The Other Sister (Sister Series, #1) (4 page)

“Sure of what?”

“Showering.”

She paused. He knew what was on her besides filth. She looked at a spot on the wall. “It’s not like they’re going to be caught someday and held before a jury of their peers now, is it?”

She could feel him staring at her. The big, bad,
camo-painted soldier uncomfortably shuffled his feet. Clearing his throat, he said, “You’re right. Just a thought. Uh…”

“What?” she snapped, when he kept twitching around strangely.

“Are you… hurt anywhere? I mean, do you need any kind of first aid?”

She shook her head. She needed so much more than his little first aid kit could ever contain to fix her up.
Looking down, she noticed the wet spot on Will’s fatigues.
She peed on him.
She bit her lip, wondering what she should say to that? I’m sorry? He noticed what she was staring at and said, “Don’t worry about it.”

She looked up. “I was scared.”

He nodded. “You are a lot of things. Scared is probably the mildest of them.”

“I was sure we were going to die. Weren’t you scared?”

“No. I wasn’t scared. I told you I’m pretty good at my job.”

“Killing people?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Killing people who hold a woman against her will? Yeah, I’m really good at killing those kinds of people.”

“I’m glad you are, or I would be dead.”

“Well, you’re not. I’ll get you home.”

Home. As if that would make it any better.
Will, she noticed, wasn’t nearly as comfortable in close quarters as he was killing people and running from gun-toting psychos.

She didn’t dare look in the mirror she passed on the way to the bathroom. Dispassionately, she noticed the tub had some hair left in it, and a bug was crawling up the tile. She didn’t even flinch. After realizing how far she’d sunk, her perspective changed dramatically. A week ago, she might have shrieked
and refused to use such an unclean bathroom. Tonight, however, she just sat down on the toilet and peed. Then she pulled off the reeking shirt with disgust, opened the door, and threw it far away from her. Let the soldier deal with it. She couldn’t bear to look at it anymore. She slammed the door again. Now naked, she rifled through the duffel bag for something to wear. Then she started running water into a bath, and finally collapsed into it.

The tepid water was barely warm and yellow-colored. But it helped. She started scouring her skin. With the first scrub, tears leaked from her eyes, and a sense of numbness began to overtake her. She scrubbed even harder, trying to take off the layer of skin that was touched by the vile beasts.

Then she cried.

Taking out the razor her sister so thoughtfully packed, Jessie wondered what her sister was thinking? After being held in merciless captivity, Jessie might like to shave her armpits? Or perhaps, smooth her legs?

Jessie held the razor up and looked at it long and hard. She ran her finger along the blade’s edge, and watched the soft bead of blood that followed it. Then she took the sharp blade and ran it across her thigh.

Will spent an hour of staring at the closed door, while
dreading for the girl to come out. Come out and what? What would she do? What could he do? He had no clue. Nothing in his training, or civilian life could prepare him for what to do in this situation. He wasn’t a cop, so he didn’t know how to deal with victims. He didn’t even think he had it in him. But there was no stopping now. If anyone was a victim, it was Jessie Bains. He had seen people maimed, burned, killed, and massacred in war, but nothing like the evil Jessie Bains had to endure.

Now all that was left to do was survive until the morning. Then, he could get her out of there, and deliver her to the people who could help her, comfort her, and ultimately, save her: her father, her sister, her pastor. But not he.

Will had long since pulled the bandana from his hair, and washed off the last of his war paint. He stowed his weapons, but kept one close by and loaded, but well away from Jessie. He didn’t trust her. He sat on the bed, staring at the door. He preferred have her to stay in there all night. But why didn’t she come out?

Finally he got up, and tapped lightly on the door. “Ms. Bains?”

Nothing. No answer. No movement of water. Puzzled Will tried again, knocking and yelling louder. Still nothing. Unease started climbing up Will’s neck. Unease similar to what he experienced in the field when all looked safe, but his gut told him it wasn’t. His gut was usually right. Will turned the knob, knowing it was locked. The door was constructed of crap: flimsy particle board. He stepped back, lifted his boot and kicked it squarely on the hardware. The door popped open, after bending and cracking around the handle.

Then he entered and stopped dead in his tracks in shock. Moving closer, he pulled the still body of Jessie Bains from the pink water of her bath.

Will’s heart skipped a beat as he grabbed Jessie’s still body. He almost dropped her when her eyes flashed open and she started to struggle against him. She was alive! He
felt both shock and gratitude. He lifted her wet, naked body from the water and carried her out onto the bed. She screamed at him and pulled her legs up, grabbing the blankets to cover herself.

He ignored her and grabbed her wrists, but found nothing. There were no gashes. No spurting blood to steal the life from her. What the hell? She kept fighting like a cat caught in a bag,
until he pinned her wrists over her head with one hand. Pushing back the piled blankets, he finally found the source of blood. A row of neat lines on her thigh trickled blood. They were small, shallow incisions, only about two inches long. Seeing her thighs confirmed what he suspected, she did this to herself. Both of her thighs were scored with the same sized scars. And they weren’t new.

He looked up at her
face. She finally stopped struggling as she realized why he yanked her out of the bathtub, and manhandled her. Touching her was the last thing he wanted. She rolled over, pulling the covers with her.

“I thought
—”

“Well, I didn’t.”

She stared at the wall, not at him. He stood next to the bed, his clothes now damp where her body was against his. He waited for her to explain why she took a razor blade to her thighs, then bathed in her own blood. Who does that? What kind of sane person would do such a thing?

He expected tears, screaming, shutting down, even freaking out, and tearing apart the room or something else to deal with the anguish that must be inside Jessie
Bains’s mind. He understood emotion. But what was this? He didn’t know what to say, much less what to do. She made no move to explain, get up, or even acknowledge what just happened. She had simply cut her thigh, and then lay there as if she were dead.

He sighed.
Shit
. This was not what he signed up for when he joined the United States Army. He was the last person this girl needed. But he was also the only one who could be here for her now, tonight.
And he knew
. He knew to a large extent what Jessie Bains was suffering from. Still, it didn’t help him figure out how to help her. He went into the bathroom, where the door now hung askew on the hinges. He drained the pink water out of the bath, and found the razor blade sitting on the edge of it. He put it into one of his pockets where she couldn’t find it.

And still, she didn’t move.

“Are you hungry?”

Nothing. He sighed, gave up, sat down on the other bed, and turned the TV on to Spanish speaking shows he had no interest in.

“I need clothes.”

Will was drifting off. He jerked to attention at her statement. Glancing over, it was obvious Jessie still hadn’t moved. After long minutes of stillness, during which time, nothing occurred, she finally spoke. He jumped up and shook the sleepiness from his head. He went to her duffel bag and brought it over to her. This time, however, he sorted through it, making sure there was nothing else Jessie could use to hurt herself. His hands glided over jeans, the soft material of shirts, and silky underclothes: girl stuff he really didn’t want to handle. He quickly passed her the bag. Then he turned and stood near the window. Again, nothing, not a word. Five minutes passed. He stayed firmly away, staring out into the darkness.

Finally her bed shifted,
and she sighed.

“Do you carry Band-Aids in that war pack of yours
, soldier?” He turned to her in surprise. She sat up on the bed this time, wearing a silky, raspberry-colored shirt, with the bedcovers twisted around her middle.

“Band-Aids?”

She looked away. “You know, to stop bleeding.”

Bleeding as in the leg she cut. He moved towards his pack, and pulled out the small first aid kit. Grabbing a few Band-Aids, he headed towards her, and dropped down on one knee near her bed. She pulled her body away from his.

“I can do it.”

“I just want to make sure it isn’t too deep.”

“It’s not.”

Her gaze met his directly
. She was challenging him. He held his hand up so she could take the Band-Aids. She opened them, and pulled back the dingy bedspread, revealing more of her legs.

“Why are you staring at me?” she finally asked. Her hand
crumbled the Band-Aid wrappers.

“I
s there anything else I can do for you? Any other injuries I need to attend to? I mean ones that aren’t self inflicted?”

“Lots. But none you can fix.” She carefully put the Band-Aids on. He stood still, and she glanced up at him. “Aren’t you going to ask why?”

“No. Anything else that needs my attention?”

“Just my soul
, soldier, can you patch that up too?”

He shifted his weight uneasily on his feet. He really wasn’t good at dealing with victims. She finally dropped her head. “There’s nothing else you can do for me, other than getting me out of this godforsaken motel.”

“It’s only a few more hours until morning. Try to get some sleep. You’ll need it to get through tomorrow.” He backed away from her.

“Yeah?
And will sleep get me through the rest of my life too?” She mumbled as she leaned over, and grabbed her jeans to pull them on.

He turned away and looked at the TV. There was no reason to stare, and nothing to stare at. She might be pretty, but after what he witnessed tonight, he could no more conjure up a sexual thought about her
, than he could a nine-year-old kid. She was so traumatized, so damaged, and so completely violated. His heart twisted in pity for her. There was no denying it. He’d have to be made of stone not to feel totally sorry for Jessie Bains.

She was a small girl: petite, short, and slim. She had a nice figure, with boobs too big for her frame, but pretty. Men drooled over her. She had silky
, straight, black hair, which she wore to her shoulder, and big, brown, coffee colored eyes. Will might have glanced at her picture before, or maybe even saw her sex tape and thought she was kind of hot, and somewhat appealing. But he wasn’t all
that
attracted to her. To him, she was just young, stupid, and insipid in her behavior, something he couldn’t tolerate.

That is, until three days ago. And now? Now, all he felt was pity and sorrow for the unfortunate girl. She might have been a pill, a brat, and a brainless idiot, but nothing she’d done in her past deserved the punishment, the hell, and life-altering trauma she experienced. Seeing her naked left him cold
, and seeing her pain made him wish he were jumping from an airplane into bombed-out pockets of an insurgent terrorist camp, rather than babysitting her. At least in war, he could fight back.

Jessie stared at a dirty wall for hours. She didn’t sleep. She didn’t think she’d ever sleep again. Her fear was suffocating her. She was clean, dry, and warm tonight, but that was all she was. Nothing else was much improved. Escaping
that
place only channeled her misery into a new environment, with a man she didn’t know, or even want to know. The only good thing about the cold, quiet soldier she could see was that he didn’t talk. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t try to pretend he could help her, or that he could understand.

For a few moments, floating in the bathtub, the water silenced the pain in her head, and with her leg stinging, she felt better. She felt a sense of release. Then with no warning, she was yanked, grabbed, and extracted from her numbing world. Will’s attempt to save her s
ent her brain right back into the dingy cell.

He thought she cut her wrists, and was bleeding out.

He knew what no else did, and she hated it. He knew everything now: all her pain, all her humiliation. He watched and witnessed it all, and now he knew her secret. Even hours later, the pain was starting over, eating her gut alive from the inside out. And there was no way to release the pressure. Tears? Screaming? Hitting the wall? What good did any of that do?
There was nothing she could do, and no way to help her.

Slicing her leg didn’t even reflect a corner of her pain. The black numbness started to fill her body. Maybe next time she should do her wrists. Why not? Why did she keep struggling so hard to stay
alive? Life was pain, and it always had been, and always would be. She couldn’t take anymore. She whimpered her physical desire not to be here, on earth. It didn’t matter where she went, nothing could help. There was nowhere she belonged, and no one who could help her. The black, gyrating fog she found herself in would forever be her life.

Then a voice broke through the thickening despair that confined her.

“I had this friend. His leg got mangled after another soldier walked into a bomb. That guy was in pieces, with barely more than an inch of flesh left on him. But my friend had his leg get massacred just below his knee. He was alive, and in shock. I sat with him, holding him, waiting for help. The whole time he talked to me as if we had just met up at a bar for a beer.”

Jessie didn’t move or answer. But the soldier knew she was listening. She was surprised to hear his voice in the shadowy, dark motel room. She thought he long ago fell asleep. His voice was low, but calming, like the way one would talk in a library.

“I assumed he was in shock, so I kept talking to him. Here he was, a bloody mess of flesh and bone, and we talked about the house he wanted to build. Paint colors. We were talking about paint colors. The thing was, it worked, and kept him calm. Kept him alive and kept him with me. Eventually, he got out and lived. Lost a leg, but he lived. He went home, built his house, and painted it. You’ll live, Ms. Bains. You may be in shock now, but you’ll come out of it, and get through this. And you’ll live.”

She was silent as she turned onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. The thing was, she wasn’t sure if she
wanted
to live.

“You’ve seen a lot of bad things in war, huh?”

He shifted on the bed. Was he looking at her now? “Yeah.”

“You’re used to this then. This is my pain to deal with, like your friend’s leg. My price to pay.”

He turned onto his side. She sensed him looking at her across the bed in the gloomy room. “I’ve seen a lot and done a lot. But when we go to war, we go with guns, training, and other soldiers. We go, hoping to get a chance to shoot before they shoot us. What happened to you was far different from our experience. And no one should pay the price you had to pay.”

More tears leaked from her eyes. His voice had little inflection. He spoke with a formal tone, and a coolness that made him sound like a dentist about to examine her teeth. But somehow, it worked. It made her feel something. She also knew she had to trust him, and she had to make him see her way.

“You can’t tell anyone what you know.”

“I’m not going to blog about it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No. My father. You cannot tell my father what you saw. How you found me. By tomorrow, I’m going to be just fine. You’re going to tell him how you found me: in a room, dressed, comfortable, maybe just a little scared and bored, but otherwise unscathed.”

“Why would I report that?”

“Because it’s no one’s business what happened, but mine. I can’t let anyone know. Especially my father.”

“Look
, I’m sure you want to protect him, but you need to talk about this. You need to get help.”

“Protect him? I simply want to protect myself.”

Will was quiet at her reasoning. He, of course, wouldn’t have a clue what she really meant. He wouldn’t understand why she preferred that the great General Travis Bains never know what really happened. Will probably thought she was self-sacrificing, to avoid hurting her father’s feelings. In reality, however, it was self-preservation. If her father knew, it would just make an already horrible situation unbearable.

“Did he show you the
tape?”

Quiet. Again. Will didn’t like answering her questions.

“Yeah.”

“Did he tell you about the things I’ve done?”

“Not in detail.”

“Didn’t you wonder why he showed you that tape?”

“I didn’t think. Just followed orders.”

“Right. Good, little soldier. The reason my father showed it to you was to bias you towards me. He doesn’t want you to like me. He doesn’t want anyone to like me, so he shows it, and tells everyone what I do.”

“If you don’t want him doing that, then don’t do those things. You made the
tape, not him. Look, Ms. Bains I have no opinion about you. I don’t care. I was sent here to do a job. And I’m doing it like I always do. When I report to General Bains, that’s the end of the story. You go on with your life, and I with mine.”

“Please, Will. Please, don’t tell anyone. That’s all I’m asking. Just let me keep this to myself. I need to know it will just belong to me alone. What you saw, and how you found me aren’t anyone else’s business. That wasn’t your job. Rescuing me was your only job, and you did that.”

He didn’t speak, and finally rolled over. “I think you need some help.”

“My father won’t help me. Please. God, please, just give me this one thing. Trust me when I say I know what I’m doing.”

“I have no desire to get between you and your family issues. I don’t care, Ms. Bains. I’m doing my job and I’m done.”

“And your job includes reporting to my father?”

“In this case, yeah.”

A
raspy laugh escaped her throat. “You won’t be done. When we come back, safe and sound, you’re going to become the most famous soldier in the United States, along with my father. He’ll broadcast the entire ordeal. Mark my words. He’ll use it if only to make himself look good. I can’t have my experience becoming public fodder.”

“It’s all a secret
, Ms. Bains. My presence here… No one will ever know.”

She laughed a mean, hollow sound. “You’re in my father’s cross hairs now
, Will Hendricks, and you’re life will never be the same again.”