Evan Arden 03 Otherwise Unharmed by Shay Savage Read Free Book Online Page B

sleeping.
    “Hey , yourself,” Lia replied.  “You’ve been out a while now.  I was afraid I’d have to move in here.”
    “Fuck no,” I said.  “No way would I let anyone put you in here.”
    There must have been a little more venom in my voice than I had intended because Lia shrank back a bit.
    “Sorry,” I said sheepishly.  “It ’s just…this place is…well, it sucks.  Let’s leave it at that.”
    “I think that’s part of the deal, yes.”
    The door clicked as it opened, and Mark Duncan peered around the corner of the frame to look at us.
    “How are you feeling?” he asked.
    I fought the urge to give him a flippant, obnoxious reply.  As my mind focused and understood better where I was and what was going on around me, I knew Mark was going to be my key to getting out of here.  Moretti’s lawyer could only do so much without my shrink saying I was safe enough to be out on the streets.  Without his recommendation, I wasn’t going anywhere.
    “I feel a lot better.”  It was easier when I didn’t have to lie.  “I feel like I can think straight again.”
    I glanced back and forth between Lia and Mark a few times and let my eyes widen.
    “I really fucked up,” I said.  I shook my head a little before glancing back to Mark.  “ Shit—did I hurt anybody?”
    Mark let out a long breath.
    “No, Evan.  You didn’t hurt anybody.”
    I nodded slowly, internally pleased that he was none the wiser about my actual activities.  All I had to do now was keep myself in check —calm and collected—until Rinaldo and his resources could get me out of here.
    That didn’t end up working out so well.
    Mark Duncan left us with the guard so he could go to the warden and discuss some paperwork. I sat up and leaned against the wall of the room with Lia sitting next to me, rubbed at my eyes, which were thick with sleep, and tried not to let the grit remind me of sand.
    “How are you really feeling?” Lia asked quietly.  She glanced up at the guard and then back to me before she reached over and placed her hand on my thigh.
    “Better,” I said honestly.  “My head’s a little clearer, anyway.”
    “You woke up a couple of times,” Lia said.  “I wasn’t sure what I should do, but you settled down within a few minutes.  You seemed to sleep pretty well after that, though.”
    “ I remember,” I told her.  “How long was I out?”
    “Almost six hours.”
    Maybe it wasn’t a full night’s sleep, but it was a hell of a lot better than I had been getting.  I couldn’t have said I felt right, but at least I knew what was happening around me.  I leaned my head against her shoulder and touched my nose to her neck.  I wanted to turn her toward me and kiss her the way I knew she liked it but not with the guard watching over us.  I wasn’t much for public displays.
    “Evan?”
    “Hmm?”
    “Tell me what happened.”
    I tensed, wondering for a moment if she meant what I had done from the balcony of my apartment but understood pretty quickly that my display there wasn’t what she wanted to know.  I knew it before she even had a chance to confirm it.
    “Tell me what happened to you over there.”
    “Fuck.”  The word escaped from my throat like a rifle blast.  My hands clenched into fists as images of tanks, uniformed enlisted troops with their eyes wide and nervous, and sand filled my mind.  I shook my head to rid myself of the images, but it didn’t work.
    “Please —I want to know.”
    “No,” I said.  I pushed myself up using the wall as support and stumbled a little as I gained my footing.  Lia stood with me, her hand reaching out to touch my arm.
    “ Evan—I need to know so I can help you.  How else am I supposed to know what to do?”
    I stared at her, breathing through my mouth and trying not to hyperventilate.  The thing was, I wanted to tell her—desperately so.  I wanted to tell her everything—even the shit I never told the military during debriefing.  But