The Years Between (20 page)

He took the man’s wrist and snapped it.
The hand that had touched Jessie and caused her so much agony… and so many nightmares. The man screamed in pain, holding his ruined hand against his chest as his body twisted in pain. As he bent down to support his injured hand, Will took his steel-toed boot and kicked his forehead squarely. The ensuing scream was loud and high-pitched.

Will grinned and reached forward, drawing the man’s head back so he was right in his face. The fear was bright and glossy in the man’s eyes. “You’re a fucking pussy, aren’t you? Tying up young girls to torture them is easy, huh? But taking a beating from a man is too much?” Will added softly, “You shouldn’t have hurt my wife. That was a big mistake. A very big mistake.”

The man squealed again as Will kneed him right in the spot where he kicked him. He remembered his promise to Jessie not to kill any of them in cold blood. She never said anything about hurting them though. He lost track of time until his fists started to burn. His knuckles were bloody from the man’s face, and his own skin was broken from the repeated contact. Flesh smacked, bones crushed. Will seemed feral, almost crazy as he pulled a knife from his boot. The man’s hand between Jessie’s legs flashed in his mind. Her helpless screams replaced those of the man.

He was losing it fast, and he half realized it. He was almost completely out of control: seeing Jessie, and hearing Jessie. Watching her cry and suffer and abusing herself. Him. Them. He saw his broken, raped wife, and lost his fucking mind in the flashbacks. He way overestimated his ability to stay clinical.

He held the knife to the man’s throat and saw the tears streaming down the man’s bloody face. He pricked his skin with the tip of his knife. Will’s breathing became sharp and shallow, and his heart felt like it was going to explode from adrenaline. He could finally kill the filth that hurt and tortured Jessie.

“Don’t forget, you promised me.
”

He leaned the man’s head back, still holding the knife to his throat before stopping and trying to catch his breath. Jessie’s voice filtered through the manic high he was experiencing by beating the man who raped, tied up, tortured and abused his wife. He heard her words through it all.

He promised her. But she’d never know. He could kill them all and no one, Jessie included, would ever know.

He pushed a millimeter in and the man screamed. His throat vibrated on the knife.

Sweat broke out over Will’s forehead.
Fuck! Shit! Damn!
It would only have taken a tiny amount of more pressure. Blood trickled down his neck, beading into the man’s collar. He whimpered. Will closed his eyes and finally, albeit slowly, lifted his hand off the man. He suddenly hurled the man back so his head smashed into the wall. He would not risk breaking them. He would not betray Jessie. He knew if he did, it would hurt her as much as what these pigs did to her. He came here to find justice for her, not destroy their relationship. He smashed his foot straight down onto his prisoner, hoping he broke his leg. The prisoner howled and cried even harder. Harder than Jessie ever did. His heart swelled with pride. She was tougher, stronger, and better than any of these weak, sadistic fucks.

He stood up and snapped three pictures of the tied-up prisoner before quickly searching the office. There wasn’t much in it. Luckily, he visited downstairs and found some things to add to the pile of shit in there.

Then, he simply walked out.

As he passed the main part of the warehouse, he lit a match and threw it on one of the boxes containing pounds of powdered, fine drugs. It smoldered, caught fire, and the small flame started to lick the package. He lit three more and, satisfied they would burn, walked out the door. He clicked the button on the explosives he already set. Jessie never said he couldn’t blow the fucking place up, along with everything in it, now did she? Of course, she didn’t really know how
skilled he was with explosives. It was more of a hobby, and not really his job, per se.

He never thought it would come in as handy as it did now.

He threw his backpack off and stuffed his outer clothes into it until he was in nondescript clothes. He could hear the frantic voices inside. Authorities would most likely respond to the fire and find the men he tied up and left just outside the pig’s office, with the evidence of their crimes stacked around them. That stuff was in the fireproof safe, which he left cracked open for easy access. If the pigs died, at least, he tried; if not, they’d surely be caught. He destroyed their merchandise as well as the cash they stored below the complex, not a hundred feet from the cell where they kept Jessie.

At least, he tried. Short of killing them with his own hands, it was all he could do.

Besides, he beat up their leader pretty bad, enough that he might not fully recover from his wounds. That thought made Will whistle as he casually walked the street, now wearing jeans and a t-shirt, with a baseball cap and sunglasses, the backpack strung over his shoulder. He looked as casual and nonchalant as half the pedestrians strolling around him.

“It’s done,” Will said the moment he heard Jessie’s soft, feeble, and almost trembling voice
on the phone.

“Will? You’re okay?”

He heard her rustling around.

“I’m fine. Great. I’m really, really great, baby. Please, take a breath. It’s all over. Everything. I’m coming home.”

She let out a strangled cry over the phone. “You can’t imagine…”

“I can.” He gripped the phone tightly in his palm. “I really can. I’ll be home tomorrow. I called you the minute I got into the motel room. I swear, I’ll be home.”

“D-did you keep your promise?”

He heard the stark terror and breathy pause in her tone. His shoulders dropped.
Holy fuck!
He was glad he could tell her the truth. “I did, sweetheart,” he said gently, his tone soothing. “I did.”

“You didn’t—”

“I’ll tell you precisely what I did when I get home. Just not over the phone, okay?”

She let out a breath. “Honest?”

“I have pictures to prove it.”

Pause. “Make sure they don’t get lost or confiscated.”

He snorted. “Give me more credit than that.”

“You can’t imagine what I’ve gone through the last eight hours.”

He rubbed his neck, and regret was thick in his tone. “I can, actually. I knew when I hung up what this day would be like for you. I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I caused you any grief. I’m sorry I’m not there to hold you now. But tomorrow, and from then forward, I will be.”

She was silent. “You really stopped them?”

“I really did,” he said gently. He pictured her wilting, and sliding to the floor. He could see her fingernails digging into the soft, pale skin of her wrist or palm, or picking sharply at her cuticles. He hoped it wouldn’t result in blood trickling down her body. “I’ll be there tomorrow. Will you be okay until then? Go to Bella and Finn’s. Please, baby. Do that for me. Let me have that peace of mind.”

She laughed softly. “
You
deserve peace? Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?”

He closed his eyes and sat down on the bed, glancing around, her voice still fresh in his head. It looked so much like the motel room he took her to. He could picture her sitting before him. Shell-shocked. So freaking in shock she didn’t know what to do. She was dirty and smelled bad and had scabby, dry skin and dried blood still caked on her. Big, sad, haunted brown eyes begged him to explain what the fuck she was supposed to do with her life, or whatever you called what she was left with. He did not know. He had no clue of what to say to her back then. He was not in love with her then.

Not like he was now. “Yes. I do.” His tone sounded nearly strangled.

She sighed into the phone. “I know you do. Okay, I’ll go there. I was with her all day. She knows I’m wigged out, to say the least.”

“I’m coming home, Jess. I mean it.”

She didn’t answer for a long while. “And then we get it all?”

He finally felt a smile tugging one side of his mouth up. He flopped back on the bed. Blood still smeared his knuckles and he needed to shower. “We get it all.”

She let out a shuddered breath. “Okay, soldier. Tomorrow. You’d better fucking be here,” she grumbled.

He grinned fully. “I’ll fucking be there. I love you, baby. You know that, right?”

“If you think I ever doubted it, I think you just about proved it. I mean the vigilante justice? A little more than I needed to be convinced.”

His heart lifted. She was sarcastic. Tongue-lashing him, and not in the fun way. She was okay. Jessie was still in her head. Present. And coping. Not crazy. Not cutting.

****

He wasn’t fully honest with Jessie. He lied… but by omission. He had another phase to his plans, but it didn’t include anything dangerous on his end. Just things designed to humiliate and maybe even ruin the men her father more or less sold her to. He had the list. Five names. Five men. Five fucks who abused a sixteen-year-old girl before she was ready to even date. He didn’t forget about them. No, they weren’t as graphic, or as violent perhaps, but they did just as much damage to Jessie as Mexico did. And no way did he forget about them.

A long time ago, he threatened one of the senators with a photo he didn’t actually possess with no intent to ever pursue it. But the longer he stewed about it, the more it seemed that it wasn’t really fair to punish one rapist and not another. He
decided his original bluff to the senator was actually a really good idea.

Mexico’s mission
relied on anonymity. Lord willing, no one would ever know he returned. That provided the cover he needed back home. A Mexican warehouse fire, although suspicious in nature, with drug dealers tied up like sausages wasn’t the kind of breaking news that was likely to ever reach North Carolina.

The general’s friends were all prominent men. Two senators. A former general. A governor. And a former vice president. Jesus, the sheer un-believability of who hurt Jessie was a little overwhelming. Was it any wonder then why sixteen- seventeen- and eighteen-year-old Jessie never told anyone?

The men were all her father’s age. Two were in their sixties, one in his seventies and the others in their late fifties. Ten years ago, however, they were all a little younger, a little more powerful and little more influential.

Will had money to work with now so he used the general’s funds to start a discreet probe into all of the men. He hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on each one. It took nearly six months, but he had his evidence.

He hoped Jessie wouldn’t be mad at him, rationalizing that the end justifies the means and all that. But he wasn’t sure how far that would fly. He had to believe it would please her, since there was no death involved. No danger. No backlash to them. Finally, they had to pay the price where none did before.

The funny thing was: the fucks were so similar, he only had to tweak the plan a little to fit each of them. All were married for thirty-plus years. All with kids. All with prestigious jobs, or retired from high-ranking positions, and all valued their reputations, which was, perhaps, his biggest and best weapon.

He had enough dirt on all the bastards to take them down, and hoped, when he told Jessie, she’d let him. He intended to allow her to make this decision. She let him tie up the loose ends in Mexico, and he hoped she wanted to do the next phase.

****

He sat next to a mother on the plane who was holding a toddler on her lap. The boy kept staring at him and suddenly smiling as he gummed his fingers. Will glanced around, unsure if he was whom the boy was so enthralled with. He smiled, feeling awkward. How should he have responded to the strangely focused attention the toddler was giving him? The child gurgled and squealed, and his mother shushed the kid while handing him a brightly colored toy. The kid threw it across the aisle with another squeal while his mom sighed.

Will couldn’t help chuckling. The woman glanced at him with a weary smile. “Sorry; it’s harder than I thought to travel with a child.”

Will shook his head. “No problem. He’s cute. How old?”

Why would he ask that? He never asked any mother before how old her kid was. He was sure he never even noticed any toddlers before, let alone, commented on how cute they were. Weird. Mexico
unsettled him and he really couldn’t wait to get home. Soon. Just hours. He was literally almost jumping from his seat with anxiety.

“He’s eighteen months. He’s our first child. The airline said it was no big deal to hold your kid and not have to pay for another airline ticket. They didn’t tell me how hard that would be. You have any kids?”

He paused. No one ever asked him that. He almost looked over his shoulder. He seemed like someone who could have been a dad? A father? His breath became uneven and heavy.

“No. My wife and I want to wait a few years.”

He still got a strange thrill when he said his
wife
. Father? No. Wow. That was beyond contemplation.

“Well, don’t let anyone convince you they just go to sleep from the motion of the airplane and you don’t need another seat. Or sleeping pills.”

He frowned at the sarcastic statement. The woman laughed softly.

“Oh my, you don’t have children. I was kidding around. About the sleeping pills. For me. Not him.”

Will’s face loosened up. “Okay, sorry. I’m a little serious. I just…”
took down some drug traffickers that raped my wife…
Although that was too inappropriate for the conversation, he felt jumpy and full of adrenaline.

She smiled softly. “I shouldn’t have kidded about that. But thank you for worrying so quickly about my boy. Good sign. You’ll make a good dad.”

She turned and started talking to the baby who was now grabbing her hair.

Will turned back toward the window. Good dad? Him? He could not picture that. He knew nothing about good dads. He never knew his own. There was never any man in his mom’s life that he considered a male role model. Tony’s dad, Lewis, was pretty cool. Quiet and calm, he seemed pretty awesome to Tony and him. But that was Tony’s dad, not his. He didn’t know the first thing about parenting. Or kids. Much less, flying with them or not. The anxiety climbed up his throat. What were the chances Jessie could ever face having a child again? Her own experience was so traumatic, how could she ever do it again?

She still didn’t like to talk about the pregnancy or the baby who was conceived through rape and torture. She told Will explicitly in the letters she was writing. He wasn’t with her, but Lindsey was. She gave birth without complications. Probably the only thing in Jessie’s life that didn’t have complications. She was only twenty-one years old, but lived a whole lifetime before they met. She suffered enough for a lifetime. How could he ever expect her to think about having another baby?

She gave the girl up for adoption. She didn’t think she could love her.
Or if she did; she’d end up ruining her. Will asked her once if she ever thought about the baby and Jessie mutely nodded her head. Yes. She thought about her. She thought about everything. She just didn’t want to talk about it. She talked about everything else. There was no solution for that. Nothing new to say. It was what it was. She let it be.

Will wondered how he could even approach having a conversation regarding kids. Sure, she said so in abstract ways, but in reality, was that in the cards for them? They were always living barely one step out of Mexico and the Army. It was hard to imagine being completely free or conceiving kids. Family. Home.

His breath exhaled.
Shit.
All the things they talked of, and dreamed of were now… possible. His throat felt tight, like hands were squeezing his vocal chords. How could they be normal? It was impossible to imagine. Even the two of them together was hard to imagine. He glanced again at the baby boy who smiled at Will when he noticed him. Will couldn’t help the wide grin that split his face. Okay, the kid was cute. There was something to be said for that.

****

For the first time, Jessie was waiting for Will at the airport. She never did that before. Or since. Previously, she refused to step one foot onto Fort Bragg. She preferred to remain separate from Will’s Army life. She had to be. It was the only way she could live through it.

But today, she was at the luggage carousel, waiting for him. Her heart was lodged in her throat, and her stomach felt jumpy and shaky with excitement. She could not eat. She was so excited, nervous, and almost combusting to see Will, and she didn’t really know why. It felt like longer than a few days. It felt like a lifetime had passed since he left her. She paced while waiting beside the baggage claim. It was late at night, and fairly quiet. Her stomach was in knots.

Reversing from a long walk down one way, she started the other direction when Will’s plane finally landed. The blinking lights over the carousel announced its arrival. Her stomach froze and knotted some more. This was good. Will was home. They were done. Time to start over. For real. Forever. Yeah, no pressure there.

She sighed. It was so different than when she was twenty years old, and arriving at this very airport. Not alone, but accompanied by Will. Will the soldier. He was kind and solicitous, but also formal, keeping a wall firmly between them. She eventually smashed though it with a sledge hammer. But in her defense, she didn’t mean to. She wasn’t completely
sane enough to know she was doing it.

She was now twenty-five years old and worked full time. She had a house, pets and a husband, who she had no doubt loved her. She went months without hurting herself or having any kind of extreme emotional meltdown. She was a good person now, unlike before. She was not that girl.

But at the airport, waiting for Will, she kind of felt like the old Jessie again.

Then… she saw him. He was walking down a flight of stairs with the people who had obviously disembarked with him. Her heart stopped and she put her hand to her chest to make sure it started pumping again. He meant so much to her. Too much. He stood out, strong, young and handsome among the crowd of normal, ordinary, average people. He was and always had been extraordinary to her. He was so handsome, she could imagine a halo shining over his blond hair and chiseled, perfect face. She noticed his big muscles and thought of his bigger heart. He was everything she needed. He was the only person who ever fully loved and accepted her. And she knew that right down to her broken core. He was responsible for her stability and making her normal. She would have been broken if not for Will. So seeing him walking down the stairs, alive and well, completely at ease… made her breath catch and her heart hurt. He had to quit doing that to her. She couldn’t take the stress anymore of Will being in danger. She’d surely die if he did, and that was her truth.