Commodity (9 page)

“Are you?” he asks again, softly.

“I will be.”

He nods and holds his arm out in the direction of the apartment.

“Let me put these in the shed first,” I say, picking up the branches.

Falk helps me break the last one up as we walk to the shed.

“You understand now why I don’t want you talking to them?”

“It’s not that simple,” I reply.  “I can’t just ignore it when someone asks me a question.”

“You can ignore him.  Actually, if he comes near you again, just yell for me.”

I roll my eyes.  I’ve had enough conflict for one day, but I can’t let Falk dictate my every action.  The idea of pretending Beck doesn’t exist isn’t pragmatic even if it is attractive.  My heart is still pounding, and though he’s gone, I can somehow feel his hands on my waist, making my skin crawl.  I let Falk direct me back to the apartment, and once we’re there, I turn to him.

“That really wasn’t necessary.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Are you going to tell me that look on your face wasn’t you remembering what happened to you?  You think I don’t notice when you’re thinking about it?  He had his fucking hands on you, and you were about to go into a panic attack.”

I halt and stare at him.  I hadn’t realized how transparent I was.

I also don’t understand my own reaction.  When I was actually being attacked, I had fought.  Beck hadn’t attacked me—he had only touched me.  Why am I freezing up now?

“How did you know?” I ask.

“It’s my job to know,” he says softly.  “It’s my job to be observant, to know everything that’s going on around me.  You are my focus.  I rarely miss anything.”

I chew on my lip, thinking.  I’m still not sure I buy into the whole idea of aliens from outer space, but I’m not sure if that matters.  Something catastrophic happened, and at least for now, we are on our own.

What does that mean exactly?

There’s no government.  No police or legal system.  We are essentially in anarchy.  Survival of the fittest has reverted to survival of the strong—those who can protect and provide.  We have plenty of supplies for now, but what will happen when we start to run out?

I shudder.  I think about Beck, Caesar, and Ryan.  Sure, they seem okay—even Beck hadn’t really done anything wrong—but what happens as time goes by, and I’m still the only woman in the group?  When Hudson attacked me, I’d been able to get away and find help.  If men like Hudson prospered in a world of laws, what would they do now?  There is no place for me to run—no help on the horizon.

Except Falk.

Falk wants to keep me safe.  Falk not only wants to protect me, he’s capable.

I glance to the bedroom door.  The distance between there and the couch in the living room isn’t more than a dozen feet, but it suddenly looks like a great chasm to me.  Someone could come through the window of the bedroom.  If I was silenced, Falk might not even know anyone was there.

I shudder.

“Falk?”

“Yeah?”

“It would be all right if…I mean…”

“What?”

I take a deep breath.  I both feel and sound like a fool.  Best to just spit it out.

“You don’t have to sleep on the couch.”

“I’m not leaving you out here and close to the door,” he says with his arms crossed over his chest.  “Not a chance.”

“I was going to say…”  I sigh loudly, place one hand over my face, and just say it.  “You could sleep in the bed, too.”

Falk stares at me with those intense eyes.  I imagine he’s watching me and waiting to see if my body language matches my words.

“You sure?” he finally says.

“I think I’d feel safer that way.”  Saying the words out loud relaxes me slightly.

“All right.”

I nod silently before excusing myself to the bathroom to wash up and get ready for bed.  I have no idea if I’m making a good decision or not, but it feels right to me.  Having Falk close calms me, and I need a little calm right now.  Everything else around me is insane.

I climb into bed and lay my head against the pillow.  A few minutes later, Falk comes in and stares at me for a minute.

“You sure you’re good with this?”

“You were sleeping right next to me last night,” I say with a shrug.  “This isn’t all that different.”

Falk nods and climbs into bed beside me.  He shuffles around a bit to get comfortable, then switches from his back to his side, facing me.

“I wouldn’t take advantage of you,” he says abruptly.

“I know you wouldn’t.”

“Good.  I just wanted to make sure.”

My mind immediately begins to wander.  I remember the view of Falk wearing nothing but a towel, dripping from his shower, and my skin tingles.  He’s close enough that I can feel the heat from his body through the sheet.  I try to keep my breathing even, but I keep thinking about his arm wrapped around me last night, and I wonder what it would feel like to have his hands all over me.

I haven’t had thoughts like this since the day I was assaulted.  None.  The therapist in the hospital went on and on about how I shouldn’t think of the attack as sexual, but that didn’t mean I had any interest in having another man touch me ever again.

Until now.

They hurt me.  They battered and assaulted me.  They held me down while I screamed, and they threatened to kill me.  I had nightmares for weeks afterward.  I couldn’t walk outside by myself without looking over my shoulder.

“You’ve got that look on your face,” Falk says.

“What look?” I ask, startled.

“The same look you had right before you broke down on me.”

I reach up and quickly wipe away the tear that had escaped when I was lost in thought.  I take a deep breath and center myself.

“I’m trying not to.”

“He really did get to you, didn’t he?”

“Maybe a little.”

“Fucker,” Falk snarled.

“It’s not that he did anything that’s so bad,” I say.  “It just…makes me think about everything else.”

I bite at my lip to keep the memories from resurfacing, but it doesn’t help.  They’re all flooding back anyway.

“You going to tell me what happened?” Falk asks quietly.

I swallow hard past the lump that suddenly lodges in my throat.  It’s already in my head now, so maybe I should tell him.  If this catastrophe hadn’t happened, I’d be in Washington, D.C. right now, telling it over and over again as people questioned me.

“I’ve relived it so many times,” I whisper.  “I don’t know.”

“You were going to tell it to a bunch of strangers,” he reminds me.  “I’m not a stranger anymore, am I?”

I’m starting to wonder if he can actually read my mind.

“No, you’re not.”

“That’s good to know.”  Falk props himself up on one elbow and looks at me.

“All right, I’ll tell you.  I’m a shitty storyteller though.”

“I won’t hold it against you.”

I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling, trying to compose my thoughts before I begin.

“It started with an accounting report,” I say.  “The woman who usually investigated discrepancies was out of the office.  I’d been on a project a few months before, working on the programming for that system, and one of the other accountants I’d worked with asked me to look at it.  I followed the data through the system and found this holding company.”

“Baby Blue, Limited.”

“Yes, that one.  I kept seeing all these small amounts—much smaller than the one I was investigating being funneled to this holding company.  It looked odd, so I searched for Baby Blue on Google but couldn’t find anything.  That was weird, too, so I asked a friend of mine to check into it and see what he could find.”

“Daniel McIntyre.  The hacker.”

“We were in school together,” I say with a nod.  “We took a lot of the same computer classes, but he was a lot better than me.  He could find anything anywhere—get into any system he wanted.  I didn’t know he would end up…”

“He was killed in a car accident.”

“He was run off the road.  It wasn’t an accident.”

“I realize.”

“He linked Baby Blue to a bunch of porn sites.  Porn sites with underage girls being raped.”

I take a deep breath.

“He sent me a picture from one of them,” I tell Falk.  “He sent it because he thought one of the girls looked like me.”

“Your sister.”

“Yes.”  I swallow again, tears welling in my eyes.  “Her body was found with the others in that compound in Nevada.  It brought us some closure, at least.  It’s the only good thing that came out of it all.  At least we know what happened to her.”

“That paper you talked about writing in college,” Falk says, “was about your own family.”

I nod, and Falk reaches over and lays his hand on top of mine where it lies on my stomach.  He grips my hand for a moment and then relaxes.

“I turned it all over to the police,” I tell him.  “All the evidence Daniel and I found.  Their investigators linked it back to Tyler Hudson through some offshore accounts.  A week after Hudson was arrested, Daniel was dead.”

“The arraignment was the day before, but he was let out on bond.”

“Yes.”

“You were attacked the following week.”

“Yes.  How much of that did you read?”

“I know you were leaving your house,” he says, “and you were on your way to do some shopping.  It was approximately three-thirty on a Saturday afternoon.  I know they were waiting for you outside and dragged you into a van.”

“Yes.”  I clear my throat as the memories surface.  “Someone came up behind me and threw a bag over my head then put his hand over my mouth.  I tried to scream, but there wasn’t anyone outside to hear me.  I heard a sliding door open, and my leg got scraped when I was shoved inside.  The van started moving right away as I was pushed down to the floor.”

“I don’t know exactly how many there were—at least four—plus whoever was driving.  One of them held my hands up above my head, and two others held my legs.”

“You don’t have to give me the details,” he says.  “Don’t put yourself through that.”

I nod, feeling tears coming to my eyes as Falk’s arm slips around my waist.

“I recognized Hudson’s voice right away.  I’d only met him in person a couple of times at the office, but he did all these employee engagement videos, so I knew his voice well.  He was…he was between my legs.  He kept saying how much I had fucked over what he was doing, and how he was going to fuck me over as payment.”

“He was…really rough.  He wanted me hurt.  They said I had a lot of lacerations when I went to the hospital.  A lot of bruises, too.  When he was…was about done, they pulled the bag up so he could come on my face.”

Falk tenses behind me.  I can feel his hand shaking slightly.

“It felt like it was all over me,” I say.  “I kept spitting, trying to get it away from my mouth, and then someone else was holding my legs up, and he started…”

I take a gasping breath.

“He must have been the one holding my arms before.  I don’t know if they thought I was broken already or what, but no one grabbed my hands again.  I pushed at him, but he just laughed.  I reached out, just trying to find something, and came up with a piece of metal—I think it was a tire jack.  It was heavy, anyway.

“I hit him with it, right across the face, I’m sure.  He started screaming, and I got the bag off my head.  The van wasn’t moving—I think it was stopped at a traffic light.  I was kicking and screaming—I know I hit more than one of them.  I don’t know if my reaction surprised them enough that they didn’t know what to do or not.  I only know I grabbed the door handle and ran off into the woods nearby, and no one followed me.

“My panties were wrapped around my ankle.  I got them back up as I was running, but I only had those and my shirt.  I saw those blue signs with a big H on them and followed them to the hospital.  I told them I was raped and did the whole rape kit thing.”

“That was almost the worst part,” I say, remembering.  “It was like it was happening all over again.  I think I was in shock.”

“You probably were.”

“So, that’s basically it.”  I take a long breath.  “The police came.  Hudson was found at his home with his wife and kids, and the media circus began.  You probably know the rest.”

Falk starts to pull his hand back, and I reflexively grab his wrist to keep it where it is.  He stills for a moment, then turns his hand over, lacing our fingers together.

“Beck grabbing you made you think about it,” Falk says.  “That’s why you were starting to panic.”

“I guess so.”

“The same way you did when I was trying to fix your leg.”  He grips my hand slightly.  “I’m sorry about that.  I should have thought about it.  I think I was on automatic.”

“I know,” I say. “It’s okay.  You were just trying to help.  Beck wasn’t trying to hurt me either.”

“Beck is an ass,” Falk says.  “He’s also dangerous.”