Whispers in the Dark (KGI #4)(24)

She smiled. “Understandable if you were.”

“How are you? I mean really? You doing okay these days? I haven’t seen much of you.”

She glanced over at him. “Shouldn’t I be asking how you’re doing? And you haven’t seen many of us.”

He winced, although there was no accusation in her tone. His scars itched and he rubbed one hand up his arm before clasping it around his elbow.

“I understand how you feel,” she said in a low voice. “Maybe no one has said that. Maybe because they don’t understand. I know how overwhelmed you are and that sometimes you really just want everyone around you to pretend things are normal.”

He sighed again. “Yeah, I know you do.”

Because he’d been thinking earlier just how much he wanted to hug her, he pulled her into his arms and wrapped his arms around her much smaller frame. She laced her arms around his waist and hugged him back just as tightly.

“You amaze me.”

She pulled away so she could look up at him. Her brows knitted together and a slight frown rested on her mouth.

“I don’t know how you managed to survive for an entire year.”

She pulled her arms back and then folded them across her chest, her fingers making little marks on her arms.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to upset you. I understand. Believe me.”

She shook her head. “No. It’s okay. Really. People don’t talk about it at all around me. It happened. I’m still dealing with it, but sometimes I wish that everyone would feel comfortable mentioning it.”

“I guess I’m not to that point yet. I just want everyone to stop looking at me…”

“With pity in their eyes? With so much sorrow that you feel like you’re going to drown in it? With a look that says they’re hurting with you and for you, and you just want to make it all go away so they won’t feel so bad and worry all the time?”

“Yeah, that.”

“They’re family. They love us. I actually understand them more now since you came back because I feel that way about you, and I stop myself at times and remind myself that the worry I feel is the same worry they felt for me.”

Nathan looped an arm around her again and hugged her close. “Thank you for that. It means a lot. I know I don’t act like it.”

She shook her head. “You can’t make yourself feel a certain way, Nathan. Believe me, I’ve tried. It takes…time.”

“You’re an amazing woman, Rachel Kelly. I just want you to know that. I was ready to give up and I was only gone for a few months. There were days when I thought it would just be easier to die. I wanted to die.”

“Why didn’t you then?” she asked softly.

His arm fell away and he turned to grip the railing with both hands. “Because someone saved me.”

She didn’t respond. Didn’t ask him who. She just stood there and waited. He liked that about her. She wasn’t pushy. She had such a quiet strength about her that wrapped around her. She calmed him like no one else in the family. Maybe that was why he was standing here waging a battle with himself over whether to confide in her. At least if she thought he was crazy, she wouldn’t go sound the alarm to the rest of the family.

He raised one arm, dragged a hand over his face and let out a disgusted sigh. “You’re going to think I’m nuts.”

She put one small hand on his shoulder. A simple touch. Still no response. And she waited. He liked that about her too. She didn’t lie and immediately deny that she wouldn’t think he was off his rocker.

“I was there. I mean I was thinking about death and the inevitability of death and wondered why I was fighting it. I told myself that I was fooling myself that I would ever see my family again. Why continue to be strong and endure when it was pointless?”

She let out a small sound of distress and leaned in closer.

“And then she spoke to me.”

Rachel tilted her head again. “Who did?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He wouldn’t say her name. She’d begged him not to tell anyone about her. He was breaking that promise here with Rachel, but he would at least not give her name. Even if she wasn’t real, it was important that he not betray her. “Maybe she was an angel. Maybe I imagined her. But she saved me.”

“Even after my memory grew so hazy with the drugs they gave me, I held on to Ethan. His name. His image. As time went on, I convinced myself he wasn’t real and that he was just my own personal warrior or angel. Take your pick. But he got me through my darkest days. I convinced myself that he would save me. Maybe it was all I had. It was either cling to that belief or just give up. I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“That’s not everything,” Nathan muttered. “We talked. I mean really talked. And the thing is…Boy, does this get crazier by the minute. The thing is, I couldn’t have imagined her because she emailed Van.”

Rachel pulled sharply away. “You mean the email he got telling him you were in Korengal Valley? The one telling him to talk to Joe?”

“That’s the one.”

Rachel pursed her lips and blew out her breath. “Okay, so when you say you talked to this woman, you mean like she was in the next cell? Or she was part of the group of people who kept you prisoner?”