by T. Starnes
"One chance. Run ... and don't stop."
One guy looked like he wanted to get froggy. His buddy clearly wasn't on board, reaching down and grabbing his clothes. Seeing his only backup moving to get out, he chose the same fate. When they went out the door, I turned to the bleeding and moaning Mertz. His eyes widened as I leaned over him, grabbed him by the back of the neck, and lifted his head up to within inches of mine.
"When she wakes up, if she wants to press charges for rape or attempted rape, I am going to walk your ass down to the police station, myself. Regardless of what Tina decides to do, this is the last time you will ever see her. Don't ever speak to her again. You two are broken up. If you try and see her again, and I find out, I will pound you unconscious."
He didn't say anything.
"If you are working through trying to go to the police and crying that I assaulted you, remember that I was saving my sister from being raped by you and your two buddies. And ... I have witnesses!"
I let go of his neck, letting his head silently thud against the carpet, and turned to the two girls in the doorway.
"Zoe, help me get her dressed."
Zoe rushed over. The panties were torn too badly to put on her, and the button on the shorts had been ripped off. We couldn't find a bra, but I didn't know if that was because she hadn't worn one, or because we couldn't find it. We decided just to put her in her shirt and shorts, without underwear. Once she was dressed, Zoe carried her shoes as I lifted Tina off the bed and cradled her in my arms. Thankfully, Judy followed us out of the house.
The crowd had gathered around to see what all the noise was about, made way for us. I noticed several kids leaving the house at the same time as we did, scattering in different directions. My guess is they were pretty certain whatever had happened was going to bring the cops, and they didn't want to be anywhere near.
As we walked the distance back to Zoe's, Tina started making some noises and opened up her eyes.
"Cas?" she said weakly.
"It's okay, Tina. We are taking you to Zoe's. You're safe now."
Her eyes were lidded and her voice was slurring a little bit, "I'm sorry I was such a bitch to you."
"It's okay. We can talk tomorrow after you have had some sleep."
"Will you hold me?"
"Of course."
She smiled and her eyes closed. She started to make soft breathing sounds that almost sounded like a quiet snore. I looked over Tina's sleeping body at Judy.
"Are you okay, Judy?"
She nodded weakly, "Yeah, I guess."
"What were your and Tina's plans? Were you going back home? Staying at Tina's?"
"I told my mom that we were staying at Tina's house. Since her mom is working a night shift now, we had planned on staying out really late."
Margret having a night job was news to me, and I sighed.
"Alright, you stay with me and Zoe tonight. We have an extra room. I know Tami is staying over at Vicki's house tonight, do you want us to call her and have her come stay with us?"
She looked hopefully and said, "Yes, please. Can you do that?"
I just nodded, "Yeah. So what happened?"
"We were sitting outside drinking some, well, punch I guess, and she started to slur her words. I thought she was getting drunk, but she started to make less and less sense. Steven said she was drunk, and he would find a place for her to lie down. I saw another one of his friends go in the bedroom with them, and they shut the door. I tried to go in, too; but the door ... it was locked, and I knew! I knew what was going to happen, so I called you."
She had started crying in the middle of her story, tears rolling down her face.
"You did good, Judy. You did the right thing, and Tina is safe. I know she has been ... a little off, lately. We will find out why. I promise."
She whispered, "Thank you."
I felt Zoe reach up and wipe the blood still dripping down my forehead. It was a slow drip, so clearly the cut was small, since I had always heard that head wounds bled a lot.
We walked in silence the rest of the way hone. Walking in the door and down the hall, we found Mom sitting at the kitchen table, clearly waiting on us. She stood and started to say something, but I plowed ahead. I hated to interrupt her, but I wanted to make sure we got some things started.
"Zoe, call Alex and ask her to come over and help. Explain what happened. Then call over to Vicki's and ask Tami to come home. Judy, come with me. Once I get Tina in bed, I will show you where you can sleep."
I turned to look at Mom, "I know you have a bunch of questions, but I want to lay Tina down until Alex gets here. Zoe will fill you in when she gets off the phone. I know we worried you, and I am really sorry about that."
She nodded and I walked upstairs with Judy following behind me. I put Tina in Zoe's room, covered her up, and then walked Judy down the hall to the room they officially kept for me.
"Go ahead and lay down, even though you probably won't be able to sleep. Once Tami gets here I will make sure she comes in to see you, okay?"
She gripped me in a fierce hug, and I felt her nod against my chest, "Okay. Thanks, Cas."
She pulled away and I closed the door behind me on my way back to Zoe's room. I sat on the side of the bed and stroked her hair, watching her slow, steady breathing. After a while, Zoe showed up and sat down on the other side of Tina.
When I looked up at her she said, "Alex is on her way. She said we should go to the hospital to get a rape kit done, since from my description it sounded like she was drugged. I told her we got there before anything actually happened. She is still going to bring over a sample kit so she can test for which drug. She also said if some kind of drug was mixed with alcohol it could be life threatening. I told her Tina was sleeping and she had woken up briefly and talked to you."
"I am half tempted to just take her to the hospital, but then Margret will get involved. I don't know how she is acting at home, but I am betting Margret doesn't know she was at the party, or with a date. Margret always made it pretty clear she didn't want Tina dating till she was sixteen."
Zoe was nodding, slowly stroking Tina's arm, "I still can't help but wonder why she seemed to change so much once Margret kicked you out."
"I know, but we have to wait and let Tina talk to us about that in her own time. Pushing her won't make it better. All we can do now is try and make sure she is safe. Did you get hold of Tami?"
"Yeah, Vicki is getting them a ride over here. They should be here soon."
Still dressed I lay down and pulled Tina into my arms while Zoe cuddled her from the other side. About ten minutes later we heard the front door open followed by footsteps up the stairs. Tami and Vicki appeared in the doorway, looking concerned.
"Tami, your sister is in the other room and she has had a rough night. I think she would really like it if you could be with her."
Tami gave a single nod, and walked out the door, while Vicki kicked off her shoes and lay behind Zoe. I returned to stroking Tina's hair while Zoe filled her in on what had happened. We talked softly for almost an hour longer before the three of us managed to join Tina in slumber land.
I was woken by Tina pushing against my arm, which was draped across her stomach.
I lifted up my head and said, "Are you okay?"
She was pushing herself up and said, "I think ... I'm gonna..."
I saw what was about to happen, and rolled over, twisting to sit up. I grabbed the waste basket next to the bed. I barely got it to her before she started heaving into it while I used my other hand to hold her hair out of the way. When she finished I helped her out of bed and walked her to the bathroom, where I washed her face. She was still looking a little out of it, so I picked her up, and carried her downstairs. I sat on the couch, still holding her in my arms.
"How are you feeling?"
"Better," her voice was muffled since her face was turned into my shirt.
"Do you remember what happened last night?"
"Not really. I th
ink I drank too much. Did Judy call you to come get me?"
"Yes, but it wasn't alcohol. It seems like Steven slipped something into your drink. According to Judy, you were practically passed out, and hadn't even finished the first drink he had handed you."
She sat up, fear on her face, "Are you sure?"
"Yes. Judy is upstairs with Tami, when they get up, you can ask her about it. Steven offered to help you go lay down, and locked you in a room with him and a few of his friends. Judy got scared and called me. When Zoe and I showed up, your clothes were ripped off and damaged, and most of the guys were naked. We are pretty sure we got to you before anything happened."
Tears started streaking down her face as she said, "I knew he wasn't a good person, but I didn't think he would take it that far."
"Tina ... Can I ask you why?"
Although I didn't ask the whole question, she understood what I was asking.
"I was scared. I started having ... weird feelings for you that I knew were wrong, because you are my brother. I mean, I know not like, my real brother ... you know what I mean. I thought of you as my brother, and then I started thinking about you as ... something else. It scared me, because I couldn't understand why I was thinking about you like that, and because I liked it. Then Mom kicked you out, and I thought you would decide to not be my brother anymore. I was hurt; and, even though I knew it wasn't your fault, I wanted to hurt you back."
She sniffed and wiped away the tears, "I guess I only managed to hurt myself. But, you came and saved me anyway, just like you promised."
"There is nothing you could do to me, that would keep me from trying to protect you."
"I know. So now what?"
"Do you want to go to the police about Steven?"
"I ... I don't think so. It would start problems with Mom. I just want it behind me. I don't want to ever see him again. I am going to have to face him one more time at least, and tell him we are breaking up."
"I sort of took care of that for you."
She looked at me and said, "Huh?"
"I wasn't gentle with him when we found you. I was pretty mad. I made it clear to him you and he are over, and told him if you wanted to press charges, then he had better show up at the police station and admit everything."
"Oh! Good. I really never want to talk to him again. I hated being with him, actually. He was crude and really mean most the time. I can't believe I acted like that. I bet Zoe hates me, now. I was as much of a bitch to her as I was to you."
"I don't hate you," Zoe's voice came from the doorway behind me.
We both turned and saw Zoe, Tami, Vicki and Judy standing there. Zoe came over and sat on the other side of us hugging Tina.
"In fact, I love you almost as much as I love your brother."
"We need to get you cleaned up, and then you and Judy need to get home. It's probably best if Margret doesn't know about this. She will freak out."
"Yeah, probably.
We stood up and most the girls took Tina upstairs to get cleaned up, while Tami came over and leaned into me.
"How's your sister?" I asked.
She shrugged and replied, "She seems okay. She was just scared something was going to happen to Tina and there was nothing she could do. She felt better this morning."
"Okay. Let's put last night behind us, and get ready for a new day."
The speed of the turnaround in my relationship with Tina was nothing short of miraculous. Monday morning she showed up to have breakfast with us, chatting with Zoe like nothing had changed. As she dashed out the door to catch her bus, she gave me a big hug. I was very happy to have the old Tina back, and it appeared Zoe was, too. I knew that Zoe really liked Tina, but until she did her disappearing act from us, I hadn't realized how close the two girls had become.
The only thing tempering my happy mood was that something was bugging me every day at lunch. I felt like there was something I'd noticed but I couldn't put my finger on it. I brought it up to the girls, but they all said everything seemed normal to them.
By Wednesday, I had put it out of my mind, since I had other things to think about. We had a security consultant coming by to talk to us about securing our research materials on the drone project, and my attention was shifting over to that.
Marcus picked me up after school and gave me a lift over to the new facilities we had set up, to work on the prototype. Since the security guy hadn't showed up yet, I took the opportunity to make a pass through where the team Ted had hired were working on the prototype. The body had been constructed, but was still mostly gutted. Each of our team was working, either solo or in pairs, on various internal systems. Even the engine was sitting outside the body of the drone and lay half open, although at the moment no one was working on it.
The building we had was mostly an open warehouse with rows of work benches against one wall. There was a small enclosed area that held offices at the front, and that is where the front door was, so anyone coming in had to go through the offices first.
Ted stuck his head out of the office area and let me know the consultant was there. Both Marcus and Ted maintained their original offices in Ted's building. Here we only had a secretary that handled purchasing for the team working on the prototype and to cover the front door. It normally remained locked and she had to buzz people in. We had three other offices, two used by the two engineers and one shared by the mechanics. There was also a conference room and that is where I followed Ted. Inside I found Marcus, Jonathan, and a man I didn't recognize.
Marcus turned as I came in and indicated the guy I didn't know, "Cas, this is Jim Mapes, the security consultant we talked about. Mr. Mapes, this is Caspian Grey, our other partner."
We shook hands and exchanged the normal pleasantries.
Mr. Mapes wasted no time and jumped right back into his pitch.
"As I was saying, I would suggest we put in a safe at this location, to limit the time any sensitive documents are in transit."
I looked over at Ted.
"I thought we had agreed on holding plans at your office, since it had twenty-four hour on site security, and putting in electronic monitoring here for the hardware and physical equipment."
Ted shrugged and replied, "We had and that is where we started this conversation. Mr. Mapes feels we should have a different strategy."
I looked back at the consultant and said, "The way we have it set up now, they log into a remote terminal in the main offices to access and revise plans, and we keep hard copies on site there. So there is no question of any plans being in transit. Doing this seems like it would increase our vulnerability and put both the plans and work product in the same place."
Marcus was shaking his head in disagreement.
"We have to have the plans here to work on the prototype, and it's not like we secure the computers in a safe. If someone was to break-in, it wouldn't be hard to get a copy of our plans. I think we should keep them here in a safe and set up a one direction upload to the server in Ted's building."
"Network security has issues," Mapes said. "I think you should reconsider the uploading of your secure documents."
"But then all of our designs would be in one place. Again, that seems like a mistake to me," I said.
"I have to agree with Cas on that," Marcus added.
Mr. Mapes did not seem happy at that decision, and his look at me indicated his displeasure, but there wasn't much he could do.
"If that is your decision. I have the diagrams and measurements I need. I will send you over a proposal for both cost and estimated install time later this week."
He gathered up his things, shook everyone's hands, and made a hasty retreat. After I heard him leave I turned to Ted.
"Something about that guy bugs me."
Ted looked at me with a puzzled expression as he asked, "Like what?"
I shrugged and said, "I don't know, can't place my finger on it. Just ... never mind, just ignore me for now. Let's go over where we are on everything else."
; The guys took me through a rundown on the current progress. Things were actually moving at a much faster pace than I expected. Thanks to the head start they gave us by working on some of the electronics pre-patent, a move I was still not happy about, we were certain to make the Christmas deadline. We would even have time for some additional testing and modifications. Ted had already reached out to his guy at the Air Force and set up a test for the week after New Years. He again got a cryptic warning about competitors but, without something tangible to work with, there wasn't much we could do with that.
Ted dropped me back off at home and I was happy to see Tina had come by for diner. With Margret working a night job, it seemed like we should expect her fairly often, something all of us were happy about.
Between thinking about work, Tina's visit the night before, and planning out my Date with Vicki the next day I had put the voice in the back of my head saying something wasn't quite right in the lunch room aside. As soon as I sat down, it started chattering away again.
I was distracted again, when Zoe punched me in the arm.
"What?"
Zoe frowned at me and asked, "Haven't you been paying attention?"
I gave her my best sheepish look as I said, "No, sorry. I was just thinking about stuff."
"Andrea asked you for help with the marathon."
"I thought you had been training since the beginning of the year?" I said, turning towards Andrea.
Andrea rolled her eyes at me and said, "You know I have been training, but I need to work on my speed. I just can't seem to get where I need to be. I also need someone who knows my endurance and can help pace me during the event itself."
"So you want me to train with you for the marathon and be your running partner during it?"
"Yeah, basically."
"You know I have never run a marathon before, right? I just signed up with everyone else, but I wasn't going to take it seriously. Are you sure you want me for this?"
"Cas, you run five to ten miles every single day. I know when you run by yourself you do it at a pace I can't match. That is why I want your help; I know you can really push me. And I have seen you on our group runs. You are really good at holding your pace to the group's current level, or where you want the group to be at. You are good at tracking and holding a pace. Please?"
