Susan Mallery - Straight From The Hip

“Something like that.”

“You’re a very weird person. You know that, don’t you?”

“So I’ve been told.”

IZZY COULDN’T SLEEP. No matter how many times she stretched out on her bed, she couldn’t relax. She got desperate enough to turn out the lights, but the total blackness wasn’t comfortable, either, so she clicked them back on.

Possible scenarios flashed through her mind. What would happen if she had the surgery and couldn’t see? How would she survive? She knew that taking the chance would ease things with her sisters and maybe with herself. She wouldn’t have held back out of fear anymore, which was great for family relations but left her with a much bigger problem.

There were services, she told herself. Places where she could go to learn Braille and other skills. People had satisfying lives while still dealing with all kinds of handicaps. Maybe she could go to college and get a degree in something. Probably nothing in the fine arts department or, say, nursing, but something. She would get an apartment, maybe a guide dog. She would go shopping with Lexi and be a stylishly dressed blind person. Not that she’d ever been especially stylish before, but a girl could dream.

She stood and crossed to the window. As it was probably close to midnight, she couldn’t see anything, but she could pretend.

Of course if the surgery were a success, she would have her life back. She would be able to see and then do anything she wanted. Which posed nearly as big a question. What did she want? Her old life of thrill-seeking had lost a little of its charm. So then what? Did she still go to college and try to find something useful to do? And if she planned to live on her own and go to college either way, then did having the surgery really make that much difference?

To test her theory, she turned out the lights again. The instant darkness made her throat tighten. Terror flooded her, making her want to throw up. She was a kid again, trapped under the stairs, screaming and screaming, only no one heard. No one bothered looking for her. No one let her out.

The walls closed in. She couldn’t breathe. There was only the fear and the knowledge that she was completely alone.

Sucking in a breath, she flipped on the lights and leaned against the wall as she tried to calm down. So much for a restful night’s sleep.

She left her room and made her way downstairs. Maybe if she walked around outside, she’d be able to relax.

Halfway across the living room, she heard an odd sound. It was almost a yell. She paused and frowned, trying to get her bearings in the house. If the living room was in front of her and the kitchen to her right, then behind her was the hallway that led to Nick’s office and his bedroom. She turned in that direction, listening.

The sound came again. Muffled, but definitely human. Was it Nick? Was he in trouble?

Her first thought was that he could more than take care of himself. Her second was that she had to make sure. It was a compulsion, or maybe just a female thing.

She walked down the hall, feeling her way along the walls. She passed the door to what she knew was his study, then saw light spilling out from the end of the hall.

She pushed open that door and stepped into what seemed like a bedroom. She could make out a bed and several large pieces of furniture against the walls. There was a fireplace and drapes pulled shut over large windows. But what stopped her was light.

It glowed everywhere. There were lamps on night-stands, an overhead light, floor lamps in the corners. It was as bright as midday.

There was another sound from the bed, but whatever worry Izzy had brought into the room quickly dissipated. She crossed to the bed and shook Nick by the shoulder.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she said to him, not sure if he was awake or not but figuring he would be soon. “All that stupid Zen talk you’re giving me. Telling me to get used to the dark. That I have to deal. And Rita with her one-scary-cave-at-a-time bull. Does she know about this? Those who can do and those who can’t teach? You expect me to risk the little sight I have left, but you sleep with the lights on?”

Nick came awake at Izzy’s first touch. He sat up as her words poured out, still caught up in the nightmare, not sure what was real and what wasn’t.

She was beyond pissed. She glared at him as if she wished her eyes were laser beams that could burn him to dust.

“Don’t think you can make this right with me.” Her voice rose. “What’s going on? Just tell me that. What’s going on?”

He saw movement out in the hall and watched as Aaron stepped into the room, saw Izzy and quickly left. Nick wished he could escape so easily, but that wasn’t going to happen.

“Stop yelling,” he told her.

“You’re really getting on my nerves.”

“I got that.”

He stood and crossed to the door, carefully closing it before he faced her.

She wore a long T-shirt that came to midthigh. She probably had on panties underneath, but he didn’t want to think about that or her body or how good she looked glaring at him.

“You have issues,” she said, practically frothing with rage. “You have your own damn issues, but, hey, go ahead and tell me what to do with my life.”

He didn’t know what to say. The truth? Was that possible? There was a part of him that didn’t want her to know. Maybe because it made him feel damaged. Maybe because if he told her part of it, he would have to tell her all of it and he wouldn’t sound very good.

The mistake had been his, but Garth had shared in the punishment. It was only one more thing to feel guilty about.

“You have to say something,” she told him. “Just say that you fell asleep with the lights on. I might even believe you.”

He crossed to her and pulled off his T-shirt. Then he picked up her hand and placed it on his chest, over one of the thicker scars.

“I sleep with the lights on,” he said quietly. “You’re right. I have issues. A few years ago I was working in South America. A friend and I were captured and held prisoner. We were blindfolded and tortured. They kept us chained, in the open, exposed to the elements. But that wasn’t the worst of it. It wasn’t the bugs or the rain or the snakes, either. It was the knives. They came without warning. There would be nothing, then the feel of a knife slicing through flesh and the only sound was my screams.”

IZZY SANK DOWN on the bed and clutched her stomach. She felt seconds away from throwing up. “I should have stayed in my room,” she murmured.

Nick sank down next to her and put his hand on her back. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

He’d used very few words to paint an incredibly vivid image, she thought grimly, swallowing and trying to get control. “No, it’s okay. I went off on you.” She thought about the sounds she’d heard. “Were you having a nightmare?”

“Yeah. I get them a couple of times a week.”

That often? She sucked in a breath. “Tell me what happened.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I already do. All I’m missing is the details. What happened?”

“You should go to bed.”

She angled toward him. “I should do a lot of things. Have you noticed I’m stubborn and used to getting my way?”

“You? I don’t believe it.”

She managed a slight smile, then let it fade as she reached out and touched his bare shoulder.

He didn’t move as she worked her way down his chest. The scars crisscrossed his flesh, some deeper than others, some just thin lines.

“Are they on your back, too?” she asked.

“They’re everywhere.”

The nausea was back, but she ignored it. “What happened?” she repeated.

He took her hand in his. She wanted to think it was for comfort, but she had a feeling it was more about keeping her from finding additional scars.

“It was about ten years ago. I was working for an oil company. Some of the work I’d done in graduate school was about imaging. It’s technical, but basically there are ways to look below the earth’s surface to find potential oil deposits. There was a big one in South America. We knew about it for a while but there were complications with getting it out of the ground.”

She pulled her hand free. His gentle touch was more of a distraction than she needed. “I know what extraction is. I’m Jed Titan’s daughter. I practically have oil in my blood.”

“Right. As part of my work with the imaging, I discovered a new way to extract the oil. It avoided most of the geographical problems, so a couple of guys and I flew down to check out the area ourselves.”

“And?”

“It was perfect. Using my new techniques we could get to all the oil and do minimal damage to the environment.” He shifted on the bed. “The land was owned by a few dozen families. I met Francisco, who sort of ran things. I convinced him and he convinced the others. The beauty of the plan was they still had access to nearly all their acreage. They could farm and live their lives while raking in the money from us.”

“So where’s the bad?” she asked, knowing she wasn’t going to like how this was going to end.

“I thought I was smarter than everyone who said it couldn’t be done,” he said. “I ignored the warnings, both scientific and spiritual.”

“There were spiritual warnings?”

“Local legends not to take from below the ground. Anyone who did would be cursed by the gods.”

“Creepy,” she said as she rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “What happened?”

“In the early stages of drilling, we hit a lot of gas. I didn’t think anything of it. We were testing the local air and there wasn’t any hint of a problem. Three months later, the people started getting sick. We figured out right away we’d poisoned the water, but by then it was too late. Three people died.”

Izzy stared at him, not sure what to say. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you know there was a risk before you started?”

“It was an impossible chemical reaction. Unpredictable. Nothing like this had ever happened before. If we’d used traditional drilling methods, we might have caught it. But we didn’t.” He sounded disgusted with himself. “We managed to save the rest of the village, but it was too late. Two of the dead were from Francisco’s own family. Everyone blamed him and he blamed me.”

She didn’t know what to say. She knew firsthand the dangers of drilling miles deep into the earth. People could die-but not the innocents. Not those who hadn’t signed up for the risk.

“It was my fault,” Nick said hoarsely. “I did it. In my arrogance, I was so sure. I went to Francisco to apologize. He took me prisoner and he took a friend captive, as well. The men in the village held us for months, torturing us with knives. They fed us just enough to keep us alive, but never enough that we weren’t starving. They broke my friend’s legs and he nearly died from an infection. I don’t know how many times I faced death. If I’d been by myself, I would have given up, but I couldn’t. My friend wouldn’t let me. We kept each other alive.”

Nick drew in a breath. “He never blamed me. Not then, not now. Most people would. I screwed it all up and he never said a word.”

“You made a mistake. There’s a difference.”

“Tell that to the people who died.”

“Nick, you can’t blame yourself.”

“Sure I can. Eventually I realized I had to get us out. He was close to dying and I couldn’t hang on much longer.”

Now she grabbed his hand. Maybe to try to offer comfort, maybe to anchor herself in the middle of a particular level of hell.

“It was my fault,” Nick continued, his voice thick with pain and remorse. “All of it. I killed them. I live with that every minute of every day. I was arrogant. I thought I knew better. I deserved to die. But my friend didn’t deserve what was happening. One day I managed to pull the chains loose. I got us free and I walked us out of the jungle.”

He squeezed her fingers. “When we finally made it back to the States, I went to the police and told them what I’d done. No one could help.”

“What do you mean help?” she asked, suspecting the answer. “You mean no one would throw you in jail?”

“Yeah. I went to the state department. They sent out a team, but by then Francisco and his family were gone. There was nothing but the drilling site and the damn oil flowing like water. The treaty between the two countries meant I couldn’t be prosecuted there-not for what everyone claimed was an honest mistake. I spent months trying to find Francisco. Maybe to say I’m sorry, maybe to let him finish the job. I don’t know.”

She turned to Nick and grabbed his face in her hands. “You have to let it go.”