Tortured

  And again.

  My knees gave out, but my hands grabbed onto the footboard before I could fall to the floor. Bracing myself, I buttressed my body against the bed to remain standing. He wasn’t saying a word, he hadn’t glanced back once, but I still felt his silent need for me to be strong.

  This wasn’t just torture he’d endured. This was something else. This was experimentation on the human soul, an effort to push it to its threshold before exterminating it. This was murder. A murder of one’s humanity.

  He stood there, arms at his sides, head turned, shoulders raised, letting me stare at him. Letting me see him exposed and vulnerable. He didn’t once waver or start to turn away. He trusted me with his darkness.

  I knew I could trust him with mine.

  “I never wanted you to see this.” His voice was hollow, far away sounding. “I never wanted you to see me like this.” He took a breath, his head turning slightly back. “Does it change how you think of me? What you think of me?”

  I didn’t wipe the tears away—they were the only part of me that didn’t feel numb. “No.”

  “Does seeing this make me less of a person?”

  I wanted to look away from his back, but I couldn’t. “No.”

  “It won’t make you less of a person either. It won’t change the way I see you.” Brecken started to turn, his eyes finding me before the rest of him made it around. “Our scars prove we’re strong. They testify to what we can endure. It’s not weakness carved into them—it’s strength.”

  His chest wasn’t marked up quite as badly as his back, but it still looked more pieced together than part of a whole. He’d left me as a whole man, been broken into pieces, then sewn back together.

  “I’m sorry.” The words tumbled out, inadequate and messy.

  Brecken was still clutching his phone, waiting for me. “Let’s stop feeling sorry for ourselves and start making those who did this to us sorry. Let’s make them sorry for not just taking away six years, but a whole entire life we’d counted on. Let’s make him sorry for putting a hand on you. God knows I’m going to make him sorry for the first time he put his hand on you, to this last time.”

  My heart felt like it was beating between my ears as my hands moved to the belt of my bathrobe. My fingers wouldn’t work right as I tried to untie it, so Brecken moved toward me. His hands had no problem undoing the knot.

  Twisting around, I felt like I could have passed out from what I was feeling. Fear, shame, embarrassment, vulnerability.

  “It’s okay, Blue Bird.” His hand dropped to my wrist, his thumb caressing the inside of it. His voice was calming to my soul, his breath satin grazing my skin. “You’re still you. This is something that’s happened to you. This isn’t what defines you.”

  One arm at a time, I slid out of the robe, still clinging to it so it covered me. I didn’t want to let go. I felt like I couldn’t.

  “You’re safe,” he promised.

  All at once, the bathrobe fell to the floor, collecting at my feet. The first thing I noticed was how quiet it was. He wasn’t breathing. But neither was I. When I heard him finally take a breath, it was a choking kind, like he’d been drowning and just taken his first breath at the surface.

  “Are you okay?” My head turned over my shoulder to find him staring at me in much the same way I’d just appraised him. Horror in his eyes, anger in his jaw, sadness tying it all together.

  “No.” His head shook as he lifted his phone.

  He didn’t add anything else, and I didn’t know what else to say. Of course he wasn’t okay. I wasn’t okay with what I’d seen either. But we were still standing, fighting, and that counted for something.

  “Turn around,” he asked a minute later, his voice unrecognizable.

  Lifting my arms so I could cover my chest, I stepped around to face him. I was naked, and he was bare from his waist up. We were in a small bedroom alone, late at night, and had once upon a time been lovers, though we still harbored feelings for each other to some degree. There was nothing heated or sexual about this moment though. He was only focused on getting the right pictures, his brow drawn into a hard line as he studied each bruise and mark, while I focused on being the kind of brave person he was convinced I was. Pretending to be strong was infinitely better than accepting I was weak. He took a few more pictures, trying not to show any emotion as he went from one spot to the next.

  “I think I’ve got everything.” He rose from where he’d been crouched beside my leg, taking pictures of the bruising and swelling from the fall. Grabbing the robe, he stood and held it out for me to slide back into.

  He was trying so hard not to show his emotions. He was trying not to show how close he was to driving his fist through the wall and letting out all of that pent-out anger with a bellow that would know no end.

  I’d seen his scars. And now he’d seen mine. I wasn’t ready to cover them back up again.

  My arms found their way around him as I pressed myself against him. His arms slipped around me instantly, dragging me closer. So close, I could feel his heart’s steady rhythm against my chest. We stayed like that for so long, I started to feel sleepy, like I could fall asleep standing in his arms. His chest felt so strong against mine, even though it had shrunk from the last time I’d felt it bare against mine. His arms felt unbreakable, even though they’d been broken several times. He felt invincible, and maybe he was, but I was made of lesser things.

  “I know I need to let go, but I’m not sure I know how.” My hands were stuck in place around him, my arms welded to his flesh.

  His head angled down at me. “You don’t have to.”

  “Maybe not right now, but eventually, soon, we’ll both have to let go.”

  His mouth dropped to my ear. “We could run away. All three of us. Out of the country. He could never find us.”

  The idea of running away with Keenan and Brecken was like the sum total of every dream and fantasy I’d dared to conceive of. A life of peace. A life of love. A life where my son could grow up without a dark shadow drawing him in. But it was just that. A dream. A fantasy.

  “That’s not the way I want to show my son to deal with a problem,” I whispered, finally finding the strength to let go. “Running away. Letting fear rule your life. Keenan deserves a better life than that.”

  “A better life than escaping his piece-of-shit father who can do this to his mother?” Brecken waved his arms at me as I stepped away from him.

  “I can protect him from Crew. I can keep him from finding out.”

  “Look at yourself, Camryn.” He motioned at me again, his face giving away exactly what he was seeing. “How much longer do you really think you can hide this from him?”

  Yanking the robe from his hand, I threw it on and moved around the bed, trying not to show any signs of pain. “I’m tired, Brecken. Enough for one night. We can argue about this again tomorrow, but no more today.”

  “Looking forward to picking up where we left off tomorrow then.” He followed me around the bed, rolling the blankets down for me.

  “What are you going to do?” I crawled into the bed and let him pull the covers over me.

  “I’m going to stay right here, keep watch.”

  “You didn’t get any sleep last night. You need to rest.” I yawned, wondering what time it was. I’d lost track hours ago. I lost track of lots of things when Brecken was around.

  “There was a time they kept me awake for ten days straight. Tied up to a metal chair, stuck in a cold room.” He pulled the armchair out of the corner, scooting it to the edge of my bed. “This is the lap of luxury by comparison.”

  As he moved around the room, turning off the lights, I scooted over in bed to make room. When he headed back to the chair, I pressed my hand into the empty spot beside me. “Get some rest. Please. He’s not coming back tonight. We’ve got this night and twenty-six more. I feel safe with you, whether you’re awake or asleep. “

  He stared at the empty space, his forehead creasing. “I??
?m not sure it’s a good idea.”

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea either,” I said, looking at him. “But it feels right.”

  He stood there for another moment before crawling onto the bed and sliding his legs beneath the covers when I opened them. The air in the room changed suddenly. It went from calm to restless, the way the air felt before a storm rolled in. I felt hyper focused on him—every breath, every move he made that shifted the mattress. My body felt tuned to his, waiting for him to play the first note.

  His heavy arm draped around my waist right before the rest of him scooted up behind me, molding to the bends of my body. His head settled beside mine, his chest spanning my back, his legs tucked behind mine. His breath was warm against the back of my neck, familiar in a way that had my body responding the way it had before when he’d crawled into bed beside me and touched me.

  “Brecken?” I whispered, my voice sounding off.

  He made a sleepy sound of recognition, his arm winding tighter around me.

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

  His leg slid between mine, tangling around one. Then his head turned just enough that his lips touched, not just his breath, the back of my neck. My skin prickled, my chest moving so hard I felt certain my heart was about to break free.

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea either. But it feels right.”

  “Brecken,” I whispered as quietly as I could, checking the time on the clock again. It wasn’t even six thirty, but I wanted to have plenty of time to get out of the bed Brecken was in so my son wouldn’t find me tangled up with him. Clothed or not, he was sure to have questions.

  He was sleeping hard apparently, because he didn’t even budge when I whispered his name again. When I went to try to pull his arm off of me, however, he snapped awake.

  He squinted at the clock before dropping his head back on the pillow. “It’s not even six thirty. Sleep.”

  Winding his arm around me, he pulled me back against him, settling the bend of my body into the bend of his. That was when I felt something strange. Or maybe not strange, but inappropriate.

  “Brecken,” I hissed, prying at his forearm like I could actually budge him.

  “What?” he said drowsily.

  “You’re having morning … issues.” I tried to ignore the feel of him hard against my backside, but it would have been easier to ignore the sun blasting two inches in front of my face.

  He was silent for a moment, then a grunt of realization came from him. “That’s not a morning issue.” He adjusted himself so his lap wasn’t pressed against me. “That’s a Camryn issue. There’s a difference.”

  “Yeah, but it’s the morning.”

  “And I’ve woken up the past six years of mornings without this”—he cleared his throat to fill in the rest—“issue.”

  My cheeks felt hot from talking about what we were. My body felt hot from feeling what it just had. Both of us coming off the night we had, the scars we’d born to one another … it seemed like the very definition of the wrong time to be having these kinds of feelings.

  But right or wrong, there they were.

  “Sorry,” he said, shifting around in bed to grab a pillow. He stuffed it between us. “There. Taken care of.”

  “Sorry it happened?”

  “Sorry it made you uncomfortable.” He adjusted the pillow a little lower before reattaching his arm around me. “Not sorry I feel that way about you.”

  My head tipped back to find him already looking at me, like he was waiting. “You feel that way about me,” I repeated, raising an eyebrow. “As in you want to have sex? You’re not sorry for that?”

  “I’m not sorry I still want to love you. In every way I can.” His voice was clear now, the sleep gone from his eyes too. “I haven’t been with a woman in more than half a decade. The last woman I was with is the one beside me in bed right now. I can control my hands, I can control my mouth, I can control most of my body, but I can’t control that, and I can’t control my thoughts.”

  “Well, there’s a pillow to solve the problem of one issue you can’t control.” I found myself smiling back at him, despite the awkwardness and the tragedy of our whole situation. He was smiling back. “There’s got to be something to solve the ‘not being able to control your thoughts’ issue.”

  “There is,” he stated, leaning his head farther over mine. Then he drilled his finger into his temple. “It’s called a lobotomy. I’d rather not. Thanks anyways.”

  I turned my head to muffle my laugh. My body still ached this morning, but it felt like a paper cut by comparison. There, noticeable, stinging, but not like the open, pulsing wound of yesterday. “Hungry?”

  This time when I moved to leave, he let me go. He was fighting his initial instinct, I could feel that from the twitch in his arm, but he wouldn’t hold me by force. In play or otherwise, I guessed he’d never hold me against my will after what I’d revealed to him last night.

  “I have six years of eating actual human food to make up for. I’m always hungry.”

  When he started to crawl out of bed, I motioned at him to stay. “I’ll make something. Not a lot of places do delivery of eggs and bacon.”

  He gave me his best scowl, which crumbled a moment later. “Just five more minutes. Then I’ll be down.” His head crashed back into the pillow as he rolled onto his back. The blankets and sheet were twisted and tangled, like we’d been doing something other than sleeping last night. “We’ve got a big day.”

  I paused outside the door, checking to make sure Keenan’s bedroom door was still shut. “We do?”

  “I’ve got my first interview later this afternoon.”

  “Where?”

  “Here. In town. The journalists thought it would add some ‘personal flavor’ to the interview to have it filmed walking down the sidewalks I grew up on.” He gave me a look that suggested he thought otherwise. “Tomorrow I’m meeting with some magazine writer who is flying in to talk to me about the other members of my crew that were captured with me. The day after, some editor from a publishing house who’s interested in writing my story. The day after that, I don’t remember the few others I set up.”

  Leaning into the doorway, I searched for the right way to phrase what I was thinking. “Are you sure you’re ready? To talk about all of that? To have people ask hard questions, to have them publish your answers for the world to hear?”

  I hadn’t been through anything like he had and couldn’t conceive of talking with a stranger about my abuse, let alone having it out there for anyone I’d ever met in life to know about. Brecken was brave, I knew that, but I wondered if this was the blind kind. The variety that would come back to haunt him.

  Brecken sat up on his elbows in bed. “I’m ready.” He held my stare, unblinking, challenging me to challenge him.

  “Five minutes.” I lifted my hand, five fingers spread. “Bacon or sausage?”

  “Like you even need to ask.” His voice was back to normal as he fell back into bed.

  “Bacon it is. Extra crispy,” I added just before he got it out.

  “Hey, Camryn? His voice stopped me. “I booked a cabin by Upper Klamath Lake for you and Keenan.”

  My feet carried me backward until I was looking back inside the room. “What?”

  “Until the interviews are over, I booked a cabin for you guys to stay in.”

  My mouth turned down. “Why?”

  “I’ll be busy almost all day. I won’t be around in case he comes back.” He sat up in bed again, swinging his legs out over the side of the bed. He still didn’t have his shirt on, and I couldn’t seem to forget the way his warm chest had felt pressed against mine last night when I’d stepped into his arms. “I want you guys away from here. Somewhere he won’t be able to find you.”

  “He’s not coming back.”

  “You could have his statement written in blood, death being the penalty for breaking it, and I still wouldn’t wager your and Keenan’s safety on it.” He scrubbed his face
when I sighed. “Just, please. Do this? For me? There’s no way I’m going to be able to do those interviews if all I’m thinking about is him walking back through that door when I’m not here to protect you.”

  “You don’t need to protect me. It’s not your job to keep me safe.”

  “Then whose job is it? Your husband’s?” He huffed, shaking his head.

  The other kind of heat washed into my blood. “Mine. It’s my job.”

  “You haven’t been protecting yourself, Camryn. You’ve been protecting him. Your son.” Brecken motioned down the hall, rising to his feet. “And no one, including me, can fault you for it, but you need someone to look after you while you’re looking after your son. That’s me. That’s my job because I’m making it mine and it was mine to begin with. I don’t care that you married him or that you have his last name. You’re mine. To love. To honor. And to fucking protect.”

  He stayed where he was, and somehow I found the strength to stay where I was, even when every cell in my body was being pulled toward every cell in his. My feet stayed in place while the rest of my body gravitated toward him.

  “Please, Camryn. Please do this. It’s only a couple hours away. Keenan will love it. Fishing, swimming, hiking, whatever. It’s only for a few days.”

  My shoulders slumped, admitting defeat. “Do these cabins have running water?”

  His body visibly relaxed. “Running water. A private bathroom. Even comes equipped with a roof.” Picking up his shirt, which was still on the floor, he pulled it on. Together, in the privacy of this room, we could share our deepest scars with one another, but when confronting the world, a shield was needed.

  He took my hand, closing the door behind us. When we came to the stairs, he angled himself ever so slightly in front of me. So if I fell, he’d be there to stop me.

  “Mom! Come swimming! Puh-leeeeease!” Keenan bellowed from the knee-high water he was doggie-paddling around in.