by S A Gardner
The squad he’d showed up with shadowed us, their guns at half-readiness. The usual militants were never so vigilant. Did Jake warrant the increased level of care? Was he such a difficult and dangerous prisoner? Or…what exactly?
At my tent, he addressed them again, his Russian indistinguishable from theirs, except for being more elegant. He still sounded more cultured than anyone I’d ever heard.
The leader nodded at once, and they all stepped back, leaving us to enter my tent alone.
In a gentlemanly gesture that reminded me of my old Jake, he opened the tent for me. I spilled inside, stunned all over again as I turned to him.
Jake was here. He was really with me.
He was dressed like the militants, not exactly a uniform, but the same style and colors with black dominating. Suited him, augmented his new ruggedness and offset his superb coloring. He could pass for a PACT operative now, nothing like the pampered man and polished surgeon he’d been.
I threw myself at him again.
“Jake, Jake, Jake.” His name poured out of me as I tried to remember. How it had felt when it had been an integral part of my life to call it, to think it.
He still didn’t reciprocate my embrace, stood there in my arms, silent, unmoving. Tremors welled from my recesses, a terrible burn building behind my eyes, threatening to melt them.
Then his arms came around me, and eight years’ worth of guilt and loss and agony scorched down my face.
Thirty-Two
Even in my upheaval, one thing registered. There was no statement in Jake’s embrace.
No looseness betraying hesitation, no tightening hinting at eagerness or agitation.
Dammit, how did he feel about seeing me again? Was he glad? Did he hate it? Was he just numb?
He finally tried to draw away. I clung harder until that comment he’d made about re-fracturing his ribs made me force my spastic arms to loosen, my sobs to stop.
Panting, I stared up at him. He wasn’t as tall as Damian, but at six-foot-two it was still a good way down to my level.
I wiped my face roughly on my sleeve, exhaling raggedly. “God, Jake, I still can’t believe you’re really here.”
“You did look like you’d seen—not a ghost, more of an apparition.”
He’d taken one look at me and noticed the difference?
A ghost was of someone believed dead. An apparition was of something believed impossible.
So that hadn’t changed, that staggering perception of his. Was he now working out that I’d known he wasn’t dead?
Good luck getting any answers from his expressions.
What was it with me and unreadable men?
Not that I was insight-free. I had one now, as I replayed the past minutes.
“You certainly didn’t look shocked to see me,” I said. “Contrary to your opening words.”
His shrug was the essence of sangfroid. “I already knew you were here.”
My mouth dropped open. “You did?”
His nod was tranquil. “I was told GCA’s aid mission was headed by a doctor who looks like an angel with eyes like a full-moon’s night, and the most amazing hundred shades of blonde braid. Couldn’t get more specific than that. Still it’s one thing to know you’re here and another to see you for myself.”
Apart from wanting to gag that the militants could describe me in such poetic terms, another thing stuck out in his explanation. “You mean you overheard the militants?”
“My comrades, you mean. And no, they told me.”
“Comrades?” I snorted.
“Some euphemism, eh? And do keep your voice down. They’re very sensitive about being misunderstood and maligned.”
Now that was definite humor. Oh, Jake.
But… “Why would your comrades tell you stuff like that?”
“They tell me everything.” Another statement, delivered with that absolute equanimity.
“Now you tell me. I’ll burst if I don’t understand everything right now.”
“What’s there to understand?” He shrugged, pointed to the airbed.
Asking permission to sit on it? I gestured to go ahead, yet he still stood, waiting. For a verbal invitation?
“God, Jake. What a time to be your old courteous self and stand on ceremony. Please, do sit down. My tent is your tent.”
His head inclined, both his previous cordial self and new eerily composed one. In a graceful, controlled move, more proof of his top physical condition, he sat down.
His back to the tent wall, he crossed his long legs at the ankle, looked up at me. “What do you want to know?”
I almost threw my hands up, but curbed myself. This wasn’t my Jake who indulged me endlessly. And I didn’t dare show him impatience. Compared to his status quo, anything I felt didn’t even count. I wasn’t the one held hostage for whatever life I had left. As he believed he was.
After this internal lecture, I could barely contain my agitation as I sagged to my knees before him. “Everything would be a good place to start.”
After another calmly regarding moment, he nodded. “During the attack on our convoy, I thought they’d kill us all. I only understood why they didn’t when I learned the main reason they attacked us. It turned out Leonard Grey, our mission leader, amassed Intel during his years all over the region, and not to report back to GCA. His information was invaluable to gain the upper hand in any conflict, and our attackers had failed to procure his latest updates. Their price hadn’t been right.”
Leonard Grey had been one of GCA’s top operatives, implicitly trusted, almost revered. And he’d used aid missions as cover for his info peddling business? All this had happened over a failed transaction with the militants?
How did such a man fool GCA’s extreme vetting? How had he avoided detection for years? How many lives had been lost because of him that day, and during his whole duplicitous career?
After we saved them all, maybe I’d drop him off to walk back to the nearest town…through the minefields.
“But Leonard was killed during the attack by mistake.”
My aggression deflated in a rush. Dammit. I was beginning to look forward to punishing that traitor.
Jake continued his story in the same neutrality. “But he’d been very paranoid about losing his merchandise or his value to his clients, kept his documents in an intricate personal/medical shorthand. With him dead, they needed those who’d worked closely with him and were medical personnel to decipher his code. But no one could. Except me. I cracked it almost immediately, of course.” Of course. “It was then I realized why the sum of his knowledge was so critical, how it would be a terrible weapon in anyone’s hands. So I told them nothing. I believed they’d kill us all, anyway. Then one day they came for me.”
My heart stopped, then burst into a thudding gallop, everything made worse by his unemotional retelling. I could almost taste the suffering it masked.
He continued. “As they dragged me out of our cell, I thought they’d execute me, maybe in one of those videos they made to spread terror in the countries they claim are aiding and abetting their enemies. But they instead took me to their installation’s medical facility. Some of their higher-ups had sustained catastrophic injuries. Though their doctors told them there was no saving them, they told me it was their lives or mine. Not that I needed the coercion. Those were casualties, and only I could save them. I said I would. And I did. They were so impressed by my performance, they decided to keep me as their surgical…specialist.”
Slave. The word detonated in my mind. What he’d meant. What they’d made him.
But because he was Jake, and knowing the magical level of his surgical prowess, he must be an indispensable one.
So this was why they treated him so well. They didn’t only need him, they couldn’t afford to lose him.
“And? What happened since then?” I barely kept the tremor from my voice.
There was that calm shrug again. “Not much.”
I waited a few moments, ho
ping he’d elaborate. He didn’t.
Who was I kidding? That speech I’d given myself couldn’t hold me back anymore. Nothing could. This was Jake. Jake. And I’d had as many questions as I’d had breaths in the past eight years.
I heaved up on my knees. “You can’t sit there and tell me not much happened since I thought I lost you.”
“I don’t think you’d want a blow-by-blow account of my captivity.”
“Oh, I certainly want that and more. But I first want to know how and why you’re here?” When he just continued to look at me without any discernible change of expression, I lost all pretense of control. “Will you tell me everything already, or do I have to scream first?”
He dropped his gaze. But not before I saw the flare of heat there. Its backdraft alone almost knocked me back. It did make me sag back on my heels.
Hel-lo. First sign of life. A whopper at that.
Then he looked up again, and those amazing, translucent eyes had lost any tinge of blue, radiating silver fire.
Whoa. First no reaction then a barrage.
“I’d love to hear your screams, Cali,” he whispered. His voice had also lost its deep composure, dipping dangerously into what sounded like raw longing. “They’ve been in my head only for far too long.”
And we both knew what he was talking about.
My body leaped, so recently and thoroughly awakened, so open and ready for more, for anything. So confused.
Was it okay to react to Jake? it asked.
And its question was legitimate. His body had initiated it in the rites of pleasure. Even if the memory was so distant, and it now bore Damian’s mark. It had no idea if the heat sweeping it was need for more intimacy and satisfaction from Damian, or a reaction to Jake.
This sucked. On a massive scale. Was this how bigamists felt? Cheaters, at least?
I bet those felt nothing of the sort, or they wouldn’t have chosen to be ones in the first place. But then, I’d never thought I’d end up in a situation where I had such complex, ferocious feelings for two men at the same time.
And it was my fault. I’d set myself up for this. This mission had all been about finding Jake. I should have kept my hands off Damian until I did, so I’d be able to think, to feel clearly without having hormones gushing in my system, muddying everything.
As if he’d been listening in to my inner turmoil, Jake released my eyes. He’d established his stance, made sure I’d registered it. Now he backed off, leaving me to sort my options, consider the ramifications and decide how to respond.
Very systematic and pragmatic. As well as supremely considerate. Jake had always been that with me. Showing me how he felt, then waiting until I reached out to him, un-pressured.
Suddenly, his lips spread. In what looked like a real smile. Or what passed for one for this new Jake. As if I needed more heartache and upheaval.
“But you can’t make me talk by threatening to scream. It would bring my comrades rushing in to defend me.”
I found myself smiling back at him, barely holding back a hysterical giggle. “Oh, don’t worry. If you don’t talk, I can kill you in absolute silence.”
His smile widened, this time reaching his eyes, becoming almost the smile I knew. The smile he’d once lavished on me. “I’m too valuable to kill.”
“To the mi…your comrades. So far, you’ve provided me with zero value.” Something suddenly occurred to me. I mouthed soundlessly, “Are you wired?”
“No,” he answered in his previous volume. He’d read my lips, as I predicted he would. “I wouldn’t have asked to see you in private if they were listening in.”
Which made perfect sense. Jake never made anything less, always perfect, in everything.
“Then why aren’t you answering my questions?”
“Because my personal situation isn’t of much consequence.”
“Jake!”
At my exasperation, his smile grew placating. “Before you threaten me again, I submit I can prove valuable to you, too. As an expert insider, I can tell you everything about the militants or the camp.”
“’Everything’ is the key word here. Starting with your personal situation, which is of ultimate consequence to me.”
“There really isn’t much to tell in that area. So how about we start where there’s much to be told? Knowing that insatiably inquisitive mind of yours, I’m sure you’re dying to know.”
I bore down on him. “If I do, I won’t die alone.”
Suddenly, he looked like my Jake again. The one who’d haunted me during those two years I’d obsessed about his fate until I’d relinquished his memory to the finality of death.
Now he did something he used to do all the time, reaching for my braid.
As if reacquainting himself with its weight and feel, he rubbed it between his fingers, accessing his memories of it and cross-referencing them to its current reality.
Finally, he made a satisfied sound. “God, Cali, I missed you. You haven’t changed one bit.”
I snorted. “Maybe my braid hasn’t. But the rest of me? With insight like that, who wants to rely on your expert tips?”
“You mean you have changed?”
That was an open demand, clear, unequivocal.
Have you changed beyond retrieval? it said. Have you moved beyond reach?
It stunned me that he’d want me to be within reach. To do what with? Since he couldn’t dream I was here to save him, to him I was just passing by his cell. Did he just need confirmation that I hadn’t forgotten him?
I gave him the only answer I knew. “I have. And I don’t know how much of the old me is left.”
His gaze deepened until I felt as if I fell back into myself. I felt him joining me there, examining motivations, analyzing conflicts, segregating lusts and irrationalities, reducing me to my basic components. It was bewildering, eerie even, but I felt as if he’d mapped a blueprint of my psyche. One I myself had no access to.
Shaking off the spooky moment, I inhaled sharply. “Have you developed telepathy during the past eight years, Jake?”
I somehow didn’t think that beyond him. His mental capacity had sometimes felt supernatural. Now, I could swear I felt him retracting his mental probes.
Then his lips twisted, the lightness gone, leaving only the enigma. “That would have been convenient. But if I had, don’t you think the first thing I would have done was call out to you?”
A fist of agonizing regret battered its way out of my gut. For all his lost years. All his defeat and desperation.
I closed my eyes against the pain. “Oh, Jake, I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s been like for you all these years.”
And the worst part was he thought it would never stop. That the only way out for him now was to die.
He threw his head back against the fabric wall, sighed. “That’s why I don’t wish to satisfy your need for details. No reason to burden you.”
My heart clenched until it felt it would crush itself.
A long, panting moment later, I whispered, “It’s so easy to look at you, see how good you look, how stable you feel, and believe nothing really bad happened to you.”
Silently, fluidly, he sat up, reached his cold, dry hand to feather my hot, trembling cheek. A spear of sorrow impaled me. A shudder shook me, then harder as he drew me to him.
For a long moment, he pressed my head over his steady heart. Then he whispered, deep and gentle, “Then believe it, Cali.”
He was taking pity on me.
No matter what had happened in my life, I never considered I had anything to be pitied for. But now the shoe was so much on the other foot his sympathy was outrageous. Unbelievable. Agonizing.
I sure as hell wasn’t taking it. I wasn’t letting him spare me by keeping me in the dark. I needed to find out everything I could from him. The more I knew, the better our chances of saving him and the others.
But since I couldn’t let him in on our plans yet, I’d share only the personal part why it was impera
tive for me to know.
Hating to end this moment of closeness, I pushed out of his gentle hold.
“I don’t want to believe it, Jake. I always considered the agony of truth far better than that of doubt. The only way I was able to go on was when I stopped going crazy with uncertainty, and believed you dead. If you want to be kind, tell me what really happened.”
His eyes lost all expression again as he leaned back, drawing me beside him.
Jake. He was really beside me.
He turned his head to me. “Have you got eight years? For faithful, real-time authenticity.”
Knowing he was inviting me to lessen the tension, I pulled a face at him. “Don’t go all upper-crust English and droll on me, Jake. If anyone can tell a concise tale with a perfect timeline and attention to detail, its you.”
He pinched my cheek softly. His highest sign of appreciation. This was getting worse by the heartbeat.
“Fine, from the start then.” He turned his face away, inhaled. “After that mission in Chechnya, we were heading to another camp when military forces intercepted us with charges of supplying militants with drugs and medicines. Being the only Russian speaker I argued our case, gave them all they needed to establish our identities and GCA’s legitimacy. We believed they verified everything to their satisfaction because they finally escorted us back to the route we’d been traveling. Just hours afterward, the militants ambushed us.
“I told you Leonard’s documents were one of the reasons why they had. They wanted our cargo, of course. But they also said we were going to the camp to infect refugees with diseases so when the federal forces pushed them back home, they’d cause an epidemic, wipe out the population. From Leonard’s example, they might have had reason to believe the worst of the rest of us. Or it could have been an extra excuse to do what they did to us afterward…”
He stopped at the sharpness of my indrawn breath, at my involuntary move to draw his face back to me. My frantic eyes roamed it, looking closer for scars.
His hand cupped mine as he shook his head. “For some reason, they never touched our faces. And they didn’t go for crippling damage. They wanted us broken yet still functioning enough to give them what they wanted. They went for the usual torture methods. You know, excruciating pain, survivable injuries, and degradation.”