Left Behind

by Jayton Young

  Troy slowed his licks and worked his tongue into my channel, lapping up all the juices, but all of a sudden there was a loud knock o n the door.

  “So sorry to interrupt, but Jordan called.” I heard James say as we were quickly trying to get me dressed again. After I was decent, Troy, with his shirt still off, opened the door to let James in.

  James looked straight at me, which made me blush, but his next words had all of the color draining from my face.

  “We have to get over to our house. NOW!”

  Chapter 17

  My house was on fire? I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t given James the time to give me details; I had just run as fast as I could through the woods, down the path that had been made just for us all those years ago. I realized later how stupid that was, but I had to get there to make sure Jordan was alright. I was not thinking clearly, or I would have realized that if Jordan was the one to call James, that must’ve meant he was okay.

  As soon as I broke out into our back yard, I saw the flames shooting in the air. This was no normal fire; someone had set this off, and I knew who. My whole life’s work, mementos of my mother’s, most of my memories; all going up in flames because he wanted to send me a message. Tears were falling down my face as I stood frozen to the spo t staring . Then I remembered that Jordan had been here. He was who I had run to check on, and I had to find him. With that reminder, I was finally able to move and I started running, but tripped over a root sticking up from the ground.

  I heard Toby and James running up behind me, yelling my name, but all I could think of was Jordan. Where was he? I got up and started running again, this time, circling the house. I hated it. I was screaming his name, but all that was coming out of my mouth was air. He wouldn’t be able to hear me to shout and answer back.

  I heard James behind me shouting his name like I couldn’t, and then I felt arms come around my waist and latch on. “You can’t go in, Pea. The fire’s too out of control. We’ll find him.” Toby kept trying to reassure me, but nothing was sinking in. I unwound his arms from me and grabbed his hand to let him know that I wasn’t trying to get away. I dragged him with me the rest of the way around the house, and that’s where I found my brother. I looked around and saw Ja mes coming from the other side o f the house.

  I ran to Jordan and jumped in his arms and started sobbing. I faintly heard James fussing at Jordan about some thing, but the fire was so loud, and my heart was pounding so loudly in my chest, I couldn’t differentiate what was being said by whom. Jordan just kept holding me, rubbing my back in reassurance that he was okay.

  When I finally calmed down enough, I let go of the death hold I had around Jordan’s neck, and backed up to get a good look at him. He was covered in soot from the fire, but I didn’t see anything wrong, and he wasn’t acting like he was in pain, so I assumed he was alright, but I had to check just to make sure. I ran my hands down his arms, and his chest. He didn’t flinch, so I figured he was not burned anywhere.

  ‘Are you alright? You weren’t caught in the fire?’ I asked using the sign language. I was shaking so bad I don’t know how he under stood what I was asking, but he answered.

  “I’m fine, Sis. I was in there, but when I smelled gas I bolted . Right as I got to the great room is when the back of the house blew. I called James and then the fire department. They should be here any minute.” He said. He still had his arms around me. I guessed he knew how much I just needed to be assured of him being alright.

  We heard the sirens from the police and fire trucks just a moment later. I finally looked back at what used to be my house, and I swore that I would not let that asshole this close to my family again. Before it was just me, and I was scared, but now he had ruined my home and almost killed my brother. I was pissed and there was going to hell to pay.

  ******************************************************************************

  Later that evening, after we’d filed the police report and talked to the investigators, we all congregated in the study to discuss what happened and what to do about it.

  “The house had been broken into. I don’t know why my alarms on my mobile didn’t alert me, but when I got in the house, I went straight for my office to get what I needed and saw the alerts on my screen.” Jordan was explaining what happened when he’d gone back to our house. “Luckily, the first thing I did was to send all videos to an off site server I have set up for my business. I automatically do that with anything of importance. Now we can look and investigate while the police do the same. I promised to have Ricky send them a copy.” Ricky was another tech geek like Jordan that helped him with his business from his home. He was the one that did most of the traveling that needed to be done, going out to the clients and such.

  “I have a couple of guys on the way here,” Troy said. “They should be here tomorrow. They’re the best on recon and fact finding, and are going to help us find this bastard. He obviously hasn’t gone far .”

  “Yeah, same here.” Toby added in. “My whole team volunteered to come help out, so I have six guys coming. They’ll be staking out the land around here, setting traps and such. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to get Beckham before he strikes again.”

  I sat there and zoned out. I was so tired of this man affecting my life. He wasn’t just messing with me anymore; he was messing with my family. I knew the fire for what it was; a warning. He’d kill anyone he had to to get me back. Like he carved into my skin; I was his ‘private property’, but I wouldn’t give in without a fight. When he first started sending the letters threatening my brothers, I had almost decided to go to him and give up. I didn’t want my family hurt because of me, but I’d realized that I would hurt them more by giving in. They would blame themselves, and I wouldn’t let that happen.

  I was sitting beside Jordan because my nerves were still raw where I’d been scared for him. I turned to him and tapped his knee to get his attention.

  ‘I want to start my target practice again.’ I said when he looked at me. ‘I would also like to learn some self-defense.’

  “I’d be happy to start training you with a gun again , but I don’t know anything about self-defense.” He said. “I can hold my own in a fight, but you know I have never done any real fighting.”

  “She can train with me in that.” Tory said. “I was telling Troy that it would help me get some of my strength back if we started working out and training every day. We can even help her do the practice with the gun if you wouldn’t mind.” He directed to Jordan. I knew he didn’t want him to think he was pushing him to the side.

  “That would be great. I want to ride with James every day and work from his office. I don’t think any of us should go anywhere alone for a while. I know I shouldn’t have stayed at our house alone, earlier, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I just wanted to get the security tightened up.”

  The trips all shared a look before turning back to Jordan. “We’re going to be setting up a security firm with the guys coming in working for us. We will hire out to do some mercenary work and stuff like that, too, but we need some good tech people for the security aspect of it.” Toby offered. “You’d be able to keep your business and we could just contract your help.”

  Jordan looked at me and then James, I guess to gage our reactions, but I thought it would be a good idea. I didn’t like to think of the trips becoming mercenaries, but I’d talk to them about it later .

  “Security is what I mostly deal with now anyway, so I’d have no problem contracting with y’all, but I won’t have anything to do with mercenary work. I don’t want to be associated with that.” I guess he had been thinking the same thing as me. “I thought y’all were just going to keep runnin’ the ranch? Are you giving up on that?”

  “We’ll still be doing the ranching; this other will be on the side. The mercenary business is not what you think.” Troy said, sounding offended. “We’d be sent out ‘unofficially’ by the government for search and rescue missions that are not approved by off
icial channels for political or tactical reasons. When shit like that happens, the forces want their men back, so they hire outside help that will not be linked back to the government. It gives them plausible deniability.”

  ‘I don’t like that.’ I signed. ‘That sounds like if you’re caught, they would leave you there to hang .’

  “That’s a risk, Princess, but if not for teams like this, a lot of the POWs would never get rescued. We would never all leave you at the same time…” Tory saw my face when he said that and realized he’d messed up.

  ‘So you think I’d say “sure go on Tory because I have two backups”? Is that what you think I think of all of you?’

  “Now that’s not what he meant, Pea, and you know it.” Toby said sternly, but when I turned to glare at him, he shrank back into his seat.

  ‘We will be talking about this later, but now is not the time.’ I huffed out my breath as I signed this. I waited all of these years for them to finish their military careers, to have them all injured in some way and sent home, just to have them go back without the military to back them up? I so didn’t think so. I would not do the waiting at home for the phone call to tell me that one of them didn’t make it. Been there, done that, not doing it again. I had just now finally got them all back. If they left me again, that was breaking the promise Toby made when he first came home.

  “I want to move back into my room.” Tory said out of the blue. “Let’s get this stupid bed out of here. I want things to go back to normal.”

  “Nah, man. Give it a week or two.” Troy answered. “Let’s work out like we talked about, get you back up to par.”

  “Yeah, I agree with him, you can’t be making all of those trips up and down the stairs every day right now.” Toby added.

  “I’m not a damned invalid. I can get up on my own two feet; I don’t need all of this.”

  I got up, walked over to the bed and got up in it with him. I sat facing him. ‘You are getting stronger, but you just woke up. Give yourself time to get better, or you’ll just strain yourself and end up worse. I’ll be with you, and if it’s alright with your brothers, we’ll start training tomorrow.’

  I knew he’d been upset that he couldn’t go with us when the fire happened earlier, and embarrassed that Toby had told Troy to stay with him. He didn’t want to think he needed a keeper. He had only brought it up to change the subject and try to get me to forget, but he was truly upset over it. I thought about it while I went to my room.

  I took a shower, changed into my night clothes, and went back downstairs to the study. I think me sleeping with him every night was helping him as much as it was me. Toby and Troy always stayed in there with us, taking turn sleeping on the couch and floor. I was praying that it was a good sign for the future.

  I couldn’t wait for the next day. I would finally be taking a step to getting my old life back, and I’d be able to help defend my family at the same time.

  Chapter 18

  I don’t know how long I stood there and stared at the remains of my house. I had come after a morning workout with the trips. Tory had overdone himself, so he was out of commission on bed rest for the rest of the day.

  As I stood there, I remembered my dad. He had lost himself when my mother died, but it healed him in a way. He had been an alcoholic before. It was the main bone of contention between my parents. He didn’t work or contribute to the household. She had provided everything for all of us with her disability check. She struggled, but she never let us want for anything. Daddy felt bad after she died, knowing he could have done more, and showed her how much she meant to him. He was too late to be able to do that, and it almost drove him to suicide, but he decided to sober up and take care of us like he should have been doing the whole time. All of my mother’s things that my father and I had kept over the years, and all of his things that I couldn’t part with, were gone. All of that was stuff that could never be replaced. Blain had taken so much from me, my virginity , my freedom, my piece of mind, and now my home with all of my worldly possessions with the exception of some clothes, my keyboard, and my bracelet that I never take off. All I have left are my brothers and the trips, and I would not lose them. It was time I stood up for myself and fought back.

  Toby, who had come with me, came up behind me and slid his arms around my waist, bending down to rest his chin on my shoulder. “It’s going to be alright, Pea. We are going to make sure nothing else happens.”

  I turned to him. ‘I was just thinking of all that man has taken from me,’ I signed. ‘But hearing and looking at you, I realize that though I can’t get most of that back, there are things, or people I guess I should say, who are more important. Material things can be replaced. I’ll always have the mem ories of my parents, even if I don’t have their possessions in front of me . I will get my piece of mind back, eventually, but you guys and my brothers can’t be replaced, so I need to be thankful. I’m going to throw myself into the training, and maybe I’ll be able to protect all of you from the monster I brought into our lives.’

  “If any of us can help it, you won’t have to worry about it.” He said. “I can’t promise because anything can happen, as it did here, but we will all do everything in our power to make sure Beckham never steps foot near you again.”

  ‘Train me up, Sargent, and we’ll protect each other.’

  Toby just smiled and kissed me.

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  For the next week, we trained every day. Tory was slowly but surely regaining his strength and stamina. He didn’t try to take too much on after that first day. He had had to sit out the next day also because of it, so he didn’t want a repeat of that. We worked out first thing in the morning, followed by breakfast, and then shooting practice. I never liked guns, and still didn’t, but I was good at it. After two days, I was hitting everything I aimed for. Troy gave me one of his guns the day before telling me to keep it on me at all times. He’d been the main one working with me on shooting.

  “We’ll still practice with guns a little every day, but I want you to start working with knives too. I think Toby is the best one to show you that, but I want it to happen. Something always could happen that you won’t be able to use your gun, so I want you trained up on a couple of different weapons, and we’re going to go through the house and I want you to point out to me what you think can be used as a weapon if nothing else is available , and I’ll be able to triple what you point out.” I just nodded. I didn’t doubt it at all.

  I had met all of the guys that Toby and Troy had brought in, and they all looked deadly in their own way. I had been working with a guy named Luke, who had explained that he really wanted to help because he had lost his cousin, who was like a sister to him, to an abusive boyfriend, and he hated that he hadn’t been able to help her. He hadn’t even known anything was going on until it was too late, she hid it so well.

  We headed in for lunch, and the kitchen was full of men. It looked like they had been having a meeting. All of the talking stopped when Troy and I entered, so I knew it had to be about me or our situation.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I directed toward Toby and Tory.

  Toby looked at a man he called Stokes. “She wants to know what we were saying. Tell her what you found.”

  Stokes turned to me and looked at me in sympathy. “Well, ma’am, Fosters and I extended our parameters during our patrol this morning, and we found a campsite right outside your property lines.” He said and looked over to the other man he’s been with, who started speaking.

  “I did a search of the tent, and found some items that you’ll have to confirm, but I believe they are yours.” Fosters said. “We also found quite a few pictures of you, your brothers, Sarg and his brothers. I’m assuming it belongs to Beckham, and he’s been watching you for a while , but the most recent picture is of your shooting practice four days ago .”

  I stood there in shock. Even with all of the people here and the n
ew security measures we had, he was still able to get close enough to be watching us. How the hell was that possible? I wouldn’t be able to defend myself against someone like that. We had some of the most well trained men here, and he got past them.

  I wouldn’t let it stop me. I would just have to step up training. ‘Ask Luke if he’s ready to come outside with me. I need to learn to fight. No more of the self-defense; I want actual fighting.’ One of the bad things about being around these strangers is that only one out of the bunch could speak ASL, and that was a man named Woods, and he was never around, so I had to have one of the trips speak for me unless I had time to sit with my keyboard. Of course I never had time for that. Woods had set up a sort of base camp type thingy in the storage building in my back yard. They wanted someone on each property at all times.

  “You need to eat first, Princess.” Tory said, coming my way with a sandwich and some chips on a plate for me. “You’ll need the fuel.”

  I sat down and concentrated on eating, not wanting to make myself sick, but trying to hurry so I could get started. As I was rinsing my plate to put in the dishwasher, Toby’s phone rang. I had gone to Luke and tapped his shoulder, to let him know I was ready, but Toby stopped me.

  “And you’ve tried all the other numbers you have for her? Her parents or any friends?” He said into the phone. He listened to the reply and asked “So what’s your plans?” He nodded. At whatever the answer was. “Alright, I’ll see you in a few.” He said and hung up. He looked straight to me. “James can’t reach Shelby.”

  ‘She’s not in class?’ I asked. I knew the answer, but I wasn’t thinking properly.