The Rescuer Ch. 01

It wasn't a joke, when I told Keeley that Ruthy was my little guard cat, and that she would now carefully watch over us both in the tiny apartment we shared with her. I'd grown up with several generations of her feline family in my life. One of my most cherished earliest memories was of her great-grandmother guarding my crib.

Where most young toddlers had fake fuzzy stuffed animals, I had had a living gray furred companion to keep a much needed and very necessary eye on me.

But Ruthy herself had already been with me for so much! Those dark green eyes felt the loss of Emma, and Karen now too, every bit as much as I did! As the pain in my limbs and heart grew even worse, my four legged friend shifted around on the couch's arm even more uncomfortably, as if she too could actually feel the agony I was fighting against.

Normally I ran at times like these!

Refusing to face the memories and the real reasons for such tragic multiple heartaches, I would run away to distract myself! With anything I could find! I'd just recklessly throw myself into any brutally physical task. It really didn't matter to me what I did. Almost anything was better than dealing with such pain, head on, especially when faced with the forbidden stillness that might actually solve it.

I actually growled in anger over having just blithely overcommitted myself to too many other new errands to do today. It would be hours before I could get to the building where I was personally doing all of the demolition. Even there, I was running out of constructive things to destroy! The thought of picking up any of the practice weapons I also kept stashed there, filled me with true dread.

Far too often lately, I had been losing myself in whirlwinds of potential death. Brutally hard edges would bash. Lethally sharpened edges would slash.

All of the old well worn examples of the weapons that I had been taught to use since my childhood... now once again felt comfortable in my hands... as much if not more as any of the other tools I had also committed myself to master.

I could do just as much damage with my bare hands alone though!

My original weapons master was famous for his philosophy as well as his fighting. He refused to allow any student in his care to pick up a single weapon in his presence, until they had proved they could control their hands and bodies with equally as much skill as their minds and emotions.

I'd never had problems physically, and the burned and battered body of my early childhood had rapidly healed under his tutelage. But my damaged mind and heart should have excluded me from any more training than that.

On the inside I was a broken thing... shattered beyond all repair... and deemed far too unstable to ever risk making even more dangerous.

But such was the honor, power, wealth and debt owed to my grandfather, that a still potentially tragic exception had been made in my case.

So a large part of my youth had been kept hidden from the rest of my family. They weren't even allowed to see the rest of my more conventional training. After my parents' deaths, I had traveled almost everywhere my grandfather went. Learning quietly at his side. Observing how the original family fortune had first been created, and then finally why half of it had been given away over a century ago.

As I grew older, it was no longer possible to hide whom I resembled most from our family histories. Nor that I might be every bit as strangely gifted as they had been. Generations worth of well warranted fears weren't easy to erase.

No one who even vaguely remembered even a few of the almost legendary old stories was easily fooled.

A paint brush and some watercolors, a bit of charcoal and rag paper, a well sharpened chisel and a bit of stone for an arch? A painting, a sketch, or architectural drawing brought to life? In my hands, they could be just as easily used to destroy as create. But today all of my tools, even the antique weapons of my childhood, were themselves still blameless.

It was what I did... and sometimes even more importantly did not do with them... that really mattered.

My grandfather had doomed me, to try and fix the damage of his own sins, while forbidding me to create any more of my own.

That impossible internal conflict would eventually destroy anyone, unless a solution for it was found, and successfully implemented.

Finding out whether or not if the damned Trust I had imagined and then helped create... would either free me or finish crippling my soul... was now just months away from becoming known to everyone.

And now I, like everyone else concerned, seriously doubted that I could last even half that long.

My body began to shudder and shake even faster. The incredible pain dared me to make the mistake of shutting my eyes, and force myself into the exact kind of darkness that I had come to fear the most.

The combined multiple sources of agony grew worse every second I sat still on the couch. The long tail began lashing back and forth even faster, as if Ruthy was begging me to finally do something different this time! To break with long habit! To stay put! To finally fight myself! For my own future!

Just the mere thought, of doing that long avoided task, instantly filled me completely up with even more terror!

As long as I could remember, truly horrible changes eventually came out of any such honest introspection. Usually all my internal will was bent to keeping things the same. Contained. Safe. Controlled. Pointed in a well planned direction. But about love, I almost religiously let life happen to me. I feared messing with the delicate balances I had helped create, both within myself and in others.

The last time I had truly risked it all like this, had resulted in the Trust getting formed.

How many lives had been both helped and destroyed by my insidious creation!

Would anyone ever figure out all of the tragedies?

Could those horrible disasters and deaths ever weigh less than its rare successes?

But no matter the truth about that, I had actually bought our entire Family almost a decade of painful peace. I'd finally given us all a real chance to end all the petty squabbles that had cost my grandfather so much!

My Aunt, Bertram and Avery had been so shocked at my carefully drawn out and highly detailed suggestion! With my Grandfather and Uncle already dead, and my Aunt just rediagnosed with her cancer's return, they had all welcomed my foolishly risky idea. The last years of their lives had all been spent fighting to bring it to life, and set it properly towards its unknown journey's end.

Then I'd compounded my initial error and even manage to drag Emma and Avery into my nightmares as well!

They had foolishly trusted me enough to gamble a decade of their lives, against all the equally dedicated forces arrayed to destroy a lifetime of my grandfather's accomplishments. The remaining half of our family's original fortune, that had been brought to the States, had quickly grown to the point that in fifty more years it overwhelmed everyone's expectations and fears.

The sheer weight of even half-heartedly maintaining a disciplined watch over the sprawling empire would crush any single person. Combined with all the lawsuits and treachery, trying to carve off pieces of it for disaffected family and jealous friends who were actually its rivals?

No one could ever manage guarding it as well as my grandfather had amassed it under his iron willed control.

But the price in human misery of my grandfather's success was too high, and not always done in a chivalrous manner. Misdeeds or simply misunderstandings, that should have been forgotten long ago, had been kept alive by well nursed hatred and misguided needs for revenge.

On all sides.

So for the last decade of his life, my suddenly wise and repentant Grandfather, had done nothing else but try to put things to rights.

When the pressure of our patriarch's death had been transferred unexpectedly to my own Uncle, his always frail health had collapsed far quicker than anyone had ever dreamed it could do. With only my Aunt to hold off the inevitable, and to protect Emma, the woman I loved more than any other?

I had dreamed up the very nightmare I was still willingly bound to.

But Em and I never dreamed of the possibility that we wouldn't be finishing my Grandfather's penance side by side.

We had never imagined we would be doing our share of the impossible work all alone.

Now just months away from potentially achieving all of our goals... and the Trustee's each finally regaining our lost freedoms... here I was risking it all just to selfishly have Keeley in my life?

Now and not just a little bit later? When it would be safe?

Worse, it wasn't just Avery and Emma that I was potentially betraying.

So many people had given so much to this cause. Some, even all they had! My poor Aunt! Holding on to life a little longer, despite the horrible pain of her cancer, eating away at her day after day! Just so she could live out the required first year of the Trust's existence!

And Bertram! Almost all of his last months spent stuck here in the States, instead of back home in England with his family! With only a few days of peace in his own long abandoned cottage, before he passed, as his reward! And Old Avery? Denied a well earned retirement, and instead having to prepare the way for his only child to follow him into a legal hell, constantly being reignited and fueled by Anthony?

My so-called cousin had a lot to answer for!

Who knew who had actually told Karen about my real name? She still wouldn't tell anyone, even now, who had done that to us and to our fledgling love. I had deliberately kept her totally in the dark about my past, right from the very start. I hadn't lied to her, not exactly. I just didn't tell her anything that she'd already told me would upset her. She assured me that she would rather not know about my past, because she said that she could easily see how good of a person I was now, on the inside.

The very things that Karen had so stubbornly refused to learn from me? I had just threatened Keeley with discovering them in less than a week from now! I was so terrified of what would happen at that meeting! But I'd promised Karen that I would never let another woman fall so deeply in love with me in complete ignorance again.

My hands dug my fingernails into my palms, trying to give me a few more painful seconds of clear thought to decide what to do.

Karen's happiness really had meant everything to me. Sometimes, I still even believed my initial deception had been a good idea. The multiple lives I had been trapped into living would have ended, someday.

I wanted to be nothing more than the man she thought I already was.

Once the Trust matured, I could have been legally freed of it! Forever! If I choose that path, Karen would've had exactly the husband and partner she thought I was. No more, and no less. I was more than willing, even eager, to give up all the rest of this shit! The part of my life, that she loved me for, would have quickly become my ONLY life!

As far as I had cared, at least back then, everything else I had somehow earned over the last decade could have just been thrown away!

I had just needed a little more time to make that person my only reality... but we had both been denied that chance to be alone together... by someone who was still seeking to hurt me and anyone I loved.

They had feared me being happy... even more than all the energy being lonely and miserable had continuously been adding to the chances of the Trust's success... and worse a few weeks ago I had finally admitted that it could even have been a close friend that had betrayed both Karen and me.

Ruthy danced on the arm of the couch, edging nervously away from me, as I finally forced my hands open before I cut my already bruised palms too deep with my fingernails.

Yet again.

Her worried chittering was proof that my cat could now barely even recognise me as the human she had bound herself to protect.

The chill deepening in the living room's air got even worse, as a wild wind swept thru the open crack of the patio door. I shivered now from more than just fear and pain. All the bits and pieces of all the unsolvable riddles began swirling before my eyes. Beckoning me to lose myself within their mysteries.

To finally get lost, forever, within their promised oblivion.

It was far too late to run now. I'd tempted fate too often this last week, and let myself begin to feel and care again! As if I was just a normal person! I'd finally trapped myself into having too few choices! I could give up the fight and cease all my struggling! I could lose myself in the myriad mazes my mind would create for me!

Or I could finally remember it all!

Every bit of it!

Right now!

Before it was too late!

Stiff as wires, I forced the tendons in my hands to finish opening up, fully revealing the bruises I had already made there to keep Keeley safe. The sight of that horrific damage made me think of exactly who was now depending on ME to be here when she got back.

I might not be able to help either Emma or Karen any more. Nor anyone else currently in my shrinking little world. But my little redhead had just risked everything and put her Trust in me! I was now bound by that promise, and it tied me to Keeley in ways she might never come to fully understand.

But I did.

My little guard cat suddenly grew silent, and her nervous fidgeting stopped, as the dark green eyes calmly looked back into my watering gray ones.

The wind howled thru the feline sized gap to the outside world, and I accepted even that premonition too, and I finally let go.

Of everything.

I wasn't going to run this time.

I'd fight.

Despite the echoes of my last night terror still being so fresh in my mind... the need to remember exactly how Keeley had finally come into my and Ruthy's life was just too strong... and suddenly all the painstakingly reconstructed tragic facts struck me with almost overwhelming force.

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Back Seat of a Yellow Cab

Eight days ago

Late Saturday Afternoon

Everyone slightly drunk

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The Art Exhibition they had just left had been so wonderful to walk thru, especially since they had been allowed in before the regular crowds could gain access.

Keeley could certainly appreciate why tickets for the local artist's traveling display had been so hard to get. The woman had been 'discovered' a few years ago, and her works were just now returning home from the last two stops on tour. The London exhibit had been almost as much of a success as the New York one.

It would have been nice to have gotten to meet the now more than locally famous artist, but as always only her art was on display, not her person.

Their special cab had just pulled right up outside, let them disembark, and they had been ushered right in. They had maybe only forty-five minutes to explore, but the cute servers had exchanged her original crystal glass three times. A few little hor'derves had been a perfect compliment to the horribly expensive bubbly.

Still, sipping champagne and wandering thru the two floors of the unique little museum's exhibition space had been a wonderful start to their surprise night out. Even Seth had made an extra effort, and had gotten really dressed up in some nice new clothes.

Shelly, as always, outshined everyone else around her.

The people already lined up outside for the exhibit's official opening time, had certainly gotten a good look at every one of the blonde's amazing curves as she had exited the cab. The soft burgundy dress clung tightly everywhere, leaving no doubt that her roommate had chosen to wear nothing underneath it tonight.

Inside, only about twenty other guests got to see the full effect that Shelly had spent hours primping to achieve. She always looked beautiful, even in just old jeans and a soft pull over top, but when she went all out? The woman was more than simply gorgeous.

She was dangerously stunning.

Keeley knew that she looked good tonight too, but was more than used to being eclipsed by her co-worker. At least she had made time Friday morning to go out and buy a new dress. The deep emerald green silk wasn't as daring in the way it presented her much smaller cleavage, but it was the first new non-dancing outfit she'd allowed herself in years.

Occasionally, she had caught a glimpse of her silhouette in the mirrors thru out the exhibit space. Keeley barely recognized herself. Still too thin and pale, but somehow her freckled skin only seemed to help the contrast against the deep green of her dress and the flame red of her hair. A full hour had been needed to fully tame her wild tresses, but the rather frequent appreciative looks from the staff and other special guests, made her feel the extra effort had been worth it.

Shelly had flinched only twice, when it was obvious that two separate groups of the guests had recognized her. Her blonde roommate never spoke much about the scandals from her early days, when she had first moved to the city. The social circles she had so easily moved thru those first few years? Well, they hadn't been so forgiving of her profession as a dancer once it had become public knowledge. They had felt betrayed after fully welcoming her into their midst.

But artistic events like the museum exhibition were always considered neutral ground, and only a few knowing contemptuous smiles had been exchanged between her roommate and the two avant garde groups.

Keeley had learned only a little, from the older house mom at the club, about why Shelly had become such a controversial figure in town. A few ruined high profile marriages had followed some nasty rumors, although no one really cared now if they were true or not.

The blonde dancer had retreated from their hallowed social turf... and only her mysterious and very rich boyfriend had stood by her... until recently.

When they had left the little museum, the crowds standing in line had already doubled in size, making her wonder just how Seth had pulled off getting their tickets. Now that they were headed to their next destination, Shelly was clearly wondering the same thing. They exchanged a brief look, and from her seat behind the cab driver, the blonde could only shrug her shoulders.

Their full itinerary tonight was still a closely guarded secret.

Only three locations had been used as a lure, to get them to agree to take a rare Saturday simultaneous night off from the strip club. Those spots alone had been enough to get them to agree to Seth's plan. Yet, as always lately, her own boyfriend's true motives were more than slightly suspect. But what had sealed the deal was the promise that he would finally pay for an entire night out, from his own pocket.

Shelly didn't believe Seth's story about a second severance check from his last construction job, but Keeley knew that it had been a union gig and might actually be true.

The cab ride away from the museum was smooth and fast, and the late afternoon sun was turning only slightly red, promising a spectacular sunset. The route their driver was taking certainly didn't make any sense. But so far, there had been no real traffic, delays or horribly run down districts to cringe thru.

Right now, they were angling thru one of her favorite old neighborhoods. Old expensive two story houses on quiet tree-lined streets. Peaceful places, of the kind she used to always dream about living in as a kid. For six years, Keeley had cut thru this neighborhood, going from school to work and back. First it had been for afternoon shifts at the huge movie theater complex, and then later, all night long until close at the strip club.

Only their too fancy new high rise apartment's location, so much nearer to the club, had kept her away from this oasis in the city she had come to both love and hate. The cab finally came across the famous creek, and began to follow it, southward down stream. The park-like spaces looked beautiful against the backdrop of the tall buildings of downtown, rising in the distance high above the trees.