Jeremiah by Kris Michaels
Chapter 2
“About time you answer your damn phone. I was afraid I’d have to waddle my fat ass onto a plane and come out there,” Doctor Jamison Fredrick’s gruff old voice snapped across the connection before Jeremiah could even speak.
“Well hello to you, too, Jamison. How have you been? Good? How’s the job, the wife?” His monotone and flat response sucked because he was happy to hear his mentor’s voice, but he couldn’t get past the lack of sleep and nightmares he’d been having every time he closed his eyes.
“Everything and everyone here are fine. I’m worried about you, however.”
“You heard?”
“No, I saw. The whole damn thing.”
“How?”
“Guardian is investigating the company to whom the state turned over responsibility.”
Jeremiah pushed up off the couch and ran his hand through his hair. “For what?”
“Can’t disclose that, I’m afraid. Unless you want to come to work for us.”
It was a running joke. Jamison thought the sun rose and set with his damn Guardian. But Jeremiah had a different career path. He was going to spend his life taking care of those society had forgotten. He closed his eyes and sighed. Not any longer. Never again.
“Remi, how are you holding up?”
He dropped back against the couch and stared at the dark ceiling. “Not good.”
“Nightmares?”
“Daymares, too.”
“I can understand why. We are going to get you through this, but I want you to do something for me.” Jamison’s voice held the confidence of a lifetime of psychiatric practice.
“What’s that?”
“Leave.”
“I did. I handed in my resignation. I left.” Jeremiah glanced at his tiny little apartment. Normally, he was out and about doing things, meeting with friends, going to the gym. This tiny efficiency apartment was just a place to hang his clothes. He had three pictures of family and the rest was here when he’d rented the place. The walls of the small apartment had been creeping closer to each other since he’d left the facility. Day by day, they inched in, getting tighter.
“They’re idiots if they took it while you were under duress, and that’s not what I meant. Pick up and move away from there for a leave of absence, or you will always see something that reminds you of working in that place. I want you to give yourself a break. You need to find neutral ground. Someplace that you’ve never been, a quiet place where the pace of life is slower, gentler.”
“I’m not ready for a fucking rocking chair, Jamison. Besides, the deputy warden said she wouldn’t accept my resignation. She wants me to give it a couple weeks,”
“Did I say anything about a rocking chair? No. But you and I both know you went through a major trauma two days ago. You need to get away so you can pull this shit out and look at it—memory by memory.”
He sighed. Jamison was right. What he had to do was obvious, but fuck him, he didn’t want to pull out each agonizing memory and deal with it.
“Can you go home?” Jamison prompted.
A chuff of humorless laughter escaped him. “I thought you said slower and gentler. I’ve told you about my mother, right?”
Jamison chuckled. “Ah, that’s right. The pageant-mom-slash-socialite, how could I forget? Your father still has political aspirations even dealing with his wife’s tendencies?”
“If you ever met her you wouldn’t forget her, and yes, my father is going to be Governor of Alabama one day. Home isn’t what I need now, J.”
“What about your sister?”
“Genevieve moved away from Alabama. She found a little restaurant in a backwater South Dakota town that she fell in love with.”
“Do you still have your motorcycle?”
Jeremiah’s eyes popped open. “I do.” He had a custom Harley he’d paid dearly for and babied like most would care for a beloved pet.
“How about a road trip?”
“To where?” It was an honest question. Where could someone go to slow down and maybe relax while he worked through a fuck-ton of baggage the incident had dumped in his mental closets?
“South Dakota.”
Jeremiah blinked. “Why in the hell would Genevieve want me there?”
“Because she’s family, she loves you, and you need to get away from where you are, even for just a little bit. We can have our sessions in private via video chat or the phone. It would give you time to heal.”
“Sessions? Who said I was going to hire you as my couch, J?”
“Who else do you trust?” Jamison batted the question back at him.
He grunted. “Few people, that’s for sure.”
“We’ll work on that, too,” Jamison added. “Take care of things out there and then get your ass on that motorcycle. I’ll talk with you next Monday. Don’t make me call twice. I’ll charge you double.”
“Heaven forbid,” Jeremiah drawled, but he laughed for the first time since… He snapped his attention back to the conversation, not allowing his mind to travel down that road again. “Hey, Jamison. Thank you.”
“You’d be there for me.”
“I would.” Jamison was a good friend; he’d move heaven and earth to make sure the man had what he needed.
“If you get to a point where you need to talk, if shit gets heavy…”
Jeremiah sighed. “I’m not suicidal. Did what Macmillan do fuck with me? Yeah, but that isn’t a road I’m going down. I don’t even see the signposts for it.”
“Cyrus Macmillan.” Jamison spat the name.
“Yeah.”
“How in the hell did he end up without restraints or without a guard?”
“They had him up in the medical wing to run some tests. From what I’ve learned, his doctor and three nurses are dead. He was wandering the halls when the riot broke out and initiated a lockdown. If the alarms hadn’t activated, I would have walked right into him.”
“You have a guardian angel, my friend.”
He shook his head even though Jamison couldn’t see him. “What I have are nightmares and probably PTSD.” He swallowed hard. Even though Cyrus was locked away in a supermax facility, there wasn’t enough distance in the world to tamp down the memories of that madman or what he’d done.
“Put in for a leave of absence. If you decide not to go back, you can send in your resignation. Then hop on that deathtrap of yours and head to see your sister.”
Jeremiah leaned back and cast his gaze around the tiny apartment. Why not? At a minimum, it would be a break and he’d get to see Genevieve. He had some things to clear up first. He drew a deeper breath and felt some weight fall from his shoulders. “I’ll do that.”
“We talk once a week, or I’ll damn sure come find you.”
“I can do that.”
