Whispers of a Mourning Sky
DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything. I was just bored, and I figured I'd write a story that gives my least favorite character a little bit of a hard time. That's probably an understatement…but I really don't care.
AN: Um…So, now that I'm back from my almost unbearably long hiatus, I realized that there were quite a few little facts in my story that really didn't add up…especially after the release of Run Away Home.
Like…How Linc somehow escaped prison and joined the cattle drive, and how Dark Sunshine inexplicably ended up in the paddock with her daughter, since she's supposed to be trapped in Wild Horse Valley with the Phantom's herd.
Haha.
So I'm tweaking the first two chapters and reposting them. Hopefully, they make sense now. Please don't hesitate to let me know if I missed some.
Then I'll get to work on Chapter three.
Chapter One: Like Violence
"Sam?"
Jake Ely had just ridden into the yard of River Bend Ranch on his black mare, Witch. His mother had sent him over to check on Sam for two reasons: The first was because the fifteen year-old Samantha was currently the sole human resident of the ranch. The second was because, according to Mrs. Ely, it was the "neighborly" thing to do.
The rest of Sam's family; her dad, her stepmom, stepbrother, and grandmother were out on the range, participating in the summer cattle drive along with their cowboys, Dallas, Pepper and Ross, Jake's father and brothers, and Sam's best friend Jen and her father Jed who were representing the newly established Harmony Ranch.
They wouldn't be back for another three days.
Jake looked around the yard. Excluding the Buick, which Gram had taken with her, all of the cars were still parked off to the right. Jake knew Sam wasn't the type for joy-riding, but she'd befriended Darrell lately, so he couldn't be quite sure. The horses that hadn't been taken with the family were in the corral and Jake could hear Ace calling to Popcorn from the barn. In her own paddock, which was partially hidden behind the barn, Tempest whinnied shrilly, teasing an indignant Strawberry through the openings in the fence. Jake frowned. The little mustang filly was going to be just like her sire.
Walking up the steps Jake reached out and knocked on the door. He knocked once, twice and waited. After five minutes of no one coming to the door, Jake turned and looked at the barn.
Deciding he'd been wrong about Sam being in the house he headed for the large structure that smelled strongly of horses and hay. She was probably in there grooming Ace or preparing to go baby Tempest or something.
He looked in Ace's stall and checked on Tempest outside. He even looked behind the hay bales, for reasons he wasn't quite sure of. She wasn't there.
Jake was starting to panic.
--Okay. She's probably taking a shower and I just didn't hear the water running. Don't freak out. Try the door again.--
Jake strode across the yard again, heading for the front door of the little ranch house. On his way, he glanced at Witch to make sure she was still where he'd left her tied to a post. She was fidgeting, agitated with something. In fact, now that he actually looked for it, he saw that all the animals were restless.
Blaze sat in front of the door, whining and scratching the white paint with one forepaw. Jake hadn't noticed him before. He sped up and leaped up the stairs. If Blaze was outside and trying to get in, something must be wrong.
Jake reached for the door again, ready to knock. Instead, he grabbed the door handle and pushed, not stopping to worry about it being locked. The Forster's never locked their door.
The cold air from the air conditioner rushed against his face, blowing the stray wisps of hair that had escaped the leather thong back. It cooled his face where the sun's heat had made the skin hot to the touch.
His eyes went in and out of focus rapidly as they tried to adjust to the dark of the house. After a few frantic seconds of not being able to see, they did and Jake saw a Tupperware container on the kitchen floor, tipped over on its side so that its contents splattered halfway to the legs of the table.
"Sam?" Jake tried again, raising his voice so that even if she were upstairs she would hear him. "Are you in here?"
No answer.
"Sam?
Jake listened hard. No sound came to him from up the stairs. He didn't hear the shower running or the sounds of someone splashing in a full bathtub. He couldn't hear the sounds of Sam snoring either, so she wasn't taking a nap in her room.
He was about to give up completely and call his mom when he finally heard a noise coming from the living room. He stopped moving and listened.
There it was again. Jake shook his head, not believing his ears. It couldn't be. It sounded like someone was crying in there.
He turned his head slowly towards the doorway leading to the adjacent room.
Another sob. Choked and wet and female.
It had to be Sam, it couldn't be anyone else. Jake asked anyway.
"Sam?"
He could see her huddled in the corner between the couch and the wall. From his position in the middle of the room he saw that she sat with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her knees. Her forehead rested in the crevice between them and her entire body quivered with suppressed sobs. Occasionally, one would break loose and she would rock with the force of it.
Now Jake was scared. He'd never seen her cry like that.
"What's wrong? What happened?"
It didn't even occur to him to call her Brat, his nickname for her since they were kids. He was too worried.
This time she heard him. Her head jerked up, eyes wide, hair in her face, damp with tears. She looked like a startled horse. She looked at him like she didn't even know him for a moment. Then her eyes went impossibly wider and she scrambled backwards to get further into the corner. She didn't recognize him. She was terrified.
Startled, Jake could only watch her as she desperately clawed at the wall, trying to get further away than the wall would allow.
"Sam…tell me what's wrong. Tell me what happened," he winced at the sound of his voice. It was weak and pained and totally unlike him.
But Sam stopped her onslaught on the wall and looked over her shoulder at him. She was still crying and her tears were still streaming down her face but she seemed to finally realize who he was.
"Jake?" Her voice cracked and rasped, as if she'd lost it from screaming or crying too much and was only just getting it back.
Something about it made his own throat close. She sounded hopeful and heartbroken at the same time. She sounded like part of her was missing, or had been taken away.
Jake only nodded in response.
For a moment, her face was transformed by happiness, but it passed so quickly Jake had half a mind to believe that it hadn't been there at all. She nearly threw herself away from the wall towards him.
Wordlessly, Jake held his arms open for her.
He wasn't into hugs, and she knew he wasn't, but she latched onto him anyway. The shock from the fact that she obviously needed one so badly was the only thing that kept him rooted to the spot.
The top of her head lightly bumped his chin as she hit him with more force than he'd expected, and her tears started fresh as his arms closed around her of their own will.
She shuddered against his body and all he could think of doing was to tighten his arms around her protectively.
They stood like that together for a long time; Sam crying into Jake's shirt and Jake staring straight over her head, lost in a trance, hypnotized by her unsteady breathing.
After a while, Jake became aware of a niggling pain in his leg. It flared once and then his leg went to sleep.
"Shit," he muttered under his breath.
A sharp intake of breath told him that Sam had heard.
"Sam…I need to sit down. My leg just fell asleep."
She whispered something, but her throat was so raw that it came out as an incomprehensible croak. Jake took it as permission to move anyway.
It was awkward moving at first, but eventually he managed to back up to the couch and fall onto it, still holding Sam. She landed on his lap, immediately curling herself into a ball. Then she was still, except for the small tremors that passed through her body
Jake was silent, he didn't want to talk, but he had to know. He silently cursed himself for his current weakness and asked.
"Sam, I need to know what happened. You need to tell me so I can help."
Sam's inhale sounded as if she's just punched in the stomach. With an agonized cry that hurt his ears, she burst into a fresh fit of hysterics.
As a reflex, Jake tightened his arms around her.
He was beginning to think she'd never tell him.
Right before she found her voice and got the courage to confide in the one person she knew she could trust to help her, no matter what, Jake's eye caught something odd in the corner of the room where Sam had been. A dark spot on the carpet, right where she'd been huddled. It was blood.
Jake froze. She was bleeding.
One last racking breath shook her body on his lap, and then she sighed.
"Jake," her whisper was almost as inaudible as it was before, but he heard it this time.
He grunted, letting her know in his own special way that he'd heard, urging her to continue.
She took a few breaths during her pause, as if to fortify herself against the next few words, and then continued in an even quieter voice.
"He raped me."
Jake's spine stiffened. His face closed. His mind went blank. A roaring filled his ears.
He thought he would've yelled, or screamed, or even ranted around the room, but he didn't. All he could manage was a quiet, menacingly whispered, "Who?"
Sam was quiet for so long, Jake was sure she hadn't heard him. But then she took another breath and responded in a louder, but still shaky voice, "Slocum."
Jake nearly dislodged her from his lap with his jerk. His initial instinct was to ride for Harmony Ranch immediately and strangle him. But he forced himself to ask another question, more to keep himself distracted than anything else.
"Which one?"
Sam actually laughed when the words left his mouth. It was bitter and, despite the fact that she'd nearly flooded the room with her earlier tears, dry.
"The only one with opportunity. Seeing as how Linc is in prison and Rachel is in England and doesn't exactly have the right equipment, there's only one other possibility."
Jake made to get up, telling himself that if that bastard ended up dead today people would consider Jake a hero, but Sam gripped his arm tight. Despite her small size, she had more strength than he'd realized. He couldn't move.
Her next words were filled with pain and hope and trust, and were probably more effective than her grip; Jake could break her grip if he tried, but he couldn't escape her words, no matter how much he wanted to.
"Don't leave me," It wasn't a question.
From her position on his lap she looked up at him, her powerful grip still in place on his arm.
He leaned a little away from her so he could look into her face.
Sam hesitated for a moment, "Don't leave me. I don't -- ," She cut herself off abruptly with a tiny gasp, afraid to continue. She didn't want to make Jake uncomfortable with her weakness, but she really didn't want him to leave either. She tried again.
"Don't leave me Jake. I don't know what to do."
The tears she'd thought she'd already spent began to leak out of the corners of her eyes again.
She removed her hand from his arm, her fingers leaving white marks where they'd been, and placed it gently on her lap.
To hide her tears from Jake she looked down and smoothed a wrinkle in her jeans with shaking fingers. The other hand remained where it was in her lap.
Despite Sam's attempt to hide her face from his view, Jake noticed the fresh tears running down her cheek. His first reaction was to run. He hated to see her cry. But she had been hurt, and she had every reason to. Plus, he knew he couldn't leave her.
He also noticed her shaking hands. The knowledge that she'd been injured beyond repair made him do something totally un-Jake-like for the second time that day.
He covered her small, pale hand with his own large, dark one, in an attempt to stop its trembling.
Sam froze. Her eyes flashed and memory flared.
-- Ryan's smooth hands trailed down her arms slowly, almost gently. Only the manic gleam in his eyes and the cruel twist to the corners of his mouth told her that he was not in the least bit concerned with her comfort.
The spaghetti lay forgotten on the floor, dropped when Ryan had roughly grabbed her upper-arm to turn her around and pin her to the wall.
Her shorts had been torn from her body, as had her underwear, and Ryan's hands had found their way to her stomach. When they began to trail lower towards the apex of her thighs, Sam winced.
She did not cry, she wouldn't give him the pleasure, but the silky smoothness of his palms, completely devoid of calluses, was so unfamiliar against her skin. --
Sam flinched violently, snapping herself out of her reverie like a taught rubber band being cut, and yanked her hand out from under Jake's.
He had meant to comfort her, but the action had caused her to remember what she desperately wanted to forget, and she wanted to get away. Now.
She flew out of his lap and across the room where she hit the opposite wall with all the force in her body. It boomed and shuddered with the impact. She turned so that she was facing Jake, back to the wall, and slid downwards. Eyes closed, breathing heavy, she hit the floor and fell to her side, silently.
She'd scared Jake enough that he actually felt like attempting to comfort her with words. He tried to say something, but when he opened his mouth he was unable to get the words to come out. Instead, he started to get off the couch and head toward her.
He'd taken only two steps when Sam's breathless voice reached him, "No Jake."
He stopped where he was, and started to wonder about his next course of action.
He knew he had to get her to the hospital, as fast as possible. The problem was, he didn't know how to get her there.
Suddenly, he found his voice.
"Sam, I have to get you to the hospital but I don't have a car. I rode Witch here and you can't ride in your condition. Not all the way to Darton," Jake trailed off thinking of all the people he could hitch a ride from.
There was his mom, but he knew she'd probably start crying and would delay them further. Jen was on the cattle drive and he'd be damned before he called to ask Mrs. Coley and risk getting Ryan instead. The more time that passed before he saw him, the better. And he really didn't think going to jail for murder would help at all.
The only solution he could see was to ride Witch home, pick up his car and come back to get Sam. But that trip would take an hour, at least, and he couldn't leave her alone for that long.
Jake was so wrapped up in trying to find a ride, he almost missed Sam's croaked suggestion.
"Darrell."
-- Hey, yeah! –
Darrell would do it. He hated the Slocums almost as much as Jake did and, even though he'd never verbally admit it, he had a massive soft spot for Sam. Plus, he can drive…he could even do it legally.
Jake nodded and left Sam where she was as he walked into the kitchen to call his friend.
Darrell answered his cell phone after three rings, like always.
"Hey, my man! What's up?"
Jake nearly hit the floor with his relief.
"You there man? Cause I'm almost to level thirteen. If you don't say something, I'm gone…"
"No!" Jake hadn't meant to yell, but they were wasting time. "Uh, sorry man, but I really need your help."
A pause, then, "Yeah? What for?"
"You know Slocum?" Jake didn't have to specify. He knew that Darrell knew who he was talking about.
"Yeah."
"He hurt Sam. Badly. We need a ride to the hospital."
In the background Jake heard the clatter of what was probably the controller hitting the floor and then Darrell yelped right in his ear.
"What?"
Jake winced. Darrell was his loudest friend.
"I'll explain everything later. But, man, she really needs to see a doctor."
Jake had barely finished when Darrell said the four words he'd been hoping to hear and nearly fainted with relief when he did.
"I'm on my way."
AUTHORS'S NOTE: Yeah…I realize it's a little rushed. But hey! I was just trying to kill time before I had to go somewhere. Anyway, please review. Flames will be laughed at with my friends and then used to melt my eyeliner.