The filthy man released her, his screams echoing across the park, and clutching at his foot, he fell to his knees, his hot blood steaming on the cold concrete. The remaining two men were momentarily stunned, not expecting a fight. With only moments before the man’s friends came to their senses, she sucked in a lungful of sweet air and dashed under the old Ford.
“You ugly little bitch, I’m gonna break every bone in your body for that!” wailed the tall man, pawing at her legs and feet with one arm, the other clutching at his wounded leg. She scrambled deeper beneath the car, coughing, desperate to catch her breath. Rowen could see his friends moving to the other side of the car to cut her off. They thought she was stupid, a panicked child they could frighten. She had to end this, quickly.
“You’re wrong. I’m the one with the gun, so unless you want today to be your last day…” Rowen let the words hang, hoping the man would give up, run home to his friends, and leave her be. He simply sneered, his pawing hand finally catching her foot, the other men on the opposite side of the car suddenly pulling at her hair.
“No!” she screamed, kicking, her stomach roiling. It all happened in a single smooth motion. She had done this many times at the range. Time slowed for her as she lined up her target with the sight, a single breath exhaled as she pulled the trigger, then a deafening echo, the burning smell of powder in her nose, a blossom of red as the filthy man’s head was no more. She cocked her head, staring in morbid fascination at death, a large pool of blood slowly spreading out from where his head had been, creeping toward her.
Her father had told her she would feel different if she ever did it. She had heard stories, anxiety and guilt making hard-boiled soldiers cry and vomit, but she felt...nothing, just relief. As the ringing in her ears began to subside, the sound of footsteps fading into the distance brought her back to her senses. Scrambling out into the open, she paid attention this time, putting her back to the car. She peeked over the hood just in time to see the two men who had almost had her, disappear into a darkened building adjacent to the park. She could see people looking down at her from the shattered windows, the gunshot having called them. They looked tired and haggard. Desperate. She wondered if there were children. Had she just killed someone’s father? A loving husband? She drove the dark thoughts from her mind, not wanting to think about this now, knowing it would have been her father grieving if the tall man had finished her off first. Shoving her SIG back into her waistband, she buried it all deep down to deal with later.
She rubbed her hand along her throat, tracing the bruising with her fingers. There would be marks, and she would have to explain…explain how close she had just come to dying.
Rowen shuddered at the thought, pulling tight her coat as a brisk wind blew in from the river. The breeze had enough winter in it to freeze her nose hairs and frost her breath. She was in the old park on the southernmost tip of Manhattan, once part of the original defenses of the city. It was no longer much of anything, simply where the high-rises ended and the waterline began, gray and bleak in the low winter sun.
Despite the screaming wind, she heard Gibbs before she saw him, her senses still heightened from adrenaline. She was mildly surprised every time he returned from a scavenging mission, stumbling along like a nervous rabbit. The man had no sense of stealth or self-preservation, walking headlong into danger without a clue. Rowen took a moment to stare. He hadn’t changed much in the months she had known him, only his blond hair having grown longer, his too-young features a little thinner. He hated MREs, eating them only as a last resort, preferring starvation to military rations. Rowen saw panic in his glacier-blue eyes as he looked around, not seeing her. She stood slowly, not wanting to frighten him. “Gibbs,” she whispered harshly, waving him over.
“What was that noise, I heard it from clear across the park. It sounded like—” He choked, covering his mouth, shocked, almost tripping over the headless man at her feet. “What did you do!”
Pulling him down, she looked around, making sure they were alone. He felt warm against her cold hands. “Quiet, you moron, there are more of them around here. This one,” she said, pointing at the corpse, “got the jump on me. I almost didn’t make it. Look.” Raising her chin, Rowen lowered the collar of her sweater to show him the bruises where the man had been choking her. “I didn’t have much of a choice; there were three of them, so what was I supposed to do?” she asked, rubbing her sore throat. “My father has just begun letting me out of his sight. The last thing I need is this.”
Gibbs paled visibly, going from his normal pink to green, genuine concern growing in his eyes. “Are you ok...Couldn’t you have just...you know, winged him? You should be in shock. Most guys I know usually are after they shoot someone,” he said, speaking so quickly she could hardly understand him.
“Do you even breathe when you speak? My god, I’ve never met someone who talks so much or so fast!” she said, taking a deep breath, thinking for a moment. She did her best to explain what his instructors should have taught him. She couldn’t understand—he had moments of utter brilliance followed by moments like this, with huge gaps in his understanding of military doctrine. “You always shoot to kill. He would have killed me if I didn’t get him first. To be honest, I thought I would feel...something, feel different, but I’m just happy that I’ll see my father later today, that he won’t have to grieve for me too.”
Gibbs raised an eyebrow, and she saw understanding blossom in his eyes. He gave her that odd look he often did when he realized she wasn’t just a silly, little girl. “Maybe we should find another spot to hunker down,” he said, looking around. “We can wait for the cardinal’s soldiers somewhere without a headless body.”
“There,” said Rowen, pointing, “if we put our backs to that old cannon, we can still see the water where they are supposed to come in, and we’ll be out of sight, from the ground at least.”
Rowen slipped her hand into his as they made their way with as much stealth as they could muster, not wanting to attract more attention than she had already today. Cardinal Washington had said that his ancestors had fought and died on this ground, defending the settlement that would become New York City, and that it was a fitting place for reinforcements to arrive. Ducking behind the cannon to shield themselves from the brunt of the blistering wind, they did their best to make themselves comfortable.
“It’s not the beach, and it’s not home, but at least I’m near the water, so I guess that’s something. I love that smell,” said Gibbs, breathing deep. He looked strangely happy, despite the cold.
“You live on the beach?” asked Rowen. “I can’t even imagine that, it would be like you were always on vacation. Like a holo-vid of some rich family.”
“Yeah, something like that,” he said, giving her a polite smile. “Seaside was a really cool town, and I miss it. I grew up spending my summers hanging around on the shore and messing around on the boardwalk. All my friends are there, and all my memories. I guess it’s all gone now, stuck behind enemy lines like the rest of the East Coast,” he said sadly.
“You don’t know that,” said Rowen, punching him on the shoulder. “Not much strategic value in taking a beach town in New Jersey.”
“I hope so. Good view from here though. If it wasn’t a war zone, this would be a beautiful spot,” he said, bumping his shoulder up against hers. “I just wish it wasn’t so cold. I hate winter; I shiver so hard I feel like my teeth are gonna rattle out of my mouth, not to mention my hands and feet are always cold. Everything feels slow, makes me miserable. I can never get used to it.”
Rowen gave him a half smile. His hand had felt warm enough when she had held it a moment ago. It felt...good. “If anyone needs to slow down it’s you, beach boy. I like winter. I love sleeping in when it snows. Actually, I like sleeping in all the time, but nothing’s better than waking up, looking outside, and realizing that you can just roll over and go back to sleep,” she said, moving closer to him. “Here, stick close, we’ll stay warmer if we’re closer.
New Jersey gets cold in winter, so how can you not be used to the winter?”
Gibbs gave her a smile, putting his arm around her. “My family has a place in Palm Beach, Florida. The day after Christmas, we close up the house and head south for the winter. If not there, some years we go to our place in Arizona, but that one sucks...no beach.”
“Wow, how many houses does your family have?” asked Rowen, wondering exactly who she was cuddling up to for warmth. It just hit her that he never really talked about himself, just technical stuff. He was tight-lipped when it came to his family or his life in the navy.
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug, “four or five, I guess. My family does naval contracting...and you’ve seen my dad, the great Senator Gibbs. He tells me not to talk about it, says people would try and take advantage of me if they knew about our family,” he said, staring out at the river.
“So you’re really rich...no wonder you don’t like military rations.” she said with a laugh.
Gibbs shook his head, pursing his lips. “It’s not like that—my family is rich, not me. My dad doesn’t believe in handouts. The only money I have is what I make for myself, which is very little. They pay...paid for school, but the rest is all me...and as far as they’re concerned, I’m a screw up. My brother, on the other hand, he’s the perfect one; they love him.”
Rowen could tell she’d hit a sore spot the more he talked. It was clear that he didn’t get along with his family, and he looked like he was about to cry when he spoke about his brother. It was odd; she always saw him as the eternal optimist, always in a good mood, happy to help. He looked so sad talking about them, she just wanted to hug him…
“Uhh, you ok?” he asked suddenly.
Rowen gave a start, not remembering putting her head on his shoulder, but she left it there. His warmth felt nice, easy. Giving his arm a brief squeeze, she said, “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. Tell me more about the beach.”
“Well, there are always tourists in summer, more than you could imagine,” said Gibbs, looking out at the river. “My friends and I would spend the days on the water or just fooling around at the carnival. It always smelled of corn dogs, french fries, and suntan oil. I miss the smell of the place. I met my best friends on the boardwalk, learned everything we needed. Now that I think about it, the first time I kissed a girl was on a spot just like this near the water. It was a warm summer afternoon and—”
“Eww, where the hell did that come from,” she said, shoving him away. Rowen had been lost in the memories with him. She could almost feel the sun on her skin, smell the water, until he mentioned kissing. Was this where he was leading with this? Her mother had warned her about getting too close to boys his age. She knew lots of soldiers who were into young girls. Most girls her age were easy targets, being so insecure. How could she be so stupid?
Gibbs went from his typical pink to beet red, his eyes wide with shock as he realized what he had just said. “What! Oh, no, no...it was just a...never mind... I wasn’t... Shit. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I mean, I was thinking, just... I would never kiss you,” he finished with an apologetic shrug.
Suddenly angry with herself for assuming, Rowen stood up to leave. What was she thinking? For the second time that day, she’d been caught not paying attention to what was going on around her. He was just being nice, nothing more. She could see the disgust in his face every time he looked at her. She would find another spot to wait, by herself. “I get it. I don’t need your pity.”
“Pity? What? No, you just said—Rowen, you’re fourteen. I’m not pitying you; I’m not even trying anything. It’s just freaking cold, and my mind was wandering. That’s it,” he said, scrunching up his face, suddenly angry. “What the hell is it with you anyway! I’m not sure what you see when you look in the mirror. You clearly have some messed-up view of who you are and what you look like, but it’s really not that bad.”
Rowen crossed her arms, her nostrils flaring. “That’s what every girl wants to hear—it’s really not that bad!” she said, trying to keep the hurt from her voice, turning to walk away. She wished she was like her mother: beautiful, confident, that men would want to kiss her on a warm day at the beach. Before she could storm off, Gibbs grabbed her arm, pulling her to him. “If you want to keep that arm, you better let go of me!” she snapped, shrugging off his grip. He took a step back, raising his hands defensively.
“I don’t pity you. The only one who pities you is you!” he said, red-faced and shaking. “So you got hurt and it left a few bruises. Everyone has crap they have to deal with, so stop being such a baby. Don’t you get it? Any guy who is going to be with you just because of something so superficial is not a guy you want to be with. You want a guy who wants to, I don’t know, just be with you. Someone who wants to do all the dumb shit you do, someone who laughs at your really bad jokes, someone who you feel comfortable enough around to fart, as my mom would say!” he finished, screaming, his hands flailing above his head.
Rowen felt her anger drain away the more he spoke. Was he right? Was she just being self-conscious? She hated feeling this way, and she didn’t want to deal with any of this now, but maybe she was the problem—her mind kept running in circles. She liked nothing she saw when she looked in the mirror, so how could anyone else? Why would anyone else?
“Besides, you were the one leaning on my shoulder?” he said, suddenly defensive.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” asked Rowen, her hands suddenly fists.
“Well...maybe you wanted to lead me on or—” He froze midsentence, paralyzed like a deer caught in the headlights. She must have looked terrifying; she could see it in his eyes. Rowen lost all sense of self, her blood pounding like a torrent of fire. Everything went red—she only remembered her fist connecting with his face, his first scream, and then nothing.
***
“It’s really not all that bad,” said Rowen, trying to sound apologetic. She sat face-to-face with Gibbs, his back against the old cannon, his face a mural of red and purple, battered and bruised. “You look like a tough guy now, very masculine.” He flinched as she used a damp cloth to wipe the blood from his nose and mouth. It had only taken a moment, and it didn’t help that he bruised from a stiff breeze. She wasn’t sure what had happened. The last few minutes were a blank, but the end result was a black eye, a busted lip, a nose that she hoped wasn’t broken, and worst of all, his wounded pride. He had almost refused to let her clean him up, but a single look at her clenched fist made him very accommodating.
“Who taught you to fight?” he asked, gingerly touching the dark bruise under his eye.
“Didn’t they teach you to fight in the navy? You should have seen the first one coming,” she countered, trying to make small talk.
“No, you sucker punched me; that wasn’t fair,” he mumbled through a swollen lip. Rowen wondered how she would explain this to her father. The bruising on her neck, the shooting—he would want to talk about that one. She was sure he would never let her out of his sight again. She would be confined to living like a tunnel rat for the rest of her days, the sun a distant memory.
“It wasn’t a sucker punch,” said Rowen, gently cleaning the last of the blood from his face. “I saw it in your eyes. You saw it coming, and you froze. Calling it a sucker punch is your way of avoiding the truth: you got beat up by a girl,” she said, regretting the words instantly. She could see the hurt in his eyes, the shame.
Gibbs frowned at her while she applied a bandage from their emergency kit to his lower lip. Rowen shook her head at him. He could live in denial all he wanted. He was terrible in a fight, but they wouldn’t have made it through the last few months without him. He was part of the team and they needed him. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m like this, I just... I will try to remember what you said, the good parts...before you said the stupid part, before I hit you. I’m really sorry. Let’s just try and fo
rget about this, ok?” she said, giving him a pained smile.
Gibbs stared at her for a long time before finally answering. “You know what your problem is? You think this is funny. You beat me up, and it’s a joke to you,” he said, pushing her away and awkwardly standing. “You just want to forget it and move on. Well, it just doesn’t work that way.”
“I said I was—”
“Yeah, you’re sorry, I get it. Don’t worry, I won’t tell your father how this happened,” said Gibbs, motioning to his face, “but I just realized while you were cleaning the blood, the blood you put on my face. You only care about how this looks, like how this will look to your dad. It’s like how you’re obsessed with how pretty or not pretty you are, it’s all the same thing. I’ll tell you the truth: it doesn’t really matter what you look like on the outside, because inside you’re just ugly. You’re an angry person who makes everything about themselves, and I really want to stay as far away from you as possible. So after this mission, just stay away from me.”
Rowen felt like she had been kicked in the stomach. She stood dumbfounded as Gibbs brushed passed her, his words cutting deep. She wanted to chase after him, hit him again, make him see that he was wrong, that she was good inside. All she wanted to do was help—how could he not see that. With a growl she plopped down once again by the old cannon, punching the frozen grass, replaying the last few minutes in her mind over and over again, with only the howling winter wind and running river for company.
The sun was long past its zenith, and the shadows of evening were creeping in when she saw movement in the water at long last, a long and lean dark shape like a spear. Rowen stepped back as a fine spray of mist erupted from the water as it rose to the surface. The compact object was no bigger than a large van, a dull gray with a smooth surface that had no apparent markings or openings. “It’s a sub, I think,” said Rowen aloud to herself, curious. She stretched in a vain attempt to drive the cold from her bones, flexing her frozen fingers and stomping her feet to get some blood flowing into them.
Ascension: Children of The Spear: Book one Page 18