Before There Was You

by Denise A. Agnew

  “Did you put the radio on?” he asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “Trust me. Put the radio on. I was talking with this marine once with PTSD who couldn’t drive his car unless he listened to the radio or hooked his iPod up to it and listened to podcasts. It makes you think about something else.”

  “Good idea.” She flipped on the radio and lowered the volume on a classical station. The same one she’d last listened to months ago.

  “If you get off the next exit, you should be all right,” he said.

  “I was thinking I’d take Nevada south from there.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Are you talking with me while group is going on in the room?” she asked in curiosity.

  “Hell, no. I told them I was worried that you hadn’t arrived and went outside to call.”

  Goodie. Now everyone knew they had a connection. Or maybe they’d known beforehand.

  “You sounded a little shaky when you answered the phone,” he said.

  “I’m a bit freaked. It started creeping up on me when the traffic slowed down. I don’t know why. I was so good up until then.”

  “Sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason to it.”

  “Aaron MacPherson, how do you know so damned much?”

  She could almost see him shrug.

  “I know a little about a lot of things. I don’t think it’s a special talent.”

  She laughed softly. “Well, you’re sweet to worry and call.”

  He snorted. “Sweet?”

  “Well, okay…maybe you’re not sweet. I’d better let you get back to group.”

  “Nope. I’m going to hang on the line until I’m sure you’re getting off the exit and you’re okay.”

  Damn the man. If he kept this up, she’d fall more and more—

  Her thoughts scrambled. Oh, hell no. She was not falling for a screwed-up tough guy marine. No and double no. She could hardly keep track of her own bizarre life.

  “So distract me,” she said.

  “Okay. I suppose we could have phone sex.”

  His statement hit her like a cannon ball, and she felt the heat flame her face. “Aaron!”

  “What? You’ve never had phone sex?”

  “Well…no…but…”

  “But?” He laughed. “Sorry, sweetheart. I’m teasing. When we have phone sex, I’d rather it be somewhere comfortable. Besides, I don’t want to get all worked up when I have to go into group therapy afterwards.”

  When? When we have phone sex? She imagined him walking into group therapy sporting a hard-on. Her palms started to sweat again, but for a different reason.

  She cleared her throat. “You’re evil, MacPherson.” Traffic started to pick up. “I’d better get off the phone before you make me wreck. Traffic is starting to move. I’m getting off at the next exit.”

  “Roger that. See you soon.”

  She hung up and slipped the cell phone back into her purse. Listening to the music, along with imagining what it would be like to have phone sex with Aaron, eased her panic away. As she eased off the highway onto the ramp, she smiled. Who knew that a promise of phone sex in the future and classical music in the background could cure panic? She felt good the rest of the way, and although she walked into group therapy late, self-consciousness didn’t assault her when she entered the room. Aaron had already briefed the group on what had happened to her. Everyone in the room seemed sympathetic to her traffic jam experience and added their own traffic stories.

  Addy launched into a statement listing what she wished to accomplish for the evening. “We’ve heard from almost everyone on their traumatic experiences. However, we haven’t heard much from Lana and Aaron on their experiences. I’d like to ease you both into that today.”

  “It’s only fair,” Roxanne said. “The rest of us have spilled our guts.”

  Lana wanted to tell the woman to shut up, but resisted. Instead she glanced at Aaron. He winked at her, and his flirting manner eased the worry inside her. Did she want to regurgitate more of what happened to her in Costa Rica? Hell, no. Would it help? It might. She would push through it.

  “Lana? Can you start?” Addy asked as she scribbled on her notepad.

  For a wild second Lana almost said no. “Okay. Where do I start?”

  Addy gave one of her warm therapist smiles. “Anywhere it seems the least scary. You’ve already told us some.”

  Lana tried to relax by stretching her legs out in front of her and crossing them at the ankle. Maybe she’d look too relaxed, and maybe she wouldn’t feel relaxed at all. She truly didn’t know what to say, so she plunged right into her tale of Costa Rica.

  “I saved up for a long time for the trip. It was scheduled for two weeks. The first week was great. Amazing, as a matter of fact. What we didn’t know was the tour bus driver had financial problems. His cousin belonged to this rebel extremist group with plans to overthrow the government. A little group, but with enough money to get weapons. One day the tour bus was heading to some ruins. We drove into this forested area. It didn’t seem right somehow—I don’t know why. Maybe my instincts told me something. The driver pulled over on this very deserted road, and at first my friend Jillie and I thought maybe the bus was breaking down. The bus driver opened the front area door, and all of a sudden these guys started running out of the jungle.”

  She stopped, unsure how much of this they’d want to hear in one swath and how much she could stand to reveal. Go on. Just get the whole thing out.

  A chill skated through her when she remembered the confusion that had spilled over her when the men had jumped onto the bus. Confusion quickly replaced by a dawning fear when she’d realized there was no earthly reason men with weapons should charge onto their bus.

  “I’ve kind of already told you this part,” she said, feeling a weird sense of shame.

  “It’s all right. You didn’t tell us that much detail the first time,” Addy said. “See if you can take us farther into your situation.”

  She swallowed hard as her throat tightened. She glanced up and caught Magnus’s eye accidentally. In his gaze she saw coldness. No understanding. She jerked her attention from him to the one person in the room she felt she could trust. Her gaze tangled with Aaron’s, and his eyes flooded with warmth and sympathy. He understood, even if no one else did.

  Addy placed her writing pad in her lap and leaned forward, her eyes fully on Lana as if she watched a fascinating movie. “Can you tell us more?”

  Lana drew in a slow breath. “I…yes. I think so. There were twelve men, all of them wearing camo-type pants and black T-shirts and combat boots. They didn’t wear masks, but they were loaded down with ammo, Rambo style. They ran onto the bus and all of the women started screaming.” She tightened her lips in rejection of the idea. “I didn’t…I thought it would only make the thugs angry.”

  “Isn’t screaming sort of involuntary in that situation?” Roxanne asked with a tone that conveyed disbelief.

  Lana closed her eyes and rubbed the back of her neck. Soreness ran through her muscles. “It isn’t for me. I never scream when I’m scared.” She shrugged. “Call me different, I guess.”

  “What happened then?” Elliot asked.

  Lana blew air out of her mouth in a sigh. “They clubbed two of the women in the mouth to keep them quiet. Everyone stopped screaming after that.”

  In Lana’s head she saw the butt of the weapon flying toward a screaming woman and the sound as it broke her jaw and knocked out teeth. Lana winced as she recalled the blood splattering, the woman’s agonized moan. Her husband launching from the bus seat in anger.

  “The woman’s male companion tried to get up and retaliate,” she said. “They clubbed him too. I’m surprised they didn’t shoot someone.”

  Roxanne put a hand to her mouth, and even her eyes looked shocked.

  Addy’s brow furrowed. “An awful situation. What happened after that?”

  Part of her didn’t want to…really, really didn’t want to say
another damned word. Why rehash this? What was the point?

  She licked her dry lips, wishing she’d remembered her water bottle outside in the car. She forced words out of her mouth. “They…one of the creeps who turned out to be the leader…Raul…he said they only needed one of us. So he yanked me out of my seat. Jillie didn’t scream, but she grabbed me by the arm and started saying no. One of the guys reached over to hit her, and I grabbed his arm. He slapped me across the face and almost split my lip. Then the guy walloped Jillie in the face. Raul then turned and told the guy to ease up, in Spanish. Raul dragged me out of the bus.”

  “You didn’t resist?” Magnus asked.

  “Of course. It was instinctive. The only thing I could think of was rape and murder. That had to be what they had in mind. The other men robbed everyone else of valuables and cash.”

  “They didn’t say anything about being a rebel faction?” Richard asked.

  “No.” Lana shook her head. “I just thought they were a bunch of criminals. As it turned out, that’s what they were anyway. They didn’t care anything about a coup, they wanted money, plain and simple. The kidnappers spoke reasonable English, and they said they were from the People’s Alliance Army. I found out after I was rescued it was all a lie. There’s no such thing.”

  “You didn’t suspect it was a lie?” Richard asked.

  “I did, but I wasn’t certain. Honestly I was more interested in how I was going to make it through, day by day.”

  “Can you tell us what you felt during your captivity?” Addy asked.

  A loaded question. The events that had transpired over the two weeks filtered into her head, sending a cold wave of fear over her she hadn’t expected. She smelled the damp rot of the jungle, the squish of vegetation under her feet. The screech of birds. The eerie vitality of the forest.

  Somehow Lana found the words. “Fear, naturally. Sharp and intense. It settled into me and never left for the two weeks I was there.” Lana continued despite the fear rising inside her now. “They took me with them when they left the bus. We walked for several hours through the jungle. Raul gave orders, and the others followed without question. I’d hoped maybe I could reason with them, and I asked what they wanted and why they’d taken me and no one else. Raul didn’t answer.” Now she was on a roll, and decided to tell them the whole damned thing if they’d allow it. “They asked for one million dollars. My parents don’t have that kind of money. Later I heard they planned on putting their ranch up for sale if it came to that.”

  “Oh, my God,” Roxanne said. “How horrible. Your parents must have been frantic.”

  Roxanne’s sympathy surprised Lana.

  “They were,” Lana said.

  The room went silent again.

  “They marched you into the jungle for hours,” Addy said as a prompt when the quiet went on too long.

  Lana realized the words poured easily now, so she talked faster, eager to bleed the tale and get the poison out. “By nightfall I was about ready to drop. The heat and humidity were oppressive. I tried telling Raul a couple of times I needed water and shade, but they kept going. I finally passed out. That had never happened to me before.”

  “Heat exhaustion?” Elliot asked.

  “Close enough.” Lana glanced at him, and then at her hands. “I woke up and realized I was slung over Raul’s shoulder. Night had fallen. We came upon this camp area where they had put up some hut-like tents.”

  “Let me guess. You were tossed in a hut?” Roxanne said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  The woman’s switch from sympathy to blatant disbelief was weird as hell.

  Lana continued. “First Raul sat me down and gave me water and this jerky stuff. Then he threw me in the prison-like hut. Luckily for me, it was a nicer accommodation than I expected. A bed, a primitive toilet. It was amazingly clean, even with a dirt floor. I could have been chucked into a nastier hell hole. I was grateful for that little bit.”

  Roxanne nodded, but her eyes said she didn’t believe a word. “Uh-huh.”

  Lana rubbed the back of her neck again. “Luckily for me, Raul had a weird sense of chivalry. I think it had more to do with machismo and owning me than it did any sense of humanity.”

  Elliot shook his head and made a tsking sound. “Sick bastard.”

  “So how did you survive two weeks there?” Magnus asked. “Stockholm Syndrome?”

  “No.”

  “They didn’t rape you?” Magnus said, his words shot out, the tone almost accusatory. His gaze lay on her, hot and interested.

  Her skin crawled at the way he looked at her. “No, thankfully.”

  “How?” Magnus asked. “How did you keep that from happening?”

  Hot, then cold, ran over Lana and so did anger. “What do you mean?”

  Addy cleared her throat. “Magnus, take it easy. Yes, we can ask her questions, but be sensitive to people’s feelings.”

  Lana turned a look at Magnus as the anger rose a bit higher. “Anything conciliatory or nice I said to Raul or any of those other creeps was entirely playacting. I did it to survive.”

  “Are you saying you let them…have you?” Magnus asked, that gleam still in his eyes.

  A new spike of anger surged inside Lana. She didn’t want to deal with the shame of what she’d done to survive.

  Aaron threw daggers with one look at Magnus. “What the hell did Addy just say? Shut the hell up.”

  “Who died and made you boss?” Magnus threw an equally hostile glance at Aaron.

  “Gentlemen.” Addy’s voice was the strongest Lana had heard in the group sessions. “That’s enough, or I’ll toss you both out and you won’t return.”

  Lana looked at Aaron, and their eyes met. In the barest of seconds she saw both anger and concern in his eyes. She allowed a small smile to curve her lips and reassure him. She didn’t want him thrown out of the group.

  “Sorry for the interruption.” Addy gestured quickly to Lana. “If you can, please go on.”

  Lana sat up straight and rubbed her arms against the air-conditioned cold. “Raul didn’t have me. He never raped me or tried to. I don’t know why. The only thing I can think of was Raul’s sense of right and wrong.”

  “Bizarre,” Richard said.

  Lana nodded. “Any moment they could’ve just killed me. I was strung out on fear and steeped in exhaustion. I’d been there a day when I realized the hut next to me was occupied by another woman. I heard her…”

  “Heard her?” Addy asked.

  “She was crying out. Screaming in Spanish,” Lana said.

  “So they’d kidnapped another woman,” Elliot said with horror in his voice.

  Lana swallowed hard. “I think she’d been there before me…God only knows how long she was there.”

  Lana closed her eyes and recalled. The heat, the sweat, the relentless terror of imagining a hundred different fates, all of them horrible. That’s what she’d lived. How did one convey that type of emotion? What she’d experienced? She kept her eyes closed and continued to explain. “I knew my parents would try and get me out, but there weren’t too many other people I interacted with back at the high school that would want to help. Jillie stayed in Costa Rica and did what she could from that end.”

  When Lana’s eyes opened, she realized everyone stared at her.

  “Why is that? That you wouldn’t have a lot of people pulling for you?” Addy asked.

  Lana just let it hang out. “Because I’ve always been a bit of a loner. I don’t make friends that easily.”

  “You’re an introvert?” Addy scribbled on her pad for the umpteenth time.

  Lana felt she’d answered that question a million times in the past and always had to justify it. “Yes.”

  Addy’s expression went thoughtful and maybe skeptical. “Did you feel as if the lack of friends would impede your chance of getting out of the situation?”

  Lana didn’t know. “Maybe. Honestly I didn’t think of that. I was fixated on what these guys were going to do. W
hat if they just took a ransom and then killed me anyway?”

  “I can’t imagine.” Elliot’s voice was hushed, his eyes hollow. “Terrifying.”

  Lana nodded, but her throat had gone tight. She didn’t know if she could choke out another word. “Raul threatened me numerous times with death. All different kinds of death.” Her stomach roiled. “Hanging. Shooting. Stabbing. Drowning. He told me if the time came, he’d let me choose which one I wanted.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Aaron said, his voice a soft rumble.

  Her eyes met his and suddenly tears were there. She held them off with a deep breath.

  “What ran through your head?” Addy’s question was hushed.

  “At first it was outright horror. He told me that the day they kidnapped me. So I had a lot of time to think which one I’d choose.”

  “Which one?” Magnus asked.

  Aaron glared at Magnus again, but no one said anything to Magnus for the probing question.

  “I never chose.” Lana shook her head. “I couldn’t make myself. There was this superstitious part of me that was convinced if I chose…”

  A hush settled over the room, waiting.

  Aaron’s voice came out of the silence. “You’d be sealing your fate.”

  Lana couldn’t deny it. “Exactly.”

  Once more the room went grave silent.

  “So did kidnap and ransom people get called in to try and negotiate?” Richard broke the lull.

  “They tried, but it didn’t do much good.” Lana’s voice hovered low and soft.

  She glanced around and saw questions in everyone’s eyes. Especially Aaron’s. His eyes, his entire face had a darkness to it. She thought she saw anger there boiling under the surface. Anger about what? Did he think she should have fought harder to get away?

  As if she’d read her mind, Roxanne broke in. “Why didn’t you run? Try to get away?”

  “I thought of it.” Lana shifted on the hard chair and rubbed her arms for what seemed the twentieth time that hour. Tears tried to come and hovered on the edge waiting for something to push them over. “The door was solid, the windows barred. I’m not MacGuyver.”

  “They never let you out?” Roxanne’s expression held her usual perpetual disbelief.