She is taken aback. “Yes, Jeremiah, I realize that, but you seem to be taking your frustrations out on me, so it is my problem at the moment.” She rolls her eyes.
He looks calmly over at her, catching her eyes. Less than a second later, his hand flies backward, sending their drinks and sandwich remnants flying. Aislin gasps and flinches away.
“Don’t ever talk back to me, Aislin.” He warns, pointing his finger in her face, ice blue eyes piercing her own. He’s definitely got her attention. She’s scared. Part of her wants to run, the other part wants to jump on his back and claw his eyes out. She tries to calm her breathing and blinks back tears. She remembers the last house she lived in. Rick, her foster father, drank a lot and had a temper. One afternoon, Aislin had come home from school while Declan and Gabe had stayed at school for football practice. Rick’s car was gone so she had assumed he was at work. She was wrong. His car was in the shop and he hadn’t gone to work that day. He’d called in sick. He’d been drinking beer since seven that morning and the empty cans were littered around the living room and kitchen. Aislin padded quietly through the house, heading toward her room.
Though she hadn’t seen him yet, she wondered if he was present given the state of the house. Her foster mom was upstairs passed out. She stayed in a nightgown and curlers most of the time. Unlike, Rick, liquor was Jenny’s drug of choice and by this time of the day, she’d always drunken herself into an alcohol-induced coma. Aislin climbed the stairs and saw that her door was shut. She always left her door open. Turning the knob, she slipped into the room without making a sound. When she turned around, the back of Rick’s hand connected with her cheek. She stumbled and fell backward, the weight of her backpack and the heavy hand that fell, had overcome her small frame.
Rick had staggered toward her and began to remove his belt. She wasn’t sure if he meant to hit her or rape her but she wasn’t going to stay and find out. She stood, threw her heavy book-full backpack at him, knocking him off balance and buying her enough time to run. She ran all the way back to the school and waited for Declan and Gabe to finish practice. Her cheek ached as she sat in the bleachers and a corner of her bottom lip had been split open on impact. The bitter metallic taste of blood filled her mouth as her tongue assessed her lip. Declan had been so angry he almost quit the football team to stay with her. She refused to let him, agreeing that she would wait in the bleachers until their practices were over and would only go home if Dec was with her.
Since Rick, Aislin had not been afraid of any man until now. Jeremiah now scares her. He is supposed to be her nice guy, her safe guy. The one who wants her and will protect her. She feels foolish as her chest tightens. It had all been an act. He’d gained her trust. The bastard had planned this out. She decides to play nice until she gets back home, wanting nothing more than to avoid his rage again. On her knees, Aislin scurries to clean up the scattered food and water bottles. Tears cloud her vision. She wishes her brother were still alive. She needs him.
She sniffs and two hands fall on her upper arms, hauling her up. Jeremiah instructs her to clean up the mess she’d made. He doesn’t offer an apology, doesn’t hold her, and doesn’t offer to help her clean up. She seethes as she gathers the ruined food, the shattered glass, the broken afternoon into a white garbage bag. Throwing each ruined piece of the day away as hard as she can fling it into the flexible plastic. When everything she places all that wasn’t breakable or broken back into the basket, he hoists it up and grabs her elbow, quickly leading her back down the trail. He pulls into her driveway, and though it makes her sick, she accepts his quick kiss and waves as he drives away plastering a fake smile on her face. As she turns the deadbolt in her door, she sinks to the floor and cries. He is terrifying. Another monster.
†
Jeremiah paces his floor. How dare she try to talk back to him! Sure, he’d made up with her, but her defiance enraged him again. He would not tolerate any such attitude from Aislin. She was his. She needs to learn to honor and respect him as a man. When he had tried to speak with his father about girls as a young adolescent boy, his dad had laughed at him. “You’ll fail, son. You’re awkward and such a pussy. You have to demand respect from women. They need a heavy hand at time. Never forget that.”
When he had asked his father why he wasn’t hard on his mother, his father had simply laughed and placed both hands on his shoulders. “Look, your mother has been checked out for years. She’s catatonic. You know that, son. Let’s just say, that she isn’t the only woman I have control of.” He had winked at young Jeremiah before confidently striding away. Like a man, Jeremiah had thought.
In the back yard the other day, he had let her call the shots. He had asked for permission to touch her. Never again. From now on, he would touch her whenever and wherever he wished and he’d be damned if he would ask permission again. He would take what was his.
Well, he had shown Aislin that he was a man. A man who would not tolerate disrespect from her pouty lips. He had seen the fear in her eyes after he sent their picnic scattering over the dirt. He had watched her crawl and sniffle as she cleaned it up. It had been her fault. He wouldn’t lower himself to clean up the mess she had caused. Truthfully, seeing her scared and submissive had aroused him greatly. The corners of his lips upturn and he rubs his manhood. It still arouses him. He might have to dominate her more often.
†
Aislin decides to keep quiet about Jeremiah. No need to tell Ella or Gabe. It was nothing. He had just been upset and she had set him off. Either way, she wouldn’t be seeing Jeremiah anymore. She will not allow herself to be struck or scared by a man ever again. She had to live through that hell once and it wasn’t somewhere she wanted to revisit. Though this had been the first time she’d seen Jeremiah’s anger displayed, she knew this was just the tip of the iceberg. Once a man showed his temper, things would only escalate. It was a journey she refused to take.
When Jeremiah calls her later that evening, she ignores his calls. She ignores his voicemails and texts. She knows that she will have to face him at some point and let him know that whatever they’d had is now over, but she just doesn’t want to deal with him tonight. She’d had her fill today.
The next day, she decides to call Jeremiah and deal with him. He picks up on the first ring. She is honest. “Jeremiah, I don’t want to see you anymore. Whatever this is between us…it’s over. I’m done.” There is a long pause. He is quiet on the other line. “If you still want to be friends, that’s fine, but that’s all we will ever be.” Still quiet. “Okay?” She asks hopefully. The two can remain friends if he wants, but she isn’t ready for a relationship with him. It is the truth. She doesn’t want a relationship with him. If Aislin is truthful with herself, she never had. She had wanted to be attracted to him, and he though he is handsome, he just isn’t Gabriel.
Jeremiah listens, never interrupting her as she explained her position. No arguments. Nothing. The only word out of his mouth comes at the end of their conversation, when he abruptly and coldly says, “Fine, Aislin. If that’s what you really want. Anything else?” Aislin says goodnight and breathes a sigh of relief when she finally taps the ‘end call’ button. That’s the end of that, she thinks to herself.
She is wrong. That evening, she hears a knock at her door. When she unlocks her door, she comes face to face with Jeremiah Stone, who immediately puts his hand on the door and pushes it further into her, into her home. “We need to talk.”
“I’m done talking. I’ve already told you how I feel. I don’t want to see you anymore.” She tries to shut the door, but he holds it open and puts his other hand on the door jamb.
“You’re making a mistake,” he warns.
“No. My only mistake was thinking that you were a good guy. Now, let go of my door.” She tries harder and manages to close it more. She can see only a sliver of him. He starts to push it open again. He’s stronger than her. She looks to the entryway table. Grabbing a hardcover book, she smashes it against the hand on the do
or jamb. He steps back, clutching his injured fingers, rage flashing through his eyes, his lips snarled. She slams the door shut and engages the deadbolts before arming her alarm system.
Shaking, she moves to the window and watches until he walks back to his car and drives away.
Chapter 8
That wasn’t, however, the last time she heard from Jeremiah that week. A day later, he had called and asked her again to reconsider their break-up. Apparently he didn’t take the news very well. She heard slamming noises as he cursed and raged. She left him that way, hanging up the phone. He had shown up the next morning, begging her to believe him that he had just had a hard day and would never treat her like that again, that she was precious to him. The pleading had gotten him nowhere. Aislin would not be treated like that ever again. He called twice after that with the same crazy-angry response to her repeated rejection. She cringed with each slam on the other end of the line. Never again. She refused.
Two weeks after that phone call had ended things with Jeremiah, she hadn’t heard back from him. No calls. No visits. She hadn’t even seen his car pass by her house. For this, Aislin is thankful. He had accepted her decision and hopefully moved on. The two hadn’t dated long and Aislin is sure that he hadn’t grown too attached in that short amount of time. She hadn’t grown attached at all. As her kitchen fills with the scent of lemon cleaner, Aislin slides up the windows over her sink. The soft white curtains float back and forth on the light breeze that flows in. It is a beautiful morning in late September. The sky is clear and blue. Cloudless. The days are still warm and the nights just slightly chilled. Aislin loves this time of year. And, Aislin’s only plans for the day include going for a jog and reading the remainder of her new favorite book.
She scrubs the inside of her microwave with a sponge and then squirts more of the cleaner up toward the ceiling of the device. They are always so difficult to clean. When her phone rings, she doesn’t move to answer it right away. But when her answering machine picks up, Julia Church’s shaking voice fills her kitchen. Aislin runs and picks up the phone immediately. Mrs. Church tells her that Gabriel has been involved in an accident. During his training, he’d been in contact with chemicals and some sort of explosion had happened. Gabe had suffered chemical burns to his face and eyes. He had been attended to at a military hospital near Washington, D.C.—the closest facility to his training location, and was now on his way home. His father had driven to D.C. to get him and the two would be home within the hour.
Aislin tells Mrs. Church that she will be at her house in a couple of hours, grabs her keys and runs out the door, it slamming closed behind her.
†
There is no direct route to and from the District of Columbia, no interstate leading from Washington, to Huntington, West Virginia where the Church family has resided for the past 29 years. The drive to the hospital in D.C. had only taken Jacob Church just shy of six hours. A leisurely trip would have taken at least eight. This trip had been anything but pleasurable. Gabriel had been selected to receive training for a special operation planned for the fall. Though many troops had been sent home from the region, the Afghanistan troops were still being trained by U.S. Soldiers. Gabriel’s training included the disarming of crude roadside bombs, some made by mixing simple combinations of regular household chemicals that when combined would either explode or burn any soldier within 20 yards of the device.
The hand-selected unit had met at a top-secret facility to begin their training weeks ago. Gabriel had been given the option of refusing the assignment, but felt honored to be chosen for such a task. He would be part of a group training people to take control of their own freedom—to take it back from the terrorists that were attempting to tear it apart from within their own country. If the tables were turned, he would appreciate it if such knowledge and expertise were shared with him. Inwardly, he hoped that it would save some of his fellow servicemen as well. Save them the way he had been unable to save his best friend. Unable to save Declan.
The sky was bright and blue, cloudless, when his unit drove down the desert road leading away from the city toward their base. Seven vehicles were in his convoy. He was behind the wheel of the lead Humvee. Declan was riding in the passenger seat of the second in line, directly behind him. He had been joking around with his friend, Jonathon Myers who rode shotgun. Myers was a funny guy. He shaved his head slick at every opportunity as he was starting to bald and felt he should “embrace fate.” A smile and his wrap-around sunglasses never left his face—even if they left base. The skin beneath those wrap-arounds glowed bright white in contrast to the dark skin around it. Gabriel had dreaded each convoy. Each trip away from base promised danger and he just wanted to make it back home, with his best friend, both in one piece.
Several large rocks and clumps of grass littered the arid landscape. The sun was high in the sky, waves of heat blurring the mountains in the distance. A few birds circled the air in the distance, closing in on their prey in an ever-tightening circle. Gabriel was looking down the empty road before him into the desolate valley when it happened. Gabriel could feel the vibration of the earth under wheel when the bomb exploded. An IED, or Improvised Explosive Device, exploded just as Declan’s vehicle and body passed by. He could remember the horror he felt looking in the rear-view mirror, the urgency with which he parked the vehicle and armed himself. Gabriel screamed for the medic as he sprinted toward his best friend, but it was already too late. Declan had been killed on impact. Shards of glass were imbedded in his face and scalp. Blood trailed down his head, neck and seeped into the neck of his clothing. Declan’s limp body was the last thing he remembered seeing as his friends, his brothers dragged him from the scene, still hoarsely screaming his friend’s name, praying in vain for him to awaken.
In all honesty, Gabriel had agreed to the new training position for two reasons. The first was to try to prevent anyone else’s friend or family member from getting killed or injured by such evil and the second was for him to put distance between himself and Aislin. Gabriel knew that his feelings for her were starting to change and he couldn’t allow it. He felt pretty sure hers were changing as well. He couldn’t betray Declan that way. He couldn’t be with Aislin. Mac was his best friend, now, not his lover. He would not let that happen. He couldn’t. Some distance would help put things in perspective for them both. Their emotions were running high since his return to the States and her break-up with Ty. That’s all it was, Gabriel was convinced of it.
During the drive home, Gabriel worried about his future. His eyes had been burned severely by the chemical concoction that exploded in his face. The skin around it had been burned as well, but not nearly as bad as his corneas. If there was an upside to the situation, it had been that the enemy hadn’t burned him. The accident had occurred during training. The enemy hadn’t won. Not that he thought there was a winner at this point. He certainly felt like the loser in this situation.
The doctors gave his vision a grim diagnosis. No one promised his eyesight would return, even with future surgeries. Doctor Pierson, whom his father had described as the “asshole with the gray crew-cut and horn-rimmed glasses,” said he was confident Gabriel would, in fact, remain blind for the rest of his life. Another, a woman, Doctor Montgomery, said she gave him a 50/50 depending on a successful corneal transplant. Gabriel was taking this news in stride, outwardly at least. Given that he had never even had to wear glasses or contacts, he felt better about his chances, or at least hopeful, anyway.
After the long drive home, which had taken the entire eight hours, his dad exited the vehicle and opened the passenger door of his black Nissan Pathfinder for his son. He grabbed Gabriel’s hand and helped lead him to the front door, where his mother, Julia tackled him in a hug.
†
Julia’s cries echo through the front yard. Her graying-brown hair is pulled back in a bun worn low on the back of her neck. She is short, shorter even than Ella and very petite. A pair of wire framed glasses balance on her nose magnifying
the tears that fall down her face beneath them. Tear drops dot her gray t-shirt and Julia stands on her tip-toes, hugging her only son and crying. Aislin cries with her from where she stands leaning against her white CR-V in the driveway, cupping her hand over her mouth. Jacob watches his wife embrace their son from a few feet back, his hands in his tan Dockers. He rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, his short brown hair being toyed with by the light breeze floating through the air. The hair at Mr. Church’s temples and the stubble along his chin and jawline are markedly grayer than the last time she had seen him. It had been more than three years now, or so she thought.
Silently, Aislin feels out of place. This, being a family moment, isn’t where she belongs. She shifts uncomfortably, looking back at her car. For a moment, she considers leaving, but squashes that thought quickly. Julia had called her. Reached out to her. She had invited her here to see Gabriel. To support him. What Aislin isn’t sure of is how Gabe will feel about her presence. Before his accident, he had avoided Aislin like the plague. He is supposed to be her best friend. But, he hadn’t even confided to her about what this training would entail. Technically, he isn’t allowed to disclose such things, but in the past, he would always at least let her know if what he would be getting into was dangerous or not.
Aislin’s eyes drift from the Church’s two-story brick house to the similar two-story beside it, covered with tan siding, with traces of mold creeping in along the eaves, and trimmed in black. She shudders at the memories the sight of the home evokes within her. It is the house of horrors from her memories of her teenage years. The years before Declan became her guardian. The home of Rick and Edith Peterson. The devil himself, as far as Aislin is concerned. As she stares at the home, she notices the movement of a curtain in the upstairs bedroom. Rick’s smiling face fills the window and she becomes sick at her stomach. She remembers their last altercation and her entire body begins to shake.
Devil Creek Page 9
