The voice.
The voice was telling her everything was okay.
The voice was telling her she was safe.
The voice was telling her that her loved ones missed her.
The voice was telling her that she should open her eyes.
But her own inner voice was telling her to proceed with caution.
Something bad had happened, though she didn’t know what. And something bad waited in the world that existed beyond the safety of the dark void in which she’d been enveloped.
Yet she knew she couldn’t hide forever in her dark cocoon and that if she tried to, the badness out there might try to find her anyway. So rather than let it sneak up on her, she decided to open her eyes so she could see it coming, whatever it was.
The world beyond was blurry at first, and then she was aware of the pain. It seemed to be coming from everywhere. Her entire body ached, but mostly her head.
A cheery voice was speaking to her as she brought a hand to the back of her head, but she wasn’t able to distinguish any words, not that she cared to at the moment anyway. She was in too much pain to focus on anything else. Yet she wanted to understand what was going on and how she got to be where she was.
“W-where am I?” she mumbled, blinking her eyes rapidly, trying to focus.
“You’re in the hospital, Joni,” said the same voice. “You’ve been through a rough time and it’s really, really nice to have you back.”
“Back where?”
“You’ve been in a coma,” explained the woman, dressed in a nurse’s uniform and now easily visible from where she lay in what appeared to be a hospital bed.
“A coma?” asked Joni, alarm now sounding in her voice.
The nurse nodded empathetically. “Yes, for about a week. But it looks like you’re going to make a full recovery in time. You’ve got a long, hard road ahead of you, but it’s one you can certainly travel down with the proper patience and care.”
“But what happened?” asked Joni, still confused. “How did I get here?”
The nurse sighed hesitatingly. “I don’t think it’d be best for me to tell you that right now, hun. I think the best one to tell you about what happened would be your husband.”
“Nadirah! Oh, my God, Nadirah! Where’s Nadirah? Is she okay?”
“Shhh,” soothed the nurse. “Annie, another nurse, has gone to call her at work to let her know you’ve been slowly waking up, which I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to hear.”
“So she’s okay? Nadirah’s okay? She’s not in a coma, too?”
The nurse smiled warmly. “She’s fine, honey. Just relax.”
As much as Joni now wanted to stay awake, exhaustion suddenly overcame her. She slipped into a light sleep, wondering just how a few minutes of being awake could take such a toll on her.
But then another and very familiar voice speaking in rapid anticipation woke her back up not long afterward, and her eyes opened once again.
“Hey, sweetie,” Nadirah said, eyes moist with happy tears. “Am I ever so glad to see you awake! I missed you, babe. Oh God, how I missed you.”
Joni froze as she watched her wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. Instead of being just as happy and as excited to see her, warning bells sounded in her head. Something wasn’t quite right. An unmistakable fear suddenly seized hold of her that she didn’t understand. But she blamed that irrationality on not knowing just what in the world was going on. “What the hell happened? They won’t tell me anything.”
“Shhh-shhh,” Nadirah said softly, taking hold of the hand that wasn’t hooked up to the IV and bending over to kiss her. “You’re going to be okay now.”
“But I don’t understand!” Joni wailed, fear and frustration growing.
“Shhh, it’s okay.”
“It can’t be okay if I’m lying in a hospital bed.”
“But it will be.”
“What happened? Tell me right now!”
“Okay,” Nadirah said, smiling, ever so pleased at Joni’s feisty determination. But then her expression turned very downcast. “You were attacked, sweetie.”
“A-attacked?”
Nadirah nodded grimly.
“As in raped?”
“No, nothing like that,” Nadirah was quick to say.
“Then what happened? Who did it and where and how…”
“Shhh, it happened at home.”
“At home?” Joni asked, clearly surprised. “But I thought we were safer out there.”
“I know, babe, but as the detective working the case said, bad things can happen anywhere.”
“Were you at work?”
“Uh, no, unfortunately, I was there, too,” Nadirah said, sounding as guilty as she did sad.
“But you weren’t attacked as well?”
“No,” Nadirah said, doing her best to give Joni the exact same story she’d given the police.
Joni needed a little time to absorb everything Nadirah had told her. It all just seemed so bizarre. “I’m just glad you weren’t hurt, too,” she finally said, “and I hope to hell they catch the bastard and slice and dice his ass real good.”
“Me too,” said Nadirah, unable to look directly at Joni at first. “But don’t think I wasn’t hurt, too. It just wasn’t in a physical way.”
“I don’t remember anything. When will I remember things?”
“Hopefully never, although it is possible that you may one day remember.”
Joni looked up into Nadirah’s eyes, which were full of emotion, and returned the kiss she leaned down to give her.
Exhausted once again, and with visiting hours just about over, Nadirah soon left and Joni drifted back off to sleep, feeling as if Nadirah were neglecting to tell her something.
Something very important.
Winter turned to spring and Joni’s cuts and bruises slowly healed. But her questions were still there, hovering on the surface of her mind. She wanted to remember what had happened to her. It was only normal to be curious about the incident, wasn’t it? At the same time, she was also afraid to remember, for she had a distinct feeling that remembering would change things forever. But if it would change things that significantly, then wouldn’t it be safe to assume it was something she needed to know and therefore something she should remember? Yet she couldn’t simply make herself remember things just because she wanted to. Trying to remember was like trying to get herself to remember being born.
Something was wrong with Nadirah. It was as if she knew more than she was letting on. Joni could sense it. But every time she questioned her about it, she insisted she had told her everything there was to know.
Nadirah was unusually kind. Joni had married a bitch who loved to dominate and argue. But that person was gone. In place of her was a very loving, caring person who now seemed to go out of her way to see to it that Joni got whatever she wanted. Perhaps it was due to feeling guilty for not being able to save her as she sat bound to the chair that fateful night, rendered completely helpless.
But that nagging feeling that said there was more to the story just wouldn’t let up. Even so, all Joni had remembered of the ordeal was an occasional fleeting blur of motion or a certain feeling that would be gone as fast as it had come. Never did she remember anything long enough to make any sense of it. She never saw the face of her attacker, never heard his voice, never heard Nadirah’s cries for mercy upon the woman she loved.
The question that had been on her mind was the same as what seemed to be on everyone else’s mind: why had the attacker spared Nadirah from the physical brunt of it? What made the lunatic decide that she was the one who was the “devil’s spawn” and therefore the one who must be attacked?
Nadirah had assured her that if the bastard was ever caught, she’d take care of him for her.
Uh-uh. Joni wanted that honor all for herself. She’d even said so to the friendly detective who came to interview her shortly after she’d come to. He’d smiled and said he understood how she felt, but Joni wouldn’t have given a damn if he hadn’t.
Joni was afraid to be home alone. She was afraid, even with Nadirah present and her gun and self-defense training, but she was especially afraid to be alone. She knew, however, that she couldn’t expect others to babysit her round the clock, and so she kept her best ear alert and tuned into any potential danger, as well as a loaded gun close by. She never went outside unarmed, even if it was just to jog around the house or to fetch the mail.
“I want to move,” Joni said one evening as Nadirah sat on the closed toilet cover while Joni soaked in a raspberry-scented bubble bath. “I know the odds of the psycho returning aren’t good, but I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“I know you don’t, sweetie, and I’ve been thinking of getting us out of here, too. It’s just not that easy.”
“Why not? They need forensics investigators everywhere, you know.”
“Yes, I know, and as chief of the FI department, I make a ton of money. More than enough to move us with. The problem is that I may not be able to get into such a position if we just up and suddenly go somewhere else.”
Joni frowned. “What’s more important to you? Money and position or peace of mind and safety?”
“Of course you’re most important to me, sweetie. But without enough money, I can’t take care of us.”
“I don’t cost much.”
“I know you don’t.”
“I only eat when I’m really hungry.”
Nadirah smiled. “I know, babe, and you don’t have to do that.”
“I can do my part to help out online. I’m limited with my disabilities and phobias, but I can still do some just like I always have.”
“I know you can, honey, and I promise you we’ll get out of here as soon as we can.”
“I used to love this cozy little place. Such a romantic little getaway is how I used to see this so-called safe haven in the woods that is no longer safe. I never felt like I missed out on our honeymoon because to me, this was paradise, and so I almost felt like we were honeymooning every day, just you and I, all cuddled up together in heaven when we weren’t fighting about some petty bullshit. And all without the city noise in the background. But maybe there really is safety in numbers, not that I miss the city of all places.”
Joni could see that Nadirah felt bad about how uneasy she felt nowadays. But she didn’t want her to feel bad; she only wanted her to do something to get them moved. She just didn’t know where they should move to.
“Look, I’m sick of the cold and the snow,” Joni continued, “and I know you’re no fan of it either. I’m sure Mallory would be perfectly willing to help us both get on our feet out in Cali, and I also know some people down in Arizona as well as up in Oregon. I just think Cali’s our best bet as far as you finding work. It’s a more temperate climate to be in, even though the winter nights do get pretty chilly, and well, the place I was in up in Oregon is even colder than here, and Arizona has a lot of bad traits about it. I don’t mind the heat, but the laws are a bit extreme. A lousy traffic ticket could practically get you a life sentence in that damn state. So let’s go to Cali.”
“Soon, Joni, soon. I promise you.”
Joni dropped it momentarily, even though she didn’t sense the same feeling of eagerness about getting the hell out of there coming from her husband. Yet if she’d worked her way up the ladder here in law enforcement, she could do it elsewhere as well, couldn’t she? Really, what was the damn problem? Her wife was nearly killed!
Joni rose from the tub, scented bubbles sliding down her body as she reached for her towel on the nearby towel rack.
“All set, babe?” Nadirah asked, standing up.
“Yes. I’m not disabled,” Joni said, “I can dry off myself.”
“Oh,” said Nadirah in a suggestive tone. “I just thought you might like a little help simply for the fun of it.”
Joni managed a smile. “Guess that depends on who’s helping.”
Nadirah snatched the towel away and wrapped it playfully around Joni. After she slowly - very slowly - patted her down with it, she towel-dried her hair, which was getting ridiculously long again. But as she’d learned years ago, her little wife didn’t believe much in haircuts. As Joni herself said, the best way to avoid a bad cut was not to bother in the first place. It saved money too, Joni also added.
Joni tied her hair into a knot much like one tied the end of a shirt into a knot, so it would be out of the way for a while.
A few minutes later, she was lying in bed on her back while Nadirah, who hovered above her, began kissing and tickling her still-undressed body.
A flash of… something.
Nadirah didn’t seem to notice. Straddling Joni, she pulled her shirt up over her head and threw it on the floor. When she started massaging Joni’s breasts, she noticed her stiffness. “You okay?”
Joni nodded.
“You sure?”
She nodded again, though she wasn’t sure at all.
Nadirah slowly brought her face towards Joni’s.
And Joni suddenly never felt more terrified in her life.
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