Scars Of Defiance

by Angell, Lorena

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “A doctor’s going to come look at your ankle this afternoon. It might be broken.”

  “Okay. What will happen then?”

  “I don’t know. My father usually makes the arrangements at this point.”

  Elsie came in and picked up on the tension immediately. This situation was worse than she’d thought. Paul’s arms were folded across his chest, and his overall behavior radiated frustration. If Paul couldn’t nip his pride and immaturity in the bud, she would have to pull the plug on his crosser. She walked over to the girl and placed her hand on her forehead.

  “You’re still cold. Lift your tongue, dear.” Elsie rapidly waved a glass thermometer back and forth to bring the mercury level down. Sierra did as she was told and clamped down on the glass stick. Elsie turned to Paul. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “What makes you think something’s the matter?”

  Elsie looked back to Sierra, who looked at Paul with question in her eye. “Go tend to the dishes,” Elsie ordered Paul over her shoulder.

  Sierra watched as his facial expression changed, looking completely irritated as he left the room. “I’m shorry,” Sierra said with the thermometer between her teeth. “I don’t know what’sh wrong.”

  “Keep your mouth shut, dear. He’s never been responsible for a crosser before, so you’ll have to be patient with him. Your condition was far worse than that of any of the others, and it made me nervous to place you with him. If you had died, he would have blamed himself. I didn’t want to place that kind of a burden on him. His older brother Sam had picked up some other crossers last night, and when Paul brought you home, we were already filled to our maximum. But he insisted on keeping you in his room, and that was before he knew you were a girl.” Elsie sat on the edge of the bed and removed the thermometer, giving Sierra a chance to speak.

  “I hope I didn’t offend him,” Sierra said earnestly.

  Elsie squinted at the mercury. “Ninety-six. Better, but you’ve got a way to go.” She looked at Sierra. “Neither of us knew you were a girl, dear. But I don’t think it would have made a difference. Paul was determined to take care of you. Not you, necessarily, but whoever it was he had rescued from the lake. He felt slighted by his brother, and he can’t stand being bested by Sam. Don’t worry about Paul. He’s at his own crossroads. He needs to decide which way to turn. One direction leads to the life of service helping crossers, and the other leads to independence. I’ll have him bring in some warm soup for you and some ointment for your back.” Elsie stood up and walked toward the door.

  “Ointment?”

  “Your back, dear. It looked very painful last night when he turned you on your side.”

  Sierra’s face turned red, and her cheeks burned. At least something was warm. The thought of Paul manhandling her in her unconscious state was embarrassing. It was even more awkward knowing they had seen all of her whip marks.

  “Some ointment would be wonderful. Thank you,” she managed to get out.

  Elsie went to the kitchen, where she found Paul emptying the dish drainer. “Paul, sit down. I need to talk to you.” She motioned to the table. “Look, Paul, you haven’t had many girlfriends, and you’ve never housed crossers before. The combination of inexperience with the added anger and frustration is probably too much for you to handle. Why don’t I talk it over with your father and see if we can relocate Sara somewhere else?”

  “No. I said I’d care for her, and I will.”

  “Be careful now. Don’t commit to this if all you’re trying to do is one up Sam — or prove something to me, for that matter.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Alright, then you need to clear your head and get down to business. There’s absolutely no room for egotism, pride, or self-pity when it comes to taking care of a crosser. You need to deal with your own personal issues in private and not involve your crosser. Do you understand?” Paul’s shocked face at her bluntness was answer enough. “We don’t know anything about this girl yet,” Elsie continued. “Where did she get all those injuries? Who’s responsible for them? We don’t know how much trouble she’s in. She may be dangerous. This is information you need to get out of her. That’s step two of housing crossers.”

  “What’s step three?”

  “Keeping your relationship on a professional level.” Elsie stood up and walked over to the medicine cupboard and pulled out some ointment. “Crossers come and go. Some make impressions on us, while others are quickly forgotten. She will leave at some point. We’ll probably never see her or hear from her again. You have to understand that, Paul.”

  “I do.”

  “Good. I told her you’d bring in some ointment for her back. You’ll need to apply it for her, but wait a moment until I warm up this broth. She’s still cold and needs to keep her belly filled with warm liquids.”

  “Thanks for understanding, Mom.”

  She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s what I do best.”

  Paul entered the bedroom, holding a tray with assorted items on it. “Hi,” he said. “I’m supposed to put this cream on your back. Mom thought you might need some pain killer too.” He handed her a couple of pills and a glass of water.

  She swallowed the medicine. He handed her a mug of warm broth. Sierra could see immediately that his mood had lightened.

  “Eat up,” he encouraged.

  “But I’m not hungry. I just ate all that other food.”

  “You need to keep warm fluids in your stomach to help warm you from the inside out.” He reached down and pulled the blanket off of her pained foot and examined it closely. Then he uncovered the other foot to make comparisons.

  “Your ankle is definitely swollen,” he said. He gently ran a finger down the inside of her left ankle, and she flinched. “Did that hurt?”

  “Sort of. It tickled more than hurt.”

  “Can you move your foot at all?”

  She tried to wiggle it, but any movement brought pain. “It hurts too much.”

  “I think it was already injured when I brought you here last night. Probably when you hit the ice. There’s no way you hurt it when you bolted out of bed this morning.”

  “Yes, I think your right.” She sipped the broth, trying not to make any annoying slurpy sounds. “I’m pretty sure it’s broken,” she said. The tension between them lingered like the morning fog off Slater Lake.

  “Look, Paul, I’m sorry if I said — ”

  “Forget about it.” He smiled at her as he carefully covered her feet with the blanket again. He paused for a second, looking thoughtfully into her hazel eyes. “Sara, what did you do in Rendier? Why did you have to cross?”

  Chapter 4

  “Wow, you don’t waste any time do you?” asked Sierra.

  “I need to know why you’re here — how much danger you’re in,” Paul replied.

  “Alright,” she said and inhaled a deep breath. “I am being forced to marry Victor Rawlings.”

  “Who’s that? Is he related to Reginald Rawlings?”

  “Yes, Victor’s his son.” Paul didn’t know who Victor was? Everyone knew who Victor was! At least that’s the way it was in Rendier.

  Paul’s eyes opened wide, and she could see the white all around his dark irises. “You’re supposed to marry the dictator’s son?”

  “Yes.” Good. At least he realized the intensity of the situation.

  “So when’s the big day?”

  “Three days from now.”

  “Smart of you to bolt, but how did you get all those marks on your back and the bruises on your legs?”

  “I wasn’t as submissive as Reginald thought I should be, so he decided to teach me a lesson.”

  “Reginald Rawlings beat you?!” Paul couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Yes, quite a few times. I guess it’s a requirement to be submissive if you want to live in the palace.”

  “Did it work?”

  “What do you think?
I’m here, aren’t I?” She smiled at him, and his heart melted, making the knot in his stomach tighten even more. He cleared his throat because it suddenly felt thick, and clearing it seemed to help. He took her mug and set it on the table. “Here, sit up and I’ll put this stuff on your back.” He adjusted her pillows and helped her sit forward.

  He opened the tube and squirted some ointment into his hand. With his other hand, he lifted her shirt up. Her spine tightened at his impending touch. He figured she was bracing for the pain. His voice softened. “My goodness, Sara. This does not look good. Does it hurt?”

  “Not so much now. The first time I was whipped, it hurt like … well, it was quite painful. The second time hurt a lot because the first wounds weren’t even healed yet. The third time and every time since, it’s just numb. Don’t get me wrong. It always brings tears to my eyes, but the pain doesn’t last for long anymore.” She tried to sound like it was no big deal, but inside she was nervous about the idea of Paul rubbing salve on her back. She didn’t want to show weakness, but she also wasn’t sure she wanted to trust him just yet.

  Paul was glad his face wasn’t visible at that moment. His eyes were watering with pity and anger. He thought about the fuss he tends to make whenever he gets just a simple bruise — a single bruise or a cut. She had so many he couldn’t even count them all. Was she even able to sleep comfortably? He smoothed the ointment all over her back, being extra careful with the more recent wounds. She seemed to relax by the time he finished.

  “Can I ask you a dumb question?” he said. He gently pulled her shirt back down into place, and she leaned back against the pillows.

  “Fire away.”

  He stood up and set the ointment on top of his dresser. “Why didn’t you run away sooner?”

  “Well, for one thing, the lake needed to freeze over, so I couldn’t cross till it did. I did try to leave several times, but every attempt was unsuccessful. I didn’t have a place I could hide. No one would take me in for fear of Reginald Rawlings’s wrath coming down on them. Plus every time I got caught, the beatings were even more brutal. So out of self-preservation I decided to wait until everything was in place before I tried to flee again. Of course, the wedding was coming up way too fast, and I didn’t want to go through with it. Needless to say, I was glad when I found out the plane was leaving soon.”

  “What would you have done if the plane didn’t leave in time to get you out of the wedding?”

  “Whatever it took.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. I would have made sure I never married Victor.”

  “End your life?” He was astounded to hear her talk like that.

  She looked down at her hands and twisted and pulled the loose threads of the blanket. “Well, you make it sound so bad.”

  “You were considering suicide?”

  “If you think about it, getting on that plane and knowing I might die in the jump was itself a form of suicide, but it was better than staying in Rendier.” She brought her eyes up to his and sat up a little straighter as if her spirits were buoyed up with bravery. “I will not have my children brought up by Victor Rawlings or his father. I lived in that terrible household for four months, and I refused to marry him. I’m smart enough to know I didn’t have a choice if I remained in Rendier. Please don’t judge me Paul.”

  The look on his face was anger mixed with compassion. She didn’t know what to say. They just looked at each other for several eternally long seconds.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Ring the bell if you need anything.” He pointed to the little crystal bell on the tray.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Zachary, Paul’s father. He was sitting at the kitchen table with Elsie and his mother Martha. “And so soon after a drop.”

  “How many did you see?” Elsie asked.

  “At least six cars. They stick out like sore thumbs, too. You’d think after all this time they’d try to disguise themselves a little better. Our methods have evolved over the years, but theirs haven’t.”

  “That’s to our advantage,” Elsie said. “We always know what to expect.”

  “I agree,” Martha added, “and because they do things the same as always, you were able to spot them earlier than usual.”

  “The question remains, who are they looking for? And why?” Zachary said.

  Martha said, “Sam has learned that three of his six are from the insurgent underground. Two are businessmen, and the other one is a commercial pilot. Sam figures the heat on their heads is minimal.”

  Zachary added, “Minimal or not, we can’t let our guard down.”

  “What about Paul’s crosser?” Martha asked Elsie.

  “We don’t know anything about her yet. She’s covered in bruises and scars, poor girl.”

  The door to the kitchen opened, and Paul walked in. “I found out a little more about Sara,” he said as he sat down. “She’s supposed to marry Reginald Rawlings’s son in three days. Well, she’s being forced to marry him. Of course, she doesn’t want to. Reginald is responsible for all her injuries.”

  “Oh dear, that’s not good, not good at all.” Elsie stood up and began pacing the kitchen. The tension in her voice rose appreciably. “She’s the one they’re looking for. We have to move her. She’s too hot. We’re risking too much.”

  “We can’t move her now,” Zachary said. “The heat is already on. She’ll have to stay here until the coast is clear. We’ll store her belongings in the crawlspace under Paul’s room.”

  “What if we’re raided?” Elsie asked nervously. “They’ll be looking for trap doors, and the one in Paul’s closet is too obvious.”

  “I’ll do some camouflaging, then,” said Zachary. “I’m pretty sure we have more wood flooring slats in the shed. I can make it blend in with the existing woodwork. We’ll keep blankets and warm clothing in a box down there just in case.”

  “And some food,” Elsie added.

  “Nothing should be left in your room to indicate she’s here, Paul. If they suspect anything, they’ll tear this house apart looking for her.”

  “No problem. My room already looks empty as it is.”

  Zachary summed up the situation. “We all need to act as if nothing is out of the ordinary, yet with a thought for everyone’s safety. No heroics, or else we risk failure,” he said, looking at Paul.

  Sierra lay in bed and concentrated on the swirls in the plaster ceiling as Dr. Jensen inspected her foot. Earlier, Elsie had brought in a pair of black spandex knee-length shorts to give her a little more modesty, for which Sierra was grateful.

  “I can’t be sure without an x-ray,” Dr. Jensen said to Sierra. “But if it’s broken, it’s only a hairline fracture. I think by wrapping it in a splint and keeping your weight off of it for a couple of weeks, it will heal on its own.”

  Dr. Jensen, a middle-aged heavy-set man, began wrapping Sierra’s ankle. She glanced around the room full of males. Paul stood by the dresser with his arms folded across his chest with a worried expression and a pursed mouth. Zachary sat next to Dr. Jensen with the same concerned look. Her eyes went back to Paul, only to find his hypnotic gaze still on her.

  Dr. Jensen finished caring for Sierra and left the bedroom with Zachary. They walked to the kitchen, where the doctor’s vehicle was parked out the back door.

  “What do I owe you?” Zachary asked.

  “Just the usual house-call fee. Zachary, what happened to her? She has some pretty severe contusions on her calves that I can tell aren’t related to the ankle injury.”

  “She hurt her ankle skiing with Paul and refused to go to the hospital. Paul worried about her so I called you.”

  “Why won’t she go to the hospital?”

  “No insurance.”

  “Skiing doesn’t explain those bruises.”

  “She’s an active, sports-minded girl.”

  “Sports-minded people don’t usually get hurt like that. I’m a doctor, Zach, and I s
uspect her bruises are from abuse. Her ankle injury is from a fall. It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me any more than that. Just don’t think of me as an idiot. I think you’re going to have to pay me a little more for my silence.”

  Zachary’s jaw dropped.

  “When I say pay me, I mean with a plate of Elsie’s cookies. They’re worth a lot more to me than any reward.” He winked.

  Zachary let out a breath and smiled. “You had me going there for a moment, Jensen.”

  “I would never turn your family in, you know that.”

  “I’m sorry for even thinking it.”

  “So how about those cookies?” Dr. Jensen hinted and watched as Zachary filled a plate with some of the cookies that Elsie had taken out of the oven about half an hour earlier. “I’m sure all those dark-windowed cars haven’t escaped your attention,” the doctor said as he bit into a cookie.

  “I saw them.”

  “Any raids yet?”

  “No.”

  “It’s her, isn’t it? They’re after Sara, aren’t they? I don’t understand why you put your family in danger, Zachary. It certainly isn’t for the money, because I know what you charge crossers. You could be asking for a lot more, and they would pay it. But I know you well enough to know that what you do is not for the money. I just don’t understand what else it’s all about.”

  “Rawlings ordered a hit. They killed my father, Jensen, but only because they missed their target, my mother.”

  “Are you kidding me? When did that happen? I’ve never heard that before.”

  “I was quite young. But it stuck with me so much that I’ve defied Rawlings ever since. I’ll keep doing what I’m doing until I’m stopped.”

  “Someday, I want to hear more about your parents. But for now, I’ll take these cookies with a better understanding of what drives you, Zachary.” Dr. Jensen smiled and patted him on the back and left.

  Zachary entered the bedroom carrying his toolbox. Paul told Sierra at one point what his father was doing, but Sierra had a hard time believing any camouflage carpentry could trick Reginald’s henchmen. Paul reassured her that his father knew what he was doing and told her not to worry.