by Nina Levine
Grace isn’t something I ever imagined Fury talking about. “Grace?”
He nods. “Yeah”—his voice thickens with emotion—“after my father died, my mother struggled with having allowed her sons to grow up in a home filled with violence. She beat herself up over the fact she didn’t try harder to get herself and us out of there. One night when I was fighting against some bad shit I did, she told me to give myself grace. A free pass. She said grace was the only thing that ever kept her going.” He lets go of my neck, his hand gently brushing across my hair as he lowers it. “She told me grace heals the fractures of our heart.”
The emotions coursing through me after he says that have nothing to do with what we’ve been talking about, and everything to do with the fact Fury just gave me a piece of his soul. Placing my hand over his heart, I say softly, “I knew you weren’t all black in there.”
His eyes search mine, looking for what, I’m unsure. “When’s your next appointment with the shrink?”
“Next Tuesday.”
“You need to bring that forward.”
I know he’s right, that I need to do that, but still, apprehension tightens my chest.
Fury doesn’t give me an out though. And if I thought King was a pushy hard-ass, Fury gives him a run for his money. “If I have to put you in the car and take you myself, I will, Zara. It’s one thing to tell me this stuff, and another to tell someone who can actually help you find ways to live with it.” He reaches for my phone on the counter. “Is your shrink’s number in here?”
“You’re being serious right now, aren’t you? You’re going to call and make an appointment for me.”
He nods, his expression firm. “Deadly fucking serious.”
I snatch the phone from his hands and pull up the number he’s after. I call it myself, though, while muttering, “Bloody bossy men in my life.”
Fury stays where he is while I make an appointment to see the psychologist tomorrow. When I end the call, he moves away and says, “You want some breakfast before I take you home?”
My hand goes to my stomach at the thought of food. “God no. I think I might throw up if I eat. And I’m pretty sure you’ve seen me throw up enough times.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty fucking sure I have, too.”
I laugh at his face. He kinda looks ill. “You don’t do well with vomit, do you?”
“Fuck,” he mutters, “Stop talking and start walking to the car.”
18
Zara
* * *
“I don’t understand why I don’t feel different towards guys,” I say to my psychologist the next day. “I feel normal. I mean, there’s even this guy I’m interested in. I’m not scared of him or anything.”
I’ve been painfully honest with her during this session. At times, I felt like I couldn’t breathe and like I wanted to run again, but I didn’t. I stayed and told her everything that happened that night.
I’m still finding it hard to call the sex I had, rape. It’s like there’s a disconnect between what happened and what I actually believe.
The psychologist leans forward, looking at me with kindness. “Zara, you’ve experienced trauma. Between the sexual assault and the mugging, you have a lot to work through. There’s no right way to deal with this; there’s just your way. Just like there’s no one way that people who are raped respond while it’s occurring. When fear takes over the brain, it impairs the prefrontal cortex, leaving you to rely on habits and reflexes. If no escape is detected, extreme survival reflexes kick in and include reactions such as freezing and dissociation. Some people freeze while some fight back. Some resist while some cry. Some pass out while some dissociate. What you need to understand is all these responses are brain reactions to the fear of a predator.” She pauses. “Your path to healing will take its own route, too. How you recover will look vastly different to how someone else recovers. Society often expresses the view that victims should look a certain way and react a certain way when that is not the truth.”
Tears stream down my face as she speaks. I’m so overwhelmed by everything. Up until I talked with Fury, I viewed the events of that night in a certain way. It was the night of my mugging. Now, it’s beginning to feel like the night I was raped. And I don’t know what to do with that.
When I don’t say anything, she says, “I’m going to give you some links to various resources online where you can read up on all of this. It’s important for you to educate yourself so you can learn to let go of the shame and self-blame. Also, I recommend journaling your thoughts and feelings. And practicing the self-care we’ve already discussed. Your healing will take time and a lot of patience. And as for feeling normal and being interested in someone, just remember there is no normal when it comes to this, there’s just your individual journey. I recommend if you do pursue a relationship, you perhaps take it slowly and go in with the understanding that your reactions to certain things may not be what you are used to. And that’s okay. Communicating your needs is key.”
I wipe my tears. I feel like all I do lately is wipe bloody tears. “Thank you.”
As we stand, she smiles warmly at me. “Be kind to yourself, Zara. And take it one day at a time. Also, if you feel like you need or want to see me more often than weekly, do it. Talking is therapeutic.”
I nod but don’t say anything else before exiting her room. If I speak, I’ll bawl like a baby.
Holly stands when she spots me. Sympathy lines her face. “Come here,” she says, pulling me into a hug.
That does it; I break down and sob in her arms. Thank God the waiting room is empty, although at this point, I don’t think I’d care if the whole world watched me cry. I just need to let it all out and I need to do that with my sister’s arms around me.
When I recover enough to talk, I pull away. “I’m so confused, Hols.”
When Fury brought me home yesterday, I shared with her what he and I had talked about. She nods her understanding. “I know, and so that’s why I’ve taken the entire day off and we’re going to spend it doing whatever you want. If you want to talk, we can. If you want to sleep, you can. If you want to make me a cake, you can.” She grins. “For the record, I’m voting on the cake option.”
Holly was only supposed to have a couple of hours off this morning to come with me. That she’s taken the whole day means everything because I don’t feel like being alone after that appointment.
“I think I want to go and see Mum.”
“You feel ready to tell her?”
“Yes. And then we can hang out with her for the day if she’s up to it. Maybe spend the day in the sun, by the pool.”
“And then we’ll go home and you’ll make me a cake?”
I laugh. “Yes, I’ll make you a cake.”
* * *
We’re halfway to Mum’s when I receive a text.
* * *
Fury: How was the shrink?
* * *
He put his name in my phone? I knew he said I have his number from when he tried to call me the other night, but I didn’t know he’d keyed his name in.
* * *
Me: Hard.
Fury: You told her everything?
Me: Yes.
Fury: Good.
Me: I’m going to make a cake late this afternoon. Feel free to come over and help us eat it.
* * *
I’m disappointed when he doesn’t reply to that, but I’m not sure I thought he actually would, so I don’t dwell on it. Instead, I put my phone away and concentrate on what I’m about to do. No matter what the psychologist has told me about shame and self-blame, I’m still flooded with both when I think about that night. I’m hopeful she’s right, and that I will, in time, be able to move past these feelings. For now, though, they’re still something I have to deal with. And the idea of talking to my mother about it all only causes the feelings to flare horribly.
“Dad’s here,” Holly says as we pull into Mum and King’s driveway.
“I take it that means
Robbie’s time at his place is coming to an end,” I say sarcastically. Dad only shows up when he wants something, and I’m guessing he wants to give his son back.
“Either that or he wants to borrow money.” Dad is incapable of holding down a job, and his new wife is all about fancy things, so he’s always scrounging for cash. That he has the hide to ask Mum to lend it to him drives me insane. She never says yes, but it doesn’t stop him trying.
“Honestly, I’m not sure why King doesn’t just put his foot down and tell Dad he can’t come over anymore,” I mutter.
Holly parks her car next to Dad’s. “I think we both know that will never happen, Zar.”
We do. King would never take away our chance to have a relationship with Dad, so he’ll never stop him coming over, although I’m fairly certain he’d like nothing more than to do that.
When I open the car door to get out, I hear Mum and Dad talking heatedly. It sounds like she’s finally lost her shit with him.
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Linc. You haven’t been a good father for a long time.”
“Fuck, Lily, you’re being melodramatic. I’ve been doing the best I can. Tabitha and the baby need me at the moment; I can’t exactly drop everything and rush back to my ex at the drop of a hat.”
Holly and I are at the bottom of Mum’s front steps where she and Dad are arguing when Mum’s voice drops low. It’s her you’ve-really-fucked-up-now voice; the one I’ve always done my best never to bring out in her. “It wasn’t your ex asking you to do stuff; it was your daughter. And she didn’t ask you for the world. She called you once in the last six months, and trust me when I say that you not answering that call or returning it has done the kind of damage to your relationship that will take you a long time to fix.”
When Mum’s gaze lands on me, Dad turns and sees us. “Hi girls,” he says to us both, but it’s me his eyes are on. They linger for a beat before he turns back to Mum. “I’ve got stuff to do, so this conversation will have to be finished another day.”
His words hurt. He may as well have met me at the bottom of the stairs and told me he no longer thinks of me as his daughter, because that’s how they make me feel.
He jogs down the stairs and quickly kisses Holly and me on the cheek. He then stops briefly and looks at me. “I love you, baby. I hope you know that.”
I don’t get the chance to reply to that before he takes off towards his car. He throws out one last thing to Mum before leaving. “We’ll bring Robbie over after school today.”
Disappointment and rejection fill me as I watch him reverse out of the driveway.
“Shit, Zara,” Mum says, coming down the stairs. “I wish you hadn’t turned up in the middle of that.”
“Why? I’m glad I heard it, because now I know for sure that he doesn’t care about us. I hope you’re not going to defend him again.” So help me, if she does, I might lose my shit.
She shakes her head. “No. I’m done with defending him.” She sighs and I hear every bit of her exhaustion. “I’m too tired to keep doing that.”
“Okay,” Holly says, “Enough about him. I’m hot and I need to be in the pool asap.”
Mum seems surprised. “You girls are hanging out here today?”
“Yep,” Holly says. “It’s a girls’ day.”
The smile Mum gives us reveals her pure joy at this news. “God, I need this today. The kids have been a handful while King’s been away. I need a day to just chill and do nothing.”
“Has Gran got them today?”
“Yes, and she’s keeping them overnight, so I have many hours in front of me in which I’m not going to cook, clean, or think about anything. And if King calls, I’m not answering. He’ll just have to do with texts today.”
I frown. “Since when does King prefer a call over a text?”
Mum’s eyes widen as she loops her arm through mine. “Oh you have no idea. This pregnancy has turned him into a dictator who calls me twice a day most days. It’s ridiculous.”
“Ah, I hate to break it to you, Mum,” Holly says, “but King has always been a dictator.”
“Well,” Mum says as we make our way up the stairs, “whatever the next level is after dictator, he’s reached it. Honestly, I’m ready for this baby to be born and for him to calm down.”
While it doesn’t feel good to have seen Dad and been hurt by him again, it does feel good to be with Mum and Holly. I may not have many friends left these days, but I have my mother and my sister. And a thousand shallow friends could never give me what they do.
“Mum,” I say softly, “I have something to tell you.”
I don’t know if she hears it in my voice of if it’s her motherly intuition, but her eyes come to mine filled to the brim with love and tenderness, and she guides me into the lounge room where the three of us sit while I pour my heart out to her.
If I thought telling her would be hard, I was wrong. But then, I should have known that if there was ever going to be one person in the world I could open my soul to and receive nothing but acceptance, it would be my mother. Because while I may have struggled in my relationship with her during my teens, I’ve since learned that her belief in me is absolute.
19
Fury
* * *
Three days after I texted Zara to check on her when she had her appointment with the shrink, I’m still thinking about her. She’s on repeat in a way no woman has ever been. It took all my restraint not to accept her invitation for cake. Fuck knows I want a helluva lot more from her than cake.
It’s proving dangerous for my work, and that shit has to stop because Storm is in turmoil since King returned from Melbourne yesterday. His headaches down there haven’t been solved; they’ve intensified. But he also has Stark breathing down his neck, so he came home earlier than planned to take care of her shit. This is the reason I’m fighting like fuck to get Zara the hell out of my head; I’ve got shit to do and I don’t need the goddam distraction.
I lock eyes on my target. Tall Italian dude with a face only a mother could love. Detective Stark gave King clear instructions that we’re to bring him in alive. That makes my job a lot fucking harder. When I shoot, I shoot to fucking kill. But King’ll slice my balls off if I screw this job up. This is an important one. He muttered something about Stark backing the fuck off him for a while once we deliver this guy. I’m still waiting for the day he severs their relationship. Four years of Storm working with that bitch seems like way too fucking long to me, but who the hell knows why King does anything. My president never does shit without reason, so I trust there’s one here.
The target moves.
Fuck, this is the worst location I’ve ever had to work in. Martin Place. Smack bang in the middle of Sydney on a Saturday night with people every-fucking-where. The guy has been hard to track down, and this is the first sighting in weeks. Axe called it in to me and told me to make it count because fuck knows when he’ll surface again after today.
I keep on him as he weaves through people. The asshole is moving fast, but that only heightens my rush.
The blur of the city as our pace picks up.
The flash of people between him and me.
The bolt of energy that surges through me as I imagine inflicting pain.
It all fuses together in my mind, driving me harder and faster towards my goal.
He enters a pub, almost knocking two women down in his hurry. I follow him in and then downstairs as he shoves people aside to get to his destination.
Turns out, that destination is a fucking men’s room that stinks like some motherfucker has just dumped more shit than anyone produces in a week.
He locks himself in a stall.
I wait, not so fucking patiently.
My watch says 9:02 p.m. I’m giving this asshole to 9:04 p.m. If he isn’t finished by then, I’ll kick the door down and yank him out of there.
Pulling out my phone, I shoot a text to Hyde detailing my location. He and Devil are waiting on that information so they
can meet me with the van.
The toilet flushes and the Italian exits. Straight into my fist.
“Fuck!” he roars, stumbling back against the door of the stall.
I don’t waste time with words. Instead, I move fast to punch him again before he gets his bearings. His head bangs hard against the door. The sound is satisfying as fuck to my ears. Adrenaline races through my veins. This is the shit I live for.
With a few more punches, he’s on the ground, but he isn’t down for the count. The asshole has a lot of fight still left in him if the way his arms and legs are thrashing around is any indication.
He manages to kick me hard enough to cause me to lurch back. That gives him the window to push up off the ground and come at me.
Lunging my way, his face a picture of rage, he yells, “Who the fuck are you?”
His fist connects with my jaw right after I answer, “Your worst fucking nightmare.”
We go to battle in the tiny shithole, and amid smashed glass, broken toilet doors, holes punched into walls, and a sea of blood, I fucking win. But that was a given from the outset. I never lose a fight. It’s the reason King always calls on me.
As I stand over his unconscious body, the door to the men’s room swings open, and a guy enters. He stops the moment his gaze locks onto me. “Fucking hell,” he mutters.
As he eyes the Italian, he says, “Fuck, that’s Stefano. What the fuck are you doing with him?”
This is a detour I don’t need. I know exactly where it will lead, and that is nowhere good.
Pulling out my gun, I aim it at his head. “I don’t suppose you’re going to turn around and walk the fuck out of here if I tell you to, are you?”
He ignores my gun and takes the step towards me I knew he would. “You’ve got that right,” he snarls