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Retribution
Chapter Seven
Now hatred is by far the
longest pleasure;
Men love in haste, but
they detest at leisure.
Lord
Byron (Don Juan, canto 13)
---
It’s time, she thought as she
watched a myriad of expressions play across Sara’s face. But one stood out
above all the rest.
Fear.
Oh
yes, there was so much fear. It salved Jill’s wounds and made her grin fiercely
as she ran her fingers over the gun in her jacket pocket. It was for insurance
purposes only. She would never shoot Sara – unless she had to.
No.
She had plans for Ms. Sidle.
She
had killed Tom from a distance. It had broken her heart to do so, but it was
the only way she could ever be free. His love for her had become tainted.
Impure. He was no longer worthy of her love. But how she wished she could have
been there for his last breath, to be eternally connected to him.
She
was denied the opportunity to be with Tom for his end. The same would not be
true with Sara.
And
her end was coming.
---
Sara’s
shriek of fear turned into a yell of both surprise and relief.
“Grissom!”
She
threw her arms around his neck and he pulled her as close to him as possible,
relishing the feel of her after such a long separation.
It
took a moment before he realized that she was shaking like a leaf.
“Sara?”
he asked. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
He
drew back to look at her and saw the tears on her face. The fear.
“Honey?”
She
shook her head and looked around, as if she expected to see someone coming
after her.
“Let’s
get out of here,” she whispered.
Still
at a loss, but reluctant to argue, Grissom took Sara’s hand and led her to his
rental car.
---
“Honey,
I’m home.”
Greg
grinned foolishly to himself as he kicked off his shoes in the hallway and
removed his jacket, before ambling into the living room. Nick was stretched out
on the sofa, the stress of the day still pressing down heavily on him.
“You’re
never going to get tired of saying that, are you?” he asked, the weariness of
his voice betrayed by the grin on his face.
Greg
shook his head. “Not while I have you to say it to.”
He
knelt down beside him and kissed him softly. “You okay?”
Nick
shrugged evasively. “Rough day, is all.”
Greg
sighed and sat back on his heels. “Stop beating yourself up. You did the right
thing.”
Nick
opened his mouth to protest, but the younger man cut him off.
“I
know you, Nick Stokes. You’ve been telling yourself that you told Sara too
much. That you got her all freaked out and it’s all your fault. So I’m telling
you to knock it off.”
“You weren’t going to tell her,” Nick
replied.
“Which
makes me a big fraidy-cat coward. Not right,” Greg told him. “She needed to
know, Nicky. And the G-man will be with her by now. She’s fine.”
Nick
considered Greg’s words carefully and then nodded. Sitting up, he reached out
and wrapped his arms around his lover.
“You’re
right,” he said. “I know you’re right. I just can’t help worrying.”
Greg
kissed him again, slowly and sweetly, pulling his body close. When they came up
for air, Greg smiled.
“You
wouldn’t be you if you didn’t worry. We’ll call her tomorrow, okay? But how
about we let her have some quality time with her boyfriend tonight?”
Nick
grinned in response. “How about we do something similar ourselves?”
---
Sara
told him everything on the drive. More than once he took a hand off the wheel
to hold hers – partly to comfort her, partly to reassure himself that she was
really with him.
“I’d
been bargaining on her driving here, so she wouldn’t be seen,” he rationalized.
“I guess if she beat me here, she must have flown after all.”
He
pulled the car off the road and parked down by a beach. Sara was still jumpy
and he would need to calm her down before they could make any decisions about
where to go from here.
She
got out of the car and headed straight for the water, looking out over the bay
as the sun slowly made its way towards the horizon. As he came to stand behind
her, Grissom wrapped his arms around her instinctively. She leaned back into
him, grateful for his comforting warmth. They stood for a long time in silence,
listening to the waves washing over the sand.
“This
place has always been my safe haven,” she told him finally. “When things got
too much for me, I always pictured myself back here and it… helped. And now,
she’s taken that from me.”
Grissom
shook his head. “She can only take it from you if you let her.”
“As
a child, I was convinced that, if only we hadn’t left the bay, everything would
have been fine. My father was on the road a lot, working as a truck driver, and
Mom looked after a guest house just a few miles from here.”
One
of her hands went to her face and, even though he couldn’t see it, Grissom knew
she was wiping her tears away. He tightened his arms around her and remained
silent, inviting her to continue.
“We
loved it here. We were happy. But, when I was six, my Dad lost his job and had
to get another one. A factory. In
“Everything
changed. He was so… angry. All the time. He started drinking. Beating on my
Mom. For years, I’d lie awake listening to him yelling or her crying. Waking up
in the morning to find her with a new bruise, a new broken bone. Until the
night he decided to turn his attention onto me. That was the final straw for
her. She killed him to protect me.”
“You
should never have been put through that,” Grissom said, his anger at what Sara
had been subjected to steadily building.
She
turned in his arms and looked at him. “Why not? How many kids have gone through
the very same thing? Or worse? Why should they go through it, but not me?”
He
brushed the stray hair from her face, his expression softening. “You’re right.
No one should ever have to go through that.”
He
pressed his lips to her forehead, offering her comfort anyway he knew how. She
tilted her face towards him, bringing her own lips up to meet his. Their kiss
was tender at first, but their long separation soon overtook them and the kiss
deepened, passion spilling over as they clung to one another.
“What
do you want to do now?” he asked as they began to make their way back to the
car.
She
thought for a moment. “I can’t go back to the guest house tonight. Maybe
tomorrow, we could go back for my things, but –“
She
left the sentence unfinished. All her current fears were tied to that room. He
knew she would most likely not set foot in it again.
“I
passed a hotel a few miles back,” he told her. “Let’s go there tonight. We’ll
figure out the rest in the morning.”
She
nodded and took his hand, feeling safe for the first time that day.
TBC.
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