The broken beta - healed by innocence

Her fears

*Wade*

I'm working to get the harness off the mules when I catch sight of Briony scrambling out of the wagon and beginning to run toward... nothing but a distant horizon. I know enough about lightning storms to understand the danger they pose on the flat open plains. With a harsh curse, I bolt after her.

She stumbles, her knees hitting the ground. But she scrambles back to her feet and continues to run, her arms waving around her as if she's warding off the very demons of hell.

My legs are longer, moving faster than hers. I catch her, totally unprepared for the stark terror in her eyes when I swing her around. She flails her arms, hitting my face, my shoulders, my chest.

"Don't put me back in there! Please, don't put me back in there! I'll die! I swear to the Goddess, I'll die if you put me back in there!" She cries.

I wrap my arms around her, drawing her against my chest. "I won't," I promise, my breathing labored, my heart pounding so hard I'm sure she can feel it. "I won't."

She slumps against me. Still holding her, I bring my duster around her and ease us both to the ground. She trembles violently.

"It's all right," I coo as though she were a horse I wanted to tame. "It's all right." I start to rock gently back and forth while the mild rain splatters my back and drips slowly from my hat.

Lightning flashes around us, so brilliant, so close I think it might blind me. I pull the right side of my hat down and duck my head, hoping to give her more shelter. A short distance away, lightning strikes the ground, igniting a fire that the rain quickly drenches. Smoldering smoke trails along the ground.

"If it hits us, we'll die, won't we?" she asks in a quiet, calm voice, too calm, too quiet.

No reason to lie. "Probably."

"Do you think it will hurt?" She mumbles.

"No," I reply, tightening my hold. "We would just see a flash of bright light, and everything will go black."

She tilts her face. "You don't have to wait here with me."

"You will get wet." I say.

She smiles, an endearing crooked grin, and right then, I don't care if the lightning strikes me. Dying with her in my arms can't be worse than living a life alone.

My backside is drenched, mud coats my trousers, rivulets of water run into my boots, and water drips off the brim of my hat onto my shoulders. My muscles ache from the unnatural way I'm holding my body, trying to shield her from the storm. I brush my knuckles over her tear-streaked face and lower my mouth until it rests beside her ear. "Tell me," I say simply.

The c***k of thunder fills the air. The smile eases off her face, and a great sadness fills her eyes. I wish I had the power to remove that sadness from her life... forever.

The rain lessens, falling softly, its patter a somber melody to accompany her words.

"I told you that my father died during the war. The day we were to bury him..." She swallows and turns her gaze toward the darkening sky. "Some men came. I don't know if they were soldiers or rogues. They wore blue uniforms, but no one seemed in charge. My mother was terrified, so she hid me."

A tremor travels the length of her slight body. I remember she told me that she doesn't like being inside the darkness. Not in the dark, not afraid of the dark, but inside the darkness. Dread creeps through me. "Where did she hide you?"

"With my father." She looks at me then, tears welling in her eyes. "Inside his coffin. It was so dark. I was afraid that no one would find me. That they would bury me with him. I cried until I fell asleep."

"You said at the hotel that you'd slept with worse." I mumble.

She nods, her voice growing ragged. "He was so cold. When I woke up, Mama was holding me, but she was different. I don't know what they did to her. Her face and her throat were bruised. Her dress was torn.

I always thought that she should have been crying, but she wasn't. She just stared, but not at anything I could see. It was like she was staring inside herself, like her mind, her heart had gone away, and only her body remained to hold me."

The bile rises in my throat. "Your sisters?"

She presses her face harder against my shoulder until I think she might c***k my bones. She moves her head back and forth, and the warmth of her tears soaks through the flannel of my shirt. "They were staring, too," she rasps. "Staring blindly at the sky. They were lying side by side, holding hands... and there wasn’t much left of their clothes. It was so ugly." She digs her fingers into my sides.

"Don't think about it," I order. I hate the war. It brought out the best in men like my brother, the worst in men like me, and turned the rest into animals.

She sobs. "I didn't want to look at my sisters, but I did. I didn't want to see the blood, but I did. So much of it. I think I know what those men did..."

"They weren't men. Animals, maybe, but not men. Men don't harm the innocent." I cup her cheek and press her face against my chest. "They didn't hurt you?"

"Not my body, but my heart. I wanted to leave the plantation then, but I was only eight. And Mama was in no condition to travel. So we stayed and survived as best we could."

She tilts her head back, her eyes as dark as the storm clouds. "That's when I began searching for things, small things, for which I could be grateful. It didn't matter how trivial, how silly. I just needed something each day to make me go on to the next day."

I know that feeling. Damn, I know that feeling all too well.

"When Mama died, I placed my ad to travel west and become a mail order mate. I had to leave, to get away from the land that had soaked up my sisters' blood, away from the memories. I need new memories to replace those that haunt me when darkness closes in." She says.

The thunder echoes around us, the lightning shimmers through the air, and the rain begins to fall again, harder than before. She nestles up against my shoulder.

I remove my hat, giving the rain the freedom to wash over us, to wipe the tears from her face, and to ease the hurt in her heart.

The deluge prevents me from hearing her voice, but the shape of her lips reveals the words "Thank you."

I can only nod and pray that when the storm ends, I will find the strength to let her go.