Stopping a murder that happened forty years earlier may be the only way to heal a tortured mind ...<br><br>Six months after Jesse Madding is brutally tortured by Marcus Brooker, he is still experiencing flashbacks, panic attacks, and jumping at his own shadow. His lovers, Gideon Keel and Emma Coolidge, would do anything to help him, but Jesse refuses to be hospitalized for treatment, or even visit a therapist. Desperate for a change, Gideon and Emma suggest a radical solution.<br><br> Jesse wants to fix his life. More than anything, he wants to be normal again. He doesn't want to live in fear. He doesn't want to be ashamed of his scarred and mutilated body. He doesn't want to shy away from Gideon's touch. Certain that the holding pattern will kill him, he agrees to Gideon and Emma's proposed solution: travel to an alternative dimension and save Marcus Brooker from witnessing Mary's grisly murder ... in order to save Brooker's soul.

Chaos and Communion

The greeting died on Brooker’s lips as concern darkened his tawny eyes. His gaze flickered to Mary, who turned back to see the perspiration beading on Jesse’s forehead, the way all the color had suddenly leeched from his skin.


“Are you all right?” she asked. She stepped forward and took his arm without waiting for an answer, her grip surprisingly strong as she guided him into a pew. “Put your head between your knees. You look like you’re going to be sick.”


He was going to be sick. Please, no, not here. Not here. Please.But his silent prayer evaporated as the first wave of images crashed over him.


red on Marcus’s shirt on the back of his shirt how did it get there


But it was the pain tearing through him that made him whimper. Pain slicing down his back and through his stomach. He clenched his hands into tight fists and squeezed his eyes shut, assaulted again and again.


Chapter 28