Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Present day
“Want to tell me what’s going on?” Jax waited until they were almost back to the RV park before he spoke. Of course, he wanted to talk about it. She wasn’t going to begrudge him for caring about her, whether it was easy for her to face this or not.
“The president of Croatia’s life is in danger, and somehow that’s my business?”
“No, I mean with Bruce.” Jax glanced over for a second, then turned the corner into the RV park. Tucked behind a neighborhood, behind fenced yards and single-story houses. Not her favorite destination to stay, but it got them close to the places they needed to be to work the case.
Right now, Megan Tiller’s life was ending in that hospital room, and sticking around might mean Kenna and the baby died as well.
Or Jax. For all she knew, they could’ve been exposed to something.
Only the truth of what she knew about Dominatus kept her from descending into the undertow of fear that she was also a target.
“Bruce.” Kenna shook her head. “I just don’t want to talk to him.
” That was true enough. She couldn’t even think the rest of it, let alone say it out loud.
“I happen to know for a fact that the president of Croatia is part of Dominatus. Why would I care that someone is trying to kill him? If they get into a war, that’s less people we need to worry about. ”
“When did you become heartless?”
“Right around the time they kidnapped me and kept me locked up for weeks, performed stress tests on the baby, and repeatedly tried to reprogram my brain to believe what they believe.”
Jax jammed his foot on the brake, and the car suddenly came to a stop. She reached out her hand and braced against the glove compartment.
“I’m sorry.” Kenna winced. “I didn’t want to say that. I don’t know why I did.” She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. “I don’t know if I’m me, or someone else they manipulated me into. I don’t know if I’m saying what I want to say, or if they’ve rewired my brain.”
Now that she’d started talking, more was flowing.
He sighed. “You’ve been quiet since I got you back.”
She didn’t look at him. “You were there. You know what it was like in that place.”
Neither of them moved.
“And they did surgery on me,” Jax said, “so I’m supposed to be grateful.
Like them fixing your arms.” A smidge of bitterness leaked through his tone.
“Yes, I know what it was like. I can’t possibly understand what you and the baby went through.
I have you back—both of you. I’m trying to be grateful for that, but I can’t help wondering when something will happen. ”
“Like I’m going to suddenly turn into a robot.
Or lose the—” She couldn’t even finish saying it.
Kenna laid both hands on her abdomen. “We have to be careful who we trust. Where we go. But how can I live in a bunker for the next thirty years just to keep us all safe? That’s not a life.
Especially not if at any moment I’m going to cough and there will be blood on my hand and… ”
Jax reached over and unclipped her seatbelt. “Let’s go inside.” He climbed out and came around, opening the door for her. Held her hand, leading her to the RV.
“We need to get another dog.” She wanted to be greeted at the door. She needed the energy and love a puppy brought.
Jax smiled at her. “Come on.”
He led her to the bedroom, and she kicked off her shoes.
Kenna lay down on the covers and tugged the pillow over, tears leaking from the corner of her eye. “You can’t tell me it’s going to be fine.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “You don’t know that.”
He gathered her close, his arms around her. “Bruce isn’t going to betray us. There’s a limited number of people we can trust, but he’s on the list.”
“They told me…”
Jax rubbed a hand between her shoulder blades, a comforting gesture that enabled her to let go of a full breath. “What did they tell you?”
She opened her eyes and stared at his T-shirt. “He used to be Dominatus. He never said that to us. He never even mentioned them. He didn’t tell us he had any connection to them.” Her breath hitched in her throat, and she had to gasp in air.
Bruce’s former partner, the one who’d betrayed him, had been Dominatus. Maybe not back then but definitely recently. But Bruce?
“You’re not facing any of this alone, Kenna.” He paused a second. “Whatever happens, we all face it as a family.”
She squeezed her eyes closed again. “I can see it all, every time I shut my eyes. Every time I sleep. I can hear their voices. I can feel how cold it was, out there on that buoy. I go to sleep wondering if I’m going to wake up back there, and all of this has been a dream.”
“They broke you down.”
“That’s what it feels like.” She pushed out a shuddering breath. “Now I’m in pieces and I don’t know how to put myself back together.”
“What is it, you say?” he asked, his voice gentle. “That you leave a piece of yourself back there, and you have to find a way to move on without it. Your mind thinks, at least in part, that you’re still in that place. It’s burned into you.”
“I want to cut it out.”
“Accepting it is there, and it will always be there, is going to help you figure out how to live with it. Because there’s no way to get rid of the memories.
” He kept rubbing his hand across her back, imparting the steady warmth of his strength into her.
“Working to where you can make peace with it is the only way you’re going to be able to heal the wound.
Right now, it’s raw. And that’s understandable.
We’re both in pain from what they did to us. ”
She nodded, desperate with the need to not discount what he was feeling.
Sure, she’d been captive for months before Jax had rescued her, but that just meant he’d been searching during that time.
He’d faced all the fear of losing her that came with a fruitless search until he finally uncovered the place she was being held.
It wasn’t about who had suffered more, but about the fact they both had to work through the aftermath.
“Doctor Buzard is dead.” She had to say it aloud. “His men. The ghost. They’re all dead. No one is coming after me from that group.”
“You’re worried there are others who might?”
“I have no idea. That’s the problem.” That, and the fact she could find out if she made a phone call.
But fear of being discovered, even though they probably knew exactly where she was, kept her from making that call.
“Short of faking our deaths, which might not even work, I don’t see how we can ever escape them. ”
“And that might solve the problem for us, but it doesn’t neutralize them.”
She sighed. “We can’t take them down.”
“I know.”
Still, it sounded a little like he was placating her.
“They feel like this big insurmountable evil.” He squeezed her shoulder. “One we can’t possibly go up against. But can we really live with ourselves if we don’t at least try? Let’s follow this case where it leads.”
“Megan is dead, but Joseph is safe.”
“Remember the family member in the military? We can tug on that thread, see where it leads.”
Kenna’s mind filled with images of military uniforms, and she shuddered. She’d been out of it, drifting between awake and unconscious, at the time. “It hurt.”
“What did?”
“They hurt me.”
Jax slid his arm from behind her, ran his hand across where the baby was protected between them, and lifted it to touch her cheek. “Tell me.” His blue eyes had darkened, a roiling mix of anger and sadness that looked like the ocean at night in the middle of a storm.
“I don’t remember.” She shook her head. “It’s just snatches. Flashes. And the pain.”
He touched his forehead to hers and stayed there, still and quiet. Holding her.
Kenna closed her eyes, focusing on the feel of him with her and not the wash of terrible things in her mind. Hanging on to him for dear life.
That’s what it felt like.
If she lost him, she would lose everything she had, everything she was.
Kenna knew in her logical brain that wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
She needed a firm foundation in the Lord, and that was supposed to be what her life was based on.
Jax should be a blessing, like grace upon grace.
An add-on to her life, because God already filled her to the brim with everything she needed spiritually.
But when she tried to draw from that well…it was empty.
“It’s gone,” she whispered.
He shifted then, responding to her quiet statement. Moving so she could see his eyes again. “What’s gone?”
“My faith. God. All of it. It’s like I’m reaching for it, but there’s nothing there.”
“They took it from you?”
She wanted to believe that, and not that she had let go of it. Not that God might have withdrawn from her. “I haven’t been a Christian long enough to know what’s happening. It still feels like panic. Like trying to find something but it’s missing.”
“So let’s find it. Together. Rediscover what you believe and why and start to put that armor back on one piece at a time. When the next attack comes, you’ll be better protected.”
She knew he was talking about spiritual armor, but how that worked was something that—yes—she was going to have to learn how to put on. In a way she did feel like a child relearning how to tie their shoes, or how to button a coat to keep out the chill.
“What if it just falls apart again next time?” She bit her lip. Apparently, this was a day for her to voice all her worst fears aloud. Speaking the hidden things into the dim light of their private space, where only he could hear. “What if it happens again, and I’m not strong enough?”
“You won’t be facing them alone. We’re going to be together.”
She’d expected him to tell her that she was the strongest person he knew. He’d said that to her before. But in her brokenness, she didn’t feel strong. She felt…
Wrecked.
“Promise me I don’t have to do this alone.”
“I’m not going to let you do any of this by yourself.” He kissed one cheek, then her other. “We’re in this together from here on out. I promise you that.”
Kenna held on tight to her husband.
He shifted far enough away that she knew he was going for his phone. Before she could wonder why, he tapped the screen, and a voice spoke in a soothing, melodic tone.
“O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up…”
Kenna’s eyes drifted shut, and she soaked up the words in the comfort of his arms.
“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?”