Page 14 of Echo, the Sniper (Men of PSI #2)

“Because Dane’s not alive to force me to eat food off the floor like a dog, okay?

” The words burst out of me on a surge of rage at my dead husband, and I pushed out of Echo’s hold so I wouldn’t have to see the revulsion in his eyes.

It was bad enough I had to see it in my own whenever I looked in the mirror.

Disgust. Revulsion. Loads and loads of self-hatred.

“We weren’t married six months before Dane began hitting me.

Open-handed smacks to my butt, spankings I didn’t want and definitely didn’t find sexy.

Then he graduated to slaps across the mouth or face. No marks. At first.”

“Fuck.” It was whispered so softly, I could easily believe I imagined it.

“I somehow knew it would be bad from the moment I said I do . At our reception, he told our friends and loved ones that while my pedigree was excellent since I was the daughter of a model and a state senator, my brain was second-rate, but since I looked pretty it all evened out.” The pain-filled words felt like they were made of glass shards, cutting at my throat as I pushed them out.

“I just stood there and took at as he made people laugh when he pointed out I’d been too stupid to finish college.

Which is ridiculous,” I added with a terrible, unvented fury that had festered deep in my soul for years .

“I have a great mind for numbers. I dropped out of college and abandoned pursuing a business degree because he had wanted me to do that. I’m a dropout because of him . ”

“Fucker,” he muttered, his upper lip curling. “He created a weapon, then publicly whipped you with it. There’s no way anyone rational can win against a manipulator like that.”

“Yes, I noticed.” I paced an agitated path to the far side of the room, keeping my eyes on my feet so I wouldn’t have to look at him.

My feet were easier to talk to. “His constant belittling was horrible, but I learned early on not to defend myself. Whenever I did, he called it contradicting him. Make no mistake, I was never allowed to contradict him.”

Echo’s breathing was audible. “What I wouldn’t do to kill this guy right now.”

“Someone beat you to it.”

“Then I want to do it again.”

“To be honest, there were times I wanted to kill him myself, especially when he belittled me, both in public and in private.” In helpless frustration I shook my head, my hands shaking with it.

“I know this will sound strange, but in a lot of ways having him tear me down like that was worse than being hit.”

“That’s not strange. Words can leave wounds that are almost impossible to heal. Can’t put a sling on it. Can’t stitch it up. No one can see when you’re bleeding to death inside. Believe me, I get that.”

It almost sounded like he did. “I thought my private hell couldn’t get any worse, but then about two years into our marriage, he began using his fists. Once he cut me off from my friends and made me a virtual prisoner in my own home, leaving marks on me clearly didn’t bother him anymore.”

This time Echo didn’t curse, or say any discernible words. But the furious growl that emanated from him made his feelings known.

“At his core, Dane loved violence. He literally couldn’t get it up unless he’d beaten me black and blue, to the point where I didn’t even care what he did to me, just as long as he finished and left me alone.

And always, always , he’d walk away with some pathetic comment about how I’d brought his corrections upon myself.

That’s what he called it, corrections . After a while I actually began to wonder if there was something wrong with me.

So wrong that I kept doing things that brought his correction on.

Maybe I really was stupid or an immature, emotional child. Maybe I deserved being corrected.”

“That’s how brainwashing works, so don’t buy into that lie,” came his immediate, heated response, and he pushed to his feet as if launched off the couch. “In every way that a man can be unworthy of you, Dane-fucking-Grant was as unworthy as it gets. That’s the truth.”

While the logical part of me secretly believed that, it was still such a relief to hear him say it that my agitated pacing stopped right in its tracks. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me for stating facts. From the sound of it, that piece of shit made up whatever the hell kind of rule he wanted in order to justify what he did to you.”

“Making up rules to suit his needs was what my dream was about,” I admitted reluctantly, then inwardly shook my head in amazement.

How was it possible I felt comfortable enough with this man to open up like this when I’d only known him a handful of hours?

“Right from the beginning, Dane made up this rule—dinner at 6:30. It had to be on the table exactly at 6:30, not even a minute early, because he said the food wouldn’t be cooked enough to eat.

But it also couldn’t be a single minute past 6:30, because by then it would be too late, and also inedible. ”

“Jesus Christ,” Echo muttered, moving closer, like he thought he could somehow guard me against something that had already happened. “What a fucking psycho.”

I let loose a breath. Good. He understood.

“It’s impossible to transport everything to the dinner table in exactly sixty seconds, so I learned to plate everything in the kitchen before setting it on the table at 6:30, just as Dane’s rule stated.

But one night, my timing was slightly off, and I entered the dining room with our dinner in hand, but I was officially one minute late.

He was waiting for me. He...” I shook my head and closed my eyes tight.

Okay. Done now. I couldn’t talk about my greatest humiliation. Nope. I just couldn’t.

A warm hand closed on my shoulder. That warmth flowed through me until all my nerves hummed in what felt like relief. Like something in me believed I wasn’t alone anymore. Like... I had finally found where I belonged.

Which was ridiculous. He was just my bodyguard, after all.

“You said earlier he made you eat food off the floor like a dog. Is that what happened?”

My head bowed, eyes still squeezed shut, a terrible hurt ballooning in my chest. Then, slowly, I nodded.

“That’s your nightmare. What you fought so hard to get out of when I woke you.”

Again I nodded, the pressure in my chest increasing. Maybe I was having a heart attack. Good. I’d rather be dead than endure having Dane and his dehumanizing actions cut me to the quick over and over again. Diminishing me. Ruining me.

That was what I was. A ruin of my former self.

And I’d let it happen.

“He tried to make you believe you were an animal, so he treated you like one.”

Tears knotted in my throat as I admitted the humiliating truth of what I’d allowed myself to be reduced to by again nodding my head.

“But he was the animal, Rory, not you.”

This time I shook my head while that terrible crushing sensation in my chest made my head swim. It was my soul imploding in on itself, I realized dimly. Collapsing like a star until there was nothing left but a cold density that sucked everything good into it.

Another hand landed on my shoulders, letting me know Echo and I now stood face to face. “Rory.”

I didn’t look up. Couldn’t. He now knew my greatest shame. I couldn’t find the strength to look him in the eye.

“I need you to listen to me, okay? In the military, specialists like me are required to go through months of training to deal with torture in case we ever get captured by the enemy. We’re taught to spot the mind games designed to break us, and mentally fortify ourselves against it.

You were never given this kind of training, so you don’t know what torture can do to a person. ”

“I’m no soldier,” I managed to squeak out through the boulder sitting on my chest. “I never went to war.”

“Baby girl, you went to war every single day you were married to that bastard. From the moment you woke up to the moment you fell asleep at night in the same bed with your enemy, you were fighting for your life. Deep down, I think you know it was that dire, yeah? What you don’t know, because you were never trained for it, is that war will try to take not just your life, but your heart, your dignity, the very idea you have of yourself as a person.

Even your soul. Any of that sound familiar? ”

I was so stunned I almost didn’t realize the terrible pain in my chest abruptly eased. “I... Yes.” So much yes. It was like he could read my mind.

His hands tightened, and I had the weirdest feeling he was restraining himself from hugging me.

“You need to start finding a way to forgive yourself, right here and now. When it comes to war, you should know that we soldiers are taught to do whatever it takes to survive, and I do mean whatever . When you’re in battle, staying alive is the number-one priority.

If you’d been trained like I was, you’d know to forgive yourself for doing everything possible to keep yourself breathing, even if it meant throwing your personal standards away.

Debasing yourself. Allowing yourself to be brought to your knees.

Personal standards and basic civility...

none of that shit matters when you’re faced with an enemy and fighting for your fucking life. ”

“I...” I shook my head. Logic meant nothing to me while the memory of eating food off the floor like a dog hammered away in my brain. “I hear you, but—”

“But now the war’s over,” he cut in, and the soft understanding in his tone nearly shattered me.

“It’s gone now. He’s gone. All you have left are the worst kind of memories.

Memories of how you broke . They begin to torment you, those memories, to the point where they make you wonder if struggling to stay alive through all that shit was even worth it.

You’re stuck in your head, because now you have no choice but to live with yourself and everything you had to do in order to survive.

That’s where your pain is coming from, yeah? ”

“Yeah.” I couldn’t believe this. He knew.

He understood , even more than me. I hadn’t been able to put my feelings into words—the self-loathing and shame at everything I did or was made to do, just so the pain would stop.

But here he was, clarifying my inner chaos like he knew me better than I knew myself.

Maybe he did.

All I knew was that it was one hell of a lucky break that this man, this protector, came into my life just when I needed him the most. It was almost too good to be true.

“You might even be wondering if life can ever be good again after going through that kind of war,” he went on, and the softness of his tone—that incredible understanding—made the tightening in my throat so bad it made my sinuses sting and eyes mist. “I can tell you from experience that it can, Rory. I swear to you, life can be good again.”

“How?” I hated how desolate I sounded. Beaten. Like I believed good was just a fairy tale.

“All you have to do is find something to live for. Something that reminds you that being alive can be so damn breathtaking you wake up every morning happy to be alive.”

At last I looked up at him with what felt like dead eyes. “There’s nothing like that.”

“There is.” His hands moved from my shoulders to cup my face, his thumbs smoothing soft caresses over my cheeks. “There’s this.”

With that, he lowered his head and kissed me.