The Years Between (19 page)

Will moved around their room with such efficiency in packing as Jessie ever witnessed in another human being. He rolled his underwear into compact, little sausages. His pants were creased to board flatness.

He booked his airfare and motel. His plans were all set. Jessie watched him spending hours at the computer, staring at maps. He had a plan. He did not say much after their argument months ago and her ensuing consent. She knew it was because he didn’t want her to change her mind. Given an opening, she might have. So he didn’t mention it. It was almost as if he were planning a vacation, if you ignored the reason. She was the only one who knew he was seeking the group that kidnapped her and abducted her out of the country. Of course, obtaining her father’s permission beforehand must have made the process a hell of a lot easier than simply abducting someone.

She drew in a breath at the direction her thoughts were taking. She detested watching him get ready to leave her yet again. She spent a lot of their relationship just being left by him. She was sick and tired of being abandoned, as well as dealing with her life alone, and her emotions while trying to keep it all in check. No matter how often he claimed they weren’t in a holding pattern, they were. There was just no other way. When he was home, she wanted to isolate them into a cocoon of happiness, fun and relaxation. She loved being ordinary and together, versus feeling tragic and crying and lost.

It didn’t leave her a whole lot of time to move forward with her life.

With swift efficiency, he started filling his suitcase. As he stood by the dresser, she got up and stepped behind him to wrap her arms around his middle, leaning her face against his back. He stopped moving, completely pausing at her unexpected contact. His hands crept up to cover hers, which she interlaced over his stomach.

“If I asked you not to go, would you stay?” she whispered quietly and calmly, pressing her lips into the fabric of his cotton t-shirt.

He stiffened and his entire body tensed. She could feel his lungs rise and fall sharply as his back moved with it.

“If I told you I couldn’t handle it anymore, would you simply stay home and let it go? Let us start the life we’ve been waiting for almost five years to have?” she repeated.

His fingers gripped hers tightly and his tone was soft when he spoke. “If it’s the difference between losing you and not, yes, I would let it go. But please, I’m begging you for once, don’t make me. Let me do this. I
need
to do this. There are things you needed in the past. This time, it’s what I need.”

She squeezed her arms around his waist and her body involuntarily shuddered. “I’m scared. I can’t stand the waiting. You’ve never had to wait for me like I have for you.”

He turned and took her hands in his, raising her knuckles up to his mouth. He touched them to his lips. “That’s not true. I waited with my heart in my stomach for over two years until I felt like you were no longer at risk of killing yourself, or losing your mind, or breaking down. So that’s really not true.”

She shut her eyes at the soft feel of his lips on her hand, but finally raised her gaze to his. “You know, it’s still impossible we’re here. Together.”

He stepped forward and wrapped her in his arms, placing her head against his chest. “I know. Don’t you think it attests to something? You
are
strong, Jess. You are much stronger than you ever knew, or most women could be. You can do this. One more time.”

“You don’t
have
to do it to me though.”

He nodded. “You’re right. For once, I’m choosing to. But don’t you want this? Even a little bit? Don’t you picture someone paying for what they did to you? I just… I need that. I need that for you. It’s the only thing I can physically do that will actually make a difference for you. All I’ve ever done is be there for you. After it all. During it all. Whatever. But I’ve never actually done anything for you.”

“You did everything for me. How can you say that?”

He sighed. “Because this is what I do. Just let me do it. One more time. I meant that promise. I can let it all go. I can quit. But I need to do this.”

She leaned her head onto his chest and closed her eyes, taking a big sniff of him. His shirt smelled like her, due to using the same laundry soap. But it also had Will’s scent on it. His warmth touched her cheek and she could feel his muscles tighten and flex as he rubbed her back and comforted her.

“You read every letter I ever wrote you, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “I also read about everything that was ever done to you. I remember every single thing you’ve ever felt or thought or expressed to me. So, yes I know.”

“Why did you come for me? You were free. Done. Why did you ever come back for this? After reading all that…”

His hands suddenly gripped her arms just above her elbows. “I loved you then. I love you now. I can’t eradicate what was done to you. Or the harm it caused you. It’s something that will be with us until we die. But I can, at least, strive for some kind of remote justice.”

“I want that too, and it shames me. I didn’t used to care. But the more I think about Mexico specifically, and what you said about me not being the first, or the last… well, I must admit their faces still haunt me. So if I imagine you stopping even one of them… it’s okay. Okay, I can wait one more time. But you have to remember, the moment if and when you face them all, or even one of them,
you are not a cold-blooded murderer.
You promised me you wouldn’t become one. You have to make your word and your promise to me stronger than your desire for revenge. It won’t be justice for me. And you will lose me. I’ve seen how calm and cool and rational you get in combat. If rescuing me wasn’t being in combat, what is? I’ve also seen how you can control yourself. You must do that for me. I can only agree to let you do this if I can believe you won’t get caught and won’t be tried for murder. Can you promise me that?”

“I can promise you that,” he leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips. “You know I have my faults, but I won’t break my word. Not to you. I can’t breathe when I think about you being hurt. Or feeling hurt. Yet, that’s what you felt more than half your life. Still, it kills me that I can’t fix it. I can’t soothe it. I can’t even relieve it.”

“My God! It’s like you live with a tragic soap opera every day.”

“I live with you. All I want to do is live with you. I love you, Jessie. Whether or not you let me do this, I will be here for you. No matter what.”

She shook her head against his chest. Her eyes streamed with tears and her makeup started to smudge and smear on his shirt. “I don’t think I could have survived a day of it if not for you. Thinking of your voice got me through so many bad nights. Even in the beginning, when I was only a twenty-year-old, little girl who got raped more often than I ever felt loved, it was your voice that got me through. That cool, confident,
I won’t leave you, Ms. Bains.
”

“I remember,” Will said quietly in a hoarse whisper. “You were the most
tragic mission I ever encountered in my life.”

“You must sometimes wish I weren’t. It would be so much easier.”

“Easier maybe, but I would not really feel alive. I never felt anything real, or had anything of value, or found anything worth fighting for until I fell in love with you. I don’t regret it, Jessie. Not for a moment. It’s confusing, of course, if being glad we met means I’m somehow condoning what happened in Mexico, as if I’m glad that happened. But however you came to me, I swear to you, I thank God, still and now, and every day that it happened.”

“I think I’d have died without you. Be it there, or at home, and even here. If you hadn’t found me, or come back for me, I’d have died somehow. Whether at their hands or my own. I know you saved me. I just want a chance to live my life with you, not to only be glad I once knew you.”

He tilted his head back so he could he meet her gaze. Rubbing the pad of his thumb beneath her eyes, he smiled gently. “I swear to you, Jessie, we will have that chance.”

She shuddered under his
piercing gaze, his intense, burning love
for her
, sad, little Jessie Bains, nearly pouring from his eyes. “Don’t forget, not even for a second, what you promised me.”

He lifted her up and wrapped her in his arms. “I won’t forget. I promised you the rest of our lives.” He flashed her his cocky, super-He-man grin. “And don’t I always keep my word?”

He finally made her laugh. “You always keep your word, soldier. This time, however, it’s mandatory.”

Will slid behind the wall when he heard footsteps echoing through the huge, cavernous building. He made his body flat and froze behind a pillar. The man lumbered past in a slow, easy gait. Will blinked and let out a breath as he grabbed the bottom rung of a metal ladder that was tucked in the corner of the building, similar to a fire escape ladder. It reached the seventy feet he needed to access the ductwork. The same place where he sat before. He spent a lot of time watching their routine before, and witnessed his wife’s rape there.

He shook his head. Not now. This wasn’t personal right now. It was business. It was work. This was fucking war.

He quickly crawled across one of the tubes of ductwork and stopped on a flat landing over one of the square boxes. His boots barely clicked on the floor as he dropped to his knees and absorbed the impact. Swinging his backpack down, he felt a smile tugging his lips from out of nowhere. He should have brought a different backpack. It was the same one they used at Disneyland. The one she used to attack him on the bed because he was so prepared. Just as he was today.

He shook his head. No. Jessie was not here. This wasn’t about the recent past. Or happy times at an amusement park. It was about the crime that nearly destroyed her. And him. Them. It was about finally fulfilling the dream he’d been planning for years now. When he held Jessie, crying, broken, and bleeding, he often felt like his spirit rose above his body. It allowed him to visualize in a real and physical way exactly what he’d do to the men who violated her, if only given the chance.

This was his chance.

He tightened his hands into fists. For too long, he fantasized about it, and now, it was time to do it. Finish it. There was no Jessie to protect this time. There was nothing to hinder him, slow him down, or stop him. He could finally do his fucking job! And, as he told her, he was really good at that.

He waited for two hours. Finally, the man he sought appeared below him. He was walking down the corridor, and passing the spot. The one Will always dreamt about, and got cold sweats from. Strolling past the ties in the floor, the man spoke to someone next to him and pointed to the clipboard the other man held. Business as usual. How could they ignore the torture ties at their feet when they came into the office for a day’s work? The scenario completely baffled Will. How could they come to work and torture girls, or sell drugs, as if it were nothing more than going to the bank or an insurance office? What kind of souls did these men have? And here they were, five years later, still in business. And business looked pretty good if the ample contents on the warehouse shelves were any indication.

Upon entering the building last night, Will first went to the place where they held Jessie. There was no one down there. But there had been. Will saw evidence. Disgusting evidence that made his stomach churn and contract with repulsion. There was another corridor that took Will past what looked like a normal office area. It was crazy as fuck. Desks, phones, computers, and all to… what? Arrange shipments? Count money? Launder the money? He knew there was money down there. It was hidden beyond that room buried in a wall of steel with a small, locking door. It was, no doubt, where they stashed all their cash before they scrubbed it clean and laundered it.

His relief was swift; there was no one down there being held prisoner. He would have changed all his plans and helped whoever it was to escape in exactly the same way he did for Jessie. The thought made his throat dry. He could not go through that again. And, to his profound relief, there were no innocents in there. Anyone hurt or bothered by what he planned to do was fair game and collateral damage to h
im. Fuck them for being there. They deserved whatever they got.

He
then went to the spot. He hated that spot. But it was the best place to wait. Again waiting, watching, and obsessing. How to fuck the place over.

He
had snuck in during the night, when there were only a few workers around. Sneaking in at night, Will would stay until morning, hoping to bring down the leader and a minimal number of workers. Lucky for him, the leader of the pigs was a diligent worker, or so it seemed.

Now, came the time to make amends for the scars on Jessie that no one could ever truly repair. He swung down off the ladder and ducked quickly behind some freight being stored on his left. He listened. Nothing. He waited. Will had infinite patience for stuff like that. He could hold still for several minutes, slowing his breathing, and amplifying his hearing. It was what kept him alive on more than one occasion. He wasn’t lying to Jessie. For some reason, being in this kind of situation made him feel primed, intense, and ready. He performed much better under extreme circumstances and stress than he did in normal life. It used to make him proud. Now he wondered if it didn’t actually fuck him up. Who preferred that to a normal life? He did. And he’d soon be giving it all up for a normal life.

Finally, he saw his opening. No one was present and the sounds were fading away as the men walked down the long warehouse corridor. Will slipped silently through the corridor and entered the office where the leader obviously held command. He got in, and all the way across the office before the man realized a stranger had entered. Will instantly had him face down on his desk with a knife pressed into his side.

The dumb fuck tried to grab the gun on his desk, but wasn’t fast enough. Will pressed the blade in slightly. The man gasped out a string of angry, coarse Spanish words.

Will responded in kind. “Shut the fuck up or I’ll gut you and leave you bleeding on the floor.”

The man instantly flipped over to English. “What do you want? Money isn’t in here. I can get it though.”

“I don’t want your money. You’re going to wish I did before I leave though.”

****

Jessie paced the living room back and forth. How could Will really ask her do this? It was way too much. To ask anyone really. Sure, marriage was a compromise and finding a balance that respected both partners’ needs. But she doubted that theory would apply to waiting around while her husband sought revenge and tried to take down the drug traffickers who kidnapped, held prisoner, and raped her countless times. It wasn’t exactly like deciding where to go to dinner; or even a little tougher, like which city they should live in. This mission forced her to relive a nightmare that almost drove her mad. It was not something she ever pictured doing, since she thought getting home was the end of that part. But now, all she could picture was Will being down there. Now. Today. She closed her eyes and visualized where he was walking and what he was doing. She could see it as clearly as the lines on her palms. Some of the days after Jessie was first kidnapped were blurry, and hard to string together; but the days spent in Mexico, and especially, in Will’s presence were as real and clear and vivid to her as a movie playing.

She picked the skin at her cuticles after he called to say he arrived safely. He was well prepared, and leaving to go to THE BUILDING. There was no way to describe that place. It was the macabre setting where Jessie spent her most horrifying and cruel three days; and so grotesque that most people could not even contemplate it. It was flashback of rape and pain and dirt and terror. An ordeal that nearly killed her.

She started scratching her palms. It was easy to imagine Will standing there. And see all those men walking around with their guns. It was also easy to see Will, all alone, and getting caught. Hurt. Tied up. Disappearing from her life forever. Ruining her. Breaking her. Destroying her. He found her, healed her, put her back together, and even fixed her to almost
normal
; but now, with this one day, he could break her entire soul into a million pieces shattering to the ground, if she ever lost him.

Stupid. She was so damn stupid to let him go back. He would have stopped. She could have made him stop. She didn’t have to sacrifice him on her altar of pain. But she did. Did she want that? Is that why she let him go back there? Did she want revenge for herself? Would that make her feel better?

That was crazy. Revenge could never change what happened to her. How could she let the light of her life enter the dark and evil pit that so often swallowed her? He was never really part of it. How could she let him dive headfirst straight into it?

Was she really that selfish?

Maybe. The thought stopped her frantic pacing. Was she being selfish to want the men hurt? Or dead? She sent her husband after them. Her husband who witnessed it. And witnessed the ensuing years. How could she expect him to keep his cool? Or his control? What man or woman could? If anyone who hurt Will were at her mercy, she’d kill the bastard, wouldn’t she? How could she expect anything less of Will?

She was responsible for this. She set it up. She had to own that. His idea or not. He would not have gone there if she’d given him an ultimatum. He would not have gone if she said he’d lose her over it. He would have backed off, and perhaps, been annoyed and restless for a while, but he’d be home still and alive and safe.

He begged her to stay with Lindsey, and Jessie debated it. She even debated telling Lindsey exactly what Will was doing, but her sister was acting cagey of late. Jessie felt a new distance from her sister, and an estrangement that reminded her of how they used to be years ago. For that reason, she felt like she couldn’t go to Lindsey. Not about this.

Who then? What should she do today? Working was out. Playing with the dogs wasn’t enough. She finally called Bella.

“I’m having a bad day; can I hang with you?”

“Of course, you can. What do you want to do? See a movie?”

A movie. What a stupid thing to do. Her husband was sneaking into a drug compound with the undeclared intent of bringing down the operation single-handedly. Acid gurgled in her stomach and climbed up her throat. A movie. Could she sit through a movie? No. Yes. Did it matter what she did? As long as she did something besides cutting herself or any other crazy thing that would only make her day worse.

“Yes, but it has to be a simple, happy one.”

Bella laughed, “A simple, happy one it is. Want to go to lunch too?”

“Yes. I’m not hungry. But I don’t want to be sitting here.” Or pacing the carpet bare. Or scraping the skin off her arms, or running cold, icy showers that were nearly painful on her skin rather than simply slicing up her legs. They all seemed like the best ideas. But that was not what she spent the past five years trying to channel. She was no longer that girl, the one Will found in Mexico. And she’d be damned if this would send her back there.

“You okay? You want to talk about it?”

“Will’s doing something that could be dangerous. I can’t really say what it is. But I’m worried. No, terrified.”

They deliberately hadn’t told anyone that Will was off active duty yet, knowing his absence could more easily be explained away for military reasons.

Bella inhaled sharply. “Oh my God. Jessie. I’m sorry.”

“Too much information?”

“No. Glad you explained you weren’t just having PMS.”

“No. More than PMS. Hey, Bella?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for being the friend I can call.”

“Jessie, are you all right?” Bella’s tone changed, becoming lower and deeper.

“Yes,” she said automatically. Then she shook her head, sliding to the floor before tears welled in her eyes and streamed down. She sniffed and snot filled her nose. “No. I’m not, Bella. I really want to do bad things to myself.”

There! That would surely make Bella run the opposite way. To avoid crazy, sad, freak-show Jessie. She shut her eyes, and regretted admitting that to her.

“Did you?”

Jessie opened her eyes. “Did I what?”

“Cut yourself? Hurt yourself?”

“No. Not yet.”

Bella laughed a strange, strangled sound. “Not yet? God, Jess, what am I going to do with you? Not ever again. I’ll be right there.”

“Y-you’ll be right here?”

She sighed. “Jesus, hon, you really don’t get the whole friend thing, do you?”

“No. I really don’t. I thought you’d hang up on me and pretend not to know me when we passed in the driveway.”

“Jessie Hendricks! I really can’t believe how little you think of your friends. Start thinking better of me.”

Amazingly, a small, tight smile stretched over Jessie’s lips. How could she smile on the very day that Will could be killed in Mexico? “Okay. I’ll try.”

“I’ll be right over. Just gotta pee and brush my hair.”

She actually laughed at Bella’s “too much information,” and her casual way of interacting and coming over. She thought she was the best friend alive to come over and babysit her, just to keep her from cutting herself.

Will told her to wait a full day before she got worried. He intended to sneak in just like last time. He would observe the lay of things and then figure out his plan. She was not allowed to panic. He liked to move slowly and thoroughly, figuring all the possible elements out. She had to be patient. If he could, she could. So much easier said than done for her. She felt sure her skin had developed hives. It was only a few hours. She had to survive that.

****

“You should thank your lucky stars you didn’t ruin my wife despite how hard you tried to. She is the only reason you’re still alive.” The man’s eyes reflected his confusion. He didn’t have a clue who Will was, or why he was there. He would never know. But Will knew.