Page 77 of Collateral Damage

A cock-eyed grin pulled at Lauren’s full mouth. “You’re stronger than you think, Sky.”

Sky watched Lauren turn away, her shoulders squared, head held high, walking proudly. She turned and looked up the stairs. It was time…

Cal was sitting in the living room when he heard the kitchen door open. He stood up, craning and looking toward it. His heart dropped in his chest. It was Sky. He saw her walk in and set the book down on the granite island. Her face was wet with tears. It tore at him.

“I’m over here,” he called to her, stepping out so she could see where he was at, so he didn’t frighten her.

Sky nodded and walked into the living room. She saw the worry on Cal’s face, the grief and helplessness. And she was causing it. Reaching out, she gripped his hand. “Sit with me on the couch?”

Her voice was strained. Cal nodded. “Sure.” He felt her fingers, so long and slender, soft and tenuous, grip his own. Sky sat down, leaving enough room in the corner of the couch for Cal. She released his hand and patted the leather. “Sit here? Next to me?”

Cal sat, fear racing through him. He didn’t know what to expect. What had Lauren said to her? He held Sky’s marred eyes, once so radiant and blue, now looking defeated, dulled, and scared. Cal leaned back, sliding his arm around her shoulders. “Come here,” he whispered, urging her gently into his arms. Sky melted against him, as if a part of him. She rested her head on his shoulder, his jaw barely touching the top of her head.

“Talk to me?” he rasped, trying to hold himself calm and centered. He was anything but. His heart was thrashing around like a dying animal in his chest. He ached for Sky, felt the mountain of pain she was carrying. God knew, he wanted to take that load from her, help her carry it. She didn’t have to struggle and do this alone. But he understood her actions. As a child growing up, no one had taken the load she carried off her shoulders back then. Those experiences shaped her actions now in adulthood.

Sky closed her eyes, her palm against his heart. “I need to tell you what happened, Cal. And I need you to just listen. Let me finish before you ask me questions?”

“Go for it, sweetheart. I’m a good listener.”

His embrace became stronger, more supportive. Sky gulped, and she began to tell him everything, from the first day of capture until the last. At first, her words were halting. As she became trapped within it again, emotions began to flow, and her words quickened. Through it all, Cal silently held her. Sometimes, his arm would tighten around her a little more, and it gave her the reassurance and support to keep talking. Sky absorbed his love, and the courage he gave her to continue. As she told him about the deprivation room, she felt Cal tense. Sky pressed her face against the column of his neck, her voice raw and trembling as she recounted those days. His arm tightened around her. This time, he held her strong.

“I gave up,” Sky forced out in a hoarse cry. “I gave up thinking you’d ever come for me, Cal. I-I feel guilty and terrible about it, now. Worse,” and Sky reached up, trying to wipe her eyes free of the tears that flowed, “I decided if Yerik was going to take our baby from me, I was going to kill myself. I-I couldn’t… wouldn’t… ever let him impregnate me with his sperm.” She sobbed against Cal, covering her eyes with her trembling hands.

Cal whispered Sky’s name and turned her around, taking her fully into his arms so that she rested across his lap. Sliding his hand gently across her hair, soothing her, his throat was tight with so many emotions that he couldn’t speak. Closing his eyes, Cal rested his head against hers and rocked her, knowing that right now, being held was what she needed. She came apart in his arms, her sobs deepening, that vast well of pain and anguish rolling out of her. It was the release she’d needed, and he cried with her, because she’d gone through such a horrific kind of torture. The worst kind. He was no stranger to torture and torture methods. And Alexandrov was a past master at it in the worst sort of ways. He’d broken Sky and then broke her some more. Cal could barely conceive of that kind of insanity in a human being, but he’d seen it before. And Sky had been subjected to it firsthand. By some grace far beyond him to understand, she’d survived it. She was whole, not shattered. A normal human being would have been a thousand of shards of glass on the floor after Alexandrov got done with them. But not her. She might think she was shattered, but Cal knew different. The awe of her strength brought him to his knees.

Finally, Sky stopped weeping. She lay quietly in Cal’s arms, sniffing sometimes, continuing to wipe her eyes of tears that never seem to stop pooling in them. He kept the tissues coming, placing them in her trembling hands, knowing that every tear that fell was one less pain she had to carry inside her. Cal knew she had thirty days of tears to work through. There would be other times, he knew, when Sky would break down, needing to be held and carried through that deep wound Alexandrov had scored across her soul.

He couldn’t even begin to put himself in her place; what it felt like to be told that her baby was going to be ripped out of her, that she had no control over the process, what a horrific act was going to be done against her. His heart, his soul ached for her. Sky had spent days in deprivation knowing what was coming. The baby created with pure love that they held so intensely for one another, would be killed. If Alexandrov wasn’t already dead, Cal would have moved heaven and hell to track down the sick bastard and take him out. A little satisfaction soared through him knowing that he’d killed the sonofabitch already.

The sun was setting, sending a pink color flooding silently across the sky, the shadows deepening as Cal felt Sky stir. He kissed her mussed hair. They hadn’t had sex since her rescue. Now, Cal understood why. He eased her away just enough to look down into her wet, marred eyes, seeing the shame and guilt so clearly etched in her waxen expression. “Listen to me,” he told her, cupping her cheek, holding her unsure gaze, “there’s no shame in anything you felt you had to do, Sky.” His voice was thick with emotion. “You’ve taken SERE and so have I. It’s two weeks of hell designed to show you what you can expect when you’re captured by the enemy. Both of us know when a human is broken, they give up, Sky.”

Cal stopped, pursing his lips, watching her closely now. “ANYONE in your position, given the circumstances you were under, would have lost hope, sweetheart. Anyone. Even me. I can’t put myself in your place. I can only imagine and try. I know how much our baby means to you. You’re a woman. You’re a natural mom whether you know it or not.” One corner of Cal’s mouth crooked upward, and he gently slid his hand across her belly. “To threaten your baby is the worst kind of torture that I could imagine for you… for any woman. That sure as hell wasn’t covered in SERE. And you did the best you could under the circumstances. I don’t judge how you felt, or the thoughts you had, Sky. How can I?”

Nodding, she absorbed the feeling of Cal’s large hand laying protectively across her abdomen, as if to reassure her and the baby she carried that he loved both of them. There was no judgement on his part as she searched his hard, weathered face. Sky looked into his eyes, realizing how much pain he was experiencing from her kidnapping. She tasted the salt of her spent tears on her lower lip as she licked it, her throat aching from all her weeping.

“I-I was afraid you’d hate me for it. When Lauren put it into black and white terms for me out in the meadow earlier, it sounded silly not to have talked with you, too. Cal,” she swallowed hard, her voice wobbling, “Lauren was right. You’ve loved me since you met me. You NEVER left me, never abandoned me. You were ALWAYS there.” Shaking her head, Sky frowned and looked away for a moment. Cal deserved her courage despite her fear, and she lifted her face, meeting his narrowed gaze that held so much anguish. “I was running from the one person I love most in the world, because I was ashamed of myself… of how I’d felt, what I’d almost done… Lauren made me see how dumb that was of me,” and Sky managed to quirk one corner of her lips.

Cal kissed her brow and cupped her cheek. “You were afraid to come to me because you thought I’d judge you, Sky?” He gave her a sad look and rasped, “I’ll NEVER judge you, sweetheart. Not now. Not ever. We have to give one another that kind of space, that kind of understanding. I know about your childhood, and I understand so much of what you do and why you do it. We can never forget it, but I’ve watched you change and grow and allowed less of it to run your life than it did before.” Cal kissed her wet lips tenderly, feeling her respond, feeling her lips parting to his, no longer so tentative or unsure. He drowned in the warm heat of her mouth, always monitoring himself, never wanting to hurt her or spin her back into the garbage from childhood that she was trying so desperately to extricate herself from. Lifting his mouth from hers, Cal held her gaze that shimmered now with love for him. “I love you, Sky. That’s NEVER going to change. You can come to me with anything that’s bothering you. Any time. Any place. I’m always here for you. Okay?”

Giving a jerky nod, Sky whispered, “Yes…” She frowned and added, “I’m not proud of the fact I was contemplating suicide, Cal. As much as I’ve gone through in my life, no matter how depressed and low I was, I NEVER thought of killing myself.”

Cal heard the break in her husky voice, saw the humiliation in Sky’s eyes. Kissing her cheek, brushing her lips, Cal growled, “Anyone can be pushed into it. You were pushed there. Alexandrov miscalculated with you and didn’t realize how strong you really were. I understand your plan to kill yourself if you couldn’t find a way to escape and evade him. What choice was left to you? If I’d been in your position, I’d have been thinking the same damn thing, so stop gigging yourself with it. Okay?” and Cal dug hard into her widening eyes.

Sky stared at him, shock rolling through her. She saw the stubborn quality in Cal’s narrowed eyes, saw the burning anger and felt it around him. “You would have?” she quavered.

“Hell yes,” Cal said, emotion in his tone. “I wouldn’t have carried Alexandrov’s brat for anything. You tried to escape but got caught. You had no recourse left. If I’d been in your position, I’d done the same damn thing. I couldn’t live like that, Sky. And neither could you.”

It felt as if someone had removed a dark, heavy weight off her shoulders as she rested her head against Cal’s shoulder. Sky closed her eyes. “I wanted to live, I wanted to survive so badly, Cal,” she choked. “I wanted to come home to you… to be in our house that means happiness and safety to me…”

Sliding his arms around Sky, Cal held her and pressed small kisses against her hair. “I know that. I was counting on your strength of spirit, Sky, that no matter how long it took, you’d endure. None of us knew what Alexandrov had planned for you.” God, if he’d known that, Cal wasn’t sure he’d be sane at this point. He loved Sky and it hurt him to his soul that she’d gone through this kind of horrifying torture alone.

“I’m just glad it’s over now,” Sky admitted hoarsely, sliding her hand across his chest, absorbing his warm, caring arms sliding around her.

“Yes,” Cal said, feeling her relax fully against him. He could sense the toxic guilt and shame she’d carried leaving her. “And we have nothing but good things to look forward too. A baby is coming into our lives. You have me. We’ll make it work because we love one another. I want to see the look on your face as you give birth to her or him.”

“It’s a her. I can feel it, Cal.”

He smiled a little. “Far be it for me to question a woman’s intuition.” He felt her manage a silent laugh. Cal felt as if he’d been dragged through the worst shit in his life in the past month and a half. Now he understood the dark side of loving another person. All the suffering she experienced, he felt it just as vividly, just as deeply as Sky did, because love connected them. That was the price he had to pay, Cal realized. To love another human being was to open himself up to their pain and suffering, too. But Sky was worth the price—at any cost.

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