Dark

by Aleatha Romig

  As a soldier in war, I’d walked with my platoon into scattered villages, knowing that danger lurked in the most innocent of places. A child’s backpack filled with explosives had the potential to take out an entire block. An old woman in a doorframe could be the enticement to death, or worse, captivity and torture. Yet I didn’t hate our enemy. I’d understood that the differences between us and them weren’t personal. It was war, two opposing sanctions with a long history that time had brought to a head.

  As a black man growing up in Chicago, I’d learned at a young age that life wasn’t the same for everyone. It didn’t matter that some may see a level playing field. It didn’t exist.

  I’d been born into what many would consider a good upper-middle-class neighborhood. My father was an attorney, given his chance by the US Army. He’d joined the service young and scored exceptionally high on their multitude of tests. Physically and intellectually blessed, the military saw his asset in academic endeavors.

  He was encouraged to enter the JAG Corps—the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, a branch of the military concerned with military justice. While spending three years in a civilian law school—he was accepted at Loyola, University of Chicago—he met my mother. After graduation, his service was to the military.

  When his obligation to the military was complete, they married. Two years later I was born. In hindsight, I realized my father was older than many other dads, yet I was too young then to notice.

  Three years later, my father, as a retired lieutenant colonel, volunteered for deployment, taking on a new commission and deployment to the Gulf War buildup, code-named Operation Desert Shield. History would say the war was short—five months. If you asked my mother, it was a lifetime—my father’s.

  He was one of the less than three hundred US servicemen and -women who didn’t return.

  While I experienced growing up without a father, I never hated the military. On the contrary, joining the service was my testament to him.

  Eventually, my mother, grandmother, and I moved from the neighborhood where I was born to a comfortable, albeit less affluent one. My mother refused to let our circumstances bring us down. Her hard work and dedication along with my grandmother’s oversight made me the man I am today. Our life wasn’t without challenge, but I was mostly unaware of it. Without a doubt, I never went without when it came to love and support.

  I was keenly aware that no matter what I did, I lived with a set of rules not applicable to everyone. Judgment based on the color of my skin was outside my ability to control.

  That knowledge made me conscious and weary of the consequences. Sometimes, I admit to being angered, yet through it all, I didn’t hate. As my grandmother taught me, hate was a senseless emotion to waste on people who didn’t deserve my energy. She and my mother taught me to focus on what I could accomplish, to see and be the light.

  Tonight, with the rain falling down, quickly accumulating beneath our boots and creating rivers over what had been hardened packed dirt, the light was gone.

  Darkness won.

  I now knew hate—to my core.

  As Laurel removed objects from her first-aid kit and injected something into Lorna’s arm, my heart hardened. As my finger skirted over my wife’s bruised and battered face, the organ that had recently beat in my chest metaphorically stilled. As I scanned her body, covered in more contusions and lacerations, my once-functioning heart cracked, its shards shattering as I asked my sister-in-law the question I wasn’t certain I could handle being answered.

  My eyelids blinked away the rain and my nostrils flared as I worked to keep my rage from the woman tending my wife. “Was she...?” I forced the words. “Was she sexually assaulted?”

  Laurel’s blue eyes met mine. “Reid, I can’t answer that without a rape kit.” Lorna’s shirt was now raised as Laurel applied an antibiotic lotion to the multitude of bites. We both turned our attention to the panties Lorna was still wearing.

  “Do you want to see if she’s injured?” she asked.

  Exteriorly, there was no blood on the material.

  I shook my head. “Fucking...I can’t.”

  “Do you want me to?”

  Inhaling, I nodded and turned away toward the blowing storm. The precipitation pelted my face and skin as punishment for my failure to protect the woman I loved.

  My gaze went out to the vast landscape. I couldn’t continue to watch Laurel as she cared for Lorna. It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen my wife naked a million times. It was that if I turned and saw visible signs—any sign at all—that not only had my wife been battered almost beyond recognition but also raped, I knew that I would never escape the dark. I would be captive in it forever.

  It wasn’t that I’d love Lorna any less if Laurel’s answer was affirmative. That never even occurred to me. It was that the red currently shading my vision in waves of crimson would be nothing compared to the blood I’d spill for her.

  Laurel’s hand came to my arm. “You may turn back.”

  When I did, Lorna appeared as she had seconds earlier, except that now her shirt was again over her breasts and torso. I didn’t speak but instead turned to Laurel. I swallowed as emotions mixed with rain blurred my vision.

  “I can’t be one hundred percent certain without a kit,” she said, “but while Lorna has bruising on her hips, I don’t see obvious trauma in her perineum.”

  I gulped large breaths as if I’d just breached the surface of the water after descending into a deep underwater dive. “I-I would still love her.”

  Laurel nodded. “I know that. You’re a good man.”

  Would she believe that if she knew my thoughts of revenge?

  “Lorna’s going to need that,” Laurel went on. “She and Araneae both. I hope and pray that with all they’ll face and deal with going forward, rape isn’t one of them.” Her lips curled upward into a grin that forgot to tell her eyes she was smiling. “No matter what they face, they won’t do it alone. From the first time I met Lorna, when we were kids, I knew she possessed the strength to survive whatever life threw her way. She already has overcome so much. She isn’t alone. You’ll help. We all will.”

  I swallowed, trying to push away too many emotions.

  How could a cold heart also have feelings?

  “She’s alive,” I said as a reassurance to myself. “That’s what matters.”

  “Yes, and she’s going to stay that way. After I get her comfortable, we need to get her back to the ranch. I have some medications back there, and I know Seth also does. There’s a regular mini-hospital setup by the bunkhouse. You wouldn’t believe the injuries that can happen on a ranch—from broken bones to snake bites. We’ll get Lorna on an IV with what she needs and call the doctor back.”

  I nodded.

  Laurel turned to me. “We can also have the rape kit done if you want.”

  My thoughts were all over the place.

  I wanted to know for certain, and at the same time, I didn’t want to know.

  The one thought that prevailed was untainted hatred for whoever did this to my wife.

  I couldn’t answer Laurel’s question—if you want.

  Was it a matter of want?

  The moment the kidnappers took Lorna, their death sentence was sealed. Due to the additional evidence of her injuries, creative techniques of painful torture would precede their death, one that would eventually be their relief.

  I watched for a moment as Laurel continued her work. When she looked up at me with her hair and clothes now as drenched as mine, I asked, “If it were you...” I tilted my chin toward the back seat of the truck. “If you were there, the one injured, would you want the kit done? Would you want to know?”

  As rain dripped from her long hair, Laurel’s lips formed a straight line and her blue eyes blinked against the rain. “I can’t make that decision for you or Lorna. We could wait until she wakes, but by then there’s a chance it would be too late.”

  “I’m not asking you to decide for Lorna. I’m asking what y
ou would want. Would you want to know?”

  She took a deep breath, the fabric of her dress pulling the wet fibers tight. “Even knowing what I know about the invasiveness of the kit, I would want to know.”

  “When we get back,” I said, making my decision, “ask the doctor to do it but not to give me or you the results. I want them sealed, and when Lorna is better, if she, like Araneae, doesn’t remember and wants to know, we’ll have her answer.”

  Laurel nodded.

  “The result will not fucking make a difference in how I feel about her. I don’t want her to ever question that. But if she wonders, she should be able to get the answer.”

  “We can do that,” Laurel said. “When do you think she’ll be ready for that answer?”

  I looked again at the beautiful, battered woman I loved more than life itself. “I don’t know. Will she be like Araneae and not remember, or will she wake with all the horrible memories of how she ended up like this?”

  “I guess,” Laurel said, “we won’t know until she wakes. We’ll all take this a day at a time.”

  I watched Laurel gather more items from her kit. “Will it be much longer before we can head back to the ranch?”

  “Not too much longer.” Laurel looked past me to the capos’ car. “What’s happening with Mason?”

  I turned, knowing immediately what Laurel meant. Tension rippled off of him as he stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his neck stiff, staring into the back seat. It was then that I remembered the other woman found with Lorna.

  “Maybe it’s about the other woman,” I said.

  Trudging through the mud, I stepped closer to my friend. “Is she...” I bent down and looked at the other woman. Placing my fingers on her cold neck, I did as I had done in search of Lorna’s pulse.

  This time there was none.

  Not only was this woman dead, but with her emaciated appearance, it seemed as if she were a skeleton who death had finally claimed.

  “Fucking dead,” Mason replied.

  The dome light in the car illuminated the woman’s gaunt features; indented dark circles caused her eyes to appear sunken and her thin skin looked translucent. It took me a moment to see beyond her obvious gaunt exterior to the woman as a whole. I turned to Mason. “Why does she look familiar?”

  “Because she looks like Lorna.” His gaze met mine. “She’s our mother.”

  Reid

  “Your mother?” I repeated. Turning back to the woman, I again scanned her withered form. “Nancy Pierce?” Of course I knew the name of my wife’s mother. “That’s her? Are you sure?”

  With a grunt and a huff, Mason walked away from the capos and the car, toward the night.

  I followed a step behind, finally reaching for his shoulder. Rain squished from the fabric of his shirt as I gripped, stopping and turning him back. “Where are you going?”

  His green gaze shot through the veil of rain. “I can’t look at her anymore.”

  “Listen, I don’t have a fucking idea what to do with the bombshell that she could be the long-lost Nancy Pierce, but right now, I don’t give a fuck. You need to get your shit together. Lorna needs to get back to the ranch and get some real medicine and care.”

  Mason inhaled and nodded. “You’re right.” His jaw, covered in a few days of scruff, clenched as his eyes searched through the rain toward the car. “We’re leaving Nancy to rot.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll fucking leave her out here where they found her. You saw her. Hell...” He looked down at the accumulating water. “The rain will carry her away, and wildlife will take care of the rest.”

  “Wait? You want to leave her? That’s your mother.”

  “She’s the woman who gave birth to me, but that doesn’t make her a mother. What is a fucking mother?” He pointed toward the car, his volume raising. “That woman was a selfish cunt who never gave two shits about Lorna, Miss...” He took a breath. “About any of us.”

  “I get that, man. I do. I’ve listened to Lorna over the years. I know the woman wasn’t exactly mother of the year.”

  “More like Mommie Dearest.”

  I took a few steps to collect my kaleidoscope of thoughts. “How did she get here?” When Mason didn’t answer, I went on, “How did she end up with Lorna? Did the kidnappers have her? The Order?” I added.

  Mason’s voice rose above the increased rumbling of thunder. “I don’t fucking care.”

  “Right now, I believe you. Lorna has been found. My wife and your sister is alive. That’s all that matters.”

  He lifted his chin. “I’ll have Christian take her...no, I’ll do it.”

  As Mason started to walk back toward the cars, I seized his arm. In the millisecond that my grip touched his wet forearm, my brother-in-law froze. His green stare sent daggers my direction as he looked between my grasp and my eyes.

  Inhaling and shaking the rain from my face, I released him.

  While Mason had come a long way with showing his tattoo-covered scars, he drew the line at sight. Touching any of his uncovered skin was reserved solely for one woman. She was currently tending to my wife. I lifted my hands. “Sorry.” Before Mason could begin walking again, I spoke, “What if it’s not her?”

  “It’s been almost twenty years, but I’m not mistaken.” He looked up into the falling rain and back. “You know how little kids are supposed to find solace in their mom’s face? Look in her eyes for comfort and all that shit? Well, to me, seeing her was the opposite. Seeing her meant the beginning of a nightmare, because when she showed up, it was rarely alone. I know in my bones that woman is Nancy Pierce.”

  “Or...she could be someone who was chosen for her similarities to make you think it’s her,” I offered. “The Order has replaced bodies before.” It was Mason’s body they’d replaced with a burnt corpse, but that was old news.

  Mason exhaled as his teeth clenched.

  “Just hear me out,” I said above the increased howling of the wind and the pelting rain. “If this is the Order we’re dealing with, couldn’t it be possible that they’re fucking with you?”

  Lightning zigzagged through the sky as seconds later thunder crashed in a rolling long rumble. The lightning and thunder were getting closer together, meaning the strikes were getting closer.

  Mason pointed toward his truck. “I don’t want to tell her that Nancy showed up dead.”

  “Lorna or Laurel?”

  “Lorna,” he answered. “I saw Lorna before I laid the blanket on her. The last thing my sister needs is to deal with more shit than she’s already been given. What is the sense in telling her a ghost showed up dead?”

  My neck straightened as the sky again filled with light. “The choice to tell Lorna about anything isn’t yours. Stop treating her like she’s eleven.”

  “I’m not.”

  I could go down the I’m her husband road, but another thought occurred to me. “If it is the Order, what do you believe they expect you to do with the body?”

  Mason paused, wiping the rain from his forehead, smoothing back his shoulder-length hair, and shaking the moisture from his palm. “There’s no going back in the Order. It’s not like when we served. The Order is black and white, succeed or fail. There’s no gray, no in between. If you go down on a mission, you’re dead. It doesn’t matter because you were already.”

  “So, they expect you to leave her?”

  “I’m not fucking programmed by—”

  “The capos are taking the body back to the ranch,” I interrupted. “I know I’m not thinking straight, but any damn clue to get me to whomever hurt Lorna is one clue I refuse to leave to raging rivers or wildlife. And the last fucking thing we need is to have a body found on your property, prompting Montana authorities to start asking questions.”

  “The chances she’s ever found—”

  “Are zero if we take her. If we leave her, the authorities could get an anonymous call.”

  Mason’s neck and shoulders tightened.

  “
We’re taking her,” I repeated, “Once we get her back to the ranch, I’ll run her DNA. First, we’ll verify her identity. No matter who she is, this will give Laurel and me a chance to examine her, figure out her COD, and see if she holds any clues to who had Lorna.

  “I sound like a prick, but let’s use that corpse to get whatever information we can. Then, if she is your mother and you still want to feed her to the horses, I don’t care, but,” I added, “no decision is final until Lorna gets a say.”

  Mason shook his head. “Pigs eat bodies, not horses.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “I can agree to that under one condition.” He waited for a response, but I remained silent. “I’m not treating Lorna like a kid,” he said, “but someone fucked her up. You agree that we don’t tell Lorna until she can handle it.

  “Fuck, we can keep Nancy on ice. I don’t give a shit. But with my sister, we don’t know how she’ll even wake or what she’ll remember.”

  “Ice.” I looked at him side-eyed. “We agree there will be no disposing of the body until Lorna is involved. She’s an adult. If that’s Nancy Pierce, Lorna was her child too. My wife deserves as much of a say as you.”

  Lightning again streaked across the sky as simultaneously, thunder shook the ground.

  “Mason. Reid,” Laurel yelled from the truck. “I’m done. We need to go.”

  “Deal?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Mason conceded. He laid his hand on my shoulder, slapping the drenched material. “You were over there with Laurel. How is Lorna?”

  “Alive. That’s all that matters. Unconscious and injured. Laurel is going to call for the doctor once we have cell service again. She said Seth has a mini-clinic back at the ranch.”

  “Yeah, it’s a nice setup.”

  We began walking toward the car and truck.

  Christian and Romero were still standing in the rain.

  “You can put her in the trunk or leave her in the back seat,” Mason said to the capos. “Take her to the main house. We need to do an ID.”

  “I thought you said—” Romero began before wisely deciding to stop his verbal thought. “Yes, Mr. Pierce.”