A Long Road Back: Final Dawn: Book 8 (2 page)

-1-

     Bryan had been with a group of three others who were scouting out the farmhouse to try to determine whether Sarah was actually there. And to devise a plan to rescue her if she was.

     But Bryan had always been a bit of a hothead. And a man who was prone to act on impulse. Even when his head told him to relax and think things through, his heart frequently drove him to act.

     So his three compadres weren’t really surprised when Bryan went rogue and assaulted the farmhouse without them. Rather, they were concerned that he would get himself or Sarah killed by going into a place where he might be outgunned and outnumbered.

     They hadn’t seen what Bryan saw. He saw a very frightened and very vulnerable Sarah open the curtains in an upstairs window. He saw the concern on a face he knew was beautiful, but which was now covered by ugly bruises.

     He saw a need to rescue the woman he loved, before the brutal thug in the house did her more harm.

     So while the other three were searching for him in the woods surrounding the house, Bryan had gone in alone through an unlocked back door. He’d heard Sarah scream from an upstairs bedroom, and Nathan Martel threatening her. He was up the stairs and on Martel in a flash.

     Both men were bloody. Bryan from a knife wound to the ankle. Martel from Bryan’s endless flurry of blows. Both men went to the floor and Bryan, with right on his side, won the battle.

     Martel was unconscious and severely injured as Bryan drove his fists like pile drivers over and over and over again into Martel’s face.

     Finally, the rage subsided.

     The threat was over. Sarah was free from the brutal man who’d hurt her and then taken her as a slave.

     She was safe.

     But Bryan’s problems weren’t over yet. Sarah rushed across the room toward him, screaming and beating him with her tiny fists.

     He didn’t understand. Not at all.

     He succeeded in catching her hands and held them both tightly by the wrists.

     “Sarah, honey, what are you doing?”

     But he couldn’t reason with her.

     The injury had left her in a vulnerable state. She’d been carefully groomed and manipulated, and led to believe she inhabited a world that didn’t really exist. At least not the way Martel had described it.

     She’d been brainwashed.

     David, Brad and Bryan Too stepped into the room at that very moment, and saw a naked Sarah tending to Martel as Bryan stood over her, tears in his own eyes now, trying to reason with her.

     She didn’t listen. Instead, she cursed him.

     “Get the hell away from me, you animal! I ought to kill you with my bare hands! Why in the hell did you do this? Who are you?”

     She looked across the room at the new arrivals.

     “Who are all of you? Get the hell out of my house! How dare you?”

     She appeared to feel no shame in standing stark naked in front of four men she professed to not know. But David, the dentist and the oldest of the four, picked up a blanket from the bed and handed it to her.

     She gave him a puzzled look, then threw the blanket aside. She had better things to worry about than modesty. Before her, for all she knew, her husband lay dying. And she didn’t have a clue what to do to save him.

     She seemed to sense that the man who handed her the blanket was a kind and decent man. She looked directly at him and her voice changed. The rage was suddenly gone, replaced with a little girl’s plea.

     “Please, mister. Is there something you can do to help him?”

     David was as confused as everyone else. But he was the most level headed of the bunch and was extremely calm under pressure.

     “I will do what I can for him, Sarah. But first, we’re going to bind his hands and feet. He is a very dangerous man.”

     She started to argue, but saw something on David’s face. Something akin to fear. She held her tongue.

     “Please, sir. He’s bleeding to death. Please save my husband’s life.”

     David said, “Sarah… honey, this isn’t your husband. The man over there is. His name is Bryan. Do you really not remember him?”

     Fire suddenly appeared in her eyes and she appeared ready to lash out again. But she held herself in check.

     “You’re mistaken, sir. My name is Becky. This is my husband Nathan. This is our home. We were arguing, and that man came flying into the room and attacked my husband. Is he going…”

     She choked up while looking down at Martel, who was coughing blood onto the bedroom’s brown carpeting.

     “Is he going to die?”

     “No ma’am. But when he comes to and heals, he certainly has a lot to answer for.”

     Brad finished tying Martel’s hands behind his back with a belt. Bryan Too used a second belt to bind his ankles.

     David barked out orders to no one in particular.

     “Bring me water. And something I can use for bandages. Help me roll him over on his side. We need to clear the blood from his airway.”

     Sarah was sobbing almost uncontrollably. Brad picked up the blanket she’d cast aside and draped it over her shoulders. This time she didn’t refuse it, and wrapped it around herself.

     “Please, sir. Are you a doctor? Can you heal him?”

     “It’ll be okay. I’m not a doctor, but I’ve had some medical training. I’m actually a dentist by trade. And he’ll be fine. Head wounds always bleed a lot, even when they’re not particularly serious. He’ll recover completely, I can almost guarantee it.”

     Sarah looked across the room at Bryan, who was afraid to speak or interfere and risk setting her off again. He was in a state akin to mild shock.

     They locked eyes for a few seconds. In his eyes, she saw confusion.

     In hers there was hatred and the last vestiges of the rage she’d felt. But there was something else as well. There was uncertainty. As though she was no longer confident that this man was her enemy. Could they be telling her the truth?

-2-

     They were a very odd sight, the six of them. An hour after the battle ended, Martel had been moved onto the bed to make him more comfortable.

     Sarah sat at his side, on the edge of the bed, but had shed the blanket and was dressed in one of Martel’s oversized flannel shirts. He’d long before removed every stitch of women’s clothing from the house as part of his plan to keep her from escaping. The flannel shirt went down to her knees and gave her the privacy she needed. It wasn’t flattering by any means, but she couldn’t have cared less.

     Martel, his head now bandaged, was drifting in and out of consciousness. In his conscious state, he cursed God and every man and woman on earth. He demanded, through frothy blood and broken and missing teeth, that the sons of bitches set him free. So that he could kick the crap out of every damned one of them.

     Even Sarah was not immune to his wrath. When she rubbed his bruised and swollen face and begged him to calm down, he turned on her and said, “Shut up, you stupid bitch. This is all your fault. I oughta kill you too.”

     Sarah was confused. She still believed this man was her husband. She had to believe, for he was the only man in her world. As venomous and vile as he was, he was the only man she knew. The only man whose face she could attach a name to. There were no other women around. No children either. If the one and only other human she knew and trusted was suddenly taken from her, where would she be?

     Alone in the world. That’s where she’d be. So she continued to deny that Nathan was anything less than what he claimed to be. Her husband. The one who fed her and protected her from outsiders. The ones he’d always said would someday break into their farm house and do them harm.

    
These
men.

     Bryan had given up trying to talk to her. So had David. Her initial trust of David waned when he’d joined Bryan in his attempts to sway her. Then she decided she no longer wanted him to treat her husband after all.

     “Leave him alone,” she commanded. “It looks like he’ll survive, no thanks to you.”

     Her eyes shot glaring daggers in Bryan’s direction.

     “No thanks to any of you.”

     She softened a bit, then looked at David and said, “Thank you for dressing his wounds and stopping the bleeding. He’ll be okay now. I’ll care for him. You men be on your way.”

     Martel gave her the support she so desperately wanted. It was ironic that the only man in the room who took her side was the one she should have feared the most.

     “Yeah,” he snarled vehemently. “You bastards get the hell out of my house and don’t come back. I’ll kill every last one of you.”

     Sarah placed a finger on Martel’s lips to shush him.

     “Honey, please. You’re not helping.”

     Martel turned on her again.

     “Don’t you tell me to shut up, you stupid bitch. I’ll kill you along with them!”

     Sarah was in tears. She didn’t know what to do or what to think.

     She turned to David and once again said, “Leave. All of you. Please.”

     But the resolve had gone from her voice. She was no longer sure of herself. No longer certain that this vile man was the one she’d chosen to marry.

     It was Bryan Too who came to the rescue, after Sarah rushed out of the room in tears. Bryan Too looked at his friends and none of them had a clue what to do.

     So Bryan Too went after her.

     He found her downstairs, in the study, looking out the window at a robin who was pacing back and forth on a tree branch.

     He stood in the doorway and asked, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

     She turned to look at him and saw something in his face. Perhaps a sense of kindness or humanity. Perhaps something else.

     In any event, she relented and invited him in.

     “I just don’t know what to do. Nathan is the only other human on this earth I know. He’s been telling me that few other people survived. And that those who did have been trying to come in here and do us harm.”

     “Look. I know you don’t know me from Adam. But let’s look at this logically. If there are just a few survivors out there, then the world is free for the taking. The other survivors can go anywhere they want. Take whatever they need, with few others to challenge them. Why on earth would they risk injury or death by tangling with someone like Nathan?”

     “I… I don’t know… I…”

     “And why were you naked when we walked in?”

     “Nathan told me I was a nudist. That I haven’t worn clothes in years. That I hated wearing clothes.”

     “Let’s look at that logically too. I couldn’t help but notice that some parts of your body are tanned, and others aren’t.”

     She looked away from him, as though embarrassed.

     “You looked?”

     “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. You are a very beautiful woman. I didn’t mean to make you blush.”

     “But why would he tell me I was a nudist if I wasn’t?”

     “I don’t know. Maybe he enjoys looking at you that way. But I think it’s more likely he convinced you of that so that you wouldn’t run away. He probably figured you’d be less likely to walk away from the farm while he slept if you were completely naked.”

     “Maybe…”

     She seemed to chew on his words, analyzing them to see if they made sense.

     “Can I ask you something, Sarah?”

     “Yes.”

     “You covered up your body. It’s still covered. Is that because you don’t feel comfortable in a room full of strangers?”

     “Not particularly, no.”

     “And is that something you feel a nudist would feel? Embarrassment at being naked in front of strangers?”

     “No. I suppose not. What is your name?”

     “My name is Bryan. You can call me Bryan Too.”

     “That’s a very odd name.”

     “It’s a nickname your husband gave me.”

     “The man who claims to be my husband. He said his name was Bryan as well?”

     “Yes. You see, I’m a soldier in the United States Army. The Army sent a team of soldiers to assist in the search for you. I was assigned as your husband’s driver. Since we have the same first name, he was introducing himself to people we talked to as Bryan. Then he introduced me by saying, ‘This is Bryan too.’ And it kinda stuck.”

     “I’m so confused, Bryan. I just don’t know what to think.”

     “I think I might be able to offer you some proof that he’s telling you the truth.”