Jack Mars - Trapping Zero

Reid pushed the door open gently, but still it squeaked on its hinges. Sara, however, did not stir.

“You asleep?” he asked softly.

“No,” she murmured.

“I, um… I brought a pizza home.”

“Not hungry,” she said flatly.

She hadn’t been eating much since the incident; in fact, Reid had to constantly remind her to drink water, or else she would hardly consume anything. He understood the difficulties of surviving trauma better than most, but this felt different. More severe.

The psychologist Sara had been seeing, Dr. Branson, was a patient and compassionate woman who came highly recommended and CIA-certified. Yet according to her reports, Sara spoke little during their therapy sessions and answered questions with as few words as possible.

He sat on the edge of her bed and brushed the hair away from her forehead. She flinched slightly at his touch.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked quietly.

“I just want to be alone,” she murmured.

He sighed and rose from the bed. “I understand,” he said empathetically. “Even so, I’d really like it if you came down and sat with us, as a family. Maybe try to eat a few bites.”

She didn’t say anything in response.

Reid sighed again as he headed back downstairs. Sara was clearly traumatized; she was much harder to get through to than even before, back in February when the girls had had a run-in with two members of the terrorist organization Amun on a New Jersey boardwalk. He’d thought it was bad then, but now his youngest daughter was downright joyless, often sleeping or lying in bed and staring at nothing in particular. Even when she was there physically it felt like she was hardly really there.

In Croatia, and Slovakia, and Poland, all he’d wanted was to have his girls back. Now that he had safely returned them home, all he wanted was to have his girls back—though in a much different capacity. He wanted things to be the way they were before all of this.

In the dining room, Maya was setting out three paper plates and cups around the table. He watched as she poured herself some soda, took a slice of pepperoni from the box, and bit off the tip.

As she chewed he asked, “So. Have you given any more thought to going back to school?”

Her jaw worked in circles as she regarded him evenly. “I just don’t think I’m ready yet,” she said after a while.

Reid nodded as if he agreed, though he thought that four weeks off was plenty of time and that a return to habit would be good for them. Neither of them had gone back to school in the wake of the incident; Sara clearly wasn’t ready, but Maya seemed fit to resume her studies. She was smart, almost dangerously so; even as a high school junior, she had been taking a few courses a week at Georgetown. They would look good on a college application and would give her a jumpstart on a degree—but only if she finished them.

She had been going to the library a few times a week for study sessions, which was at least a start. It was her intention to try and pass the final so that she didn’t flunk out. But even as smart as she was, Reid had his doubts that it would be enough.

He chose his words carefully as he said, “There’s less than two months of classes left, but I think you’re smart enough to catch up if you went back.”

“You’re right,” she said as she tore off another mouthful of pizza. “I am smart enough.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “That’s not what I meant, Maya—”

“Oh, hey Squeak,” she said suddenly.

Reid looked up in surprise as Sara entered the dining room. Her gaze swept the floor as she inched her way to a chair like a timid squirrel. He wanted to say something, to offer some words of encouragement or to simply tell her that he was glad she decided to join them, but he held back. It was the first time in at least two weeks, maybe more, that she had come down for dinner.

Maya scooped a slice of pizza onto a plate and handed it to her sister. Sara took a tiny, almost imperceptible bite of the tip, not looking up at either of them.

Reid’s mind raced, seeking something to say, something that might make this seem like any usual family dinner and not the tense, silent, painfully uncomfortable situation that it was.

“Anything interesting happen today?” he said at last, immediately scolding himself for the lame attempt.

Sara shook her head a little, staring at the tablecloth.

“I watched a documentary about penguins,” Maya offered.

“Learn anything cool?” he asked.

“Not really.”

And so it went, returning to silence and tension.

Say something meaningful , his mind shouted at him. Offer them support. Let them know they can open up to you about what happened. You all survived a trauma. Survive it together.

“Listen,” he said. “I know that it hasn’t been easy lately. But I want you both to know that it’s okay to talk to me about what happened. You can ask me questions. I’ll be honest.”

“Dad…” Maya started, but he put up a hand.

“Please, this is important to me,” he said. “I’m here for you, and I always will be. We survived this together, the three of us, and that proves there’s nothing that can keep us apart…”

He trailed off, his heart breaking anew when he saw tears spilling down Sara’s cheeks. She continued to stare downward at the table as she cried, saying nothing, with a faraway gaze that suggested she was somewhere other than mentally present with her sister and father.

“Honey, I’m sorry.” Reid rose to hug her, but Maya got there first. She wrapped her arms around her younger sister as Sara sobbed into her shoulder. There was little Reid could do but stand there awkwardly and watch. No words of sympathy came; any expression of endearment he might offer would be little more than putting a band-aid on a bullet hole.

Maya grabbed a napkin from the table and dabbed gently at her sister’s cheeks, smoothed her blonde hair from off her forehead. “Hey,” she said in a whisper. “Why don’t you go upstairs and lie down for a bit, huh? I’ll come and check on you soon.”

Sara nodded and sniffled. She rose wordlessly from the table and shuffled out of the dining room towards the stairs.

“I didn’t mean to upset her…”

Maya spun on him with her hands on her hips. “Then why did you go and bring that up?”

“Because she’s hardly said two words to me about it!” Reid said defensively. “I want her to know that she can talk to me.”

“She doesn’t want to talk to you about it,” Maya shot back. “She doesn’t want to talk to anyone about it!”

“Dr. Branson said that opening up about a past trauma is therapeutic…”

Maya scoffed loudly. “And do you think that Dr. Branson has ever been through anything like what Sara went through?”

Reid took a breath, forcing himself to calm and not argue. “Probably not. But she treats CIA operatives, military personnel, all manner of trauma and PTSD—”

“Sara is not a CIA agent,” said Maya harshly. “She’s not a Green Beret or a Navy Seal. She’s a fourteen-year-old girl.” She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. “You want to know? You want to talk about what happened? Here it is: we saw Mr. Thompson’s body before we were kidnapped. It was lying right there in the foyer. We watched that maniac cut the throat of the woman from the rest stop. Some of her blood was on my shoes. We were there when the traffickers shot another girl and left her body lying in the gravel. She was trying to help me free Sara. I was drugged. We were both nearly raped. And Sara, somehow she found the strength to fight off two grown men, one of whom had a gun, and she threw herself out of the window of a speeding train.” Maya’s chest was heaving by the time she was finished, but no tears came.