Orison

Chapter Two: Branson

CHAPTER TWO

BRANSON

Testosterone doesn't make you dumb, but it sure can make you do dumb things. Add some adrenaline and you have an emotional Molotov cocktail that can blow up in your face. In my case, I'd barely avoided jail. I remembered that much. Everything since then was fuzzy, though, including why I was alone in a strange bed in a pitch-black room.

Lightning flashed outside, big flares, barging into my room like some kind of SWAT team. That wasn't what woke me up, though. Something else had. Something I couldn't remember. The lightning and the thunder just finished the job.

My head still buzzed with the dream I'd been yanked out of—something crazy about hairy goat men and very tall women who lived inside trees. They looked sort of human but were taller and more willowy. And, hotter. Way hotter. They had high, angled cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes. The color of their hair, eyes, skin—whatever—came from the trees around them.

But, where the crap was I?

My head felt fuzzy but not bad—almost like my body wanted to have a hangover, but somehow hadn't managed it. Ironic. That was one of the only things I'd never failed at before.

A high, quivery moan cut right through the darkness.

Oh yeah. That's what yanked me out of my tree woman dream.

"Hello?"

No answer.

The storm rumbled again, and the wind whipped itself up into a pretty good moan. Maybe that's what I heard?

I stumbled out of bed and tripped on something, face-planting on uneven wooden floorboards. Who left my gym bag next to the bed? Falling hurt. A lot. My un-hungover head felt okay, but for some reason my whole body ached. Like I'd done a hard workout I wasn't ready for, and then done it again. And then got beat up. Twice.

Lightning. Then more moans came, high-pitched and fluttery, louder now.

After another round of lightning strikes, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Enough to see some curtains hanging against the wall like dead bodies. I forced my aching body up, and then walked over and pulled them open. The thick fabric sent clouds of dust into my face as the thunderstorm exploded outside in all its glory. With the curtains open, the lightning lit up the room enough for me to see the peeling floral wallpaper.

The lightning took a break between sets, but I didn't need it anymore. I knew right where the light switch was now. I walked over and flicked it on. Yep. Yellow stains on the ceiling, old rag rug over the uneven floorboards. Holy crap. I was back in my old room. But how? How had I come back to Hilltop Farm?

It took a lot of effort to squeeze even a few memories out of my fuzzy head. I'd been driving from New York to Aunt Judith's and stopped in Nashville for gas. I met a hot girl who invited me to a party.

More lightning flashed and without any warning thirteen years disappeared. In my mind I was four years old again, sitting up in bed in this room during a storm, screaming out for Mama and Granddaddy. Screaming because the guilt and fear and anxiety overpowered my words. Screaming because closing my eyes brought the flames back.

From a long way away, I felt my hands clench the curtains, trying to keep myself upright as the world spun and flipped—like my stomach.

Not much had changed; I'd gotten bigger. So had the guilt and pain. Instead of screaming, I'd found other ways to cope. Big-boy ways to smother the pain: high doses of adrenaline, 180 proof testosterone, and anything that got the two of them pumping.