Dark Waters (2013) (26 page)

He let go of her and stood back. She needed to rest. He grabbed two thin air mattresses and the sleeping bags and tossed them inside. Tidied up while Anna went off and used the restroom. He was just getting antsy about her when she came back. He held the tent flap wide.

“Bed,” he said firmly. They climbed inside, not even bothering to get undressed. The air mattresses were shoved next to one another and there was barely enough space for him to maneuver without climbing all over Anna.
Christ
. Given that he was attracted to her, this was not going to be easy, but he wasn’t an animal. He took off his belt and shoes. Put the single flashlight near the door. Lay down on his back and stared at the canvas stretched overhead.

It was a warm night. They both lay on top of their makeshift beds. Their arms brushed one another in the tight space. She didn’t balk or freak, which told him how exhausted she was.

He hadn’t forgotten the incident in the hotel room—half a millennium ago—when she’d gone white as a sheet and backed
away from him like he was going to smack her. There had been raw panic in her eyes as she’d flashed back to something terrifying.

Brent had a short list of possibilities. None of them were good.

He could hear her breathing in the darkness. Quiet. Awake. Aware.

As a young guy in prison, he’d spent a lot of time protecting his ass. Literally. After the first shower incident, where he’d half blinded a guy who thought Brent would be easy pickings, he’d gained a reputation for not being worth the trouble. He’d been lucky. His first cellmate, Ian, had been a lifer who’d taken him under his wing and helped him learn the rules. Ian hadn’t wanted anything from Brent except a tidy roomie who didn’t yap. Not a problem for Brent. The guy had been fatally knifed four years later, in some altercation over fried chicken of all things, but by then Brent had learned how to take care of himself. Not everyone was so fortunate and he’d witnessed plenty of abuse.

It sucked being in prison, but some people didn’t know how to live on the outside. He did. He’d been doing just fine until a week ago. He clenched his fists in the darkness. Now he was risking everything because of a promise to a dead man. Trouble was it was more than that, and no matter how much Brent wanted to pretend he was doing this for Davis, he was actually doing it for Anna—or maybe, if he were really honest, for himself.

He closed his eyes against the memories that were still sharp across his brain.

Ever since Gina had been found murdered last year, he’d been trying to redeem himself in some small measure. He’d spent his whole life pushing people away to keep them safe, but it hadn’t worked. Now he was keeping Anna close and hoped it would be enough to protect her.

The night air cooled.

He turned on his side and moved as close to Anna as he dared. He rested his hand on her waist, and her muscles froze beneath his touch.

“You ever going to tell me about it?” he asked, finally.

Her breath caught. The silence got heavier, and for a moment Brent thought she wasn’t going to answer—maybe even pretend she was asleep, though it was obvious she wasn’t.

“I was raped,” she admitted quietly. “But I think you’d already guessed that, hadn’t you?”

Regret clawed at him with angry talons, regret for things he couldn’t change. His chest tightened painfully. He wanted to shout and pound his fists against something, but that wouldn’t help Anna so he calmed it down. Shoved it into a corner where he could deal with it later.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asked gruffly.

She twisted onto her side and he withdrew his hand, but she groped for it in the darkness and squeezed. “I never told anyone. Ever.”

All those years of bottled-up emotions, the degradation, the humiliation. For the first time, he felt anger at Davis, for putting her in danger. For not taking better care of his daughter. He ran his palm over her jaw, anchored his fingers in her hair. “You need to talk to
someone
, doesn’t have to be me—”

“I want to tell you.” Her palm rested against his heart. “It might help explain why I’m so screwed up. Or some of it, anyway.”

Anna rolled onto her side, facing away from Brent. She’d spent years in denial, as if by never talking about the rape she could pretend it never happened. But without realizing it, that decision had tainted all her subsequent relationships because, subconsciously, she was always waiting for the rules to change and to get raped again. By denying the reality of what happened to her, she’d denied the extent of the trauma and impact it had had on her life. She was through with denial.

Who moved first she didn’t know, but suddenly Brent’s arms were wrapped around her and his chin rested in her hair. Anna
leaned back against the solid wall of his chest and absorbed some of that strength. They were spooning, his chest pressed tight to her back and, despite the shimmer of sexual awareness between them, it felt safe and reassuring.

How was it possible to feel safe after everything that happened? People were trying to kill her, but they hadn’t succeeded yet because this man was by her side. But how was it possible to feel protected by a man like Brent?

Her fear of him was gone—if it had ever existed. He’d blown her nice staid little life to smithereens, and despite the terrible situation she now found herself in, she was enjoying letting go of some of the rules that had guided her. Being on the run made it easier to remember what was important, and
living
topped that list. Strange that it hadn’t before. Now she was ready to blow this particular demon from her past and move on to a better, freer life. Assuming she got the chance.

Her heart thrummed uneasily, but she clenched her fists. She could do this.

“Do you remember any details from my letters about my high school prom?” she asked.

“I know your asshole boyfriend dumped you two days before it.” His rough voice ruffled her hair. “And you tried to commit suicide not long after.” His warm arms tightened around her, perhaps already making the connection.

“I dated Sam for a couple of years and he claimed to love me. Then Dad got arrested.” She could hardly blame Sam, because she’d have done anything to escape the situation too. He’d been a sweet kid. She’d given him her virginity but it hadn’t been enough to get them through the scandal. “He put up with the teasing and taunts for a while and then he couldn’t take it anymore. I was a social pariah. Maybe his parents forced him, but when he dumped me, I wasn’t surprised. I was more surprised we lasted as long as we did.”

“Spineless weasel.”

“He was just a kid.” She could tell Brent wanted to object again, but he kept silent so she carried on. She’d been spat on, slapped, bullied. Getting dumped by Sam and her girlfriends had hurt at the time, but paled into insignificance with later events. “So, this other guy asked me to go to the prom with him instead.”

“Who?”

“Doesn’t matter.” She shivered as a cold memory blew over her skin. Brent pulled her closer, his skin as hot as an open fire.

“Matters to me.”

“Why? So you can spend another twenty inside for something that happened eight years ago?”

“You think you’re not worth it?” he demanded.

“He’s not worth it.”

“What if I promise to just beat the shit out of him?”

The venom in his voice scared her. “I never told Dad because I know he’d have gone after him and I didn’t want that. You have to promise you won’t touch him either.” Her breathing grew choppy. “I don’t want to have to worry about you…” Her voice broke and she buried her face in the sleeping bag. What sort of admission was
that
? That she cared. Too much.

Whatever happened, they weren’t going to live happily ever after. They lived separate lives in separate countries. Thinking of what had happened to poor Peter, they’d be lucky to live through this mess, period.

When she went to pull away, he held her and murmured, “Fine. I won’t touch the bastard.” His breath brushed her cheek and she shivered. The scent of him engulfed her, comforted her. So big. So masculine. No soft edges, but gentle and unexpectedly kind. She trusted him more than she’d ever trusted anyone else in her life. More than she trusted herself.

Her heart pounded, but she had to get this story out. Needed to expel the words.

“So this guy asks me to the prom even though it was obvious he didn’t really want to.” She flashed back to his expression.
Sullen. Angry. “A friend of my mom’s fixed us up. We went in his car and I was just so grateful to be going—maybe dance, you know? Pretend everything was normal and that I still fit in.”

The way Brent’s fingers tightened on hers reminded her he didn’t know. Age sixteen he hadn’t gone to the prom. He’d gone to jail and his childhood sweetheart had waited a lifetime for the boy she’d lost, and then she’d been murdered. It was a much sadder story than hers. Darkness gave her strength to finish this. That and the fact he’d gone through far worse. She started to tremble.

“You don’t have to tell me.” His voice rumbled through her back.

A lump wedged in her throat because she did. For the first time in her life, she needed to get this out. It was like a tumor trapped inside her and she had to get rid of it before it took over her life and destroyed her forever.

“We started driving toward school but then he changed his mind. Said we were supposed to meet two of the guys on the beach first. I guess I was a bit nervous. I was so desperate for everything to go back to normal. To talk to my friends. Maybe to win Sam back when he saw me with another guy.” The memories kept coming, backfilling the empty void of her life. The cool breeze off the water, the grit of sand against her bare skin. “When we got there, the beach was empty so he suggested we dip our feet in the ocean. I thought it was a cute idea—being all dressed up and on the beach.”

The weight of Brent’s silence crushed her and made it difficult to breathe.

“I wore this blue silk gown and silver heels—to match my name.” She’d bought them to try and cheer herself up and had known she looked good in them. “He opened a bottle of beer and gave it to me. I didn’t know he put something in it. A roofie or something.” Damn, she felt cold on the inside. Like her bones had been put in the deep freeze. All these years later and she couldn’t stop shaking. “I only had a few sips—I don’t like beer—but after
that I could barely stand. I didn’t even know what he was doing when he started unzipping my dress.” She laughed but it came out garbled, like a choke, and she squeezed her eyes shut even in the darkness. “I think I thought we were going swimming, but it all got fuzzy after that.”
Not fuzzy enough.

Brent’s arms tightened further, the force of the embrace almost painful, but it helped ground her in the here and now and kept her from floating screaming into the past.

“He folded my dress very neatly and laid it on the sand. I remember thinking that was nice of him. Folding my dress so it doesn’t crease. Then he started messing with my panties and I realized I wasn’t even wearing a bra because the dress didn’t need it. I started to panic and tried to get up and run, but I was in my stupid heels and he caught me…” Her fingers went to her lips. “He ripped off my panties so I was naked except for the fuck-me heels—his words, not mine. Then he raped me in the sand.”

She clamped her thighs together as if that would change the past.

It had hurt, a lot. Rough, brutal violence that defied society’s conventions, and overpowered her weak attempts to fight.

She could hear Brent’s breathing, feel his chest expanding. He rocked her gently in the circle of his embrace. “When he was done, he threw my dress at me and stuffed my panties in his pocket. Told me he was going to show the guys, tell them he’d fucked me on the beach because I’d begged him to and that no one would believe me and no one would care even if I told them the truth.” Her lips curled in remembered horror. “And then he told me I wasn’t even any good anyway.

“I believed him.”

Brent rubbed her neck with his chin. Kept silent. But she could
feel
his rage.

“He drove to school and left me in his car like a piece of garbage. I walked home barefoot.” She’d snuck in, told her mother she’d had a headache. Then cleaned up in the bathroom as if water
and soap could wash it all away. She’d wanted to burn the dress, but hadn’t had access to a fire. She’d stuffed it in a box in the attic instead.

“You never told anyone. Never reported it?” His voice was a dark rasp.

“No. He was right. Everyone hated me and I wasn’t about to go to the police.” Terrified he’d attack her again, she’d locked herself in her bedroom and had been more alone than she’d ever imagined possible.

A long pause. “What about your mother?”

“She didn’t hate me, but she was a wreck. I couldn’t tell her.” Her mom had already been devastated by her husband’s betrayal, finding out her daughter had been attacked would have undermined all the progress Katherine had made. Anna hadn’t been able to deal with the idea of coping with all that on top of everything else.

She tucked the tangled mess of her hair behind her ear. She still needed to talk to her mother about Dad. Needed to figure out a way to repair their tattered relationship.