Amalgamate

Chapter 3

Of course, it had taken more than one solved case to convince Detective Robinson that her psychic abilities were legit. It took six months, and a varied array of seventeen cases to convince the galactically skeptical Ian Robinson that her premonitions were sound, or at least worthy of his attention.

After word spread, numerous families hired her, and for a while her life seemed the thing of dreams. She loved her work, and it kept her busy damn near round the clock. She was enjoying getting to know and working with Ian and his team, and the money from her consultant fees was rolling in.

But, when Rowan led the team to a missing woman who had perished, she'd tried to walk away from the whole job. It had almost killed her. She was decimated, feeling like she'd failed on every front. Vomiting the entire contents of her stomach behind a squad car while Ian held her hair away from her face was the low point of her new psychic crime solving career. Surprisingly, it was Ian who comforted her and counseled her through the realities of the job. Of course, sugar coating anything wasn't in his nature. Maybe that's why his words were so vivid in her mind even now, "You can't save everyone Rowan."

His words from the past pulled her back to the present, but the memories of Shep and Yeina from earlier at the warehouse only reminded her of all of their cases together. Her mind was a ping pong ball moving between past and present as she tried to remember and rationalize the events of the night. Memories she had kept in the dark recesses of her mind now pushed her farther into herself, allowing the water to envelop her completely. Images of their investigations and all the victims flooded her memory.

She was losing a piece of herself with each case. She knew that now. This job was transforming her. It was changing the way she felt about everything in her life, but more importantly, it was leading her down a path that she wasn't sure she could navigate.

Sitting in the shower, water beating against her, she had to face the scariest change of all, and that was the way Ian's attitude toward her had evolved. The way he touched her now was different. He had definitely softened towards her, but did his feelings mirror hers? No longer indifferent, and cold towards her, he wanted to help her through all of it, and that was changing how she felt about him.

Ian had been secretive, elusive, and solitary in their time together. He didn't appear to let anyone in, not even his teammates. He was an enigma, one she hadn't been able to wrap her head around. While working with him, Rowan had seen first hand just how animalistic and inhumane people could be, but none of it seemed to effect Ian. It made her wonder just what the hell he had seen out there on the job.

Ian's words from that night still haunted her, "There are far worse things in this world Rowan. Believe me." She couldn't even begin to fathom what could be worse than the brutal crimes they'd investigated. After actually seeing the remains of a human being tortured, skinned alive actually, Rowan had hit bottom. Until that discovery, she had found them all alive, of course, alive was never synonymous with unharmed.

She couldn't think about that shit now, not after what had happened tonight. And she couldn't let herself slip into delusions of grandeur about Ian either. He'd never said he cared about her, not to her. But, she had assumed he did because of his subtle attempts to protect her and shield her from the brutality of the job. Why did he care about her? What exactly did he feel for her?

Sitting in the shower trying her damnedest to pull her shit together, she remembered when he had insisted she start carrying a gun. It was after investigating one of the most heinous crimes that took place in the city, when her face had been plastered all over the news, and he hadn't taken 'No' for an answer. In addition, he'd made sure she had the best self-defense coaches in the business because he'd assigned his team to teach her, and if there was one thing Yeina knew, it was how to dish out an ass whippin'.