Liberty At Last (The Liberty Series) (20 page)

“That’s not all she’s doing,” John said, and started out of the kitchen. I stood up, grabbed my coffee and followed him.

“John,” I said. I was wary. “What’s the matter?”

“She’s gonna starve herself. Or do something else horrible. She’s punishing me for bringing her here,” he said, clenching his fists and pacing back and forth near the front door.

“She’s just trying to have a
little
control in a situation where she really has none,” I said. He looked up at me. It was like me, when I had been a captive. I started telling secrets just so I could have a glass of clean water, a book; some normalcy, some sort of bargaining power. Some sort of control.

“Do you get it? She’s wearing a shirt she hates, she’s been separated from the people she’s been with for years, she has no say in anything here. She’s being treated like a child. A troubled child,” I said, shrugging.

“You’re right,” John said. “We’re not treating her like an adult. We’re treating her like she’s five — no, worse than five.
Three.
Before the age of reason,” John said.

“Huh?”

“Four is the age of reason,” John said, turning and staring out the door. “Before that, you really have to keep them locked down.”

“Well, I happen to know that you are much nicer to her than you ever were to Darius,” I said. “What if I go talk to her? I’m not her favorite person, but maybe I can figure out what would make her happy right now. Besides escaping.”

“I’d be in your debt,” John said, pulling me close to him. “I
am
in your debt.”

“Does that mean I get to boss you around?” I asked, wickedly.

“If it’s something I want to do, sure,” he said, grinning wickedly back.

“Maybe I’ll strip you of your boot-camp rights, and we’ll be on a strict regimen of white-flour carbohydrates, ice cream and movies,” I said.

“I liked it when you said ‘strip’ — but that was about it.”

“When are we starting everything?” I asked. I trailed my fingers up John’s tee shirt and let myself whine the question. Just a little.

“We have the weekend,” he said. “Matthew and Sean will be back for training Monday morning, and that’s when we’ll start.”

“How long are we training for?” I asked. A pit of dread was forming in my stomach.

“If you’re serious about coming with me to Brazil, we need to have you ready,” he said, putting his hands around my waist. “You’re way too thin right now. It wouldn’t be safe. So we have to get your muscles built back up,” he ran his hands up my sides and down my arms, “so we need some time. We need about twelve weeks.”

He must have seen the look of utter horror on my face because he laughed.

“We
need
twelve, in a perfect world, but I’ll settle for ten. Maybe six, depending on what Darius is up to. But that would make me nervous,” he said, putting his forehead to mine. “We might need to live outside while we’re down there — in the jungle. It’s gonna be rough. And there are diseases, and wild animals…and spiders.” I clamped my hand over his mouth, cutting him off.

“I’m going with you, no matter what you say, no matter how long you say we have to train,” I said, looking him squarely in the eye. “But I don’t want to talk about it anymore, okay? I don’t want to talk about the training, and I don’t want to talk about sleeping in a tent in a jungle, surrounded by spiders. Okay?” He nodded at me, my hand still covering his mouth. “Now, we have two days — tomorrow and Sunday — to just relax before I can’t even walk up the stairs to go to bed. You know that, right?” He nodded. “Although why you would want me to train like that, when I’ll totally be too tired to have sex with you after, is beyond me.”

“You have to train to be safe,” he said. His voice sounded canned and faraway from beneath my palm.

“Yeah, yeah, safe. I know, I know,” I said, and took my hand off his mouth. “This is what I want: I want to have a nice weekend with you. I want to watch movies. I want to go for walks. I want to wear pajamas and snuggle and pretend that we’re normal.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said. I frowned up at him. I
really
wanted a normal weekend — the type that we’d never had together — one that preferably involved pizza, a roaring fire, and hand holding. And maybe some more time on that bench in the shower.

“I’ll let you plan tomorrow, but
I
want to plan Sunday. I want to treat you.”

My frown vanished instantly. Two days of pure bliss. “Deal!” I said, and stuck out my hand to him. He shook it firmly, making me feel his strength and muscles, sending sparks of lust up my arm. He pulled me close to him.

“I want you to buy a dress for yourself today,” he said, lowly. “A small one.”

“How small?” I asked, worrying.

“Very small,” he said and smiled. “After all, I’m planning
my
perfect date. Okay?”

He bent down and kissed me then — hotly, deeply, and I felt heat spread through me.
Mmmmm
.
But I made myself straighten up and pull back.

“I’m going to go see Catherine. And then I’m going to Providence to get her some proper clothes and whatever kind of takeout she wants.” I looked up at him. “And the smallest dress I can find,” I said bravely.

“I love you,” he said. “I mean it. I’ll even watch girlie movies this weekend.”

“I love you, too,” I said.
And I’ll even go play nice with your evil witch of a brainwashed daughter, buy a ridiculously slutty dress and run ten miles for you. Only you.

I sighed and pushed past him into the early morning mist. I brought my coffee and took another sip, but all the coffee in the world wasn’t going to be enough to get me through this next part. I just knew it.

Jake, the guard assigned to her, was young — maybe my age, 21 or so — but he was a giant. Six-four, probably 225 pounds, and not an ounce of fat on him. I used to watch him sometimes at meals, fascinated (and somewhat disgusted) by the amount of protein he consumed. Three chicken breasts at dinner, followed by an enormous plate of spinach or broccoli, and three chocolate milks. He ate eggs and bacon every morning for breakfast. He’d kept his flat-top from his military days; Matthew told me he’d served as a Navy Seal, until he was enticed away by John’s pay grade. Apparently he had a sick father to take care of. He probably missed the military, I mused, looking at him now. He had a nervous energy about him, like he was ready to spring into action at any moment. John said he volunteered for everything, and always wanted to be in on the action.

He would be excited to go to Brazil and sleep in a tent and battle spiders.
Mental note to self: stay near Jake’s tent in the rainforest.

“She’s not talking too much,” Jake said as he unlocked the door for me.

I smiled at him. “You’re lucky,” I said, as he let me in.

She was sitting there as if she’d been waiting for me, staring out the lone window into the morning light, wearing the badly wrinkled hot-pink smiley faced tee-shirt, smoking. Her hair was greasy and her skin was losing its tan; it looked ashy, like she was on an all-cigarette diet, which apparently she was.

“Hey,” I said as I came in and sat down. Unlike my quarters in Mexico, she had a pretty nice room. There were a couple of comfortable chairs, a nice bed with a clean comforter on it, a bathroom over to the side with a sink, shower and toilet. It was immaculate, unlike the squalor she’d kept me in. It made me mad, seeing her “held hostage” in such a manner. It would be one thing if she were even remotely thankful. Instead, she was being a total snot. Not eating, not drinking, not seeing her grandfather, who’d been waiting six years for any news of her.

You need to play nice
, I reminded myself. Getting into a cat fight wasn’t going to help John, or Ian, I knew.

For them, I would try to be nice.
Niceish
. “How’re you holding up?” I asked.

She shrugged, exhaling listlessly. “I’m fine. I haven’t been able to sleep since I’ve been here, though.” She turned towards me and I could see the dark circles under her eyes; they were purplish brown, making it look like she’d been beaten.

“Well, you might feel better if you eat something, and drink some water,” I said. “Then tonight maybe you can have a drink and you’ll relax enough to get some sleep.”

“I keep thinking about Angel,” Catherine said, and to my utter horror, her eyes filled with tears. “I know he’ll come and get me, eventually, but I can’t stand being apart from him. It hurts. It hurts so
bad
,” she said, like she was baffled by it.

I sighed. This was not what I wanted to hear. But my mission here was to be diplomatic, so I put on my game face. “I know what you mean,” I said. “It might gross you out, but I felt that way about your dad when I was in Mexico. I was so worried that I wouldn’t see him again.” What I was telling her was the truth, but it was only part of what was going through my mind right now. Another part was thinking
no, oh no! She really loves this guy. Fuuuuuuccck.

“And don’t send them out here. I can’t deal with John. I can’t deal with Ian,” she said.

She looked up at me, pausing for a moment. “I always loved Ian. He was a great grandfather. For all the ways John sucked as a dad, Ian made up for it. He never missed a birthday or a holiday. He always sent cards, sent the best presents. He used to call all the time, talk to Eva, talk to me, and usually came out at least once a year to see us. He’d bring us presents, take us to dinner,” she said, “and it was always easy with him. He didn’t expect anything from me, his little granddaughter who lived on a different coast. Not like John. John used to come out and stare at me, like I was some sort of tactical mission he was trying to figure out: say the right thing and you win.
Say the wrong thing, your daughter will look at you like you have nine heads.

“The thing was, I
always
looked at him like he had nine heads. Because he had no clue how to be a dad.”

“Probably because he hadn’t been around you,” I said, gently. “It must have been awkward for him, too.”

“It was,” she said, reaching for a tissue and unceremoniously blowing her nose. “It was so obviously awkward for him that it was painful for all of us. So I don’t even feel bad that I’m not happy to see him.” She looked at me as if challenging me. “I know you think I’m a monster for the way I’m treating him, but I don’t feel anything for him. I never did. So now he’s just in my way, and it’s so — it’s
so
frustrating that he has me cornered here. That he thinks he knows what’s best for me. He doesn’t have a clue. He never did.”

I sat there silently for a minute as she put out her cigarette and lit a new one. The smell of the smoke brought waves of nausea over me, as did Catherine’s characterization of her relationship with her father. The sad thing was, I understood what she was saying. He
hadn’t
been there for her while she was growing up; he’d contributed financially, and he’d loved her from afar, but to a little girl, that hardly means anything. “But can’t you see how he feels now?” I asked.

“I see how sorry he is, sure,” Catherine said. “But so what? Shouldn’t he live with the consequences? I mean, he chose to live out here, to work all the time. He barely came to visit. I think it was easier for him to stay away.”

I nodded at her. I was annoyed. I kept wanting to just hate her — for burning me with those damn cigarettes, for being so mean to John and just being so all-around mean-spirited — but what she said made sense to me, and I understood, at least in part, where she was coming from. “I understand this is hard for you,” I said, getting ready to give her a pep talk.

“Of course you do,” she said, cutting me off. “You’re dating my dad. He’s like, a hundred years old and you’re twenty one. You’ve obviously had daddy issues.” She rolled her eyes.

Now I was back to just hating her, pretty easily.

“Enough about
my
presumed ‘daddy issues,’ as you call them,” I said. “All I was saying was that I understand: you don’t want to be here, and you’re pissed at John. But what about your mother? She’s coming today. What about Ian? All he’s ever done is love you, and be good to you. Why can’t you just see him?”
And not be a total, vindictive bitch about it?

“Trust me, I don’t want to see my mother, either,” Catherine said, inhaling deeply. My lungs ached at all the pollutants she was packing into them.

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t want to feel guilty,” she said, and shrugged. “I understand that they’re upset about the way I’m acting. They’re upset I’ve never contacted them. But I’m not that girl anymore. I told you before — I couldn’t come back — that wasn’t a choice for me.”

She turned to look at me. “After I was kidnapped, Angel nursed me back to health. He taught me Spanish, he taught me how to shoot a gun, and he’s protected me ever since. And all he’s asked from me is absolute loyalty. He wanted me to leave the rest of my life behind. To never go back home, to never contact my parents. We have to have anonymity. His business is extremely dangerous. He wanted me one hundred percent — but I had to agree to stay inside the lines. I couldn’t compromise his position.”