The Third Option
Carefully I made my way down the darkened stairs from the apartment I rented above the diner. It was early, but I hadn't slept. All night I had wrestled with what to do.
At one moment on the verge of throwing my clothes in a suitcase and buying a bus ticket to the next moment contemplating the notion of staying on in Saloosa and gambling on Caleb not turning me in. I had warred back and forth between the two all night.
I liked Saloosa. More importantly, I liked the people and for the most part they liked me.
I'd never had it so good. Sure, I didn't have much, but in other ways I had more than I'd ever dreamed possible.
I had respectability. I had people who valued my opinion and wanted my input.
In general, I had value that had nothing to do with what my body could be used for. I didn't want to give up this life I had discovered in America.
The choice, though really wasn't mine. It was Caleb's.
Then somewhere in the night something had come over me. It was hard to explain, but the reality of a third option occurred to me.
It perhaps more than any was the scariest of all. To even contemplate it made me see how much of a person I had grown to be.
I'd struggled for hours, but finally a decision had been reached. It was going to be option three, but I was going to need help.
A lot of help and I only knew one person that fit the bill. My eyes lifted from the sidewalk, I had been traveling down to the little building that served as the county police headquarters as well as the local jail.
Caleb deserved more, but in a county that only had one town to speak of there wasn't much need for anything more. Gathering my courage I eased off the sidewalk and up to the front door.
Quietly I entered almost hoping not to be noticed. The receptionist and dispatcher all-in-one, a woman I knew simply as Janet, popped her head around a corner and gazed at me in surprise.
I barely knew the woman, but her reaction was as if I was related to her. "Darling, whatever is wrong? Sonya, I..."
"It's okay, Janet. I'll take care of it." A deeper voice intoned and Janet's already startled eyes went to Caleb, who had materialized in a nearby doorway.
He motioned with one hand and with a quiver running down my spine I approached. This was his domain and I felt utterly crushed by the authority that he wielded within it.
If he knew my name, then he knew other things too. Things that I had hoped to forever bury.
As I eased by him I suddenly realized that I was crying. Somehow knowing that he was the one of all the people in town that knew about my past hurt me the most.
I slipped past his big form and seeing a chair before an impressive desk, I sat down in it as Caleb whispered something to Janet. A little time passed by and then I felt him near.
A cup of coffee came into my blurred field of view. I didn't want it.
Two large and very articulated hands that had the power to both create and crush gently lifted mine out of my lap and formed them around the mug of coffee. The coffee cup felt incredibly warm against the iciness of my fingers.
Suddenly I intensely wanted it, if for nothing else but its heat. The dominating shadow that had been held over me moved until he was there across from me sitting at his desk.
I dared a look across its wooden plane to look into his eyes. I don't know what I had been expecting, but what I saw was utterly captivating.
His face was entirely sincere and his voice more gentle than I'd ever heard it except when he was dealing with children as he said, "Thank you for coming. I know it wasn't easy. I... what would you like me to call you?"
"Anya." I whispered before wiping briefly at my eyes with one hand.
I couldn't meet his gaze as I whispered, "How long have you known about me?"
"About a week after you came to town."
Startled, my gaze flew up to his. I couldn't breathe.
He had known for so long?
He was the one then to look down as he shrugged his broad shoulders, "I didn't see you as a threat. I monitored you for a while and I came to see that you were a very good fit for this town even though you were here under false pretenses of identity. Given that there's no warrant out for you I didn't feel that you needed to be disturbed."
Still shaken by the knowledge that he had known about me for all this time I asked, "And what has changed to make you confront me now?"
"The man you got your fake identity off of got himself picked up last week in a sting operation. In an effort to save himself time in prison he's basically ratted on his entire clientele you being one of them. Being here illegally they dispatched an ICE agent to look into it. He happens to be a friend of mine. I convinced him to let me handle it and give you a chance to turn yourself in."
I stared at him speechless and then as more tears began to rain down my face I emotionally asked, "Wasn't that dangerous for you? I mean I could've hopped on a bus this morning!"
"You could have, but you didn't. I've been praying all night that you'd do the right thing."
I looked away from him as tears fell harder. Did he have any idea how close I'd come to fleeing?
He'd prayed for me? I'd known him to be a man of faith, but I had never expected that he would pray for me.
In my own eyes, I was largely without the value required to warrant being prayed for. The only value of note worthiness that had ever been assigned to me in life was what I had built for myself these past two years and now it was all gone.
My life was over!
Quickly I fumbled to set the coffee on his desk before I spilled it on his carpet. I spilled some on it anyway.
Shaking my head violently, as I stood up and turned toward the door, I said, "I'm sorry, but I can't stay!"
The door was before me and the allure of freedom beyond it was powerful, but even more powerfully came the voice of authority from behind me that said, "Anya, sit back down."
It was supremely odd how fast I found myself complying. A soft wail of emotion ripped out of me then and I crammed my eyes shut as nightmares came spiraling in like demons to haunt me.
They weren't really nightmares though, they were memories. I felt him then.
Blinking through tears I saw him on his knees before me. It seemed very strange to see him on his knees and then before I could think about it any longer his large powerful hands were holding my face.
Shocked, I stared into his eyes, as it felt like my whole system calmed at the experience of his touch upon me. Seeing that he had my attention he spoke slowly and with deep measure, "Anya, everything is going to be fine. I promise you."
Staring into his warm eyes filled now with the passion to comfort me, I bitterly said in return, "You don't know that! If I'm sent back to Russia I am worse than dead! It is not the same here in America! You do not know what you have! I... I have nothing!"
His gaze remained fixed on me and with a steady resolve, he said, "You're wrong. You have me and I'm not the only one. You are a good woman Anya and while others in town don't know your past it really doesn't matter, because you are who you are now and that is all that matters."
"Everything here is lie! I hate lie! I hate this fear of people knowing! Yet I don't want to die."
His grip on my face tightened and with it so did his intensity. Dizzily I listened even as his fire burned me, "Anya, you are not going back to Russia."
