Strong Enough(50)

“Does that make it more palatable for you?”

Yes, it does. But I don’t tell him that, I just persevere.

“Government operatives aren’t monsters. They’re men and women who are trained in certain areas to do certain things.”

Jasper glances down at me, his eyes unreadable. “It’s still based on aptitude. Predisposition. They don’t pick undamaged people for black ops, Muse. They pick ones who are already broken enough to make it in this kind of life. They pick the ones with no ties, no future. No conscience. No soul.” His pause is long and fraught with dark tension. “So they picked me.”

“Just because you’re strong enough and capable enough to do the things . . . to do what has to be done doesn’t make you damaged or broken or soulless.”

He sits up so suddenly I nearly roll into the water. He grabs me with one big, sure hand, the fingers gripping my upper arm so tightly I know I’ll be bruised tomorrow. The thing is, I can almost feel that same kind of pressure digging into my heart, too. Making a place for Jasper that will always be shaped like him, one that no one else will ever be able to fill. Only my wildly different Jasper. The man who thrills me as much as he scares me, the man who only draws me closer the more he tries to push me away.

Once more, I feel my determination spike.

“They picked me because they knew about my father. They picked me because they knew about the blood that was flowing through my veins.”

“Your father? Why would he matter?”

“Because he was in federal prison.”

“How could they possibly know about him?”

“Because they were looking into me. And it was my testimony that put him there.”

Jasper is a trained killer who put his own father in prison?

Oh God!

Another bomb. Another left turn in the convoluted maze that is Jasper.

I want to curl up in a ball and cry for him, but I also want to throw my arms around Jasper and shield him from the pain that he can’t escape, the agonizing memories that obviously haunt him. But I don’t do either. I simply bow my head, dropping it on my bent knees, and close my eyes until I can regain some equilibrium. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

“Don’t be. He was a black-hearted bastard who deserved to be buried under the prison, not drawing breath with the rest of the lowlife criminals.”

In the lag that follows his venomous proclamation, I’m almost afraid to ask the question that’s circling my mind. But I’m even more afraid not to.

“Wh-what did he do?”

I don’t glance up when Jasper doesn’t answer me.

“He drowned my older brother. In this very lake. Behind a little white house not far from here.”

Sweet Jesus!

I keep my eyes closed and my head down, trying to weather this as gracefully as I can. Falling apart won’t do either of us any favors.

My stomach lurches, overtaken by a tidal wave of nausea. I want to ask why. I feel the word form on my lips, but the ringing in my ears prevents me from hearing whether it makes it out into the air or dies on the tip of my tongue.

But it must’ve, it must’ve floated out. That or Jasper intuited it, because he answers.

“He’d hated Jeremy for as long as I could remember. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because Jeremy was sick. Oppositional-defiant disorder and conduct disorder is what the doctor said. He told Mom that my brother was exhibiting early signs and strong traits of antisocial behavior. He needed medication and therapy, but my father wouldn’t hear of it. The worse Jeremy got, the worse my father treated him. When my brother would misbehave, Dad would take him out back, to a stump in the yard, and whip him until his belt broke. I never once saw Jeremy cry. It infuriated Dad that he didn’t. Maybe he’d have stopped if he’d seen tears, but I don’t think Jeremy was capable of crying.” Jasper’s voice is cool and robotic, like he’s numb. “The last time he got sent home from school, my father dragged him right out into the water and held him under until he stopped struggling.” Jasper’s voice drops into a low rumble, as ominous as thunder. “That day he killed one replica of himself. But he left the other one alive.”

I don’t even know what to say. My heart is breaking. The agony in his voice, a voice that normally shows so little, is enough to rip through me like a scalpel.

There are so many things I could say, and maybe should say, but what comes out is a question instead. “Why do you come here? Why did you buy a cabin here, where you can never escape what happened?”

“I could never escape it anyway. This way, I’m in control of it. I come here to remind myself of who and what I am, of what I came from, and what I’ll always be.”