Disclaimer:
These characters aren't mine. Well, some of them are. But the important ones
are all property of MTM and NBC Productions and used without permission. I'm
not making any money out of this . . . . Blah, blah, blah. You know the drill.
Miss Parker tosses restlessly in her bed. She always had trouble sleeping without
Jarod next to her. That night wasn't an
exception. Even though she was
exhausted. She flips over again,
stretching her legs in the process. A
small knot begins to form in the muscles in one of her calves and it soon turns
into a full fledged cramp.
"Ow," she moans, swinging her legs over
the side of the bed to stretch them some more.
That doesn't alleviate the cramp any, so she stands up and tries to walk
it out. Slowly, the muscle begins to
relax and she sits down to massage the sore area. Her growling stomach reminds her that she went to bed without
eating anything. She pulls on a robe
and slides into a pair of slippers and heads towards the door with a handful of
change. The snack machine was just at
the end of the hall. Maybe it had
something that ease her hunger.
The sound of her door closing alarms Lyle
slightly. He sits up in bed, wondering
where she could be going at that hour. Sleep hadn't come to him that
night. He's spent most of the time
tossing and turning as well, trying to push away the troubling thoughts
plaguing his mind. It was unsettling
for him to feel things for his sister.
But he's gotten used to it. He's
gotten used to the fact that he's grown kind of attached to her. He might even go so far as to say that he
loves her one day. But he was far from
that. All he knew was that he felt a
need to protect her, even if she didn't want protecting.
But it wasn't fair that he'd have to protect her at
all. She could be living a safe and
secure life at the Centre. Working
there alongside him and their father.
But instead, she's allowed Jarod to plant little seeds of doubt in her
mind. She's allowed Jarod to convince
her somehow that betrayal was her only alternative. And he hated Jarod for that.
Ideas like that would get her killed.
And he wasn't going to let her die.
He'd do whatever it took to prevent that. And the only thing that came to mind would be to find Jarod. Take him back to the Centre. And get him out of his sister's life for
good.
A bump down the hall gets his attention again,
interrupting his thoughts on getting rid of Jarod. And in less than two seconds, he's out the bed and to the
door. He listens again, just to make
sure she didn't just drop something in the hall. The last thing she'd want would be to know he was keeping his eye
on her. The hall is quiet. He couldn't hear a sound. Not the soft padding of feet walking back to
the room. Or the closing of a door, signaling
that she'd made it back safely.
Immediately panic grips his heart.
He throws open the door and looks both ways down the hall until he sees
a sight that paralyzes him in fear. He
first sees the vending machine food was strewn about the floor, having fallen
from Miss Parker's hands. He then sees
the reason why she dropped the food in the first place. A large man with his face covered with a
mask had grabbed her and had his arm around her neck. He was trying to drag her someplace, but she was putting up a
struggle and making it difficult for him.
He stops pulling her and tightens his grip around her throat, cutting
off her air supply.
"Get your hands off my sister," Lyle hears
himself yell, without really realizing that he'd said it. He lifts his hand and sees that he had the foresight
enough to grab his gun before running out of the room.
Miss Parker's attacker lets her go and she falls to
the ground, gasping desperately for air.
He takes off running down the hall, away from Lyle and towards the
stairs. Lyle takes off after him,
making it as far as the stairwell before realizing the guy was too far ahead of
him. He slowly turns back to Miss Parker
and sees that she's curled herself up in a tight little ball on the floor in
the middle of all the food. Her body
shakes and from where he's standing, she appears to be crying. As he gets closer, the sounds of her sobs
verifies that theory.
"Let's get you inside," he says softly,
gently helping her from the ground.
They slowly make it into her hotel room and he takes her back to the
bed, pulling back the covers while he tucks her in. She's still crying, so he just sits next to her, not really sure
of what to do, but also knowing that he shouldn't leave. Eventually, she calms down and sits up in
the bed. He notices a small gash just
above her left eyebrow.
"Can you get me a glass of water?" she
whispers, holding her hand up to where the cut was bleeding a little. "And a bandage for this."
"Sure," he says, walking to the sink and
filling a cup. He holds the cup out for
her and he sees that her hands are still shaking when she reaches for it. While she's sipping the water, he gently
dabs at the wound and covers it with a bandage. "You want to talk about it?"
"I don't know what happened out there,
Lyle," she sighs. "I just
don't understand it. Where did that guy
come from? Why couldn't I do anything
about it? You know, there used to be a
time when I could have ripped out his throat with my bare hands. But tonight I just froze. And I was terrified."
"It's okay to be afraid," Lyle assures
her.
"But it's not okay to stand there and let that
guy attack me," she cries. "I
just stood there. I couldn't move. Before, I didn't really care much whether I
lived or died. I lived life on the
edge. Pushing back when someone pushed
me. Sometimes I was the one who pushed
first. But, there's so much more at
stake now. I have to think about more
than myself. Because another life is
dependent on me now." She gently
rubs her stomach, sending a silent prayer of thanks that nothing happened to
her baby.
"You mean Imani?"
"Yeah, Imani," she says quickly realizing
what she almost revealed to Lyle. He
couldn't find out about the baby. Not
now, at least. "I have Imani to
think about now. I couldn't imagine
what would happen to her if anything happened to me. I couldn't leave her
motherless. I guess all of that was
going on in my mind when the guy grabbed me."
"You know what it's like to grow up without a
mother. We both do. It makes sense you wouldn't want that for
Imani."
"But it was more than that. He said some awful things, Lyle. He was telling me what he was going to do to
me. How he planned on . . . raping
me." Her tears begin to fall
again.
Lyle gets a sick feeling in his stomach. Because any other day of the week, that
attacker could have been him. Lyle
could have been the guy preying on an unsuspecting woman. He could have been the man attacking an
innocent victim, violating her in the worst way possible, and enjoying watching
her struggle. He knows because that has
been him. He's no better than the man
he just saved his sister from. The only
difference is that his victims didn't have someone to rescue them.
"I should go," he mumbles, trying
desperately to get away from Miss Parker.
"I don't need to be here.
You don't need me here."
She looks and can see the torment on his face. And that instant she knows what Lyle's thinking.
"How many times have you done the same thing,
Lyle? How many women like me who
weren't lucky enough to have their brother standing by to save them?" she
asks him. Not in a scolding or
disappointed way, but with sincere, almost sad curiosity.
"I've never seen it the way I saw it
tonight," he confesses. "They
were just nameless victims to me. Not
someone's daughter, sister." He
looks at her and has to fight back a tear.
"Or mother," he whispers.
He looks one last time at her and walks out her door into the living
room of the suite. He doesn't feel
right staying in there with her, but he also doesn't want to leave her
alone. He lays on the couch instead,
and spends the rest of the night watching over her door.
A minute later, he hears the shower running. And he can only imagine she's in there trying to wash that creeps hands off of her. He feels the anger rise again the more he thinks about what went on that night. And the angrier he gets, the more he needs to blame someone for it all. And the only person who comes to mind is Jarod. He was the one who lured them to that town on a false lead. He was the one planting all the ideas of betrayal in his sister's mind. He was the one telling her all kinds of lies to trick her into feeling things she shouldn't. Feelings that made her weak and helpless. And unable to defend herself. By the time he hears the shower stop, Lyle's convinced himself that all of their problems were Jarod's fault. Someone was going to pay. And that someone was going to be Jarod. Lyle closes his eyes as thoughts of sweet revenge danced in his mind and lulled him into a deep sleep.
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