NUMB by Judy Colella (tools of titans ebook txt) 📕

His first reaction to hearing that she wasn’t dead was nearly identical to his reaction upon hearing she was. He’d gone numb, his mind beginning to tick down like some weird kind of internal time-clock, a count-down timer on a bomb. The last time, when it reached zero, he had checked out of the realm of sanity. This time – who knew? Would he be overwhelmed with clarity or something?

What the hell, ‘Tarah. Where did you go and why? Why did they tell me you had died?

“Jett?”

He didn’t look up, mostly because his thoughts were louder than his father’s voice at that moment.

“What’s wrong, son?”

Tick-tick-tick…

The front door opened. He heard it, but it didn’t mean anything yet. Tick-tick-tick…

A hand on his shoulder. “Dude, what’s wrong?”

Now he did look up, saw his brother, and simultaneously reached the end of the count-down. He jumped to his feet, tears in his eyes, and grasped Jax by the shoulders. Gulped.

“What’s wrong, Jett? What happened?”

He whispered a name.

“What about her?”

He whispered a word.

“H-how did you…who told you?”

Letting go, he pointed to the phone. “CIA,” he rasped. Then he gave Jax a strange look, understanding dawning through the tears. “You knew?!”

“I, well, n..yeah, some of it. We didn’t want to say anything - ”

“WE??” If his voice hadn’t been ruined, the word would have been a shout.

“Yes, love,” said his mother. “We. But no one knew where she was, or even if she was still alive, so we decided not to tell you until we had more information. And even then, well, you’ve already been through hell, Jett, and none of us wanted to make you walk through there again.”

He stared. Too much needed to be said, but he had to start somewhere. Where? After a few moments, he found a starting point. Using his newly-acquired, if elementary, sign-language skills, he swallowed back the pain in his throat and with his hands said, “You are not making sense.”

It took several seconds for Jax to interpret the signs, and then he told Jett to sit down, that there was a lot to tell him.

Nodding, the younger Kinsley returned to the sofa, then sat, becoming immobilized by what his brother was telling him. He listened without allowing himself to question any of it so he wouldn’t miss a word. When Jax finished, he closed his eyes and released the flood he’d been containing. HHhHhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHThen he doubled over, sobbing with a combination of horror and relief, fear and hope, disbelief and joy.

No one touched him while he let go of it all; he didn’t notice or even think about that. But he did feel something else – Jett Kinsley – the stronger version. Coming back home. At that moment, he knew that even if Atarah was lost again, he’d get through it this time without going into automatic self-destruct.

The only part of this that he didn’t allow himself to consider was the detail about who she was with. That small person without whom she apparently never went anywhere. That little piece of her…of him. According to his mother, Atarah had found out she was pregnant shortly before leaving for Greece. No. Don’t think about it. Not yet.

When at last the raging emotions put themselves back in order, he sat up, wiping his eyes with the back of one arm, took a few quick breaths, then a few slower ones, and gave his family a twisted smile. “Sorry,” he signed.

Again, the lag for interpretation. “No need to apologize,” said Bryson. “I don’t think we owe you an apology, either, since this was all in your best interest, but I think we do all feel rather bad about not being able to give you this information sooner. What I am sorry about is that you had to hear it from some government agent. Which reminds me – how were you able to talk on the phone?”

Jett shrugged. “I SHOUTED,” he said in what for him was a shout.

“Well, don’t do it again.” Celia looked unhappy. “I heard there was some kind of device that could boost the sound of a person’s voice to make them easier to hear on the other end. We’ll look into it, but in the meantime, stop answering the phone, young man.”

He nodded. He could do that. What was going to be a problem right then, however, was relaying to his family what the FBI had told him. Certain he didn’t know enough signs yet for that many words and phrases, Jett got up, raised a hand to indicate they should wait, and went into the small office on the other side of the foyer. He took a legal pad and a pen from his father’s desk, and returned to the living room, then sat on the sofa and began to write.

When he was done, he tore off the sheet and handed it to Jax.

“Oh, crap. Mom, they said they found her, but they’re using her as bait for this doctor guy who abducted her. No wonder Jett was confused – if he didn’t know she was even alive, that kind of message wouldn’t have made any sense.” Jax handed the paper to his father.

“Why would they do this?” He shook his head as Celia peered past his arm to read Jett’s words. “They’re putting her and the boy in danger, yes?”

“I wonder if Chara knows any of this.” Celia went out into the foyer and came back with her cell phone.

“You’re going to call her?”

“Yes, Bry. She and Seth are back in the U.S., by the way. They came home a week ago – I’d like to know if their coming back had anything to do with this, this operation or whatever with the FBI.” She began pressing keys.

“Do you think it’s a good idea to call her?”

“I think it’s a bad idea not to. I mean, what if – hello? Chara?” She fell silent, nodding, and went back out into the foyer.

“According to this, Jett is expected to ‘sit tight’ and wait to be contacted,” said Bryson. “As if that’s possible.”

Jett took the page from his father and, bending down to write, added the words, “I want to go to Russia.”

Jax, leaning down and reading as Jett wrote, straightened. “Are you nuts? Look, little brother, as much as I understand your need to see her and maybe even help, you could seriously get in the way of whatever the government guys are doing, and possibly increase the danger to your wife!”

Jett rolled his eyes, and threw his hands in the air, frustrated. Before he could do anything else, though, his mother came back into the room.

“She knew, but they told her not to discuss the situation with anyone, and said they’d be contacting Jett themselves.”

“Great, Mom, but what did they tell her? I mean, was it any different from what Jett was told?” Jax seemed to be growing more and more alarmed by the way this thing was escalating.

“Just that they’d contacted ‘Tarah, and told her to go about her life as if they hadn’t. They said she asked them to take her son somewhere safe, but they said that would alert the doctor that something had changed. At the time they spoke with Chara, they had yet to locate the doctor, but had a feeling he was in St. Petersburg.” Celia shoved the phone into the pocket of her cardigan. “This is worse than a spy movie!” She scowled and plopped down into one of the wing-back chairs near the sofa.

Awesome. Okay, yeah, I’ll survive if that creep gets to her, but I really don’t want to go through losing her again. Sit tight…right. That isn’t going to happen. Jett stared at the paper still on the table, Jax having read it without picking it up. He re-read what he’d written about the message the operative had given, wondering why, if they hadn’t successfully rescued Atarah yet, they were telling him anything at all. Did they think he’d shrug and say, “Okay, whatever,” and let them get on with their plan without any questions from him or his family? Or maybe they were giving him a subtle suggestion to go there and help. But why would trained government agents seek the help of someone so emotionally invested, and whose training was athletic in nature, not military? Nope. Didn’t track.

And then he allowed the thought that had come to him immediately upon hanging up with the operative – the thought that he’d immediately pushed away. He couldn’t ignore it any more and asked himself what would happen if the agents failed? What if this doctor succeeded in getting to her and took her away again – worse, hurt or killed her out of a perverted need for vengeance against her for running away from him the first time? And his son…by God, he had a son! That did it. He knew his passport was still current, that he could get a flight by the next day and be in Moscow –

“Jett? What are you thinking?”

Without realizing he’d been doing so, and after picking it up, Jett had begun tearing the piece of paper into strips. He regarded his father with a deep scowl. What do you imagine I’m thinking, Dad? He made the sign for “going away” and went out of the room. He was halfway up the stairs before his family could interpret the gestures.

“What the hell do you mean ‘going away?’” demanded Jax, hurrying after him.

Shaking his head, Jett kept going. When he got to his room, he went to the computer, switched it on, and began a search for flights to either Moscow or St. Petersburg. Jax had followed and was standing beside him, watching as Jett searched, but didn’t speak.

While he waited for one of the sites to redirect him to the page with flight and price information, he pulled up a new window and opened the Notepad feature. “What do you want, Jax?” he typed.

“Just wanted to make sure you got two tickets, is all.”

“You want to go with me?”

“Come on, Jett – do you really think I’d let you do this alone?” He put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “We’re both sniper-level marksmen and I’m sure we can get hold of a couple of rifles once we get there.”

“What? Great, Jax. Think they’ll give us adjoining cells when they throw us in prison?”

“We won’t get caught. Besides, we might even be able to work with the FBI.”

“Uh, right. Bet they can’t wait for us to volunteer our services. This isn’t the movies, bro.”

“No, it isn’t. Wish it was, though. At least we could read ahead and know what was going to happen.”

Jett gave a silent chuckle and typed, “Hope Mom and Dad aren’t listening. All they’ll hear is your side of this conversation. Probably get a court order to have you locked up in Bluebird for a sudden loss of sanity.”

“You’re a riot, Jett. Can we get back to the airline page, please?”

Nodding, Jett reduced the Notepad window and got back to work finding the best flight, this time checking the price for two seats.

*******

A tiny gleam – nothing more, but it shouldn’t have been there. Atarah, having only caught this from the corner of her eye as she went past the window of her living room, stopped a few inches beyond it, turned around, and using the curtain as a screen, looked outside. Nothing. It had to have been the angle. She went past the window again, this time looking sideways as she went.

There it was! Something in one of the doorways of the building across the street. She’d passed the window every day at this time of the evening, but had never noticed it, and came to the conclusion that it didn’t belong. So what was it? Who was it? FBI agent? Or Dr. Kobienko? Maybe someone working for him.

She went into