Chapter 4
Missing

"I watch you grow away from me in photographs
And memories are like spies
The salt betrays my eyes again
I started losing sleep and gaining weight
And wishing I was ten again
So I could be your friend again
These days we go to waste like wine
That's turned to turpentine."

- Brandi Carlile, "Turpentine"

Dawn came slowly, offering a brief reprieve from the storm that had been hammering the coast of Maine all night. The sun peeked through the clouds, staining the sky with soft swirls of pink and orange, and the gusty winds faded away, leaving the air still and silent both inside the compound and out.

Little had changed in the hours since Jonny had seen for himself that Jessie was alive. Benton had arrived home around two in the morning to find his family somberly awaiting him. He took the news about as well as the rest of them, although he managed to remain more functional than Race and Jonny, both of whom had withdrawn into themselves since Benton showed up. Once the same questions had been asked and given the same unsatisfactory answers, Benton busied himself with pestering his family to eat and get rest, advice that was unanimously ignored.

Jessie somehow managed to sleep through it all. Race checked on her obsessively throughout the night, sometimes every ten minutes, and as of six that morning, she was still sleeping soundly - a fact that Jonny couldn't wrap his mind around.

"How can she sleep through this?" he finally exclaimed, pacing the length of the kitchen. "I'd be freaking out!"

"Sometimes, when something is too much for the mind to handle, it will simply shut off," Hadji offered gently.

Jonny knew his brother had a point, but the waiting was killing him. They had spent hours sitting around, waiting for something to happen to set events in motion, and it was driving him nuts. The air was weighed down with anxiety and unspoken thoughts. He had been dealing with it well enough until his father had returned; Jonny and Race tended to deal with the situation in similar ways, making them comfortable enough companions, and Hadji knew when it was best to leave them to their silence. Benton, full of good intentions, kept nudging them all to talk about how they were feeling. Jonny didn't want to deal with it, and with Estella's plane due to land in only a few hours, it was only getting harder to be around the others.

It was maddening how much waiting this all entailed! He had no idea what to expect, but had he ever been asked, he certainly wouldn't have described this scene. His inherently limited patience had exceeded its limits and he was restless and fidgety.

"I'm going for a walk," he declared suddenly, turning immediately toward the door.

"Are you okay, son?" Benton asked with a note of worry.

"Yeah. I'll be back." He grabbed a jacket and closed the door behind him without another word. The rest of the family watched him make a beeline for the lighthouse.

"I'm going to check on Jessie," Race announced a moment later, heading back down the hallway toward his room even though he had looked in on her only minutes ago.

Benton watched his haggard friend slip out of sight before turning back to his eldest son, who was seated at the counter. Hadji's gaze met Benton's for a moment, and the emotions in their eyes were mirror images. Their moment of silent unity passed as Hadji looked back down at the mug he was holding and Benton walked back to the coffee maker to pour himself yet another cup.

"I wonder where Jonny's going," Benton murmured with a bit of worry. Jonny had a history of doing mad things where Jessie was involved, and he didn't know what the boy was liable to do in this situation.

Seeing the worry on his adopted father's face, Hadji tried to reassure him. "You need not worry for him, Dr. Quest. I do not believe he is going to do anything rash. He simply needed some time alone. You know that is how he copes."

"By himself, yes," said Benton sadly. "I wish he would talk to us. I'm not going to feel better until he does."

"He spoke with me earlier," Hadji offered hesitantly. When Benton looked up sharply, he added, "I do not think I can share with you the things he told me, but he opened up a great deal about what he has felt these past three years. I think it was good for him to let it out into the open. He simply does not know what to do right now; he is not good at waiting. And he fears for her, as we all do."

Benton nodded, feeling slightly appeased that Jonny had opened up to Hadji. He would have liked Jonny to talk to him, but if he couldn't, then Hadji was more capable than anyone else of helping him.

"Jonny has a real bit of Race in him, though," Benton mused. "And as lost as Race is right now, he's angry. He wants revenge. I'm afraid Jonny wants the same."

Hadji shook his head slowly. "I do not believe he is at that stage yet. Right now, he is overwhelmed by the very idea of her presence. I do not think he has fully processed the darker side of all of this."

"And once he comes to accept that darker side?" Benton asked, already knowing the answer.

Hadji was a moment in answering. "Then, I fear, he will be very angry indeed."

Jessie had been feigning sleep for the last hour.

She had awoken slightly before dawn, drenched in sweat, her throat tight with anxiety. Her sleep had been plagued by nightmares, but they were unlike any she had ever experienced before. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't recall anything concrete about them. All she could grasp was a deeply permeating feeling of terror and shame that seemed to have settled itself into her very bones, leaving her feeling cold and shaken and vulnerable. She knew somehow that these feelings were more than just nightmares, that they were the ghost memories creeping in from her subconscious again, tormenting her with all she didn't know about her own life.

Her father had poked his head in to check on her several times since she woke up, but every time she heard his footsteps coming down the hall, she instinctively closed her eyes and evened her breathing until he left again. Admitting she was awake meant facing all of this in the light of day. It meant seeing the rest of her family. It meant fielding a thousand questions she couldn't answer.

Some of the shock of yesterday had worn off and her mind felt a bit clearer, but she still had absolutely no idea how to deal with her new reality. She hated feeling so timid and afraid. She had always been known for being recklessly tough and cocky, and now she couldn't even pretend to be comfortable in her own house. The worst part was not knowing: three years of her life were just gone, and now here she was, left to try to pick up the pieces without knowing what caused it all to shatter in the first place.

You can't just hide in here forever, Bannon, Jessie told herself harshly, hoping some false bravado would motivate her into doing something other than just laying there. It was true; sooner rather than later, she was going to have to face all of it. But for now, she found cold comfort in the silence and isolation.

Sunlight was beginning to filter in through the window, brightening the room and glinting off of a picture frame standing on her dad's desk. Curious and increasingly restless, Jessie rolled out of bed and crossed the room to examine the picture.

It was a simple photograph of Jonny, Hadji, and Dr. Quest standing by the lighthouse. Dr. Quest stood between his sons, a hand on each of their shoulders, as they all smiled into the camera. It was the kind of deliberate family photo that gets taken and sent to distant relatives at holidays, posed and unremarkable. What held Jessie's attention was the recency of the photo; the boys that had once been her best friends looked in this picture much more like men now. Her breath caught in her throat and that same sick feeling she got every time she looked in the mirror settled in her gut once again. She stared at the picture of her family for a long time, wondering if it was just her imagination or if their smiles were as forced as they seemed.

As she put the picture frame back, she noticed a second one lying facedown behind it, coated in dust, apparently having been there for quite some time. Picking it up, she realized it was a photo she recognized. Dr. Quest had just finished modifying a camera to add high-definition long-range capabilities and had decided to test it by taking their picture from the top of the cliffs while they stood in the tide far below on a particularly warm summer evening. She, Jonny, and Hadji stood grinning upward happily, the sun glinting off the waves behind them. The boys had their arms around each other's shoulders and Jonny had been trying to give Jessie bunny ears as she playfully pushed him away. There were no forced smiles in this picture; it was a perfect snapshot of the innocence and joy of their friendship. It had been taken a few months before their trip to Venezuela.

She looked back to the other photo, into the faces of her now-grown friends whose smiles didn't reach their eyes any longer. Who were they now? Had they changed? Would the three of them ever laugh together again the way they had in the surf that day? The thought of those days being gone forever filled her with a whole new kind of ache.

Entirely wrapped up in the picture, Jessie didn't notice her father open the door until he spoke softly.

"What are you looking at, ponchita?"

Jessie jumped involuntarily. The picture slipped from her hands and struck the floor sideways, shattering the glass.

"I'm sorry!" she cried, bending to try to clean up the mess. "I didn't know you were there . . ."

Race rushed over and gently took over the glass collection. "Don't worry about it." He quickly used the frame to get the glass into a confined pile and pushed it out of the way. "I'm sorry I scared you; I thought you would still be asleep."

"I just woke up," Jessie lied hesitantly.

Looking down at the exposed photo in his hand, Race smiled sadly. "I always loved this picture of you three." The smile faded as he set it back on the desk. "After a while, I couldn't look at it anymore. It was just too much."

Jessie struggled to swallow the lump in her throat and nodded stiffly, moving over to sit on the edge of the bed. Speaking felt physically difficult.

"How are you feeling?" Race asked gently, his face creased with worry.

"Fine." How could she hope to give an actual answer to that question?

"Are you hungry?" Race continued to fret. "You should eat something."

The thought of food sent Jessie's stomach into back flips. She shook her head.

"Can you at least try for me? I can bring something mild for you. You need to get your strength back."

Food would not replenish the kind of strength she was lacking, but she shrugged, knowing he wouldn't let up until she agreed.

"Okay, I'll make you some breakfast," Race said, sounding relieved that she was giving him a chance to do something. "Your mom's on her way here. Her plane gets in pretty soon. Would you like to come with me to pick her up?"

"I . . . I don't think I'm ready for that yet," Jessie admitted slowly. The thought of dealing with a crowded airport and her frantic mother was overwhelming even in theory.

"That's fine," Race reassured her quickly. When she made no effort to say anything further, he sighed. "I'll go get you some food, okay?" He started to head toward the door, but Jessie stopped him.

"Dad?" She tried to force the words out before she could change her mind. She was afraid, but she had to know. "What . . . what happened to me?"

Race's face fell. The look of pain was so intense that Jessie thought she may as well have sucker punched him. "You really don't remember anything?" he asked gently after a moment.

Jessie shook her head slowly. Race crossed the room and took a seat in his desk chair so that they were facing each other, a few inches apart. For the first time, Jessie noticed that he seemed to have aged a great deal more than only three years; there were new lines in his face, his hair seemed thinner, and he looked more fragile than she had ever seen him.

"Is there anything at all that you do know?" he asked finally, studying her.

"I know that a man named Sampson had me." Seeing the look on her father's face, she shook her head hastily. "I don't remember it, but he left a letter . . . I found it when I woke up."

"Do you still have it?" Race's tone was sharp.

Jessie nodded and pulled it from her pocket. Even after changing clothes, she had folded it up and kept it close to her. As sick as it made her feel to read it, the words on that page were her only connection to her missing memories. She slowly handed it to Race.

"This is all I know."

He scanned the letter with tense speed. His eyes narrowed in fury as he got to the end of the letter and Sampson's implied threat. Moving suddenly, Race crumpled the letter tightly in his fist and threw it across the room. "Bastard!"

The sudden display of anger made Jessie jump and she scooted instinctively further back. Her heart was racing; she felt afraid, even though she wasn't sure why. There was no reason to assume her father would have any other type of reaction.

Race saw immediately what his outburst had done to her and his face softened again. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry ..." He reached his hand out to her in a sign of comfort and she accepted it. He sighed.

"Sampson and I worked together in the agency," Race explained slowly. "He was always a little more intense than the rest of us, and after a few years, we figured out that he had decided our line of work wasn't quite rewarding enough for him; he had been running his own criminal operations on the side. When he realized we knew, he took off, tried to flee the country with his young son. We hunted him down, but it got ugly - turned into a shootout. A stray bullet hit his son . . . my bullet. The boy died in Sampson's arms."

This was the first time Jessie had heard about any of this; her father never talked about his time in the agency, and she had always known better than to ask him about it. It was clear that the guilt from that day still affected him.

"He was put in jail," Race continued, "but he blamed me for all of it, and he vowed revenge. He struck a plea deal for handing over information and got out early; he was released a few years ago. I didn't even realize he was out, but he never forgot . . . he came after me . . . he took you. . . ."

"In Venezuela, when we were visiting Mom," Jessie filled in. Her voice sounded robotic even to her own ears. "Jonny and I went walking on the beach. . . ."

Race nodded, his eyes glassy. "We told you not to go far, but you were gone a long time. We were starting to worry when Jonny came running back into camp. Someone had been hiding in the jungle and shot the two of you with tranquilizers from afar. He didn't see anything; he was knocked out cold almost instantly and when he woke up, you were gone.

"At first, we had no idea who was behind it. Our minds jumped to Surd, but we ruled that out pretty fast. We thought it might be a drug cartel or someone randomly hoping to get money for an American, but we had nothing to go on, no leads . . . he was flawless at covering his tracks. And then, the third day you were missing, a package arrived at the door of the hotel we had moved to in the city.

"It was a small box with your bracelet in it - the one your mom gave you for your birthday. There was a note folded in the corner; by that point, I was hoping it was a ransom note, some lead or indication that we could negotiate with whoever took you, but it was just a single sentence: 'An eye for an eye makes both of us blind.' He signed it with his initials, and I knew . . . even before the handwriting analysts confirmed it, I knew. But it didn't matter. He vanished into thin air, and all our leads dried up. You were just gone. And eventually, so much time had passed, we thought you must be. . . ." He trailed off, unable to vocalize the thought.

There was something familiar about the story, even though she knew she had never heard it before. The more she chased the feeling, the further it ran.

"So, for three years, I've been his prisoner?" she finally managed to ask.

Tears running openly down his cheeks now, Race nodded. He squeezed her hand tightly. "As far as we know."

Her father was watching her closely, trying to gauge her reaction, but Jessie was numb. She had hoped that knowing more about her missing time would help in at least some small way, but it hadn't. All she could feel was the weight of the empty space in her memory that irreversibly divided her into two people: the girl she used to be, and the stranger she was now.