blade’s edge, and watched the soft bead of blood that followed it. Then she took the sharp blade and ran it across her thigh.
****
Will spent an hour of staring at the closed door, while dreading for the girl to come out. Come out and what? What would she do? What could he do? He had no clue. Nothing in his training, or civilian life could prepare him for what to do in this situation. He wasn’t a cop, so he didn’t know how to deal with victims. He didn’t even think he had it in him. But there was no stopping now. If anyone was a victim, it was Jessie Bains. He had seen people maimed, burned, killed, and massacred in war, but nothing like the evil Jessie Bains had to endure.
Now all that was left to do was survive until the morning. Then, he could get her out of there, and deliver her to the people who could help her, comfort her, and ultimately, save her: her father, her sister, her pastor. But not he.
Will had long since pulled the bandana from his hair, and washed off the last of his war paint. He stowed his weapons, but kept one close by and loaded, but well away from Jessie. He didn’t trust her. He sat on the bed, staring at the door. He preferred have her to stay in there all night. But why didn’t she come out?
Finally he got up, and tapped lightly on the door. “Ms. Bains?”
Nothing. No answer. No movement of water. Puzzled Will tried again, knocking and yelling louder. Still nothing. Unease started climbing up Will’s neck. Unease similar to what he experienced in the field when all looked safe, but his gut told him it wasn’t. His gut was usually right. Will turned the knob, knowing it was locked. The door was constructed of crap: flimsy particle board. He stepped back, lifted his boot and kicked it squarely on the hardware. The door popped open, after bending and cracking around the handle.
Then he entered and stopped dead in his tracks in shock. Moving closer, he pulled the still body of Jessie Bains from the pink water of her bath.
Chapter Three
Will’s heart skipped a beat as he grabbed Jessie’s still body. He almost dropped her when her eyes flashed open and she started to struggle against him. She was alive! He felt both shock and gratitude. He lifted her wet, naked body from the water and carried her out onto the bed. She screamed at him and pulled her legs up, grabbing the blankets to cover herself.
He ignored her and grabbed her wrists, but found nothing. There were no gashes. No spurting blood to steal the life from her. What the hell? She kept fighting like a cat caught in a bag, until he pinned her wrists over her head with one hand. Pushing back the piled blankets, he finally found the source of blood. A row of neat lines on her thigh trickled blood. They were small, shallow incisions, only about two inches long. Seeing her thighs confirmed what he suspected, she did this to herself. Both of her thighs were scored with the same sized scars. And they weren’t new.
He looked up at her face. She finally stopped struggling as she realized why he yanked her out of the bathtub, and manhandled her. Touching her was the last thing he wanted. She rolled over, pulling the covers with her.
“I thought —”
“Well, I didn’t.”
She stared at the wall, not at him. He stood next to the bed, his clothes now damp where her body was against his. He waited for her to explain why she took a razor blade to her thighs, then bathed in her own blood. Who does that? What kind of sane person would do such a thing?
He expected tears, screaming, shutting down, even freaking out, and tearing apart the room or something else to deal with the anguish that must be inside Jessie Bains’s mind. He understood emotion. But what was this? He didn’t know what to say, much less what to do. She made no move to explain, get up, or even acknowledge what just happened. She had simply cut her thigh, and then lay there as if she were dead.
He sighed. Shit . This was not what he signed up for when he