Chapter 7 - The Extraction
My father turned away from Ryan as if he were stepping over a piece of trash.
He walked back into the bedroom, his heavy boots clicking on the floor. The terrifying, lethal atmosphere that had surrounded him dissolved the instant he crossed the threshold of my room.
He knelt beside the bed.
He reached down, picked up my mother's blue blanket from the floor, shook it out gently, and wrapped it carefully around my shoulders.
"Emily," he murmured softly, his large, warm hands cupping my tear-stained face. "It's over, sweet pea. You're coming home."
I threw my arms around his neck, burying my face into the stiff, ironed wool of his dress uniform coat. I wept—hard, deep, violent sobs that had been trapped inside my chest for seven long, agonizing months. I cried for the fear, I cried for the pain, I cried for the shame, and I cried with the overwhelming, dizzying relief of finally being saved.
My father held me tight. He didn't care that my tears and blood were staining the dark blue wool of his uniform. He held my head, kissing my hair over and over again.
"I've got you," he whispered, his voice cracking with emotion for the very first time. "Dad's got you. Nobody will ever touch you again. I swear to you on your mother's memory."
Two female military medics stepped into the room, carrying a folding stretcher and a medical trauma kit.
"Sir," the lead medic said respectfully. "We need to transport her to Womack Army Medical Center immediately. We need an urgent OB/GYN evaluation, a full-body CT panel, and fetal monitoring."
"Do it," Dad said.
He helped the medics lift me gently onto the transport stretcher. They wrapped three warm, sterile hospital blankets over me, but my father took my mother's blue blanket and draped it carefully over the top, making sure it covered me completely.
As they wheeled me out of the bedroom, I looked down the hallway.
Ryan was being dragged to his feet by Officer Miller. His nose was broken, blood smeared across his mouth and collar, his eyes wild with terror as Command Sergeant Major Thorne stood over him, holding a digital camera containing fifty high-resolution photos of my injuries.
Linda was crying hysterically against the wall, her hands cuffed behind her, as Officer Harrison filled out an evidence log containing her spare keys and her purse.
"Take them to the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department," my father commanded Sergeant Major Thorne as we reached the front door. "Place an immediate military hold on Ryan Bennett under Title 10 authority. Contact the District Attorney. Tell him I am personally requesting a zero-bail hold based on attempted murder of an unborn child and felony domestic torture."
"Consider it done, Colonel," Thorne replied, giving a hard, uncompromising salute.
We stepped out of the apartment building into the bright, warm afternoon sun.
Parked along the curb were two marked Cumberland County Sheriff cruisers, three Military Police vehicles with their red and blue lights flashing silently, and an unmarked military ambulance with its rear doors wide open.
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A dozen neighbors stood on their lawns, staring in absolute, stunned shock as the proud, wealthy Bennett family was marched out of the building in handcuffs by heavily armed soldiers.
My father walked beside my stretcher, holding my hand every inch of the way.
