Page 14 of Keeping Kara

“Anyway, Nolan was nice and funny, and he insisted on buying my sandwich and drink. We ate together, and he asked if I wanted to meet him there the next day. So I did. And we ended up dating. I liked him well enough, but as time went on, I realized we didn’t have any chemistry. He’d try to kiss me at the end of our dates, and I kept finding excuses to put him off. After two months, I decided it wasn’t fair to keep going out with him when I knew we wouldn’t have anything other than a friendship.

“So I told him one day, when we met for lunch. That I just wanted to be friends. He seemed okay with it. Not especially happy, but he agreed, we finished our meal, and I went back to work. That night, when I arrived at my apartment around seven after working late, he was in the parking lot. I wasn’t happy to see him, but I still smiled and greeted him when I got out of my car. Before I could say anything, he punched me. Hard. In the face.”

Arrow tensed, then actually growled in anger on her behalf.

“Yeah. I’d never been hit before, and it hurt. Way more than I thought it would. I was on the ground holding my face when he took out a stun gun. The next thing I knew, I woke up in the trunk of a car. He took me to a cabin, locked me in one of the rooms, and told me that I’d been bad and had to be punished. It was such a massive shock. He’d never been anything but sweet before that.

“He kept me locked in the cabin while he completely dismantled my life. He had my phone and…and he strangled me until I told him the password. He texted my boss, pretending to be me, and told him I’d quit. Texted my landlord and told him I’d moved out of state. Gave away most of my stuff—furniture and things like that—and got his buddies to move everything else to the cabin. He forced me to take sedatives before they came over, so I couldn’t call out to anyone. Couldn’t scream for help.

“He told me that he’d been following me for weeks, since the day we’d met. He’d known my schedule, where I lived, what I drove…knew that I didn’t have much of a life outside of work. And he informed me that we weren’t broken up. That he’d only taken things slow because the anticipation excited him. But since I’d tried to break it off, he was done waiting.

“When he raped me the first time, he said if he couldn’t have me, no one ever would. But that he was going to have me. Own me. And there was nothing I could do, nowhere I could go that he wouldn’t find me. He said I belonged to him. I was his property.”

“Fuck.”

The low swear word, surprisingly, made Kara feel braver about telling Arrow her story. He was obviously upset. Mad. But he wasn’t losing control. Wasn’t saying anything trite to try to make her feel better.

“Yeah. He liked to put his hands around my throat when he was raping me. Cutting off my air until I thought I was going to die, then he’d let go just before I passed out. He reveled in the power he had over me. He’s a total psychopath…and he hid it so well. I have to wonder how many other women he’s done this to. How many have already died at his hands. Because I have zero doubt that he would’ve killed me eventually.”

“Where is he now?”

“I have no idea. He wasn’t at the cabin when the hurricane hit. The water rose really fast and seeped inside. The only reason I was able to escape was because the water basically broke the doors. I was swept out the door right before the flood washed the entire cabin away.”

“I’d say that was good luck.”

Kara blinked. Then she giggled. Honest-to-God giggled.

She wasn’t a giggler. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

“Most people would think getting kidnapped, raped, and held hostage by a maniac was bad luck. Add on top of that being in the middle of a hurricane, getting washed away, stuck in a tree, and having said tree get uprooted and thrown back into the fury of a flash flood.”

“But it was good luck that you were able to get out of that house before it was swept away. Then lucky that you were able to get into that tree. A full-on miracle that I saw you from my chopper, that we were able to get to the shore, and that we’re here right now. And, Kara…you managed to have the extreme good luck to be found by a man who has the resources to keep you safe. To find the asshole who hurt you and make him pay.”

Arrow had turned his head to look right at her when he said the last part, and Kara could see exactly how furious he was. But he was controlling it. Probably because he didn’t want to scare her. But the emotion in his eyes promised retribution for Nolan. The anger wasn’t directed at her, but on her behalf. It was a heady feeling.

And shockingly, she couldn’t help but think he was right. She had been lucky. Very lucky to have survived what she did. What Nolan had done to her and the hurricane and the flash flood. If none of it had happened, she’d still be a captive in that cabin.

“I have nothing, Arrow. No clothes. No car. No money. He took everything. I don’t even have a pair of shoes.”

“But you’re alive. Everything else can be replaced.”

He wasn’t wrong.

“He’s out there,” she whispered, putting her greatest fears into words. “He won’t stop looking for me.”

“Let him,” Arrow growled. “He’ll discover you aren’t as alone as he thought.”

She bit her lip, not sure what to say.

“How does it look?” he asked gently. “My shoulder?”

Blinking, Kara focused on the cloth under her hands. She slowly lifted it to look at the gash in Arrow’s shoulder and saw that it wasn’t actively bleeding anymore. “I think the bleeding’s stopped.”

“Good. Help me get my flight suit back up?”

Kara wasn’t sure what happened. One second they were having an intense conversation about Nolan, and how he was probably out there somewhere looking for her, wanting her back. And the next, she was helping Arrow pull his flight suit back over his shoulders, as if they’d simply been discussing the weather.

As soon as the material was zipped up, Arrow took his ruined shirt out of her hands and tossed it to the ground. Then he took her hands in his and stared at her scraped palms for a long moment. He lifted his head and looked her in the eyes.