My keyboard is dying, I'll double check, but please forgive any missing or double letters, esspecialls d,k,n,and m. Writing without them really is a pain. Thanks to Melyons for pushing me to update. It's not unusual for a review to prod me into actually finishing a chapter and getting it up.
Recap: Ranger goes to a phycologist for a therapy called EMDR, and he retells the story of when Constantine Stiva kidnapped Stephanie.
I stopped talking, turned away from the light bar, and blinked. I felt oddly relaxed, considering how I had just be reliving one of my most stressful memories.
"How do you feel?" Dr. Burke asked.
"Surprisingly good, considering."
"On a scale on one to ten, with one being not bothered, and ten being the most stress you can imagine, where does this memory fall now?"
I pondered, and thought back to the events: the plane ride where I knew something was wrong, the frantic calls, the two heartbeats when I thought Stephanie was dead. Before the session started it was a nine. Now?
"About a two. I know why it upset me, I have a memory of what I was feeling, but I can think about it without my muscles tensing up, or my heart rate rising. That's amazing." I looked at my watch, only about half an hour had passed. "I thought dealing with shit like mine would take months."
"EMDR is extremely effective. It's not the end-all be-all for therapy, but it should help your flashbacks."
"How did they figure out it worked?"
"Believe it or not, by accident. A phycologist walking in the woods one day noticed her negative emotions lessened as her eyes moved back and forth, and she discovered that having her patients do the same thing helped their PTSD symptoms."
I pondered for a moment. "Could it work while driving? I go into what my girlfriend calls my 'zone' when I'm in the car. I'm checking the road for obstacles, tails, escape routes, so my eyes are darting all over. You would think that would be tiring, but somehow I always feel more relaxed afterwards. I always thought it was the hum of road noise or something."
"You may have stumbled onto the same basic idea on your own. Would you like to continue?"
I nodded. Though this memory wouldn't be a time I lacked control, but a time I lost it. I turned to the light bar again left, right, left, right, and fell into memory.
The sun shone bright on my face as I rolled onto my back, basking in the glow of the sun as it began its descent into the ocean. I pulled Stephanie into my lap, still panting from the 8th orgasm I'd given her today. Her arms floated lazily in the water of our private spa, playing with the small waves made by the jets. She nuzzled her nose into the base of my neck, making happy mewing noises as her muscles relaxed against me.
Left, right, left, right.
"I wish we never had to leave here." Stephanie said wistfully. I agreed. I'd done some mental math while watching her play in the ocean. Between the money I had saved up and income from Rangeman, I could afford for us to buy a beachfront home in Tahiti or some other South Pacific nation. We could live there in relative affluence, spending our days in seclusion on the beach, and our nights in seclusion in the bedroom. It seemed such a silly idea, but so tempting after the life of violence and suspicion I had led.
Left, right, left, right.
A harsh growl broke the mood, originating from the brunette in my lap.. Stephanie looked embarrassed, but I just laughed. "Let's feed the beast. What do you want for dinner?"
She playfully nipped at my ear. "Cuban."
She'd already had that for breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, and tea time. "I'm serious, do you want to go out? This resort must have at least one restaurant we haven't tried yet."
"I'm sure it does. But let's order in."
Left, right, left, right.
45 minutes later we were showered, dressed, and starving. I was in the bathroom when I heard the door knock. "I'll get it" Stephanie called as she padded over the the door and opened it. I quickly finished washing my hands to join her. Instead of the clank of a room service cart there was silence, and as I rounded the corner I saw why.
Instead of a sharply dressed bellhop, Morelli stood in the door, his mouth open and his eyes filled with fury.
Left, right, left, right.
I know how to handle myself in a fight, but it's a lot easier to fight someone you want to hurt. Keeping a jealousy-crazed trained cop off you without hurting him is much trickier, and I didn't want to get charged with assaulting an officer. I depend on a friendly relationship with the Trenton PD in order to run my business, so even if no jury would convict me, that didn't mean I didn't have to be careful.
He got in a few good blows as I struggled to keep him away from me. In the back of my mind I could hear Stephanie screaming at us both to stop. It didn't calm either of us down. He because even more enraged, and I let years worth of resentment come flooding out of me. Years where I had trained her, protected her, saved her life only to drop her off at his door at the end of the night. I told myself it was better, that I couldn't give her what she wanted, but it was bullshit. This man beating me didn't deserve her, and I was sick of it.
Left, right, left, right.
I spun away from his next blow, swept his foot out from under him, and used his momentum to bring him down to his knees. From there it was easy to get his arm twisted behind his back and to push him down into the plush carpet.
"You think you can just walk in here and take everything, don't you?" I whispered harshly in his ear, too quietly for Stephanie to hear us over her plaintive cries for us to stop. "You had your chance, but you just had to butt in here and fuck up everything, didn't you?"
I pushed my knee into his back, causing him to grunt in pain along with the cursing. I was starting to see red. It flashed through my mind how easy it would be to just end it here. Take out the competition. He wasn't good enough for her, he was a leach who was benefiting from my work, and advancing his career on how Stephanie and I often solved his cases while he took the credit. So for a second, just a second, I wanted him gone.
Left, right, left, right.
My thoughts were cut short by a cold prick against my neck, then a sharp pain, then a feeling of falling. I could hear Stephanie crying as I slipped into unconsciousness.
My memories aren't clear about what happened next. I could feel myself being pulled into a car by someone in a bellhop uniform with whispered conversation in the background.. Then I saw flashes of palm trees through the windows. Again I heard tears, but I couldn't see Stephanie, let alone comfort her. Finally I was lifted out in front of a large white building by people I eventually realized were hospital staff. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the same thing happening to Morelli. By the time I regained enough awareness to try to call Stephanie, her phone was going straight to voicemail.
Left, right, left, right.
It took a couple hours to get cleared to leave the hospital. Morelli was already gone, I'd been shocked close to my spinal cord, so it took longer for me to recover. When I got back to the resort her things were gone, her clothes, her toiletries, the return ticket. The only thing that remained was the ring I had given her. I'd told her I'd bought it at a pawn shop, but in reality it was my grandmothers. I looked around at the disheveled room, chairs knocked over from the fight, and wondered how everything had gone from perfect to shit so quickly.
One more of these scenes. Any other moments from the books you'de like to see from Ranger's point of view, or should I have an original scene?