31. Mercy

"Alright, lady."Lucy snatched my arm and dragged me toward the hotel room door. "Time to get you out of here."

"I'm not going to the hospital."

"Of course you're not. But I'm hungry. It's time to eat."

"How can you even think of eating at a time like this?" I asked incredulously.

"Well, in all fairness, he's your hot boyfriend, not mine. And since I only met him one time, I really don't have a connection with him. In fact, it would be weird if I was all upset over this tumor thing. Then you'd start thinking that I had a secret crush on Chase, and then I'd have to explain that I didn't. It would become this whole thing, and I don't have the energy to deal with that and worry about getting one of these guys to finally make a move on me."

I slipped my feet into my tennis shoes and sighed. "Right, I forgot about you trying to snag one."

"Really? I would have thought my constant undressing for the cameras would have kept it at the forefront of your mind. Man, you really were lost in your thoughts."

The door swung open and Patrick strolled in, grinning widely at me. "Ready to eat?"

"No."

"Too bad. I found a great restaurant I want to try."

"I really don't want to?—"

"Hey! Are we leaving yet? I found a great place for us to try," Fox grinned, shoving through the door. He frowned when he saw me. "You look terrible. When was the last time you cleansed your chakra?"

"Did what?" I asked, not sure I needed to know this.

He chuckled lightly. "Reset yourself. You know, become at one with who you are deep in your soul."

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. "I'm not sure I want to get to know her."

"It's easy," he said, wrapping his arm around my waist as he guided me down the hall. "First, we need to go for a walk. Barefoot, preferably. Then, we'll visit the river, maybe dip your toes in."

"Wait," I stopped him. "Why would I do that?"

"To make you at one with the root chakra and the sacral chakra. Duh. After that…"

He continued talking as we walked down the hall, but I tuned him out. The last thing I needed was to go for a walk barefoot.

"And if that doesn't work, we'll surround you with chakra colors."

"How exactly do you surround yourself with colors?" I regretted it as soon as the words left my mouth.

"Well, you need to focus on one at a time. The easiest way is to wear a color. Ooh, or we can put some color-tinted glasses on you," he grinned. "Man, this is going to be so amazing."

"Uh, not to interrupt, but we were about to go to lunch," Patrick said. "I have a restaurant picked out."

"Yeah, sorry, but I can't eat all that greasy food," Fox grimaced. "That shit is so bad for you. I found a healthy restaurant for us. As an appetizer, they serve sprouts with a delicious?—"

"Fox!" Patrick snapped. "I am not eating sprouts or anything that could be considered a weed."

"It's not a weed. And for many years before people learned about eating meat, they ate from the earth."

"Learned about eating meat?" Patrick asked, his face twisted in confusion. "What do you think cavemen ate?"

"Uh, I think it's pretty obvious they ate off the land," Fox snorted.

"Yeah? In the middle of the Ice Age?" Patrick shot back.

"Maybe they stored the food like…like that guy in the Bible?" Fox snapped.

"Yeah, the cavemen who could only grunt to each other predicted a famine and gathered weeds to outlast the ice age. There are ancient cave drawings of them drying the leaves!"

"Oh my God, stop!" I shouted, ending the madness. Were they always like this? "Neither of you are picking the restaurant. Lucy and I will decide where we eat."

"That's right," Lucy nodded. "As much as I love my body, there is no way I'm eating weeds."

"You're only siding with him because you want to sleep with him," Fox pouted.

"That may be, but I still wouldn't eat weeds even if there was a shot he would be in my bed tonight."

"My restaurant had shawarma," Patrick muttered. "Not that you care, you big traitor."

"I'm not a traitor," Fox gasped. "I gave up a life of misery for one of healing and cleansing."

"That cleansing will give us all the shits if we eat it," Patrick spat. "Can't you do us all a favor and become a crazy killer again? I don't know how much more of this I can take."

"You want him to be a killer?" This was so weird.

"A crazy, righteous killer," Patrick corrected. "Now he's all moral and just. He wants to heal people with his mind, and he's driving us all fucking crazy!"

"Is it wrong that he doesn't want to be a killer?" I asked. Geez, that sounded really selfish of Patrick.

"Sure, it sounds bad if you put it like that, but it's not only that part of him that's changed. His wife is worried about him. He doesn't watch musicals anymore, and he talks about sticks and chalk all the time."

"Chakra," Fox corrected, "and I'm just being mindful."

"You're being a fucking pain in the ass. Why do you think everyone keeps passing you off? No one wants to be around you. We thought it was bad before with your Funyuns and your pig's feet, but this is even worse! You're not even eating meat anymore!"

I was pretty sure I'd lost my appetite by now. Between eating grass and the feet of pigs, the thought of food just wasn't appealing. "Oh, look! Dresses!" I squealed, dragging Lucy into the boutique off the hotel lobby. I pulled her far enough into the shop that the guys couldn't hear us. Spinning to face her, I took a calming breath. "We need to escape them. I can't take this. They bicker like an old married couple. I'm trying to stay calm, not work myself into a frenzy!"

"Well, what do you want to do? It's not like we can ditch them. Besides, I think I'm really making progress with Patrick," she grinned.

"Oh, what do you know? You'd trade your kid for a hot man."

"You bet your ass I would," she chuckled. "Have you seen the way Patrick looks in his tactical gear?" she asked, smiling as she waved to him in the lobby.

"Who are you and what have you done with my friend?"

She turned to me with a frown. "What are you talking about? I've always ogled men. There's nothing different there."

"You didn't used to know the term tactical gear."

"I read," she sneered at me.

"What exactly do you read?" I scoffed, knowing there was only one thing she liked to read, and it had nothing to do with military men.

She squirmed under my intense gaze, finally giving in. "Alright, I don't read. While you were pacing the hospital, I was cozying up to Patrick."

I gasped, stepping back in shock. "You told me you went for coffee."

"I did, okay? But you were crying and sad, and I'm not good with those things. Besides, he's really hot. Have you seen him?"

"Of course, I have, but I wouldn't have left you in your time of need."

"You didn't need me. You were wearing a hole in the floor," she shot back. "Besides, I was very clear from the beginning that I wanted to meet a friend of Chase's. He was right there. Tell me I'm wrong."

I rolled my eyes, trying to be upset with her, but the truth was, I hadn't even really noticed she was gone. When she told me she was going, I heard her, but didn't actually pay attention. She could have been sitting in the chair the whole time and I wouldn't have noticed.

"Well, what are we going to do now? I can't listen to them argue the whole time."

"Right. There's only one thing to do. We have to split them up."

"Okay, and how do we do that?"

She patted me on the shoulder with a weak smile. "I'll take Patrick. See ya later!"

She took off, racing for the front of the store. "Lucy!" I hissed, but it was too late. She was already waving over her shoulder as she guided Patrick back to the elevators. It looked like I was stuck with Fox for the rest of the day.

"Now, go into the downward dog,"Fox instructed, twisting his body downward.

I sat like a lump, refusing to comply.

He glanced over at me with a frown, his head hanging upside down. "Mercy, downward dog."

"Fox," I mocked, "not gonna happen."

He breathed through his pose, then stood upright with his hands together in a prayer. After a few muttered words, he turned to me with a disapproving look. "You know, yoga only helps if you actually do it."

"If I wanted to do yoga, I would have started a long time ago."

"You weren't even trying," he chastised. "Trust me. I've been doing this for a few months now and I can attest to how amazing it is. I'm like a whole new person."

"And from what I hear, everyone wishes you'd go back to the way you were," I snapped, feeling only slightly bad about taking my anger out on him. After all, he was the one preventing me from wallowing in peace.

"Harsh, lady. You know, I was trying to be friendly."

"Can you be friendly without trying to convert me to your uber healthy lifestyle?"

"This is how I bond. Well, most recently. Before, I just used to watch musicals."

I winced, not sure that was any better. At least he wouldn't be forcing me to eat weird food or making me do yoga. "Alright, let's watch a musical."

His face paled and he shook his head. "No, I…can't."

"Why not?"

"Because." He swallowed hard, like this was some line in the sand he couldn't cross.

"Because…it might distract me?"

Again, he swallowed hard.

"How about…what's that one with the fighting gangs?"

"West Side Story," he whispered, his voice cracking as he said it. "That's…not a good option."

"Why?"

"Because—" He suddenly spun away from me, running his fingers through his hair. "I need to do some yoga. Maybe get some lavender to calm me down."

I had no idea what was going on right now, but he was flipping out. I watched as he practically tore the place apart looking for something. He grabbed a bag, ripping it open in his mad search for this mysterious object.

"Fox—"

"I just need my stick."

"Like…a stick outside?" I asked in confusion.

Finally, he yanked his hand from the bag and held up a purple tube. Uncapping it, he breathed in the scent and slowly started to calm down. That was strange at best.

"Okay, not that I'm one to talk given what I'm going through at the moment, but that was…what the hell just happened?"

"Nothing," he chuckled. "Everything's totally fine."

I quirked an eyebrow at him. "Not to point out the obvious, but I've been dragged across the country as my boyfriend hallucinated an imaginary person and various threats. He's about to have his brain sliced open, and if it weren't for my insane attraction to him, I might have noticed sooner that something was wrong. So, I might not be the best at spotting when something is wrong, but I can definitely see that you are not fine."

With his hands resting on his hips, he finally turned to me. His face was pained despite the fact he was trying to appear cool and collected. "I just…had a moment."

"Okay," I said slowly. "And would you like to explain what that moment meant?"

"Not particularly."

I could see forcing him to talk wasn't going to work. Not that I could blame him. Everyone always tried to get me to open up and talk about my feelings when I was going through the transplant process. It sucked to have everyone trying to dive into my brain and assess how I was feeling. I wouldn't do that to someone else.

"Okay," I shrugged, sitting on the couch.

"That's it?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at me.

"If you don't want to talk, we don't have to." I glanced at the clock and sighed. There were still hours left of the surgery, and nothing so far had completely distracted me from the gnawing in my gut.

"How about that movie?" Fox asked, taking a seat beside me on the couch.

"Sure," I smiled, if only to feel normal for a few minutes.

The minutes slowly ticked by as I pretended to watch the movie. I tried to focus on the singing and dancing. I even knew a few songs and muttered along with them. But it only lasted a few seconds before I was back to wondering how the surgery was going. My fingers itched to pick up the phone and call in a few favors with doctors I knew could get me answers. But part of me didn't want to know. As long as I was in the dark, I couldn't overanalyze what was happening.

"I killed a man when I was a kid."

Fox's low voice rasped beside me, completely stopping my chaotic train of thought.

"What?" I was sure I'd heard him wrong. That's when I noticed that his fingers were tapping out a rhythm on his knee in time with the music. "What happened?"

"A man was raping my mother. She was a—" His lips pressed firmly together as his face scrunched up.

I didn't know why he was telling me this, but I wasn't about to stop him if he felt like he had to get it out.

"I didn't think. I just grabbed the first thing I found and bashed his head in," he said, staring at the screen as his fingers continued their rhythm. "West Side Story was playing on the TV."

"And that's why you don't like musicals," I surmised. But to my surprise, he shook his head no.

"That's what fueled my desire to unleash the anger inside me. All it took was hearing that snappy tune and something inside of me just…snapped." His eyes took on a happy…almost maniacal look as he cocked his head and stared at the TV. He took a deep breath and relaxed into the couch, his fingers still drumming on his knee.

I shifted uncomfortably beside him, not because of what he just admitted, but because I felt like I was watching a porno. He was in his element right now, feeding the demon inside him. And I had a front row seat to that depraved side of him.

"Um…" What did a person say when another person admitted to something so strange?

I faced the TV, all too aware that there was nothing I could say right now without greatly insulting the man beside me. I hadn't lived his life or watched my mother being raped. I hadn't killed a man in cold blood and enjoyed it. Nor did I find musicals as a great motivator for killing someone. Although, now that I was watching this musical, it was all I could think about.

"Is it the music?" I asked out loud, though I was really talking to myself.

"Depends on the musical. In West Side Story, it was the snapping. When I bashed in that guy's head and looked up, it was the end of the song. Just the snapping," he said, still staring at the TV with a mesmerized look on his face. "I just kept snapping."

"And that sends you into some blind rage," I ventured a guess.

"It…calms me. The only way I can describe it is that it fuels something inside me. The desire for blood takes over."

I nodded, though I didn't understand it. "Any other songs do it for you?"

His lips twitched as a smile spread across his lips. "Phantom Of The Opera. I really like that one."

"Sure, I can see that. It's all dark and twisty."

"Great music." Then he frowned, shaking his head. "But that part of my life is over. I left it behind."

"Dare I ask why?"

His head slowly swiveled to face me. "I lost my desire to take a life." His eyes flicked up in thought. "No, I lost the thrill of torture. It was never about killing for me. It was about inflicting pain, to release some of that pent-up tension in my body. It would invade my mind until the only way to release it was to lose myself to it." His eyes moved back to the TV and he resumed tapping his knee. "I thought I'd left all that behind. And then you mentioned that musical."

"I'm sorry."

He shook his head slightly, and then a bright smile lit his face. He grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. "No need. I see my willpower is not quite as strong as I thought. Time to do some more yoga. Ready?"

I wasn't at all, but I had flipped some switch in his brain. Wasn't it my responsibility to help him move past it?

"Sure."

Luckily, the phone rang, saving me from another hour of meditation. I rushed over to it, grabbing the receiver. "Hello?"

"Mercy, it's Cash."