Page 22 of Protected from Reprisal
Shit.
No one’s there.
How?
I scan the darkened area several times, not believing my eyes.
But it’s just an empty parking lot with nowhere for a person to hide.
And whatever danger I thought was out there… It was all in my head.
Fresh tears of pain and frustration spring free.
I’m trained. If someonewasafter me, I could have defended myself. But instead, I panicked.
Holding my injured hand to my chest, I punch the ignition button with the other as I try to calm myself down. And when I finally trust myself to drive without wrecking, I slowly pull out of my spot and head towards the exit.
As I drive, still blinking away the last of my tears, I ask myself,What happened to the Yara I used to be?
And how can I get her back?
CHAPTER 4
ACE
Maybe I’m overreacting.
Maybe Yara’s completely fine, and I’ll discover my worries were for nothing.
I hope that’s true. I really do.
But after I fucked up royally in Tacoma by not going after Yara right away, I’m not ignoring my gut again.
And my gut has been telling me—more loudly each day—that she’s not okay.
It’s not that she’s said anything to that effect. In fact, if I went solely by the text messages I’ve received over the last couple of weeks, I’d think Yara is having the best time of her life.
Everything is great. Her job. Her class. Her projects. Her house. Even the weather, which I know is patently untrue. I checked the weather reports. It’s been rainy and cold pretty much non-stop.
If it were someone else, someone I didn’t know as well, I might take them at their word. Or I might not give it muchthought. But Idoknow Yara. And that’s why I think she’s lying to me.
Shit. That makes it sound like she’s being intentionally deceptive, which I don’t think she is. What I think is she’s still struggling after everything that happened with that fucker, Winthrop, and she doesn’t want to tell me.
I know I don’t have the right to expect her to open up to me. We’re friends, yes, but it’s not like I’ve ever sharedmydarkest secrets. I know some personal things about Yara—things she shared by the flickering light of the TV during those late-night slash early-morningBattleBotswatching sessions—like how her parents were killed in an embassy attack in Bogota when she was twenty, and that’s what spurred her on to join the Army, and later the Green Berets, instead of getting her advanced degree in robotics like she’d planned. I know she secretly donates custom prosthetics to charities around the country under her LLC, TinkTech, because she doesn’t want the attention. I know she’s lived all over the world thanks to her father’s job as a foreign service officer. And I know she has nightmares about things that happened in the Army, just like I do.
The nightmares are one of the things that bother me the most. Not mine—I’m used to them by now—but hers.
And I keep wondering,Is she still having them?Is she sitting in her living room at three AM, watching old episodes ofBattleBotsuntil it’s time for a new day to start? Are the nightmares worse since Tacoma? Does she dream of that piece of shit touching her and the things he intended to do before she stopped him?
Then I think about Yara having a panic attack and wonder if she’s had any others.
What if she has? Does she have anyone to support her? Comfort her? To remind her to breathe when she’s closeto hyperventilating? To distract her with talk of robots and inventions until she’s calm again?
Shit.
I can’t stand the thought of Yara suffering and not being around to help. That’s why, as soon as I got back from my five-day job in Vegas for Blade and Arrow, I headed straight here. And now I’m driving through Yara’s neighborhood, only minutes from her house, hoping for the best but prepared for the worst.
As I turn down Yara’s street, I give it an assessing look, searching for anything suspicious. But it looks just as I remember it; rows of small but well-kept houses with neat lawns and mid-level cars parked in the driveways.
