Fatal Strike Read Online Free PDF Page B

falling for this.
    The sound startled him. It was the beep his phone made when a text message came in, but he had no smartphone. It was miles away, swathed in plastic, stowed in the box bolted under his truck.
    Just ringing in your ears. Memories of sounds. Breathe. Let it go.
    But he couldn’t help flashing on the screen in his head. Reading the words that glowed there.
    hey u there?
    Don’t do it, asshole. Don’t talk to her again. You’re encouraging your own mental illness. Entrenching it.
    He knew exactly what was happening. He’d researched it extensively. The part of his brain that governed language and abstract thinking had been blasted by Rudd’s psychic attack, causing biochemical changes, alterations in his brain connections. This caused miscommunication between the prefrontal cortex and the langague area in his temporal cortex, resulting in auditory hallucinations. Hearing voices. Which this was not, strictly speaking. But it was close enough.
    It was also known as schizophrenia.
    He would not listen to those messages. Especially if they started asking him to do things. But even as he lectured himself, his response was pounding out, scrolling down the screen, in a big, bold, yelling font.
    wtf? what r u trying 2 tell me about my fucked up brain that i dont already know? u dont exist! its just me! give it up, go away. integrate, already. pls!! stop torturing me!
    He held his breath for a moment. There was a long pause.
    wow strange i thought u were the dream
    no Miles typed back. that wd be u so dont try 2 fck with my head i wont play
    not! im not u! or a dream! im myself. crystal clear?
    He felt absurdly stung. u’ve got attitude 4 some1 who sneaks in uninvited and starts twiddling with my shit
    At some point in the strange exchange, he’d given in and looked, so of course now he couldn’t look away. She was seated in the chair, that wafty skirt spread all around. She stared at the screen, hands in her lap, face expressionless. She lifted her hands, and typed slowly,
    i dont have anyplace else 2 go
    That sounded so forlorn. It made him miserable. Which ratcheted up the crazy quotient. Which pissed him off, and made him sarcastic.
    pity party?
    That evidently pissed her off in turn. She did not reply, but she didn’t leave. She just sat there, staring at the screen. Chin up. In a huff.
    oh come on u have got 2 b kidding he typed.
    She shook her head. Crossed her arms over her chest.
    not fkg fair u cant diss me in my own head he pounded in.
    She couldn’t resist that opening. Her hands went to the keyboard.
    evidently i can appeared slowly, letter by letter.
    Miles started to laugh. Helplessly snorting into his hands, tears spilling over. He’d seem bonkers to anyone watching. But hey. He was bonkers. This was irrefutable proof. That was the real reason he was here, after all. So no one had to witness what Rudd’s mindfucking had reduced him to. A whack job who heard voices. No, correction. A whack job who saw texts. Leave it to Miles, the geek freak, to put a computer engineer’s special twist onto the time-honored process of going batshit.
    Okay, fine. He was convinced. Time to get the prescriptions filled.
    So this was to be his future. Mental institutions, halfway houses. A career bagging groceries at best, if he could keep from drooling on them. That was the level at which he functioned on those meds.
    He started breaking camp before he’d even made any conscious decision to do so. No reason to drag it out now that the decision was made. He no longer saw her image, even when he looked for her, but he sensed that she was still in there. He felt her bright glow. He couldn’t stop feeling for it. It had been so long since he’d talked to someone.
    Yikes. That thought made him cringe.
    But at least his mind was made up. The wind smelled of snow, he was getting worse, not better, and he’d better get some help before he was too far gone to help himself. Before he became dangerous.
    The woods were