Retribution (The Protectors 3)

As disappointed as I was to find the place completely deserted, I also felt a pang of relief because it meant I could focus the majority of my attention on Tate who’d gone deathly pale as soon as we’d stepped into the place. He moved past me and examined the living room. He didn’t say anything as he walked towards the back of the trailer. The kitchen and the two bedrooms we passed were in the same state of shambles, but Tate didn’t stop until we reached the very last bedroom at the back of the trailer. He had to wrestle with the door to get it all the way open because there was so much debris on the floor. But while the other rooms had just looked like someone had been in a rush to leave, the last room looked like a tornado had hit it.

Or someone in a rage.

“Your room?” I asked as I looked at the shredded mattress, scattered clothes and broken knickknacks.

Tate only nodded. There were a couple of posters on the wall, but they were torn, their pieces dangling precariously.

“I loved this room,” he finally whispered as he moved to the foldable plastic table in the corner that had clearly been turned into a desk. “Doesn’t really make sense, does it?” he said as he fingered what looked like the pieces of a torn photograph. He glanced over his shoulder at me. “I hated this place, them, but this room…it was the only place I ever felt safe even when I wasn’t.” Tate shook his head in confusion.

“It makes perfect sense to me,” I admitted.

Tate looked at me almost hopefully.

“It was your escape,” I said. “They may have still been able to hurt your body in this room, but they couldn’t reach you here,” I said as I pointed to my head.

Tate glanced around the room and then nodded. He returned his gaze to me. “Did you have a place like that?”

I shook my head. “No, not a place…a person.”

“Your wife?” Tate asked softly.

For once, the mention of Revay didn’t send a searing pain throughout my entire body. “Yes, but she wasn’t my wife then.”

“Tell me,” Tate whispered and even though he wasn’t anywhere near me, his voice felt like a caress.

I should have told him no or made an excuse about not having time, but I couldn’t force the words out. To my surprise, I wanted to tell him.

“I met her in the third grade. I’d moved to town a few months earlier but hadn’t gone to school right away so that day had been my first. The desk next to hers was the only one open. A lot of the other kids were laughing at me because my clothes didn’t really fit me and I…I hadn’t showered in a while so I guess I smelled kind of bad.”

The humiliation of that day as I’d walked between the row of desks came back to me and I could almost still hear the snickers all around me. I’d managed to hold my head up high and had kept my eyes trained on the empty desk the teacher had pointed to, but when the kids had started making oinking sounds beneath their breath, I’d wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

I didn’t realize I’d sat down on the edge of Tate’s old bed until I felt his fingers threading through my hair. At some point he’d moved between my spread legs and one glance at his face and I knew I’d voiced my humiliation about what the kids had done to me out loud.

He didn’t say anything, he just kept caressing me and that made it easier for me to continue.

“I didn’t even notice Revay at first because I was trying so hard not to cry. Then the teacher tells us to get our books out so we can each read a section. I hadn’t gotten my books yet so I thought the teacher would just skip me. But when she said my name, everybody turned around to look at me and I could see some of the kids making silent oink oink sounds. I wanted to fucking die right then and there,” I whispered and I actually had to blink back the tears that threatened to fall.

“What happened?” Tate asked as he continued to gently soothe me with his touch.

“The room was totally quiet, all eyes on me, the teacher waiting…and then there’s this loud screeching sound and I look over and there’s Revay, standing up just a little and sliding her entire desk over. She was a tiny thing even back then and I could only watch in fascination as she pushed it across the aisle until it hit my desk. Then she opened her book, plopped it down in between our desks and pointed to the paragraph we were on.”