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

“I’m fine. I’ll be better when we figure out who is behind all of this.”


Mary studied him for a few moments then shut the door behind him.15


There was something infinitely surreal about spending the night arguing with yourself. Especially with the woman who changed your life hovering in the background and the man who’d changed it yet again sitting at your side.


Gideon took comfort in the way Jesse kept pressing his thigh against his, as if to reinforce that contact between them. He didn’t take comfort in the cunning gleam that showed in his other self’s eyes every time Jesse did that, however, and he especially didn’t take comfort in how Jesse couldn’t hide his concern every time his other self exaggerated his injuries. Mary’s declaration about how he was doing better was an understatement. The other Gideon could probably have gone out for a light hunt, and only felt the slightest of strains.


Chapter 58