by A. J. Quinn
What did they do to you?
It wasn’t the first time she had been asked that particular question since arriving in Germany. But this time the question was deeply personal, and for the first time since she’d been rescued, Evan acknowledged she would eventually have to provide some kind of cogent response. Especially if she wanted to prove she had achieved a satisfactory level of psychological recovery. Enough for them to let her go home.
What did they do to you?
In the span of a few seconds, Evan debated and then decided to consider this a dry run. Almost immediately, she felt the rough grip of tension easing from her shoulders. Looking up, she met Tate’s eyes once again. “They did what we were warned to expect in the event we were ever captured,” she said. “But they don’t prepare you for what it’s really like. They can’t. No one can show you how it feels to have absolutely no control over what’s happening to you.”
The words were out before she could call them back, and Evan was surprised she had managed to get them out without stumbling. Still, she considered it a hollow victory because what she couldn’t say—the bitter truth she couldn’t get out—was that they also hadn’t taught her how to go on once she was twisted and broken inside.
Tate regarded her intently through narrowed eyes. Concerned. Able to recognize the depth of anguish Evan’s words held but uncertain how she was supposed to respond. In the prolonged silence that followed, Evan closed her eyes and rolled over onto her side, turning her back to Tate. Lying perfectly still.
It looked almost as if she was waiting.
Tate didn’t wait to reach the count of three before crawling closer, until Evan’s back was pressed firmly against her chest, and she had her arms tightly wrapped around her. “I’m so sorry they hurt you, Evan,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry for everything you had to go through. But you’re here now, safe, and I’m here with you. For you. Now or whenever you want to talk. The when doesn’t matter, I’ll still be here.”
Evan didn’t reply. Didn’t make a sound. But after a minute or so, whatever pent up emotions kept her stiff and unyielding began to dissipate, and Tate heard her sigh. Felt her relax into the embrace.
How long they remained in that position, curled up against each other on the narrow bed, Tate had no idea and she didn’t really care. She was content to remain there until Evan wanted to move, providing her with whatever comfort she could find in their embrace and allowing everything else to fade.
She listened to the ambient sounds of the hospital—the hum of the ventilation system, the muffled voices of the staff as they went about their business, the sound of a helicopter as it came in to land on the helipad. All the pockets of activity that filled the world just beyond the room with life and noise.
As she listened, it occurred to her that for the first time in months, she was at peace. Content to simply hold the one woman who meant more to her than anyone ever had. Or ever would. Drowsy, she almost missed the next words Evan said.
“The first ones—the ones who captured us—they wanted information. They were angry about a drone strike from a week earlier. They claimed it had killed some civilians from their village. They kept asking who was responsible as if we could give them a name. Point a finger at someone. And pain is a wonderful incentive to talk. Except we had no real information to give them, so it just prolonged the pain.”
Evan rolled over onto her back, stared at the ceiling. And although it looked as if she had more to say, she bit her lip and fell silent, lost in painful memories once again. Tate gave her time to regroup, and then gently nudged her forward.
“What about later? Kelsey said some of your injuries…she said some are much more recent than the others. And I’m not just talking about the bullet wound in your thigh.”
“Khalid.”
“He interrogated you?”
Evan shook her head. “You could call what he did many things, but interrogation wouldn’t be one of them. By the time he traded for us, there couldn’t have been anyone among the insurgent cells in the area who didn’t know we had no information to give. Or that anything we might have once known was now too dated to be useful.”
“Then why did he trade for you?”
“Khalid was different,” Evan responded. “He…one time he laughed and admitted he was working both sides of the line. He’d help the insurgents, and then sell bits and pieces of the information he happened to collect along the way. Whatever he thought might be of interest to the CIA. The thing of it was, when he traded for Deacon and me, he knew exactly what he was getting and it suited his purpose.”
“I don’t think I understand.” Tate could feel the tension thrumming through Evan. She could feel her slip painfully into some recent memory, and watched her intently. Knew the moment she started to shake, the vibration evident everywhere their bodies touched.
Evan swallowed nervously. The walls of the room began closing in on her and she felt on the verge of suffocating. “Khalid doesn’t like people in general—and women specifically.”
For an instant, she remembered all too clearly the brutal feel of his hands on her and couldn’t control a shudder. Anger flared and became the dominant emotion in her voice as she continued. “He had a fondness for playing with knives. And he liked to cause pain. He only intended to hold us long enough to make his sadistic little soul happy. Whatever condition we happened to be in by the time he finished playing wasn’t really important because his intent from the start was simply to allow the CIA to recover our bodies. He knew they would be grateful and not question too closely the condition our bodies were in.”
“Then why did he make the trade?”
“I don’t honestly know,” she said, her voice a mere hint of sound. “He’s a sociopath with no remorse and he was ready to move on anyway. Find another place to ply his trade as a bomb maker. Pursue his personal interests.”
Tate stared at her without saying a word. Finally, she sighed softly and said, “Look at me for a second, will you? Can I ask you one last question?”
“What?” Evan responded warily, as she turned to face her.
“In the settlement in Afghanistan, just as he let you go, Khalid said something to you. I know he did. I could see it in your face. What did he say?”
Evan bit her lip. “He said we weren’t finished. That he and I—we’d have another go. There would be another time and another place, and then he would finish things. I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not, until last night.”
“He’s never going to get another chance to get that close to you,” Tate countered with finality. “I need you to believe me when I tell you we will do whatever we need to do to protect you until he’s caught. Until he’s permanently out of our lives.”
Evan didn’t argue the point. And for a while, Tate wasn’t inclined to break the silence. Instead, she listened to the steadiness of Evan’s breathing, felt the rhythmic beating of her heart, and briefly wondered if Evan had fallen asleep.
But then Evan looked at her, and she saw the flash of doubt that shadowed her face and turned her eyes nearly black. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she whispered. “I don’t want to think about it or remember any of it. Can we do that, Tate? Can we not talk about it anymore?”
Tate watched her try to gather her fraying composure. Tears welled but never fell and it broke Tate’s heart. “Of course, love. Whatever you want.”
“What I want?” Her voice started to break. “What I want is to run barefoot along a beach with you. I want to eat crab cakes and drink wine while we wait for the sun to sink below the water. And then I want to watch as the sky fills with stars. What I want—” Evan covered her face with her hands.
“What, Evan?”
“What I want is for you to tell me you missed me. Please, Tate. I need to hear you say it. Tell me you’re glad I’m still alive. Tell me you’re glad you came to get me.”
Tate didn’t know what fear had suddenly triggered those words. Evan had always been so strong.
And so very good at hiding her emotions. But she could hear the quiet desperation in her voice and in her words. For now, she wanted nothing more than to allay Evan’s fears. To have her feel safe again. Secure again.
“I’ve missed you, Evan. More than I can ever say. Christ, I used to talk to you like you were still around.” Her throat tightened. “The truth is, I’ve only been half-alive without you. I managed to get through denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, but somehow I never found my way to acceptance. And coming to find you was as necessary to me as breathing.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Evan stared out the small window at the cloud formations in the gathering darkness. She was finally going home. She should be thrilled at the prospect. Elated to be flying above the clouds once again.
Instead, she simply felt…tired.
Although it hadn’t been a particularly arduous day, it still didn’t take much to wear her out. Truthfully, she didn’t understand it. She’d been through worse. There had been times during deployments when she’d gone days on mere moments of sleep. So why the hell was she so damned tired?
Her leg throbbed dully, a constant reminder of what she’d been through. But she resisted taking anything for it. She was tired of pills and determined to work through the pain without having to rely on any further chemical interventions. Mostly, she just wanted to get back to some semblance of normal.
Moving gingerly, she stretched her injured leg on the leather sofa, looked around, and was forced to acknowledge this was an entirely different kind of flying experience from anything she’d experienced over the last few years.
She had always loved to fly—everything from gliders to her tail dragger Tiger Moth to jets. But this—this wasn’t flying. This was cruising in the lap of luxury, seated in the dimly lit cabin of the well-appointed Gulfstream V that was part of the small fleet owned by her father’s law firm.
Tipping her head back, Evan closed her eyes as a soul-deep weariness washed over her. She shifted restlessly, felt inexplicably cold, and wondered if she’d ever feel warm again. Whole again. She noticed the slight tremble in her hands and swore under her breath. But she wasn’t surprised at the emotional toll her body was reflecting.
She hated good-byes.
Five days earlier she’d said good-bye to Deacon, who was heading home to Chicago to reunite with his extended family and a girlfriend he planned to marry. That particular good-bye proved to be even harder than she’d anticipated.
She and Deacon had been there for each other for so long. Other than Tate and Alex, Evan couldn’t think of a single soul who knew her as well. Nor could she think of anyone else she’d let get that close and knew she’d miss him like crazy.
There had also been a good-bye of sorts with her parents, who had flown off in different directions. Neither had wanted to leave before she was discharged, but Evan had watched them both clearly struggling to deal with mounting external pressures from their busy professional lives. When Althea began to uncharacteristically hover and fuss, she finally convinced them it was time to go, assuring them she’d be fine and would be in touch once she was settled at Tate’s.
But surprisingly the most difficult good-bye turned out to Kelsey Grant, a woman she’d known for only a short time, but someone she’d connected with and had come to rely on emotionally. Ever observant, Tate gently suggested her surprise stemmed from not being used to developing friendships with women.
“From what you’ve told me, your closest friendships while you were growing up and during your time in the navy were almost exclusively with men and were segmented around shared interests and activities—sports, school, flying,” Tate observed. “But what characterizes friendships between women is closeness and emotional attachment. A willingness to share feelings and thoughts. And you did that, Evan. You allowed Kelsey in.”
Evan found herself bemused, not so much by what Tate said as by the fact that it was such a revelation. At least that farewell had been tempered by the knowledge Kelsey herself would be heading home to Seattle soon. And that would put her just a short ferry ride away from Tate’s island home.
She smiled for a moment as she thought of the business card Kelsey had given her. The one with her contact information. The one that came with a heartfelt promise both Kelsey and her partner Jenna would help see her through the tough days and weeks to come.
It made saying good-bye more palatable, but the residual sadness left her withdrawn from the others and unable to sleep.
In the soft glow of the courtesy lights, she could see Alex and Nick, sprawled in a set of side-by-side recliners. They had crashed shortly after takeoff, having spent two hellishly long days running through the endless loops deemed necessary for her to be properly outfitted with legal documentation prior to leaving Germany. Tate was also sleeping, taking advantage of the privacy offered by the bedroom in the forward galley.
More than anything, she wished she could sleep like the others. Wished she could stop thinking about Afghanistan.
But Khalid was always there, in the shadows between reality and her nightmares. Recently, there’d been times he’d seemed so real she was convinced she had seen him again on the hospital grounds.
The hospital, however, had assigned MPs to protect her around-the-clock, so it was unlikely he was still around, making her sightings somehow more disturbing. Still, she was taking no chances the medical people would decide she wasn’t psychologically fit to go home. So she told no one, promising herself she’d deal with it Stateside.
During her captivity, memories of home had kept her going. When Khalid had driven her half out of her mind with fear and pain, pushed her beyond endurance, it had been thoughts of Tate that had enabled her to survive. Now she was finally going home, determined to make up for lost time and get on with her life, and Tate was less than thirty feet away.
So what the hell was she waiting for?
Reaching for her crutches, she slowly made her way to the bedroom. The door opened silently and allowed the muted light to stream in, falling across Tate, stretched out on the bed. The sight caused Evan’s mood to lighten and she found herself faintly smiling.
Still she hesitated, even as a distant part of her wanted Tate to wake up, to see her standing there. What if she did? She rocked back slightly, stunned to realize if Tate awoke, she didn’t know what she’d do or say.
*
Tate normally awoke in stages, aided by caffeine. In this instance, Evan’s presence in the doorway had her suddenly and completely awake. Not because Evan had made a sound but because of the way the air always seemed to stir whenever she was near.
“Hey,” she said, sitting up and watching Evan. In the past, Evan would have been humming with energy. But not today. Actually, not since Afghanistan. Instead, she was regarding her solemnly—her face pale and vulnerable, her eyes dark. “How’re you doing?”
“I’m okay…well, maybe not exactly okay,” Evan allowed when Tate tilted her head and looked at her more closely. She looked haunted. Lost. Possibly broken.
In the blink of an eye, Tate was standing beside her, guiding her into the room, closing the door behind them.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me and I certainly didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“Oh?” Tate gave her a teasing look. “Then what did you mean to do?”
Evan swallowed. “Actually,” she said softly, “I thought I might crawl into bed beside you.”
The dim light deepened the hollows in her face, casting her eyes in shadows. But as Tate’s gaze traveled slowly upward from Evan’s mouth, she found herself fascinated by the gleam that momentarily lit her gray eyes.
“What took you so long?” she murmured on a sultry laugh.
Evan gave her a quick look and a small smile hovered on her lips as she placed her crutches against a table. But Tate also saw uncharacteristic nervousness in her deliberate movements and in her expression.
“Evan? What is it, love? You’re shaking.”
“That’s good, because I can’t think of a better place for you to be.” As Evan started to pull back, Tate reached out and rubbed the frown line between her brows with her thumb. “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we go with your first impulse? Come lie down. Let me take care of you for a little while.”
Evan sucked in a soft breath. “I’m not sure I know how to do that anymore.”
Tate heard the sorrow in her words and wondered if Evan realized how much she revealed with that statement alone. “It’s going to be okay, love,” she whispered. “Sometimes it’s okay to lean on someone and just let things happen.”
Evan made a slight sound, but Tate had no idea whether it was acceptance or denial. It didn’t matter. Pressing a kiss against her forehead, she helped Evan onto the bed, then slid in beside her, covering them both with a soft blue blanket.
After waiting a moment, she reached one arm across her waist and anchored Evan, holding her close in the semidarkness. Guarding her. Protecting her. Hopefully keeping the ghosts at bay. “Is this okay? Will you be able to sleep like this?”
“Yes.”
It was a lie and they both knew it, but neither of them acknowledged it out loud.
Evan shivered slightly. She still felt oddly disoriented, her entire body strung so tightly she was afraid she would break apart at the slightest touch. But Tate’s embrace felt warm and cocoon-like, enclosing her in a safe and quiet intimacy. Turning onto her side, she sighed when Tate curved her arm around her, allowing Evan to rest her head on her shoulder as fear and comfort briefly commingled.
She forced herself to try and find a place where she could escape the nightmare that hung thick in the air around her. But even as she drifted into sleep, she couldn’t escape, couldn’t shut out the sounds. And in the end, she should have known what was coming.