Judson nodded. “You’re prone to headaches. And you’re due for more medicine.”
He grabbed the thermometer from next to me and swiped it over my forehead. It made a beeping noise. “I’m old enough to remember when that was harder to do.”
“Ancient.” I rolled my eyes at him.
“Look at her.” Derrick stumbled over. He rubbed his eyes. “She’s making jokes.”
Judson stared down at the thermometer. “Fever is gone. I’ll give you something for the headache. And it’s amazing she could sleep at all with you snoring. I mean, seriously, Derrick, do something about it.”
“It’s fine.” He waved his hand. “I’m going to go get a shower. See you downstairs, Everly. Sounds like some of the crowd is arriving. The uplinks will turn on. We’ll need to do a conference. Figure some things out.”
Trace pointed at him. “Look at him being all responsible. We’ll be down.”
Warden nodded at me as he followed Trace from the room. Judson handed me two pills. “I’m going to undo the IV. We’ll try things orally. Okay? You can take a shower if you want to. All of your stuff is here. You should be comfortable.”
They’d done it again. All of my stuff was here. The first time I’d been unconscious and they kidnapped me. This time I’d been held prisoner in a basement. Lots of transporting my clothes here, there, and everywhere.
I sighed as they all left the room. I’d had a moment. They’d been nice to me, but I couldn’t read too much into it. Okay, they hadn’t handed me over to Ben, but they were still the assholes who got me into this mess to begin with. I’d seen them blow hot and cold before, nice then mean. Over and over. Except for Derrick. He seemed to have two settings, hot and hotter. I’d taken a gun out of his hands once and he’d pressed it right up against his head.
I rubbed at my hand where Judson had taken out the IV. He’d placed a bandage on it. I hadn’t even noticed. I had to get out of this haze. I couldn’t take care of myself if I couldn’t focus. I shook my head and made my way into the bathroom. Like the last time, my stuff was in here. I wasn’t dirty because someone had cleaned me but I hadn’t had a shower in… six months? Sometimes Ben dumped water and soap on me.
I shivered at the thought like I could never get warm again.
I turned the water on in the shower and put it all the way to hot. I didn’t know if I could get it scalding in this house, but I was going to do the best I could.
I pulled off my nightgown and dropped it onto the floor. The floor was cold, but I hadn’t noticed until I undressed. That was weird. I’d been barefoot the whole the time. It was like I wasn’t quite ready to feel sensory things just yet. I shook my head, the motion catching my attention in the mirror.
I hadn’t seen myself and doing so didn’t improve anything. I touched the mirror. Who was that? At some point he’d cut off my hair. He’d taken a pair of scissors, held my head down, and cut it right off while I screamed. It wasn’t one length. Had he gotten tired of doing it and stopped? I couldn’t remember. That was so long ago. Half of my hair was under my ears and half was long, down my shoulders. I tugged at the long edge. My dark hair looked limp. There was no glow to it but that was nothing compared to my dead eyes.
I cried out and then covered my mouth. How could I have forgotten for one second that he’d killed me? I wasn’t Everly Marrs anymore. No, I was an ant. I was Ben’s ant.
No, I couldn’t think like that, and if it was too hard to look at myself with someone else’s eyes, hollow cheeks, and lips that looked like I was some kind of corpse, then I wouldn’t look. Ever again. I didn’t need to ever see another mirror.
I stepped into the water. The hot water felt wonderful until it hit my back. Then it was hell. I screamed. I couldn’t help it, this was pain. This was hell. I tripped on the shower curtain trying to get out and would have hit the tile had strong hands not caught me in my descent.
With my heart in my throat and my body shaking, I stared up at Warden’s face. I couldn’t read his expression but then that shouldn’t have been surprising because other than the hellish hot water, I couldn’t seem to feel much of anything. Why shouldn’t I have lost the sense of understanding any emotion?
“I think… I think I look like I died and water is pain.” My teeth chattered. Why did that keep happening? “But I guess it shouldn’t matter. I’m just an ant.”
He picked me up, bringing me against him so that my wet breasts were against his cotton shirt. “Everly, nothing about you is the least bit ant-like. Ben has fucked with your head. That’s what he does. He destroys dreams. Then, in the case of Alliance recruits, he remakes them in the image the Alliance wants. In your case, he was going to kill you. So you will simply have to remake yourself.” He brushed my wet hair out of my face. “And the water hurts you because your back is clearly not healed. It hurts for a while. I haven’t thought about this in fifteen years, but now I’m remembering.”
That was right. They had the same marks. “He whipped you and caned you, too.”
“He did. Many, many times.” His gaze seemed fixed on mine. I could feel him breathing. It was a calming sensation.
“I haven’t seen it.” I turned in his arms so that my back faced him. “Do we match?” Warden didn’t answer me right away and with my back to him, I couldn’t see his expression. “Warden?”
He tightened his hold over my stomach. “No two scars look exactly the same on Alliance recruits. We all heal differently. You will, too. I wouldn’t have wished this on you for anything in the world. I couldn’t have fathomed… but I should have. Ben finds a way to kill something in anything he touches. He killed something in all of us. But only part of us. You won’t let him destroy all of you and until then I won’t let him for you.”
I shuddered. His words rocked me to my very soul. “Thank you, Warden.”
“You’re welcome. Your back is bad. Nothing looks infected, but it is raw as hell. I’m going to take care of you. Come on. Let’s get in the shower.”
It didn’t occur to me to not do it. Maybe it should have. But there was absolutely nothing sexual going on between Warden and me right then. We’d been hot for each other. Maybe someday we would be again but not then. I was emaciated and he was being kind. Or perhaps it was something else. I couldn’t figure anything out right then.
All I knew was that I was in the shower with him and he patted my back with a warm washcloth, not letting the spray hit my back. My front took the water just fine, and I closed my eyes to let it wash over me.
Warden squeezed shampoo into his hand and rubbed it into my scalp. I moaned. Having my hair washed felt great on a good day and this wasn’t even close that. The action might have been the greatest feeling ever.
“I wouldn’t have thought you could do this,” I whispered. “Washing someone else’s hair.”
He snorted. “I wouldn’t have thought I could either. But it turns out I’m full of surprises when it comes to you.”
“What else?”
He didn’t answer my question and instead rinsed the shampoo out of my hair, making sure it didn’t touch my back before turning off the water.
When he finally spoke, it still wasn’t to answer my question. “Why are we whispering?”
That was a good question. “I’m finding it a little bit difficult to talk right now. Like… it doesn’t feel like I should be doing it.”
Warden wrapped me up in a towel before he wrapped one around himself. Only then did he kiss me lightly on the lips. “Go get dressed. Time for breakfast. Maybe leave off your bra so it doesn’t hurt the skin in the back.”
I looked down at my breasts. Or what was left of them. My weight loss had hit me everywhere, but it looked particularly bad there. “I don’t guess I need one right now.”
“We’re going to feed you. We just have to figure out who can cook. I think Judson actually can, but he’s staunchly refusing to do so. I think he doesn’t want it to be his job. There are too many people. But rest assured. Someone will coo
k.”
I shrugged. “I think I’d be okay just eating cereal.”
“No. We’re going to do better than that. Consider yourself on vacation.”
Really? “I…”
Whatever I was going to say stopped with the sound of helicopters. They were loud and they were here. Warden swore, grabbing his pants off the floor.
Well, that couldn’t be good. He stumbled into them before turning to me. “Stay in your room and away from the windows. There should not be helicopters arriving right now.”
My chest tightened. Oh no. I tried and failed to not let panic take hold of me. Still in my towel, I rushed after Warden. He’d said to stay away from the windows. How did I do that? The closet. Yes, I’d get in the closet.
Gun fire blasted into the house. Someone was shooting. Our side or their side? My Letters? I crawled into the closet and closed the door behind me. In my towel, I shook on top of my shoes. They shook beneath me. I had to stay still. If someone came in here, the noise would be a dead giveaway. Who was I kidding? The first thing Ben would do would be to check the closet.
I grabbed one of my shoes. When he opened this door I was going to take out his fucking eye with my shoe heel. They might be able to drag me out of here, but so help me, I’d take out his fucking body parts.
The house had gone quiet. The gun fire stopped. Did that mean they were all dead? I put my head against my knees. Were The Letters lying in the middle of the floor bleeding to death somewhere?
Footsteps sounded outside of my closet, and I held my breath. My black heeled shoes were all that might save me from whoever was out there and…
“Everly.” Warden’s voice was soft. “It’s okay. It’s over now.”
He tapped on the closet, and I let out the breath I held. “Warden?” I just had to make sure it was him.
“It’s me. I’m going to open the door, okay.”
I nodded, which of course he couldn’t see. “I don’t think I can. I have a shoe.”
“All right.” He slowly opened the door and stared at me for a second. “Were you going to take out a gunman with that?”
“Right in his eye.”
He gently removed the shoe from my hand. “There are worse ideas. They’re all dead. There were only eight of them plus the pilots who are in the basement for interrogation. You’re safe. They weren’t here for you. Not Ben’s people. One of the other assholes we’re battling. Not to worry. They’re about to have a world of pain for having done this.”
I wrapped my free hand around him, noticing he was still shirtless and wet from the shower. He’d gone after gunmen half clothed. “Were you always brave or did the Alliance teach you to be?”
“I don’t know the answer to that. I’ve always been whoever I needed to be.” He squeezed me tightly, and I put my face in the crook of his neck.
He smelled like my shampoo. It didn’t seem girly on him. “I love that you’re going to hurt them.”
Warden stiffened when I spoke but didn’t comment. Instead, he pulled a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt from my closet. “Let’s get you dressed and downstairs. Everyone is fine.”
He continued to speak, but I didn’t really listen. No, my mind wandered to the idea of revenge. They were going to make whoever was responsible for this pay dearly. What did that mean? How could a person enact revenge on someone else?
If I was going to hurt Ben, if such a thing were possible, what would I do and how would I do it? It wouldn’t be with my shoe, that was for sure.
I pulled back to look at Warden. “I need to get better fast.”
“Well, we all want you well. What’s the rush?”
I let out a breath I held. “I have to hurt Ben. I need to be strong to do it. I’m not going to be weak. I’m going to survive this. And burn down his world. I thought about it so much in the basement.”
He nodded slowly. “I think you really will do that. And I’ll help you. I promise. He will hurt everywhere.”
Chapter 4
I ate too much. The taste of the eggs and toast had been so filling, so wonderfully humanizing that I’d given no thought to the fact that I hadn’t eaten much in half a year. Most of what I ate came back up in the toilet ten minutes later. I sat on the floor of the bathroom. This fucking sucked.
Marco poked his head in through the door and stared down at me before handing me a Gatorade. Maybe I’d stick to liquids for a while. Chicken soup.
I took the Gatorade from him and signed my thanks. He nodded. I wasn’t going to pretend I couldn’t sign anymore. The man had told The Letters about Constance. I suspected he’d always known I understood him.
Well, I could try again at lunch.
Maybe the antibiotic wasn’t helping my stomach. I’d always been sensitive to medicine.
I rinsed out my mouth and came out of the bathroom. Noise from the living room caught my attention and curiosity won the battle against going back to my room to hide. Running away wasn’t me. I wasn’t an ant. I was a… well, I didn’t have any metaphors in my head right then. But I inched forward to the living room. The guys had said I could come downstairs. No one had ordered me to stay away from anywhere. I bet I could go down to the basement if I wanted to and no one would stop me.
I didn’t know why I’d want to.
“They got here with their helicopters and we had no warning.” Trace sounded pissed. As I leaned against the door I could tell from the set of his shoulders that I was right. He was mad. I silently congratulated myself on reading him correctly. Okay, maybe my brain was coming back online.
Kade tapped quickly on his keyboard. I looked around the room. It was The Letters but there were a ton more people I didn’t recognize. I quickly dismissed them. Unless they were about to do something important, I couldn’t take on or care about any new people.
Derrick joined me. Where had he been? He was covered in blood. I sucked in a breath. “Are you okay?”
“None of it is mine.” He shrugged. “If they’re going to be so obvious, coming in noisy helicopters and giving us that kind of warning, they’re going to get their heads blown off.”
I supposed that made sense. I’d never given this kind of thing much thought. “They had to know that. Why do that?”
He shrugged again. “Alliance drones. They do as they’re told.”
Well, of course they did. If they did, they were rewarded, assuming they didn’t die. And if they didn’t, they ended up with dead wives like Alyssa—Derrick’s late wife and also Judson’s twin sister—or locked in a dungeon like me. There was no hiding from the Alliance.
“I’ve got it.” Kade smiled. “No one is getting anywhere near this island without us knowing in the future. Thank you, NASA.”
I really didn’t want to know.
“Are there any injuries?” Judson asked from the same spot on the couch where I’d first seen him. That must have been his spot. “I assume someone would have told me by now.”
“None,” Derrick called from his spot near me by the door. “We’re good. I got most of them before they exited the helicopter. Trace and Warden got the others.”
Jud got to his feet. “And the rest of you? Just sat around. We don’t have time for people who take up space. I want a rundown from each of you by tonight on what you yourself are doing to get rid of the Alliance leaders. I don’t have time for stagnation, and if you’re not helping, you can leave and we’ll be rid of you in the new era. That goes for our colleagues not here. I want a report from everyone by midnight tonight.” He motioned toward me. “And everyone, this is Everly. You know we’ve been looking for her and as you can see she was recovered.”
In the back of the room, my redheaded rescuer sat up like he might be acknowledged. Jud moved on without doing so. I guessed he hadn’t saved me quite soon enough.
“Should she be here?” A burly man with a white beard asked. He stood by the bar and wore a bow tie. I’d not paid attention to him. I really didn’t have it in me for new people but now I hated him. Just like
that. Instant hatred. Wow. I was really all over the place.
But I didn’t want to focus on that. I wanted, instead, to think about sticking a fork right through bearded guy’s eye.
“Are you questioning me?” Jud approached the man slowly, and I caught my breath. I’d never thought of Judson as being particularly threatening. He was… organized, difficult, easily annoyed, and sometimes rude. But even when he’d been drawing the Alliance toward him in order to take an assassin out, I hadn’t particularly thought of him as dangerous.
How foolish of me.
As he loomed over the larger man, the white bearded fool began to shake. I could suddenly see J very differently than before. Judson. I shook my head. I didn’t want to revert to letters. Not in this moment.
Could I see Judson locking someone in a basement? Yes.
My mouth went dry. He absolutely could do that. In fact, every man in this room was probably more than capable of doing so. Just the fact that they were here spoke volumes about their abilities. I had to accept this as truth and somehow make it so that I was never the one they wanted to lock up again.
Was that self-serving? Fuck, yes. Did I care? Not one small bit.
If I had to live my life making sure that I was out for number one, that was what I would do.
“No, Judson.” The man dropped his eyes. “It’s just we have a policy about women…”
“We have no policies until I give you policies. If you want policies, go ahead and crawl back to the Alliance. See if they’ll take you back.”
The man seemed to shrink considerably. “I understand. Sir.”
Judson nodded. “Anyone else?”
I’d seen enough. I turned and walked into the kitchen. I wasn’t going to attempt food. The bullet hole in the kitchen window briefly caught my attention, and I stared at it. What did the local population think? Did they notice? Did they still believe this was some sort of rich person’s hunting lodge? Of course, that would explain the gunfire. Or maybe this whole thing was handled because it had been for years.
Dark Truths: Kiss Her Goodbye #2 Page 4
