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Or rather, where I’m not.
I’m not in that prison anymore, and the men who took pleasure in torturing me are no longer breathing.
I’m in Wilmington. Here to get retribution.
That’s where I am and what I’m doing.
With that realization, my breathing and the wild beat of my heart steady.
I glance at the clock on the wall and see it’s nearly ten in the morning, which means last night was one of the rare occasions when I slept straight through.
Apart from that nightmare, I almost had a normal night’s sleep.
After I was rescued, nightmares and PTSD were the least of my worries.
There were moments when my mind would suddenly slip, and it was the hardest thing in the world to convince me that I wasn’t back in Hell. In my waking hours, I found it hard to distinguish between what was real and what wasn’t.
When I was asleep, the nightmares would rip my mind apart. I’d have dreams within dreams and horrors within horrors and wake up in the in-between, unable to steady my mind to get back to reality.
The nightmares would always be the same. A mashup of Jim talking to me just moments before he was shot, then everything would switch to my tortuous captivity.
Being captured by my enemies reduced me to the one thing I loathe most—weakness
That was where my Uncle Leif came in and helped me to find my strength.
He knew exactly how to heal my mind because out of everyone in the family, I’m most like him. Leif was the adventurer and lover of the old Viking seafaring life who taught me how to swim and sail.
To fix me, he took me on a quest where we sailed around Europe for six
months. By the time we returned I had a new found strength that gave me the energy
to get back on track, and more importantly to never stop until I found the motherfuckers responsible for fucking up my life and killing Jim Davison.
Leif understood how I felt more than anyone. It was he who introduced me to Jim and Brian.
This mission of mine is important to me because it’s for the both of them.
If Brian were still alive, he’d want to avenge his father’s death. As his best friend I owe it to him to do what he can’t.
Years ago if anybody had told me I’d have to live in a world where Brian and Jim only existed in memory, I wouldn’t have believed it.
I was eight when I met him and his father. Because I was obsessed with the sea Leif thought it was a good idea to introduce me to his friend from the Navy who also happened to have a son my age who was equally obsessed.
That day Brian and I became kindred spirits, inseparable as Jim taught us everything he knew.
I have a close relationship with Zakh but Brian was different because he loved sailing just as much as me. By the time we were sixteen we started entering every boat race we could across the country.
Then we joined the Navy and had a good run of service until Brian was killed in a car accident two days before Christmas. He’d lost control of his wheel and his car ran off the edge of a cliff. Just like that, he was gone.
Months later Jim was killed.
It’s all sad and unreal but I feel like I can’t move on with my life until I have some form of justice. Then maybe I’ll find the peace I need to quiet my demons.
I get off the bed and drop to the floor for my usual morning routine of push-ups.
I’m planning to start my day the same way I did yesterday—in the presence of Gwen St. James.
Her visit last night was a win I didn’t expect. She entered the dragon’s lair on her own with her sass and her curves, and that scent in her hair that drove me wild.
