By Lethal Force Read online

  Five days. I’ve been trapped here for five days. I think. Time stretches out in endless minutes, all blending together. The stench. The sobs of the girls around me. The indignity of having to pee—and poop—in a bucket in front of everyone.

  We sleep curled on the floor as far away from that corner as we can. Two more girls have joined us, and every so often, Jefe or his goons come in with candy bars and bottled water. If we want to eat and drink…we have to let them…do what they want with us.

  I’ve lost count of how many times and ways I’ve been violated. Emmie doesn’t talk anymore. Hannah lost all her fight the third time one of the bigger guys forced her to suck him off.

  Huddled in the corner as far from the door as I can, I cradle my left hand. Jefe ripped my engagement ring off as soon as he was done raping me for the first time, and broke my finger in the process. I set it and had Emmie tear strips from my tank and break the heel off my shoe to use as a splint.

  We don’t have names here. Not to Jefe. Numbers only. He only calls me Twelve. Before Emmie—Seven to Jefe—stopped responding to me, I asked her if she worried we’d eventually forget who we used to be. But she didn’t answer me.

  I don’t want to forget. “I’m Joey Taylor,” I whisper. “I’m going to be a doctor. I’m going to help people.”

  A sob catches in my throat as I realize I’m probably lying to myself. Jefe burned our driver’s licenses in front of us. The other girls…half of them lived on the streets before they were taken. No one will miss them.

  Eventually, someone will look for me. But how long will it take? Ford’s in Iraq. Probably doesn’t even know I’m gone. I told Uma I had clinicals this week. She won’t expect to hear much from me. Belle was headed off for a vacation with her folks right after the party. But Pilar’s wedding is in a week. When I don’t show up for that…

  I start to cry. Odd. I didn’t think I had any tears left in me.

  A loud crash followed by gunfire makes us all scream and scramble together in the corner. Footsteps pound, we hear shouts, and then Jefe bursts through the doors, heads right for us, and grabs me by the hair. He hauls me against him, a gun pressed to my temple.

  “Put the weapon down and let the girl go,” a man wearing an FBI vest says from the door.

  “No fucking chance,” Jefe growls. “You let me walk out of here, alive, or I’ll put a bullet through her brain.”

  Do it.

  I don’t know where that thought comes from. I want to live. Except…everything hurts. And…after what they’ve done to me…

  Two more officers flank the first, and Jefe slams the barrel into my cheek. “I mean it! I’ll do it!”

  One of the FBI agents…he almost looks a little like Ford. Sandy hair. Kind eyes. I don’t want it to end like this. With me broken, bruised, and well on my way to losing myself completely.

  I make a fist, squeeze my eyes shut, and then slam my fist into Jefe’s balls. As soon as his hold on my neck loosens, I drop down onto the floor.

  Five shots. And then Jefe falls on top of me, his blood soaking into my dirty tank, dripping onto my matted hair, my eyes, even filling my ears. I can’t breathe, and when the heavy weight of his body is suddenly lifted off of me and those kind eyes meet mine, I start to scream.

  Ford

  As our transport rolls up to the base, I shove the creased note back into a plastic bag and tuck it in my front pocket. I don’t know how many times I’ve read it. A hundred? More?

  We’ll never survive if you can’t let me share your pain.

  She’s right. But when I close my eyes at night, all I see is that market the suicide bomber blew up. And those kids three days later. Dying. From our bullets. It doesn’t matter that the insurgents were using them as shields. Or that we got the guys responsible for the bombs that killed more than a hundred Kuwaiti women and children.

  I’ll always know…I was one of the pieces of shit who killed them.

  “Thank God,” Jessup says as the transpo slows to a stop and he jumps out. “Lawton can finally send a fucking message to his girl.”

  “Shut up,” I snap. “You didn’t see her face that night, asshole.”

  “Didn’t need to. You’ve described it in perfect detail a hundred times.” He ducks out of the way as I throw a punch at his shoulder. “You were in a shitty mood the whole mission. Five and a half weeks of watching you fold and unfold that note. How the hell she’s willing to marry a sappy fuck like you, I have no idea.”

  Neither do I. Following Jessup into the barracks, I dump my rucksack on my bunks and start unpacking. The mail room across the yard looms, despite not being able to see it through the walls of the tent.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?” Jessup asks.

  “If I call her, she’ll want to know what happened.” I snag one of my spare boots and start polishing it. I can already see my face in the damn thing. But it’s been covered in blood more times than not in the past year, and every time I put them on, I see it. Smell it. “Once she finds out, she’ll never look at me the same way again.”

  “What does she think happens in war, man?” Brasher asks as he lays a towel out on the floor and starts to break down his weapon. “People die.”

  “She’s twenty-two,” I say. “She still looks at the world like it’s all shiny and new. Fuck, she’s in med school to make a difference. And she will. That girl’s going to save lives—over and over again. I can’t ask her to come home to a killer.”

  I run a hand over the fuzz on my head. When we’re in-country, we all get a little lazy with the razor. Jessup stoops so he’s right in my face. “I don’t like pulling rank, Lawton. But if you don’t get your head out of your ass, I’m telling the Staff Sergeant that you need to be put on leave. We’re headed back out there in five days, and if you’re not 100%, then you don’t deserve to stand at my side. Call the girl or consider yourself unfit to serve.”

  An hour later, I hold an ice pack to my jaw and hover at the door to the mail room. “Got anything for Lawton?”

  The letter’s thin, and the handwriting on the outside…it’s not Joey’s, and there’s no return address.

  Tearing into the envelope before I even move away from the counter, I pull out the single sheet of paper.

  Dear Ford,

  I don’t know how to tell you this. I can’t say the words. I tried to call, but I couldn’t. But writing them isn’t any easier. When I left your apartment…I never made it home.

  He…they had me for a week. So many bad things happened. Things I don’t want to think about. Fifteen of us. Trapped in a railcar. We were supposed to be sold. But the FBI found us.

  I’m alive. In the hospital. My sister says this isn’t a dream, but I don’t believe her. I’m sorry you had to find out like this. But I didn’t want you to call and wonder why I didn’t answer.

  Joey

  Stumbling out into the hot desert night, I barely make it to the phones before I see red. Someone hurt her. Someone violated her. Was going to sell her. The date on the letter…it’s a month ago. She sent this a month ago and didn’t hear anything back from me.

  Static crackles over the line as it rings, and I don’t understand why she’s not answering. As I’m about to disconnect, there’s a click, and a tentative “Hello?”

  “Who’s this?” I demand.

  ”Who’s this?” Now the woman’s pissed.

  Get it together, asshole. It’s probably her roommate. “Ford. I’m Joey’s fiancé. Is she there?”

  The woman sighs. “This is Lisa. She said you’d call. Thought it would have been at least three weeks ago, though. You’re a jerk, you know that?”

  Anger stiffens my spine, and my knuckles crack as my fingers tighten on the receiver. “Listen, I already feel like shit. But I just got back from a long deployment—no communications in or out. Are you going to let me talk to her?”

  “Really? You didn’t know…?”

  “Of course not! You think I would have abandoned her? Never. I love
her.”

  Another sigh, and Lisa curses under her breath. “Ford, she left. I came home a few days ago, her stuff was gone, and there was a note on the counter. All it said was ‘I have to go away for a while. Here’s the rent for last three months of the lease.’ No forwarding address, no nothing.”

  “What? I don’t understand. She had to say more than that.”

  “She hasn’t said much of anything since it happened. Look, I wish I could help. We weren’t close, but she was nice, and she didn’t deserve what they did to her. If she calls, I’ll tell her you were out of contact until today. But all I can tell you to do is contact her sister.”

  Mumbling a weak “thank you,” I hang up and sink down onto the floor, my head in my hands. What if I’ve lost her for good? Shit. She was right. I didn’t trust her with my pain, and now we might be done for.

  Four days later, I’m back in San Diego, knocking on her sister’s door. Gerry’s face hardens when she peers out at me through the gap in the chain. “You have some nerve.”

  As she starts to shut the door, I wedge my foot in the gap. “Within an hour of getting Joey’s letter, I was in my CO’s office begging for the next flight back to the States. I’ve been deployed on a mission for more than five weeks. I never would have abandoned her. I love her. Please, tell me where she is. I have to explain why I didn’t come when she needed me.”

  Gerry’s eyes soften, and she presses her lips together as she nods. Withdrawing my foot, I wait for her to close the door a bit and unhook the chain. Ten years older than Joey, she could be her twin, if not for the slight lines around her eyes and the much darker hair.

  “Come on in, Ford. We need to have a little chat.”

  I lurch back to my apartment, the bottle of bourbon half empty and dangling from my fingers. Joey took a leave of absence from med school. When she moved out of her apartment, she wouldn’t give her sister her new address. She won’t talk to anyone—not her family, not her friends, and certainly not me. Not even when her sister called her and started to explain where I’d been.

  “He didn’t know—”

  “I can’t do this, Gerry. I just…can’t.”

  Her voice sounded so weak. Afraid. And I don’t know what to do besides down another healthy gulp of bourbon and fall, face-first, into my bed.

  Over the next month, I write her letter after letter. Gerry promised to deliver them. And every one comes back Return to Sender.

  I’ve lost her. And what’s worse? All her pain, all her suffering…it’s on me. Because I couldn’t let her in.

  1

  Present Day

  Joey

  A hint of a breeze stirs the flap on the tent door, and I sink down onto the cot, take off my sneakers, and rub my sore feet. “I’m getting too old for this shit,” I mutter. At forty-two, my joints don’t recover like they used to, and I miss my bed with its thick mattress and weighted blanket.

  The buzz of the generator drones from the other side of the canvas wall, and Ivy flounces in, all twenty-one-years of boundless energy and optimism. The light in her eyes…I used to have that.

  “Does this country ever cool down?” she asks as she strips off her t-shirt. Standing in front of the fan in a sports bra and her dark blue pants, she holds out her arms, sweat glistening on the tops of her rather large breasts.

  Rolling my eyes, I sink back onto the thin pillow and pull the sheet up to my chest. “Get some sleep. We have an eight-hour drive tomorrow. Where’s Mia?”

  “She’s chatting up Dr. Phillips. I think the two of them are a thing now.”

  I don’t have the energy to roll my eyes again, so I close them and hope the third female member of our little team doesn’t make too much noise when she wanders in sometime around three in the morning.

  “How do you sleep when it’s this hot?” Ivy asks.

  “You learn.” I shouldn’t be so snippy with her. It’s not her fault Turkmenistan is in the middle of a heat wave. Or that she happened to sign up for a tour just as Doctors Without Borders was planning their first trip here in more than ten years. I crack one eye open to find her half-naked. “Put some clothes on, Ivy. We have to respect our host country’s culture.”

  “But—”

  Holding up my hand, I press my lips together for a moment to stop myself from saying something I’ll regret. She’s a good kid and a hard worker. But these conditions aren’t for everyone. “When we travel to other countries, we have to do our best to fit in. Otherwise, we might not be allowed back. Think of all the kids we vaccinated today. None of them would be protected. Cholera is one of the primary killers of children in Turkmenistan. Sixty kids. No, sixty-three.” I do the math in my head, and her eyes widen. “Sixty-three kids today who won’t die from a preventable disease. By the end of the week when we’re closer to Turkmenabat, our numbers will be close to a thousand.”

  Ivy grabs her long-sleeved scrubs top and pulls it over her head. Her pants go back on next. “I’m sorry, Dr. Taylor. You’re right.”

  “Joey.” I sink back down and roll over. “As for how to sleep? Put on fresh socks. You’d be amazed how much cooler your feet feel.”

  As Ivy rustles about across the tent, I reach for the chain around my neck, pulling the ring from its hiding place between my breasts. I’ve worn it around my neck every day for twenty years, and it’s become my touchstone. It’ll be dark soon. I don’t like the dark. Haven’t ever since…

  When I close my eyes at night, I see the faces of the men who ruined me. Until I reach for my ring. And then…sometimes…I can see the man I used to love. The man I ran away from because I was too scared, too damaged, too afraid.

  Tonight, I try to call up a good memory. Happier times. Before I ruined everything.

  “Joey, trust me,” Ford says as he holds out his hand.

  “You do know gravity’s a thing, right?” Staring down at the amusement park spread out before us, I then turn my gaze to the zipline. “That little thing is going to support both of us? I don’t think so.”

  “Buttercup, I’ll hold you the whole way down. And…I’m pretty sure I saw an extra large box of Red Vines for sale at the concession stand by the ferris wheel. One trip, and the candy’s on me.” His deep voice rumbles against my chest as he wraps his arm around me. We’re already harnessed together, and the line behind us starts to get restless.

  This was my idea. A stupid one, I can see now, but still…my idea. Something to help me get over my fear of heights. Plus, Ford swears it’s fun.

  Throwing my arms around his neck, I bury my face against his soft t-shirt. “I’m not watching.”

  As he steps off the platform, he cups my cheek and guides my lips to his. Suddenly, we’re flying, and the heat of his kiss, the way his arousal presses into my stomach as we glide five hundred feet, the wind ruffling my hair…it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It’s…perfection.

  There’s a small thud and a muffled curse back in the tent, and the memory fades. My hand moves to my pocket, and I find the paperclip I always keep there. Working it free, I drag it across my stomach. Not hard enough to make me bleed. Just hard enough to make me feel. Something. Anything but the paralyzing regrets and fears I carry with me every single day.

  The tingling sensation calms me, and the slight pain as I press the tip in a little harder, just in one spot—lets the tension seep from my limbs. It’s enough. For tonight, I’ll be able to sleep for an hour at a time—maybe even two—before the nightmares come.

  The next day dawns even hotter than the last, and before I do much more than brush my teeth and put on the white vest that marks me as one of the doctors, sweat is dripping down my back. But even though this isn’t our official camp—the locals are lining up, waiting for us. Turkmenistan has been without advanced medical care in the rural parts of the country for more than ten years, and while many still distrust us—our little group of six is made up of two Americans, three Brits, and Mia, who’s French—they’re desperate for mobile medicine.


  I grab my clipboard and head for the triage line. “Adyň näme?” I ask in Turkmen as I kneel in front of a boy no older than six. It’s one of the only phrases I know, but it works with the little kids.

  “Batyr,” he says softly with a smile.

  “Hi, Batyr. Meniň adym Dr. Joey.”

  He shrinks behind his mother as one of our security guys—and our translator—helps me explain what happens next. The brief exam, the cholera vaccine, and any potential side effects over the next few days. Six boys, three girls, and four adults later, a hand on my shoulder makes me jerk and whirl around.

  “Shit, Ray. Don’t do that.”

  Dr. Raymond Phillips, the senior physician in charge, passes me a bottle of water from the case in the corner of the tent. “Sorry, Joey. But if we don’t start out for Turkmenabat soon, we won’t make it before nightfall.”

  Glancing back at the intake line, I do the math in my head. “If you let me keep working while the crew packs up the sleeping tents, I can finish up with these last six patients in thirty minutes.”

  “Joey—”

  “Please. These people need us. The last mother and baby I saw walked for two days to get here. There aren’t many left. I’ll make dinner when we get there.”

  “You mean you’ll pass out the MREs?” He chuckles and shakes his head. “Fine. But make sure I get the shepherd’s pie one. None of that chicken casserole shite.”

  I blow out a breath as I twist the cap off my water bottle. “Shepherd’s pie it is. Thanks.”

  We don’t make it to Turkmenabat before dark. Two flat tires and a faulty headlight force us to stop a hundred kilometers from our destination. The locals we hired to drive us argue quietly in Turkmen as they help set up two of the small tents a short distance from the road, and I collapse face first on top of the sleeping bag, not even bothering to take off my shoes.

  The first shot banishes sleep instantly, and I’m on my feet, my heart in my throat. Ivy screams, and I grab her and slap my hand over her mouth, then drag her to the back corner of the tent. Mia joins us, and we huddle together, shaking. Shouts and more gunfire surround us, and I start chanting silently, “Not again. Please…not again.”