“Shame on you, Paul!” Elsie snapped back. “The least we can do for those poor unfortunate souls is offer them aid. Without us, they would die in that Godforsaken country. You need to stop thinking about yourself.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he sulked.
She exhaled and looked at the floor. “No, I’m sorry, Paul. I shouldn’t expect you to feel the same way your father and I do. You have every right to choose the direction your own life will go and decide if you want something different for yourself. The world doesn’t stop spinning because of one country’s atrocities. We choose to help the defectors because we understand their situation, but that doesn’t have to be your choice.”
“Everyone in this family has helped crossers. If I choose not to, then I’ll be looked down on, won’t I?”
“No, sweetheart.” Paul had a soft spot for his mother, and he loved it when she called him sweetheart, but right now he felt she was placating him. “You shouldn’t have to do something you don’t want to do. If your heart isn’t in it, you can’t effectively protect a crosser.”
“I understand, Mom. I also understand that without learning to take on greater responsibilities, I won’t ever be able to make an informed decision.”
“And yet, until your heart is in it, we can’t give you any greater responsibilities. I don’t mean to pressure you, and I’m certainly not trying to push you out of the house, but have you thought any more about college?”
“Mom!” Paul rolled his eyes and shifted on his feet in annoyance.
“No worries. You’re always welcome to stay here and continue working with us just as you’ve always done.”
“As errand runner and crosser-picker-upper, I know. I don’t plan on leaving any time soon.”
“Take your time. Sam didn’t decide till two years ago, and he’s twenty-six.”
Paul knew better than to complain, but it didn’t stop him from wishing for a different life, something more normal, like what his friend next door, Greg Bidell, had. Greg’s family had been their neighbors for upwards of ten years. Greg and Paul were the same age, and they hit it off right away when Greg moved in.
When Greg told him his family was going to start housing crossers a few years back, Paul opened up and told him his family was already doing so. Up to that point, Paul had only been allowed to tell Greg they ran a bed and breakfast.
There seemed to be a unique kind of trust between Paul and Greg, and it gave Paul the support he needed in his out-of-control world, where his life didn’t seem to be his own.
Greg was the only person who seemed to understand Paul’s situation and his frustrations. Paul couldn’t gripe to his parents about feeling useless and wanting more independence, or they’d just tell him to stop being selfish. He couldn’t talk to his older brother Sam about his worries about being unprepared for adulthood without being chided about being immature. He only had Greg to unload on, and Greg was always a good listener.
But Greg also made him think. He would point out to Paul that there must be some kind of invisible force that was keeping him and Sam at home and not out pursuing life. Of course, Paul wasn’t old enough to do so, but Sam was. Was there some kind of force, as Greg had said, keeping them there? Was it guilt? Was it respect? Was it duty?
Paul and Greg often talked about their futures. They both wanted to get away from Slaterville and the gloom and doom and sheer boredom abounding there. They wanted to go as far north as they could and attend one of the universities up there. Maybe they would become doctors or lawyers or anything that would give them a real life. They were just dreaming out loud, though, since neither one was ready to embark on a life on his own.
Tonight, as usual, Paul’s life involved one thing: locating and picking up crossers. He drove slowly along the road, looking down to the edge of the iced-over Slater Lake. It was quite dark, but the street lights illuminated things well enough. Then he saw it. A bright orange bandana out on the ice — well, attached to someone on the ice.
He stopped his car and got out. From where he stood, he could tell the person was submerged in the ice up to his armpits. He couldn’t see a face, only a heavy wool cap with earflaps. The blowing snow made it difficult to see much of anything else. He quickly went around to the back of the Datsun and retrieved a rope and an axe. He tied the rope to the front bumper and ran down to the lake’s edge.
“Hello there,” he called out. “Are you okay? Hello?”
No response. He quickly attached the rope to his waist and stepped out on the ice. It seemed stable. He needed to go out about fifteen feet to get to the crosser. He took another step and heard the ice crack, so he lay down and belly-crawled out to the motionless form. He thought he heard a moan coming from the crosser and hoped there was still time to save him. He took the axe and gently broke the ice around the crosser, then heaved and pulled. As the body came up and out of the lake, the ice cracked underneath it again.
Paul knew the water wasn’t deep here, but the last thing he wanted to do was fall in. His corduroy bell-bottoms would weigh a ton if they got wet. He inched backwards and tried again. Slowly but surely, he was able to extract the body from the lake and pull it to shore.
The crosser’s coat was large and solid. Paul had expected the crosser to be heavy due to his size, but when he braced his legs to lift the body, he was surprised at how light it was. It couldn’t weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds. It was either a very small man or, more likely, a teenager. He’d find out soon enough. He picked up the unconscious person fireman-style and hurried up to his vehicle. His home was not far down the road, but it would be faster to drive there than to carry the crosser on foot.
When he got home, he parked in the driveway, then ran inside the house to get his mom. “Mom, I’ve got another one!” he hollered. “This one’s frozen and unconscious. I need your help.” She followed him outside and grimaced at the sight of the wet body sheathed in ice.
“Paul, Sam just brought in two more,” she said. “We don’t have room for this one. All the cots are taken.”
Paul gave his mom a puzzled look. “Why was Sam out picking up crossers?” he asked. “That’s my job.”
“We got word that some of them were dying in the lake. I sent him out to help.”
“You should have told me you didn’t think I could do my job well enough, you know.” Bitterness and anger rose within him.
“I’m sorry, we’re out of room, Paul.”
“Well, jeez, look at him. I can’t very well put him back where I found him! He’s nearly frozen to death. We have to do something.”
“Maybe your father can call over to the Bidells to see if they have room for another crosser.”
“No! Don’t bother. We can put this one in my bed. I’ll take care of him.”
“Paul,” Elsie said with a note of concern, “you’re not trained to care for crossers.”
“Then you can teach me. On the job training.” He attempted a weak smile, hoping his mother would give him a chance. No way was Sam going to take over his only responsibility, and no way was Paul going to take this crosser anywhere else. His mother stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. No doubt she was weighing the options, wondering about his competence as a protector.
“Okay, let’s go,” she said abruptly. She helped him haul the lightweight crosser into the house. They went through the back door and into the kitchen. Normally, they would help the crosser down the stairs to one of the specially designed hidden bedrooms, but not this time.
Paul and Elsie carried the lightweight crosser through the swinging door and into the dining room, then across the living room to Paul’s bedroom. Paul pushed open the door with his backside, and they carefully laid the crosser, still frozen stiff, on the hardwood floor.
“Get those clothes off quickly. I’ll get some warm blankets,” Elsie instructed as she left the room.
It still bothered Paul that Sam had been out doing Paul’s job. Sam was supposed to take care of the crossers once Paul
brought them home. What did they need Paul for if Sam could both pick up and care for the crossers himself? Did everyone think Paul couldn’t handle the job? He’d show them he was ready to handle larger responsibilities, beginning with this frozen crosser in front of him.
Crossers always came in layers — layers of clothing, that is. They didn’t come with suitcases. They simply wore all the clothing they were bringing, layer upon layer. It also helped to keep them warm in the frigid temperatures, unless they fell through the ice and got wet, in which case it could be the death of them. Multiple layers of wet clothing could hold in the cold and effectively freeze them to death.
Paul had a small portable heater blowing warm air on the unfortunate frozen soul. He removed the hiking boots and three pairs of socks. He unzipped the large puffy coat and noticed that the inside of the coat had an inserted lining full of inflated baggies. Some contained photographs, envelopes, and other small objects, while others were just full of air.
“Clever,” he mumbled out loud.
He carefully eased each arm out of the coat and noticed how thin they were. He reached up to untie the strings of the bulky hat. His peripheral vision took in mounds under the shirt, and his brain was a tad bit slow in realizing he was seeing what looked like breasts. He removed the hat and was stunned to find a mass of long dark-blonde hair under it, wet of course, and the realization of what he’d gotten himself into hit him in the gut like a sledgehammer.
A girl! And one about his own age, he was guessing. Right away he noticed her striking facial features. She had an absolutely flawless face: beautiful even-toned skin, thick eyelashes resting on high cheekbones, and delicately arched light-brown eyebrows. The shape of her lips in her unconscious state was likewise uniform and perfect. She had bangs and layers of long wavy hair that, when let down, must have reached the center of her back. She seemed a little thin as her face had just a hint of sharp lines. Nonetheless, she was stunning, the most beautiful girl Paul had ever seen, and nearly blue with cold.
His mother came back in with warm blankets. “What’s taking you so long? Oh! My, how pretty! Why, she couldn’t be more than eighteen. Well, get on with it, Paul. She’s dying on you.” Then as quick as she entered the room, she left.
Paul came back to his senses and began removing her pants, one wet pair at a time. At least she was only wearing two pairs. But the second pair was harder to remove. They wouldn’t come off her slender hips without bringing her panties down with them. He fought by holding the elastic band of the panties with one hand and pulling the waistband of the pants down, inch by inch.
Then he covered her legs with a fresh warm blanket, but not before noticing their well-toned shape and all the bruises. There were bruises everywhere in assorted colors: dark blue and purple, yellow and green. He knew those were the older bruises. He moved up to remove her shirts. The buttons were taking too much time to undo, but they were still better than tee-shirts. As luck would have it, she had one of those on too, and naturally it was the last thing to come off. He left her wet bra on and covered her with another warm blanket. Then he scooped up her freezing cold body and laid her on the bed.
He covered her with more warm blankets and tucked them all around her body. Elsie came back in and saw what he was doing. “No, Paul, blankets won’t be enough. She’s frozen solid. She needs body heat.”
Paul looked at her and was shocked at what she was implying. “I’m not going to do that,” he said. He had learned long ago that the best way to warm a person suffering from hypothermia was by placing him next to another warm body, flesh on flesh, but this was not something he was prepared for.
“She could die,” Elsie said.
“You want me to lie down naked right next to a total stranger — a girl?”
“You wanted this, Paul. It’s either you, or I’ll get Sam to do it. Body heat is the only thing that will save her.” Elsie could get him to do anything by simply threatening to have his older brother do it instead. She knew she had Paul’s number.
“Hmmph. Okay, I’ll do it.” He took off all his clothes except his briefs and climbed in bed with her.
His mother stood right by the bed issuing orders. “Now put your arm around her. Hold her tight so she’ll absorb your body heat.”
“Mom!”
“Turn her on her side and spoon with her. Come on. This is not a game.”
“Mom! Do you have to stand there and tell me how to cuddle? This is embarrassing enough as it is!”
“This is not about you, Paul! It’s the difference between life and death for this girl. You wanted to learn how to care for crossers? This is step one. Don’t let your crosser die of hypothermia.”
“Could you please just leave us, and let me do this without the awkwardness of my mother supervising?”
“Alright.”
Elsie walked to the door, as Paul rolled the crosser on her side so he could conform his body next to hers. That’s when he saw the criss-crossing of scars and lashings on her back. “Mom, wait, look at this!”
Elsie came back to the bed and leaned over to examine the injuries. “Oh dear! How horrible! What an awful … from the look of the scars, I’d say she’s been whipped for months. She has fresh wounds across old scars.” She reached over and ran her finger over an old scar. “This is just sickening. I hope she makes it through this so we can find out what happened to her.”
“Yeah,” Paul’s throat choked out.
His mother left to go put more blankets in the dryer to warm. Paul looked a little longer at the scars, and a deep compassion filled his soul. Who would do such a horrible thing to a beautiful young girl? Her face was unhurt, thank goodness, but her back and legs were in bad shape.
Then a different thought entered his mind. This girl must be a strong individual to withstand this kind of treatment. Clearly she couldn’t take the abusive life she had over there, and that’s why she boarded the crosser plane to flee. If he hadn’t found her in the lake, she would have died. Of course, he didn’t even know yet if she would make it.
He fit his body close to hers, wrapping his arm around her to pull her next to him and pulled the mass of blankets over them. She was still half frozen, and it was hard for him to deal with the coldness of her skin. But he knew his body heat was what she needed right now.
His mother kept bringing in warm blankets every half hour or so and switching them out. After a few hours, the girl started to have shiver fits. They would come on all of a sudden and became violent momentarily, and then they were gone. Paul’s mother told him it was a good sign. She was warming up.
Paul knew he would normally be overheated with all the freshly warmed blankets his mother kept piling on them, but having an ice cube to cuddle up next to kept him at a tolerable temperature.
During the night, Paul managed to doze off now and then but woke up whenever the girl shivered or moaned. Once he drifted into a fleeting dream of walking out on the frozen lake in the middle of the blizzard. The muted buzz of an airplane engine echoed in the distance. The snow whipped around him and stung his face. He stepped forward and heard the ice crack beneath his feet. He felt himself slipping down, down into the water. He was pulled helplessly into the suffocating darkness. So cold, so cold, he thought. Then he awoke with a shock and realized he was still hugging the body of the beautiful frozen girl.
By 6:00 the next morning, the girl’s temperature had reached 94o F. It would take the better part of the day to get her up to 98o F, his mother had told him.
Elsie came in to check on them again at 8:00. “How are the other crossers?” Paul quietly whispered to her, trying not to wake the girl.
“Fine. This one is in the most critical condition. Apparently, crossers were landing on top of one another in the lake and crawling over each other to get up on the ice. It’s upsetting beyond measure to know that people can be driven to such extremes because of one loathsome man.”
*****
Reginald Rawlings opened his eyes to the ringing of th
e phone next to his bed. The bright morning sunlight hurt his eyes, making him squint as another wave of nausea rolled through his body.
“What?” he barked into the phone.
Dr. Roth from the palace infirmary was on the other end. “Pardon me for calling so early, sir, but I need to let you know that Sierra has disappeared.” Dr. Roth didn’t sound like he was in any better shape.
“Disappeared?! What are you talking about?!” Reginald sat up. His voice thundered into the phone.
“She’s gone, sir. I never left the infirmary last night because of all the patients who were coming in sick. I became ill myself. I decided to rest on one of the exam beds. She was there when I went to sleep, but she was gone when I woke up.”
“I thought you said she wasn’t strong enough to attempt an escape.”
“She’s been on intravenous fluids for a week, what with her effort to starve herself. She was so weak she couldn’t lift her own head. I feared that if she came down with whatever we’d all caught, she’d die. I think we’re all suffering from food poisoning. I’m sorry sir, but she seems to have slipped through the cracks.”
Reginald slammed down the phone. That damn girl would be the death of him. “Get me Victor.” he ordered his personal assistant to action.
Moments later, Victor appeared in his father’s room. “You asked to see me?” Victor still had a green tinge to his skin and looked as if he wasn’t finished being sick.
“When was the last time you saw Sierra?”
“Yesterday, why?”
“She’s gone.”
“What? Where?”
“She’s. Gone. Victor!” He said slowly to his son. “She’s missing.”
“I’ll ask Riley. He stayed in a guest room last night ’cause he didn’t feel well enough to drive.”
“Go find her. You know how important she is to us.”
“Yes, father, I do. I’ll find her.”
Reginald picked up the phone and issued the order to close the border, even though he knew she would already be across it. Reginald knew she would have fled to Baylend because she didn’t have any more relatives in Rendier. They would need to start the search over there.
Scars Of Defiance Page 3