Page 12 of The Hangman's Rope
I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.
“That’s all I’m gonna say. Either you get it or you don’t,” she said, pushing off the doorframe. “She’s in the shower. I didn’t leave her alone out there to slip out or anything.”
“Shit,” I muttered and pushed past her into the small hallway. The bathroom door was shut firm, the water running on the other side. It had a window, but there was no porch on that side of the house. Still, I knocked on the door.
“Lorelai?” I called out.
“Yes?” her tremulous voice called back.
“You good?” I asked.
“Yes. Do you want me to hurry up?”
“No, take your time. I got something for you to wear when you get out. You got towels?” I couldn’t remember if there were any in there.
“Yes, I think so,” she called back.
I bowed my head and turned to look at the doctor. We had her on the hook for her services thanks to her husband’s gambling addiction. Each house call she made was working off his debt to us. It was pretty fucking handy to have on certain occasions – this being one of them. We didn’t bother her too much, but she was there when we needed her.
“I’ll let Syn know,” she reiterated. “I’ll show myself out.”
I nodded and she left, gathering her smart doctor’s bag off the floor by the couch and slipping out the way she’d come in. I went to the door and locked it behind her, peering out into the dark, over the porch rail, in the direction of the gate. The cherry of a cigarette glowed down there as one of the brothers took adrag – probably Specter. He was really the only one who smoked cigarettes, the rest switching to a vape or just sticking to the occasional pre-roll or blunt.
I still smoked on occasion, but not nearly as much as I had when I was in-country.
I went back to my room and gathered up the tee and pair of drawstring, straight-legged, gray sweatpants that had cargo pockets. She’d swim in the clothes, she was so slender, but it was better than nothing.
She wasn’t tiny in the sense of being short. Hell, she had to be five foot nine or better. My six feet wasn’t much taller than she was, but I swear I could put my hands around her waist and touch middle fingers and thumb if I squished just a teensy bit. She was rail thin, which was surprising, because it wasn’t like she was anorexic or anything. She had way too much chest forthatto be a thing. She was just built that way. Won the genetic lottery for the current standard of beauty. I could see why she’d been targeted even if the thought did make me a little queasy.
Not saying I was a saint, for sure I had plenty of blood on my hands, but one thing I wasn’t was a rapist. I tended to like my women willing – and I had this, I don’t know…fuck. It was hard to say I had a working moral compass, because for sure, I didn’t, but I did have standards, I guess. One of those standards was to leave the fairer sex out of any conflict or violence. Sure, there was collateral damage that happened on that front, living this life, but collateral damage was one thing. Intentionally targeting a man’s family – his wife, his kids – hell no.
I wasn’t about it.
I knew some of the guys didn’t care one way or the other, but I did, and they knew to leave me the hell alone when it came to that shit.
The water shut off, and I shook my head as though coming awake. A moment or two later, the bathroom door opened.Lorelai startled, clutching the towel over her breasts, and I stupidly thrust the shirt and sweatpants at her and closed the door between us, practically in her face.
Way to fucking go, jackass,I thought to myself. Raking some loose tendrils of hair back from my face, I huffed out a frustrated breath and fucked off back toward the apartment’s kitchen and living room combo area, dropping onto the deep brown, leather couch and putting my hands, which for some reason shook, onto my knees.
For some reason,I thought caustically to myself.
No, it was what the doctor had said… about the girls who were left intact, not remembering. I closed my eyes and took in a deep slow breath through my nose and let it out through my mouth.
I knew what she’d meant. I didn’t want to know, but I’d seen some really uncouth shit on my tours. Everything from coming up on rapes in progress – them, the Taliban, not us – to walking up on a mutilation in progress. Female circumcision sounded so genteel to the actual brutal reality of it. Especially considering it wasn’t like there was access to proper surgical implements and shit in a war-torn country. The one I’d walked in on had left me shaken beyond words. There’d been so much blood, so many tears, and she’d just been a little girl. I’d almost killed the motherfucker with the blood-slick hands and the bit of broken glass he’d been using.
Beat him half to fucking death.
Almost been court-martialed.
Would have been worth it. To this day, the only regret I had was that I hadn’t done any permanent damage. Maybe a scar or two, a bone that would ache if that fucking place ever got rain, but definitely not enough of a reminder or deterrent from that sick fuck to never put his hands on another one.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing. Slow and steady. Counting like I’d been taught in group therapy at the VA. I got a monthly disability stipend from Uncle Sam. Would get it the rest of my life. It was a pittance for the horrors that lived on inside my head.
I liked the quiet of living out here by myself. I preferred the dark and the sound of frogs and insects. The bright light of day was too noisy, the sun beating down transporting me back in time to a place I never wanted to see again, with those jutting craggy cliff faces, stabbing into the sky like broken rotting teeth.
I swear to God, that brown and sullen place was the world’s fuckin’ sphincter and I didn’t care if the whole goddamn country burned but for the fucking innocent women and children trapped in its rugged IED-infested terrain.
“Are you okay?”
