Free Blood and Bone by Tara Brown Page B

takes a breath pushes everything else away.
    “Where did you go?”
    I shake my head. “I rode the bus for a long time. Then I got a ride back with the cops. They were at a house on the outskirts of the city. So they drove me back, thinking I was a crackhead. I had to clear on the system before they would let me come home.”
    He kisses my neck. “Did you clear?”
    “Yup. No Jane Spears in the system.”
    He pauses, mimicking the stiffened feel of my back. We are both aware of something suddenly, I just don’t know what I’m aware of. I’m still lost, regardless of how my body reacts. “So, you never confessed to being Samantha Barnes?”
    I turn to face him, looking up into his beautiful face. “I didn’t. I don’t think I am Samantha Barnes. I think she died a long time ago. I like being Jane. What good is going to come of being Samantha? She clearly has issues.”
    He drags his hand down my face, brushing his thumb against my lips. “I was so worried you hated me for lying to you.”
    I shake my head slowly. “I just needed to get some air and some distance. I needed to swallow the truth whole so I could digest the fact I’ve killed things in my sleep. That’s haunting me. It makes me sick. I just think about the people looking for their animals that I’ve killed. It makes me ill.”
    His brow knits, and I see the hurt in his eyes. “It’s not your fault. I swear, you are asleep. You don’t know.”
    “We have to do something to make it stop.”
    He nods. “I will start sedating you again.” He winces. “It’s just—that’s how you got into the accident last time. I sedated you and left the house. You got up, drove the car, and crashed it.”
    My wicked brain wonders if it’s true. My eyes are mesmerized by his. They believe everything he says. But my brain whispers that there is no way a small, sedated woman got up and drove a car. If my scars are old, Derek is lying about it. But I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. I just don’t know how far to follow him down this path, nodding my head like a smitten schoolgirl.
    There is one thing I want to do, on the off chance everything Rory has said is true and my life is a complete lie. I lift my hands to his cheeks, cupping his face. I say the one thing I haven’t ever said to him, not aloud. I have written it and texted it and whispered it when I thought he was sleeping. But I haven’t ever said it. “I love you.”
    He winces. “Why did you say that?”
    “Because you are everything I ever wanted in the world. I don’t know how I know this. I don’t remember ever wishing for you, but I know I did. In my soul and my being, I know I did.”
    He looks lost. “I love you, Jane. I always have.”
    I nod, believing it completely. “I know you have.” And that’s the truth of the matter. I know he has loved me since the dawn of our time.
    I just don’t know what to do with it.

7. GOING ROGUE
    W hen we make love, I relax completely. I savor the feel of his body inside and on top of mine. The feel of him pressing me into the bed is magical.
    The pill I pretend to swallow isn’t.
    He kisses me good night. I slip the pill into my pillowcase and close my eyes when he turns the light off.
    I pretend to fall asleep, feigning the deep breathing and then the slack face. In the light of the alarm clock I can see him staring at me when I glance under my lashes. The look on his face is frightening. It’s the first time I have ever seen anything like it. He looks detached from me completely.
    After a while, I don’t know how long, he climbs from the bed and dresses silently. Somewhere in the dark, my heart breaks with fear that he’s actually the monster they say he is.
    When he slips from the room I wait for the sound of the door closing to the outside before I sit up. Something immediately tells me to lie back down, so I do. I breathe deeply, suddenly afraid of everychoice I have made. I lie there still and terrified, only to have it all