Whispers in the Dark

CHAPTER 9

SIX MONTHS LATER

KELLY COMPOUND, STEWART COUNTY, TENNESSEE

NATHAN hammered a nail into the two-by-four and then leaned back and wiped the sweat from his forehead. His hands shook and it pissed him off. He was still weak. Not fully himself. But then it was doubtful he’d ever be one hundred percent again.

He’d gained some of the weight back, but he was still whipcord lean and a good twenty pounds lighter than his normal size.

His house was framed. It could already be built by now, but he’d shunned a contractor. He couldn’t explain his drive to build the house himself, but it had become all-important for him to drive every nail, to create the refuge exactly as he envisioned it.

These days, it was all that kept him sane.

The mere idea of small, closed-in spaces made him break out in a cold sweat.

Weeks in a hospital had in some way been as hellish as his captivity. He’d felt helpless and he fought a daily battle over whether or not he’d imagined Shea. And worrying about her if she did in fact exist.

After having her as a shadow in his mind for so long, his head was frighteningly quiet. No comforting presence. But at other times, while he slept, he could swear he felt her. Warm and soothing, easing his pain and anxiety. When he awakened, she was never there. Still, he couldn’t discount the fact that the agony that should have incapacitated him simply didn’t exist.

The medical staff marveled at his ability to withstand and block out pain. What could he tell them? That he’d imagined a savior with the ability to take his pain as her own? They would have carried him away in a straitjacket. He’d probably still be locked up in some damn institution for psychiatric evaluation.

So yeah, he’d kept his mouth shut. During debriefing he’d kept to the facts. He’d been captured, tortured, and he’d managed to escape when they intended to kill him. Swanny must have kept his mouth shut too, because the incident where Shea and her sister had helped Swanny had gone unmentioned. Maybe Swanny himself didn’t even remember what had happened. Or maybe, like Nathan, he thought he was crazy.

Not as easy was answering his brothers’ questions when he was well enough and lucid enough to face them. They’d all hovered in his hospital room. His parents had flown in. The whole damn Kelly clan had gathered and had stayed in shifts until he was finally discharged.

One night when his parents had gone to eat with Rachel, Sophie and Sarah, his brothers had remained behind in his hospital room and they’d asked about the person who’d emailed Donovan. They asked who Shea was and why Nathan had screamed her name.

It was against his nature to lie to his family. He hated lying. But neither was he going to delve into his experience with Shea. She had to be real. How else would Donovan have received the emails he’d gotten? Van had even showed them to him.

He merely told them there was a sympathetic guard who’d promised to contact Nathan’s brother on Nathan’s behalf. Nathan had seen the disbelief in his brothers’ eyes. Questions that burned on their tongues, but they didn’t press. It probably damn near killed them.

As for Shea, the moment they mentioned her name, he refused to respond. He had no ready explanation, no easy way to explain away why he’d screamed for her not to leave him. So he said nothing, and his stony silence became a source of frustration for his brothers.

Nathan sighed as he hammered another nail. He knew his brothers worried. Nathan had changed, but hell, how could he not? How could anyone go through what he’d endured and not be fundamentally a changed man?

It wasn’t like he wanted to be different. He’d love to have his old life back. The same confidence. His resolute belief in his abilities. He’d give anything not to go to bed at night in a cold sweat because he couldn’t bear to close his eyes in case he woke up and was back in that cave being cut into ribbons again.

He hated the panic attacks. The loss of control. His sudden, unexplained fears at the most inopportune times. He’d come a long way since being discharged, but he still battled his demons on a daily basis. There were times, even though he was only six months out from his rescue, when he wondered if he’d always battle them. They seemed as much a part of him as breathing.

As much as he’d feared never seeing his family again, now that he was home, he preferred to spend most of his time alone. They loved him and he loved them, but their worry and concern weighed heavily on him. He couldn’t pretend he was normal. He couldn’t pretend to be the man who’d left them all those months ago to go on another mission. He was changed, and he was still dealing with the effects of that change himself. How could he expect them to accept the change when he hadn’t accepted it?

He didn’t want to push them away—it wasn’t what he consciously did. But he found himself seeking solitude more and more and spending less time in the ranks of his noisy and boisterous family. He missed them and avoided them in equal measure.

He reached for another nail and wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his arm, freezing for a moment as the crisscross pattern of still healing scars flashing in front of

him.

He looked and felt like a damn patchwork doll.

Raising the hammer, he started to drive another nail, when a sound behind him stopped him. He turned, expecting to see one of his brothers. They checked in on him daily, whether he wanted them to or not. But it wasn’t one of them standing a few feet away.

He dropped the hammer. “Swanny! What the hell are you doing here?”

Nathan strode over to his former teammate and gripped him in a tight hug. He pulled away, taking note of Swanny’s appearance.

Like Nathan, he hadn’t regained the weight he’d lost in captivity. He, also like Nathan, was heavily scarred. The wound on his face had been deep and long and it snaked over the entire left side of his face. Lines were grooved into his forehead and around his eyes. There was even a smattering of gray at his temples. Hell had aged him and he hadn’t recovered. Maybe he never would.

“I had to come see you, Nate. I had to thank you in person.”

“Come sit down. Want a beer?”

Nathan gestured toward two large boulders that overlooked sprawling Kentucky Lake. While Swanny went to take a seat, Nathan dug into his cooler for two beers. Then thinking better of it, he dragged the entire ice chest over to where Swanny sat.

“How the hell are you?” Nathan asked as he tossed a can in Swanny’s direction.

Swanny was quiet for a moment. “I’m good. Making it. I thought I was more than ready to get out when my tour was up, but now I have too much time to think. It sucks.”

“Yeah, I hear you.”

“Nice place you have here. I wasn’t sure they were going to let me through the gates.”

Nathan’s lips quirked into a half smile. “My brothers are pretty serious about security.”

Swanny sipped at the beer and stared out over the shimmering surface of the lake in the distance. Then he turned his gaze on Nathan. His eyes were dark and haunted. Tired.

“What happened out there, Nate?”

Nathan looked away, his shoulders rigid.

“I’ve tried to rationalize it. I’ve tried to explain it away, say it didn’t happen, but I didn’t imagine it. I did not imagine you putting your hands on me. I didn’t make up how injured I was before and the immediate sensation of relief. The x-rays showed no internal damage, but I know I was bleeding. I know I was hurt. Hell, I was coughing up blood. I couldn’t breathe. So you explain it to me, Nate. Tell me what the hell you did.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Nathan said honestly. “Swear to God, I didn’t. I have so many what-the-fuck moments about that entire ordeal. Some days I think I lost it back there and I’ll never get it back. Some part of my mind just broke during captivity and I imagined all sorts of things.”

“Yeah,” Swanny muttered.

Nathan picked up another beer and popped the tab. He took several long gulps and then directed his gaze toward the lake and let the blue swallow him.

“Someone or something helped us,” Nathan said. “It was like the most fucking beautiful thing I’ve ever encountered. I worried I was dead or dying because I was sure I felt the presence of an angel.”

If he closed his eyes and thought hard enough, he could still feel the brush of Shea’s fingers on his face, the warmth of her soul as it merged with his. It was inexplicable. He didn’t want to examine it too closely, because he wanted it to be real. He wanted her to be real.

“Angel. Yeah, that about covers the feeling. It was warm. Like the warmest, most soothing sensation I’ve ever experienced in my life. My panic and fear just melted away. I just can’t wrap my head around it. I’ve never really had a firm belief in God one way or another. I mean I suppose there has to be some higher power out there, but was that what it was? Was God helping us?”

Nathan’s hands shook and he set his beer down so he wouldn’t spill it. “I’ve asked myself that a thousand times. I don’t have an answer. Maybe I never will.”

The idea that he’d never talk to her again, never feel her inside him, destroyed a part of his soul that she’d claimed for her own.

There was so much more he could tell Swanny. But he wouldn’t ever divulge just how close to surrender he’d been in those darkest hours. Shea had saved him. Not just him but Swanny too.

Shea.

He couldn’t help the soft call. Her name echoed through his brain, making no connection. She simply wasn’t there.

Was she in trouble? Had she sacrificed her safety in order to help him? He wished to hell he knew.

He glanced back up at Swanny, who seemed as content with the silence as Nathan was.

“What now, man?” Nathan asked softly.

Swanny grimaced and absently fingered the puckered scar marring his face. “I wish to hell I knew. What about you?”

Nathan blew out his breath. “I’ve been working on that.” He gestured over his shoulder. “Haven’t made a whole lot of progress, but it gives me something to do. My brothers alternate between wanting to commit me to a long-term rest facility complete with psych ward and wanting me to start training with them. Joe’s doing well. He’s already training with a team.”

The ache inside his chest intensified. There was a gulf between him and his twin. Joe wanted to rush in, make it all better. Bully Nathan into taking action. Joe was impetuous, but it served him well. Nothing got him down. He’d blown through physical therapy for his busted leg and had started training the moment he got the okay from the therapist.

He expected Nathan to be able to do the same. Shake it off. Physically heal and then get back into the game. It wasn’t that Nathan didn’t want to join KGI. He did. It had always been his and Joe’s plan. Once they served their last tour in the army, they were going to work with their brothers.

He’d only been a few weeks away from that goal when everything had gone to hell.

Now…Now he wasn’t willing to commit unless he could be sure he’d give his brothers one hundred percent. He couldn’t guarantee anyone that. Not yet.

He also knew that his brothers were urging him to “join” simply so they could take care of him, stay on his ass to take care of himself, but they had no intention of letting him go on missions. They wanted to give him a purpose.

He wasn’t sure what his purpose was these days. It sounded fatalistic. He wasn’t. But for so long his purpose had simply been survival. Now he had to regroup, pick up the pieces and decide what the hell he was going to do with the life he’d been granted. A life that Shea had given him.

Somehow sitting here talking to Swanny brought Shea that much more sharply back to him and convinced him that he hadn’t imagined her.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do next either,” Swanny said. “I honestly never expected to make it back. I thought I was going to die in that shithole cave.”

Nathan nodded because he’d been just as convinced as Swanny had been.

A cool breeze blew in from the lake, and Nathan turned his face up to catch the sweet scent of honeysuckle. He loved it here. To experience such peace after being in such unimaginable stress was disconcerting almost.

“Well, what do you say we don’t make any life decisions for the next day or two at least,” Nathan said with a smile. “You got a place to stay? I’m thinking the biggest decision we need to think about is what beer we want and whether we’re going to run out.”

Swanny grinned. “Now you’re speaking my language. I booked a hotel in Paris and drove over the lake to find you.”

“Cancel the hotel. I’ve got better accommodations here.” He gestured at a tent toward the edge of the cliff overlooking the lake just beyond the frame of his house. “If you don’t mind rustic, plenty of fresh air and all the beer you can drink. Ma has made it her mission to make sure I never starve, so we can count on routine deliveries of food.”

“Home-cooked food and beer? And they say you can’t get to heaven without dying.”

Nathan sobered. No. But you could certainly go to hell without dying. He shook away that thought and then stood.

“Let’s go get your stuff and check you out of your hotel. We’ll stop by the store, get what we need, and we’ll spend a few nights under the stars.”

Swanny got to his feet. He stared out over the lake for a minute and then turned his gaze to Nathan. A smile softened the harsh lines around his eyes. “Yeah. Sounds like a plan.”