February 23rd, 2013
Illinois
1
"No, please. No more bodies. There's not room for them anymore!"
Angela's words brought Marc instantly awake and he rose up on one elbow to look at her tear-stained cheeks in the dim lantern light. Dog's golden eyes were also watching her cry in her sleep.
"Angie?"
There was no answer. She was having another nightmare. It wasn't the first time she had woken him this way and though he hadn't said anything, it bothered Marc that he couldn't protect her in her dreams, too. Any small part of him that had been wondering if she was exaggerating, so she could play two ends against the middle, was gone. Their first week together had revealed what she hadn't told him and he was furious.
How could anyone treat her badly? She had been affectionate…passionate, and he loathed her man for changing that. He'd never felt hate so strongly.
"It's how he was raised. He didn't know any other way to deal with someone like me," Angela answered his thoughts.
Marc jumped and gave her an awkward smile, having to pry his eyes from the long dark curls messed sexily over her shoulder. "You would have made a good Marine," he stated, not wanting to hear her defend someone who had obviously hurt her so much.
Angela sat up, pulling the thick, flag-covered quilt closer, her eyes roaming over pictures of foreign, seductive landscapes and dark, dirty windows, instead of looking at him. "Not me. I don't kill. I won't."
He frowned at her argumentative tone, wondering if it was the dream or something she had picked up from him.
"You okay?" he asked carefully, relaxing a little when she sounded more like herself, but her face was pale in the orange glow of the propane heater.
"I will be. Rough night."
Marc grunted. Five or six this week. "Wanna talk about it?"
Angela tried to imagine telling him about her life of rape and assault, and total, unforgiving control. She closed her eyes against the shame and betrayal she thought she'd come to terms with long ago.
"No. How about you tell me something from your life I don't know. Shouldn't be hard."
He ignored the tone. "Like what? After the War? Before?"
"Tell me something from our past, the answer to one of the questions we used to ask each other."
His eyes swung to her pale face at the tone, but his mind was again screaming ambush from the almost resentfully spoken words. "Why?"