Chapter 2

She woke to her phone ringing. Confused, she noticed that it was the next day. When she looked at the number calling her heart sank and her stomach went to her throat, it was Cindy. She had a feeling about what it was about. She picked up.

“Hello”

“Ben died about fifteen minutes ago,” Cindy said with no emotion at all.

“I’m so sorry Cindy. Is there anything that I can do for you?”

“No, not right now. I think I’m still in shock. I’ll call you later when I will need help. OK?”

“Ok, Cindy. Talk to you later.”

The rest of the day Emily just moped around her apartment. Not feeling like doing anything, and reflecting on everything that had happened to her. Her parents were always disappointed in her no matter what she did or how good she was. They were pissed about her engagement and spent every effort to point out all his flaws: from being the wrong color to the wrong religion, from being a soldier, to not having a family. They had even cut her off financially. After he had been killed, they were more of good riddance and offered to help hook Emily up with a proper man. That had been the last time Emily had talked to her parents. Now another man had entered her life that amazed her. While her fiancé had been dark and six-two, Mark was only six foot, one hundred and eighty pounds, light tan, and blond hair. As different as they were physically that was how close they were in most other ways. Both men carried quiet confidence with them, and even though they both projected a nerdy appearance; there was also another look that said that they had been through a hard life and they would beat anyone that threatened them or the people that they cared about. She suspected that in Mark’s case as well as her fiancé’s case the nerdy appearance wasn’t just an appearance, but that he was very intelligent.

As the weeks passed Cindy slowly came back to the world of the living with help from Emily. Often Emily would help with Cindy’s household chores, or just be there to be a shoulder to cry on. As Emily was helping Cindy, she found that she was being drawn slowly toward Mark even though she kept telling herself that it was a bad idea. Mark, she had found out, had continuously run back into the burning buildings of the refinery to pull out trapped and injured workers. Even with his burns, he kept at it until he collapsed and had been rushed to the hospital where he lost his leg. That explained why they had so many problems with him. She also found out: he was very witty, clever, intelligent, and as she expected he had had a hard life. She just didn’t realize how hard Mark’s life had been.

Three weeks after the explosion, Emily walked into Mark’s room to find him sleeping and his daughter sitting there working on school work.

“Good afternoon, Emily.”

Emily stopped, stunned. She never used her first name around patients so how did she know.

“Hello, how did you know my name?”

“Well while I’ve heard it whispered by the staff, you just confirmed it, plus trauma surgeons don’t usually keep checking up on patients continually for three weeks. So, what’s up Emily?”

Emily just stood there with her mouth open. How had this teen seen right through her? How much did this teen know about her? What has she been telling her dad? Emily blushed a bit at this last thought and hoped that Katelynn had missed it. She didn’t.

“Thinking about my dad and I’m guessing not as a patient?”

Emily just continued to stand there.

“I take that as a yes” giggled Katelynn.

This snapped Emily out of her trance.

“I’m sorry Katelynn, but your dad reminds me of someone very special to me.”

“First off, it’s Kat. Only if I get in trouble or if someone needs my attention bad do I get called Katelynn.”

“OK, Kat. You said first off so that suggests more.”

“That’s right, please put up a seat, we girls need to have a chat while my dad is sleeping.”

Cautiously Emily sat down in the other chair in the room. Kat got up quietly, closed the door, and returned to her seat before resuming.

“I know that you’re attracted to my dad; and just so you know as long as you don’t hurt him, I’m all for you two dating. I also know that you have had someone ripped out of your life and now you are worried that if you open yourself up again, that it will happen again.”

Emily was stunned. She had never told anyone about the things that this teen was guessing about her. Her feeling would continue when Kat continued:

“I’m guessing that growing up nothing you did could please your parents. It didn’t matter what, you were never good enough for them even though you really couldn’t get better. Let’s see here, after high school you went into the military as much to grow as to get away from your parents, right.” Continuing when Emily nodded. “You did very well in the military as a medic.” Seeing the look on Emily’s face. “Sorry corpsman” Seeing her surprised look Kat continued. “During your time as a corpsman you saw a decent amount of combat and during one of those encounters you lost someone.”

At this Emily was starting to get pissed and growled:

“I lost a lot of men I cared about.”

“Yes, you did, but one of those meant more to you than any other. Fiancé, I’m guessing. Right?”

Emily stood up and went to leave.

“Please stop, Emily,” Kat said in a tone that sent chills up and down Emily’s spine.

Emily slowly turned around and asked:

“How do you know all that about me?”

Kat just smiled,

“It’s easiest to think of me as the hot chick version of Sherlock Homes. I knew you were in the military by the way you walk and talk. You’re a doctor so that probably meant that you were a medic or something. You are always putting in long hours and are always making sure that you’re the best doctor in this place. That’s how I knew that you could never please your parents. I knew you lost someone very special to you because of the faint marks on your wrist where you have struggled to kill yourself in the past. I tell you all this not to embarrass you, as I swear that nothing, we talk about will ever be repeated to anyone unless you want it to. No, I tell you all this about yourself so that you will believe me when I tell you something about my dad.”

“I’ll admit Kat that I have thought about your dad. It seems like he has some skeletons in his closet.”

“He does and if you are as interested in him as I think you are then you should know about some of them. I say some of them because I’m positive that even I don’t know about all of them.”

“Are you sure that your dad would want you discussing his life with me?”

Kat just gave Emily a look and Emily gulped and nodded.

“First, please sit back down.” Emily quickly sat back down. “My dad lost his parents when he was ten years old in a car accident with a drunk driver and he became a ward of the state. His foster parents were pure evil. They would beat him for no reason at all and before he was burned you could still see the scars on his back. They would burn him with cigars, and they would break his toes and fingers for fun. For years they would beat him until one day when they brought home a slightly older girl. Then he would have to watch as the girl was beaten, just as he had been. If she did something wrong my dad would take the blame so that she would be spared the beating. He would put medicine on her wounds, that he had stolen, to keep her from getting an infection for they lived in absolutely filthy conditions. One night when his foster parents were drunk and high, he was forced to rape her unprotected while being filmed. These forced rapes continued until she got pregnant. My dad tried to hide this fact, knowing what would happen to her but after about five months their foster parents found out. She was beaten so brutally that she had a miscarriage and ended up in the hospital. One of them stayed with her at all times to make sure that she couldn’t tell anyone what happened to her. When they brought her home my dad knew what was going to happen to her and what he had to do. It was going to be her or them. They brought her home, put her to bed, and preceded to get drunk and high, their usual before filming. This time instead of forcing my dad to rape her, they gave him a gun with one bullet and told him to kill her. When he refused, they told him that it was either going to be him or her. What they didn’t know was my dad had hidden a knife under the mattress they were using. He turned the gun on his foster dad and shot him. Before his foster mom could react, he had pulled out the knife and stabbed her to death.”