At First Touch (34 page)

“I need to tell you something,” I said abruptly, standing up and grabbing his hand. I dragged him outside and stood next to his car, ignoring his sputtering interruptions.

“I take it you want in the car,” he said in confusion. I just nodded impatiently, suddenly on fire to tell him things I hadn’t ever thought I would. He stared at me for a moment and then wrenched the passenger door open, waiting until I climbed in before he slammed it shut and got in on his side.

“Ok, so what do you need to tell me?” he asked, and I bathed for a moment in the warmth emanating from his sapphire eyes.

“I want to tell you the truth,” I said, and then looked down at my hands, unable to meet his gaze as I told him about myself. “You are such a good person; I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone with such a strong sense of what’s right and wrong. And you’ve taken so much on faith. But you don’t know the real me, what I’ve done. And you need to before you decide if you can be with me.” I took a deep breath and began.

“My real name is Elizabeth Anne Mason. My father’s real name is Sean Patrick Mason. My mother’s name is…was…”I paused, pushing back the wave of emotion I always felt when I thought of my lost mother. “Her name was Anna Sarah Mason. Until the accident, we lived in a small apartment in Brooklyn. Dad was an insurance salesman and Mom worked for the local House Representative. I went to private school.”

I was quiet for a minute, gearing myself up for the bad parts. Carey didn’t say anything, sensing that I needed silence, but he took my hands in his gently, giving me his strength.

“I told you about the FBI and what happened to me there, basically.” I sighed. “But I haven’t really told you about the Coalition.”

I glanced up and saw Carey’s avid expression, but he quickly smoothed it out and just looked at me attentively. I blew out my breath and told him the truth.

“When I first woke up after being pulled into the van, I was strapped onto a cold, metal table. There was an IV in my hand and these little patches all over me, hooked up to a machine. I was wearing a hospital gown and I was worried about who had undressed me. I looked around and saw that I was in a pretty big room, white and sterile like an operating room, empty but for a single door at the other end. Then the door opened.

“A man walked in and said ‘hello.’ I remember thinking his eyes were the coldest I’d ever seen. They didn’t even look human; it was like a lizard wearing a suit.” I laughed bitterly at the memory. “He was a cold-blooded bastard, so I wasn’t that far off.”

Carey’s grip on my hands tightened slightly and I focused on my story.

“He told me his name was Anders Kaufman and that I belonged to the Coalition. I started to cry and ask for my dad, but Kaufman just came over and hit a switch on the machine next me, and suddenly I was on fire, my whole body convulsing over and over again with the electricity, making my head rock back and forth until I thought my neck would break. He didn’t quit until I stopped crying.”

My voice was completely devoid of emotion; I told the story as though it had happened to someone else. I barely registered the angry curse Carey muttered under his breath as I continued.

“Then he told me he knew what I could do, and I was going to work for the Coalition. He said if I didn’t do what they asked, they would hurt me. And if that didn’t work, they would find my father and hurt him.

“ I told him to let me go, that I would never help him, and he hit the switch again until I was almost unconscious. He called in two men in lab coats who had been waiting outside the door and told them to…to work on me. He smiled down at me, this blank, meaningless smile, like he knew that’s what normal people were supposed to do, but it was all wrong on him. He said, ‘You will sacrifice, but it will be for the good of the human race. Remember whenever you  hurt it’s for the greater good.’

“He left then, and the men put something in the IV that made my veins burn until I was alert again. And then…well, it got worse. They were…testing my parameters they said.”

Drawing in a shaking breath, I glanced up at Carey again, to see how he was taking it. His face was dark with fury, his mouth working as though he were keeping quiet by force. Biting my bottom lip, I continued, knowing I was getting to the part that mattered.

“Anyway, this went on for a while, a few days. They’d let me sleep a few hours and then they’d come back, wake me up, and work on me some more. Every time I tried to fight them they’d just flip that switch. I was terrified of that pain. I would have done anything to make it stop.” I was surprised to feel tears rolling down my face as I reached the part I was most ashamed of.

Carey opened his mouth to say something, but I held a hand up. “No, let me finish. I’m almost done,” I promised. He subsided and watched me, his hands gripping mine almost painfully.

“Finally, they cleaned me up and made me put on some clothes, just plain white scrubs like most of them were wearing. We left the room and went through a maze of hallways until I didn’t know where we’d started. At last, we came to a room with bookshelves all over the place and leather chairs and stuff. I think it was a study or library.

“Anyway, Kaufman was sitting there at the desk, with Samuelson, the man Carson knew as Bergen. He welcomed me and told me to take a seat on the couch next to this man who was balled up, his face all bloody and his arm hanging funny. I hesitated, but one of the orderlies showed me a taser, so I sat down and waited for instructions. Kaufman told me that I was to download the man on the couch, that he knew something important but wouldn’t tell them what it was. I didn’t want to, but the orderly hit me with the taser. I downloaded the man, and I knew what they wanted. He was a doctor and had treated a Coalition agent who went crazy from a bad reaction to one of the experimental drugs they had him on. They were trying to develop some drug that would make soldiers feel less pain, something they were working on for the Defense department. Anyway, the doctor had kept a blood sample from the agent and sent it to be analyzed. He was trying to hide it from the Coalition, was going to expose them.

“Kaufman made me tell him who the doctor sent the blood sample to. Then he told me I did a good job, that I should be proud, and told the men to take me away and make me comfortable.”

I started sucking in the air, feeling like I had when Carson was dying, like I couldn’t catch my breath. Carey pulled me into his arms, ignoring my resistance, stroking my hair and murmuring quietly.

“And then the next day, Samuelson came to see me, and he said that thanks to me, the Coalition was able to find the blood sample and kill the lab tech who had analyzed it. And then they killed the doctor, and he was so pleased with me for neutralizing the threat to the Coalition.”

I screamed into Carey’s chest, sobbing uncontrollably. “I killed those men, Carey! I killed them! It was my fault, my fault,” I begged, feeling something break inside me and give way, releasing the pain I had never really let go, never let anyone see. “And he told me no one would hurt me that day as a reward.  And I was glad! God forgive me, I was glad.”

Carey just held me and let me weep, telling me it was ok, that it wasn’t my fault, that no one could blame me, I had no choice. Finally my tears quieted and I pulled away, wiping the sopping mess of my face with my sleeve.

When I could speak again, I told him what I had done to Carson. I told him he had to know the truth about me, and that if he thought I was a monster, I would understand. I knew there was something deeply damaged inside me, a poisoned wound that leaked out its toxins, and that I hurt other people when I was vulnerable or angry. I waited for him to tell me to get out of the car, to drive away and never speak to me again. I waited, hunched over like a dog expecting to be struck.

He was quiet for a while, just absently stroking my hair like I was a frightened animal. Finally, when I thought I could stand the silence no longer he let me go and got out of the car.

“Oh, god,” I breathed, my heart twisting into a hard, implacable knot. I gasped as my door was wrenched open and Carey’s outstretched hand brushed my shoulder. I took it with my good hand and he gently pulled me out of the car.

“Come here,” he said gently, pulling me up into his arms, cradling me against his chest, draping my good arm around his neck. “Hold tight.”

There was a rushing noise and I closed my eyes, my stomach lifting and dropping like I was cresting the peak of a roller coaster, my entire body going weightless, defying gravity for one heart-stopping second. 

By the time I let out my breath, we were stopped. Cool air teased my cheeks, and the scent of pine was on the breeze. I opened my eyes.

“Oh,” I breathed, and tightened my grip on Carey. We were standing on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the surrounding mountains, the town stretched out beneath us like a perfect miniature, the old worn down buildings of downtown charming from this distance. Over the hills I could see the bright gleam of swiftly moving water, a creek or stream I hadn’t known was nearby. The wind whistled briskly around us, but Carey’s warmth filled me, and a strange peace untied the knot in my chest, winding its way through my veins and slowing my pulse to an easy, restful pace.

“It’s beautiful,” I murmured, gazing at the soft, rounded peaks covered with the fading brilliance of late autumn trees, making the mountains look as though they would pillow my landing if I fell. There was something infinitely comforting about the well-established land, as though it had long made its peace with the environment and simply abided, shielding the tiny town within its embrace against all destructive elements.

“Listen to me, Liz. Listen to my thoughts while I tell you this so you know I mean it. I love you. You did nothing wrong. Nothing. And whatever has been done to you just makes me want to protect you from anything or anyone that could harm you. You are not responsible for what you do when you are being tortured, no one is.”

He held my head in his hand, forcing me to meet his eyes. My control was completely obliterated and his thoughts poured into mine, sincerity humming within him like something tangible.

“Look around you. One of the things I’ve loved about living here is that these mountains protect us.  A few years back there was a tornado headed this way and the town was totally unprepared. But the mountains blocked it. All we got was some gusty wind and rain. No one was injured, no property was damaged.”

Carey’s lips brushed my cheek and I closed my eyes in deep contentment. When I opened them again resolution blazed in his eyes and his thoughts. “I will always keep you safe, always. I’m your mountain. You’ll never be in danger again, I swear it. I love you, Elizabeth Anne Mason. No matter what.”

His lips bore down on mine, ignoring my tear-stained cheeks, and I let Carey kiss me, reveling for the first time in a week in the warm, faintly woodsy smell of him, the solid weight of his arms, the silk of his hair brushing my cheek. I surrounded myself in his thoughts, in the security that he loved me, that he didn’t blame me, and breathed a little easier.

“I love you too, Carey, “I whispered, and the last of my doubt disappeared with the wind.

No book, even a self-published one, is ever completed without a lot of help. Thank you first and foremost to my parents, who are endlessly supportive and never complain when I ask them to read yet another draft or obsess about the habits of people that don’t really exist outside my mind. They are wonderful editors and cheerleaders, and I am so lucky to be their daughter.

Thanks also to the rest of my family, who have always been supportive and encouraging, and have always believed in me, no matter how ridiculous my goal.

And thank you to the other self-published authors out there who paved the way and proved the industry is always changing, and the only thing that really matters is having a good story to tell.