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She spun, hands on hips. “Yes. That would be par for the course, don’t you think? This is why I shouldn’t go outside! Not just because I’m a basket case, which I most definitely am, but because when I do, people get hurt!”
She ran out of steam all at once, breath heaving.
“Come here,” he said, patting the bed beside him.
Jenna did, avoiding his eyes. He shifted them both so they were facing each other. That was all a lot, but it wasn’t anything unexpected. “We can talk about all of this as much as you want, either now or at a later date,” he said. “But there’s one thing I need to say, and I need you to hear me when I say it.”
The words made her look up at him, and if Mark could have had one wish granted in that moment, it would have been to remove the terror from her eyes.
“There is no shame in having trauma, Jenna.”
Her whole body shuddered. “But—”
“No,” he said gently, unable to resist the urge to reach out and touch her any longer. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward him. She came to him willingly, leaning on him, and the relief of holding her made him breathe easier.
“Someone took you, and they hurt you. They forced you to do the unfathomable while threatening your life in ways that the average person couldn’t even wrap their head around. You were tortured.”
She shook her head. “I wasn’t. Not really. I—”
“Maybe you weren’t tortured in a traditional manner, but you were still tortured. What Garrison did to you out in those woods? Leaving you alone there? Psychological torture, with some physical torment thrown in.”
“But I—”
He put a finger gently over her lips. “There is no world where you’re not a victim too, and you have nothing to be ashamed of for existing with what has been done to you. You survived, and survival is always the most important thing. But you will also be dealing with the fallout from this trauma for the rest of your life.”
She didn’t say anything, but when she tucked her face into his shoulder, he ran his fingers into her hair to keep her there.
“Did you do everything you could today?”
“I should have been able to figure out what Joaquin changed,” she said into his neck. “It’s my work. Why couldn’t I see the missing piece?”
He smoothed a hand up and down her spine. “That’s not what I asked.”
She hesitated, but finally, she eased back a little so they were able to look into each other’s eyes. “Yes, I did everything I could.”
“And did you mean to hurt that man when you were first released? Or the nurse today?”
“No. But I still did. And I’m afraid I’ll do something worse.”
Mark held her for a moment, trying to find the correct words for what he wanted to say and ask. “Is that another reason why you stay away from people? Even those you care about?”
Slowly, she nodded. He held her tighter, and his chest ached for everything Jenna had against her right now. Fear on every side, and not just plain fear. Terror that twisted your brain until you were your own enemy in your mind.
“You’re not superhuman,” he finally said. “You have an absolutely incredible mind, and you kick ass with your fighting skills, but you’re still human. Humans are allowed to be afraid. We’re allowed to make mistakes. We’re allowed to do the best we can without feeling like a failure.”
“I did fail. Brett died.” He heard tears in her voice.
“Play pretend with me for a moment. Let’s say it wasn’t you who created the genetic modification program, the chemical tails that are so deadly, and everything else—someone else did it. Let’s say Joaquin got his hands on those other formulas and managed to tweak them to his own satisfaction and created his robots that way. Those people would still die, and Joaquin is the one who killed them.”
Mark turned Jenna’s face to the side and brushed away the tears on her cheeks. He couldn’t bear her misery. “I’m not saying those people dying isn’t a tragedy. It is. But I’m asking you to put the blame where it belongs: squarely at the feet of the monster subjecting people to this.”
“But it wasn’t some imaginary biochemical engineer who designed these methods. It was me.”
“I know it was. But the truth is, if you’d died out in those woods one night, Adil Garrison would’ve found someone else to complete your work. We both know that’s the case.”
She nodded slightly.
“Joaquin is no fool. He had someone build on the methods you created and change them so you couldn’t stop him. He wants you to feel helpless. Wants you to think there is nothing you can do.”
