Page 45 of Gideon
“Is Talia okay?” I asked, with no small amount of worry.
“As okay as she can be. She remembered everything in a pretty brutal way,” he explained. I noted the way he didn’t give much detail. The fact that he was honoring and respecting her story in such a way was not lost on me. “You should talk to her sometime,” he suggested. I nodded my head in agreement, but something else plagued me.
“So she didn’t remember?” I asked, not wanting to pry for too many details, but needing to understand more.
“No. Zeke and Levi both think her mind blacked out that portion of her trauma in an attempt to shield and protect itself. When it all came rushing to the surface, it was… something else,” he explained with a heavily burdened sigh.
“I never forgot,” I whispered.
“I’m here to listen. And I’m not going anywhere.” He reiterated the same sentences he’d had on a loop, almost like a mantra.
“I was eight when they took me from my parents. I remember it. All of it. Well, maybe not all, but what I do remember, I remember vividly.” I could feel the protective walls I had built over the years trying to resurrect themselves, trying to protect my heart, or whatever was left of it after such tormented abuse over the years.
Gideon sat there in silence, listening to the story I needed to tell.
“I was playing at a neighbor’s house when it happened. We had decided to walk down the street. My friend lived near the school we all attended and it was the middle of summer. It was an easy walk we had taken many, many times, wanting to play on the big playground. That’s where it happened. That’s where I was taken.” The story flowed from my lips, though inside, it felt more like it was being ripped out of me, tearing its way to the surface and leaving me bleeding in its destructive wake.
“I don’t remember much about the day itself. We were playing with a frisbee and someone threw it into the trees behind the swings. We were trying to throw it through the chains on the swing set. Someone threw it too far, and I went to get it. I remember searching for it in the trees. I knew the area like the back of my hand. We were there almost every day in the summer. One minute I was searching near a bush, and the next, I woke up to darkness. Utter darkness. We were in a van of some sort, and they had tied my wrists in front of me. There was cloth in my mouth and it felt like my mouth was as dry as a bone.”
“Fuck,” he muttered. I didn’t need to look into his eyes to see the turmoil he felt. I could hear it. Feel it. Plus, I wasn’t sure if I could handle his expression right now. Not while I was trying so hard to get through the story of how I came to be here. It was one I hadn’t uttered aloud. Not once.
“There were a few of us in the van. I’m not sure how many, but maybe four or five of us. We traveled like that for a long while,” I explained.
“How long? Do you have any idea?” he asked, his tone completely devoid of emotion. I understood it, though. He was choosing to turn off the emotion he felt in order to process what I was saying. It was something I knew how to do and could do it well. Or at least I could until Gideon had entered my life.
“Overnight, for sure. And then most of the next day. When we arrived at the cabin, it was almost dark. I only know that because we all slept, and then awoke hungry. There were no windows in the van, but when they pulled us out, it was sunset outside. I remember being so afraid. Beyond afraid. But I stayed quiet. I wasn’t used to seeing the mountains,” I continued on, my voice mirroring his own lack of emotion.
“Where you came from, you didn’t have any mountains?” he asked quietly.
“No. Not that I can remember, and I recall looking around at the mountains at the cabin and being struck by the sight of it,” I answered calmly, remembering that one singular feeling of awe pierce through the terror of the moment.
“They took us into the cabin, roughly, and gave us over to a woman,” I explained.
“Talia remembered a woman’s voice,” he spoke, more to himself than to me.
“She seemed kind at first, but that was a very fleeting thing,” I scoffed derisively. “She was not kind. In fact, she was at least as brutal as the men were.”
“How long were you there?” he asked. I looked up at him then. It was easy to see his hesitation, the way he almost braced himself for my answer. I couldn’t blame him. This wasn’t a cheerful story.
“Most of the kids were there for only a few days at most. Some closer to a week or just more than,” I explained, my eyes still on him. I knew what question was coming next, and I knew he wasn’t ready for this part of the story.
CHAPTER12
GIDEON
I felt sick. Sicker than I had ever felt in my life, and it had nothing to do with my health. I listened as Naomi told her story, each brutal and terroristic detail settling firmly in my gut and twisting its way into my soul like a cancer.
There was so much more detail in her story than in Talia’s experience. The girls were of different ages and likely had not been there at the same time. I craved that information. I knew my brothers would, too. But the more she told, the more sick I felt.
“I didn’t realize it until much later, but the purpose of the cabin was two-fold. One, it was a place for them to take us until they decided what to do with us,” she continued.
“What do you mean?” I asked, my curiosity piqued. I had thought they were all adopted here in Zion.
“A few of us they kept, like Talia and myself. The others did not come to Zion,” she explained, her eyes lowering to the floor as she wrapped her arms around herself, hugging herself and protecting herself from the very memories that plagued her. What must that be like? To have to live with memories of such horrors with no one to tell them to? I couldn’t imagine it. I grew up here, was born here. Anything I was thinking or feeling, I could go to any of my brothers and talk to them. No questions asked, save the occasional snark and quick-witted remarks. They had my back. I had no inkling of what it was like to have no one.
Naomi had no one.
Until now. I just had to make her see the truth of that statement. Now wasn’t the time, but soon. Hopefully, very soon.
