Promise Me Light (10 page)

Our food supply was low but it had not been taken from us to be
rationed off to the masses of homeless and hungry in America like it had
been elsewhere. We had no curfew, no one to answer to but ourselves. The
ranch was the perfect place to bunker down. We were secluded from the
terror in the rest of the country, hidden far from the fighting. Well,
almost.

For me, the days were long, the nights longer. During the day I
worked, carrying my weight around the ranch when I could. At night, I
tossed and turned. Ryder haunted me in the middle of the day and in my
dreams at night.

Someone grabbed my shoulder and shook me awake.

“Maddie!”

I sprang upright, my chest rising and falling quickly, my breathing
ragged and forced. With a shaky hand, I pushed my hair away from my
face, feeling the sweat that glistened my forehead. When the bed dipped
next to me, I glanced over, scared of who I would find beside me. Or who
I wouldn’t find.

Eva sat up, staring at me with concern. My eyes took a moment to
adjust to the darkness. I was in Ryder’s old childhood bed. Under his
covers. My hand reached down to my stomach, feeling the small roundness.
I’m okay. It was all a dream. Just a dream.

Eva touched my arm. Just a small touch to remind me that she was
there. Over the last few weeks, she had become more like herself but I
knew she was still hurting. I could see it in her eyes when she thought
no one was watching. When she spoke, I could hear it in her voice, a
voice that no longer sounded like a confident woman but of a girl lost.
Afraid.

Most nights, she was beside me when I had nightmares. They were all
the same - Ryder dying and me trying to save him. Each time he died and
each time I woke up crying.

Lying back down, I pulled the covers up to my chin. My heart raced
out of control, tears threatening to choke me. I concentrated on the
darkness in the room, bringing myself back under control.

One of Eva’s socked feet touched my leg, her toes nudging my calf,
reminding me that I wasn’t alone.

When her nightmares started, I crawled into bed with her, holding her
close as she cried. She didn’t want Brody beside her, only me. After a
time, it just made sense to share a bed with her. The dropping
temperatures made it impossible to heat the entire house so we only
heated the rooms we needed. The men bedded down in the living room,
sharing the heat from the fireplace, while Janice and Roger slept in
their room.

Eva and I shared Ryder’s old room. Our heat came from a makeshift
heater that Brody had made using a steel drum. It was turned on its side
with a door cut and hinged on one end and a semi-truck exhaust for a
flue on the other. Using firewood or whatever else we could find to
burn, we tried to keep the fire going long into the night but we always
woke up to a cold room in the morning.

“You were crying out for Ryder again,” Eva whispered next to
me.

I glanced over at her and snuggled deeper under the blankets. “It
was the same dream. He was shot and I watched him die. I held him while
he took his last breath,” I said, gripping the covers so tightly that
my fingernails left indentations in my palm. “I just wish the
nightmares would go away.”

“I don’t think they’ll ever go away,” Eva said. “I want to
forget too but I just can’t.”

“I don’t want to forget. I want to dream about Ryder every night
but not like that,” I said, tears building in my eyes.

“I never want to dream again,” Eva whispered.

“Maybe if you talked about it…you’ve never said what
happened,” I said, watching as she picked at the ends of her hair.
“You’ve always been able to tell me anything, Eva.”

She glanced away uneasily. “I can’t talk about it, Maddie.”

I turned to lie on my side, facing her. I couldn’t see the details
of her face. Only her silhouette.

“Did they hurt you?” I asked.

She wiped away her tears quickly, the movement full of self-loathing.
Eva hated to cry. She saw it as a form of weakness, saying weak women
cried, strong women got up and did something about it. If only we
could.

I waited for her to answer my question but she didn’t. She was
shutting me out again.

I let out a deep breath. “It’s okay, Eva. You don’t have to
tell me anything.”

I closed my eyes and prayed I could sleep without having another
nightmare.
Just one night without images of Ryder dying,
please.
The chill in the room made me shiver as my eyelids grew
heavier. I was almost asleep when she spoke.

“They beat us, Maddie.”

I opened my eyes, sleep suddenly disappearing.

“Every single day they beat us. We ate stale bread and water.
Nothing else. And when they let us sleep, it was only for one or two
hours at a time.”

“Oh, Jesus,” I said, my voice breaking.

“Yeah, well, he wasn’t around much,” she said
sarcastically.

“I’m sorry Eva.”

She huffed and turned on her side, facing away from me. I stared at
the back of her head, wanting to do something - but knowing there was
nothing I could do.

“You should have seen what they did to the other women. It was
awful. Many of them were raped. I was lucky because I managed to hide
behind other people but then I felt like crap. Someone else had taken my
place.” She snorted with self-disgust. “And the men were tortured
constantly. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the screams. They went on
and on, night after night. Day after day. They never stopped. When I
close my eyes, I can still hear them.”

My heart pounded harder in my chest. Ryder might have been tortured
and starved. He wouldn’t have survive that. He wasn’t made that way.
He would have fought them until they beat him to death.

I suddenly felt sick to my stomach, the images too much to
handle.

Eva turned over to look at me, the blankets tangled around her
legs.

“I want to tell you that I’m sorry, Maddie. Because of me,
Ryder’s dead. I know I was hateful to him but I was just worried he
would break your heart. I wanted to protect you. Now I feel guilty. He
gave up his life for me and I treated him like shit. If I could, I
would’ve stayed in that camp so you could have him back.”

I wrapped my arms around her, squeezing her tightly. “Don’t say
that Eva. I’m okay.”

“No you’re not. Don’t lie to me, Maddie Jackson.” I could
hear the tears in her voice. “We were so fuckin’ stupid. Just two
naïve college kids that thought the most important thing in life was
where the next party was going to be, or finding the greatest
bars.”

“We couldn’t have known,” I said, unwrapping my arms from
around her.

“I don’t want to tell Brody about the camp,” she said with
conviction. “It will just upset him to hear what I went through and I
can’t be with him right now. There was one time…”

I shut my eyes, afraid of what she was going to say next.

“One man cornered me and touched me but another woman stopped
him…I don’t know who she was but she saved me.”

I reached beneath the covers and found her hand. Her fingers were
like ice against mine.

“I won’t say anything but you need to talk to Brody. Don’t push
him away,” I said.

“I’m afraid to tell him.”

“He loves you, Eva. All that matters to him is that you’re home
safe.” I squeezed her hand reassuringly.

She scoffed. “You just don’t get it do you, Maddie? We’ll never
be safe. These men,” she motioned out the window, “want to kill us.
They want us extinct.” She shook her head, her next words eerie.
“Americans will never be safe or the same. None of us.”

One afternoon I walked away. I needed time. Away from the memories.
Away from everyone asking if I was okay or telling me that everything
would be fine.
How could they say that? Ryder was
gone.
Things were not okay. I was far from fine. I was a
wreck.

On the outside I appeared strong, capable of handling anything. On
the inside, I was dying. A slow death that I feared would never end.

How many times in the last few weeks had I pleaded with God to send
Ryder back to me? I cursed fate. I screamed at the heavens. I cried
myself to sleep. Would I ever be the same again?

The only thing keeping me sane and propelling me out of bed every day
was the baby that I carried. I daydreamed about holding a girl or a boy
in my arms, gazing down at him or her and seeing Ryder reflected back at
me. I hoped the baby had Ryder’s eyes and his smile. And I hoped if it
was a boy, he would be as handsome as his father, making female hearts
flutter whenever he walked by. But more than anything, I just wished
Ryder were here to share all of this with me.

For the first time in days, the sun was shining. The gloomy winter
skies were gone. Eva and Janice were busy. The men were preoccupied with
livestock and feed. It was a perfect day to be alone.

As I walked through the pasture close to the house, the tall grass
brushed against my fingertips. My legs, covered by jeans, felt every
move, every touch of the grass, reminding me that I was still alive
despite the sorrow that had my heart in a firm grip.

The wind moved through the land, bending and curving the blades of
brown grass. It reminded me of watching the waves of the ocean the
summer I visited the Gulf of Mexico with my father. Lying on the beach,
I was overwhelmed with the sight of all that water. I felt like a small
grain of sand, a small piece in the grand scheme of things. All my
problems, all my worries, seemed minuscule as I gazed out over the
ocean.

Now, as I stood among a sea of grass, I felt alone. Lost. I wanted to
be lighter and float away like the clouds in the sky. Float away from
the pain and grief of missing Ryder.

But I couldn’t leave. I had a baby on the way. I could remember and
I could ache but I had to go on.

I turned my face toward the sun, feeling the warmth on my cheeks. The
heat warmed me, taking away the chill. Running a hand over the tops of
the grass, I closed my eyes.

Ryder’s face appeared behind my eyelids. I wanted to reach out and
touch him but he was only in my mind, a figment of my imagination. A
memory that would never disappear.

Before I opened my eyes, warmth traveled down my arm to my
fingertips, making me suck in a breath. It felt like someone was
touching me.

My eyes flew open, my head whipping around. I expected to see Ryder
behind me, standing there with a cocky grin on his face, but only empty
fields surrounded me.

In the distance I saw Gavin walking my way. His strides were long and
quick. For a few seconds my heart beat out of control. From a distance,
Gavin looked so much like Ryder that I found myself taking a step toward
him, desperate to go to him.

“Maddie!” his deep baritone voice called out.

“Yes?” I answered, calming down as I waited for him to catch up
to me.
It’s just Gavin. Not Ryder. Just
Gavin.