by Jayton Young
Eventually James and Shelby went to Carowinds, but Jordan didn’t want to go. He said he’d been up most of the night waiting for the tow truck, calling the shop about sending it there, and finding a rental car. He went to his room and laid down for a nap.
I went and took a shower since I was all dirty and sweaty from the soccer. When I got out and got dressed, I took out my laptop and settle down to write. After about an hour, I heard knocking at my window. There was no way I was going to open the drapes to see what was going on , so I went to Jordan’s room and woke him.
‘Someone is at my window.’ I signed.
Jordan jumped and went to sneak out the back door. I followed just to wait in the great room. I couldn’t hear anything and h e’d been gone for ten minutes. I was about to call the police and put on the emergency recording Jordan had made for me when the front door banged open, and I saw a huge figure standing there blocking out the light.
Chapter 3
I wasn’t going to wait around. I knew it wasn’t Jordan, so I ran. I went out the back door and into the woods. I knew a thousand hiding places I could go, and then I could text James and let him know that something had happened to Jordan. That was the only explanation. I knew he’d never allow someone in our house willingly. I started crying. What if the phycho had gotten to him? I could never live with the knowledge of me being the reason one of my brothers were hurt. They were my life. They were all I had left, and here I was running away like the coward I was, but I couldn’t make myself turn around to check on him either.
I ran past the creek onto the triplet’s land. There was a group of trees and bushes that were gathered in a way that created a hollow space inside. It was kind of like a cave. I had found it on one of my many explorations over the years. I had even lined it with a tent on the inside to make it rain proof.
I crawled inside and sat down. When I reached for my phone in my pocket, I realized I had left it in my room. So I just sat and waited and cried and prayed that Jordan was still alive.
All I could think of at that moment was about how all of this was my fault. I could remember how my nightmare began with me being lonely and someone acting sweet to me and listening to my problems. I had met a man online who went by the name of Blain Robinson. We met in a chat room about books and were discussing the latest Laurell K. Hamilton book. We would always read books together, discussing them afterward and comparing opinions. We had both had such a love of reading. Blain said that reading was his escape from past memor ies he’d rather forget, but they still tormented him. He would never go into detail, but I supported him and told him I’d always listen if he needed an ear. We talked over e-mail and phone for four months.
When I moved to Florence to attend Francis Marion University, Blain asked if we could go on a date since he just live d one town over. I, being stupid back then, told him yes. He took me to a park and pushed me in a swing while we talked, and then we went out to eat. It w as so romantic in my opinion, s o after that we started dating regularly. After about two months of dating, he tried to get me into bed with him. I told him I wasn’t ready for that, and he seemed understanding. Two days later, when he picked me up for our da te, he attacked me; injecting me with something that knocked me out.
I woke up in what he called his ‘play room’ chained to the wall, naked. He told me that I was his perfect slave, but he just needed to train me. He explained the roles of master and slave to me thinking that I would agree to the arrangement . When I started disagreeing with him, he gagged me and beat me with a whip until the whole front of my body was covered in blood. He told me that when I talked back, or even made a sound, that there would be consequences. He gave me a sponge bath and sewed up some of the cuts that were too deep to heal on their own. Blain said that it was his job to take care of his slave, an d that he knew what was best for me .
He then tortured me getting worse and worse until during one of his ‘punishments’, the whi p he was using, missed it’s mark when I jumped, and he got me in the throat. I had lost my voice from screaming anyway, so I didn’t notice it was permanent. When I woke from that, he was gone, and I was no longer chained but laying in a bed. I still don’t know why he let me go that day just to say later he wanted me back.
I came out of my thoughts when I heard Jordan calling for me in the distance. There was another voice calling out, too. A voice I hadn’t heard in two years. I quickly crawled out of my hide-away and ran towards the shouts. I came to a halt when I saw a tall hulking figure beside my brother. He had shiny black buzz-cut hair, sharp cheekbones, a perfect nose, and full red lips. A tear rolled out of my eye when I realized that I couldn’t bring myself any closer to him, but I still couldn’t take my eyes off of him.
Toby and Jordan both started coming towards me. I took a step back, scared of him getting any closer. Jordan realized and came to me and gave me one of his bear hugs and whispered to me.
“I didn’t tell him anything yet.”
I just nodded and started walking with him, and hid ing behind him at the same time . I was trying to hide while I was still unable to stop watching Toby.
“No hug for me, Pea?” He asked
All I could do was shake my head.
“Come on and walk back to the house with us.” Jordan said. “I know you don’t understand, but could you walk in front of us a little.”
Toby looked at us skeptically. “Of course, but what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
“It’s not my story to tell, Toby, but I think Sis will explain a little when we get there.” Jordan answered sadly putting his arm around me.
I turned to him so Toby wouldn’t see, and signed, ‘I can’t tell him what happened.’
Jordan leaned down to me. “Just tell him as much as you are comfortable with , but he deserves some explanation.” He whispered in my ear.
I nodded.
When we were almost home, Toby turned his head to ask, “Will you not even talk to me, Pea? Are you mad at me?”
“She’s not mad at you, man. I swear.” Jordan answered for me.
“J, dude, can you at least tell me if she was really not home all those times, or was she avoiding us?”
“She was home most of those times, but it’s not what you think . Just give her time to explain.”
I could tell Toby was getting upset. “It doesn’t sound like she’s trying to explain anything.”
I looked at him, tears spilling down my cheeks, pleading with my eyes for him to understand.
“Please,” Jordan said. “There is a good reason, just wait a minute.”
“I’m going to, but you know I’ve never been patient. This here is a completely different reception to me coming home than what I was expecting.” He wouldn’t look at me as he said this, but I could tell from the sound of his voice that I was hurting him by not talking. I took a deep breath, reminded myself that he would never hurt me, walked up to him, and took his hand in mine. His hand was so much bigger than mine.
He looked down at me and gave me a curious smile, but that smile disappeared as he got a c loser look at my face. His eyes hardened and he glanced at Jordan, but didn’t say anything. He would wait until we got to the house to get the explanation . Squeezing my hand tight in his, we kept walking.
We finally made it to the house and I led him to the kitchen and indicated for him to sit in the stool at the island. Jordan stood propped on the counter and I walked to the breakfast nook to sit where my keyboard was, Toby watching the whole time.
I typed, ‘I can’t speak anymore.’ And looked at him, waiting for a response.
Toby looked from me to Jordan and back again, confused.
“Say what?”
‘I am mute. My voice box was damaged beyond repair, so I can no longer speak, scream, laugh out loud, or any of the things tha t make sound besides breathing.’
He sat up straight on the stool. “WHAT? Why? What the hell happened?”
‘I had a bad relationship about two years ago. It laste
d for about six months. It turns out that he was crazy.’
“Oh my God. Pea, is that where all the scars came from?”
‘Yes. He kidnapped me and held me for two weeks. I can’t talk about it.’ I said pushing the keyboard away.
“Why didn’t anyone tell us in any of the phone calls or letters?” When he thought for a minute he asked, “We got leave together two years ago for the funeral. I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.”
I brought the keyboard back over to me and typed. ‘At that point I had only talked to him in emails and on the phone. I wasn’t dating him. We didn’t start dating until after I started college.’ By that point, my hands were shaking and tears were leaking out of my eyes.
Toby saw how upset I was getting and took a deep breath and let it out. “Well that thing is cool, where’d you get it?” He said pointing to the keyboard, trying to change the subject a little for me.
After that we just talked about the things Jordan had made for me, and the fact that I could use sign language to communicate. Come to find out, the trips had an uncle that had been deaf, so they all knew ASL to be able to talk to me. The rest of the evening was spent catching up until after supper, Toby and I went on a walk .
Chapter 4
As soon as we stepped out of the back door, I knew where we would head. I walked a little to the back of Toby, paranoid of having someone to where I couldn’t watch them. I knew it was stupid. The trips had always protected me. They would never hurt me. My heart knew this, but my thick head kept getting in the way.
“Are we going to avoid conversation?” Toby asked, looking at me with one eyebrow raised.
‘Of course not. Why do you ask?’ I signed.
“Well, I can’t walk backwards to watch you speak, so it would be nice if you joined me up here.”
I just looked at him warily for a minute. I guess he could feel my conflicting thoughts, because he stopped, turned to me, and grabbed both of my hands. I flinched at the contact, but didn’t take my hands away.
He looked into my eyes, I guess to try to read what was really going on, before he spoke.
“Pea, I’ve always cared so much about you. The four of us have had a connection from day one. We didn’t let too many people in back then with all the crap going on in our family at the time, but we all took one look at you and knew you were something special. None of us would ever hurt you in any way. You mean too much to us. You know that right.”
I did know that, I never had any doubt about it, so I nodded. I took my hands from his grasp so I could sign what I wanted to say.
‘I do know that, Toby, but you have to understand that I haven’t had any contact with people other than my brothers and doctors since it all happened. I can’t even let the doctors touch me if J or James is not there. Even with my brothers it took a while before I could tolerate their touch. I’m going to try really hard, because you boys mean a lot to me too.’ Of course I was in love with them all, but I couldn’t tell him that. ‘You have to be patient with me. Like just now. I flinched, but you kept hold of my hands. My first reaction will be to pull back or run ; at least for a while. I’m trying to get past what has been done to me, but it is difficult. Just please realize that it is not you personally that I’m reacti ng to. It’s just instinct right now.’
“I can live with that. Just as long as I know it’s not me. Come on. I haven’t been to our place in a long time.” He said. He grabbed one of my hands back and we started walking side by side in comfortable silence.
There was a harvest moon out; you know the huge bright moon, so everything was illuminated for our walk. I could hear the crickets chirping and the grass, leaves, and undergrowth was damp from the dew already forming. The creek was surrounded by the green overgrowth if vines and bushes. We found our rock, well more like a boulde r, on the side of the creek that we always sat on . It ha d been our rock. Troy had even carved all of our names into it.
We sat side by side for a few minutes, listening to the water bubbling over the big smooth pebbles underneath. It had always been a place I went to get some peace, and to be able to think. The familiar sight and sounds there were very soothing.
Toby turned to me, pulling one knee up and pro pping his arm on it, while stretching out his other leg. “I know you started out at the University, I won’t ask you to talk about what happened, but I was wondering if you ever got your degree.”
I turned to him and sat Indian style so he could see me more clearly. My heart had sped up when he mentioned the University, but he said I wouldn’t ha ve to talk about it, so I was able to calm down.
‘I dropped out after everything that happened.’ I signed. ‘James said it didn’t matter though, and that I could get my degree online when I was ready,’
“I knew you and your brothers had planned on working together. Are y’all doing that?”
‘Well, James just moved back a little over a week ago. He is renting an office space in town, and guilted me into working in the office with him. It’s not too bad, I have my own space, but I have an attack if too many peo ple start coming in at one time, so I never leave my office. Other than that, it is alright.’
“What kind of attack do you have and why?” He asked
‘I keep forgetting you don’t know stuff. I have quit e a few phobias now, a couple of them being the fear of people, crowds, and op en spaces. It’s stupid I know.’ I looked down blushing. I hated the fact that he would see how weak I’d become.
“Look at me.” He commanded. It took me a minute to have the nerve, but when I looked up, he spoke softly. “Don’t hide your face from me . Ever. There is nothing to be ashamed of. You are beautiful and strong. You’ve been through some rough shit, but so have we all. We all have our own scars, both physical and mental, but we’ll heal and move on.”
‘I don’t think I can ever heal. It’ll never be over for me. I don’t see how you can call me beautifu l and strong, when I’m neither.’ I signed heatedly with tears coming out of my eyes. ‘Look at me right now. I never used to cry at the drop of a hat. I never used to hate getting up every morning looking in the mirror wishing I didn’t h ave to. I had actually just started being able to look in the mirror when James made me star t going into work with him.’
“See, that’s how I know you’re strong.” When I looked confused, he continued. “Here you are, scared to be out in the open around people, but you’re doing it every day. You can blame it on James, but we both know he could never make you do anything. You’d do anything for him, so he is your motivation, but it’s you getting out there trying to overcome this obstacle. Pea, everyone is afraid of something. That doesn’t matter. What matters is how you handle that fear. You might have been hiding, and still are to a certain extent, but then again , at least you are trying. You have to overcome your fear. Trust me there are a lot of things I had to overcome to survive what I had to do and see in the Rangers.”
‘What did you have to do over the re?’ I asked “I can’t and won’t go into details. But it was pretty much my team’s job to go in and do the rescues of POWs . When we’d get intelligence on where a camp was, we’d do surveillance, and then we’d go in and do what we needed to get them out.”
I could see the pain in his eyes as he was telling me about it. I don’t know what he went through, but I kind of knew how he felt. We had both been forced to do things we didn’t want to do. His was voluntary, but it still lef t the same marks on a person. ‘You don’t have to ever do it again do you?’
“Well, I was voluntarily discharged due to the injuries I received on the last mission, but the y can recall me if needed.” He saw the concern on my face and quickly added, “I’m all healed up now, it was nothing like what…” He trailed off.
‘Nothing like what? What happened to you?’ I asked.
“The last mission was a set up. We received bogus intel that led us into an ambush. The POWs that were supposedly there were actually the enemy. When we went in, everything was wired, and
by the time we realized, we barely escaped the explosion alive. I did actually lose a member of my unit. I was infested with shrapnel in the back of my body, but I was still able to lead us out to the rendezvous point to get picked up.”
‘Can I see?’
He turned and lifted his shirt for me to be able to see his back . I gasped at the sight. He still had a pink scar about five inches long going vertically down his spine. The other thirty or so cuts were almost healed. I lightly traced his back with my fingers. When I traced the one on his spine, he lowered his shirt, turned back to face me, and spoke again.
“Most of it was superficial, but a larger piece was embedded in my spine. I was paralyzed from the waist down. The doctors removed it with surgery, but told me I might not recover. A week after the surgery, the swelling had gone down, and I was able to move my legs, so I started rehab. I’ve spent the last four months in a rehab center. Now here I am, and I’m alright.”
‘Will you be able to run the ranch and work with the horses again?’ I signed.
He gave that heart-stopping smile. “Of course. Can’t nothin’ keep me o f f a horse. You know that.” He drawled, suing an exaggerated southern accent.
‘Do you still have Larry, Curly, and Moe?’ I asked. Those were Toby’s, Tory’s, and Troy’s horses named after the three stooges. Their grandpa Tobias used to c all the trips the three stooges because of how they acted so when he gave them each a horse that’s what they named them. Grandpa Tobias got a real kick out of it.
‘Yep, we sure do. We still have Nosey, too .’ He laughed, referring to my horse. I had named her Nosey when she was born because she would always poke me with her nose when I came over. We got real attached, and they ended up giving her to me for my birthday that year.