Rhapsody (The Bellator Saga Book 5)

by Cecilia London

  “It brought back a lot of wonderful memories,” he said. “Isn’t it funny how the little things trigger recollections?”

  “Yeah.” She drank some tea. “That’s why I started crying in my apartment that day. When you hugged me. Because it brought back all those memories for me too.”

  He took the cup away from her, squeezing her hand. “Like that night in Pittsburgh?”

  She nodded. “It made me realize how much I missed you.”

  Jack pulled her into his arms. “Oh, sweetheart. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “It was too hard,” she whispered.

  “I wish you would have. Maybe we could have avoided the heartache of these past few months. I feel badly that you suffered alone for so long.” He rested his chin on the top of her head. “I thought you were crying over that necklace. I guess that makes me a shallow jerk.”

  “No, it doesn’t. You did everything right that day.” She closed her eyes. “How did you know what to do when I started to lose control?”

  “Natalie told me some of the techniques that worked during your therapy sessions. I had a feeling something was happening and I wanted to stop it from going any further. Did it help?”

  “It did. A lot.” She blushed again. “I missed the way you smell.”

  Jack laughed lightly and pulled her closer. “Do you like the way I smell now?”

  She burrowed into his chest. “Absolutely.”

  He kissed her forehead. “What about that conversation you wanted to have?”

  Potential revelations didn’t seem nearly as important as cuddling. “Give me a minute,” Caroline said. “I want to enjoy this.”

  “I have no issues with that.” Jack pulled her on top of him on the couch. “Maybe a quick nap?”

  “Whenever we used to nap this way it would cause trouble.”

  He chuckled. “I promise not to try anything. You’re tired, sweetheart. And you just had a very emotional couple of hours. I haven’t been sleeping so well either. Let’s take a few to rejuvenate ourselves, okay?”

  “Okay.” She closed her eyes and tried to relax. It was comforting but not particularly comfortable, since the couch wasn’t all that soft. “You sure you don’t want to go to bed?” she asked, after a few minutes had passed. “Jack?”

  She laughed quietly. He had already dozed off. Caroline wrapped her arms around him. Maybe the lumpy couch wasn’t all that bad.

  * * * * *

  It took another cup of tea. A quick lunch. A couple of hours of small talk before she finally felt relaxed enough to move forward. Caroline was deathly afraid that a discussion would trigger something that might stall their progress. Jack disagreed.

  “I promise I won’t get angry,” he said. “You tell me what you feel safe sharing, and we’ll take it from there.”

  She wrung her hands. “I haven’t told anyone what happened in there. Not even Natalie.”

  “You told her a little, though. Right?”

  “Afraid you bit off more than you can chew?”

  Jack pressed his palms to her hands, stilling them. “No,” he said clearly. “I am not. I just want to get an idea of what your limitations might be. We don’t have to plow through everything today.”

  He was trying to be reassuring. And failing. “Remember when you told me to keep a low profile?” she asked. “Maybe I should have listened.”

  “None of this was your fault, Caroline. I don’t know what it will take to convince you of that fact. Because it’s not my opinion. It’s the goddamn truth.” He took her hands again. “You shook the hell out of my advisors this morning. They need to know what we’re fighting. Who the enemy is. Someone has to make them understand what this government is truly capable of. And you need to be the one to tell them.”

  But she needed to tell him first, obviously. “I want you to help me through it,” she said softly.

  Jack started rubbing her back. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me what happened. You can stop any time you want.”

  The Fed. Thinking about it brought on the surge of heat that signaled an oncoming panic attack. But Jack would help her focus. She took a deep breath. “I might not be able to articulate it very well.”

  “I hate what they did to you,” he said. “But I need to help you work through it. You can’t keep it inside you. You’re going to keep exploding, which isn’t good for anyone. I could tell you wanted to punch Schroeder at that meeting, and that was over something relatively inconsequential.”

  Was it a good sign that she hadn’t let her anger manifest into violence? “I don’t want you to blame yourself for anything I tell you.”

  Jack extended his arms to her. Caroline held on to him for a long time before she spoke.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  He kissed her forehead. “You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not ready to talk about.”

  She pulled back and watched him swallow hard. She might have been nervous, but he seemed even less prepared to handle what she was about to tell him. “Okay.” Caroline drew in a sharp breath and closed her eyes. She started out easy, telling him about the hospital. She felt him flinch when she mentioned Dr. Savage. She didn’t want to forget Maureen. That last flicker of hope before the light went out.

  The Fed was a bit harder. Caroline opened her eyes. Jack was already staring down at his hands. Shit. She decided to continue anyway.

  “They brought me to the prison after our escape attempt failed,” she said. “They kept me in a small cell. No windows. Whenever I was in there alone the lights were off. Every day they came in and asked me if I would answer their questions. I’d say no. And then-” Caroline paused, trying to control her breathing. She was very close to hyperventilating. “Depending on who it was or what their goal was, they would beat me.”

  “What happened?”

  She put her head in her hands. “Bad things. Bad things happened.”

  Jack tipped her chin up. There were tears in his eyes. He stroked her cheek, let his fingers drift over the bump on the bridge of her nose. “How did this happen?”

  Perhaps that was how to get through it. Go step by step, piece by piece, injury by injury. Make it as clinical and detached as possible. She wasn’t sure if that was what Jack was angling for, but maybe it would help. “They tied me to a chair. They beat me, slapped me, punched and kicked me.” Caroline brought her hand to her nose. “They pistol whipped me. That’s why my nose is crooked and my cheekbones are different. I never got a chance to heal before they’d hit me again.”

  “Do you remember names?”

  “Yes. Bradbury. Howard. They were the agents who interrogated me first.”

  “Who else?”

  “Fischer. Powell. They were my guards. I can’t remember anyone else.”

  “What did they do?”

  She wasn’t quite ready for that yet. She needed to back up a little. “They did – they hurt me.”

  He held up her hands and pressed her fingers against his palm. They didn’t lay flat. “Who did this?”

  Caroline bit her lip. Could she tell him about Murdock? How would he react? “They - he used a hammer.”

  Jack cursed. “Who is ‘he’? One of your guards?”

  Of course he hadn’t missed her correction. She pressed a fist to her lips. “Someone else. Someone we know,” she whispered.

  “A friend?”

  She shuddered. “Definitely not.”

  “Who was it, sweetheart?”

  She couldn’t stop the tears if she tried. “You don’t – I can’t-”

  “Please tell me.”

  She could imagine him as a caricature. With those beady eyes and that ratlike face. His suits and his gym bags and his sick little tools. She bit her lip. “Jeffrey Murdock.”

  Jack stiffened before rising from the couch. He wouldn’t leave, would he? Not after she told him that. No, he calmly walked over to the wall and punched it twice before coming back over and putting his arm around her again.

  �
��Go on,” he said.

  She looked at his hand. His knuckles were bloody. Well, that had been a little unsettling. “Are you-?”

  “Go on,” he repeated. He straightened her fingers out again. “That bastard did this to you?”

  She nodded. “When I refused to talk. Both hands, two days in a row.”

  He shook his head. “What else did he do?”

  Caroline shuddered again. She was getting ahead of herself. “It wasn’t just what he did. I saw people. People I knew. I think these guys – Murdock – they knew their stuff. They knew that anything they did to hurt me wouldn’t produce the desired result. So they tried to convince me to talk by hurting other people. Or by torturing my mind.” She started to cry.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he said softly. “You can stop anytime you want.”

  “No,” Caroline whispered. “You need to know this. Especially what he did. Because that fucked me up the most.”

  Jack removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped off his hand. “Tell me more.”

  She sucked in a hard breath, feeling that familiar numbness across her stomach. “I don’t even think it was about what I knew,” she said. “I didn’t know much. Not really. It was about making me pay. For speaking out and flagrantly declaring my opposition to Santos. For having my own mind. For daring to refuse their requests for information. I was being punished. And it was personal.”

  “How personal was it?”

  Really fucking personal. “The last night Murdock tied me to the wall,” she whispered. “Tight, tight ropes. I couldn’t feel my hands.” She held up her arms. “That’s why – that’s the reason I have those marks on my wrists.”

  Caroline pressed her hands together to keep them from shaking. Jack stroked her hair, still not saying a word. If he didn’t say something soon she was afraid he’d explode. She turned to look at him.

  He blinked. “Do you need to stop?”

  She shook her head. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  He tossed the handkerchief on the coffee table. “Oh, I’m many things right now but I am definitely not okay.”

  Should she stop? Was it too much? Could he handle the worst part of all?

  Jack brought a hand to her cheek. “You can keep going if you want. I need to know. Murdock tied you to the wall. What did he do?”

  She tried not to stutter. A fruitless effort. “He t-took off my shirt.”

  “I’m right here with you. Tell me what else happened.”

  “Not what you think,” she said. “I mean, he fondled me a little and made some really awful remarks but it never went further than that. Although he made it clear that it could. All of them did.”

  Had it mattered whether he’d completed the act? Murdock had clearly derived some sick sexual pleasure from her torture. From treating her like dirt. Caroline closed her eyes, seeing the glint of metal. Hearing the whoosh in the air. Biting back the pain. “And then he took off his belt and-”

  She couldn’t say it out loud. Remembering it was hard enough. She made a whipping motion with her hand and started to cry.

  He enveloped her in his arms again. “It’s okay, baby. I’m with you.”

  Jack would keep her safe. No matter what. He was her candle on the water. Her lighthouse on the ocean. She could tell him. He could handle it. She pressed her nose into his shirt.

  “He wanted me to die,” she whispered. “They all wanted me to die. I was of no use to them. They’d tortured me for two weeks and they knew I was never going to talk. He beat me to within an inch of my life. To make sure I suffered in the most agonizing way possible. It felt like I was on fire. He wanted me to beg for mercy but I never did.” She pulled her head up. “I never did.”

  Jack wiped the tears off her face. “I believe you.”

  “He kept beating me and beating me. And he wouldn’t – he didn’t slow down.” She took a deep breath. “And then he just…stopped.”

  She pressed her hand to her abdomen. Jack placed his hand over hers, nodding in understanding. “I have no idea where he got the knife,” she whispered. “He made sure I got a good look at it and sliced my chest before he slowly ran it across my stomach. He taunted me while he was doing it. Then he left me to bleed to death. I wanted to die.” She pulled away. “Sometimes I wish I had.”

  Caroline wiped her eyes and stared at the wall. “I remember who I used to be, you know. It’s not like I’ve forgotten. I used to wonder what it was about me that people found so likable. I still don’t understand. And I’d underestimated how many people out there might truly hate me. But that woman is gone, Jack. She’s vanished. No one can bring her back, not even you. We can’t rewind the clock.”

  “I know,” he said. “But she’s a part of you. You’re a wonderful woman, Caroline. I love you. And I am so, so proud of you.” He kissed her gently. “None of this was your fault. You did everything right. You were so incredibly brave, my love. You have to stop blaming yourself. Please. Just try.” He kissed the scars on her wrists and looked at her intently. “Please.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  So much damage, both physical and mental. Jack didn’t want to think about it. Caroline was giving him what she could handle, but she was holding something back. A lot back. And he suspected she was doing it to protect him. He had to take baby steps, marching in time with her. They’d get to where they needed to be. Together.

  He traced one of the scars on her left wrist. “This is from the handcuffs,” he said.

  “Yes. The cuffs were too tight. Sometimes they’d cuff me through the back of the chair, sometimes not.” She twisted her fingers together. “I couldn’t – I’d move my wrists, because it hurt. My hands got numb. I rubbed them raw, day after day.”

  Jack placed his hands over hers. “And the rope scars didn’t heal either.”

  “Too much damage had been done. I never set foot in a hospital until I got here.”

  “Your friends took care of you.”

  Caroline shrugged. “They got me out and did the best they could.”

  “They brought you back to me and that’s enough.” He kissed each wrist in turn. “No more pain, though.”

  “No,” she said softly. “No pain. Just – sometimes when I look at the scars, I remember what happened. And that makes it hurt. It was bad. It was really, really bad.”

  Funny how the hardest things rendered a person inarticulate. He didn’t know how to phrase it either. “I know,” he said. “I want to help so it doesn’t bother you as much anymore. Do you think we can work on that?”

  “I’ll try.”

  He closed his eyes. “What did that asshole do to your back?”

  She bit her lip. “It’s pretty messed up. The buckle-”

  Those baby steps were getting shorter and shorter. What was under that Oxford shirt? “I understand,” he interrupted.

  Dammit. He had to do a better job of showing support. Even if he wanted to aim one of the rebellion’s missiles straight at Washington in the hope that he could blow that fucker Murdock up with a single blast, vengeance could come later.

  “The scar on your stomach,” he whispered. “Does that – does it still hurt?”

  “No,” she said. “It’s a little numb. He must have cut through some nerve endings.”

  Jesus Christ. Another mental image he didn’t need. He was starting to think that reality was worse than his imagination. Much worse. Goddamn monsters.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” she said. “I swear.”

  “I just – when I touched you and you freaked out, I thought-”

  Caroline reddened. “I didn’t want you to discover it that way. You caught me off guard.”

  He ran his hands through his hair. “I didn’t want to find out that way either. I was so afraid I’d hurt you, or reminded you of something, and I-”

  “Some wounds run deeper than others. But you didn’t hurt me that night.” She reached for his hands, pulling them away from his head. “You could never hurt me.”<
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  “I’ll try not to, baby. I swear.”

  “Do you want to see what they did to me?” she asked.

  No. Yes. I don’t know. “If you want me to.”

  They had to face it sometime. But she didn’t look too thrilled at the prospect. She got up from the couch to face him. Her hands shook as she brought them up to her shirt. Her fingers drifted over the buttons and she let out a shuddering breath.

  Jack covered her hands with his. He could help her through it. Be the strong one. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m right here.”

  She pressed one finger into the middle of a button and stopped. “I think this might have been a bad idea.”

  “Then I’ll help you. If you want.” He glanced down the hall. “Would you feel more comfortable in the bedroom?”

  The relief on her face led him to believe she wanted him to guide her through it. So he would. When they got to their bedroom he brought her hands to her sides and leaned in. “I want you to concentrate and breathe,” he said. “You’re safe. Nothing can happen to you here. If you want me to stop, just say the word. All right?”

  Caroline nodded and Jack began to unbutton her shirt. “You’re fine,” he said. “Focus on my voice.”

  She closed her eyes and grasped the front of his polo, breathing rapidly. He reached the last button and opened the front of her shirt.

  “Okay?” he asked softly.

  She nodded again, her eyes squeezed shut. Jack pushed the Oxford material over her shoulders until it slid onto the floor. He ran his hands down her arms and grasped her hands in his.

  “You’re okay, baby.” He placed her hand on his chest. “Feel my heart beat. Take a deep breath.”

  She buried her face in his shoulder. He brushed a kiss across her hair.

  “Let me look at you,” he said.

  Caroline stepped back, still trembling, and let go of his hands. She kept her eyes shut. He wasn’t about to tell her to keep them open. Not when he was having such a hard time himself. It would be easier if she didn’t have to watch him. The stark light in the room gave him a much harsher view of her body than she had probably intended. But there was no going back.

  He started with what he knew he could handle. The small scar from when she’d been shot at the Capitol. A faint line at the top of her breast, barely visible over her bra line. Murdock and his fucking knife. The jagged scar across her stomach. Seeing it was worse than feeling it. What did her emotional damage compare to what those men – what that man – had done to her? He reached for her, sweeping his fingers across her shoulder. A tear slid down her cheek and he kissed it away.