by Vivien Vale
The back of his closet is surprisingly barren, save for Buck, who’s curled up inside gnawing on one of Jack’s boots and bolts when he gets caught.
Jack is the ultimate minimalist. I don’t even find any dirty magazines or questionable VHS tapes beneath Jack’s mattress.
Everything he owns seems to have a purpose. No sentimentality. No useless junk. A place for everything, and everything has its place. Even his military medals are exactly where Jack wants them: tucked away beneath his wool socks, out of sight and out of mind.
But then, I try the bottom drawer of his dresser.
It sticks in place the first time I try to yank it out. But when I leverage all of my meager weight on it—and pay the price by tumbling backward as a result—finally, it gives.
The drawer doesn’t contain much. Jack’s old high school yearbooks—I do a quick flip through to look for him, but he went to one of those massive schools, and without even realizing it, I haven’t bothered to get his last name. I delve deeper and bring up a gorgeous wooden box, latched but not locked.
I know just holding it in my hands that Jack made this box.
What I couldn’t have possibly expected was what it contains within.
A photo album. Not pictures like the ones from his military days that need to be hidden way—no, this book has remained closed and unintentionally forgotten for a good long time. I blow the dust off it and nearly knock myself backward with the force of the sneeze that follows.
But then I open it, and the first picture inside nearly knocks me backward of its own accord.
There’s Jack—just a young man, fresh-faced and beardless in a brand-new uniform. He looks about as old in this picture as I am now. The man and woman standing behind him must be his mother and father. Their faces aren’t familiar to me, but they’re a handsome couple. They look like lovely people.
Lovely in-laws, maybe, the greedy voice in the back of my head sing-songs.
Shut up, I pout, like it’s teasing me for being so silly.
When my eyes land on the second half of the photograph, though, not even the greedy little voice in the back of my head has anything to say.
My parents. My parents are in this picture. There’s Mommy in her demure pencil skirt and blazer. Daddy in his power suit. And there at their legs, grinning up her best toothpaste ad grin, is…me. Just a little kid—little enough that I hardly remember this photo being taken.
There’s a caption beneath the photo, too. It’s the caption that really does me in.
Oh no.
Oh no.
Lawson and Wilkins families, the caption reads, followed by the date it was taken.
I might not recognize Jack or his parents from this day, but that name, Lawson…
Being the daughter of Congressman Wilkins, there’s no forgetting that name. It’s the name Daddy ends up bellowing while he pounds his fist against the dinner table during reelection season. A name that makes him go redder than a baboon’s butt when he hears it in passing. The name that I’ve even heard him mutter in his sleep once or twice.
Lawson. Jack Lawson.
Jack’s parents must be the Lawsons, then. Daddy’s former campaign donors turned greatest enemies. They used to be some of his very best friends—a rich family with a rich military tradition. Great for the polls. Great for support from his constituents.
Until they threw him under the bus, that is. Pulled all their campaign funding. Accused Daddy of making government deals with shady weapons dealers and war criminals. Getting our soldiers overseas killed with bad weapons and malfunctioning technology.
I always tried to take Daddy’s side, of course. After all—I used to be a very good girl, remember?
“I hate the Lawsons,” I remember saying. “They’re…they’re liars! And crooks!”
“That’s right, Avery,” Daddy would say back, patting me absently on the head. “Good girl.”
But I’m not a good girl anymore. Maybe I never was to begin with.
This isn’t the first time I snooped where I wasn’t supposed to, after all.
My mind flashes back to just a few days ago. The wedding that was supposed to be my own. The horrible events that prevented it from happening.
The text messages between Daddy and Adam, uncovering the truth. My marriage to Adam wasn’t the only shady deal passing between them—no, there were billions of government dollars passing through Daddy’s pipe into Adam’s company’s guns.
And then, there were the other messages. The even worse ones.
Lack of weapons testing. Rescinding of safety funding. And the emails, not written in English, but in something that Google Translate thought might be Pashto or Dari or Farsi…
When I close the photo album, I can tell my face is as white as Jack’s sheets before he fucked me on them.
I know what I have to do. Even if I have to do it through a waterfall of tears.
The truth. I have to tell Jack the truth.
Chapter 29
Jack
Evening has fallen and it’s cold as all hell outside.
I’ve taken my sweet time getting the bear skinned so that it was perfect.
I like to use every part of the animal, never wasting a thing. It’s part of my contract with Nature. She provides me with meat and warmth and in turn, I don’t degrade the beasts I kill.
I have a certain respect for them and for the process of hunting.
I’m bone tired from the day’s events. I try to clean up a little bit on the porch of the cabin but there’s nothing to do with the fact that I’m covered with blood.
I kick my boots off and open the door to find Avery crying.
She’s not even shocked to see me in such a grisly nature, so consumed is she in her own torment. What could she be crying about?
“What’s wrong Avery? Has someone hurt you?” I say with a worried expression.
I hate to see her cry. That’s one thing I’ve learned through this process. Avery’s too beautiful to cry. She should have everything she wants. She should have a perfect life.
“I’m…I’m, sorry Jack. I have a confession to make,” she says and I wonder what she could be referring to.
I shut the door and start to strip off my clothes that are covered in blood. I might as well not make this worse for her. She already knows I am a barbarous man, I might as well attempt some civility by cleaning myself up, especially since she’s been crying.
I dropped my bloody clothes to the floor and wear just jeans and an undershirt.
“What is it, Avery? Tell me now,” I say.
I pull her up into my arms and she hugs me tight before looking into my face and making her confession.
“I’ve been snooping through some of your things. And I know that my family has done you wrong. I’m…I’m a Wilkins. Avery Wilkins. My father signed off on sending shoddy weapons to your unit…and the man who I was supposed to marry is Adam Stanton. He owns Stanton Industries. He’s the man whose company provided the weapons that doomed your men.”
I pull away from her to contemplate these words of venom.
What the fuck is she talking about? Is she telling the truth? It can’t be.
She was gonna marry the man who was ultimately my ruin? Is this some kind of a setup?
For the first time, I see Avery as not appearing so cute and innocent. For the first time, I’m questioning her motives for being with me.
“You’re going to need to run that by me again, honey,” I say sternly.
She backs away from me as if in fear. I must be a sight to see, my muscles covered in blood and my hair so unkempt that I look like the beast I just murdered.
I can tell she’s afraid, frightened of my tremendous strength, but I don’t care about that now. All I see is red.
She almost married Adam fucking Stanton? There has to be more to the story and I’m going to find out…now.
“It’s all true. I hate to be the one to tell you this but I have to be honest with you. Can’t you commend
me even for that? At least I’m being upfront with you about what I know.”
I reject her plea. I feel like a storm cloud that’s about to explode with lightning and thunder.
I’m so fucking angry. Wounds of the past have been reopened and I’m just not sure I’m ready to go there.
What she’s explaining is everything I’ve been running from. She can’t expect me to take this news with a docile attitude. It’s just not in my nature.
“Honest? You think this is honesty? Your family has done me wrong and your potential fiancé was behind the ruin of so many lives. How can you live with that?”
Tears are streaming down her face. It’s a sad sight to see but I don’t fucking care.
I have to push my emotions for her down. I have to hear the rest of this story and how it all fits together.
“Jack, I’m sorry. You have to know I’m sorry about everything. You can’t hold me responsible for all of this,” she says, crying now.
She backs up against the chair and sits on the arm of it. I approach her but try to tame my anger so as not to frighten her even more.
“Tell me how you know all this, Avery. Tell me,” I say.
“I discovered conversations proving that Adam was using my father to gain lucrative weapons contracts with the US military. He was also, I think…well, I think he’s playing both sides of the war.”
I’m about to go fucking ballistic now. To hear that this lunatic sabotaged us is incomprehensible to me. The thought of all the people I lost in my unit, men and women alike, fills me with rage and remorse under normal circumstances.
But now Avery’s telling me that this one guy is responsible for it? No. It can’t be fucking possible.
The days I’ve spent in torment and regret and misery flash before my eyes. All these days out in the wilderness have been because of this, because of some shady bastard playing underhanded politics. And to think, Avery was about to marry him.
I slam my fist into the wall and blood trickles down, comingling with the blood of the bear. I am a fucking savage and I feel as if this rage is going to consume me whole.
The thought of that man marrying her makes me burn with fury and jealousy all at the same time. My past is colliding with my future, and it all fucking makes sense now—how there was no explanation for what went wrong when my team was demolished.
We were fucking played.
Before I can become even more enraged, she makes another confession.
“Jack, that’s not all,” she says softly, her voice cracking. “When Adam caught me snooping…he tried to—” She swallows hard. “He was so furious he tried to rape me.”
I stop in my tracks.
What the fuck? Did she just fucking say that?
I better not have just heard what I think I did. That better not be the fucking truth.
“Excuse me?” I say through gritted teeth. “Did you say that Adam fucking Stanton tried to fucking rape you?”
She nods her head solemnly, and that’s the last push I need to totally explode. I knock over chairs and slam my fists into the walls and cabinets trying to vent my anger.
The thought of his hands on her is too much. Too fucking much. But now my anger swells and flares up at a worthier target: Adam himself.
My mission is clear, this guy must go down.
Any animosity I might’ve felt toward Avery for even being a part of this completely fades. I know it wasn’t her fault. She’s been a pawn in their game. Unbeknownst to her, she fell into the trap of a traitor, and apparently, so did I.
I calm myself enough to wrap her up in my arms, and she doesn’t even mind holding my bloodstained body.
Nothing exists right now except for me and her. She comes first before everything.
“Are you okay, Avery? Did he hurt you?” I think about it for a second, then swear. “Shit. Did I hurt you?”
She sobs into my chest and says, “I’m okay. I’m just glad that you’re here.”
A million thoughts are going through my mind at once, all involving how to make this guy pay. To think that Avery almost was almost raped by that bastard has my blood boiling. The fury I feel towards Adam is immense and multifaceted.
He played both sides of the war and then he tried to play Avery on top of it.
Eruptions of anger convulse in my chest, but I try to hide that from Avery. I don’t want her to know how totally raving fucking mad I feel.
Time ceases to exist, and all I know is that I have to protect her.
She’s all that matters now.
Chapter 30
Avery
The blood doesn’t bother me.
All I can feel are his chiseled biceps wrapped tightly around me in a comforting hug.
I’ve never seen this side of Jack before. He’s holding me like he needs me.
I think I like it.
It feels so good to be in his manly presence that I want to just forget the past and to savor this moment.
I feel safe around him because I know he would absolutely kill anybody that tried to hurt me…especially Adam.
A weight has been lifted now that I’ve let Jack know what I discovered. I can’t believe I was so close to marrying a monster like Adam Stanton. I shudder to think of what my life would be had that happened.
At the same time, I can feel Jack’s ragged breathing and I know he’s trying to keep his rage inside. I know the thought of any man hurting me puts him in a total fury. I don’t want to be responsible for that.
I just want Jack to hold me from now into eternity. Only in his arms do I feel safe and comforted. Even though a part of me is frightened of him and his power, it’s also what I love about him.
He releases me at last when he’s calmed down enough. I go to the kitchen sink and take a rag and soak it in warm water so that I can wipe the rest of the blood off his body.
I have to admit he looks so gorgeous wearing just those ripped jeans and his faded undershirt. I can see the outline of his rock-solid muscles.
I go to him and smooth the rag over his body removing all the blood that I can.
“Boof!” barks Buck, coming over to do his part with his tongue.
I scratch behind Buck’s ear and between the two of us, we get our mountain man all cleaned up.
Jack is a different kind of guy. He’s ragged and wild and untamed. I appreciate his authenticity and mostly I just know I will never escape the electricity that hums between us.
Even now in this dire moment, I know that we’re connected. I know it’s a feeling like no other, that I will never have again with anybody else, nor would I want to.
It’s him. He does this to me.
Once I finish cleaning him up as best I can without a shower, I go to the cupboard and pull out a bottle of whiskey. Jack looks like he could use a drink and I certainly know that I could.
I pour us both a heavy drink in a couple of glasses and take them towards him. He’s making up a fire and it’s starting to get hot in here in more ways than one.
At the same time, I know Jack has a lot on his mind. He’s got a story to tell and I’m ready to hear it.
He sits in the big leather chair that faces the fire with his drink and begins to tell me what happened. I curl up on the rug beside him, lay my head in his lap and listen.
“This is how it went down, Avery. I’m ready to tell you. Are you ready to hear it?” he says.
“I am,” I say solemnly.
I know that whatever Jack has to say isn’t gonna be good. It’s probably gonna be the source of all his pain, and considering what Adam did to him, I feel partially responsible even though I’m technically removed from the story.
“When I was in the military,” he begins, “we attempted to liberate a city held by terrorists. My squad was sent to take out the cell’s leaders and to prevent them from ordering an airstrike on the city.
“Our troops successfully won the battle, but at the worst possible moment, my squad’s weapons malfunctioned. But the terrorists…
Christ. At the time, I swore they were packing the same fucking weapons. Now I know for sure.
“Unfortunately for us, their weapons worked.
“My entire squad was slaughtered and the airstrike on the city got called. Those of us who were left just started running—away from the gunfire and the bombing and all of the shit. I tried to save the lives that I could, but it didn’t fucking matter. There was just too much ammo coming at all of us.
“I still don’t know how I made it out alive. It was every man for himself dodging a hailstorm of bullets. I’m the only one that survived.
“This is the guilt I’ve been living with here in the wilderness. This is the past I can never escape. And thanks to your confession, I know it was your boyfriend Adam’s fault.”
I’m at a loss for words. My heart hurts at the mention of my boyfriend, Adam. He knows that I despise that asshole.
Why would he say that? I guess he’s still feeling bitter about the situation and I can see why. I can’t believe Jack lived through that. And I can’t believe Adam was responsible for turning his luck around.
How could he do that to his country?
Suddenly, everything about Jack makes more sense to me. His isolation, his aloofness, his total abandonment of society. It all makes sense now.
“Jack, I’m…I’m so sorry. But I hope you know that you can’t blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault,” I say trying to help heal the situation.
He looks at me with sadness and says, “I can never take it back. I can’t turn back time. Someone else should’ve been saved, not me.”
The guilt he must feel is palpable. I know if it were me in that situation, leading men into war, I would feel responsible too. It’s no wonder Jack has been trying to escape this pain.
“Jack, you had to live. Otherwise, I would never have met you. And I can’t imagine a life like that. Please don’t say that you should’ve died,” I say, pleading.
I crawl up from my place on the floor onto his lap and curl into him. Somehow, I fit into the crook of his arm just perfectly. Of course, because everything about us together is perfect. He holds me tightly and stares into the fire for a long time.