Page 90 of Silas

“Fuck,” he snarls. “That’s…Jesus, Naomi.”

“It was punishment. It was control.” I shrug. “That’s one thing I realized while in lockup: we have very little control in our lives, Silas. I had zero control over my life until the day I ran away. All I could control was my emotions. I hated my father. My brother. Jerry. I still do. But I…I didn’t want to become like them. They’re consumed by anger and hate.Consumedby it. I hate them, but I refuse to let that hate be all I feel. That’s what I can control. I couldn’t stop them from beating me. I couldn’t stop Jerry from sexually abusing me—"

“Raping you,” Silas cuts in. “It was rape.”

I shut my eyes, breathing through the swirl of emotions—shame, disgust, anger, hatred.

“Yes,” I whisper. “It was rape. He raped me every day for a year and a half. Eventually, I just…had to accept it as a reality of my life. I couldn’t do anything about it. About any of it. I could only control the things within grasp—which was my own mind, my emotions.” I fall silent for a moment or two. “Iwon’tbecome like them. Iwon’tbe consumed by hatred. I won’t go back, and I will do whatever it takes to stay free of them. I’ll die before I go back there—that’swithin my control, now. But I won’t hate. I mean, it’s there, you know? I suffered so much, and of course there’s hate. But I can control it. I learned that the hard way. If I let hate dictate my emotions and my actions, it would only make things worse. And now that I’m free, I don’t want to be filled with hate, so I have to learn how to let go. How to forgive.”

“You sound like a Buddhist or something,” he says.

I smile at him. “My mother was a Christian. While she was alive, she kept my father sort of on that path. And me, too. But then she died, and that died with her, as far as he was concerned. I don’t know if I believe the way she did, but there is a lot that I still hold onto. Forgiveness is a big one.”

“You can forgive them? After all they did to you?”

“I can try. Not for them, though. You don’t forgive someone forthem. You forgive them foryou. So you can let go and move on.” I pause, thinking. “My mother had a lot of books, most of them Christian writings. They didn’t read, my father and brother, but they saw no harm in me reading, so I read them all. I learned a lot that way.” I laugh. “I’m not educated, in the sense that I never went to school or had a tutor, so I don’t know very much math or science or history. I wasn’t allowed access to the internet, either. Jerry was sloppy, though, and he often forgot to log out of his computer while away, and I’d hurry through my chores so I could go on it. I’d teach myself things from the internet. I only had limited time, though, so I’m still pretty ignorant.”

“You’re fucking incredible, Naomi.” His voice is shaky with undisguised awe. “I can only hope to be half the person you are.”

I look at him. “Silas, I’m not—"

“You are,” he insists. “You take my breath away. The more I learn about you, the more you amaze me.”

I have no idea what to say. Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to expect anything, and the silence that follows is easy and comfortable.

The miles roll away beneath the SUV, and while things are anything but resolved, I feel a sense of hope.

With Silas at my side, I feel no fear.

the best day

Silas

It’s a long drive to the east coast and Malik’s farm compound. While refueling, we grab food from a drive-through, and Naomi dozes while I drive. I spend most of the drive thinking about what I’m going to say to Malik—assuming he doesn’t just shoot me on sight.

We reach the quaint little village that’s only a few miles from his compound around midday. It’s a charming place that feels like it hasn’t changed all that much in the last century and a half or so. Cute little shops with glass front displays, cafes and bike shops and coffeehouses and art galleries and pharmacies, all in well-kept buildings dating back to the Revolutionary War. There are quite a few tourists, so we blend in easily as we park outside a cafe and head in for lunch.

I sit facing the door, watching for Malik’s men, who I know for a fact routinely keep an eye on the town, both for possible threats—like me—and also because Malik considers the town his and doesn’t tolerate shenanigans. More than one drunk tourist has assaulted a local woman and woke up chained to a rafter in Malik’s milking shed, on the wrong end of a car battery and jump cables.

“So, what’s the plan, Silas?” Naomi asks as we wait for our food to arrive.

“We kill the day here, playing tourist. There’s a B-and-B down the road. I’ll get us a room later on and you’ll stay there tonight. I’ll drive out to a little spot in the woods a mile or so from Malik’s farm, park the Explorer, and infil on foot.”

“Infil?” She asks. “You used those terms with Inez—infil and exfil, but I don’t know what they mean.”

“Infiltration and exfiltration, meaning how you get in and how you get out of a hot zone.”

“Oh, I see.”

I take both of her hands in mine and meet her eyes. “I have no way of knowing how this will go, honey. I’m hopeful that Malik will at least hear me out. Up until shit went sideways, he and I had a pretty good relationship. He’s a decent dude, overall, for a crime boss. Don’t cross him and don’t fuck with his bottom line, but for the most part, he’s decent.” I rub her knuckles with my thumbs. “You stay in that B-and-B for forty-eight hours. Don’t leave the room foranything. If I don’t show up in forty-eight hours, you get ahold of Inez.” I hand her my phone and show her Inez’s contact. “I’ll leave this with you before I leave. My passcode to open the phone is zero-seven-zero-seven, my birthday. Call Inez, tell her I’ve been out of contact for forty-eight hours, and you need extraction. She’ll take care of you from there.”

“Silas, I’m not—I can’t—" she shakes her head, eyes watering. “I’m not leaving without you. I…I can’t think about anything happening to you. I just can’t.”

“Hey—hey now. I’ll be okay. I’m not going to make any promises, and I’m not gonna lie—this is dangerous, and there’s a pretty good possibility of it going wrong, but this is the best chance I have of getting the Cabal to leave me alone.” I squeeze her hands. “What I can promise you is that I will do absolutely everything in my power to come back to you.”

She pulls one of her hands free and wipes one eye and then the other. “I wouldn’t know what to do without you.” She sniffs, a cross between a sob and a laugh. “I know I’ve only known you a matter of days but I…I don’t know. I just know I need you, Silas.”

I clear my throat and duck my head, using all my willpower to keep my shit in check. “I’m coming back to you, Naomi. I am. I have to make contingency plans just in case, so I know you’re taken care of in case something happens to me.”