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All I’m doing now is telling the story.
They can’t hurt me now.
I swallow hard. “I heard gunshots, and we knew they’d shot Mike. Max burst out of the truck and started firing. I saw him fall when they shot him. I dragged Lila into the corner, knelt in front of her, and pulled my gun. I knew they were coming for us. They climbed into the truck to get us, and I just – I started picking them off, one by one. They kept coming, like a swarm of ants, but I didn’t stop, and I didn’t miss. I dropped four of them where they stood and hit five more. Those five died before we got to where they kept us. I fired every bullet I had and was trying to free Lila’s gun when they got to me. I don’t remember anything else until I woke up in the cell.”
I’m not sure Tom’s even breathing, but I can’t bring myself to look at him after what I’ve just told him about calmly killing one man after another without so much as a drop of remorse.
“They were fascinated with Lila’s blond hair and violet eyes. They’d never seen a woman like her. They underestimated her because she’s beautiful, but she’s a badass. You know that saying, ‘It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog’? That’s Lila. The first man that tried to rape her bled to death in her cell. After that, they tied her down. Me, though…”
This is the part of the story I’ve dreaded most. I pause, swallowing against the growing lump in my throat. My heart slams against my ribs, and my eyes burn as I fight not to cry.
“They were furious with me – more than furious. They were enraged because I killed their men. It’s a massive dishonor to die at the hands of a woman, especially an American infidel. The men I killed were banned from entering paradise, according to their beliefs.” I drop my head and clench my jaw. Tom releases my hand and gently puts his arm around my shoulders, tucking me against him. I tense at first, but soon lean into him, hoping to draw strength from him.
Those fucking bastards. I’m glad they’re dead, every last one of them. I hope every single one of them rots in hell because of what they did to people trying to save the lives of wounded innocents.
My jaw is still tight, and my fists are clenched. I breathe slowly, deeply.
They can’t hurt me. I’m safe now.
All I’m doing is sharing information. Debriefing.
They can’t hurt me, not ever again.
I unfist my hands and lift the wrist closest to him, moving it into the glow of the porch light.
“They wrapped my wrists with barbed wire and hung me by my arms from a pipe in the ceiling. The wire cut all the way to my bones.” I move my stacked bracelets aside to expose the circumferential scars I keep covered. “They stripped me to humiliate me. They shredded my back and hips with a homemade whip of leather strips and razor wire. They had a metal brand with the words ‘stupid cunt whore’ in Arabic, and they branded me with it across my back.” I look down again. “They hit me. Kicked me. Broke my cheekbone and my nose, some ribs and my tailbone. I had internal bleeding.” I stop, staring blankly into the darkened sky. “They used a rusty boning knife on me. Mutilated my breasts and –” A strangled sound escapes me. I take another deep breath. “And internally. They made sure I can’t have children, though they’d never planned for me to survive. And they raped me, not just with their bodies, but with bottles and pipes and anything else they could find. I have more scars than I can count, Tom, and not just physically.”
I stop when I feel tears trickle down my face. When I move to dry them, Tom gently brushes them away with his thumb. I lean my head on his shoulder.
“Eleven days,” I say quietly. “They had us for eleven days and nights before Mark led the rescue team. If he and Tucker and the others hadn’t found us when they did, we wouldn’t have survived much longer, maybe a couple of days.” I hesitate. “For a long time, I wished I’d died there. The fear, the nightmares, the depression... It's a lot to deal with, and God knows, I’ve not done very well. I drank pretty heavily at first,” I admit, “but alcohol was only a temporary way to numb things, and when I sobered up, the pain was still there. I saw a psychiatrist, and she helped, but not as much as I’d hoped.”
When I continue, my voice is barely a whisper. “You know I have panic attacks. What you don’t know is that I also have night terrors, where I wake up screaming and fighting because I believe it’s happening all over again. I’ve woken up disoriented and shot holes in my walls because I believed they were attacking me again.
“I’m not telling you this to freak you out or push you away. I’m saying it because –” I falter momentarily. “Because I’m a train wreck, and you have a young, impressionable daughter. You deserve to know who I really am, so you can decide if you want Maya hanging out with someone who’s done the things I’ve done. And I’m telling you because even if you don’t see me the same way anymore, I wanted you to know the real me, the one I hide from almost everyone else.”
Tom sits quietly with me. I’m trembling under the thin blanket, but my chill has nothing to do with the temperature. Finally, he leans over and presses a featherlight kiss to my temple. His voice is as soft as velvet when he speaks. “I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through, Charlie.” Then he wraps both arms around me loosely, so I won’t feel trapped.
I don’t feel afraid or trapped. It’s comforting. I hug him back, tighter than he’s hugging me, and when I turn my face into his chest, he rubs my back, resting his cheek on my head. We stay like that until Bella bolts up the steps, pushing her face between us to drop a slobbery yellow ball in Tom’s lap.
I chuckle and move one arm, but stay where I am, still leaning into him. Tom throws the ball for Bella, and she bounds after it, chasing it under a bush and hurling herself beneath it to retrieve it. He wraps his arm around me again.
“You’re not a train wreck, Charlie,” he says into the silence.
I laugh sadly. “Trust me, I am.”
He shakes his head. “You’re not. You’re an incredibly strong woman.”
My voice sounds small, even to me. “I don’t feel strong at all.”
“Strength and courage aren’t feelings. Strength is pushing on when you don’t think you can, and courage is being afraid to do something and doing it anyway. Look at everything you’ve accomplished these last two days. You let me rub your hands. You took my hand. You’re leaning on me. You’re letting me comfort you. Those are all firsts, and that’s just the physical part. The emotional part? Opening up? That’s the hardest part, the scariest part, and you did it. You chose to be vulnerable, to bare your pain and bring your demons into the light. That’s strength. That’s courage.”
Tom looks down at me. “I absolutely want Maya to have you as an influence. You and Lila are two of the few positive female role models in her life. And as far as whether I see you differently now? Yes, I do.”
My heart drops.
Of course he does. How could he not? I gunned down nine men and I shoot holes in my walls.
I’d expected it, and I understand, but his words still sting. I move to pull away, but he tips my chin up until I look at him.
