Page 44 of Indirect Attack
Ben’s gaze remained on my face for a moment more before he sighed again and shook his head. “I don’t know why they kidnapped you.”
For a moment, I thought about keeping quiet. I didn’t want to say the words. The terrorist’s words and threats echoed in myhead, suddenly so loud I knew they would drive me crazy until I did.
“I do.”
The words were a reluctant whisper, so quiet I wasn’t sure Ben would hear. But his head snapped up, his gaze suddenly boring holes into me in a way that made me uncomfortable.
“What do you mean?”
I watched my hands playing with the blanket, smoothing out the wrinkles as I took a moment to respond.
“The terrorist you killed—he told me. The day the group attacked the dig site, we found something—an ancient ruin that we thought was a column but turned out to be a door and a hallway. There’s a chance this could change some pretty big understandings of history and power, and that guy made it pretty clear he wanted to hide all the evidence. Forever.”
Ben took a deep breath in, his eyes still wide and his pupils dilated. I could tell from the tension in his shoulders that he was having difficulty remaining calm.
“Were there other people on the dig who knew about it?”
I nodded, feeling like I wanted to shrink into the bed, pull the blankets over my head, and never come out again.
“Then why didn’t they kidnap them? How did they even know you were one of the archeologists who found it?”
Ben was thinking out loud, but they were still questions that I felt I needed to answer.
“I don’t know how they knew what I’d found, but they didn’t kidnap me for that reason. I’m guessing they probably would have killed me with the others if that were all.”
“That wasn’t all?” The words were quiet, hesitant, like Ben wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the rest. But now that the words were flowing, I couldn’t stop them.
“The terrorist said he kidnapped me because he wanted revenge on you. He knew your name, knew who you were, and knew about us, somehow.”
For a moment, Ben was so still he looked like a frozen phone screen—he didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t blink. Had I made a mistake telling him? Would he run away, just like he had at nineteen, telling me it was for my own good and safety? Even with his promise the night before?
Then he took a deep breath, in motion again, and his face cleared.
“The doctor says you have a concussion, some bruising and contusions, your wrists are pretty raw, and you’re swollen around here.” He waved his finger around the area on his face that corresponded with the part on mine that throbbed with dull pain. “And you have a concussion.”
The abrupt change of topic and Ben’s mood confused me, but I let it go. I was too tired to figure it out and too grateful he hadn’t just run. “I guessed that.”
I put a hand to the throbbing part of my face—I felt bandages, and it felt warm to my touch. My words felt odd, too, like half of my mouth was swollen, which it probably was.
“I must look horrible.”
Grateful that Ben was here, I was also mortified that he was seeing me this way. Did I look like a fun-house mirror? One of those deformed Halloween masks?
“Do you want a mirror?” Ben made a move to get up from his chair.
“No!” Surprised by the vehement response, Ben stopped still, eyebrows near his hairline. “No,” I repeated more softly. “I don’t want to see how terrible I look.”
A small smile curved over Ben’s lips, and he looked at me with fondness in his eyes. “You’re beautiful, Jasmine. No matter what.”
His hand came up and curved around the undamaged side of my face. His thumb brushed at my cheek before he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the spot just above the bandages.
“Even when I haven’t had a shower or brushed my teeth, my face is swollen, and I can’t talk well?”
A chuckle rumbled in Ben’s throat. “Even when you haven’t had a shower in days, you’ve been puking your guts out, and you’re in gremlin mode.”
Our sophomore year of high school, I’d ended up with a nasty stomach bug. I’d been out of class for three days when Ben ditched to show up at my house. But after spending most of my time beside the toilet, I’d felt like death and looked even worse. I hadn’t brushed my teeth or showered in days, and the smell of food still nauseated me. When Ben had shown up at my door, I’d been mortified. But he’d taken one look at me, told me he liked me in gremlin mode, and pushed past me into the house so we could spend the day watching movies.
I hadn’t thought about the incident in years, and his words made me laugh. But they also made me feel better because they made me realize the man sitting beside me had seen me at my worst, and it hadn’t fazed him. He was just reminding me.
