I find you tied hand and foot in a shithole of a hut in Nepal. Naked and smeared with filth and gagged with a bloody rag, presumably the one they use to stuff your more-used orifice when they're done with you. I shot the guy who was busy with you when I came in, not even sparing a second look at the scumbag, and was pulled for the briefest moment out of my combat mode when our eyes met.
My God, your eyes. Staring at me, daring me closer over a rag soaked with blood and semen, you looked like you could light wet tinder with that look. You looked like you wanted to kill something. There's something about you...
Christmas pokes his head into the hut, and I am reminded we are on mission: clear out this encampment of soldiers, poised on a vital waterway. The mission is done, and early, but now we wait for our exfiltration by water. Christmas is rattling off stats of enemies killed and ammo left, but stops short when he sees what I'm staring at.
I turn my head to glance at him out of the corner of my eye. "Thanks, Christmas. Give me a minute, woul'ya?"
My friend hesitates for a split second before he decides to trust me not to commit a warcrime on you. We are left alone.
What am I doing? I think as the plan fantasms in my mind, my mission and this developement warring for first place. My eyes flick over you perfunctorily, assessing wounds on your naked body, which are many. What am I doing? You're just one more victim in the veritable sea of victims I swim in. You're just one more violated woman with maple wood skin, raped and bloodied and beaten and sorry. I take no pause for your type, I can't in my line of work.
But there's something about you...and it snares my insides like a gut hook.
I don't know what I'm doing. But I'll figure it out on the way.
The first thing I do is take my broad shoulders out of the sling of my M16, and slowly put it down. Then, I unstrap the thigh holsters of my secondaries and, looking you square in the eye, take off the belt they're attached to. You choke back a whimper at the all-too-familiar action, and it makes me want to put another round through the corpse in the corner. You know, for flavor.
The only thing left is my armor, and I leave it on, but I get on my knees next to your right foot. You start fighting your bonds again when I draw my 14-inch bowie knife, but it doesn't last long. The wire is wrapped around your ankle and a support strut and it cuts deep again, fresh blood leaking from the marks.
"Shh, shh," I intone, trying to calm you down. Your eyes went batshit wild when you saw the knife, and I stick it in the ground for a moment to get a good, firm grip on your heel, taking the pressure off the wounds inflicted by the wire. You choke back another whimper, and my gut aches a little. My hand could encompass your entire sole, easily.
You're panting with terror afresh, the whites of your coffee eyes glowing the the dim light, but they meet mine for reassurance. It's irrational for you to look to me for comfort, but I bet the first friendly face you've seen with his dick still in his pants. I seem to be both your new fear, and your possible, maybe, fat-chance savior.
Not that I'm anyone's savior.
I pick up the knife again, and you flinch, but don't tug. The wire cuts easily, and I carefully unfuse it from the gouges in your skin. You bite down on the gag, screwing up your already screwed up face, and bear the pain. It's a cakewalk compared to what you've been through.
From the other side of the wall of rushes, I hear Gunnar ask Yin Yang: "What's he think he's doing? Aside from wasting our time."
Yin Yang sticks up for me. "Whatever he thinks he needs to do."
What AM I doing? The same damn phrase chases its tail through my head. I'm freeing you, I think to myself, to try to satisfy it. Then what? it rejoins.
Then I'll...I'll...
Your heel slips from my grasp, slick with fresh blood, and you close your legs as best you can. It sends tears to your eyes, dampening the fire there the slightest bit. I hear a joint click where your thigh meets your hip, obviously abused if not displaced. Your legs have been splayed for God knows how many days.
My knee clicks back an echo as I repeat the process to your left foot, and your bloody flower is no longer exposed. Your breasts are bruised, I notice as I kneel next to your left hand. They used twine on your razor thin wrists, which has done almost as much damage, but there's no arterial spray when I extract it gingerly from your skin. A sliver of white bone shows. You immediately take the gag out of your mouth, and your face gains a whole new capacity to express. Now I can read clearly the pain etched there, in your busted and cracked lips, and the indomitable spirit touted by your broken nose.
It's true, I can see it: you're busted up, but they didn't break your spirit. It hits me that you can actually bounce back from this. I've never been afforded the luxury of thinking though the injustice of rape, not really, much less the recovery process. But I know not many women are as resilient as you. I know resilience: that tough stuff me and my men are made of. It's woven into our bones. If I were to examine the bone showing in your wrist now, I bet I'd see the same resilience.
With the rest of your face in play, your eyes have a whole new facet. You peg me sharply, searchingly, as you cover your breasts with your free hand, and the nipple that rests in the palm of it drips blood through your fingers. I can't help but think, you poor thing. And I realize I can't put any face anywhere else with that phrase. I've seen violence and the ugly horrors of war: hundreds, if not thousands of faces. Not one of them sticks out to me, because I purposefully forget them. I have enough trouble dealing with the gravity of my job, deep down: I don't need any more trouble sleeping. But you...
"Exfil in ten, Barney," Toll Road says from the entrance.
"Got it," I reply shortly. You jerked in surprise at his voice, and it ruined the air of calm that I have carefully spun around you (or more accurately the intense, mutually searching staredown). With one more slice, I free you completely. You struggle into a sitting position, grunting quietly in pain, but I don't dare touch you to help you, not yet.
To your credit, you don't crabwalk out of my reach. I am marginally shocked, but secretly delighted.
"Barney," you croak. I'm fully shocked, this time. My throat hurts just hearing you.
"Yeah," I say, letting a little of the strange happiness I feel seep through. "You speak English?"
"Yes," you reply, chastely folding your knees to the side. My God, when you sit up straighter, you look like a goddess of war and womanhood: like Artemis might. I see your nude body, yes; I am a man, after all. But my vision is mostly eaten up by the aching, stoic, hardwon beauty about you: the way a blade emerges from the forge covered in soot.
I shouldn't be looking at you: you've been lechered far enough. Maybe you've grown beyond the shame of nudity, or maybe you are too in shock to care, but you don't show any hate for my gaze. My heart thumps. There's something about you...
My emotions are reeling and this is not the time or place. I am momentarily disgusted at myself, so I abruptly turn away and start stripping the clothes off the soldier I killed.
"What are you doing?" you ask. You don't mean the repurposing of clothes. You mean, why am I taking notice of you.
I am finally faced with the unavoidable question, and I have a decision to make. I can sling my guns back on and walk out of this hut, free and clear, and eventually drink this your face away. Or...
"I'm taking you with me," I say carefully, trying to emphasize that I wasn't going to force you. What if you say no? What if this silence lasted forever, my tacit answer? What if you break down right here and now and start sobbing your long journey to recovery? What if - ?
You have somehow managed to rock to your knees, and are gently taking the stained and smelly shirt from my hand, which had been fisted. You put it on slowly, and I can hear your occassional moan of pain as stiff joints move again, before you break my wait.
"Okay."
The pants come next, and I listen to you get your legs into them before your movement stops. A hint of embarassment tints your voice. "I need help."
I'd steadfastly (if belatedly) been keeping my back turned, but now my shoulders tense. We're moving out of that imaginary bubble now, the savior/victiom facade. Time for the first hurdle. I turn slowly and take a single step to your side, then, thinking better of it, to your back. I carefully thread my hands under your arms and, with caution to your muffled gasps of pain, raise you from the floor. I've curled heavier in the gym. You button and zip the pants quickly, while I stare at the club bruise on your shoulder.
"Thank you," you say. I almost shake my head at your manners in the face of such a ludicrous situation. Experimentally, I ease you into some of your own weight, but your knees buckle with a cry reluctant to pass your lips. So I duck my head under one of your arms.
A bead of sweat from your brow hits my cheek as you shake your head. "Can't do it," you grind out.
My jaw locks: you WILL make it out of this hut. I reorient myself to face your side and position my left arm behind your knees. You look up as I look down, and I catch you as I sweep your feet off the ground. This causes you pain as your body folds around the center of your abuse, and your face seizes. I can't help but think it's like the face a newborn baby makes as it breathes its first.
You're incredibly light as I carry you into the streaks of hazy dawn filtering through the forest canopy. My team is there, stationed lookout all around, and they stare as I carry you down to the river, where I hear Hale Ceasar motoring up with our transport.
"Get my guns," I tell no one in particular. I'm too busy looking at your face, eyes closed and resting against my chest. Your bloody hands are curled at your collar, holding the shirt closed beyond the inherent three buttons as you breathe carefully around your myriad hurts.
"Hang on," I say, so quietly only you can hear.
"I will," you whisper.