4. Molly
Molly didn’t bother to ask where they were going, but she thought she had a good idea. Probably Commander Torus was taking her to see Commander Sylvan—the head of the Kindred High Council. She’d had an interview with him before coming to work aboard the Mother Ship.
Probably her boss wanted to let his boss know that the pornographic video, which had doubtless been distributed to every single computer and monitor aboard the Mother Ship, wasn’t his fault. Together they would tell her how unacceptable this was and how it didn’t look good for the Kindred and so she would need to pack up and leave immediately.
The thing was, Molly didn’t know where she could go or what she could do now. It seemed like her ex could find her no matter how far she went—even if she moved to some remote Alaskan village or rural Japan to teach English, he would find a way to send that damn video to her boss and then she’d be out of a job again.
I might as well give up on having any kind of nice job with benefits, Molly thought dully. I should just find a job where they won’t care if they see the video. But what kind of job could she find like that? Maybe she could be a stripper. Yeah, right—as if anyone wanted to see her fat, freckled ass on a strip club stage!
Stop thinking that way—stop putting yourself down! You sound just like Zach!
But try as she might, she couldn’t capture the negative thoughts and replace them with a positive one. There were no positive thoughts left in her head and nowhere left for her to go.
Maybe I should just kill myself.
It was a dark thought that had surfaced before, many times during her life with Zach, but she hadn’t had it lately. Now it came back full force. What was the point of living when this just kept happening over and over and over again? What?—?
“In here,” Commander Torus rumbled.
“Huh?” Molly looked up to see that he was leading her off the main corridor and into a smaller one. He rounded the corner and they came to a door marked, Managers Lounge.
“No one ever comes in here, so we can talk privately,” the big Kindred told her. He pressed his huge palm to the print reader and with a soft beep the door whooshed open.
Inside there was a table that had clearly been made for Kindred—the chairs were the height of bar stools and the table was so tall that it would probably come up nearly to Molly’s chin if she sat there.
But there was also a large, gray overstuffed couch and that was where her boss directed her to sit.
Molly settled into the deep cushions—her feet stuck out in front of her like a little girl because there was no way to lean back and still have her shoes planted on the ground.
Feeling vulnerable, she grabbed the couch arm to pull herself back out of the couch’s fluffy embrace, only to gasp with pain. Looking down, she realized she had a large sliver of glass sticking out of her palm. When had that happened?
“Hold still—I think there’s a Med kit around here somewhere,” Commander Torus ordered.
Molly sat and waited, though she didn’t know why he was going to all this trouble just to tell her she was fired. Wouldn’t it save him time just to give her her walking papers right away? Why would he bother to bring her into the Manager’s lounge first?
A moment later he was back and kneeling at her feet. He placed a flat, rectangular box which said “Medical Equipment” on the cushion beside her. Opening it, he began rummaging around until he found what he was looking for. Then he held out his palm.
“Give me your hand,” he ordered.
Feeling like she had no choice, Molly did as he said, laying her hand, palm up, in the center of his. Again she felt like a child because of their size difference—her whole hand wasn’t as long as his longest finger. But she still didn’t know why he was doing this.
“You’ve given yourself a nasty wound here,” he remarked in that low, rumbling voice of his. He looked up at her briefly. “While I treat it, maybe you’d like to explain the video to me—to take your mind off the pain,” he added.
Molly wasn’t sure what to say or how to phrase her explanation. It never mattered what she said—nobody ever listened. For a minute she just sat there, mute, as she watched her huge boss gently pull the long sliver of glass from her palm.
“Ouch!” The sharp little pain seemed to make the words start flowing, much like the blood was seeping from her injury. “The first thing you should know is that I didn’t send you that video,” she said quickly, watching as Torus put a gauze pad over the wound and applied firm pressure.
“Go on.” He nodded, keeping his eyes down on her hand. “Who sent it then?”
“My ex—Zach Wyndham.”
“Your ex-Mate, you say?” he asked, removing the pad and applying some kind of astringent ointment that stung. “Is he a tall male? Well, tall for a human—with brown hair and eyes, who always looks like he’s sneering or smirking?”
“Ow!” Molly exclaimed. “Yes. How do you know that? Oh—because everybody knows Zach Wyndham,” she said, answering her own question. “He’s famous all over the world for his apps and computer games.”
Commander Torus made a non-committal noise and kept working on her hand.
“Before you ask, no, I didn’t make that video on purpose,” she went on. “Zach had cameras set up in our bathroom that I didn’t know about. He used to record me all the time but I never found out about it until…until after I left him.”
“I see. I’m going to apply some wound glue now. Go on, if you want to.” Commander Torus was still keeping his gaze on her hand. Since he wasn’t looking at her accusingly, Molly somehow found the strength to keep talking.
“I found out about a month after our divorce,” she said. “Because that was when he sent the first video to the principal of the school where I was teaching first grade. And to all the teachers. And to the parents of the kids in my class…”
Her voice started to wobble but she took a breath and made herself go on.
“Of course, everyone was scandalized. The parents called for my immediate dismissal—they wanted to get rid of me before I “corrupted” their kids.” She gave a bitter laugh. “They acted like I sent the video myself! Like I wanted them to see that! I never wanted anyone to see me…to see me doing that.”
“Of course you didn’t. That’s a private activity.” Commander Torus continued treating her hand. “So this isn’t the first time your ex-Mate has sent a compromising video of you to an employer?”
“Not the first time or the second time—not even the fifth time,” Molly said bitterly. “It’s a pattern by now. Every time I move someplace else to get a fresh start, it happens. For a while it seems like everything is fine. I find a new town where the people don’t know me and I think I’m safe—like I thought I was safe here,” she added. “I’ll think that Zach doesn’t know where I am, that he can’t track me down or that he’s lost interest. And then, just as I’ve settled in and made a few friends, he sends that damn video again. Or another one like it—he recorded me for years.”
“So it’s a pattern of abuse.” Her boss spoke as though he was trying to get the facts straight. As he did, he kept concentrating on her wounded palm, which he was delicately gluing together with the tiny eye-dropper sized bottle of wound glue. It looked like a miniature prop from a doll house in his big hand.
“By now it’s the story of my life,” Molly said bleakly. “It seems like there’s nowhere on Earth I can get free of him. I thought I was so smart, landing a job on the Mother Ship,” she added sourly. “I was so careful to cover my tracks this time so he wouldn’t know where I was going. I was sure I was finally free of him and now just look…” She gestured with her unhurt hand. “Everything’s ruined all over again.” Her throat was getting thick and her eyes were stinging but she didn’t want to cry. “Ruined,” she repeated. “Completely ruined.”
“Nothing is ruined,” her boss said sternly, glancing up at her.
“Yes, it is!” Molly protested. “Because now you have to fire me because ‘this kind of behavior doesn’t look good for our organization,’” she quoted, imitating the gruff voice of her last employer—the owner of an after-school daycare. “So you’ll give me my walking papers, but where can I go? Zach just proved he can find me anywhere—even if I leave the freaking planet!And even if he gets bored and stops messing with me, even if he doesn’t send the video to my next employer, it’s out there—on the Internet! Where anyone…anyone can…can find it!”
The words were turning into sobs now. Molly told herself not to cry but she couldn’t help it—the pain was too much to bear.
All over again! she kept thinking. It’s happening all over again!
“This isn’t your fault.” Commander Torus finished with her hand and looked up at last to meet her eyes. “Do you hear me, Molly? It’s not your fault.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s my fault!” Molly cried passionately. “Don’t you understand? The damage is done. Look—I was raised in a strict religious household—my father is a Deacon in a Southern Baptist Church. Do you know what he did when Zach sent him that video?”
Silently, Commander Torus shook his head.
“He disowned me!” Molly cried. “He and my Mom haven’t spoken to me in five years. Nobody in my whole family will…will be seen with me or even…even talk to me on the phone!” She was sobbing harder than ever now, the words and the tears pouring out of her like poison. “They hate me because they think I made that video on purpose! Like I would do that? Of course I wouldn’t! But they won’t listen! Nobody will listen! And nobody will help, either! They just think I’m disgusting and horrible and…and dirty!”
She broke down completely then, sobbing like a hurt little girl—which was how she felt inside. The loss of her family had been a hundred times worse than the loss of her career—a thousand times worse.
Not being able to go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas…not getting a phone call on her birthday with her parents singing, “happy birthday to you!” together, the way they did for all their kids…and worst of all, not knowing if everyone was okay or not. What if one of her siblings got in a car accident or one of her elderly parents had a heart attack or a stroke? Molly would never know about it because nobody would call her!
“They treat me like I’m already dead!” she wailed, covering her face with her hands, her shoulders heaving convulsively with the sobs. “And I wish that I was—Iwish I was dead!”
“Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that!” Suddenly strong arms were wrapping around her and Molly felt herself being pulled into a tight embrace. She stiffened at first and then melted against Commander Torus’s broad shoulder, too hurt and broken to fight him.
Kneeling in front of the couch, he pulled her as close as he could and then, when that didn’t seem close enough, he rose and swept her into his arms and settled back on the couch, cuddling her to his chest.
It was the first time a man had touched her in five years—and the first time in much longer than that since any man had touched her with gentleness or tenderness. Molly didn’t know how to react to it. She sobbed until it felt like she was broken inside and he held her tight, as though she might fall apart into a million pieces if he let go of her for even an instant.
She cried for all the hurt and pain and shame—for the sheer humiliation she’d endured over and over and over again. For the fact that it seemed like no one cared and no one seemed able to help.
There were laws against revenge porn now, but someone rich and famous like Zach Wyndham always seemed to be above the law. No police department would arrest him, let alone prosecute him! No lawyer wanted to take him on—not that Molly could afford a lawyer. Nobody would stop her horrible ex from making her life a living hell over and over and over again because nobody cared…
She sobbed it all out as Torus held her and he listened silently, stroking her trembling back and shoulders as she cried. At last when her sobs had turned to sniffles, he said two words,
“I care.”
“What?”
Molly looked up at him uncertainly. Her eyes felt red and puffy and her throat was sore from sobbing. She was sure she’d misheard him.
“I said, I care.” His face was grim and his silver-gray eyes had a dangerous glint of red in them. “I don’t understand how a male is allowed to treat his female the way you have been treated, but I do not think it is right and I do not blame you, Molly,” he added.
“You…you don’t?” She gulped and swiped at her eyes. “That’s really nice of you but…but I know you have to let me go anyway.”
“No, I do not!” he exclaimed, his eyes blazing. “Your employment here is not terminated.
“It’s not?” Molly could barely believe him. “But I’m sure everybody saw the video?—”
“It was sent only to our department,” he told her. “I have instructed everyone to delete it from their files and when I get back, I will wipe it entirely from the Mother Ship’s mainframe.”
“When you get back?” Molly sniffed. “But…where are you going?”
“Hunting.” His voice was grim, but he was gentle when he scooted her off his lap. Molly turned around to face him. Even with him sitting and her standing, he was still taller.
He took her by the upper arms and looked earnestly into her eyes.
“Promise me that you will not end yourself while I’m gone,” he said. “Promise me! Give me your word.”
Molly had never seen her stoic boss look like this. He was angry—absolutely enraged, that was clear from his blazing red eyes and the set of his mouth—but he wasn’t angry at her.
“I…I promise,” she said in a small voice.
“Good. Now go back to work.”
“I can’t—” she began.
“You can. I don’t want you to be alone!” he snapped. “At the very least, go get your friend, Lana. The two of you have my permission to take the rest of the day off with full pay. Do what you want, just do it together.”
He rose and towered over her like a tree or a giant in a fairytale. Molly looked up at him, confused.
“But I don’t understand.” She shook her head.
“You don’t have to. Now, are you going to obey me?” His tone was so stern and his eyes were so scary, that Molly didn’t dare to disagree.
“Yes, Sir,” she said submissively.
“Good. You can call Lana on the Think-me and ask her to come out to meet you, if you want to—if you don’t feel like you can face the rest of the department,” he told her. His voice grew fierce. “But you have done nothing wrong. You can hold your head high, Molly. Remember that.”
Then he left the room, almost at a run. By the time Molly had pulled herself together and looked out into the corridor, he was gone.