unwilling to pretend that Veseli had been so bad. As he’d pointed out himself, he’d saved me from a stepfather I’d hero-worshipped, a man who had sold me like a farm animal to the first person who showed an interest.
“You know, I’ve been curious. Do you truly believe he’s dead? They never found a body, and he’s been deceased before.”
My throat tightened with pain, and my heart clenched. Sometimes I had no idea what to believe. I’d agonized over it for weeks. Dr. Harper hadn’t brought up any points I’d not already gone over with a fine-toothed comb countless times when left to my thoughts.
Did I think they’d killed Veseli?
I nodded, unable to say anything else. It’d been weeks. Veseli said that if he hadn’t contacted me in a day, then he’d been killed. He wouldn’t be so cruel to pull the same stunt on me, to let me mourn him again if he had any other choice.
And if he’d been taken alive, Ivanov would have found a way to lord it over my head as bait or torture me with the sounds of his execution. Neither of those things happened, so I had to believe Veseli had died.
“Hmm,” Dr. Harper said noncommittally. “Okay, so that’s the mystery of your subconscious messages concerning Veseli. What about Andrea?”
I bounced my foot, wondering myself. “His presence boggles me, but not as much. I mean, he’s a hulk of a man. Being around him, knowing he kept me alive in the past… I felt safe. Maybe it’s a small mercy from my subconscious to let me have him there and not fight everything on my own.”
“Your mind recreates the events with him at your side, just like old times. It does beg the question though… if he always had your back, then why did his presence not tip the scales in your favor?”
I frowned at him. “What?”
“Essentially, his entire existence in the nightmare changed nothing, except for the fact that you had to experience his death as well. If your mind played him out as a mental security blanket in the face of danger, why did both he and Veseli still die in the end?”
I opened my mouth to respond only to find I couldn’t. What did it mean? I shook my head instead. “I don’t know. What concerns me is the fact that these are happening during the day now.”
Dr. Harper stared down at his fancy ballpoint pen as he tapped it on his desk. He mulled over his thoughts as if formulating an answer. He’d never been so cautious laying things out for me before. I wondered why he felt the need to do so now.
He steepled his fingers together in front of him as he met my eyes. “Callie, I… I suspect you may suffer from PTSD.”
“Post-traumatic stress…” I fell back into the chair with a dull thud. “You think I have a disorder.”
Dr. Harper’s face twisted. “Now, now. It’s nothing bad per se. Many people suffer from it to varying degrees—”
“I’m not suffering. I can handle it,” I argued.
Dr. Harper lost the baby gloves. “By all means then… tell me why you have the same nightmare each night, why you are having flashes while you’re awake.” He leaned forward. “Tell me why you still have to take a ten-minute breather every time you take the elevator, or why you choose the stairs any time there’s an alternative.”
I’d take the stairs to get to Delta if the special elevator wasn’t the only way in. “Some little birdies have been quite talkative.”
Dr. Harper frowned. “The Cardinals care about you, Callie. They’re worried. We all are. And I have to say, I have reservations about how you seem to have hidden these changes from the Tate and Emerson Teams—or rather, the newly merged Emerson Team. Why?”
There was the Dr. Harper I knew so well. Dr. Harpoon would be more accurate. His point shot straight to my heart.
I glanced at the clock.
He noticed, of course. Few things slipped his sharp attention, if any at all. “Callie,” he warned.
Dr. Harper was queuing up for a long speech, I could tell.
“I’m sorry, but Brock made us promise that we wouldn’t be late. They’ll order a building-wide manhunt if we don’t show up on time. He’ll think the Cardinals had me kidnapped or something.”
I gave him a helpless shrug as I backed toward the door.
“You’re being childish.” He stood up as well. “Callie Jensen, so help me, if you keep backing out of my office, then I’ll—”
As a show of how well we’d come to function as a team, the door opened when I got within a foot of it. Triz peeked in, noticed me, and then saw Dr. Harper standing the way he usually did when someone left his office—at least he did for me and the rest of the Cardinals when they accompanied me to a session. It was good old-fashioned chivalry and respect—a habit that came back to bite him this time.
Triz’s face lit up in excitement. “Oh good! You’re all finished.” She reached in and snagged me up, leading me around like a lost, clueless puppy. I’d talked to her about this one time after I grew comfortable enough to put my foot down. She seemed to have forgotten the parameters of our agreement. I hadn’t the heart to dispute her actions—not today of all days—and when she’d gotten away with it earlier, she treated it as a carte blanche.
While Dr. Harper spluttered about, putting two and two together five seconds too late to stop anything, Triz pulled me out of his office.
I frowned, looking down the hallway in both directions. “Where are the others?”
She slung an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into her side. “They decided to meet us there.”
“Ah, and where is there?”
“Conference Room B.”
Conference Room B was on this same floor. I wouldn’t have to climb any stairs.