No lyrics this time, this one's all me.
My whole body tensed as he spoke that last harrowing sentence; his voice was haunted, hollow, and devoid of emotion, but I knew it was there. I could feel the pain and torture he tried so hard not to let me hear. My heart broke for him as his words registered, and the memory slammed into the forefront of my mind. "Oh god," was all I could manage, and his arms tightened around me.
Ranger and I hadn't seen each other in three weeks, not since the scene outside the bond's office, when he assured me that not only did he not need me, but he didn't need anyone. Bastard. I wasn't sure if he was avoiding me, but I knew I was avoiding him, not that I would ever admit it. Working with Hector was going well, and I was bringing in more skips than ever, with fewer disasters. My new FTA was Suzanne Clemons, a woman in her late twenties, and from her picture, it looked like she'd lived a hard life. She'd been pretty in her youth, but years of hard living had taken a toll on her appearance. She'd never been arrested before, but tied to several men who had been; Connie called people like her trouble-adjacent. They weren't the ones committing crimes, but were always involved with those who did. Reviewing my personal dating history, I thought my poor taste in men paled in comparison.
Suzanne was wanted for assault, specifically for stabbing her boyfriend, Jimmy Evans, with a large kitchen knife while he was beating the ever-loving shit out of her. He'd also been arrested, but he wasn't my problem. I didn't know if he was bonded out or had made his court date, because he would've been out of my bond range. If he'd skipped, he'd be Rangeman's responsibility. Thank god.
It was easy enough to find Suzanne's address. She lived in a run-down, half-empty trailer park out towards the edge of town. She worked nights at the button factory, and I hoped I could catch her at home, and awake in the early afternoon. Connie said she'd meet us at the station and re-bond her, so she could still make it to her shift. I planned on giving her my standard bounty hunter speech to get her to come along. I figured if I were nice to her and promised to get her to work on time, she'd come along willingly. If that didn't work, I thought maybe considering her crime, and the mood I was in, we could bond also over our shared hatred of anyone with XY chromosomes.
Her trailer, while still serviceable, had seen better days. I figured she was home because the car listed in her file was parked in the driveway. More rust than paint was visible at this point, and it made my POS Taurus look like a dream. I parked my car behind hers and gave myself a mental pep talk. I was on my own today; Ranger had sent Hector to Rangeman Boston to deal with a cyberattack, and besides, I didn't need muscle on this one. Suzanne's stats put her at five feet, five inches tall, and ninety-three pounds; she looked all skin and bones in her mug shot. Still, I would have felt better if he was with me, so I reached up to touch the pendant on the necklace he'd given me, a tiny set of wings. I'd told him once of my childhood dream, and the very next day, I found the little velvet box on my kitchen counter with a note in his chicken scratch handwriting. Estafanía, you fly. Before getting out of the car, I checked to be sure I had my cuffs, taser, and defense spray in my bag, just in case. As I approached the front step, I noticed the curtains covering the front window twitching, so I knew she was home. Good, I still had to pick up Mooner and Dougie, so if this went well, I could make it to their house before the Scooby-Doo marathon started.
Mentally celebrating the good day I was having, I carefully navigated the rotting wooden steps that led up to the door. Before I could even knock, the door was yanked open, and I was grabbed by the throat and hauled inside. The attack stunned me, and it took a minute to register what was happening, but the back of my head hitting the wall hard enough to rattle my teeth quickly broke me out of my stupor. I tried to keep myself from panicking, focus on the details, and make myself aware of my surroundings. Over my attacker's shoulder, I could see the inside of the trailer was as dark and dingy as the outside, the walls yellowed, and the furniture made mine look high-end. A skinny guy with stringy, dirty blond hair was holding me against the wall by my throat, and by the looks of it, he hadn't washed his hair in a month, the rest of his appearance fitting the same hygienic timeline. He was wearing a filthy undershirt, which in a previous life had been white, but was now mainly brown. I could see the waistband of his boxer shorts under his dirty jeans riding low on his hips. His clothing might have been disgusting, but his face was terrifying, gaunt, with hollow cheeks, and I could see that at least one-third of his teeth were missing. Sunken eyes flicked back and forth towards the front door, to me, to the doorway that led further into the trailer, and back again before repeating the movement, over and over. His body twitched so much he appeared to be vibrating. He was a tweaker and high as a fucking kite.
That's when I noticed the stench. At first whiff, the smell of cat urine was so strong I thought he must've had a thousand cats in here, and no litter box. Shit. He was a cooker–this was a meth lab. My eyes darted around the room, looking for exits, as well as any sign that this whole place was going to explode, taking us along with it. What the hell was going on? Was I in the wrong trailer? Or had Suzanne left town, and this guy moved in and set up shop? My assailant must have tired of me examining his abode because he tightened his grip on my throat and smacked my head against the wall again to get my attention. I tried to avoid making eye contact, I'd heard you shouldn't do that if you encountered a wild animal, and this guy was positively feral.
"Who the fuck are you, bitch?" he snarled at me, lifting me just enough that the toes of my shoes barely grazed the floor. He was much stronger than his scrawny frame would suggest. Must have been the meth.
"Stephanie Plum." It was all I could croak out, since the pressure he was putting on my windpipe was close to cutting off my air supply.
"What the fuck do you want?" He moved his face closer to mine, his lips so dry and cracked they'd bled and scabbed over, his putrid breath escaping. Hysterically I thought to myself, at least the smell of cat piss was masked for the moment. Who the fuck was this guy? The file said Suzanne lived alone. Was this still Suzanne's place? Her car was still out front and this was the address listed in the file, the same place she'd been arrested for stabbing her boyfriend. Fuck. Jimmy. This was Jimmy Evans.
To me, getting stabbed by your girlfriend would be a clear sign that she wanted to end the relationship, but what did I know? Maybe he was really committed to her, or more likely he should be committed–to a mental facility because he was fucking crazy. He shook me hard, and my teeth clacked together from the force of it. "Why the fuck are you here?" he asked again. I tried to answer, but couldn't form any words. Finally registering my problem, he loosened his grip a little and lowered me so I could stand. Sucking in air, I started coughing. I didn't want to tell him why I was there. Knowing I was a BEA wouldn't improve the situation any; besides, if he was here, that meant he'd skipped out on his bail, and was hiding out himself. I wanted nothing to do with him, and I'd let Rangeman know where he was as soon as I got out of this–if I got out of this.
I tried to answer his question, but he didn't let me, his paranoia taking over. "You're here to see that fucking whore, aren't you? From that women's shelter she called? Well, she doesn't need your fucking help anymore, bitch."
That scenario could work. Normally, I could fib with the best of them, but I was too busy trying to stay alive, and couldn't come up with anything believable. "Um, yeah. They sent me over, but if she doesn't need me anymore, it's alright, no big deal, I can just go." I was going to run far and fast, call Rangeman to get this crazy fucker, and then come back for Suzanne later. I tried to pull away and make my exit.
He moved in close, pinning me to the wall with his body. I could almost see the crazy coursing through him. "You're not going anywhere, you nosy cunt." He let go of my throat and grabbed my arm so tightly it made me wince. "You came to fucking see Suzanne, you can fucking see her." He maneuvered us around the back of the couch. I could now see in the corner was a bare, dirty, full-size mattress on the floor. On top lay Suzanne, eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream, and very, very dead. It was obvious why she'd missed her court appearance, from the looks of her body, she'd been dead at least a week. I hadn't noticed the smell from across the room, the odor of the meth cooking overpowering it. His voice rose as he forced me to look at her. "That whore said she didn't need me. And now, she don't fucking need you, either."
He shoved me hard, face-first into the couch. I quickly flipped over and scooted back from him as far as possible. Frantically rummaging in my messenger bag, I searched for my defense spray or taser, but before I could find either, Jimmy ripped it out of my hands, spilling the contents on the floor. I scrambled to grab a weapon, but he backhanded me, sending me flying back onto the couch.
Digging through the contents, he came across my defense spray, cuffs, and stun gun. "What the fuck? Who the fuck are you?" Before I could answer, he pulled out my apprehension papers on Suzanne. "You're a bounty hunter?" His face changed, becoming even more psychotic. He grabbed the cuffs and approached me. Fuck, there was no way he was letting me leave. I'd seen what he'd done to Suzanne. He couldn't let me go, I knew that. I needed to do something, try something. Hector wasn't coming, and while I still had my Rangeman trackers on me, they probably weren't being monitored. Even if they were, my location wouldn't be suspicious until I'd been stationary too long. By then, I guessed it would be too late.
He dropped the file and advanced on me; as soon as he got close enough, I kicked out, nailing him in the balls. He groaned and cradled himself. Scrambling away, dashing towards the front door, I just got my hand on the knob when he grabbed me by the hair and yanked hard enough that I stumbled backward and landed on my ass. He was high enough that the blow to his junk had stunned him, but he wasn't incapacitated. I doubted he could feel much of anything at the moment, with all the drugs overloading his nervous system. My attack had just pissed him off. "Fucking cunt!" he roared as he hauled me to my feet, his grip on my hair still strong. Slapping a cuff on my right wrist, he pulled my arm behind my back and snapped the other one on my left before throwing me back on the couch, this time landing on my back.
Pinning me down with his body, he was snarling, gnashing the teeth he had left in his head. "Fucking stupid cunt, fucking bitch!" His eyes were crazy, his body twitched with a combination of meth, paranoia, and anger. Closing his left hand around my throat again, he used his right to grab at my t-shirt, tearing it open to my waist. His clumsy movement caught my necklace as well, the force causing it to break, the chain biting into the back of my neck before it gave way. Hot, nasty breath hit me in the face as he roughly grabbed my breast, hard enough to bruise. I swallowed the hysterical sob that threatened to escape as I pictured the M.E. inspecting the bruising as I lay on a slab in the morgue, able to match the prints to Jimmy's, which was the most likely outcome.
Panic overwhelmed me. I started struggling, kicking, and trying to bite him, my hands cuffed behind me limiting my options. Nothing I was doing was having any effect on him, except to make him angrier. His grip on my throat tightened, and he grabbed a hold of my bra, shredding it. "I'm gonna teach you a fucking lesson, you dumb bitch. You need to learn your place, just like that fucking whore, Suzanne." He was cutting off my air supply, and the edges of my vision darkened. Making a last-ditch effort to save myself, I drove my head forward, trying to catch him in the forehead, but with the angle, I could only make contact with his nose. I heard a satisfying crunch as blood started pouring out. "Fuck!" he screamed before releasing my breast long enough to backhand me across the face for a second time. Stunned by my strike, his grip on my throat lessened. I took a gulp of air and brought my knee up hard. He planned to rape and kill me, I was a hundred percent sure of that. If he was too high for the pain to stop him, maybe I could do enough damage that he couldn't function enough to rape me. Maybe he'd just kill me? Oh, god.
He let go of my throat to clutch himself, and his body rolled to the side. I scrambled up again, trying to run, but I was still dazed from the shot to my face. My left eye was throbbing, and I was having a hard time seeing out of it. My hands were still cuffed behind my back, causing me to stumble, and before I made it halfway to the door, he was on me. I flailed, trying to inflict any sort of pain with my legs or the back of my head. I felt his zipper pressed into my palm, and I grabbed a hold of his balls and pulled hard. He grunted in pain, and then I felt a zap, and darkness engulfed me.
My head swam, my whole body ached, and I was struggling to breathe, partly from the hand wrapped around my throat, but also from the weight of the body on top of me. When I felt a familiar prickling sensation on the back of my neck, I forced my eyes open and came face to face with Jimmy Evans again. I started to struggle, and he brought his other hand up, now using both of them to choke me. He was sitting on my legs; I could feel the scratchy denim of his jeans on my bare thighs. Panic flooded me–why were my thighs bare? I struggled against him before finally giving up any hope of escape and deciding that I'd rather not be conscious for whatever else he had planned for me. My vision darkened once again, and I was just about to let it take me when a shadowy figure appeared behind Jimmy. Relief flooded me as I registered who it was–my Dark Knight, my Avenging Angel, Ranger.
Ranger's hold on me was tight, but I don't think it even registered with him. I wriggled around, trying to free myself and break him out of his trance. When he finally released me, I turned to face him, settling myself in his lap, my legs on either side of his. I wrapped my arms around him, offering him comfort, not waiting for him to ask. He clung to me, much like he did last night, yet different. Last night was because he'd lost control, and needed me to ground him. I'd had to figure out on my own what had been behind him reaching for me. This morning, he'd shared some of his history, his trauma, by choice. He insisted on telling me the whole story, even when I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it. He needed to tell me as much as he needed me now to help him cope with it.
This was all set in motion by my case and whoever had masterminded it landing on my desk. Even though I was angry and worried about what their end game was, a small part of me couldn't help but be grateful to them. They'd unlocked a door to Ranger's past, one that Old Stephanie would have barreled through on her own. I shuddered to think of what impact that would have had on our friendship, our relationship. I was proud of the work I'd done with HHN that allowed me to control that impulse, which ultimately resulted in Ranger choosing to walk through the door with me. He chose to share his story and was giving me the chance to understand him, and the choices he'd made. I just hoped that in doing so, we could move forward together, and that revisiting the trauma didn't strengthen his resolve to remain alone and isolated.
When I felt his hold on me relax, I pulled back just a little, so we were face to face. My voice was just a whisper. "I'm so sorry." He didn't respond, except to nod. He wasn't trying to hide behind his blank face, but he was still trying to fight the pain and the hurt, although I could see it in his eyes. "And then Jimmy…" was all I could get out before I started to choke up, devastated for him to have that experience, not once, but twice. He just nodded again.
My heart clenched at the memory, of him saving me yet again, and having to take another life to do so. He'd spoken once before of trying to clean up his karma. Guilt overwhelmed me as I mentally added up the number of black marks on his soul I was responsible for. He read the emotions as they flew across my face, shook his head, and took my face in his hands. "Don't. I'd do it again, every time, to save you." I swallowed hard and nodded, trying to follow his orders for once. "Jimmy, that wasn't your fault. He shouldn't have been there. You had no way of knowing." He paused for a minute and I knew he was replaying the scene in his mind, or maybe both of them: Sophia, me, pinned under a violent man, nearly unconscious, beaten and bloody, moments away from being violated.
He looked away from me. "I didn't have to kill Rodriguez; I could have subdued him, but I went into soldier mode. My mind flashed back to all the men I'd come across in those hellholes I'd been sent to, raping women and children, trying to humiliate them, force their villages into submission, or believing it was their right, the spoils of war." He was back to speaking as if it wasn't his personal history, but simply stating facts. "Sometimes we were able to get to them in time, to stop it, but more often than not we arrived in the aftermath to see the damage. The worst was when it was the good guys, the ones we were backing, trying to solidify their position in hopes of calming the region. In those times, we were utterly helpless…" I couldn't begin to imagine the horrors he'd seen.
"When I saw him on top of Sophia, I didn't think, I acted on instinct. I threw him off of her; she had been barely moving, and the fight had gone out of her. That's when I saw all the blood from her head wound pooling on the floor. I swept her body for injuries. When I finally settled on her face, I recognized the horror, but it wasn't because of the attack or her attacker, it was me." A chill went through me at his words. He kept going. "She looked at me like I was a monster." I gasped, but he didn't react, almost like he didn't realize I was even here, like he wasn't retelling the story for my benefit, more for his own, lancing the wound, releasing the pressure, and hopefully allowing it to finally heal. He shook his head and continued, "I pushed past the punch in the gut and moved to help her, stop the bleeding. She was fading fast, and it was probably too late, but she fought me, and wouldn't let me touch her."
He swallowed hard, still keeping his eyes focused on some far-off point in the distance, his face blank. "I'm sure part of it was because of the attack, not wanting anyone, much less a man, near her, but it was more than that. She knew it was me, and she was frightened, terrified, horrified at what I'd done. I knew I'd lost her, was losing her, in more ways than one. It felt like forever, but it was only seconds before she took her last breath and closed her eyes." His voice sounded robotic, detached, as he told me the rest of the story, even more devastating than what I'd already heard. "Even if she survived, which I knew she wouldn't, I'd have lost her anyway."
The tears streamed silently down my face as he shared the horrifying scene. I was crying for her, and for him, and the tears he wouldn't allow himself to shed. Then his face changed, the mask fell away, and he turned back to me. "I didn't have to kill Evans either, but when I saw him on top of you, it all came flooding back, that memory I'd locked away, forced myself to forget, and acted on instinct." Using his thumbs, he tried to sweep away some of my tears. "Your eyes were closed, you'd lost consciousness, and when I saw you, I saw red. I wasn't the stealthy soldier that I was trained to be. I disregarded every bit of restraint and control that had been drilled into me. I roared like a beast and flew at him." For the first time, he shared the parts of our story I hadn't known, his voice strong and full of emotion; he wasn't trying to hide anything from me now. "Evans released his grip on your throat and turned towards me and I looked him in the eye and snapped his neck, tossing this body to the floor, just to get to you."
He smiled sadly. "I was prepared to see that same look in your eyes, knowing I'd already pushed you away, and now this, seeing the truth of who I was, would be enough to ensure you'd never want to see me again." I started to shake my head, to protest, but he wouldn't let me speak. He kept going, "But it would have been worth it, to save you. I released your hands from the cuffs, rubbing your arms to get the circulation going as I ran my eyes over your whole body, looking for injuries, ready to call in Tank or Hal to help you. I couldn't look at your face, couldn't bear to see that same look in your eyes. You'd always seen me as your hero, your Batman, but now that I'd shown you who I truly was, all that would be gone." Again, I wanted to tell him, I could never, would never. I tried to open my mouth, but he held his finger to my lips, silencing me, needing to finish. "I could hear you breathing; at first it was uneven, you were sucking in air, but it started to even out. I swear I could even hear your heart beating, fast but strong, and I knew you'd be ok, you'd survive this, just like all the other times. But it would be the end of us, any hope I had of repairing the damage I'd done was gone. It would be the end for me, you'd seen too much."
He cupped my jaw in his hand and looked into my eyes, letting me in, letting me see everything I meant to him, then and now. "I felt your hand on my arm and thought it was to push me away, that it would be the last time you allowed me to touch you." His smile was soft. "But you grabbed my arm and I heard your hoarse whisper, 'Thank you.' I was stunned and summoned the courage to look up, to finally face you and I saw your beautiful blue eyes shining up at me, no trace of fear or revulsion, and you whispered again–" I didn't let him finish.
Taking his face in my hands, I looked at him through the tears and told him again, "Thank you."