Necessary Evil of Nathan Miller (6 page)

I stared at the pink electric
toothbrush, its handle in the shape of a Disney princess, trying
not to remember my last attempt to brush my teeth. I’d managed to
get the brush into my mouth, but that was about it. Asking Nathan
for help had proved even more disastrous – after the first time
he’d almost choked me, he hadn’t been game to help me brush more
than my front teeth.
With an electric toothbrush, I might be
able to brush my own teeth.

I looked up at her again, more grateful
than I could say. "Thank you."

She smiled nervously at my strange
tone. "They only had kids’ battery toothbrushes, so it was Disney
princesses or Dora the Explorer. I thought you’d prefer a princess
one. This one’s Aurora, Sleeping Beauty." It came out all in a
rush.

I laughed weakly. "Yep, I guess that’s
me. It’s a wonder I woke up at all." With that sobering thought,
all hope of laughter died.

"At least you’re looking better," Jo
said quickly, with a forced smile. "Where’s your gallant hero this
morning? Off polishing his sword?" Her face was set, so I knew she
was going to rant. "Oh, come on. The half-crazed look in his eyes,
full of guilt for what he did to you, and the anguish he’s causing
you now by sticking around? You’re barely a shadow of yourself –
what did he do to you?"

Nothing. He did nothing.
I
didn’t bother opening my mouth – once she got into stride, she’d
keep going 'til she ran out of breath. I waited, my eyes on the
earrings she’d put in – one upside down, one sideways. She must
have left home in a hurry.

"Caitlin, please! You cry at the drop
of a hat, and there he is, saying nonsensical things like, ‘It’s
all over now,’ when it never will be, not until you get rid of
him." She paused again. "The bruises on your face are fading.
You’re starting to look almost normal now. At least he isn’t
hitting you any more."

I let the words wash over me without
really hearing them, but she knew me too well to let me get away
with it for long. She brought her face so close to mine I couldn’t
focus on it. "It’s lucky that he found you when he did."

When I met her eyes, she continued,
"It’s incredibly lucky that he was walking on that bit of beach
just after you were dumped there. It couldn’t be a coincidence – he
knew you’d be dumped there, didn’t he? He was one of
them
."

I sighed. I had to say something. "I
was lucky he was there."

"It’s all right, you can tell me. I
know he was one of
them
." She looked feverishly eager.

Is she talking aliens and conspiracy
theories?
"One of them?"

"One of the ones who hurt you," she
said slowly. She looked expectant.

Now I can say something. Now she’ll
hear me.
"Nathan never hurt me."

She snorted. "What, you’re telling me
none of this hurt when he did it?" She pointed at my hands and the
dressings on my wrists. "When he cut you, when he tied you up, when
he broke your fingers, when he raped you…"

The tears started, part anger and part
pain. My anger packed more power into my voice than I’d intended.
"No! He never did anything like that. He couldn’t do that to
me...He would never..."

"You didn’t always see the face of the
man who was hurting you, did you?" Jo demanded.

My voice died to a whisper. "I don’t
have to see his face or know his name to know who he is, Jo. He’s
not one of the men who hurt me."

Nathan advanced into the room, as if
he’d been listening outside and couldn’t stay out any longer. I
found I felt grateful for his presence.

He said something to her, but I didn’t
hear it.

She opened her mouth to deliver an
angry reply, but I shook my head slightly. I lifted my hand to wave
goodbye. She returned the wave and left without another word.

I settled into Nathan’s comforting
embrace and let the tears flow until they ran dry. Anger and pain
drained out of me with the salt water, leaving a contemplative
calm.

I lifted my head from his chest to help
him wipe my face and a flash of pink caught my eye.
The electric
toothbrush. I could have clean teeth again!
I smiled through my
tears.

Part 18

Carol bustled in with an armload of
dressing packs. "Time to change your dressings. Let’s see how
you’re healing up!" She smiled for all she was worth, but her eyes
told me she was putting a positive spin on something she liked as
little as I did. She didn’t want to see my wounds, either.

I felt sorry for her, but I was happy
to see her. It was a relief to know both the ward and the hospital
I’d been sent to, not to mention see a familiar face in uniform.
"Hi, Carol. Of all the wards to bring me to, I ended up in
yours."

Her cheery smile didn’t reach her eyes.
She was trying to tell me something without words. "Of course. St
Elsie's is the best hospital and we're its best ward. We had to
fight for you, but we traded a couple of sporting injury patients
to the other wards to keep you."

Sporting injury patients went to the
day surgery. In and out in a day, such patients were rarely sent to
a ward at all. Fight for me? Oh… perhaps she meant they'd fight for
me if they had to. It was a sweet thought, but I couldn’t allow any
of the capable nurses on this ward to stand in the way of a bastard
who wanted to kill me.

What if one of them killed him before I
could?

I forced a laugh. "You just wanted
fewer names to learn at handover."

Carol laughed easily as if my joke had
been funny. "You know it. Actually, while you were asleep there
have been some very interesting men in the ward keeping guard over
you. I almost thought about asking them to pull out their weapons…"
I saw her eyes drift in Nathan’s direction before coming back to
me. Mr Sleazy Roommate had been busy, charming the nurses in the
ward while I slept, and she was trying to warn me.

Nathan looked worried. I realised there
was something he didn’t want me to know, so I feigned ignorance. "I
have guards?"

"Sure, a different police officer every
day, like some sort of desk calendar. They make sure you don’t have
any unwelcome visitors. Plus…" This time her glance at Nathan was
more obvious. Had he told the staff that he was my boyfriend, so
that they’d let him stay?

I stared at him, wondering if he’d
really done something so silly. There was more he wasn’t telling
me. As he averted his eyes, I wondered how much of it I already
knew.

I remembered something and tried not to
smile as I spoke. "I thought you had a new man – Scott. How does he
stack up against the desk calendar guys, or is he out of the
picture now?"

"I’m still with Scott, but that doesn’t
mean I can’t look…" Carol drifted off and so did my thoughts.

She broke my reverie. "So, where do we
start?" She had a hand on the curtain and another question in her
eyes. She wanted to know whether I wanted the curtain pulled
across, so Nathan didn’t see.

I gave a slight shake of my head and
shrugged. "What does it matter? I guess it’s time for me to see
what they’ve done to me," I replied, too tired to keep up the
cheerful tone.

My eyes met Carol’s as her hands
hovered over me, staying close to my thigh. I nodded, knowing she’d
deal with the worst wound first. I braced myself as she ripped the
dressing off as carefully as she could. I wasn’t prepared for what
I saw.

"Fuck, that looks bad!" I burst
out.

There was a deep hole in my leg. The
nasty, gaping wound had been sliced open further with a scalpel and
then stitched closed, before it had started to heal, but the scar
was going to show for the rest of my life. No bloody wonder it hurt
to walk. I shouldn’t be on that until the stitches were out.

Carol’s eyes met mine, hurting for
me.

"A skin graft over that would help hide
the scar," she said reassuringly, as if I didn’t already know that.
I wondered why it hadn’t already been done.

The truth dawned on me as I looked at
the gauze shroud I’d been enveloped in. "But where would you take
the graft from? Everywhere is…"
A shroud I could still be buried
in…oh shit.
Tears formed and fell, as if I had no control over
my own bloody body any more.

"Hey, that’s the worst of your wounds.
The rest are healing up nicely. You’ll see." Ever the professional,
Carol tried to reassure me as she continued. She smoothed the new
dressing down and moved to the next one. I barely felt the rip,
making me wonder if my pain relief dose was still high. I watched
as she worked, counting the wounds hidden under the white.

"Oh God." Nathan stood beside me and I
hadn’t noticed him move.

Carol quickly shifted the sheet so it
covered more of me, but his eyes were fixed on the soft flesh of my
inner thigh. The horror in his expression told me he wasn’t perving
on me in any normal sense of the word. He looked like he was going
to cry.

It was instinctive, my stupid desire to
hug a grown man as if he was a child who could be comforted. But he
accepted it, hugging me tightly as if he’d been the one hurt.
Somehow, despite how strange it seemed, I felt comforted by the
contact.

Whatever his motives were, at least he
made me feel better. Or he would, if…I winced as Carol ripped off
another dressing. She was right to keep going without hesitation.
The faster she changed my dressings, the sooner she’d be done with
them. And the less I had to see of the messy red, white and
blue-grey mosaic my body had become.

Part 19

Dark – Mike – Chris – Kiss – No

"So you fucked her, then untied her and
dressed her again?" Mike sounded incredulous.

"Well…it was cold and she wanted to put
her clothes back on. So…yeah."

If he'd said it was dark at night the
way he said that, I wouldn't have believed him.

"Bullshit." This sounded closer. I kept
my eyes tightly closed, hoping that he'd go away if I was
asleep.

No, that only works for children's
nightmares. Not real ones.

"Get her up and on her feet." The foot
that kicked my leg could only have been Mike's.

"But she's still not well after the
drugs you gave her…" Chris hedged.

"Then she'll be easier to control. Get
her up and hold her for me."

A light hand touched my shoulder.
"C'mon, wake up," Chris murmured.

Chris is on my left. Mike is down near
my feet.

I rolled to my right, praying the
dizziness had dissipated. If it hadn't, I knew how this would end.
I shifted into a crouch, ready to defend myself but not knowing
how. "No!" I shouted.

"Fuck. Hold her still." Mike edged
closer.

I backed away from them as Chris
started to approach me, too.

My back touched something. Desperately,
I turned to see I'd backed into a corner. No!

Swallowing hard, I turned back to face
my captors, hands up in what I remembered was a basic block from my
self-defence classes. Now I wished I'd taken more classes. "Don't
you fucking touch me."

Mike sounded completely unfazed.
"There's nothing you can do to stop me."

Fuck, but he was fast. He grabbed my
arms and stomped his boot down on both of my bare feet. I tried to
pull free, but he knew what he was doing. He twisted my arms up
behind me and held them with one hand. The other he plunged into my
hair, grabbing a handful and twisting that, too. I couldn't move my
head without ripping out my hair. I swallowed a scream.

"Now kiss me, bitch." He smiled.

"Why?" I spat.

"Because you can. You may as well enjoy
the last man you ever have."

"Fuck you!"

Shouldn't have opened my mouth. He
tasted of ash, stale beer and worse. I retched as he shoved his
tongue halfway down my throat, but his body pinning mine to the
wall kept me upright. Worse, he enjoyed it. I could feel him
hardening against my tummy. I’d have bitten his tongue off if I
could’ve stopped choking.

If one horrible kiss is such a
violation, how much worse can rape be? Oh God, I don't want to find
out. He'll hurt me.

Mike broke his lip-lock and grinned.
"You will, little bitch. You'll fuck me more than you can
handle."

"Don't you fucking touch me!" I shouted
again, trying to squirm away from him.

"She's mine!" Chris protested. "You
promised!" He sounded five years old, instead of a bloke bigger
than me.

Mike swung me around by my twisted
arms, my muscles screaming in pain, slamming my body into Chris's.
"The little bitch is all yours if you fuck her right here and
now."

I spun around to face Chris. My voice
came out as a whisper. "No…"

Part 20

Nathan’s voice told me I was okay. I
relaxed, ready to go from dark nightmare to peaceful sleep once
more, but I realised that the arms holding me tightly were anything
but okay. Then they were gone.

I could hear footsteps and breathing in
the dark, but no one touched me. "Nathan?" I asked quietly, hoping
it was his breathing I’d heard.

Someone touched me again and my
reaction was automatic and unexpected. Instead of wanting to claw
his eyes out, I found myself relaxing into his embrace. This was
not fucking okay. What if it had been someone else, someone I
couldn’t trust?

I shoved at him and he let go of me. I
tried to ignore the hurt look on his face as I demanded, "What are
you doing? Why were you touching me when I woke up?"

His expression went from hurt to
horrified and he didn’t know how to explain. "You’ve been having a
lot of really bad nightmares and you wouldn’t wake up. You…were
screaming. Screaming for me to help you. You…didn’t scream as much
if I…hugged you."

It started to dawn on me that I had no
idea just how much he’d done while I was asleep. I was sure I’d
heard his voice while I slept and I needed to know if what I
remembered was real or just part of one of my many fucked-up
dreams.