Captured 3 (11 page)

“How come you’re still up?” He undid his coat and started toward her, and she stood up, dropping the blanket. She was still dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved peach shirt, but her feet were bare.

“I wanted to wait up for you.” She went into his arms as if that was where she belonged, and she leaned up and kissed him. He found it so easy to touch her, and he pulled her closer when she would have stepped away.

He breathed her in, and she pulled at something inside him. For the first time ever, he was humbled to be with her.

“Eric, I can’t breathe, you’re holding me so tight.”

“Sorry, baby.” He relaxed his arms a bit, allowing her to step back, but he didn’t let her go. He kept his hands on her shoulders and took in everything about her. She was beautiful, and she was his wife, and she’d suffered a horror he’d never understood before. Even after being over there and seeing Grieger and what had happened to her, he couldn’t truly understand what that did to a woman’s soul.

“What is it, Eric?” She was looking up at him through thick lashes. She was so beautiful—with her creamy, pale skin, her naturally blushing cheeks. He could see the worry in her expression by the way the skin puckered between her brows, and he reached out and caressed it until she relaxed.

He shook his head and swallowed.

“Is it that you don’t want to tell me, or you can’t tell me?” she asked.

He could see the acceptance in her deep blue eyes, an amazing pale shade, so vibrant. He knew she would understand whatever he had to say. She believed in him, she trusted him. For the first time, he felt as if he’d let her down.

“Come here.” He took her hand and led her to the sofa. He sat down and pulled her into his arms. “I just want to hold you for a minute.”

She sighed and snuggled in, her face resting on his chest. He could feel her breathing when she relaxed.

“I need to know how you were while I was gone,” he said. “Did you sleep, any nightmares?”

She sat up and slid around beside him, bringing her legs up and crossing them. He was still touching her, running his hand up her arm, sliding his fingers over her cheeks. She leaned in, closed her eyes for a minute before opening them again. “Honestly, it was hard, but I got through it. I woke a couple times. My heart was pounding, I was sweating, and it seemed so real, my nightmare. They always do. You’ve been there in bed with me when it happens, and you wake me from it and hold me in your arms and tell me everything is going to be okay, and it helps. It always is okay when you’re here, but you can’t always be here, and it’s selfish of me to expect―”

“Abby…” he started, and she put her hand over his mouth to stop him from saying anything else.

“I need to make you understand. I know about the video. I didn’t see it, but it was all over the base and all everyone talked about. Mary-Margaret was just beside herself with grief. It’s the first time I’ve seen her fall apart. We all have a breaking point, but we do get through it.” She reached for his hand and held it in her lap, and she seemed to be studying it as if she needed to burn it into her memory. “I reached my breaking point a year ago because I kept telling myself everything was okay and pushing all those horrible memories and fears away. I avoided anything that would remind me of what happened, and the problem is that you can’t ignore it and hope it will go away. You have to face your fear. When I heard about the video, the beheading, the women being sold, I knew it would have been way worse than what I heard. I felt the chill and the anger and the fear, and I spent an afternoon just watching the kids and shaking. I couldn’t stop. But I picked up the phone, and I called Dr. Blaney, and he came right over.”

“I’m sorry, baby. I wasn’t here.” He didn’t know what else to say, being torn in two different directions, needing to go over there for Joe but also be here for Abby and his family. He couldn’t help feeling selfish.

“Eric, you can’t blame yourself. You couldn’t be here. And I was so done being angry at myself,” she said, giving him a shy smile.

He was stunned. He’d never realized she was angry with herself.

“Don’t look at me as if I was hiding something from you, because I never even admitted that to myself,” she said. “All those negative feelings, the anger, the shame, the guilt, feeling so alone when you’re gone…even sleeping was something I loathed any time you weren’t here. Looking at our bed and lying down, struggling to go to sleep, afraid of what would come when I did—so many times I just lay there wide awake, listening to the sounds in the house, the creaks, the ticking, the way the fridge makes that whirring sound that echoes at night.”

“The fridge makes a noise?”

She gave him an odd look. “Eric, the fridge has always made odd noises. It’s just that at night the sounds are different.”

Why hadn’t he heard that? He had to shake his head before he got up and checked, and for a moment he wondered if Abby was trying to sidetrack him. “Okay, what about Dr. Blaney? I don’t like the fact that you were here alone, having to go through this by yourself.”

“I wasn’t alone, Eric. I think this was the first time I realized that when Dr. Blaney showed up, he wouldn’t let me hide from my fears. He made me look at the triggers and face my thoughts and feelings about the situation you were in. It was my fear of what was going to happen to you, and he helped me replace the irrational distorted picture that always comes to my mind with something balanced and rational. No one’s going to come here, and I have to learn to trust in your ability to take care of yourself. I can’t control what’s going to happen, but I can control how I look at a situation.”

She was still rubbing his hand, and she flicked her gaze to his. He could now see this change in her. When had it happened? Maybe it had happened slowly. He supposed that over the past year she had grown, become more confident. “So what are you saying, Abby?”

“I’m getting better, I’m learning to deal with this, and you can’t always be here to be my safety net. I have to face it myself. You can’t banish my demons for me no matter how much I want you to. I can do this. I am doing this. Do you understand?”

He thought he did, but he didn’t want her doing this alone. He wanted to take care of her and not let anything bad ever touch her again. He wanted to shelter her, which was what he’d been doing. Maybe he’d been wrong. He didn’t like thinking that, though.

“Those women who were taken, did they find them?” she asked.

“One was there when we got Joe out. We don’t know where the other one is.” He stopped himself from saying whether she was dead or alive. He wondered, by the way her lips firmed and the flash of emotion in her eyes, whether Abby was reliving some horror she’d never told him. He also knew there were things done to her that she never wanted him to know. She’d told him she was afraid of how he’d look at her—as if she was damaged.

“It’s okay, Eric. I know what they would have been through. The one you found, how is she?”

He wondered whether she really wanted to know, by the way she tensed. He didn’t want to bring it into the house, to stir up any more nightmares. He took a breath and looked away. The memory of a badly abused Grieger, catatonic, sedated, and being shipped home, would be forever burned into his mind. He’d never shake this, just like he’d never shake the image of Abby when he’d found her in that dinghy at sea. She had been so badly beaten, and he hadn’t understood the horror of what she’d been through as he did now. Even though he had known the details when he saw the auction on camera, it had been somehow different seeing Grieger in person and just being in that area, smelling the hate, the anger. It was something he couldn’t explain to anyone. He wiped his face with his other hand when he felt Abby touching him again, his arm, his shoulder, waiting patiently for him to decide what to tell her.

“I don’t want it in my own head, what happened to her. She’s in a psych ward on suicide watch back in Chicago. I’ve been told she’s heavily sedated. She’d not doing well.”

The truth was that she was catatonic, restrained, and unresponsive. The only thing she’d repeatedly begged was for someone to end her suffering. She’d begged her fiancé, the Chicago cop, to put a bullet in her head. They didn’t know if anyone would ever be able to reach her.

Abby just nodded. “Eric, it’s going to be okay. You can’t help everyone, and only she can decide to want to live.”

He couldn’t help touching her again, putting his hands on her cheeks and holding her. “How did you get to be so strong when I wasn’t looking?”

She ran her hand over his wrist as her eyes became a little misty. “It was because of you, knowing that through everything, you have my back.”

It took him a second to understand the trust she had in him. It was humbling to know someone believed in him that much. When he leaned in and kissed her, it was so sweet and soft, and he knew as he held her, just being in this moment in their home, that whatever happened, they would get through it together.

Chapter 20

Eric had the hood up and was leaning over the engine of his baby, his ’67 Mustang. He liked tinkering with the engine in the garage, making sure all the fluids were level and that there were no leaks. He’d changed the spark plugs and loved the feel of the grease on his hands, the smell of the engine. But he’d never admit that to anyone.

He heard the footsteps and stood up, peeking around as Joe, in a pair of jeans and a wool sweater, walked in with his son Taylor behind him. Joe still had a bandage on his head and a bruise on his face, but he also looked as if he’d had some sleep.

“Hey, how’s it going?” Eric asked, taking in Taylor, who stood close to his dad as if he wasn’t going to let him too far out of his sight. He was slouched again, wearing a black hoodie, hands shoved in his baggy pants pockets.

Eric couldn’t explain this feeling, the sense that they were all pulling themselves together. Nothing came easy in life, and he could feel the uncertainty between them. It was in this garage, filling the empty space, touching Joe and Eric in a way a lifetime of friendship hadn’t. All the ugliness in the world had marked him this time, but he sensed a change in Joe that was far beyond anything they’d experienced before.

Joe reached over and slung his arm around Taylor’s shoulders. “My kids spoiled their dad with breakfast in bed this morning.”

Eric took in father and son, and Taylor glanced over at Eric with a guilty look on his face. There was something he needed to say.

“Mom thought I should bring Dad over here.” He cleared his throat, and it took Eric a minute to figure out what he was talking about.

“You tell your dad about the trouble at school?” Eric said as he wiped his hands on the cloth. He closed the hood with a thunk.

“You got in trouble at school and didn’t tell me?” Joe sounded far from his calm, reasonable self. Maybe that was why Mary-Margaret had wanted him over here. Maybe Eric needed to have a word with Joe in private.

Taylor flushed and glanced over at Eric. “I did something stupid when you were gone, but Uncle Eric talked to me about it, and I already promised not to do it again.”

“Maybe someone better fill me in on what’s going on,” Joe snapped. Anyone could tell he was pissed, thinking someone had stepped in to do his job. He’d misunderstood, but Eric knew that if Taylor were his kid, he’d feel the same way.

“Taylor, tell your dad, because it would be best coming from you. It’s not about me taking over for your dad. Yes, I talked to you, but you also know your dad wasn’t here and you still needed to tell him.”

Joe was now giving Taylor all his attention, hands on his hips, in a stance that had Taylor even more nervous.

“I got caught smoking at school,” Taylor said.

Joe actually swore and gestured sharply with his hand. “You’re grounded for a month.”

“But, Dad, it was only one time! It was stupid, and I already promised I wouldn’t do it again.”

“Oh, I guarantee you won’t do it again. So tell me, is there anything else?” Joe was a little hot under the collar, but maybe that was understandable, considering what they’d just been through and the fact that his daughter had been communicating with a monster online.

“I argued with one of my teachers and got sent to the office for mouthing off to him, as he put it.” Maybe Taylor thought Joe was really going to lose it, as he became defensive. “Dad, I’m sorry, but I’m tired of learning useless information I’m never going to use. I said to my teacher, you tell me one useful, practical application of the current curriculum, and maybe it got a little heated, because instead of explaining anything, he lost his temper at me and said I was being insolent, and then he told me he didn’t have to justify to a kid anything he was teaching. I should have let it go, but I didn’t, because why wouldn’t he just explain to me why I have to learn algebra and all the useless history they insist on teaching? I just wanted him to help me understand. What’s so wrong with that? If he can explain where I’d use this, what occupation, what it prepares me for…” He stopped talking and flushed as if he’d said too much and gone too far.

Joe was watching his son. For the life of him, Eric couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. Then he shook his head and swore under his breath before letting out a sharp chuckle. He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he glanced over at Eric and back to his son. “Maybe you’re not too young to hear this. You know when I was captured, that last night, the man who had me was the same one who contacted your sister. Well, he had recruits arrive.”

Eric knew exactly where Joe was going, and he felt his chest ache as he thought of all those lost boys. That could have been him at that age, but it was fate that he’d met someone who pointed him in the right direction, and the military, the navy, had become his life.

“They were boys, your age, some a little older, from all over—the US, Europe, Canada…They were disillusioned, lost, and he told them what they needed to hear, promises they needed.” Joe stepped forward and put his hand on his son’s shoulder.

Taylor seemed surprised. Maybe he thought his father was going to lose it on him, yell, and ground him for longer.