A Tangled Web

by A. Claire Everward

  Her eyes closed, and he saw her fingers tighten on her arms.

  He turned on the wall screen, and then came back around the desk and stood beside her. Close, but not quite touching. She didn’t move, but he felt her tense up. The storm inside him threatened, but he did nothing but stand and look at the screen.

  She didn’t look. She never once looked up, never moved but to flinch, tighten her arms around herself at the sounds when the attack on her came, right there on the screen in this room with her.

  He stopped the video and turned off the screen. His teeth were clenched. He’d already seen this and even that once was too much.

  And she had been through it.

  In the terrible silence that ensued she suddenly moved, moved to run away from him, from here, to escape, to escape this, him, what was happening inside her, unable to deal, unable to contain it now that it was out, that he knew, that she knew he did, that he saw what was done to her, that it happened, oh God it happened—

  She didn’t make it very far. Before she realized what was happening he was in her way and she was in his arms, wrapped tight, his embrace minding the places where he knew she must be bruised. The bruises that would make themselves visible, must already have, not the ones in her soul. Those, he knew, would take so much more care to heal.

  She fought him, and not because she was afraid of him, she didn’t even remember to panic with his touch. Much stronger than her and driven by everything that was for her in him, he would not let her go. “Don’t,” he murmured, “Don’t. Let me hold you, let me counter his touch with mine.” And he stood there, wrapping her, shielding her, murmuring to her, until she stopped, until she collapsed to the floor, held firmly in his arms, sobbing, finally allowing herself to feel the horror of the past day.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry that this happened, and that you had to deal with it alone.” His voice was soft. “I’m sorry I didn’t protect you.”

  As the sobs finally subsided, she shook her head weakly, exhausted. “You just did,” she said in a shuddering whisper.

  “Too little, too late,” he said, angry at himself. One thing he could not get past. Even after Brett had attacked her, even as she was escaping, hurt, it was him she had thought about, him she had threatened her assailant not to hurt. And even here, facing him, knowing that Brett must be using his plan against her, she still hadn’t defended herself. Instead she had chosen to protect him. He, who had put her in this position, in this danger, in the first place.

  He forced himself under control. She needed him, and she was far more important to him than anyone, anything else.

  He picked her up. She resisted, just a bit, but he stood there, holding her, his lips against her hair, calming her. When she finally relaxed in his arms, he took her out of the den. Graham was just outside, pacing nervously, helplessly. Ian indicated the kitchen, mouthing an order, and Graham rushed off, happy to have something useful to do.

  Ian entered his wife’s bedroom for the first time since she’d arrived at their home. He sat her carefully on the edge of the bed. Then he kneeled down before her and waited until she looked at him and he felt that she was able to grasp what he was saying. Exhausted, and obviously in pain, but alert.

  “Will you let me call for a doctor? Mine, he’s extremely good. Or I can have him call his partner, a woman.”

  She shook her head. “No, please. I don’t need a doctor. I don’t want anyone . . .”

  “To touch you,” he said softly, and was worried that she had let him. It showed him more than anything just how much this had hit her, the attack that had taken the life out of those beautiful eyes. “All right then,” he said. “Do something for me?”

  She was surprised at that. Hesitantly, she nodded.

  “Get into bed, I want you to be comfortable.”

  She nodded again. There was nothing left in her that could resist.

  “Good. I’ll be back in a minute.” He stood up and left, closing the door behind him. Outside, he leaned on it and rubbed his face. He felt helpless. He had done this. He had allowed this to happen to her. To his Tess.

  My Tess, he thought, and now, finally, knew that he would not, could not let it be any other way. He would no longer be held back.

  She undressed slowly, with some difficulty. The bruises hurt. Her entire body ached with them, and with the strain of the day. She put on a pair of shorts and a simple top, not even realizing she’d gone back to what she used to wear to bed before she came here, before she became Ian’s wife.

  She pulled the blanket on herself and lay back, turned to lay on her left and sat right up again when the pain seared through her. She remained seated, hugged her knees and lowered her head onto her arms.

  And raised it again when someone knocked on the door. Ian had said he was coming back, she remembered hazily and called out for him to come in. As he did, she pulled the blanket up on her shoulders, hiding without thinking about it.

  He came in, carrying two mugs. Seeing that she was in bed, he smiled, and came to sit on it beside her. “Drink this,” he said, offering her one of the mugs. “Sweet potato soup. Graham says you haven’t eaten all day.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “That’s why it’s soup and why it’s your favorite one. Drink.”

  She took the hot mug from him and drank, her hands shaking so hard that he reached out to steady them. The soup was rich, tasty. Lina’s. She must have prepared this earlier, Tess thought, and then realized that Graham had known since the night before what had happened to her.

  She drank some of the soup, enough for Ian to be pleased that she had. He put the mug aside. “Good,” he said. “Now this.” He handed her the other mug.

  She squinted inside. “What’s that?”

  “Sweet tea with a bit of whiskey in it.”

  She made a face.

  “Drink. It will help, you’re in shock. It will also help you sleep.”

  “I’m not in shock.”

  “Mrs. Blackwell,” he said softly in a way that made her look at him without any objection, no ability whatsoever to resist. “You are. Now drink or I’ll just sit here and stare at you until you do.”

  That made her smile a little, as he had wanted it to. She drank a bit. Then a bit more.

  “Will you allow me to do something?” he asked, his voice tender.

  She met his eyes, saw them flicker to where the blanket covered her arms. He had seen, she realized, remembering. He had seen it all.

  She lowered her gaze, and he took the tea from her and put it on the nightstand. He reached out and pulled the blanket away as gently as he could.

  And had to take in a deep breath, had to fight the emotion. “I’m going to kill him,” he said, his voice low, rage dominating.

  She finally looked up at him and he was surprised when she put her hand on his. “No, don’t do anything that would come back to hurt you. I couldn’t bear that.” She sighed, tired. “Please, Ian.”

  “It’s okay, I won’t. I promise I won’t do anything without telling you first,” he said, and stroke her cheek, his thumb gentle on the trace of redness still there. He was worrying her, and that wasn’t what he wanted. Needing a moment, needing to handle this, to get a grip on himself, he got up and walked out again, saying nothing, leaving the door open this time. She watched him leave, and the fleeting thought crossed her mind that this, she, had disrupted his day, his life. She let her head drop back on her arms, the tears threatening again.

  When he returned he was holding a small kit. He put it on the nightstand beside her, then stood and assessed her. No, not her, she realized dimly. The bed. He left again and returned moments later carrying a tower of pillows, bed pillows in an assortment of colors. He must have taken them from all the guest rooms in the house, she thought with wonder. Saying nothing, he organized them around her, then had her move and completed the mosaic of pillows that now made up her mattress.

  “That should help you sleep,” he said, thoughtfully asses
sing his handiwork.

  She didn’t know what to say, wasn’t expecting this, the way he was with her. She smiled a little, but the smile disappeared when he sat beside her again and took the kit. Opening it, he took out a small cream tube and some soft cotton pads.

  “No,” she said, inching back a little.

  “It will numb the pain,” he said gently, and proceeded despite her protest. There would be no pain for her in the coming hours, at least not a physical one.

  He dubbed the cool cream on her bruises. His touch was gentle and so very careful, and still it hurt. Every time he touched her she flinched, and every time she did he hurt with her. When he was done with her arms, and with the back of a shoulder, where she had hit the floor hardest when she fell back, his gaze flickered down. He knew there were more.

  She moved the blanket with some hesitation, and he saw the angry bruises on her left thigh just below her shorts, the imprint of fingers on soft skin. He took care of these too, and then of the ones under her undershirt, which she had pulled up a little, enough for him to see the bruising on both her sides, where her assailant had grabbed her, hurting her. The bruises were large, but he didn’t see any significant bruising on the ribs. With a breath of relief, he treated these, too, then moved back, aware of how close he was to her and wary of making her uncomfortable in the vulnerable state she was in.

  She had fought hard. Her body was bruised so badly he wanted nothing more than to take her to the hospital, have her thoroughly checked. But that would make it worse for her, he knew. He would take care of her himself, he finally decided, and see in the morning if it was enough. She didn’t need hospitals and doctors prodding her. She needed peace and quiet.

  She needed love. His. And he had every intention of giving it to her.

  He put the kit back on the nightstand and handed her the tea. As she drank, he raised a hand to her hair and moved it back from her face. She didn’t move away, not at all, but something appeared in her eyes. An awareness. Wariness, even.

  Like an abused child, he thought, being offered shelter, safety, love, and not knowing what to do with it, how to even begin to dare trust. That was it, he realized, putting together what little he knew about her. All her instinctive responses spoke of embedded fear. And what he was doing, what he was offering her, giving her, she had never had that before. She had undoubtedly seen others who had, like her friend Jayden and his wife, and Muriel and Robert, but she had no idea what it was like to have anything like that for herself. And now she’d been attacked, shown the terrible opposite.

  But she had fought, and she had gotten away. And yet she was damn near broken. Something was terribly wrong here.

  It was time he knew.

  “Tess.”

  She raised her eyes to his.

  He asked, not saying a word.

  She nodded slightly. Trust, she thought, had to go both ways. He deserved to know, and she was finally ready to trust him with that part of herself.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “When I was fourteen and eight months old, my parents were killed in a car accident.”

  She saw the surprise on Ian’s face. That wasn’t what the report he’d read about her said. She nodded slightly to confirm. That hadn’t been the truth. This was.

  “We used to live here in California, in Palo Alto. My parents were both information security analysts there. My mom became pregnant, my parents didn’t think that would happen again and were so happy about it. They thought it was a good time for a change, a quieter life, less intensive, and they decided to move to Southeast Texas. To Montaville, a town north of Houston. It looked like a nice place. Friendly, I remember that that’s what I thought. Good for families, for kids. Lots of schools and parks. I didn’t want to move, and it was worse because we moved at winter break, in the middle of the school year, because my parents wanted to get settled before the new baby was born. But I knew it wasn’t an easy decision for them, to do things that way, and I knew they cared about me, that they were trying to make things better for me, too. They kept talking about this place, how much better it would be for us as a family, the school they found for me, how nice it would be to go house hunting together—they’d rented a place at first because they wanted to find the perfect home for us when we got there. And once we got there, they looked happy, more relaxed than I’d seen them for a long time. There wasn’t that tension anymore, you know, they’d worked such long hours before, barely had any time off, and now my dad had a less intensive job waiting for him in Houston, and my mom wanted to find something maybe in Montaville itself. They wanted to be able to spend more time with me and with my . . . whoever it would have been who would have been born if . . .”

  She stopped. Needed a moment to push it away with everything she had, the thought of the life, the family she might still have had if things had been different. “Anyway, we had just moved to Montaville two weeks earlier, two weeks before they died, so I didn’t know anyone there and no one knew me. I didn’t even go to school there yet, and if you’d asked me the name of the street where we lived, I probably would have fumbled it.” She lowered her eyes, hugged her knees.

  Trying to contain the memories, Ian thought.

  “I had no one, no other family. I was in the accident, but I wasn’t hurt, nothing but some scratches and bruises.” Her eyes came to rest on a bruise on her left arm and she averted her eyes. “The policewoman who took my statement took me from the hospital to child protective services. I was a late bloomer, young looking. Sweet, gentle. Naive, my parents were very protective. Looking back that must have been what attracted him to me. That and the fact that no one cared if I lived or died. Not anymore. He, the social worker assigned to me, did what it was he was apparently too easily authorized to do in that town, maybe because it was a small place and everyone knew everyone, I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is that by that night he had custody of me. He and his wife. They already had two foster kids, Justine, eighteen at the time, who had left for college just a few months earlier, and Maddy, twelve, and it must have made sense for whoever was in charge there to approve their taking me, and so immediately. And he was, after all, one of them. He joked with everyone there, everyone seemed to like him. And he was nice, he said it was going to be okay, that I’ll like Maddy, that I can stay in Justine’s room, they’ll figure it out when she comes home for the holidays. I thought I could trust him. I thought I was safe.”

  She spoke quietly, tiredly. Ian wanted desperately to hold her, to have her tell her story while she was safely wrapped in his arms. But he knew he couldn’t, shouldn’t, move any closer. She needed to do this her way.

  “Montaville had a number of neighborhoods, and they lived in the northeast one, an older, less dense area. Houses that were far apart, not big houses, just an older neighborhood with more wooded land around it, some fields here and there. Far enough from the town center and schools not to attract attention. I don’t know. I tried to understand more about it later, tried to understand how they’d managed to keep anyone from knowing for so long. Anyway, my parents had their eye on a house on the western side, in a newer neighborhood with more children in it, so that was the only place I knew, it and the town center and the place we rented not far from it.

  “All I know is that when I saw the house, when he brought me there, it looked normal. Two stories, well kept on the outside. A big back yard, a white fence around the front yard. No neighbors nearby, although the house was near a road and I could hear cars go by now and then. It was just . . . normal. His wife met me at the door and welcomed me to their home, and she introduced to me to Maddy, who was standing beside her. Maddy said nothing, just looked at me. I didn’t see anything on her, I didn’t know about any of that yet. I was exhausted, my family had just died, and I was lost. I remember the pain, the grief. But at least I thought I was safe.

  “There was a small room for Maddy and a small room for me, both upstairs, with a door connecting them. The rooms were identical, no per
sonal signs of . . . anything. Memories, hobbies, personality. Nothing. The room I was to stay in wasn’t really Justine’s, because Justine was already dead. She wasn’t in college, he’d forged all the necessary documents that showed she was away. But it didn’t matter, no one cared because she was eighteen. I was her replacement. He’d thought to take someone younger, but I was a windfall, that’s what he’d told me later.”

  She stopped for a long time. “He didn’t start with me that night. I woke up when he opened the door between my room and Maddy’s, to make sure I knew what he was doing. When she screamed, I ran over and jumped on him, attacked. His wife was the one who pulled me away and beat me up. She was big, fat, strong. And she was a horrible abuser with no conscience whatsoever. When she finished with me I couldn’t do anything but lie on the floor and bleed, while Maddy was screaming in the bed not far from where I lay.”

  Her voice was hollow. She raised her eyes to his for just a moment and saw the horror in his eyes. She continued. She wanted him to know. God, she needed him to know. She needed it because it was important that he wouldn’t be this way with her and that he wouldn’t love her. He mustn’t because she was so damaged.

  It was bad enough that she would have to live with loving him.

  “The next morning the two of them came to my room with Maddy. She could barely walk, and she wasn’t dressed this time, so I could see the bruises, the old ones and the new ones. But she was silent. No speaking, no crying, no living was allowed in that house unless permission was given. They took me to the corner of the back yard where Justine was buried, so that I would know what happens to those who do not obey. Then they laid down the ground rules. Basically, from now on you do not exist. No one looks for kids like you, kids disappear all the time and no one ever finds them, no one cares, we can do whatever we want. No one will help me, that’s why they said, because as a social worker he could easily cover their tracks.

  “He gave me a few days to heal. Wanted me to be pretty again the first time he raped me. And he didn’t stop. For days later, weeks. I was his new toy. I fought. He beat me. His wife beat me. And still I fought. I fought when he raped me, I fought when he raped Maddy again because she was docile and I was trouble. I fought and I never stopped fighting and I have no idea how, or why I didn’t just curl up and die. I just fought.”