“At first, when I was working on it, I was doing so in my dreams. I was a child, building a bomb in my head when everything had gone wrong. When things get overwhelming for me, I retreat into my head and I build bombs.” He despised admitting that to the others, but he did so matter-of-factly. “I look at it like puzzles in my head. I just fit the pieces together. I focus on that instead of what is going on around me.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Mechanic said. “I tend to do the same with engines.”
“I do it with art, tattoos,” Ink admitted. “Sometimes I bring wildlife into it.”
“For me, it’s the weather, the cloud formations,” Storm said.
“Music,” Maestro said.
“Best not to say what goes on in my mind when I need to escape, not with Zyah here,” Savage said. “Suffice it to say, bombs are the better alternative.”
Czar said nothing. He looked expectantly at Player, indicating for him to continue.
Player rubbed his hand up and down Zyah’s arm. Both of them—maybe everyone in the shed—had realized, when Zyah had revealed that Anat had known Maestro was lying over the tea, that she most likely had to have known about her husband and his anniversary gift. If she could hear lies, and she’d lived with her husband all those years, how could she not know? Zyah was truly devastated. Player didn’t know what to think, and he was determined to reserve judgment.
You okay, baby? If you need to go up to the house for a break, I can handle this here. We won’t go any further, other than trying to figure things out, without waiting for you.
I can handle it, Zyah assured, cuddling closer into him. I know my grandmother. She would never be involved in anything that would harm others. The idea just threw me for a moment.
“The problem started when I was shot. I really hate to call it a brain injury.” Player despised revealing that his brain had been torn up by that bullet. “Apparently, that bullet did a lot of damage. Steele worked his magic, but the trauma was very severe. The migraines started and refused to stop. I have nightmares nearly every night.”
Now he really sounded like a pussy. He hadn’t ever wanted to talk about this to his club. He’d felt so different from them, so apart, and this just seemed to make it worse, yet when he’d admitted he built bombs in his mind in order to stop himself from thinking about what was happening to his body when he was raped, the others shared they’d done similar things. Player tightened his hold on Zyah. He’d sat next to her to comfort her, and now she was the one giving him the strength to tell the others what needed to be said.
“When I used to build illusions, playing around with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the characters for all of you when we were kids, if I did it too long, my brain couldn’t handle it. I wasn’t in full control of my talent then. I hadn’t really built it up, and sometimes I’d get tired if I entertained you too long.”
He rubbed at his temples, remembering the pounding ache that always told him he’d gone too far. “I’d get these terrible headaches. I learned to stop the moment I’d get blasted with one, but before I realized that was the warning sign, I discovered that my illusions could turn to an alternate reality very fast. The alternate was never good and would pull others into it.”
Player glanced around the shed. The others were very quiet, very focused on him. “I often built the illusion of the wall with the door so we could all slip through. I did it dozens of times, but sometimes things would go wrong. We’d be in bad shape. The first few times, I was young and it was difficult for me. I wasn’t strong enough.”
He shook his head and glanced at Czar. Zyah tightened her fingers on his skin, her mind moving in his. “Remember when I was holding the illusion of the wall with the closed door so Sorbacov and his friends had no idea all of you were escaping out the real door? That time when we were all in such bad shape? Really bad shape. Every one of us. We could barely walk. They’d nearly killed Savage and Reaper. We thought they were dead. All of us were already in the dungeon, but we went back for them. We thought Sorbacov was gone. He and his friends came back.”
Beads of sweat formed on Player’s forehead. He felt them trickle down his face and wiped at them with the back of his hand. He couldn’t look at Zyah. What if she couldn’t accept him after he admitted this to her? What if Czar couldn’t?