Over the Edge: The Edge - Book Four Read online

  Over the Edge

  The Edge - Book Four

  CD Reiss

  Over the Edge

  © 2018 Flip City Media Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  If any person or event in this book seems too real to be true, it’s luck, happy coincidence, or wish-fulfillment on the reader’s part.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: I did research. A ton of it. But I also make stuff up for a living.

  There are a thousand ways to break something and more than one method of repair. Institutions we think we know from experience have engaged thousands of others in their own, equally valid experiences. What you assume is an error may be something else entirely. Or I might have fucked up.

  You can poke me with corrections on any number of subjects and if I can fix an error, I will. I’m wrong a lot.

  Also, liberties were taken.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Part I

  Part II

  Acknowledgments

  Also by CD Reiss

  Part One

  TENSION

  Chapter One

  CADEN

  THE GREEN ZONE

  FIVE DAYS AFTER GREYSON TAKES BICAM

  I kept my promises. Every one of them. To my country. To the military. To my wife. But I never realized how easy it had been. Greyson would have called my life a cakewalk. That was her word. Cakewalk. When my world was gray and flat, she spoke in full color. I missed her. She was in the room with me, but I missed her.

  Knock-knock.

  My not-wife sat on the edge of a worn chair in her apartment, looking into the space between the imaginary horizon and the deepest part of her soul, filtering details through a wider and wider net. With the knock, she shut her mouth tight and looked to me for her next move.

  Greyson never would have looked to me for guidance. Not that flatly. Not without having an opinion written all over her face.

  “Wait here,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  I opened the door and… as expected… it was Ronin with a box under one arm. He had a puppy dog look, and even though I’d never been a fan of the sneaky bastard, at least I’d always known exactly what kind of sneaky bastard I was dealing with.

  Not anymore. Now I had no idea who he was or what he wanted.

  I came out and closed the door behind me before I reached for the box.

  He stepped back. “No.”

  “No? What the fuck did you come here for then?”

  “We should talk. All of us.”

  “All five of us?” I went for the box, but he twisted away.

  “I want to see her.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to make sure she’s all right.” He swallowed hard, glancing at the door, then back at me. “This stuff, it fucks with you.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Just one second,” he said expectantly. “Then I’ll go.”

  “Jesus, I bet you were a nice kid before the army fucked you up.”

  From the other side of the door, her shriek split the night. “Let me go!”

  Chapter Two

  GREYSON

  MINUTES AFTER THE SHOT

  Never take anything for granted.

  Anything.

  When a piece of metal had missed my heart by a fraction of the length of my fingernail, I’d stopped taking my safety for granted, adding that to my overall health and the health of my family. I never took Caden’s love for granted, nor his well-being. Never money. Never my friends.

  But I’d taken my sanity for granted. I’d leaned on it as the one thing I could always count on, no matter what. My mental stability was the rock I’d lashed the rest of myself onto as the earth shook and the winds tried to rip me away.

  I was sane. My perceptions were keen and clear. My personality was steady, clearly defined as me, and with that collateral in my pocket, I could risk everything else. It couldn’t be bartered, spent, or worn away. I could not be disengaged from it. My very existence had been poured into the vessel of my sanity.

  Even after seeing Caden fall apart, I’d depended on that container to hold me together, assuming it was indestructible.

  When I took the shot meant for my husband, the assumption remained. It was a placebo…or not. If it was, I’d be fine. If it wasn’t, then I’d still be me, no matter what I’d injected into myself. No vial of experimental serum could take away the essentialness of me because that was where the unmovable object and the unstoppable force met. It was the only real thing in the world.

  “Why did you do that?” Caden asked outside the hospital.

  My arm throbbed at the injection site. I hadn’t been careful with the needle, nor had I stuck it into thick-enough muscle.

  “I don’t trust him.” I said, knowing Caden would understand I was talking about Ronin. “What happened to Yarrow, I don’t want it to happen to you. And if I wouldn’t give you the shot, Dana would.”

  He took me in his arms, and there the splitting sky was sewn shut. I thought I was just tired. A little stressed out. All I needed was a good night’s sleep and Caden St. John.

  “Why?” he asked. “Why not just dump it if you didn’t want me to have it?”

  “The syringe had a tell. If it didn’t go into someone, they would have known.”

  “So what?”

  “They’d just send more, and if I wouldn’t give it to you, someone else would.” There was more to it than that, of course. If I’d dumped it, another solution would have presented itself in time. But I took my sanity for granted, so I’d gone with the solution I had on hand because it would satisfy my need to save Caden.

  “I had to know if it was a placebo or not,” I said. “If I tossed it, we’d never know.”

  “Well?” He laid a kiss on my cheek. “Is it?”

  His question wasn’t urgent. He wasn’t worried or uneasy, because he took my sanity for granted as well.

  “Not sure,” I said even though I was very sure something had shifted. I laid my lips on the bare bit of skin over his collar, breathing deeply of coffee grounds and lingering rubbing alcohol. The scent went from my nose, down my spine, between my legs, where it burst into a throb that beat with my heart. “Maybe it was an aphrodisiac.”

  “I’m off duty at oh four hundred,” he said.

  “Can you get to my apartment at that hour?”

  “Probably. The army never sleeps.”

  Dropping my arms away from him, I stepped back. I felt the sky rip into two halves—two eyes watching me from deep in the past—and still thought I had it under control. I could watch the effects of the drug like a clinician and let them wear off like a person with a deep well of sanity.

  “Be there,” I said.

  “Be naked,” he replied with a smirk.

  He took two steps backward to the hospital, turning when the doors whooshed open. I watched him walk away, yanking the tether between us tight, tighter, near breaking but not quite.

  Not yet.

  Maybe I took that for granted too.

  * * *

  I’d taken the shot instead of wasting it because I didn’t want Blackthorne to know it didn’t go into Caden. Once I realized Caden’s syringe hadn’t been filled with a placebo, I got pissed off. That was not okay. Not for Caden. Not for anyone.

  At 02:23:00, the Blackthorne offices were dark and empty. I sat at my desk and dashed off an email I was pretty sure I’d regret.

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  CC: [email protected]

  Ronin:

  Dana has logged subject Dr. Caden St. John’s vial as administered because the syringe corroborates and be
cause I told her it was.

  This email is to correct the record. The dose was administered to me. The subject was the only witness. Dana is not at fault for the erroneous log. I will submit corrected paperwork first thing in the morning.

  As an aside, the syringe did not contain a placebo. I am experiencing noticeable symptoms of scopaesthesia. As these syringes do not contain what I—the accountable physician—was told is in them, I will no longer be administering BiCam, nor will I sign off on the administration of BiCam by any physician’s assistant under my purview.

  Best regards,

  Dr. Greyson Frazier

  PS: Fuck you.

  I deleted the postscript before I sent it. He needed to hear that to his face.

  When I shut the computer down, my eyes needed a moment to adjust.

  Medical books. Binders. A chair and a couch. An open door looking onto a large room with rows of desks facing north to minimize the sun’s glare. My office had a window that looked out onto that wider room. Blinds shut.

  The shut blinds bothered me. I kept them that way to protect the privacy of whomever was in the room with me. The door was open unless I was seeing someone or on a call. Normal.

  But something was behind those blinds.

  There was no noise. No visual. No sense other than a conviction I knew was wrong. I could see the large room through the door, and it was dead-of-night empty. If someone had come in, I would have heard the outer door.

  Foolish, of course. I was just jumpy from the dark and years of fighting an enemy who could be anywhere. This wasn’t the same thing Caden had experienced. It was manageable because I was in complete control of my mind.

  I reached for cold common sense and felt the rip in the sky again. The bowl over all of us cracking in two and becoming sentient. Potential energy turned kinetic. Death turning to life.

  I was tired, and it had been a stressful day. After gathering my things, I went to the doorway and paused before going through. Quietly, I leaned over and twisted the rod that opened the blinds and jumped at the sight of a shadow. I went back into the office and shut the door. Locked it. Jerking the cord at the side of the window, I raised the blinds.

  The shadow was a coat hanging on a hook.

  “For fuck’s sake,” I said to myself. My voice was a balm against the shifting reality, filling the crack like epoxy. “Just go home already.”

  * * *

  Blackthorne had a shuttle bus that ran between the office and the apartments all day and night. One was waiting outside for me. I chatted with the driver. The wheels moving under my feet felt right and good. I was moving. Going someplace. Forward momentum was exactly what I needed, and by the time I walked into my apartment at almost three in the morning, I felt normal again.

  Caden might be hungry, and after he fucked me, I might feed him. I cut oranges and a stubby banana. Brewed mint tea and set out crackers. Then I stripped to bare skin and showered.

  The injection site looked normal. The tiny pinprick would fade to nothing in a day.

  For the first time, I considered that I might get fired for my impulse. I should get fired and sent home. Being separated from Caden would be the worst consequence, but maybe I’d done what I came here to do…save him from that shot. Maybe I could go home and just wait for his return, knowing I hadn’t come to Iraq for nothing.

  The idea of going home was like walking backward.

  I paced naked to the opposite side of the studio apartment.

  There couldn’t be a backward. Stillness was death. There was only forward.

  I couldn’t go home.

  A light rap at the door. I shut off the lights. I jumped onto the bed as he let himself in, a tall shadow against the outside lights. Like an animal, I could sense his scent and his energy. When he closed the door, I leapt off the bed, unable to sit still, and pushed him against the door.

  We were open mouths and searching tongues. I was made of hands that opened, peeled, shucked his clothes away until the hard heat of his cock was in my hands.

  Forward. Forward. Forward.

  He pushed me to my knees, and I took him in my mouth, flattening my tongue against his shaft, opening my throat so he could push forward, always forward. He growled and took me by the hair, jerking my face off his spit-slick cock, looking down at me with eyes lit from within.

  “I’m going to eat you alive,” he said, pulling me up.

  “I thought you might be hungry.”

  He pushed me onto the couch. “Up on your knees.”

  I kneeled on the cushions, facing him. He sat on the floor with his back to the couch and bent his neck upward, reaching back to draw my wet cunt over his face. His tongue prodded into me, then found my clit, flicking it. His legs made a V on the carpet, and his erect cock added a third dimension to the shape. Up and out. Sucking my clit, licking it gently, and sucking again. I needed to be on his dick’s trajectory. That shaft was desire. It was want. It was the shape of our need. Up, over, beyond, and if I could harness it, I’d be shot through the crack in the sky.

  I rode his face as if I wanted to drive over the speed limit. Open this baby up. See how fast we could go. His hands wrapped around my legs, gripping the tops of my thighs tightly as if he could control my heat.

  “Yes,” I moaned. “More. More.”

  I came, driving my pelvis against his face, reaching my arms to the ceiling, exploding in all directions except the one I needed.

  Forward.

  Without taking an extra breath, I crawled off the couch, put my feet on either side of his hips and my hands on his thighs.

  “Whoa, baby,” he said from behind me. “Give yourself—”

  I impaled my body on his cock, driving down the full length of him.

  “God damn,” he muttered in wonderment.

  I pulled up and slammed back down again.

  “Fuck it, baby.” He balled my hair in his fist again, yanking my head around so I could see him. He was a king dressed in the raiment of my body. “Fuck it hard. Work for it.”

  I lifted and fell again and again, speeding up but never going shallow. I wished I was deeper. I wished he was longer. I wished we could go deep and through and come out the other side. But as fast as I went and as deep as I pushed, the boundaries between us only became more frustratingly clear.

  “Hang on,” he said, but I ignored him.

  I wouldn’t be stopped or slowed. Moderation didn’t find the limit. Safety didn’t tease out the edges.

  Caden twisted me off him and flipped me to my stomach. I grunted in protest. I didn’t want to be passive. I didn’t want to be ridden. I wanted to ride.

  He was inside me before I could explain, so deep I thought he’d crack me.

  “Is this what you want?” he asked.

  “Deeper.”

  He got on his knees, pulling me up until I was crouched over him. We were both facing the same direction, and that seemed more right than anything before. Reaching under me, he spread my thighs apart and angled his cock to my entrance.

  “Fuck it. Put all your weight on it.”

  I pushed down as hard as I could. He wrapped his arms around me and thrust his hips up.

  “Yes,” I said. “All the way. All of you inside me.”

  His fingers found my clit and circled it. There was no more thrusting, only pushing deeper until I felt him in my gut, hurting me with desire. Into. Forward. Through. Facing the same direction together.

  I came from the bottom of my lungs. I came from the tip of his cock to the vibrations in my throat with a long nnnn sound that rattled every nerve in my body.

  Not quite finished, I sucked in a breath like a drowning woman, and he pushed me off him, bent me over the couch, and reentered me. Putting his weight between my shoulder blades, he held me still, taking me from behind as though he owned me, asking for nothing but his own pleasure. He drove into me as if my body didn’t have a limit.

  “—come inside you,” he said breathlessly. “Take it deep.”

>   He found an untouched depth. An arcane secret in my belly that I’d been holding for him and only him. When he discovered it, he hurt me and broke through to another orgasm. It emerged with renewed velocity, bursting to the surface like a diver breaking through the water.

  I shook. Or the earth quaked. Or reality trembled, threatening to break and spill its contents. It managed to hold together. For now.

  * * *

  He’d exhausted me so much that even when I slept, I was awake, and when I woke, I was still asleep. I spun down a tunnel that was focused and clear in the center but more and more chaotic at the edges.

  “No fever.” Caden’s voice, like the details of my world, was crisp and lucid as I heard it and fractured and shattered as it drew away, like a Doppler effect of cognizance. “Take this for the headache.”

  When I sat up to take the ibuprofen, the tunnel moved a little behind me, bending from inertia and snapping into place after a second.

  “Did I tell you I had a headache?”

  I was starting to doubt the words that came out of my mouth.

  “I know when your head hurts, sweetheart.”

  I handed him back the glass. “Thank you.”

  “You don’t look good,” he said. “Are you going to be okay?”

  I nodded, and the tunnel shook, waving lucidity before me like a red cape. When he kissed me, my consciousness shifted to where his lips touched my skin, and his voice was the focal point of my attention.

  He laid my head on the pillow and covered me, promising he’d return as soon as he could. I barely heard him. My temperature was normal, but I was in a fevered half dream. The dashing thoughts repeated over and over like a mantra, falling into dissonance, only to echo as if I’d lost control of my inner voice.