While there is a lot of action in the Dreamscape Series, some deep human emotions often only come out if the story’s telling is complete. That happens when the characters’ roles are too superficial and insignificant in the storyline. I avoid superficial and strive to have my characters show their lives in the story by their actions, what they say, do, and think. I recently did a piece on PTSD that focused on Russ and mentioned Dr. Cara Williams as having her own PTSD affliction to deal with that no one knew she carried deep inside.
One morning, after a dream disturbed Russ, he contacted Cara to warn her despite their not knowing one another.
In Cara’s early efforts to reveal the scope of the conspiracy, she exposed herself and the team to threats that had every indication of being anything but empty. Relationships were forming, not by tragedy but by the vulnerability and courage to share. Cara and Russ had only just met in his interview and selection for the research project as a participant. Cara’s desire to get to the bottom of what appeared to be coming their way opened the door to conflicts that could turn violent. Indications of the threat she felt and the call from Russ out of the blue to warn her of dreams of violence against her and her staff.
In a pivotal moment, Russ’s admission of being ‘damaged goods’ creates a space for Cara to reciprocate with her own confession, a secret she has never shared with anyone but her sister. This exchange of trust and vulnerability strengthens their bond and adds a layer of complexity to their relationship.
Here is a chapter from Book #1 that illustrates the pivotal moments for Russ and Cara.
27 – Hercules and His Sword
“Where’re you off to, boss?” asked Wayne as Cara left her office with her backpack slung over her shoulder.
“Just need some alone time to decide what to say to Dr. Hancock. I’ll grab a coffee at Starbucks and be back shortly,” Cara lied.
Marci walked up in time to hear Cara’s explanation to Wayne and said, “Be safe!”
When Cara came out the front door of their building, a red Ford Bronco with some fancy tires and wheels waited for her. She popped the door handle and pulled herself onto the running board to climb into the passenger seat next to a man who looked almost like Russell Carter.
It was Russell, but he had a different air about him. The full sleeves of tattoos she had not seen during the interview added some interesting flavor. His ball cap was on backward, and the dark wrap-around sunglasses added more mystique, or whatever one could call it, but only with his permission. She saw a commanding presence seated next to her, and he exuded confidence she did not have.
“Hey,” he greeted her with a grin.
“Hi!” she replied, “I must say you look a little different than the man I interviewed yesterday.”
“Nope, same guy. This is my game face. I put it on when I need to learn what game I am supposed to play. Sorry for the cloak-and-dagger drama, but my dream was too real to pass it off as an overactive imagination. My gut told me to come and get you.”
“Russ, your gut is spot on because some things may disrupt our study. I’ve had dreams too, and in the one last night, I was murdered by someone who wanted to end me and our study, and neither of those outcomes is acceptable.”
“Dang, Dr. Williams! I need to hear everything from the beginning, and I need to confess something. There’s more to me that you need to know about, and I almost gave it up yesterday in the interview, but I did not want to be judged, nor did I want to put you in a position to consider seeing me as unacceptable for your study.”
She reached over, put a hand on his forearm, and felt a muscular firmness that matched the game face, “I think the first thing you need to do is start calling me Cara.”
Do two hearts make a sound when they skip a beat simultaneously? Russ’s heart responded with her unexpected permission and a whisper of a smile that curled on his lips. Cara reacted in a way she did not realize was possible. After all, who needs a man in their life to complicate things? But then, if the man is Hercules, maybe losing a heartbeat or two is not such a bad thing.
“Where are we going? Starbucks, maybe?” asked Cara.
“I’d rather we get farther away from where you are more likely to be seen, at least until I’ve completed a threat assessment,” explained Russ.
“Hey, I think your military is starting to show, Marine.”
After driving twenty minutes out of town, Russ turned onto a dirt track leading into a thick stand of trees, and they were quickly hidden from the road. Two turns later, he pulled over a slight rise into a clearing bordering a pond complete with the requisite stands of cattails and dragonflies flying surveillance.
“This is beautiful,” remarked Cara, leaning forward to take it all in, “I never knew this was back here.”
“I come here when I need to grab some me time and when I have the urge to drown a worm or two,” he said with a grin.
“Drown a worm?” she asked.
“As in fishing,” he joked “Yes, worms can only hold their breath so long.”
“What do you do with the fish?”
“Catch and release,” he said, “just love to fish, and it relaxes me.”
“My father and I would go fishing often,” Cara explained, “I know how relaxing it can be.”
“Okay, back to reality,” said Russ, turning to look at her more directly, “I said I needed to confess something about myself, about my time in the Marines. I will share with you the primary reason I feel like damaged goods. Sharing this is a risk that could end your willingness to be around me or even have me be a participant in your study.”
“That’s not for you to decide, Russ. Share as much or as little as you want. No judgments here. I have some things to share about myself that I hold close as well. Damaged goods perfectly describe how I sometimes feel, so let’s not hold back for fear of being judged, okay?”
“That works,” he said softly, meeting her eyes and seeing more permission shining through.
I was in Marine Force Recon as a Scout Sniper deployed behind enemy lines and paired up with a close buddy as my spotter for nearly two years. We tracked and killed Taliban targets. They were our enemies, and as long as we remembered what we did and why, it seemed less like murder.
Unfortunately, my heart felt every kill, and my mind could still see every face when there was a face to see. All those kills seemed to slide by without much angst until one mission had our overwatch position high above a small village where a six-man Recon team was about to breach a target house. A 12-year-old girl stood alone on the road the team would soon walk down. My spotter thought he saw something in her hand, and her clothing looked like she had something underneath that should not be there.
He kept telling me to wait for the go, wait for the go until he could confirm what he suspected. The instant he did, I pulled the trigger despite seeing tears running down her cheeks through my scope. Maybe I killed her a split second before she blew herself into a million pieces. I don’t believe my shot set off her vest because she had the detonator in her hand. But I saw her face. I saw her tears. Did I deliver mercy to that girl, or did I murder her? That’s the burden of my brokenness I carry to this day. That’s my recurring nightmare to remind me that I may be unredeemable, and it haunts me when…”
Russ stopped talking because he could no longer speak. He fought back sobs of regret wedged in his throat from his confession, but nothing could prevent the tears he spilled. Cara was crying, too, and she popped off her seatbelt to scoot closer to embrace him while he cried.
It took a few minutes for him to recover, and wiping away tears, he said, “I’ve never told anyone what you just heard.”
He took her hand and guided it inside his shirt to the scar on his left shoulder from a Taliban bullet. “I took a bullet not thirty minutes later. My spotter took two more, which ended his life. Were those bullets retribution for what we did? If so, why was I spared? I was the one who saw her anguish and still pulled the trigger.” More tears rolled.
Cara laid her head against his chest and held him until he quieted. No words were needed. This man’s pain spilled out, and his vulnerability was fully displayed. This man was extraordinary, and Cara did not want to leave his chest or stop listening to his heart beating inside.
With her head still against his chest, Cara began to speak, “I cannot imagine the guilt you’ve been carrying in your heart. I wish I had the courage to reveal my burdens to someone as you did. You’re an extraordinary man, Marine, and I’m blessed to hear your confession because that’s what you just gave to me – your confession.
We find redemption through confession to another believer, so never doubt if you can be redeemed because you already are.”
She placed her palm over his heart and said, “You’ve been forgiven. You were forgiven even before you pulled that trigger. Don’t doubt yourself. You can release the guilt now, knowing the enemy no longer has his hooks embedded in your heart and no longer has any space in your head.”
He wrapped a big arm around her shoulders and squeezed an acknowledgment of hearing and feeling new strength in her words. His head dropped back against the headrest, closed his eyes, and released a breath he had held for over six years.
Emotions were flying through the roof. He had never cried like that, at least not in front of another human being, another woman, besides his mother. But here he was, holding a woman who had more potential to steal his heart than anyone he had ever met. But was that real, or were surging emotions blowing smoke to hide what lay beneath the tears? His gut offered some sage advice: Slow down, cowboy. You need intel…AFTER your head is on straight.
Cara finally sat back in her seat, sniffing and wiping tears from her eyes on the sleeves of her blouse. “Hey, there’re tissues in the glove box,” Russ pointed.
She thanked him, flipped open the door, and found a packet of tissues on top of a black handgun in a clip-on holster. “Sweet,” said Cara, “Glock 19. May I, as she started to reach for it.”
“You know your handguns,” he remarked admiringly, “and yes, you may. Be gentle, as she’s loaded with 15 rounds of hollow points.”
Cara removed the weapon from the holster, ejected the magazine into her lap, and performed a quick slide-check to confirm the empty chamber.
He smiled, “And she knows how to handle a sidearm. What else do I not know about this mild-mannered Doctor of Psychology?”
“Many things, Marine, many things.” She fell silent, saying nothing as her mind tested multiple conversations that she may or may not be brave enough to start. “Things like…I could never be a sniper, but I could kill another person in anger and have…used a Glock much like this one when it happened.”
Russ turned and gave her his full attention with both eyebrows lifted in anticipation of something else coming. He knew one does not just confess to killing someone and let that statement hang out there without adding context. He was patient, knowing he owed her his silence to listen.
“My parents were killed in a car crash when I was fourteen. I had a younger brother,” she looked at him and smiled for a beat, “his name was Russ, too, and an older sister, Cynthia. Cynthia had been deployed to Japan with the Air Force before my parents were killed, so the only blood relative who could take custody of my brother and me as minors was my dad’s brother, Uncle Frank.
Uncle Frank turned out to be a pedophile, and my little brother and I became fresh meat in his eyes, and he never missed an opportunity to feast on one of us. We lived in a sexually abusive environment for almost two years, under threat of death, knowing that if we could endure a little longer, my older sister Cynthia would be discharged from her deployment, and we could go live with her.
She paused, taking a deep breath, and turned the Glock over in her hands as though drawing memories from it. “My dad took me to the firing range several times every month and taught me how to shoot and properly care for several different weapons. I loved his Glock 19 and was pretty proficient with it. Uncle Frank discovered one night how proficient I was when he came into my room stinking drunk and ready for a little bit of his sweet meat. Not that night. Not any night ever again.
I had just turned sixteen and had had enough, so I pulled Dad’s Glock out from under my pillow and put a round through his forehead as he crawled toward me and as he fell back, two more in his chest. I kicked him off the bed with my feet, stood over him, and pumped twelve more rounds into him, screaming at the top of my lungs, stopping only after the slide locked back.”
Russ could feel the rage behind her tightly closed eyes as she relived it all, pulling the trigger evenly, one round after another, each one delivering paybacks for his transgressions taken with her and her brother.
Her eyes remained closed as she narrated her memory, “His torso looked like a bloody zipper had been pulled down the middle of his body, ending in an unrecognizable crotch. I swear, if I had had an extended magazine, I’d have kept pulling that trigger until it ran dry. I remember choking on the smoke and stench of cordite before being slammed with a massive adrenaline dump and shock of the shooting that took me to the floor, where I passed out cold.”
She went quiet for a few minutes, and he honored her silence with his own to allow her to process what he saw as her confession. But she was not finished, “And as you might imagine, I have intimacy issues. The easiest solution for me to overcome them is to stay away from them…stay away from men…entirely. I find intimacy in my work, in my research, and with Zeke.”
“Zeke?” Russ broke his silence.
“Yeah, Ezekiel is my cat. We have been together in total harmony as long as I remember the treats. He’s the only man I’ve let into my life. He’s all I need.” Cara said with more conviction than she felt necessary; after all, she had just embraced this hunk of a man she barely knew without hesitation. He did not deserve to be pushed away with words she may not have meant.
Was it fair to put up a wall to block his advances? What advances? Had he tried anything? What did he do besides bare his soul in a most vulnerable display of sincerity? She wanted to retract her; he’s all I need statement, but how do you un-ring a bell that should never have been rung?
“Yes, okay, so now I’ve confessed something only my sister knows about to another person. Yes, I was cleared of all charges based on self-defense, though fifteen rounds fired were an initial sticking point and caused a discussion about excessive force. When they asked me why I shot him fifteen times, I simply said because that’s all the bullets I had. That line of questioning ended.”
Cara did not shed a single tear, and she relived a familiar rage and wondered if her burden had gotten any lighter. In reality, she wondered if she had a handle on her burden. She had not confessed regret; instead, she relived righteous anger.
She mentally shook her head and said, “Okay, sappy time is over. We need to get focused here. Are we going to fish or cut bait?”
* * *
This chapter came from Book #1 – Dreamscape Conspiracy, where Russ Carter and Dr. Cara Williams are brought together without really trying. I love these two characters because they are both broken by their pasts. Russ sees himself as irredeemable because of his military past. Cara has her own PTSD to deal with and is absolutely convinced she is damaged goods. She does not need a man to be complete, nor would a man want her. She was dead wrong about being wanted, and the near future would blow Russ and Cara’s respective myths to pieces.
That moment at the pond was a turning point for them and their respective paths. The tension is high coming together as they had done so quickly into a serious situation. The tension between them increases, too, and neither really sees it. Not yet, anyway.
Peace! G.
Join me at Learning By Living, where I journal these thoughts and other things.
