I grabbed the man's arm and suddenly Robert was there, grabbing his other side. We dragged him back up the path, toward our hiding place, away from the dangers of the imminent explosion.
The earth shook, and the night sky lit up as the helicopter's fuel tank caught. Robert and I were knocked to the ground, the heat searing. I scrambled to stand, grabbed the soldier again, and with Robert's help we took shelter behind a boulder.
The man groaned as we laid him down.
"There are enemy combatants out there, Sydney. We don't know how many. We don't know where they are. But they certainly know we're here now."
Robert was right. But I couldn't just leave this man to die. "Please," he whispered. "My legs."
I looked down at them. And my vision flashed back to Mulberry lying on the battlefield. This man still had his legs, but they were broken, twisted at horrific angles.
What could I do?
The man reached for a radio on his chest and talked into it. "Copter down. Under enemy fire." The crackle and spit of the radio joined with the thunder in my mind.
My gaze traveled to the hilltops above us—dark figures appeared out of the night. We were surrounded.
Chapter Twelve
Love is a Battlefield
Anita
The light from my computer screen cast a blue flickering glow over the living room. London in February was wet, cold, and dark. The sun, which had only managed to cast a dull gray gloom into the room, had set and now darkness encompassed the space.
Huddled under a blanket, a glass of red wine in my hand, I'd started watching videos of the Butcher after reading Lenox's update; Mulberry had started physical therapy, and Lenox still couldn't reach Sydney or Bobby.
I'd also checked #IAmHer and found the numbers even higher—it felt like a tsunami was about to be upon us, and now was when the ocean was pulling back, gathering for the giant wave that would wash everything away.
I'd set up meetings with several friends who'd known Rida, so I had nothing to do now but wait.
My melancholy had drawn me to the Butcher's videos. Over 6'5”, broad, a former Iraqi soldier in Saddam's army, he'd earned the name the Butcher two years prior.
In all of the videos, he stood on a stage, his trademark machete in hand, a woman at his feet, her face and hair exposed, her body at his mercy. A crowd cheering him on. How many in that crowd could do what the Butcher did? Could exact the justice for which they screamed?
What percentage of the population could actually do it?
Had I always had it in me to kill? Or was it my life on the line, the repeated violation of my body, that let me strangle my captor to death?
I pulled the blanket around me tighter, the wet chill of London creeping in on me. Putting down my glass of red wine, I closed the computer. I needed to take a break.
The darkness settled in, and I blinked against it, my eyes slowly adjusting. It was a small space, with modern furniture and sleek lines. Apparently, Sydney had owned the apartment when she worked here as a private eye, and Joyful Justice had decided to keep it.
I didn't know much about Sydney's history. The few things we'd spoken about in the time we spent together had been vague. She was the center of so many people's lives. But in her apartment there wasn't a single photo, no knick-knacks, nothing personal at all.
The one thing I'd seen that could be remotely considered personal was a dog dish with Blue's name on it. But that could've been a gift. A small smile crossed my lips as I pictured Mulberry giving it to her, trying to make her life homey.
I pushed off the blanket and stood, clicking on a lamp. I needed to order some food, get out of this funk. Get out of my head.
Waiting for Zerzan or anyone else to drop the video felt like torture. Part of me wanted to do it myself just to stop the anticipation. I made my way into the kitchen and pulled out the takeout menus. A good London curry was what I needed. Something nostalgic.
The years I'd spent in this city had been some of the best of my life. I'd been young, eager to learn, excited to be out from under the watchful eye of my family and neighbors.
London was so different from India. And not just that it had wet, cold weather, but that women had a standing here they didn't have in my home country. When Tom and I went on our first date, the waiter turned to me when it was time to order. In India, no waiter ever asked the woman what she wanted. They only addressed the man of the table.
I became flummoxed, heat racing to my cheeks. And Tom answered for me. We had discussed what we each wanted to order, the way couples do.
After the waiter left, he'd apologized. Apologized for ordering for me.
I'd brushed it off, saying that I'd had something stuck in my throat and drinking quickly from my water glass.
I should've never married him.
I put aside the takeout menus as my appetite fled, the memories of our brief life together overpowering my mind. Our little flat, the way I woke up in the morning to him watching me sleep. He pushed my hair behind my ear and told me I was beautiful and that he loved me.
Queasiness swamped me. I didn't deserve his love. I never did.
A knock at the door sent fear racing through my veins. Who could it be?
I grabbed a knife from the butcher block on the counter and approached the front door on socked feet, quiet and ready to defend myself, relieved I'd pushed the deadbolt into place.
I looked out the peephole and my mouth went completely dry.
It was Tom.
How did he find me?
It must've been my friend, Angela. She'd asked where I was staying, and I'd told her—thinking we might meet for a drink here but then she'd suggested a bar. She'd always been friends with Tom. Had she asked my address just to pass on the information?
Tom chewed on his bottom lip before reaching up and knocking again. Looking around the hall, a line of frustration formed between his eyebrows.
I hadn't seen him in two years, and now I drank him in, basking in the blue green of his eyes, in his tangles of brown hair.
He turned to leave, and my hand undid the bolt as my eye stayed pressed to the hole. He turned back at the sound, his eyebrows rising and hope sparking in his gaze.
I stepped back and opened the door, keeping the knife behind my thigh.
His breath caught and his eyes found mine. "I'll leave if you want. Just nod and I'll walk away," he said.
My heart ached. He thought I didn't want him. Couldn't understand that I didn't deserve him. That I never did.
We stared at each other. I couldn't answer.
His smell drifted around me.
His black raincoat was dotted with raindrops, the umbrella in his hand dripping silently onto the carpeted hall floor. The smell of London rain wafted off of him: the chalky scent of wet cement and the sweet, cloying perfume of diesel.
He stepped forward slightly, grasping the umbrella in both hands now. "Can I come in, then?"
"Yes," I said. The same word I used when he proposed marriage. The same word I used when he asked if I was leaving him. The same word I used now, letting him back into my life.
Yes.
Tom stepped forward as I stepped back, and I pressed myself against the wall, letting him pass, keeping the knife hidden behind my thigh. He moved into the apartment and stopped before entering the living room.
"Where should I put my umbrella?"
"I don't know."
I didn't know anything. Why did I let him in? Why was he here? We stared at each other, the umbrella dripping onto the floor.
"Angela told me you were here."
I nodded.
"You never responded to any of my calls, any of my texts." A line of frustration reappeared between his brows. I was too frustrating. Too set in my ways. Too ambitious to be a wife. I had to be on my own.
But look where that got me. Where was I now? Not where I thought I'd be. But doing more than I ever thought I could. I still couldn't be with Tom.
I still couldn't be
happy, peaceful. Not when there was so much injustice in the world.
I hardened the wall around my heart. I made sure to tell my body not to respond to him. Nothing had changed about us, even if everything else had.
"Will you..." Tom didn't finish the sentence. He ran a wet hand through his hair. The curls bounced back up, they were impossible to tame. Like me.
Poor Tom.
"Look, I understand you've been gone. I understand you had work you wanted to do. I just…how could you just cut me out of your life?"
"I had to." My voice came out quiet and unsure.
"Why?" His tone was a mix of anger and curiosity.
He'd never understood. How could he? A white, Englishman. How could he understand what an Indian woman needed? How I had to free myself to find myself?
His mother's words floated through my mind. You're very pretty for an Indian girl… She'd said it the first time we met, and I'd thought she was a bitch. Hadn't realized that all I'd ever be in Tom's world was an Indian girl. Never an equal…always an "other", an outsider. I didn't need them.
"I'm sorry, Tom. I don't know what else we have to say to each other."
"Will you…" He had a question he wasn't asking. "I'm sorry for whatever I did."
"I told you." I looked down at my feet. "It was about me Tom, never about you." A cliché break-up line that in this case was true. I forced my gaze to meet his. To try to make him understand. I didn't want to be in his world.
His mouth parted, eyes pleading.
I needed a drink.
"Do you want a glass of wine?"
"Yes, please." He gave a short laugh. It came out harder than his normal laugh. Tom's real laugh was one of those great things, a sound that always brought a flutter to my chest, made me want to grab and kiss him.
He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a hook in the hall, leaning his umbrella beneath it. I moved past him into the small kitchen and stashed the knife before pulling down another glass, and pouring him wine with an unsteady hand.
I looked up at him to see his gaze on the tremor in my fingers. I put the bottle back securely onto the counter. When I passed him the glass, my hand stayed steady.
He wrapped his fingers around it and my own hand.
"You look beautiful," Tom said, his voice low, quiet. Authentic.
I turned away from him, and he let my hand slip out from underneath his. He never tried to make me do anything I didn't want to do. It wasn't that he was some controlling patriarchal man. It was that I needed to stand on my own two feet.
I couldn't be in a partnership. He deserved better.
But I was, wasn't I? I partnered with Dan, Merl, Lenox, Sydney…we all worked together. Our unity gave us strength.
But, Tom and I could never be together again. I couldn't tell him about Joyful Justice. He was a freaking barrister—an officer of the court.
"So, what brings you back to London?" Tom asked, leaning against the counter of the narrow, galley kitchen.
He was wearing a suit, so he must've just come from work. His tie had come a little loose, and I stared at the top button of his shirt. I wanted to unbutton it. Run my fingers over his collarbone. Kiss his lips and melt into him. Let him carry some of my burden.
But if I put it down, would I be strong enough to pick it up again?
"I'm looking up an old friend. For a story."
"Where are you working these days?" He asked.
"Freelancing still."
"Your article about Kalpesh was amazing." He sipped his wine.
I had written it after Sydney saved me. In the story I didn't talk about my own capture, my own rape and torture. But I did expose the monster who orchestrated it, Kalpesh Khan. I exposed other victims’ stories. Too much of a coward to expose my own.
"Thank you," I said.
"What is it?" He cocked his head at me. I turned and grabbed another glass, pouring myself wine and taking a sip before answering.
"Nothing, just tired. I just got in today."
"From where? Where are you living?"
He sounded eager. He wanted every detail. He wanted to know me again.
Could I let him?
No.
"I spend most of my time in New York,” I lied.
"Do you like America?" He sipped his wine.
"Yes, I think it's fine."
"So what's the story? What are you working on?"
"It's about the new prophet. The Her prophet."
His eyebrows rose. "I've heard rumors…I'm sure you're the perfect person to tell that story."
I would be the one manipulating it.
"Well, we'll see."
"So who are you looking up?"
"Do you remember Rida?" Tom had met her dozens of times. She'd attended our wedding, but so had a couple hundred others, so if he couldn't remember Rida it wasn't exactly insulting.
"Of course I do. Shy, sweet, brilliant as far as I can recall."
"Yes, she's Syrian. I think she might be able to help me with some information I need." I wanted to steer him away from me. I didn't want to lie to him anymore. "What are you working on?" I asked.
"Same old, same old." He shrugged. "Trying to save the world." He gave me a wry smile. Tom worked as a human rights attorney and was damn good.
"And you're still living in the city obviously," I said.
Tom nodded and sucked his lower lip between his teeth, watching me. I couldn't look at him when he did that. This is why I had stayed away. He had too much power over me.
"Why didn't you ever respond to any of my calls or texts?" he asked.
I turned to the sink and busied myself washing a water glass I'd used earlier. It was easier to talk to him when I wasn't looking at him. "I just needed it to end. It was much harder if we were still speaking."
"I think I let you go too easily."
Tears sprung unwelcome to my eyes, burning, pushing to be released.
"I asked you to let me go," I said.
He shifted closer to me. The glass was clean, but I kept scrubbing it.
"But, Anita, did you really stop loving me?"
A lump in my throat blocked me from answering. Of course not. I never stopped loving him. I just couldn't be with him then. I had to...
I couldn't be married to a barrister.
"I'm sorry Tom. I didn't want to hurt you." My voice came out tight. I obviously sounded like I was on the verge of tears.
His hand landed on my shoulder, and I wanted to recoil, but instead I leaned into his touch. I put the glass on the sideboard and turned off the water. Grasping onto the edge of the sink I kept myself from turning into his embrace.
"Anita, I've never stopped loving you. I'd do anything to get you back. I'm ready to fight."
"I'm not." I had to dash at tears escaping from my eyes before I could continue. "I'm not the same woman you were married to. I've changed a lot."
"I love you unconditionally, Anita. I always have. I don't love any specific act or way that you are. I love you. All of you. As you've always been and you always will be."
He was too good. Too sweet. Too supportive.
"Please." I don't know what I was asking for. For him to go away. For him to force me into an embrace. For him to just keep standing there forever.
"I'm sorry." His arm traveled down my shoulder blade and wrapped around my bicep, giving a small pull. "Now that I see you again, I can't just let you go. I can't just let you out of my life without trying. Begging. Fighting for you to be mine again."
He tugged a little harder, and I fell against his chest. His smell engulfed me as his arms wrapped around my body and the tears came, hot and heavy and ugly. I shook with the force of them. Tom rubbed my back and whispered into my ear that he loved me.
He was holding me up. I was falling and he was catching me. How would I stand on my own ever again?
His arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me closer. I fit into the shelter of his body, my arms around him and squeezing, feeling the hard
planes of his chest through his dress shirt. He smelled like Tom; London rain and Sandalwood, with just a hint of clean soap. "Anita, Anita, Anita," he whispered, kissing the top of my head, nuzzling my hair. "I'm here; you don't need to worry anymore."
It was too easy. He made me feel too safe. I couldn't let it fool me.
I pushed back from him, but his arms stayed tight.
"Please," he whispered against my hair. "Please let me help you."
But there was no way for him to help me. Only I could help me.
"Please let me go." My voice came out quiet, thick with tears.
"I refuse to let you go again." His voice had a hard edge to it—an edge I'd never heard from him before.
We’d had only a year of being married, six months of which I'd spent pulling away from him as I began to realize how much my life had become about his life. About his big career, about his successful family, about our future children. I'd realized I'd made a huge mistake. I couldn't be his wife then, and I couldn't let him hold me now.
I pushed against his chest, and he released me with a deep sigh. One of my shirt sleeves rode up as I stepped back from him, keeping my hands on his chest, and he looked down at my hands.
They were scarred with nicks from my life.
He grabbed my wrist, seeing the scars there from the shackles I'd worn during my imprisonment. His eyes went round and his lips turned into a deep frown.
"Anita, what happened to you?" Anger bubbled in his voice. He was gonna try and solve that, too.
"I was held prisoner." I couldn't believe I said it out loud. And it didn't even hurt. I hadn't told anyone—except for Dan, but, of course he knew. He was a part of rescuing me.
I'd saved myself, though. That's what Sydney said. She said that I saved myself, and that she and Dan just provided the getaway vehicle.
Though without a getaway vehicle, I probably would have died. Killing my guard, strangling him to death with the chains that he bound me with, would not have freed me without Sydney arriving to remove those chains, help me through the maze-like mansion, and get me into the van waiting to take me away.
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