Forsaken Duty, The Red Team Series, Book 9

by Elaine Levine

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Wynnie,” the man said.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Her snapped retort hit a nerve. She wasn’t sorry, either. Her mind scrambled to find some test, some proof that they were who they said they were. “Did you test your research on yourselves? Or did someone infect you?”

  The couple exchanged a look. “We tested on ourselves,” the woman said. “We didn’t want to test it on other humans if we weren’t willing to test it on ourselves.”

  “And, honestly,” the man added, “if it had had a terminal effect, it would have been our ticket out.”

  A test question popped into Wynn’s head. “What was the color of Grams’ and Gramps’ living room before Grams did her renovation?” Her mom grew up in that house. She should remember that fact.

  “It was green,” the woman said. “Army green. My mom missed Dad terribly after he passed, but she was sure glad to get a chance to redo the house according to her tastes.”

  That was true. “When did the step break in her basement stairs at Grams?”

  “I don’t know,” the woman said. “It wasn’t broken before we left.”

  True. “What was my best girlfriend’s name before I moved in with Grams?”

  “Page.”

  True. “What was her hair color?”

  “Beautiful, deep auburn.”

  True. “What kind of sandwiches did her mom make us when we had sleepovers?”

  “Grilled peanut butter and jelly. I never let you have those because they were messy.”

  True. “What did we always do with the candy after I went trick-or-treating?”

  “We checked it all for razor blades. It was a thing back then. And then I’d sneak the Krackel bars out for your father.”

  True. All true. They knew everything. Wynn covered her mouth, trying to find a way to keep debunking them, but her gut was telling her they were the real deal. They looked only a little older than she was, but they were her parents. She closed her eyes and started to cry. Suddenly, her parents were there, both of them, holding her, crying with her.

  God. It was real. Her parents were alive. How she wished Grams was there to see it.

  “We love you, baby girl,” her dad said. “So damn much.”

  Later that night, when the house was quiet and Troy had been put to bed, Addy was lying next to Owen when the house phone rang. He answered it. “Tremaine.”

  “Hi, Owen.”

  Owen smiled a little as he put it on speaker. “Hi, Troy.”

  “Is my mom there?”

  “Yes, she is. Do you want to talk to her?”

  “No. I just was practicing with the phone.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  “I’m here for you, boy, if you need me.”

  “Have a nice sleepover.”

  Owen grinned. “Thanks. Night, Troy.”

  “Goodnight, Owen.”

  Owen hung up, then released a long sigh. “God, I feel so guilty for taking you away from him.”

  “He’ll be asleep in a few minutes.”

  “So you told him you were sleeping over?”

  She nodded. “I don’t have to, if you don’t want me to.”

  “Oh, I do want you here. I want you in my arms every moment I can have you. I’m just surprised you broke it to him.”

  “I didn’t want him to wake up in the middle of the night and not know where I was. I told him sometimes grownups need grownup time.”

  “That what this is?”

  “I hope so.”

  He caught her and pulled her over on top of him. “I hope so too.” He decided to go slow, let her choose what happened between them and when. He caught the back of her head and drew her down for a kiss. It was a leisurely exploration of her lips and her mouth and his self-control. She set her elbows on his chest and dug her hands into his hair. He was glad the light was on; he wanted to see her eyes change color as her body warmed up. It was magical, like making love to a fairy. She was a one-of-a-kind woman, and she was his.

  He rolled her over and settled between her legs. Her arms were around his neck. For a long moment, he just stared into her eyes. “Do you know how lucky we are?”

  Her eyes widened. “You can’t mean that. If we were lucky, we’d never have been torn apart to begin with.”

  “We found each other again. We get this do-over. How many people do you know who’ve survived a tragedy and gotten a second chance?”

  “Owen?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “How am I going to make a life for myself?”

  He wasn’t sure how to answer that. Did she want a life away from him? “Any way you want to.”

  “I’m dead to the world.”

  “We’ll fix that.”

  “I haven’t paid taxes my entire adult life. I haven’t had a job and can’t get one without any work history. I have no credit. I’m an invisible woman.”

  “All of that can be repaired, reversed, fixed. That’s the easy stuff. Being without you was the hard stuff. I’ll help you.”

  “My boys need vaccinations. I have no idea how ready Augie is for school. Even Troy, for that matter.”

  Owen smiled at her, feeling a little thrill that she was talking to him like a valued friend. “Wynn can do those assessments. Doc Beck can administer the vaccines.” He kissed her. “The real world is very demanding and very real, but it isn’t an issue at this exact moment. Right now, it’s just you and me. The rest will take care of itself…and you can be sure we’ll face it together.”

  Those assurances didn’t ease the tension in her face. “Without a job, I can’t pay for any of that.”

  “Your job has been surviving. You’re a rock star at that. For the rest, I have money. What I have, all of it, it’s yours, you know.”

  “I want my own,” she said. “I need my own.”

  “Okay. When it’s safe for you to go out in the world, you can take any job you want. And what your job doesn’t cover, I will. I don’t want you stressing over something I have plenty of, you understand? Stress and you aren’t friends right now.”

  She frowned. “I need to be on equal footing with you.”

  He shook his head. “Won’t ever happen. I will never be equal to you. You are so much more than me. Smarter, kinder, stronger.”

  “But money is power.”

  “Maybe, to an asshole like Edwards. But to me, money is just money. A means to an end. A tool. Nothing more or less.” He sighed. Running his thumb over her jaw, he asked, “If I promise that we’ll work it out so that you’re satisfied, even happy, can we let this go for now? Will you trust me?”

  “I’m trying to trust. It isn’t something I’ve had much experience with.”

  Owen smiled. “I’ll take it.” He kissed her. “Ready to sleep?”

  “Sleep?”

  “Yeah. You know. We turn out the lights, close our eyes, quit worrying. You start to snore.”

  She punched his shoulder. “You don’t want sex?”

  “I do. Desperately. But you’ve spent a lifetime having it taken from you. I don’t want that between us. I want you to come to me when you’re ready. Until then, I can take all the cold showers I need to.”

  “Can I still sleep here?”

  “I don’t want you sleeping anywhere else. Is Troy okay?”

  “He slept in his own room before we came here. He’ll be fine. He’s even closer to me in this room than he was at the other house.”

  Much later, in dark of the night, Owen heard his door open. He rolled over, tensing. The guys always knocked if they needed him in the middle of the night. No alarms were going off; no dogs were barking. Still, the hairs lifted on his neck when a little shadow walked over to the bed…dragging his blanket.

  Troy.

  The boy looked at him, then went around the bed to Addy. Owen rolled back over to watch them.

  “Mom, I had a bad dream,” he whispered.

  Addy lifted t
he covers to let him in. She tried to keep him next to her, but that didn’t work. “No. I want to be in the middle.” He climbed over her and got between them.

  Owen tried not to grin.

  “We can’t disturb Owen,” Addy whispered, easing her hand over the side of Troy’s face. “Be still. Go to sleep.”

  Troy held himself as still as he could, but it wasn’t for very long. “Mom, I got to say something.” She didn’t answer him. Owen wondered if she’d gone back to sleep. “Mom. Mom. Mom.”

  Owen grinned. If this was normal, how the fuck did any parent ever get any sleep?

  “Shhh,” Addy said. “Honey, we’ll talk in the morning.”

  “It can’t wait.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I think we should keep Owen.”

  Owen wrapped his arm around Troy and pulled him close. “I agree. Now be quiet.” He looked over at Addy and smiled, knowing she could see him in the dark.

  24

  Owen leaned against the corner of the bathroom in Addy’s room, watching her tuck her son in. It had been another long day spent trying to find Augie, Edwards, and Jafaar. Greer and Max had been monitoring Deputy Jerry’s communications. Owen knew something was going to break loose shortly…he just hoped they were ready for it.

  Addy finished the story she’d been reading to Troy. She set it aside, then kissed her son. Seeing them together always made him feel as if the world wasn’t all bad. He wondered what his own son was like and how he’d fit into Addy and Troy’s family dynamic.

  Probably like he’d never left.

  Addy gave her son a final hug and kiss. Troy reached out to Owen for one as well, which took him by surprise. He hugged Troy, then got a kiss on his cheek. Owen looked up at Addy, feeling a little lost. She just smiled that happy mom kind of smile.

  “Are you having a sleepover with my mom again, Owen?”

  “I am. She and I both sleep better that way.”

  “She’s nice to sleep with. Can I come over if I have a bad dream?”

  “You can. And if the door’s locked, you could call us like you did last night. Maybe call us first so we’re sure to unlock the door.”

  “Why do you lock it?”

  “Because sometimes we’re talking and having that grownup time,” Owen said. “Often, it’s best if that isn’t interrupted. It’s a concentration thing.”

  “Oh. Like reading.”

  Owen chuckled. “Yeah. Like that. Night, Troy.”

  “Night, Owen. Night, Mom.”

  “Night, honey. Sleep tight. Your water’s on the nightstand.”

  He rolled over to his side. “Have fun grownup time.”

  Owen grinned at Addy. No sooner did he get her into his room than he locked the door and started helping her remove her slouchy pajamas. When she was naked, he let himself feast on the sight of her. He touched his fingers to her ribs. What he had in mind for them wasn’t going to be easy to do.

  “Grownup time sounds terrible,” she said, laughing against his mouth.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” He took off his clothes, stacking them on one of his teak chairs. “Tonight, though, I have something else in mind.”

  “What?”

  “Do you remember the picture I left in your room the day I came to your house?”

  “The one of the dead person?”

  Owen laughed. “That wasn’t meant to be a dead person. It was me, when you drew on me when we had chickenpox.”

  “I don’t really remember that time. I was a lot younger than you.”

  “Well, it gave me an idea. Have you heard of wabi-sabi?” Owen asked.

  “No.”

  He took her hand and led her to his bed. “It’s a Japanese aesthetic philosophy. It’s been described differently by many people, but at its heart, it’s a principle that sees beauty in the acceptance of melancholy and longing. It’s the understanding that nothing lasts, nothing’s finished, and nothing’s perfect. Not things. Not people. Not societies. And not souls. What’s most magical about it is that the wabi-sabi of something can be seen and therefore appreciated. For instance, the Japanese who honor this principle sometimes do so by fixing broken things so that the breaks can be seen. They’ll take a broken vase and glue the pieces back together with thin veins of gold so that the break is shown and accepted.”

  “I like that.”

  “Sometimes, when we have soul injuries, they can’t be seen. They live in the darkness inside of us, festering there, growing, expanding until all we believe we are is darkness and broken and unheard.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I feel that way.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “I’m trying not to. I try to find things every day that are beautiful.”

  “I felt broken and empty after I lost you. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I could only get angrier. And now, to find I could have helped you, but didn’t—it’s another break in my soul. All this time I was fighting ghosts, not the real enemy. My life was a waste, for all the hard effort I gave the right thing, it was still the wrong thing. I am wabi-sabi.”

  “I am, too.”

  He nodded. “Do you trust me?”

  Her answer wasn’t fast in coming. She nodded, but somehow, without the words being said, her trust wasn’t fully given.

  He showed her the metallic pen he’d taken from Zavi’s classroom. “I’d like to use this pen to draw the breaks that live inside you. The gold will let light in and let the scars out. I can’t heal you. I can’t undo what was done. But I can accept you as you are now, the beauty of your strength and all you’ve withstood. I’d like to show you that beauty too. We are all becoming…something, even you. You aren’t any longer the woman I abandoned.”

  She caught his hands. “You didn’t abandon me. Your life was taken from you too. You can draw the wabi-sabi on me if I can on you.”

  He nodded. “I’d like to let the light in.”

  “How does it work?”

  “I listen to your body, hear where it says it hides a scar. And I draw where it shows me.” He smiled at her. “There’s no actual cutting and breaking. It’s an energetic thing.”

  Addy nodded, but felt trepidation about what was to happen. He lit several candles around the room, then switched off the lights. The flames flickered with the slightest shift in air current. He selected a song on his phone that was a mixture of instruments and a background of rain.

  He had her lie down on the bed. He stood next to it, silently, observing but not focused on her body. It wasn’t anything like the other times she was stretched out naked in front of a man. She wasn’t bound. It was only the two of them in his room, and there was no malice in his eyes.

  “This makes me nervous,” she whispered.

  Owen met her eyes.

  “You’re studying me.”

  “Addy, what you’re thinking right now, does it give you pleasure?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t think about it. Switch it out for what we’re doing.”

  “This isn’t about pleasure.”

  “It’s not. It’s about relief and healing.”

  “I’m going to close my eyes.”

  “Okay.”

  He sat on the side of the bed. Lifting her hand, he began to draw on her wrist. The lines went around and around her wrist like the restraints that had often bound her. He smoothed his hand over her forearm, on both sides, then drew a spidery web. So many times, Cecil or one of the others had grabbed her there. The thin lines went up and around her elbow. She thought of how often they’d held her arms behind her, bent up in a painful hold, giving them leverage. The lines continued to her upper arms, circling around her arm. He drew lines on her neck, so tender compared to the violent hands that had squeezed her there.

  The pen went up to her face. She could feel him draw a ragged circle, like a fist mark in broken glass. It went over her eye, her nose, the other side of her chin. He repeated similar marks on her left arm as he had her right. An
d then he started on her body, his hand skimming over her skin like a Braille reader.

  He drew lines over and around her breasts. He crisscrossed her heart with his pen. Her ribs, too. His hand paused on her lower abdomen. She held her breath, bracing herself for his questions, but they never came. He continued his exploration over her hips and down her legs, circling her ankles as he had her wrists. It was like he’d seen all of her wounds when they were fresh.

  She opened her eyes when she no longer felt the pen moving over her skin. He was staring at her, like all the dark inside her had crawled from her to him. She was too raw, too exposed to look away or shield herself, so she just let him in.

  “How did you survive?” he asked in a broken whisper.

  “I wasn’t brave enough to end it in the beginning. By the time I was, I had my boys and couldn’t.”

  He was kneeling between her ankles. She’d told Selena she wasn’t going to tell Owen all that had happened, that his burdens were enough for him to carry. But it was clear to her now that his wabi-sabi exercise had reached inside her and pulled them out anyway. She felt a thousand pounds lighter…and he looked that much heavier.

  She knelt in front of him. “It’s my turn.”

  He handed her the marker, then lay down where she’d been. Addy wasn’t at all certain she could do what he did, but she was curious to know what his body might tell her. “How do I do this?”

  “Quiet your mind. Push everything out of it. When it’s empty, let me in. Draw what you hear.”

  “Through my hands…”

  “Right. Use them like metal detectors, only they’re not sensing metal but soul wounds.”

  She closed her eyes and waited for her mind to go quiet. It took effort. She always had a constant stream of fear running through it.

  Once her mind was quiet, she ran her hand over his right hand. Was it only her imagination, or could she truly sense the past injuries there? Soul wounds, he’d said. Were these soul wounds? Or just…injuries? Her eyes met his. He offered no guidance.

  She ran her hand up his arm to his shoulder. It was hard to explain what she was sensing. She hesitated to believe it was real. She had to be doing it wrong—she hadn’t drawn a single line.