The Years Between by Leanne Davis

knew deep in his gut it wasn’t the flu.
    He gently tugged the covers back. She was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Not a perfect outfit. Her hair was ratted around her face, and she lay on her side.
    Her voice sounded foggy and low when she muttered, “Go away.”
    He rubbed his hand from her shoulder to her elbow. “What happened, babe? Will you tell me?”
    “Leave me alone.”
    “Jess?” He contemplated her back as he touched her shoulder.
    She jerked from his touch and groaned before suddenly sitting up and flinging his arm away from her. Her eyes flashed as she screamed at him, “Just leave me alone! I don’t want to be touched. I don’t want to have sex! I just want to be left alone. Okay? Could you do that? Just leave me alone?”
    He sat back on his heels. The color in her face was off and she was pale and chalky. He remained quiet until finally, she lifted her eyes to his. They stared at each other for a long moment and her shoulders suddenly folded over. “Just leave me alone, Will. Please?”
    His hand itched to touch her, grab her, hug her, hold her, to do something for her. Anything. But instead, he held his hands up as if surrendering and got on his feet. He crossed the room, and shut the door softly behind him before leaning back against it. What? What happened? What could have set her off?
    With a sigh, he wandered into the kitchen, rifling through his now fully stocked cabinets. There were a number of choices for things to eat, but nothing appealed. He finally slammed the doors shut too hard and stared at the TV after yanking the shades open. Then he gave up, grabbing his keys before leaving to do something that didn’t include climbing the walls. He ended up lifting weights for over an hour, until he was bathed in sweat, which almost relieved some of his feelings of helplessness. He imagined what a guy who was stricken impotent would feel like. He could not help his wife sometimes. He couldn’t understand her or comfort her. It was a hard, bitter pill to swallow for Will.
    Driving through a burger joint, he grabbed some fast food to alleviate the hunger that was growling in his stomach. When he got home, nothing was different. A slight flow of adrenaline as he unlocked the front door came from hoping she’d be up. Or that it would appear like she had been. Instead, it was dark.
    He sighed, and finally lay his head on the couch pillow as he flopped onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. His legs hung off the end. He spent a lot of time sleeping there before. Now, however, it felt a lot worse than it did three years ago. What was wrong with her?
    Well, shit. He knew what was wrong with her. He knew it was some variation of her history. So it wasn’t like he didn’t know. He just didn’t know which aspect of it happened today. He tossed and turned for two hours. It was well past midnight before he finally dozed off and found himself back in the place where he often had to pry Jessie from.
    Mexico.
    His mission was simple. Get into the building, find the general’s daughter and get her out. The fewer that knew he was there, the better. He slipped into the building completely undetected. It wasn’t a sophisticated operation at all. There weren’t even basic security cameras to disable. That made getting the girl out easier because there were no cameras to avoid. He slipped into the rafters of the warehouse. The ductwork was extensive and suspended from the open-air ceiling in half the enclosure. He could easily find a comfortable spot to scout things out without anyone knowing he was even there. So he did just that.
    At first, it was men moving about. Some kind of shipment arrived. The gigantic metal doors lifted, an unmarked van slipped in and men quickly unloaded its crates. They were stacked in the corner with other similar goods. He had no doubt they were drugs. What the fuck drug dealers were doing with a general’s daughter was still lost on Will. Why? He couldn’t figure out why they