Code of Honor

~Grace~
I spent a good week recovering, as Jamison put it, but I still didn’t feel any better. I didn’t leave the warmth and safety and my bed. I was never left alone for long. Between Riley and my father someone was always at my side. Holding my hand or just holding me. The first few days my father had not left my side for a moment. Fearful I would disappear in his sleep again.

Nevertheless, even their constant presence did not help me. I still shook, all the time. Sometimes so badly I couldn’t sleep and Riley would come and hold me until I drifted into sleep. But even in my sleep I wasn’t safe. I continued to have nightmares of men, large men, with knives and guns. Always paired with the suffocating feeling of trapped and alone. I could not escape them. They were too big, always hovering over me so I could not get up.

Then I would wake, even more exhausted than I was before I fell asleep and drenched in a cold sweat that stuck to my back. And for the next few hours, I would be inconsolable. No matter who held me, Riley or dad, I could not get over my nightmares and I would struggle to sleep again for the rest of the day. Each and every day started to feel longer and longer and my patience for life was getting thinner.

Fear was something that seemed to remain in my veins no matter what happened. Jamison had set restrictions on people coming into the room because most of the time, just the sound of someone entering the room could startle me and send me into a panic. One he was worried I’d hurt myself in. Sometimes, I would wake up and see the concrete walls around and spiral downwards into the same panic. They reminded me to much of the walls of the cell and that was enough to send me over the edge.

Once it had been a simple torchlight. When Jamison was first looking me over. For a short moment I was transported back to the small cell, the torture they’d inflicted with their torches in my eyes and how painful it had been. I pulled away in an instant, rolling onto my side to face the wall. Shielding my eyes with my arm. The sound that escaped my mouth was almost animal, terrified. That was when the sobbing started to escape me. I couldn’t control it.

Without warning my father’s arms wrapped around me and tried to pull me closer to him. But I couldn’t stand it. Not while my mind was trapped back in that small cell. I pushed him away. The last thing I wanted was to be touched. For a moment, dumbfounded by my reaction, he left me alone. Though only long enough for me to curl into a ball. The next time he reached for me he refused to let go how much I fought him. I didn’t fight him for long. I didn’t have it in me. I just collapsed, sobbing into his arms. He pulled me tight against his chest, cooing softly in my ear.

“It’s okay Gracie,” He’d whispered. His voice sounded as weak as I’d felt. “No one is going to hurt you, ever again. I promise.”

On top of all this, there was the guilt. That was the only word I could put to it. I didn’t know what I had done so special to survive what I had. So many innocent people had walked into that prison building and they had all died there. For some reason I was spared the same fate and I couldn’t figure out why. I’d heard them kill people in there. In the room’s right beside me, I would hear their screams and their dying breathes. I was left to wonder if I would be next. It was unfair, they had done absolutely nothing to deserve their fate and no one had spared them. Only me.

It felt like here, back in the bunker, that no one really knew what I was going through. They talked to me gently as though I was some fragile doll and kept telling me I would be alright but I couldn’t believe them. Any future I’d had, had gone up in smoke inside that prison. I’d survived the torment itself, surviving the aftermath seemed like a whole new battle. More than anyone my father was having a hard time, trying to get me through said battle. He was trying so very hard to bring me out the other side but sometimes it seemed I didn’t want to fight with him, or for him.

“Grace,” He whispered in that voice he only reserved for me. “C’mon sweetheart, have something to eat.”

He was starting to beg with me again. I had not eaten since returning to the bunker. I didn’t see the point since I wasn’t keeping down anything I had tried to eat beforehand. Nor did I hold the motivation to even try. It just felt so pointless to me and there were more deserving people who needed it on the other side of the wall.

“Grace please,” He begged. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

As far as I was concerned, that was the least of my worries. So I continued to stare straight through him. My mind had melted, it could no longer distinguish the different feelings of emotions and pain. I seemed to be stuck in the same gear all the time, depressed and unfeeling.

“You can’t make her eat if she doesn’t want to Cameron,” Jamison whispered from the other side of the room.

“She’ll get sick,” Dad argued. From the sound of his voice it sounded like my patience wasn’t the only one running thin today.

“And I’ll deal with that when it comes to it,” Jamison replied trying to keep his voice calm. It sounded like this was an argument they’d had before.

Ignoring him dad turned back to face me and try and catch my eyes. When that failed he tried to put his hand on my shoulder in a comforting manner, but I shrugged him off quickly. Sometimes I just didn’t want to be touched and today that feeling was not brought on by fear as usual but my own irritation. I wanted to be left alone.

“Cameron, I know this is hard but she’ll be okay,” Jamison promised. “She just needs time.”

“How much time? I can’t watch this much longer.”

“Guys?”

The soft voice drifted over from the doorway. I jumped frightened, and my father was quick to try and calm me down. Thankfully I was spared a serious panic attack, I knew the voice and it was a woman. I had less to fear from her than I did any other man.

“Lizzy?” Jamison asked, “What’s wrong.”

There was hushed whispers on the other side of the room. I couldn’t make out what they were talking about. I didn’t really care either. It didn’t take long for a decision to be made.

“Cameron,” Jamison called.

“What?”

“I need you for a moment.”

“Can it wait?” Dad asked slightly snappy.

Then Lizzy appeared at his shoulder gently. He flinched under her hand but didn’t shrug her off. She bent down to his level and whispered something in his ear. Again I was not interested and paid no attention to her words. Slowly my father got to his feet. He glanced back at me, too scared to leave me, but upon coaxing from Lizzy leant down to kiss my forehead and leave the room with Jamison.

Carefully Lizzy took my father’s recently discarded seat. I stared straight through her like I had my father. Her soft eyes watched me for a moment, almost studying me. Gently she reached out for my hand took it and didn’t let go when I tried to pull my hand away.
“I know it hurts,” She whispered. “Believe me I know. But you can’t let it beat you.”
I continued to try and pull my hand away. A lecture was the last thing I wanted, no matter how good-hearted it was.

“Grace,” She said a little more firmly. “Grace, Grace,” She continued until I finally looked at her. “I know what they did to you because they did it to me to.” My interest perked slightly, I couldn’t help it.

“When Michael and I were pulled off the border, they hurt me in ways you can only imagine, or I guess, the same way they hurt you…That’s how I got this scar,” She told me. Running her hand down her face. “Michael’s got them to, all over his chest. And for a long time I let them beat me, I let them control my life even when they were on the other side of the country. And that’s what you’re doing Grace, you’re letting them win.”

“How…how did you do it?” I asked. My voice was rough, my throat was tender.

Her eyes softened again. She reached up to brush my hair out of my face.

“I moved on,” She started simply. “I decided they wouldn’t beat me. I decided that they couldn’t hurt me anymore. So I lifted my head up high and moved on. I know it sounds almost impossible while you hurt this way but it is possible. You did nothing wrong, they’re the ones with a reason to hang their heads. Not you, not me.”

“But…I…I can’t,” I cried.

The thought of just lifting my head and moving on did seem impossible. Not while my body was still scarred with the abuse, not while I still suffered the nightmares. But Lizzy had done it. How I had no idea. She had to have been amazing to do so when right now all I felt like doing was rolling over into a ditch and dying.

“You can,” She replied firmly and gently. “I didn’t think I would, but I did. Don’t underestimate yourself Grace. You’re a strong girl. I’ve seen it in you.”

“But what they did.” I shuddered.

“Believe me, I know what they did Grace. But you can move on from it. You have a whole family of people out there ready to support you, not to mention two men who love you more then they even realize.”

“Riley?”

She nodded. “You’re lucky to have him. Not many men these days would stick their necks out the way he did for you. His settling in just fine by the way,” She smiled. “Dimitri and Billy treat him like his a hero for saving you. I think you’ve got a pair of big brothers in those two.”
That’s the way I had always felt about them. My big brothers. Still Riley stuck to the forefront of my mind.

“Is dad, treating him okay?” I asked.

She smiled at me. “Yes, his eternally grateful for what Riley did in bringing you back to him, alive…we’d thought we’d lost you. But I think his having trouble with the idea that there might be someone else out there who loves you as much as he does. His not ready to let go of his little girl just yet.” She reached around behind her and pulled something towards me. “Here I brought you something to eat, lots of sugar in it too.”

Though my stomach grumbled in a mix of hunger and nausea. I still could not find the motivation to eat. Lizzy sighed.

“They didn’t give you any food did they?” She asked gently. I nodded. “This is what I mean by moving on.”

She held up a hunk of bread, I could see a sugary jam type substance leaking out the side. Sugar was a treat these days. It stood the test of time during the war, as did anything with a high sugar content. But it was rare, hard to come by. We both stared at it.

“You, unlike a lot of people escaped them so rub it in their faces. Remember what I said, they have a reason to hang their heads. Not you.”

With that, she put the jelly-filled bread on the bed beside me and got to her feet. She gave me one last smile and left the room. Alone, I hesitantly reached for the bread and weighed it between my hands. Some of the things she had said had got to me but I continued to stare down the food like it was an enemy. I didn’t even bother to look up from it when someone else entered the room. Somehow I just knew it was him.

“It’s not going to kill you, you know,” He whispered lying on the bed beside me

Gently he laid his head on my chest and rested his arm across his stomach. There was something about his touch that repulsed me less than anyone else’s. I didn’t feel the need to push him off. He sighed, placing his head over my heart.

“Sometimes,” I told him. His eyes opened and looked up at me. “They tried to give me food and stuff…but they had threatened to poison it so many times I couldn’t eat it. That was the worse than actually having nothing…I couldn’t trust a thing they tried to give me. They made me starve myself.”

His beautiful green eyes saddened. “You don’t need to worry about that here. You know that. I even watched her make that, especially for you.”

“I still…I still can’t make myself do it,” I sniffled. Wiping at my watering eyes. “My stomach turns every time I even think about it.”

The fear had been so deeply ingrained in me my body refused to eat. When I tried, my mind was so terrified the food was actually poisoned, no matter its source; my body ejected it straight away. I had no idea what sick pleasure they got out of frightening me so badly that I couldn’t eat. Carefully so not to disturb my sore body Riley lifted himself up to lean over me, placing his hand on my cheek and staring deep into my eyes.

“I meant it when I said I would not let anyone hurt you ever again,” He whispered. “And I promise you no one here is trying to hurt you Grace. I’d stake my life on it, hell I’ll even take a bite and you can watch me and make sure it’s not poisoned.”

My heart beat loudly in my throat. The thought of Riley eating something dangerous scared me more than myself eating it.

“I…I can’t let you, what if….”

“I’ll take my chances,” He smiled down at me.

I let him take the bread from my hands, but felt myself panic when he took a bite out of it. I should not have been letting him do this. After he had swallowed his first bite, I quickly swiped it out of his hands before he could do himself more damage.

“Yummy,” he complimented. “And I’m still alive.”

I frowned.

“Okay we’ll give it ten minutes.”

“Can you not treat this like a joke,” I snapped.

His smile faded for a moment but it was quickly replaced.

“Okay,” He sighed. Pulling me into his chest. “I mean what I said Grace. I’m sure it’s fine.”

We slipped back into a comfortable silence. Without the conversation to concentrate on my mind started to flutter. There was no way I could justify letting him do that. If there was something wrong, I’d just let him ingest it. It was a horrible thing to do, let alone to someone I loved. Maybe I did deserve to be in that small cell, beaten.

Suddenly all the walls started to close in around me. pushing all the air out of the room. Just the fleeting thought of the cell that sent me into another panic. I could feel it welling in my throat, blocking off my air. I started to find it hard to breath, and the more I struggled the harder it got, the more the panic set in.

“Grace,” Riley called from the other side. “Calm down. Breathe.”

His voice grounded me. I tried to take a deep breath but I choked on it. His strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me into his chest. I could hear his heart beating right beneath my head. In perfect rhythm. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the sound of it, trying to match my breathing to it.

“You’re okay,” Riley breathed in my ear. “I promise.”

“I…can’t…I keep thinking,” I mumbled.

“Shh,” He whispered. “I know, I know.” But he didn’t.

“Distract me,” I asked burying my head in his chest. “So I can’t think.”

Just as quickly as I requested it, he had a way to distract me from my brutal thoughts.
“What did you want to be, when you grew up?”

I was dumbfounded for a moment. “What?”

“Before all this happened, what did you want to do with your life?”

I guess it was a distraction and that was what I had asked for.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled. “I never really decided. I kinda wanted to be a doctor…or a nurse I guess. The whole medical field sort of fascinated me. What did you want to be?”

There was a flush on his cheeks and he let out a small grin. But he didn’t reply straight away. I watched him turn it over for a moment. My mind flew through all the options of what would make him react this way.

“You’ll laugh at me,” he finally concluded.

“No I won’t,” I replied lifting my head to look at him.

“I wanted to work with horses.”

Actually, I was impressed. I had always been terrified of horses.

“Horses?”

“My nana used to have some,” He told me. “And every summer holidays I went up to stay with her and help her with all her horses. For as long as I can remember. They always just kinda stuck with me. Even after she died I’d go find some out during the holidays to work with…you’re the first person not to laugh at me,” He chuckled.

I could picture him, working alongside a horse. Of course, in my imagination he was shirtless. But he’s always had this soft caring soul. As strange as his career path sounded to me, it suited him well.

“I think you’re brave,” I admitted.

He laughed out loud. “Brave?”

“Horses,” I shuddered. “Scare me.”

“Horses?”

I nodded. “Don’t ask me why but they just do. They’re so big and the kick and they bite.”

“Not all horses kick and bite,” he said with a playful grin. “They can be very loving friendly animals. Jeez, as a kid my best friend was a white colt named Danny. He was friendlier than any human friend I ever made, and almost as cute as you.”

I blushed, I couldn’t help it. “Well even though they scare me, I think they’re beautiful so I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I meant it as one,” He smiled pulling me back into his chest. “You could still be a nurse you know. They’ll be needed in the future when everything starts to right itself, or for the next generation of the group,” He grinned. “You still have your chance.”

“Jamison was teaching me,” I told him. “We thought it would be a good idea for someone to know some medical stuff.”

“Stuff?” He chuckled. “Still got some way to go I guess.”

I ignored him.

“You could still be a horse trainer,” I pondered out loud. “We don’t have cars anymore. I guess we’ll revert back to horses eventually.”

“And you’d let me teach you to ride?”

“Hell no.”

He laughed. “Really? You wouldn’t let me teach you.”

“I would not get within kicking distance of them,” I replied seriously. “I’ll just look after you after they bite you.”

He sighed defeated. “I’m fine you know, and it’s been a good half hour.”

My stomach tumbled. I had forgotten all about the bread. I glanced down at it on the bed beside us. It still felt like an enemy.

“Okay,” He said seriously sitting up, in turn making me sit up. “How about we make a deal. You take a single bite of this.” He picked up the bread and held it out for me. “And I’ll never make you come near my horses.”

I frowned. He was pitting one of my fears against another. I found it slightly unfair but slightly reasonable. And he really was okay. He didn’t look like he was poisoned.

“One bite,” I clarified.

“One little bite,” He replied.

“Why?”

He sighed. “Because it’s what you need to get over your fear Grace. Small steps. Just take a small bite and when nothing happens you’ll feel better.”

“Okay,” I sighed lifting it up in a single hand. “But if something happens you have to get Jamison.”

“I promise I will get Jamison if one beat of sweat drops from your forehead.”

I took a deep breath and stared down the bread one more time. Swallowing the lump in my throat I forced my shaking hand to bring the bread to my lips. Some part of me had expected it to burn them so I was surprised when nothing happened. I closed my teeth around it, and took a single bite.