“Did you take your medication today?” Kat asks softly, grabbing her purse from the side table by the front door when we hear Daniel’s car pull into the drive.
“We got your uppers, we got your downers, we got your Xanax and your Prozac, your Lipitor for high cholesterol from the shit they made us eat, when they remembered to feed us, and every antibiotic known to man to make sure we didn’t bring any funk home,” Rylan rattles, ticking off the long list of medicines we both came home with. “We’re covered, sis.”
I snort and Kat sighs.
“We won’t be gone long. Just dinner with one of Daniel’s clients,” she tells me.
Her husband, Daniel, is surprisingly a really nice guy, considering he’s an investment banker with slicked-back hair and his closet doesn’t have one pair of jeans or cowboy boots in it. I know, because I checked when Kat told me I could borrow anything I wanted from him until she could go to the store and pick some things up for me. I turned down her offer and spent fifteen minutes fighting with her about how I could damn well go to the store and buy myself a pair of jeans and a few T-shirts. And then I spent an hour sitting in the driveway, keys in the ignition of Kat’s SUV that she let me borrow, with shaking hands, sweaty palms, and an undeniable urge to throw up all over the front seat at the idea of driving a car down a busy highway and then attempting to interact with a mall full of people, bumping into me, asking if they could help me, and filling my head with too much noise.
After I threw up in the driveway, I stormed back into the house, threw the keys on the kitchen table, and told Kat I’d make her a list. She gave me that same pitiful, sympathetic smile she always gives me and never batted an eye at my request for peach-scented candles that I scribbled at the very bottom under boxer briefs.
I have been reduced to letting my sister buy my underwear. I thought I’d gone as low as I could get, but obviously I was wrong. Not only did she go out and buy shit for me, she did it using her own money, which pisses me off even more. Every time I even mention the idea of getting a job, she tells me to take it easy and that we can talk about all that once I’ve had time to adjust. It’s demoralizing needing your baby sister to fulfill all your basic needs.
Kat gives me a smile and a small wave, heading out the door to her husband. I breathe a sigh of relief when the door closes behind her.
“She’s too easy to tease. It’s almost not even fun at this point,” Rylan complains, grabbing the remote from the coffee table in front of us and aiming it at the television.
“When are you going to shave that shit off your face and cut your hair?” I ask, taking in his full beard and the mess of hair he piled on top of his head with one of my sister’s hair ties.
It didn’t take long, with the assistance of hospitals and round-the-clock care and IVs full of nutrients, for both of us to gain back a lot of the weight we’d lost over the years. Once our major injuries like broken bones and cracked ribs were healed and we were given the okay, we immediately hit the gym to start building muscle mass. We were nowhere near the tip-top shape we were in after our year of deployment, right before we were captured, but at least we no longer looked like prisoners of war, half-starved and wilting away to nothing, like we did when they first found us.
“I don’t know, I’ve kind of gotten used to it,” he muses, scratching the hair on his cheeks before pointing to the disaster on his head. “The hair is definitely staying. What you see here is called a man bun. I guess it’s all the rage with the ladies now, according to Google.”
I laugh, shaking my head at him. It feels good to laugh, even though I can’t joke as easily as he can about what we endured. That’s how Rylan is, though. That’s how he’s always been. He doesn’t dwell on the past, no matter how bad it was. It doesn’t make a difference that we were used as human punching bags every day for five years, it doesn’t matter that we never thought we’d come home again, and it doesn’t matter that we were seconds away from dying and had made peace with it and were ready for it to be over. We didn’t die, and that’s all that matters to him now. He’s the only reason I’ve been able to wake up every morning and keep moving forward, keep building myself up for the only goal I’ve had my mind on since we were pulled out of our prison.
“So, how long are you going to pussyfoot around before you go find her?” Rylan asks casually, flipping quickly through the channels. “Or are you still thinking about taking down her mother first?”
I’ve had plenty of sleepless nights in the last few months to think about what I should do. Plenty of hours of lying awake after a nightmare, wondering if what I heard in the moments before we were rescued was real.
“You heard it, too, I know you did,” I mutter quietly.
Rylan switches off the television and turns to face me on the couch.
“We were both out of it, man. Shit was exploding, men were screaming, and the goddamn building was falling down around us when the cavalry charged in. Who knows what the fuck we heard?”
I look away from him and stare at the wall across the room, filled with pictures of Kat and Daniel from when they were dating, on their wedding day, on their honeymoon, and on the day Lilly Elijah was born. I wonder if all of this will ever stop feeling bittersweet. I’m proud of my sister and happy for her that she’s created such a great life for herself, but it kills me I missed out on all of it, and it makes me feel like shit that I’m jealous of her life and her beautiful little family. It’s a reminder of all the things I don’t have. I also wonder if Lilly Elijah will want to change her name when she’s older, when my sister tells her the story of how she was named after her dead uncle, who turned out not to be dead at all.
These are the sick and twisted thoughts that float through my mind on a daily basis. These are the things bumping around in my twisted brain that have kept my ass on this couch for two weeks instead of looking up Shelby’s name on the Internet and finding out where she is now. These thoughts and the memory of what I heard that last day in Afghanistan.
“Why in the hell, when the shit was hitting the fan, would those fucks say what they did?” I ask quietly, remembering the words as clearly as if I’d just heard them yesterday.
“Kill him. Now! The money will stop if we don’t do as we were ordered.”
I continue staring at the photos of all the things I missed, knowing there could only be one person responsible for making me miss them.
“Maybe they were just hangry and didn’t know what they were saying. That’s another new word I learned from Google,” Rylan smiles, attempting to make a joke.
“She got our unit bumped up for deployment long before it was our turn,” I remind him. “She pulled some strings and got down on her knees for whatever politician she had in her back pocket just to get me away from her daughter and uncover the truth about my parents. Don’t you think it’s a little coincidental that on the day we’re rescued, they say shit like that?”
I’ll never forget those final moments for the rest of my life. Closing my eyes, knowing our time was up and ready to feel the sharp sting of a bullet in the middle of my forehead before I finally felt nothing at all. No one will ever understand what it’s like, knowing you’re about to die and coming to terms with it. Mentally saying good-bye to everyone you love, knowing you’ll never see them again, and forcing yourself not to be afraid and be okay with letting go. I remember the walls shaking against my back, I remember the gunshots rat-a-tat-tatting all around us, and I remember our captors, standing right in front of us, their eyes finally filled with fear while in between their rapid shouting at each other in their language, those words were spit out, clear as day.
The money will stop if we don’t do as we were ordered.
The money will stop if we don’t do as we were ordered.
The money will stop if we don’t do as we were ordered.
Georgia Eubanks is the only person I can think of with enough money and power to make something like that happen. The woman never gave a rat’s ass about her own da
ughter’s happiness. She only cared about the embarrassment it would bring if anyone found out her little girl had been having an affair with the stable boy. The same stable boy whose parents were killed in a drunk driving accident that might not have been an accident after all. It didn’t matter that I was a damn good Marine who’d received hundreds of recommendations and accolades while working part-time at the plantation to put my sister through college. It didn’t matter that I proudly served our country. Nothing mattered but her precious reputation in this town and not letting anything interfere with that. Her only daughter, refusing to date any of the filthy rich, pedigreed men she paraded in front of her, as well as putting her foot down about following in Georgia’s socialite footsteps, were interferences she wouldn’t tolerate. Having the poor, lowly stable boy her daughter had been sleeping with all summer put two and two together and confront her with it, and then find himself on a plane out of the country a few hours later, followed by all the shit that happened over the next six years, only to end with something like that on those asshole’s lips, wasn’t a coincidence.
I walked away when it came down to a choice between Shelby’s future and my own, my sister’s security over mine, and it’s a choice I would make a hundred times over again for both of them, but especially for Shelby now that I know my sister found her own security by way of Daniel. Just knowing Shelby was happy and doing what she’d always dreamed and her mother would finally let her be to live her life was all I needed.
Maybe I should leave it alone. Maybe I should just find Shelby, get down on my knees, and beg her to love me again, but I know it’s not that simple and I know I’ll never be able to move on until I find out the truth, once and for all, about the night my parents died. It was one thing when it was just a year of deployment I agreed to. It’s a whole other thing to suspect the darling of Charleston of conspiring with the enemy to make sure I never stepped foot on U.S. soil again to protect her reputation and wrongdoings.
Pushing myself up from the couch, I head over to the small table in the foyer and grab the set of keys out of the bowl on top.
“Where you going, man?” Rylan asks, getting up from the couch and following me to the door.
“I need to get out of here, go for a drive and clear my head.”
I twist the ring of keys to Kat’s SUV in my hands nervously, thinking about the one place I want to be right now, but knowing it’s probably the worst idea in the world considering where it’s located.
“You’re going to the fucking stables, aren’t you?” Rylan asks with a shake of his head, reading my mind with just one look at me. “If Mrs. Eubanks sees you out there, she’ll have you arrested for trespassing. I still don’t know how the fuck we managed to get them beyond that traitor bullshit they tried to pin on us again and I don’t like how fast they switched their tune five minutes after we got to D.C. You walking onto her turf is the equivalent of poking a hibernating bear. One look at you and she’ll chew our heads off and make sure our asses fry.”
I chuckle, twisting the handle on the front door and pulling it open, a blast of heat from outside hitting me in the face.
“Like Georgia Eubanks would ever get her feet dirty by stepping foot out in those stables,” I tell him with a smile and a shake of my head. “I’m just going to pop in and pop out. See how the horses are and see if any of the same guys still work there.” Especially one man in particular, who I know had something to do with the anonymous police report I received just days before I was deployed.
And hopefully one of them know Shelby’s whereabouts so I don’t have to bang my head against the wall trying to find her.
I know I made the decision to walk away from her, and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. I’ve had nothing but time to think of her since I was rescued, and now that I’ve been given a second chance at life, I’m not going to fuck it up. I’ve spent the last three months getting my body and my mind stronger, with thoughts of Shelby and getting her back spurring me on through the pain of rehabilitation and the shock and fear of learning how to be a civilian again after so many years in captivity. I know I have a long way to go and I’m nowhere near back to normal, if that’s even possible at this point. But I’ve waited long enough. Shelby is the main reason I’m still here, alive and kicking, and it’s time she knows that. It’s time for me to take back what was always meant to be mine.
Chapter 5
Shelby
As I’m locking the door to the studio, I hear a soft, whispering voice echoing down the hall. Shoving the key into the pocket of my green and white striped drawstring pajama pants, I cross my arms across my chest to cover up the fact that I’m wearing a tank top and no bra. I came out here in the middle of the night in my pajamas specifically because I knew no one would be in the stables.
Coming to the end of the long, dimly lit hallway, I quickly round the corner with an irritated scowl on my face, my flip-flops smacking against the cement floor. I should probably just sneak back up to the house and attempt to fall asleep, but my curiosity has gotten the better of me, wondering which one of the workers is out here at such a late hour. Hopefully none of the mares are sick. I don’t need my mother catching wind of it from the property manager and ordering it to be put down without bothering to call the vet, just like the last time. She usually never bothers with the stables, the horses, or the barn staff, unless she feels like her control around this place is slipping and she needs to prove the point that she’s still in charge. With everything that’s happened in the last few months, I wouldn’t put it past her to do something stupid where the horses are concerned just to make herself feel powerful.
As soon as I turn the next corner into the main stable area, my body comes to an abrupt halt. My stomach drops down to my toes, my shaking arms fall limply to my sides, and my chest begins to ache like it’s made of glass and someone just took a sledgehammer to it. I would recognize him anywhere, even with all the time that has passed and what he must have gone through for all of those years in captivity. I feel like I’m standing in a dream, unable to believe what I’m seeing. The edges of my vision blur and I feel like if I lift my foot to try and walk, it will feel like I’m sinking in quicksand, unable to move, unable to get closer and reassure myself that I’m really awake and this isn’t a dream. How many times did I wish for a moment like this? One moment in time where he was standing right here in front of me, alive and breathing and smiling. Just a few seconds where I could look at his face, watch a dimple pop out of his cheek, and not have it disappear like a puff of smoke when I woke up.
“I missed you, Belle. My pretty girl…I missed you something awful. Have they been feeding you enough sugar cubes?”
The black Arabian snorts, butting her head against the forehead of the man in front of her, and he chuckles softly. The sound hits me like a bolt of lightning, making my scalp tingle and my heart beat double time. I squeeze my hands into fists as hard as I can, my fingernails digging into my palms, the pain reminding me this isn’t a dream. He’s really here, standing in front of me, smiling, talking, breathing…alive.
I stand here in complete silence, my legs refusing to move even though if they did, I don’t know if I’d want them to take me out of here as fast as possible, or race me toward the man speaking in hushed tones to the beautiful beast in front of him.
If I could find my voice, I’d tell him the animal he’s petting isn’t his beloved Belle, who died the year after he left. She died giving birth to the animal he’s currently showering with attention. It would break his heart to know that isn’t Belle, always his favorite among the thirty or so horses we own. He raised her and helped train her when she came to this plantation, a wild and unforgiving horse who wouldn’t let anyone near her until she heard his soft commands and felt his gentle touch.
My vision blurs with tears as I stand perfectly still, taking him in from the top of his short, spiky dark hair to the tips of his scuffed cowboy boots. The arm he holds up to pet the side of the horse’s neck fle
xes as he runs his hand down her flank, his bicep no longer large enough to snap a tree trunk in half, but with enough muscle definition that I can see it from where I stand, a hundred yards away. He’s not as skinny as he was that day I saw him on the news, but he’s also no longer the hulking beast of a man he was six years ago. He’s lean, with just enough muscle definition to fill out the shirt and worn, tattered pair of jeans encasing his long legs.
I stare at him through my tears, drinking in every inch of him, wondering if at any minute I’m going to wake up and this is all going to be a dream. Him being alive, and home, and within touching distance.
I want to call out his name and see if saying it out loud breaks the spell.
I want to run into his arms and see if I can feel them wrapped around me or if he’ll disappear as soon as I get to him, like a puff of smoke.
I want to turn and leave these stables, forget that I ever saw him and pretend like standing here right now isn’t breaking every piece of me apart all over again, knowing I can never have what I want.
His face turns slightly in my direction as the horse tries to head butt him again, and that’s when I see the scar that runs down his clean-shaven cheek from the corner of one eye to his jaw, which looks like it came from a knife. I choke back a sob and tightly press my hand to my mouth when I notice his nose is slightly crooked, most likely from being broken more than once. My eyes travel the length of his arm and I see an assortment of faded scratches and scars dotting his forearm as he continues to whisper and pet the horse in front of him.