Behind The Mask (Nurses Book 2) Read online

  “Now, look, boy, we’ve all messed up with a woman some time or another. Stop beating yourself up and just get better, which is when you make a move. When you healed what’s on the inside, you can fix the mess you make on the outside.”

  “Oh yeah, what makes you think I want to make a move?” I growl out, because apparently in the span of two hours, meeting this woman has made my desire shine through to everybody. But I want to hear what this old timer has to say.

  “Son, a woman like that, all the men want. You can’t help but not, she has a personality that makes you want to be around her. But I will say this, she hasn’t been here but a few days and any man worth his salt can see that she is damaged. Wounded even. If you kept up with the news you would know why. But I can see you don’t, because you have no idea what I’m talking about. That girl was in the prison riot. The one on the other side of town. Plus, no man would forget he doesn’t have all his parts and try and stand if he didn’t want her.”

  He must see the confusion on my face because he just sighs and wheels away. Mumbling something under his breath about ‘clueless young men these days’, and if I didn’t know any better I would have thought he was a girl with as much gossiping as that man does. But he does make me curious as to what prison riot and why she would be connected to it.

  Not long after Gage had his flashback, I see Allyn go in the day room. Wonder what the hell is going on with that, they don’t strike me as besties, but a little time later I see Allyn wheel out, muttering to himself. Must not have been as friendly as I thought.

  The work day flies by, and when I open my front door I let out a long sigh because sometimes it’s lonely not having someone happy to see me at the end of the day. Maybe I should get a dog or a cat. Rescue a good one from the shelter, maybe it will be a life saving a life. Damian would shit if I got a dog since he cuts my grass. The thought of him stepping in dog shit makes me giggle because I wonder how his cool and collected self would react.

  Once housekeeping was done cleaning Gage’s hall, I thought maybe he would go back to his cave and leave well enough alone. But, nope, he I guess wanted to make amends with me. Every time I turned around he was trying to talk to me, and tell me jokes. A few times I would chuckle because I couldn’t help it. It helped the time fly by, and I found that secretly I enjoyed having him there. Plus, the eye candy was fantastic. He really is gorgeous. Having all of these people around has made me open up a little bit. I don’t tell them anything about me, but I do talk more than I have in months.

  My house seems so empty, not that it was ever full of anything except partying. But now it just seems so lifeless. Almost like a recently deceased person was here and nobody has inhabited it again. I guess that is kind of true because I’m not the same as I once was. But instead of how everyone talks of a rebirth when they change, I just fade away.

  Stripping off my scrubs and making my way to the shower, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I hate mirrors. I want them all gone but Damian refused when I asked him to take them out of my house. He said something about ‘one day it will all be better.’ Yeah, fat chance of that. Things won’t ever be the same. I will never be that carefree, fly by the seat of my pants girl again. But I’m realizing that it is ok, I don’t need to be the party girl. I’m good with fading away into the background. I’m good with being the unnoticeable one now.

  I regard the scars on my face as an annoyance because people stare. They think that I did something wrong. It seems to be the mentality of how we live in the world. Blame the perpetrator for everything he did, but most importantly, blame the victim. The victim’s actions caused the perpetrator to assault her. The victim wanted it somehow. But believe me when I say I never asked for this. I never asked for the scars on my face or the scars on the inside. I never asked to be used as his chew toy and bear the weight of being that girl from the prison every day. The news has dubbed me ‘the survivor’ but I feel anything but. Nobody really survives being raped repeatedly. They just learn to cope with the real world afterward. They become a phoenix of sorts, rising up from the ashes of the person they used to be. It is completely the victim’s choice in how they deal with the new life and the hand that life has dealt them.

  The steam of the shower blocks my face from the mirror, almost blocking me from going into an even darker place. Stepping into the streaming water, I just let it cascade down my back, trying to loosen up the worries of the day. Trying to erase the memories from my mind, almost as if I can make the memories go down the drain, never to return again. Thoughts of Gage enter my mind as I soap my hair up, and I’m startled by it. I haven’t had any interest in any guy since all of this happened. Not that I am interested in him, he is a crude man. But why do I keep thinking of him? More importantly, how am I going to get rid of this attraction? He is a mean, angry, rude person, but I also get that he is wounded, damaged, scarred just like me.

  After my shower, I put on my scar cream, knowing that the effort is futile. It will be a lost cause because this deep of a scar will never go away. I will forever be the girl with the X carved on her face. Depressing thought.

  Now goes my routine: eat dinner, flip through the TV, go to bed, have a nightmare, then go to work. It seems since everything, it never fails. Night after night, day after day, the routine never stops. A night never goes by without waking up drenched in sweat, ready to puke because I can smell his rancid breath on my face. I can hear his laughter in my mind, and I can feel the slice of his knife flaying my skin open. Every night, I swallow a scream while my mind replays the horrors of being raped multiple times by multiple inmates. My mind replays the video on a loop. Multiple times of being raped, beaten, cut, sliced, raped some more. It was hellish hours that still play out every night in my dreams.

  Dinner goes down like a bland rock sitting in my stomach. Nothing more than a watered down TV dinner, something that has too much salt that will probably give me cankles. Not that anyone is going to see my cankles, but I still want to avoid them. But that can wait for another night, I’m too tired.

  Lying in bed, I will my body into what will hopefully be a dreamless sleep, and my thoughts drift off to Gage. Green eyes seem to be watching me when I close my eyes. In my mind, I know this is a one-sided attraction, but it’s still an attraction. Which I guess is progress for me considering I haven’t found anything attractive since the riot. But there is a magnetism, a draw, a force that makes me want to be around him. Crazy because I only met him today, but my body feels as if he’s an old friend. Someone it has known for years, someone who is comfortable to the core to let them see every flaw.

  For the first time since the riot, I’m contemplating getting out my battery operated boyfriend, just by thinking of this man. It has been so long that even here in this empty room a nervous energy takes over. What if it hurts? What if I can’t do it? Will I ever be able to be intimate again with not only this but with an actual person?

  All of these questions hang in the air, and I decide that there is no better way to know if it will be bad than to try it. I feel self-conscious, feeling the bumps and scars along my stomach leading toward the little tract of hair I keep. Separating my folds, I circle my clit with my index finger. A shiver instantly goes down my spine to my toes and my thighs spasm. I dip my finger lower and am pleasantly surprised when I feel a wetness that I didn’t think would be there. Thinking of Gage, I almost immediately feel a surge of wetness and a warm feeling low in my belly, a need that hasn’t been there in so long. The feeling of wanting someone catches me off guard, and my breath hitches in my throat.

  Cutting my vibrator on, the buzzing sound fills the air. It’s almost a comforting sound because it cuts through the silence with its rhythmic hum. Lubing up the tip with my juices, I center the tip at my opening and start to push in. A panic starts to take over me, and I start clenching around the intrusion. I take a deep breath because I realize that I’m not in pain, I just need to calm my body down. This isn’t a bad thing happening, I just need
to remember that. After calming myself, I start to move the vibrator and to my surprise, it actually feels good. Feels like heaven actually, but as the time goes by, I feel my orgasm is just out of reach. Frustration starts to take over and sweat beads on my forehead from this exertion. My breathing comes out in short pants, sometimes cut by moans. I am so close, but I just can’t grab onto that toe curling feeling.

  In my mind’s eye, I’m imagining Gage laying me down and loving my body the way it should be. No scars, no wounds, no secrets, worshipping my body as if it’s a thing of beauty and not unsightly. This would be the dream that all women have. A man who worships a woman, cares and nurtures a woman, making her feel good from the inside out, making her skin glow in happiness. Of course, that is not Gage and that certainly isn’t me. But thinking of sharing such a tender emotion has me reaching my orgasm in a rush. One that hasn’t happened in months, and it makes me cry out. I cry out to the only thing that hears me, the walls. A wave of sadness blankets my body at the thought that the walls are the only thing here for me.

  I clean myself up and finish going through the process of getting ready for bed. I notice though that while I may feel sad for wasting my big o on the walls, I feel happier. Lighter even, and for the first time in a long time, I sleep without dreams.

  After dinner, which is all this heart healthy crap and watching a movie in my room, I pull out my laptop and wait for it to connect to the slow as molasses Wi-Fi here. I have to know what happened to her. It’s been all I’ve thought about since Allyn said something to me earlier. Sure, I could try to get in good with her and wait for her to tell me, but something about her makes me think she won’t be so forthcoming with that tale. While I wait for the search engine to take its sweet time to open, I think back on what Allyn said. Basically, all the men want her, but she needs a man worthy of her. For someone who is wanted by all, she sure seems oblivious to the desires of everyone.

  I’m certainly not the man that is worthy of having such a woman. I’m just curious as to what happened to her. I’ve got enough problems on my plate than dealing with a woman with baggage the size of Texas. After my search engine opens, I type in Cori Shawbell and press enter. After about a minute I am flooded with information of every Cori Shawbell in existence. Pictures of her before whatever happened and a grainy picture of her that was taken in a hospital. Some of these pictures are of her smiling, carefree, looking like a party girl. Looking exactly like the kind of girl I would take home from a bar. But there are more serious pictures, too—after her accident— her scars red and angry. One of her in a hospital bed, on a ventilator with bandages covering a good portion of her. She looks so small in that one, almost childlike. Swollen and battered, her face has those butterfly bandages keeping the wound closed.

  I haven’t read anything yet, I’m just taking my time looking at the before and after. The one thing that remains the same is the eyes. Her eyes are brown, like melted chocolate or caramel, with these long eyelashes that sweep her cheeks when she blinks. Her eyes carry a gentleness that instantly welcomes you, even when she is angry. Eyes that when they enter the room they instantly look for an escape, like they want to be anywhere but where they actually are.

  Listen to me, I sound like a bitch. But all I can feel with this woman is a fierce protectiveness. I know that once I read these articles I will be seeing red, so I’m taking my time studying her features before I get to the nitty gritty. What’s odd is that looking at the old pictures are great, she was a knockout and I mean grade-a gorgeous and still is. But looking at the new ones gets my dick hard… hard enough to pound nails. The new pictures have an edge to them that wasn’t there when she was the cookie cutter gorgeous. Maybe a sadness? It makes me feel worse because who gets their dick hard on someone’s sadness?

  Clicking on a link, I see that it’s a national news organization that has written an article about her. So this was that big of a deal, and I never heard of it. I don’t know if I was even stateside when it happened. Taking a deep breath, I start reading. Didn’t even make it out of the first paragraph without seeing red and wanting to snap my laptop in half. A few months ago, an inmate who was the leader of a gang started a riot at the prison Cori where worked. Cori got caught in it and paid a huge price, one that almost was life ending. Come to find out the inmate had an obsession with a different nurse but decided to take it out on her. I feel sick to my stomach reading this. She was raped multiple times by multiple inmates, bitten, beaten, and cut. When she was rescued, she was barely breathing and spent a few months in the hospital with the first few weeks on a ventilator.

  By the time I’m done reading the first article I’m seething, but I can’t stop. I have to keep reading, maybe there is different information in each article. Because as of right now, I want to dig up this fucker and string him up from Hell. I feel murderous, wanting to rip something limb from limb. I’m ferocious with the taste of blood, and that taste has left me wanting more.

  I want to save her, redeem her, polish her tarnish. But hell, I can’t even stay in a wheelchair, let alone try to help this woman. Plus, I need to decide whether it’s my dick wanting to help or if I really feel that way. Barely being able to help myself is an understatement, so how the hell would I help her? She deserves so much more than some man whore who’s missing a leg. I can’t offer her shit in this life except a friendship, and who the hell wants that? I’m a shell of the man that I used to be. I have no home, no friends, no anything in this life. But I just can’t ignore this feeling. Something about her calls to me, making me feel things I’ve never felt towards another person before. Hell, I’ve only known her for one fucking day, who acts like this?

  Reading more, that fucker wasn’t the only casualty of the riot. Other inmates died along with guards and another nurse. I also see a mention of the woman who was the original target of this sadistic asshole. Her name was Olivia and going back through the pictures I see one of her, Cori, and some dude. They all look friendly, which irritates me. I dunno why because she isn’t my girl. But seeing another man with his arm around her and that other girl has me pissed even further.

  I shut it down for the night because I’m so pissed off that I’m shaking. In the pit of my stomach is a fire that has been ignited. A fire that wants me to change, to redeem myself, a fire that gives me a sliver of hope for the future. Starting with rehab and therapy and all that psychobabble bullshit. I still know nothing about this girl, but something about her calls to me. A siren song to my soul, as cheesy as that sounds. But I feel that if I can get myself on track, then I can try to slay her dragons. I know that she has to fix herself, but I can be the one to help her. Now, I just lay here and wait… wait for the nightmare that plagues me every night. Wait for the morning when I can try to do better. Wait, always waiting it seems, but now this waiting doesn’t seem so bad.

  ~~

  Heat on my face and a pain where my leg used to be. I feel the fires raging all around me. I see the broken and battered bodies flung in every different direction. Someone’s brain matter stains the sand. Shouting in a foreign language is assaulting my ears along with a ringing I know is from the roadside bomb. People are running all around, women’s hijabs are flapping in the air as they frantically run around. Ramirez is facing me, yet again, with his eyes wide open. It’s the same nightmare, every night. But I know this is a nightmare, and I know that this will end.

  Even though a nightmare, it all feels so very real. My brothers, my friends, my comrades all lying with no spark in their eyes, one even staring at me, unblinking. It’s like losing them all over again, day after day. My heart gets ripped out whenever I close my eyes. But it’s not often that I have two nightmares or flashbacks or whatever the fuck you want to call them, back to back. Usually, it’s one a day, at night when the world is quiet, the agony creeps in. The horrors of that day replay on an endless loop until morning when I can see the clouds move away. Laying here in the sand, just waiting, I decide to try something new. I calm myself because subc
onsciously I know this is just a dream, and it isn’t real anymore. I take a deep breath through the pain to calm myself. Someone sees me moving, trying to get to my guys, and for the first time, someone walks towards me.

  Huh, well this is new. Nobody has ever come to me before.

  Maybe this is what happened after I blacked out in that desert waiting for the rescue crew to get to us. They walk closer, their face covered by the sun. I reach for my sidearm but nothing is there. What the fuck is going on? This has never happened before. They aren’t stopping just meandering closer to me, and I can finally see their eyes and face. Now I know my mind is playing fucking tricks on me because that piece of shit Xavier has no reason to be here, he’s the one who attacked Cori. I’m dumbfounded, but I’m on guard as he approaches because that is all I can do. Somewhere in the blast, I have lost my sidearm, lost any way to defend myself.

  “You know, I was the last man in that cunt, and I’ll probably be the last man to touch her, too. Her screams were music to my ears, and I swallowed her screams, letting them fuel me as I pounded into her dry pussy. She never stood a chance with me,” he sneers out.

  “I am going to fucking murder you.”

  “But see that is where you are wrong, my boy, I’m already dead. Her bitch friend killed me. But at least, I got to enjoy the taste of Cori before I died. I ruined her, I devoured every inch of her skin and branded her with my marks. I wrecked her for the rest of her life. Nobody will have that girl again.”

  My blood is boiling, reaching a fever pitch that I didn’t know was possible. I know this is a flashback, but it still affects me in a way that is off the charts. If I could stand I would gladly gut this man in my nightmare. I would take out all of my frustration on his face. I would live a thousand of these nightmares a night just to see his face each time and to be able to kill him over and over again.