She spoke as brightly as possible even though her heart felt as flat as a griddle cake. “I will be fine. You do not need to wait for me. He is here, and he will make sure that I am okay from here on out.”
Blade slid the hovercraft neatly to a curb several buildings down from the one in which Jack’s father lived. “I will just wait right here.”
She stared at him, not able to figure out exactly what it was that he thought he was going to accomplish here. Jack would never have sold her. Blade had probably told her that just so she would go to bed with him! The rotten jerk!
More confusion hit. Blade was a wanted man. Just being on the surface of Newport was dangerous for him. He was running a huge risk by bringing her all the way home, and he was taking an even greater risk by setting down on the surface and then escorting her all the way to her house.
Why?
Why would he do that and risk so much? He didn’t really even know her, and it was obvious that he didn’t really want to get himself caught and killed by the Federation, which considered him a traitor and a criminal.
Her fingers fumbled with the latch for the door and swung upward. Blade had parked a mere inch and a half off the ground, and she found it readily enough, but once her feet were there on the familiar sidewalk, her legs felt like they were about to give way and would not support her.
She spoke in a trembling voice, “I am all right. Please go. You risked way too much bringing me here. I would not have you risk anything more.”
Blade said, in a wholly implacable tone, “I will wait.”
Irritated now and more confused than ever, she shut the hovercraft door and started toward the house. The small building that she and Jack shared was down the driveway and through the gate. The gate’s workings felt unfamiliar to her fingers even though she had unlatched that very gate at least a hundred times before.
Her fingers didn’t seem to want to work, and dread and joy battled within her stomach and heart. How was she going to face him after what she had done?
She would never tell him.
It would cause a rift that was unfair. It was not her fault that she had been kidnapped any more than it was Jack’s fault that she had been kidnapped. Whatever had happened during that kidnapping had happened. They would put it behind them and never speak of it again.
Her feet took her up the sloping driveway behind the gate and then across the small path that led to the little building. The lights were off in the building, but on in the main house, she could see the lights shining past the drawn blinds. Her legs wobbled again, and she lifted a hand to knock at the door of the building. She stopped with her hand halfway to the door and with her heart pounding so fast that she could hear its rhythm within her ears.
Since when did she knock on the door of the home in which she lived?
Home?
Suddenly everything felt both surreal and far too clear. Every little bit of that building came flying at her. Every detail was outlined in a sharp manner that made her unable to look away. It wasn’t a well-constructed building, and it was tiny and miserable. The windows were narrow and small in the air inside was always stuffy. She had only one single shelf for her meager belongings. She had had more things at one time but moving in with Jack and into that building meant giving away or selling most of the things that she had acquired while living in the large bedroom of her childhood home.
The building needed a good coat of lime-rock paint, and there was a crack along its foundation snaking upward toward the door. She knew that when it got colder, the draft that came through there would be bitter.
What on earth is wrong with me? Why am I looking at the things that I love the most as if they are no longer good enough for me? Shaking her head in consternation and to clear it, she reached for the doorknob to turn it, only to find it locked. She stepped back, her eyes fastened on the doorknob. Her pulse picked up speed and raced. She swallowed hard and lifted her hand once more to knock. That time her knuckles came down on the door with a solid rap that made her jerk and startle.
The door to the building did not open. She stood there staring at it, confused and frightened.
All of the things that Blade had said came up again, burning into her brain—which felt feverish.
“Tara?”
Her heart leaped into her throat. Her head turned toward the right, and she saw him standing there near the back door of the main house. He came toward her, his voice creaking and breaking as he said, “Tara? Is it really you?”
She stared at him, suddenly possessed by an urge to flee as fast as she could. He looked just the same as he always did. He was of ordinary height and ordinary weight. His face was so plain that if she had seen it in a crowd and didn’t know it, she would not even have remarked upon it. His hair, a light brown and very stick-straight thing, was already thinning away from his high forehead. There was another thinning spot in the back of his skull as well, a tiny circle that she knew would widen eventually but had loved anyway.
His brown eyes held shock. He staggered backward, one hand going up to the door frame. His voice broke a bit as he said, “Tara! What are you doing here? I mean… What… Where did you go?”
Something about his words unsettled her. Her feet shuffled on the stones of the walkway. Her hands came up and her arms crossed across her chest. A sense of defensiveness filled her. “I don’t know exactly. I woke up in a hellhole, a literal hellhole. Then this man came and rescued me and brought me home. I don’t know where it was, only that it was awful.”
Jack’s eyes darted over her shoulder toward the empty expanse of the yard. She knew every inch of that yard. There was a single tree standing at the back eastern corner, its branches currently denuded by the fall weather. The fence was a little saggy and a little crooked, and there were exactly forty-seven steps between their small abode and the larger one shared by his parents. Yet somehow it felt like a place she had never been before.
He said, “I can’t believe it! How… I was so worried about you! You say a man rescued you? Is he here?”
I don’t know, but I hope not. That thought darted through her mind, and she immediately clamped down on it in case her face betrayed her. Something was wrong; she could sense it. Jack stepped back, holding the door open. His hands jerked, and his eyes kept running up and down her face and figure. He reached for her, and when his hands landed on her upper arms, they felt clammy and sweaty. She flinched back a little but stayed steady.
Jack fumbled keys out of his pocket and reached for a hasp on the door of the building. She stared at it, disquiet sliding against her numbed brain and body.
