Protectors by Kris Nelscott

Author:Kris Nelscott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: WMG Publishing Incorporated

29

Eagle

Eagle wished she had a Polaroid. She wanted to take photographs of every inch of Norma’s body. The woman was covered in bruises—old bruises, new bruises, fading bruises, bruises just emerging.

Her husband was a sadist, an effective one. He liked administering pain, but he knew when to stop. He took Norma to the verge of needing emergency medical attention, but never did enough damage to make it inevitable. He gave his wife injuries that she could live with.

Eagle did not shudder. She had seen this too many times, in a variety of different ways. She’d seen it more than she wanted to here, at the gym, although not this effectively.

She’d seen this kind of damage in Pleiku on some of the Vietnamese, particularly the guides that the men no longer trusted. There was one officer who had taken torture to an art form, knowing how to inflict the maximum amount of pain for a minimal amount of damage.

It looked like Luciano Paolinie had learned that skill somewhere too.

She didn’t mention this to Norma. Norma had been reluctant to show her injuries to Eagle, even though Eagle had insisted. Norma never entirely undressed. She took off some articles of clothing as Eagle needed to examine different parts of her body, but left other articles of clothing on. Eagle had had to cajole to see every inch of Norma, but somehow, she had managed.

The worst damage she had found was on Norma’s face. Her husband had broken her nose, and judging by the feel of it, he had done so before. Eagle taped it up, despite Norma’s protests, being exceedingly careful with Norma’s left cheek as she did so.

X-rays would tell Eagle if the cheekbone was damaged, because her fingers couldn’t probe cautiously enough. After the work on the nose, Norma kept moving away. The pain was too much.

But a damaged cheekbone wasn’t life threatening, and it had become clear that Eagle wouldn’t get Norma to a doctor unless her injuries threatened her life.

The locker room smelled of damp tile, wet towels, and industrial-strength cleaners. Pammy had managed to clean it up enough to make it presentable for the morning’s classes, but it still had a dinginess that seemed unique to heavily used locker rooms everywhere.

The baby’s nest of towels remained on the bench. Norma kept looking at that nest as if it had given her inspiration. Or maybe, strength.

Because God knew, this woman needed strength. She had stayed with her sadist much too long.

Her torso was an abstract painting of bruises, bruises upon bruises upon bruises. She had winced as Eagle pushed on them, feeling for swelling underneath the skin, especially around the stomach and the vital organs.

Eagle hadn’t found anything on the torso, except the badly healed unevenness of a broken rib. Norma’s buttocks and thighs had taken the most serious beatings. It looked like the rat bastard had kicked her repeatedly in the lower back. Two bruises shaped like footprints crisscrossed over the back of her right thigh, and that was where her limp originated.

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