“Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.” Her father’s voice echoed down the long years and she silently thanked him for that stupid little piece of wisdom while she cursed herself. It was true that she hated him and the things he had put both her and her sister through but it was equally true that she felt grateful to him, grateful that he had taught her the things she needed to know in on order to exact vengeance upon those who had wronged both her and her sister so horribly.

Chapter 14

The pool water washed the tears from her eyes as Sean dove under the water. She wished so much that she could tell her sister what she was going to do, what she had done in the past when she was still Sarah’s brother, but it just wasn’t fair to put that burden on her. She hadn’t even shared the truth with Charlie after these many years. Beneath all of that altruism there was a deep and very real fear of betrayal instilled in her much earlier in her life. As she rose to the surface and gulped air, she was glad the water hid the fact that tears were streaming from her eyes. The peace of submersion brought her back to her own thoughts and helped her to think.

“Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.” Her father’s voice echoed down the long years and she silently thanked him for that stupid little piece of wisdom while she cursed herself. It was true that she hated him and the things he had put both her and her sister through but it was equally true that she felt grateful to him, grateful that he had taught her the things she needed to know in on order to exact vengeance upon those who had wronged both her and her sister so horribly.

The first time, she remembered, was when she had discovered that the man who had raped her sister and her own best friend(his own daughter!) in childhood lived in the same town that they had moved to only a year or so before. She had made herself wait almost a full year, plotting vengeance, trying to come up with something suitably awful to inflict upon him. She wanted to castrate him, cut his dick off and make him plead for his life as he bled out, but when the time came and her plans came to fruition, thee had been time for nothing but a quick thrust of her knife up into his ribcage, piercing his heart. She cut his throat for good measure, one quick slice while he gasped out his last breath before she managed to shove his already lifeless body off of the remnants of the wrecked bridge into the water for the tide to carry out to sea. One less raping bastard to pollute the world.

There had only been two occasions when she had killed for vengeance since then, so she couldn’t exactly call herself a crusader or anything. If anything, she felt almost as dirty as the men who had done the things for which she had administered the ultimate punishment. True, she had killed, and she knew that she was supposed to feel remorse for that, but she didn’t. Instead, there was a sort of joy and that perhaps more than anything else tore her up inside.

They say vengeance makes the heart grow cold, but it hadn’t done so for her and that made her wonder if she was any better than the stone killer her father had been. The truth was she still gloried in her kills. The feeling of almost sexual excitement as her sister’s rapist voided the contents of his arteries on her when he died had not diminished. The bright coppery taste of his blood in her mouth as she licked it from her hands before diving into the murky brackish water to clean herself still stuck in her memories as one of the most glorious moments in her young life and it made her wonder if there was something truly wrong with her. Was she a murderer like her father? She couldn’t honestly say she felt any remorse for her actions, quite the opposite in fact.

These thoughts occupied her mind as she swam beneath the surface of the water. The concrete of the far edge confronted her and with a smooth movement, she flipped and headed back for the other side of the pool, still underwater. She was barely aware of her body as she swam back and forth across the pool, never surfacing for breath. It didn’t seem to matter to her that she needed to breathe until she felt strong arms lift her out of the welcoming embrace of the meditative state into which she had placed herself.

“Please baby breathe! Please you gotta breathe!” Her pulse thundered slowly in her own ears as waves of sound seemed to crash in upon her peaceful state and she slowly became aware of something other than her own memories and worries. It was Charlie, pleading with her, but it didn’t seem to make sense.

“Little sis, if you don’t breathe I’m going to have Leif jump up and down on your chest!” Something about that penetrated and she gasped in a long slow breath. Another followed and she felt herself begin to return to the world she had wanted so desperately to leave behind for the kind of peace that she had felt beneath the surface. There was a circle of concerned faces around her as she looked up into the gathering darkness of a cerulean sky.

“I’m okay; just leave me alone for a minute. Please just leave me alone!” She could feel the heat of the tears trickling down her face as she lay there, blurring the faces of the people she loved. “Please just go away; you can’t love someone like me. I’m a horrible person! I’m a monster and I don’t deserve love!” The heat of her tears seemed to burn her cheeks as she felt herself gathered up into strong and caring arms carrying her she knew not where. It didn’t really matter at that moment where she was being borne, but she knew it was somewhere better than she deserved.

She lay there well into the evening, almost unaware of the fact that gentle hands were wiping the unending tears from her face and gentle arms were holding her tightly as she sobbed out her grief. She was grieving for the loss of her own innocence and didn’t even know it, but the trio surrounding her did. They took turns stroking her and holding her and wiping her tears until finally she subsided into a fretful sleep.

After Leif had carried Sean to a bed and gently covered her up while Charlie kissed her goodnight, the three of them convened in the living room. Simon and Vasily were chatting in the kitchen with Eric who was trying to enjoy a moment after work with his dinner. Finding himself unable to concentrate on the meal, Eric finally decided to get to the point. “Do either of you have any idea what is going on? I get home from doing my show and I’m confronted with some kind of major drama and I have no concept what it’s about!”

Simon paused for a moment before replying. “Err, I have an idea, but the person you really need to be asking about this isn’t in any condition to answer your questions and your wife won’t tell us anything, so I think I should probably kind of follow her lead if you know what I mean.” He leaned forward and gestured earnestly at Eric with his drink, just barely managing to remain in his chair as he did. “You just gotta deal, man. There’s a lot of history going on there and I think some of it just came home to Aack!” A none too steady Vasily tried to catch him as his precarious hold on the chair failed and they both tumbled to the floor.

Eric’s curiosity was put on hold for a moment as he helped the two navigate to their room. “Talk about the blind leading the blind drunk!” He was still muttering to himself as he made his way into the living room. “Alright, what happened?”

Sarah had to think for a moment before she replied. “Well, Sean had a little emotional crisis and went into one of her meditative trances, only this time we couldn’t just wait for her to come out of it on her own because she was in the pool and wouldn’t come up for air. She just kept swimming back and forth from one end to the other for almost 5 minutes. Leif dragged her out of the water and she still wouldn’t breathe, but after she had a good cry she went off to sleep.” She paused to consider what exactly to say to her husband for a moment. “I’m pretty sure it was a guilt attack over what she did to those men a few years ago, but there’s something more she won’t tell me and these two aren’t exactly much help. The only thing I know for sure is that whatever it is; she hasn’t even shared it with Charlie.”

All Eric could really do was nod sagely while the thoughts raced through his mind. He knew a few things about his sister in law that he hadn’t even shared with his wife and was certain this had something to do with that. He was equally certain that Sean’s emotional crisis meant very bad things for someone and he knew he had to keep that to himself as well. It wasn’t like he could tell his wife that he knew her little sister had killed more than once and was highly likely to do so again. He was fairly certain she knew, but they had never talked about it and right now just didn’t seem like a good time to do that.

“Well, alright then, as long as it’s handled. I think I’ll have a shower and go to bed.” He kissed his wife before making his way out of the room.

The next day, Sean seemed to be recovered and they spent the day at Bok Tower Gardens, having a nice picnic in the botanical gardens and listening to recitals from the 60 bell carillon. They admired the massively built stone tower with its intricate tile mosaics and wanted to go through the massive brass door to find out what the inside looked like, but the century old tower had been closed to visitors since it’s completion. As a result they just wandered around the gardens for a while until the summer heat got to be too much before making the short trek back to the house.

Sean seemed to spend most of this time in her own little world, responding to the beauty of the place but not really interacting with the others. By the time they reached the house and stowed their bicycles in the garage Charlie was finding it just a little difficult to keep a lid on her frustration and left the others to their own devices while she made a beeline for the pool, stripping off sweat sodden clothing as she went. Tepid though the water was, it was still a shock when she dove from almost 100 degree heat into 80 degree water, so she wasn’t paying attention to the fact that there was another splash just after her own entry.

She gave little start as arms encircled her from behind and a familiar warm contralto murmered into her ear. “I’m sorry I was out of it today. Forgive me?” She squirmed as Sean nibbled on her ear and squealed as she felt fingers caressing her nether regions.

“Quit that, we’re at your sister’s house! Now let’s just enjoy cooling off for a minute and we’ll go figure out what’s for dinner.” She reluctantly disengaged from the amorous embrace and turned to face Sean. “Hey, what say we find the best restaurant around and treat her and Eric to it? That only seems fair.”

“Whatever you say, baby. We have to bring Simon and Vasily along too, though. You know tomorrow is Simon’s interview and I think we should celebrate both tonight and tomorrow night. Poor Vasily is going to be very lonely for a while and I think we should do our best to make it as easy as possible for him. You know, those two remind me a lot of you and I way back when.” She reached under the water and tweaked a nipple, bringing a stifled gasp from Charlie. “I just hope they can be happy after she changes. They’ve had a while to get used to each other as they are now and I hope Vasily can handle the new her and her new job. When you think about it, we had lots of advantages most new caregivers don’t. I feel kind of parental toward her, and even a little toward him. I wonder if it’s like that with a real child?”

Sarah spoke up from just behind them. “Well, I guess so, but its been a long time since I had a child getting ready to have a sexual awakening or a first experience. I can tell you that you always want to make sure your kids are happy, as much as you can anyway. I mean, you guys are way more involved in the whole thing than I was when my kids went through that, but trust me, you never stop worrying about their happiness.” She paused for a moment, mustering up her courage to say what she was thinking. “Little sis, are you thinking about having kids?”

She knew from the bright shade of scarlet both of them turned that she had guessed right. “You are, aren’t you?”

It took Sean a moment to recover from her embarrassment and reply. “Well, I guess so, yeah. It wouldn’t be for a while yet, we have to figure out how we’d deal with kids on board the ship and we haven’t talked to Leif or Gunnar about it at all, but you know we’ve always kinda raised other people’s kids. It’s nice to think that one day we might have some rug rats of our own. It’s just that the idea of raising them in space is kinda cool and really scary at the same time, you know?”

“Trust me sis, it’s no less scary when there’s a whole planet for them to get in trouble on.” She pulled them both into a hug and kissed them. “You just have to promise me that you’ll let them spend some time with me dirtside when they’re old enough, ok?”

“Sis, if and when it happens, you got a promise. Of course you realize that any kids from either of us are going to be pure hell for the parents, right?”

“Oh shit, a little you! What have I let myself in for?” Sarah fell back into the water with her forehead over her brow in a melodramatic pose. Just as she rose from beneath the water, Leif landed just beside them in a classic cannonball, creating a huge wave which swamped the group, followed by Simon on the other side. By the time they were all exhausted from their play and ready to exit the pool, Eric was calling from the end of the lanai.

“Ok, how do you batch of miscreants want your steaks done?”

The five spacers responded with glee and a variety of orders, only to be met with laughter from Sarah. “Please, you lot think I’d turn him loose with a grill? Come on, get out and go get showered, we’re going to the best restaurant in Florida!” Eric tried terribly hard to act as though he was offended but it just didn’t go over all that well and they all trooped off to get ready for a memorable outing.