by H. L. Wegley
“Yeah. After…” Steve blew out a blast of air. “Look, God called me to be a warrior. How could I say no?”
“So you're using God as an excuse to justify—”
“I don't need to justify what I do. He called countless people in the Bible to do it. If we don't respond, who will protect people like the Amish … or you?”
“Me? Maybe no one should.”
“If no one fought oppression and evil, there would be no USA. Think about what that would mean. History would change. None of the thousands of missionaries that have gone out from America would've been sent. In fact, in the beginning, people like Cain would've killed all of the innocent people like Abel. No one in the world would think living here is a wonderful life. The world would be one big Pottersville. Is that what you want?”
“People like you kill to protect others, and it's still not a wonderful life.”
“Some evil oppressors can only be stopped by killing them. Look … everything we know about God’s character says He hates oppression.” Steve paused. “Julia, He doesn't call everyone to be a warrior. Brock and KC took that role for a while, but only when it became absolutely necessary. Not everyone can do that. Not everyone is asked to.”
So Steve thought some people needed to be killed, but she was too weak to do it. Like the kids in elementary school, he had just called her Wimpy Weiss. Her body stiffened as a bolt of anger shot through her. “So, you’re saying a weak person like me can't do what God wants?” She stared up into Steve’s shadowy face.
“You’re anything but weak.” Steve’s shoulders slumped. His voice softened. “I already told you that.”
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, unsure about what to say and wondering where Steve was taking their discussion.
“The day you and Allie were taken … we ambushed Blanchard's men and KC shot two of them. But, when I looked out the back door of Jeff's house to see if she was okay, KC was shaking while Brock held her.”
“This discussion has gone on long enough.” Julia wanted to end it, now. She would bring it to a head. “Why are you telling me all of this, Steve?”
“I would think it's obvious. Julia, I've waited a long time to find a strong, good woman like you, and—”
“But you don't think I'm very good. And people have to risk their lives to protect me, because I won't do it myself. So why do—”
“That's not what I think. You remind me of another person I swore to protect and…” Steve’s voice caught, choking off his words.
Her fingers curled around Steve's hand and Julia waited.
Chapter 14
Steve studied Julia’s wide, brown eyes, expectant eyes, no longer piercing. Her mood had changed. And her hand lay warm in his, as she waited for him to tell her the story he’d started to share in Whistler.
Telling the story would abrade away the protective shell around Steve’s heart, leaving it raw and exposed to a woman who might very well reject it. If she did, what then? Was it worth the risk?
As the crescent moon began its rapid plunge below the western horizon, Steve studied Julia’s face in the dim moonlight of a starry night.
More than worth it.
He pulled his hand gently from hers, rose, and crouched near the east-facing window. “I need to see if there’s any sign of Hannan’s men.” He glanced back at Julia.
She sat, hands folded in her lap, staring at the floor.
“Just give me a couple of minutes.”
He used the NOD Benjamin had given him to study the route he and Julia took from the ridge into the small valley and then up Bolan Mountain. Neither the infrared nor the light-gathering enhancements showed anything.
Maybe they really had taken the false trail he left them. It was dark and tracking would be difficult until morning.
Steve swung the device to the ridge line and followed it toward the first rendezvous point near Takilma. He stopped when five tiny bright objects appeared on the ridge. The five dots coalesced into one. “I can’t believe it.”
“What can’t you believe?”
“According to Jeff, and our little jaunt up the mountain, that ridge we crossed is at least—if I remember my geometry—three miles away. And these guys are another half mile down the ridge.”
“You mean you see them?”
“This is advanced infrared technology with a ten power scope. Yeah. I see them. They stopped moving toward that rendezvous point. Looks like they’re having a confab … now they’re moving again, coming back along the ridge.”
Shuffling sounds came from behind him, but Steve kept his eyes focused on the five images of human body heat captured and magnified by the incredible device Benjamin had given them.
A hand rested softly on his shoulder and Julia’s breath tickled his ear. She pushed her head up beside his, peering into what her naked eyes would only see as darkness. “Are we going to be okay staying here in the lookout?”
“For a while. We didn’t leave much of a trail near the ridge. I doubt they can pick it up before daylight, if even then. It should get light around 0600, and if they find our trail then, it’s at least another three to four hours of tracking to get here.”
“What time is it now, Steve?”
He pulled the glasses from his face and bumped the back light button on his G-Shock. “It’s 0220.”
“So we’re safe for five or six hours?”
“Yeah, but I need to monitor them continuously starting about 0400, before first light.”
She looked up at him, waiting.
“We have time. Besides, I need to tell you my story so you know who you’re …” Who she was what? Falling for? He suspected it but he didn’t know that.
“Steve?” She pulled him to the wooden bed frame.
Steve sat beside her on the bench-like platform, drained his lungs with a long sigh, then drew a breath. “I told you in Whistler that Stephanie was my little sister. Six minutes younger than me, but at sixteen years of age, almost a foot shorter. She was about your height, light brown hair, brown eyes. So beautiful and gentle.”
“I'm not actually beautiful, but it sounds as if I look a bit like her.”
“So much that I gasped when I caught a glimpse of you and Abdul in the tent with his gun to your head. I froze. Nearly blew everything. I could have gotten us both killed.”
Julia muted his lips with her fingers. “Hush. All that turned out right. God had a plan to save us all, and it was a lot better than anything we could have imagined. KC will tell you that, too … tell me more about Stephanie.”
After Julia moved her hand from his mouth, Steve held it. “Well, I was proud to call her my sister. And no guy ever got out of line with Steph. I let it be known what I would do to anyone who did.”
She stuck out a thumb toward Steve’s gun propped beside the bed. “But you didn’t carry an M4 in those days.”
“No. At sixteen, I worked out a lot and carried around a six-foot-three-inch frame with 215 pounds of muscle on it. I knew just enough martial arts to be dangerous.”
As his mind jumped back to the night that changed everything, the old dark cloud returned, hanging over him, removing hope and joy, marking Steve Bancroft as a failure.
“Our parents were away at a church conference. Dad told me I was in charge of the house.”
With clouds gathering, the Nebraska sky had grown dark before 10:00 p.m. on this warm, early June evening.
A scream stabbed Steve's ears, jolting him into action. It sounded like a woman in some horror movie. No, it sounded like Steph's scream.
He sprinted down the hallway toward his sister’s room.
Steph stood, her back toward him, frozen stiff, one hand on her mouth, while the other hand pointed at the far wall.
Steve stopped beside her, circling her shoulders with his arm.
“Steve, a … a spider. It's huge!”
Someday, his twin sister’s arachnophobia would kill him—cardiac arrest. “Show me where it is, Steph.”
> “On the wall, just above my bed.”
Great. The small house spider had at least a half dozen places to run and hide before he could reach it. But if Steve let it get away, he wouldn't get any sleep tonight.
“If you don't get him, I'm not sleeping in here tonight. No way.”
“Well, you’re not sleeping with me, Steph.”
“Then you’d better kill him. Steve, he just moved. Hurry, before he gets away.”
Steve grabbed a tissue on the nightstand and crept toward the spider.
The lively arachnid crawled downward, almost to bed level. It's preferred hiding place was obvious. If it got behind the bed, he’d have to fumigate the room before Steph would set foot in it again.
Desperation time. Steve slowly extended the hand with the tissue. He lunged at the spider, smashing his hand into the wall. Pain shot through his wrist. He cradled the throbbing wrist in his other hand and twisted his head to look at Stephanie.
“You let him get away.” White completely encircled Steph’s brown eyes.
Steve moaned. “No, I didn't. I got him, Steph.” He rolled over on the bed onto his back and sat up facing her.
“Show me the proof. I have to—”
He opened the crumpled Kleenex and Steph squealed at the remains.
“Are you satisfied now?”
“Not until you flush him down the toilet.”
“But you're not supposed to flush Kleenex down—”
“Just do it … for me, Stevie. Please?”
When his sister’s warm brown eyes looked at him like that, so innocent, completely reliant—he could never refuse Steph.
The spider and Kleenex disappeared down the toilet in a turbulent swirl of water followed by a gurgling sound.
When Steve emerged from the bathroom across the hall from Steph's bedroom, two slender, well-tanned arms circled his neck. She kissed his cheek. “My hero.”
He gave her a warm hug. “Yeah. Big hero. I crushed a poor little terrified bug, running for its life. At least now, maybe I can get some sleep tonight.”
“If the thunderstorms don't keep us awake. On tonight’s news, the weatherman said a squall line will pass through our area.”
“Thunder I can sleep through. But your screaming …”
“I promise to be quiet … now that you killed that big spider.”
“Tiny spider.” He kissed her forehead. “Good night, Steph.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “Good night, big brother.”
“Six and a half minutes older than you doesn't make me a big brother.”
“No.” She tapped the top of his head. “But nearly six and a half feet tall does.” She nudged him out the door and closed it.
Steve grew drowsy listening to the soothing sounds of thunder rumbling softly in the distance. Maybe the squall line had fallen apart. And once Steph turned off her light, she wouldn’t see any more spiders. Finally, peace in the house.
A bright flash pierced Steve's eyelids and a sharp crack jolted him awake. Lightning had hit nearby. The squall line was squalling.
Late spring could be a lively time in Nebraska with frequent thunderstorms and occasional tornado watches, but he could stay in bed unless things got really—
A wailing siren jerked him to a sitting position on the side of his bed. Somebody must have spotted a tornado in the area. He and Steph should probably grab their pillows and head downstairs.
Their father had dug a storm shelter below ground level, off the side of the basement. He had constructed it to withstand a direct hit by an F5 tornado, at least that’s what the specs said.
Steve snatched his pillow and pulled the bedspread off his bed. The temperature in the cellar usually hovered around sixty degrees. If they ended up spending the night there, he and Steph would need something to keep them warm.
He walked out into the hallway.
Steph’s door was closed.
He rapped on it. “Steph, we need to go down to the cellar.”
The storm seemed to have subsided, and the night grew quiet except for the siren wailing in the distance.
There was no answer from Stephanie.
Steve opened her door and flipped on the light.
She wasn’t in her bed.
Where is she?
The bathroom door stood open. No light on. She wasn't in there.
“Steph? Where are you? We need to go downstairs.”
He checked the rooms up and down the hall, but stopped before going into the living room. Maybe she had already gone downstairs and was waiting for him. He would check downstairs. The living room was the last place he expected to find his sister in the middle of the night.
Steve hit the light at the head of the stairs and then took the steps two at a time. When he reached the bottom, a strange sound stopped him, the noise of a million bees.
The droning quickly grew into the roar of a freight train, a train that sounded like it was headed for their house.
The door to the storm cellar stood half open.
Relief washed over him. Steph must be there already.
Steve rushed to the door.
The freight train hit the house, ripping and tearing at the structure above him.
A giant vacuum cleaner tried to suck his body up into the flying debris above.
Steve dove and rolled into the storm cellar.
The storm sucked the door closed, slamming it and leaving him inside in total darkness.
“Steph, hit the push light. I can't see a thing.”
He waited.
No answer.
His heart now drumming out panic, Steve's hands felt frantically for the battery powered push light on the small table.
His hand hit something and it clattered on the floor.
In his panic, he had knocked the light off the table.
“Steph, say something. Are you okay?”
Outside the cellar, a tearing noise sounded, so loud and violent it could've been the earth being ripped apart.
One of Steve’s hands found the light on the floor and pushed it.
The room lit and he could see everything … everything except the one thing needed to see, his twin sister.
Steph wasn't there. She was—no, she couldn't be. She had been raised in Nebraska. She knew what the tornado warning siren sounded like and what it signified.
He should turn on the NOAA weather radio in the cellar to hear details about the warning. But the house had already been hit. The radio wouldn't tell him what he wanted to know most, where Steph was.
Steve opened the door a crack. No more wind. No more suction.
He opened it farther and looked across the floor of the basement.
Boards and other debris littered the floor.
He looked up and gasped as a half-moon flickered between the broken layer of clouds passing overhead.
Nausea grew and bile rose into his throat.
Fearing what he would find, Steve shoved the small light into his pocket, crawled up the broken remains of the stairs, and climbed onto the ground level of what had been their home.
The devastation told him no one could have survived this kind of violence. He tried to shove that thought aside.
Toward town some lights were on. The diffuse light created a dark silhouette of the remains of his house. It had been moved thirty yards away, where it lay in a twisted, six-foot high pile of wood and furniture.
He pulled out the light, turned it on, and walked to the remains of the house. His stomach roiled, then cramped.
She must have been in the living room or he would have found her. That would mean—it would mean he had failed. His father had left Steve in charge. He was supposed to protect Steph.
He tried to picture the events of the past few minutes. He knew Steph. He thought like her. Steve could usually predict what she would do. She had seen another spider in her room and didn't want to wake him. Probably went to the couch to sleep.
Could she have survived?
S
teve pulled some boards aside and saw Steph, lying beside their couch, which had been broken into two pieces. Her hands still clutched her pillow. She looked like she was sleeping, but all the blood on her head told a different story.
Had she been alive, he would have known. He could sense Steph if she was anywhere near him. He knew what she was doing, what she was thinking. He could complete her sentences, sense her fear, and feel the deep love that flowed between them every minute of every day. He should have known where she was when he looked for her.
Steve pled with God as his fingers roamed over her neck, willing there to be a pulse.
But there wasn’t. And he couldn’t sense her presence, because Steph wasn’t there.
Half of Steve had left with her, an irreplaceable half. He would never feel whole. But, worst of all, was knowing he had failed to protect Steph. Her death was his fault.
After the memorial service, Steve made a vow. He would spend his life protecting people. He would learn to do it right. No one else would ever die in his care. Steve Bancroft could face death, but he could never look at the body of someone he had allowed to die. He would die before he allowed that to happen.
Steve unclenched his fists and sighed in a sharp blast, trying to exhale his pain and guilt. He looked at Julia.
There were tears in her eyes.
“Two years later, when I turned eighteen, I joined the Army.”
“Oh, Steve.” Julia took his hands. She cried softly and her teardrops splattered on his hands. “I'm so sorry.”
“Me too. But I left her behind, Julia. I went into the storm cellar and—”
“But it wasn't your fault.” She wiped her cheeks.
He put a finger over her lips. He had heard this before and didn't need to hear it again. “Julia, Rangers … real men, never leave anyone behind. I left her, whether I intended to or not. That will never happen again … as long as I live. I swear it won’t!”
* * *
The intensity in Steve's voice, the tight lines on his face, and seeing him nearly out of control, frightened her. This man was a trained, powerful warrior.
Hannan’s men, though they were also Special Forces, could never prevail against a man like Steve. His muscular arms circled her like bars of steel, protecting her, bringing peace and safety.
