The Promise (Darkest Lies Trilogy Book 2), Bethany-Kris [top 50 books to read .txt] 📗

From the way Michelle avoided looking at the far end of the room—where Roman sat watching the exchange without inserting himself because Karine asked him to be there—it was highly likely that the wrong people her brother owed money to were the Avdonins. Or someone with close enough connections to Roman’s family that he had been able to pull weight.

The woman hadn’t wanted Roman to be in the room with them. In fact, she’d insisted on privacy to facilitate the most effective first meeting and session. But that wasn’t what Karine wanted; to be alone with a stranger, already twisting inside from anxiety eating her alive.

She didn’t think this would be easy, but goddammit ... it didn’t have to be hard, either. She wanted Roman with her every step of the way, if he would be there, and hadn’t been able to suppress the smile when he agreed to be in the room with her.

There was something settling about knowing he was willing to face all the darkness with her, to peel back the layers and uncover everything there was to find inside her. Even the things she didn’t know about herself. It felt a bit like Pandora’s box, really, but some things just had to be done.

So fine.

She’d do it with him.

As comfortable and safe as she felt with Roman, Karine couldn’t say the same about the woman who was there to help her. Part of it could certainly be blamed on the invisible itchiness under Karine’s skin making itself known—the undeniable urge to flee from the conversation they were about to have. The rest of it was just ... her nature.

Karine couldn’t help it.

Everyone hurt her. Not a single soul had ever given a shit about her, and she wasn’t going to start trusting that had changed just because the woman introduced herself as a specialist at the top of her field.

She peeked Roman’s way, then.

Well, almost everyone.

Every time she came close to leaving the room, she turned to look at Roman, and he would nod at her. It encouraged her to stay. Just a little longer, to see if the feeling improved. Honestly, that was the only thing keeping here there at the moment.

“How about,” Michelle said, “I ask a few simple things ... just to be sure what you’re dealing with? I was told a little bit, and I suspect that’s really what’d you like from me, Karine. To know.”

She dragged in a stinging, shaky breath. “Yeah, I would.”

“So, can I ask?”

“Okay.”

Michelle nodded with a smile, and glanced down at the black notebook in her lap. “Why don’t you start by telling me if there are chunks of time in your day to day life—when you just black out? Do you have moments like that? A lot of time where you don’t remember what happens or how you end up where you do.”

Karine stared at the woman who was examining her, trying to focus on the shape of the spectacles resting on the bridge of her freckled nose instead of her voice.

Yes, there were times like that.

Much too often.

Michelle glanced up at Karine’s silence, but she managed to tip her chin down in a half-nod that at least did its job. It was enough for the doctor to make a note of it in her book.

“How often in a week? Less than ten, more—”

“It depends.”

“Why is that?”

The answer was not so easy.

Karine glanced over her shoulder at Roman who sat exactly where he had been a few minutes ago. His presence gave her strength, but it didn’t dull the sharp, blinding shame that spiraled through her when she told the doctor, “Some weeks were worse than others—the medications didn’t help when it came to having any real understanding of time, or days ... specific months, even.”

Michelle met her stare, asking only, ‘What medications?”

“I really don’t know ... well, you see—”

“That wasn’t something Karine had a choice in—it was just a method used by people around her to keep her compliant, and manageable,” Roman spoke up from his side of the room. The first time he did, and she was grateful that he saw her struggle and was willing to help.

The doctor didn’t even look his way, but did make a note of it in her notebook before coming back to Karine with a gentle smile. “Okay, back to the time thing. Other people know, don’t they? They are aware of exactly what you did in the time you find yourself losing?”

“I mean, Masha says stuff sometimes, and other people do, too, but I don’t know ... I never did what they say I did.”

Her words came out in a rush while her hands trembled where she had folded them in her lap. She didn’t like that idea at all. It nearly made her sick to think about how much time she couldn’t account for—empty spaces in her memory where there was just nothing. She was always brought back to consciousness with a gasp, and a throbbing ache at the back of her head, and she couldn’t quite say it felt like waking up.

Because it didn’t.

Unable to stand the crawling sensation under her skin, or sit still a moment longer, Karine stood up from her chair with a jerk. She needed to move to do this—to give those thoughts in her mind space to breathe.

The woman’s gaze stayed on her as she paced the length of the room, and so did Roman’s.

“But then I have times when I see things—like I’m remembering them,” Karine said as she toyed with the ends of her hair, still pacing. “But they don’t feel like mine.”

“Do you hear them?”

“Sometimes.”

“Have you seen any evidence from the other identities?” Michelle asked when Karine rounded the middle of the room and headed right back for the windows in mid-stride. “Something that interests them but has nothing to do with you?”

“Drawings. Sketches left by Katee.”

It pained her to say one of the names—to finally accept it for what it was—because a part of her had