No Rules(35)

If everything Donovan told her was true, she was being unfair to her father, but she wasn’t feeling especially fair right now. She was feeling picked on.

Avery’s lip curled with disgust. “Really? What kind of victim were you? Were you held by gun-waving lunatics who killed aid workers because they helped the wrong people? Did you see someone hold a machete to your mother’s throat and threaten to use it if your father didn’t do as he was told? Because I did.”

Avery advanced on her, and Jess retreated a step, wide-eyed at the sudden fury. As if she’d suddenly opened a dam, Avery’s anger poured out in a flood of words. “Tell me how bad it was, Jess. Did you witness your little sister being raped in front of you? Used, then discarded like she was broken, because she was? Did you watch a twelve-year-old huddle in corners and cry in terror and beg you to kill her before the violence and degradation could happen again? Did you lie awake at night, knowing the same fate awaited you if they got tired of the younger one and help didn’t come?” Jess shrank back, but Avery leaned into her, eyes blazing. “Did you, Jess? Is that how bad it was for you? Because that’s what it was like for me, before your father and five others found the jungle encampment where we were being held and killed every one of those bastards who were holding us.”

“You…You were a victim?”

She wouldn’t have thought Avery could look angrier, but her jaw twitched with murderous tension at the question. “I was a hostage, along with my family and three other people, a religious group doing humanitarian work in Venezuela. I was not a victim, and I never will be. And neither will anyone else, if I can help it. That’s what Wally saved me from. So, sorry if he missed a few birthday parties and your middle-school soccer games while he was saving people’s lives and probably their sanity. I guess that was really selfish of him.”

Avery’s sarcasm didn’t even sting, not when it was so obviously justified. Jess’s knees turned watery, and she sank slowly to the floor, leaning against a tall dresser. Her stare went blank, her vision filled by the memories and resentments she’d held close for so long. They didn’t compare to the nightmarish pictures Avery had supplied. She’d thought her childhood had taken a giant detour, but Avery’s had been much worse.

She must have sat there for a long time because she gradually became aware of Avery squatting in front of her. “Jess?”

She blinked and struggled to focus on the pale, delicate features that obviously concealed a personality as hard as steel. Now she understood why. “Donovan”- she began, then switched to his first name, the name his friends used -“Tyler told me you were in the Army. But you weren’t like them, you didn’t join Omega afterward because you were looking for something to do with your training, did you?”

“No. I joined the Army to get the training I needed to be part of this team. It’s a boys’ club, hard for a girl to break into, but I wanted nothing else from the minute that Omega team rescued me. Wally knew that.”

“He helped you get in?”

“He tried to discourage me. When he couldn’t, he finally let me join.”

“He was your mentor.”

“In many ways, yes. And my hero.”

She could only imagine how they’d compared in her father’s mind, the sheltered, timid girl in Houston and the bold young woman who had dedicated her life to freeing others from brutal captivity. She admitted softy, “You’re right. The work he did with the Omega Group was more important than staying with me. More important than being my father.”

Avery said nothing. She’d made her point, and they both knew it. Still, regret lingered inside Jess, selfish as it might be. Since Avery was watching patiently, as if waiting for an explanation for how she could have been so self-centered, she put it into words. “I just…” She cleared her throat, but still only managed a whisper. “I just wish he could have saved me, too.”

“Saved you from what?”

Jess licked her lips. “From my mother.”

It sounded so lame, but Avery folded into a more comfortable position, cross-legged on the floor at Jess’s side, watching her curiously. “What did your mother do to you?”

She gave an embarrassed shrug, dismissing it in advance. She knew how life with her mother would sound to Avery—tame and harmless compared to being held by rapists and murderers. “Nothing violent, it wasn’t like that. She’s mentally ill. Paranoid and agoraphobic. She was certain governments had the power to do anything, good or bad, especially after she thought they had mounted an operation to save my father.”