Читать книгу Let Me In - Donna Kauffman - Страница 9

He just wanted to sleep. A year should do. He was weary down to his soul. What he didn’t want to do was look into Tate’s eyes and see the shattered pain she no longer tried to hide. He knew what she’d been through before she’d left the team. He had led the team debriefing her. He’d heard every last detail, from her own swollen, cracked, bleeding lips. He’d seen her when she’d been broken, beaten, and reduced to something that barely seemed human. And yet, through it all, she’d never once let it reach her eyes. The last time he’d seen her, spoken to her, they’d been dead, hollow, completely void of all emotion. It should be encouraging to see her now, like this, looking so intensely human.

Except the feelings she should be experiencing these days were peace, tranquility, and, if she was very lucky, joy.

Not more pain, more anguish. She was the last one to deserve that. And he hated it that he was the one bringing those things back into her world. But he also refused to believe that staying cold and emotionless would have served her better.

After all, look where that had gotten him.

“According to you, she didn’t die,” Tate stated, jaw hard as granite, eyes bright with unshed tears. “She took a bullet for me, Derek. Several, if my hearing served me correctly, and it did. I might have been beaten until I could barely see, but I wasn’t deaf. Are you saying that didn’t happen? That I just dreamed it when I had to listen while they tried to torture out of her what they couldn’t torture out of me? While they threatened to shoot her? When they did shoot her? Was it a hallucination when they dragged her past the open door to the room I was being held in, with two holes in her chest and one in the center of her forehead?” She towered over him at the side of his bed, fury now replacing pain. “Are you telling me that those sightless gray eyes that will stare into mine for all eternity weren’t real? Because, even in my diminished capacity, they looked pretty damn real to me.”

“I don’t know, Tate,” he said, speaking the God’s honest truth and wishing he had some other truth to offer her. “I don’t know what happened in that room, or what you actually saw—”

“Actually saw? Actually? I know what the hell I actually saw because I was actually there!”

Derek let her rage rain down on him, knowing the source of it was as real as it got. “The only person who really knows what went on in that room is CJ. And whoever was in on it with her.”

“In on what?” Tate all but shrieked that last word. “We had no leverage, no way out, nothing to barter with.”

“Except the truth.”

“Which would have gotten us just as dead the minute we got done giving it up.”

“Apparently she found a way to barter with it.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. All I do know is that both of you are still alive.”

Tate said nothing more, but the fight was still in her eyes.

“Did you ever ask yourself why, after they supposedly killed CJ, they didn’t finish you off, as well?”

“Of course I did. If you recall, that was a big part of my debriefing. The torture didn’t stop when they shot CJ. It went on for two more days—”

“But, despite watching your partner die at their hands, you gave them nothing.”

She jerked her head, looked away briefly. “They thought killing CJ would weaken my defenses. They guessed exactly wrong.”

“So they just up and left.”

Tate sighed. “The assumption was they received orders to move on to other targets.”

“Why leave you alive?”

Tate looked directly at him. “I don’t think they believe they did. I might have been breathing, barely, but I was hardly alive. I assume, if they thought of it at all, when they left me there they believed I’d starve to death, if my injuries didn’t get me sooner. I wasn’t exactly freed, I was abandoned, as useless to them as the house they were using to torture us in.

“As I stated in my debriefing, they didn’t treat me as a human being, merely as a conduit of information. When that conduit wasn’t forthcoming, they saved further expenditure of energy and moved on. The last day, they were talking with each other as they left the room I was held in as if I wasn’t there. They didn’t so much as look back when they walked out. Shortly after that, the house was abandoned. What was left of the village was already burned out and deserted. I was discovered a day later by an old villager looking to see if there was anything useful left in the rubble to loot. I was retrieved by the team two days after that. End of story. A story you know full well. So, what part of the story don’t I know?”

“They never did find CJ’s body.”

“I’m aware of that. Doesn’t prove her death was a hoax.” And just like that, the fight went out of her. She took a moment, and he watched as she tried to gather herself, regroup, but it was apparently beyond her at the moment. “I saw it, Derek,” she said, sounding emotionally raw, bruised. “I saw her.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “But I’ve communicated with her, Tate. She is alive.”

“I don’t understand.” Tate turned then, and paced to the window, stopping abruptly and staring out of it. “Make me understand.”

He closed his eyes and willed himself to focus. “I will,” he said, knowing his battle against the dark void that was pulling at him once again, was going to be a losing one. At least this time it was pure exhaustion, not the fuzzy fugue of drugs, that was pulling him under. “Rest, Tate. We both need it.”

“Derek—”

“You’ll know everything I do,” he said, promising her. He rarely made those. “I just…I’m fading. Let me rest. Then we’ll talk.”

She paced from the window to the bed, arms folded. “I need to get outside anyway. Damage control.”

“The storm.”

“The sky is black, heavy, but the ground is just as dry as when you dragged yourself here.”

“Shit.”

“And then some.”

He opened his eyes into slits, enough to see her roll her shoulders and take a deep, silent breath. “Let me get you some water—”

“Just need some sleep. You should, too.”

“I can take care of me.”

That was a fact he knew better than most. “There’s more,” he said, his eyes closing again, this time without permission. “A lot more.”

“Really,” she said, her tone dry and harsh. He could hear her footsteps moving toward the bedroom door. “And here I thought it couldn’t get any more exciting.”

He listened to her walk away, thinking that was the closest she’d come to sounding like the old Tate.

If he didn’t already know he was going to hell, he certainly would for that alone.

The next thing he remembered was being jolted awake by a booming crash. He instinctively tried to dive off the bed to the floor for cover until he determined the situation, then came screamingly awake when hot daggers of pain knifed through him, pretty much everywhere.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

That was Tate’s voice, shouting, then she was there, pushing him back down onto the bed from his slumped-over position, half on–half off the mattress.

“Heard—a crash. Thought—”

“Never mind,” she told him, her matter-of-fact tone telling him she’d likely figured out the chain of events. “Just lie back down, you’re in no condition to—”

“Actually,” he said, bracing his weight on one hand, on his good side, as she helped shift his legs back to the bed, “I don’t think I’m as bad off as I thought.”

“Why? Because you didn’t actually explode an internal organ just now? We still don’t know what’s busted up in there, so—”

“I know what shape I’m in.” Or he certainly did now. Now that the rainbow of consciousness-threatening pain was settling down into something that was merely excruciating, he was beginning to sort out the sources.

White light flashed through the room, creating a strobe-light effect, followed almost immediately thereafter by a wall-rattling crack of thunder. Neither of them flinched, but simply continued maneuvering him back into bed.

He put his hand on hers when she started to pull the covers around him. “I can manage.”

She stilled. “Three hours ago you could barely move your head two inches to the right, so you’ll have to forgive me if I make assumptions regarding your general health and well-being.”

He wanted to tell her he was the very last person whose well-being she should ever care about, but they both knew the only reason she was nursing him back to any level of health was so she could find out just how much jeopardy he’d put hers into.

“I’m beaten, not broken,” he told her, then immediately wanted to bite his tongue off at the look that flashed across her face. “Tate—” he began, only to have her cut him off with a quick tuck of the coverlet over him, making him grunt a bit in pain.

She continued on, straightening the corners with crisp efficiency, her gaze no longer anywhere in the vicinity of his. “Rest,” she instructed. “I’m making soup.”

His stomach growled at that announcement, but she merely arched a brow, still not looking at him as she stalked to the door. “Sounds like a ‘yes, ma’am,’ to me. I’ll be back later.”

And she was gone, down the hall, and from the sounds of it, out the front door, which he heard slam shut behind her a moment later.

Straight out into the storm. But then, he supposed she was in a storm regardless of whether there was a roof over her head or not.

I can take care of myself.

Her words echoed in his head. As did all the others he’d heard her speak. Both here, and during her debriefing.

He blocked those out. All of them. Because she was right. If she’d ever proven anything, and she certainly hadn’t needed to at that point in her quite illustrious career, it was that she could take care of herself.

She hadn’t needed him then. And she most definitely did not need him now.

The best thing he could do for her was to figure out the fastest way to get on his feet, so they could solve the problem at hand before the problem took them out of the equation.

Of course, it would be a hell of a lot easier if he knew exactly what the problem was. He didn’t look forward to the moment when he had to explain that little detail to her. All he could hope was that she had, unwittingly or not, the information he needed to fill in the crucial parts of the equation that were still blank.

So focus, dammit. Focus.

And though his head pounded like it was being used as an anvil, and his body screamed like a little girl every time he moved any part of it, he spent the next twenty minutes doing as thorough and methodical an assessment of his physical situation as he could. Tate’s assessment was that his physical situation wasn’t all that great, and if anyone could be an observational judge of that, she could. But he was the best judge of all. And while realistically, Tate wasn’t that far off, he knew that willpower and a high tolerance to pain would expedite him through a fair chunk of recovery time.

Mostly he was thankful that the past twelve hours seemed to have been the trick needed to get the last of the drugs out of his system, or at least diminished to the point where all he had left was a splitting hangover of a headache. He could live with that.

Thunder rattled the cabin walls again as Derek slowly worked his way into more of a sitting position. Well, his head was propped up higher than his chest now, anyway. It was a start. His stomach rumbled again, which he took as a good sign, despite the fact that the idea of food at the moment made him want to puke. By tomorrow, he estimated, he’d be closer to tackling that endeavor without turning green at the thought, but he’d try to get some of Tate’s soup down later. The faster he could get some nutrients back into his system, the better. He glanced at the open door on the opposite side of the room, the one leading to the master bathroom. Another adventure to be tackled as soon as humanly possible.

He might have seen Tate at her worst, but she’d kept her recovery process an intensely personal one, dealing only with a few hand-selected medical personnel throughout, until she could leave the team for good and retire here to continue healing on her own. He understood the need for that kind of privacy, on many levels, when dealing with such catastrophic injuries, both physical and mental.

Given her intimate acquaintance with those kinds of privacy issues, he realized she’d be more than capable of helping him with his far more rudimentary needs. However, he was just as determined as she’d been to handle as much of his recovery privately as possible. And it had little to do with modesty or pride. They had a mission ahead, and as partners they would have to know, have to be able to trust, that they could rely on each other. He needed her to believe, without question, that he was capable of leading this mission, of getting them through this.

The front door to the cabin banged open and shut again, drawing his attention to the bedroom door. She didn’t come immediately down the hall. He heard her in the kitchen first, making a clatter, then finally her footsteps coming closer. Thunder continued to rattle walls as heavy rain slashed at the windows. The gloom was so thick now, the lightning strikes barely penetrated it. He guessed it was early evening, which meant he’d slept another couple hours before the storm had woken him up.

“I should have turned on a light for you before I left,” she said as she entered the room, a small tray balanced in her hands.

“That’s okay. And you didn’t have to go to all the trouble,” he said, grunting as he tried to shift his weight a bit further upright.

“Derek—”

“It’s enough I’m here, doing…this to you. You don’t have to spoon-feed me on top of it.”

“Your shoulder—”

“Hurts like hell, but will be fine. If you’ve got something I could fashion into a sling to take the weight off of it for a bit, that—”

“I’ve got a sling. Just stop what you’re doing before you make things worse.”

“To quote you earlier, I can take care of myself.”

“If by that you mean you can drag yourself, half-dead, to the doorstep of someone who can keep your sorry ass from dying, then yes, you most certainly can. Now, if you’re determined to abuse your already abused body, then fine, but at least suck up your pride long enough to let me help you sit up.”

She set the tray down on the nightstand with something of a clatter, causing the soup to slop over the side of the bowl a bit. She turned to him, hands on her hips.

“I know I look like hell, but I’m not as bad off as it seems,” he told her.

“Right.”

He found himself smiling, and didn’t even wince this time when it pulled at the broken skin at the corners of his mouth and eyebrow. His cursory once-over before she’d come in from the storm had revealed that she’d cleaned the dried blood from his face, hands, and wrists at some point during his unconsciousness and put ointment on the cuts. He tried not to think about those narrow, strong fingers touching him. Mostly because the thought of her ministering to him didn’t bother him nearly as much as it should have. “I don’t recall you ever taking such a tone before.” He lifted a hand, and did wince a little when his shoulder protested. “Not that I don’t deserve every sharp tone in the book. I’m just saying it’s a different side of you.”

“Get used to it. I might have to suffer whatever hell on earth you’ve brought back into my world, but I don’t have to suffer arrogance or condescension along with it.”

“Is that how you see me? Arrogant and condescending?”

“What, you think you’re all sweetness and light?”

“Tough, but fair, would be a closer assessment.”

“You were both, true. I respected the way you ran the program, and I respected your personal work ethic.”

“But you didn’t like me much.”

She simply stared at him. “I knew I could count on you to do whatever had to be done to ensure a successful mission, and I knew I could trust you with my life and those of my fellow agents. Nothing else mattered.”

He nodded. “Fair enough.”

“But I don’t work for you any longer. So, if I’m thinking something, or reacting to something, you’ll be the first to know about it. Whether or not you approve of what I have to say, or the way in which I say it, means little to me.”

“Understood.”

She turned her back on him and walked over to a tall dresser situated to the side of the bed, opposite the wall of windows. He hadn’t been in the position to pay much attention to how she’d furnished her home, but while she rooted through the drawers, he did now. He used the term “furnished” rather than “decorated,” as there were the necessary items, all sturdy and durable looking, if not exactly stylish or even matching, but next to nothing extra added beyond that. A small matted and framed print of some kind hung next to the bathroom door, and a colored glass jar with a spray of dried flowers in it sat on the dresser. The nightstand held a generic-looking lamp and a clock. No books or clutter of any kind. Although she might have moved that kind of stuff out of reach or sight when she’d moved him in here.

It wasn’t exactly barracks, as the log walls, beamed ceilings, and woven rugs on the plank wood floors, leant the room warmth, but it didn’t look much like a home either. Made him curious about the rest of the house. He watched as she dug through first one, then another of the dresser drawers. Other than through a high-powered scope, it was his first opportunity to truly look at her up close. His head was still pounding with a blistering headache, but his eyesight was blessedly clear now.

He knew from watching her over the past week that she moved relatively smoothly, if not exactly gracefully, which, considering how broken she’d been, was somewhat surprising. Clearly, if she’d moved his bulk from the front room to this bed, she’d regained both her strength and range of motion, and the muscles to throw behind it. She was leaner now, he thought, recalling her once solid, sturdy frame. He wouldn’t go so far as to call her skinny, though there didn’t seem to be much to spare on her frame these days. More…rawboned.

He thought about her face, which he’d mostly only seen with a scowl since reentering her world. Not that he could blame her, but he’d thought her drawn features were more a result of that expression. Now he was thinking that it went with the rest of her. Not exactly bony or narrow, but definitely harder, and a bit weathered. He wondered whether it was the natural result of her rehabilitation—her face had been pretty banged up by her captors—or a result of living a rather elemental lifestyle out in the middle of nowhere.

Her hair, which she’d kept chin length during the time she worked for him, was the only luxuriant thing about her now. It was long, or longer than he’d ever seen it, brushing below her shoulders, all at one length. For all her physique was spare these days, her hair was anything but. During his observation of her, she’d always had it pulled back, or under a hat, so he hadn’t noticed it so keenly. Now he couldn’t seem to stop looking at it. It was thick, surprisingly wavy, and had a natural shine that drew the eye.

She slapped the last drawer shut and turned to face him, but he found himself still watching her hair move and swing around her shoulders. She dangled a sling in her hand, finally drawing his attention.

“I’ll have to make some adjustments for your size, but I think it will work.”

He stared at the sling a moment longer, and images of the last time he’d seen her, three years before, swam uninvited through his mind. She’d been leaving the hospital’s long-term rehabilitation wing. Leaving the entire area, for that matter, for good. He’d come to see her with the idea of talking her into taking a sabbatical rather than terminating her job. He’d used logic, telling her she’d retain benefits that way, and seniority. He’d argued that she’d go crazy sitting out in the middle of nowhere, that she was too vital a person for that, with a need to be involved rather than sidelined. He thought he’d been giving her a long-term goal, something to focus on. A future.

She’d been sitting in a wheelchair when he’d walked in, but only because the nurse was more stubborn than she was. At least that was his take given the byplay between the two. One leg was still in a heavy brace, her head was still partially bandaged where they’d had to shave it. Her face was recognizable by then, but still pretty banged up. And her arm had been in a sling. The one presently in her hands, if he wasn’t mistaken.

She’d quietly listened to all his arguments, then turned to the nurse and informed her that she was ready to leave. She didn’t bother to look back after she’d been wheeled past him. Though she had probably felt somewhat humiliated by her physical limitations at the time, he recalled thinking it had been one of the more dignified exits he’d ever seen. And though he’d sincerely believed she was making a mistake by resigning the team, that dignity alone demanded he respect her decision. And he had.

Until he’d been given no choice.

“You didn’t have to—”

“What?” she said, rather brusquely. “I have a sling, you need one. Don’t get all maudlin on me.”

“Maudlin? I’m hardly—”

“Here.” She walked over to the side of the bed, already making the adjustments to the strap. “You’ll need to shift your weight forward just a—”

“Got it,” he said, for some reason annoyed rather than amused with her no-nonsense demeanor. She bent across him, all but burying his face in all that hair, and he didn’t want to know how fresh it smelled, or how silky it felt. He didn’t want to know that it would make his body respond in ways that, while heartening to know everything still functioned properly, was entirely inappropriate. Especially when it was very damn clear he didn’t then, and certainly didn’t now, hold any of the same distraction or appeal for her.

Using his good hand, he tugged the strap from hers. “I can do it.”

She immediately let go and straightened. “I’m sure you can.”

Hearing the thread of amusement in her tone had him looking up. There was little hint of it on her face, but he knew what he’d heard. “What?” he asked, knowing he sounded almost petulant, and not seemingly able to get himself under control. It shouldn’t bug him in the slightest that she wasn’t aware of him the way he was suddenly aware of her. He certainly wasn’t at his best at the moment. And just because she’d never thought of him in that way, certainly shouldn’t have been any kind of blow to his ego. They’d worked together, and that kind of distraction held all kinds of dangerous potential he continually instructed his team to avoid at all costs. Not that all of them did. Being put into highly dangerous, life-and-death situations, especially with someone you had to trust with your life, had a way of creating sexual tension, even between people who otherwise couldn’t have imagined it.

He’d never been in that kind of close quarters situation with Tate, and never knew her to have gotten involved with anyone she’d worked with, but it certainly hadn’t kept him from thinking that, had life been different for the two of them, he might have been interested in her that way. So it shouldn’t have been a stretch to think that she might have felt something along the same lines.

Christ, he really needed to get some food in his belly and get some rest, because his entire train of thought was bordering on the ridiculous. He finished situating the sling, using motions that caused more pain than necessary, but if that’s what it took to clear his head, so be it. “If you could prop the tray on my lap, I can take it from there,” he said, not remotely interested in eating anything at the moment, but needing the distraction almost as much as he needed the nutrition.

She did as asked with a minimum of fuss. “I’ll leave you to it. Let me know when you’re done.” She moved to the doorway, but paused by the frame and looked back. “Then I’ll want a complete debriefing on everything you know so we can start getting me my life back.”