Page 4 of Ravaged With You

Water rushing. Pulse pounding. Garbled voices.

No!

For years, he’d managed to keep those demons at bay. Then New York happened and—

Stop it. You can do this. Just shove the memories away.

Right. He could do this.

He drew a breath, then rewound the video to where he’d been. He watched once more, gasping, as the assailant yanked his partner up. His hand went automatically to the knife he always kept in his back pocket, and he tried to calm his heartbeat.

In the video, Mel’s head wobbled as he tried to catch his breath in a room that was rapidly filling with poisonous air.

Then he was pushed head down into the mash again. Thirty seconds. A minute. Ninety seconds.

You think you can play the hero? You’ll only play the fool.

And then back up to try to breathe, only to find there wasn’t any more air on the outside than inside that tub.

Mel? Or Red? Who was it who needed air?

Again and again and again until finally the assailant shoved Mel’s limp body all the way over the waist-high lip of the tub. And down he went, the mash sucking him in like quicksand.

Memories crashed through Red’s mind. He gasped, dropping the phone as his hand reached for his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t fucking breathe.

He tried to swallow, forcing himself to concentrate as he grabbed Mel’s phone and shoved it in his pocket.

Under the water. His lungs squeezing. No air. Needed air.

Gasping, trying to breathe, he pulled out his own phone and dialed 911. He heard himself say that his partner had killed himself. That they needed to send someone. His voice was raw. He had no air. He couldn’t hear the operator, only the hollow echo of the water that surrounded him.

Then his legs gave out, and he crashed to the floor. He could still hear the emergency operator talking as his entire world went black.

Chapter Two

Before

Blackness. Sweet, utter blackness.

He wanted to stay there. Wanted to get lost in it, to never come out of it.

You have to. It’s important.

But why? Why was it important?

He couldn’t remember. Didn’t know what he was doing or where he was. Hell, he didn’t even know who he was.

Icy panic flooded his veins, and he bucked, trying to move his hands, then realizing with more astonishment than fear that they were tied behind him.

Where was he? Who was he?

Charlie…

The name was like a whisper in the dark. A tease. A hint of who he was, or maybe who he had been.

Then a fiery hot sting against his face that seemed to shatter every bone.

“Again.”