Stepbrother Soldier: A Forbidden Military Romance Novel by Emily Whittaker

it all away.

 
    When I woke up, we were crossing the border into
Nebraska.

 
     

 
 

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Part 2

9

 
    As I opened my
eyes, still-half asleep, there was a sign: “Nebraska: The Good Life.”

 
    My first thought was one I’d had before, many times; in fact, every
time I ever crossed the state line, I thought the same thing. It was almost
like a knee-jerk reaction in my brain. We’re
not in Kansas anymore.

 
    That would be the last normal, or at least emotionally neutral,
thought I’d have for a long time. It was followed, too quickly, by reality. Or,
what passed for reality at the time.

 
    The Admiral. Ashton. Running to the pick-up. The taste of the
Admiral’s dirty, rotten, whiskey-soaked tongue in my mouth. My struggle under
his weight. His words, ringing in my ears still. Bitch, whore, bitch, whore, bitch, whore. My stomach dropped, then
flipped, then seemed to idle in a state of nausea.

 
    None of that happened, I thought, my brain trying to push the memories
down, someplace I couldn’t reach them. It
happened, it happened to you, it happened. I didn’t want to remember. I
didn’t want to forget. I wanted to stop existing. Each time I blinked, still
drawing my subconscious upwards from sleep, I could see the Admiral’s face,
feel his hands on me. I shivered and whimpered, my emotions taking me over as I
became fully awake.

 
    It was daylight. I’d slept through the whole night. Ashton looked over
me as I shook my head. If it had been a normal morning, I’d have yawned and
stretched and let myself wake up slowly. In the pickup, there was no room to
stretch, and my mind was racing too much to yawn, and the longer I stayed in
that twilight stage between sleeping and waking the less I could depend on my
own brain to protect me from the memories. They were going to happen no matter
what, but at least if I was fully awake and alert I could try to control them a
little bit.

 
    “Christy,” Ashton said, my name sounding strained coming out of his
mouth. “I almost wish you’d stayed asleep.”

 
    “Me too,” I said, looking at him for a long moment. It was all so
surreal. I’d only just admitted to what I felt for him, had just lost my
virginity to him two days prior, and yet now, looking at him, it was almost
like I couldn’t recognize him. Too much had happened in that short time between
then and now. I was a different person. So, maybe, was he.

 
    I let the minutes go by before I spoke again. I tried to figure out
what to say. This wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, a normal morning.
It wasn’t like I was going to say “good morning, how did you sleep?” or “did
you have any interesting dreams?” or “do you have any plans for the day?” It
was like having to re-learn how to be a human. Everything I wanted to say,
wanted to ask, was just beyond my reach, just beyond a limit I didn’t want to
cross just yet.

 
    So I started with something easy.

 
 
 
    “Where
are we going?”

 
    “My aunt’s farm. She’s got a place up in Pilger. Nice place, and we
might be safe there for a little while,” Ashton said, eyes glued to the road,
knuckles white. I glanced at the speedometer. We weren’t just making time; we
were making insane time.

 
    “Maybe we should slow down a little bit?” I said, motioning with my
eyes to the speedometer. He looked down and I saw his shoulders slump a little
bit, his body shift, as he took his foot off the pedal slightly. He looked at
me with a sheepish grin, but in a split second, it seemed, it was gone.

 
    “I didn’t know you had an aunt,” I said. It was true: I’d never heard
of an aunt, either on the Admiral’s side or Ashton’s mother’s side.

 
    “You wouldn’t