“Thank God,” Kristen whispered and looked down, seeing Brodie had calmed down. His eyes were blinking as if waking up from a trance. Her hair, which had been stylishly held up, was now hanging down loosely and brushed against his cheek.
“Are you all right?” Brodie asked her.
She nodded her head and answered, “Yes, sir.”
Graves cautiously lessened his grip and the others let go. All their faces registered the shock at the fury that had overcome their usually mild-mannered captain.
“Sean, I’m going to let you go,” Graves told him cautiously. “You stay cool, okay?”
“I’m all right,” Brodie replied, still breathing hard.
Kristen pulled her hands away from the side of his head, and Graves released him. Brodie rolled off Graves and slowly got to his feet, his uniform jacket and shirt in tatters, his chest still heaving. Brodie offered Kristen a hand, and she took it. He helped her up and then turned toward Jason and the others. Graves had moved, positioning himself between Brodie and Fitzgerald. Brodie looked to have calmed down, but Graves kept one hand up defensively, just in case.
“Sean?” he asked tentatively. “You okay?”
Brodie had blood trickling down from the cut on his left temple where Fitzgerald had landed the first blow, cutting him with a ring on his right hand. In his rage, he’d bitten his own lip, from which he wiped blood with his bandaged left hand. Brodie nodded his head, but his eyes still showed smoldering anger as he looked past Graves toward Fitzgerald, who was groaning in pain. “Yeah,” he answered with the barely contained rage he still felt evident in his voice. “I’m all right.”
Kristen, hearing what sounded almost like a low, guttural growl come from him, gripped his arm tightly as he took a step toward Fitzgerald.
“That’s enough, Sean.” Graves warned as he placed a hand against Brodie’s chest. “You made your point. Let the MPs handle it from here.”
On the patio above, the balance of the remaining officers and party guests stared down at the spectacle as the first of several military police cars arrived. Kristen had no idea what would happen to Brodie. Certainly, Fitzgerald had assaulted her and struck her, but Brodie had come within a hair’s breadth of killing the man.
Two ambulances arrived, and Fitzgerald was placed on a stretcher and carried away. Kristen caught a brief glance of the once beautiful face and knew Horner had been right; Fitzgerald would be beautiful no more. She was just thankful he was still breathing.
Brodie led her across the frosty ground to the sidewalk and helped her back over the railing. Terry, clearly worried about her, brought her the shoes she’d discarded. Brodie leaned against the railing, holding a piece of his tattered shirt against the cut on his temple. Kristen stood beside him, neither saying a word. A corpsman approached and offered her an ice pack for her cheek. She took it thankfully, and then noticed Brodie’s hands. His knuckles were laid open and bleeding, the bandage on his left hand was torn and bloody. Without a word she took the ice pack meant for her cheek and placed it on his lacerated knuckles.
“Jesus, Sean,” Graves whispered as he walked up after speaking to a pair of MPs.
“Sorry, Jason,” Brodie said with a hint of embarrassment. He then glanced at Kristen, “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital, Lieutenant?”
Kristen shook her head. “But you should go, Captain.” She motioned to the cut by his left eye. “That might need a few sutures.”
Brodie didn’t respond but instead motioned toward the duty van that had been brought around and was now waiting for them at the base of the hill. “You’re going to freeze to death out here. Why don’t you wait in the van with the others?” His voice and demeanor had returned to normal, except for the tattered uniform, the gash to the side of his head, and bloody knuckles.
“No, sir,” she insisted. “I want to do something I should have done eighteen months ago.”
Kristen had always regretted never reporting Fitzgerald for having tried to rape her while she’d been at Corpus. Since that night, she’d often wondered how many other women he may have assaulted since he attacked her, and if those assaults might have been prevented had she’d spoken up then.
The Provost Marshall, a full commander, walked up, and Kristen and Graves greeted him politely. But the grumpy commander — recently dragged from a nice warm bed — ignored the others and dealt with Brodie. “Did you have to beat him half to death?” he asked as he looked Brodie over.
Brodie appeared unmoved, and Kristen got the impression this was not his first time speaking to the police. “He assaulted one of my officers.”
“Then you should have called me,” the commander told him. “Bad business, officers fighting officers. We have enough trouble keeping the enlisted men around here in line without this kind of nonsense.” The Provost Marshall was basically the base commander’s chief of police and responsible for good order and discipline on Sasebo.
Kristen could see he was planning on arresting Brodie but saw no hint of concern in her captain’s eyes. “I couldn’t agree more,” Brodie concurred. “Just as long as no one puts a hand on one of my officers.”
The commander nodded and looked at Graves. “Whom did he allegedly assault?”
“Me, sir,” Kristen interjected, determined to do what she could to keep them from placing handcuffs on Brodie.
The Provost Marshall’s annoyed expression changed dramatically when he looked at her. Kristen didn’t know how bad she looked, but she could taste blood from a cut lip, and her cheek was already swelling. Plus, her normally perfectly coiffured hair looked like a haystack. She then realized, as she saw a flash of anger on the Provost’s face, that two men pounding on each other was one thing and fairly common, but there still existed a bit of a chivalric code enforced in the military. Spousal abuse and physical abuse against women ranked up there with child molestation on the maggot ladder among most in the military, and the Provost Marshall was no different. “Are you okay, Lieutenant?” he asked as his tone of voice changed dramatically upon seeing her. “I can have one of my patrol cars take you to the hospital and have the ER check you out.”
“No thank you, sir. I would like to stay with my captain.”
The Provost nodded thoughtfully and then motioned toward an ambulance where Fitzgerald was being loaded up for transport to the hospital. “And the guy with his face beat in, he assaulted you?”
Kristen nodded and then pulled back some of her thick hair to show the gouge marks where Fitzgerald had dug his fingers into her slender neck. “Yes, sir.”
The Provost Marshall’s tune changed rapidly as he saw the fresh gouge marks on her neck, and his jaw tensed angrily. But just as Kristen thought everything was calming down, she heard a low growl beside her as Brodie moved off the rail. He’d seen the fingernail gouges on her neck and the berserker fury was returning.
“Sean!” Graves warned and grabbed Brodie’s right arm as Kristen gripped his left.
The Provost Marshall stepped in between Brodie and the ambulance and held up a restraining hand. “Hold on there, Galahad,” he cautioned.
Brodie swallowed his rage and stood, a dangerous scowl on his face. He cut his eyes away from the ambulance and now glared at the Provost Marshall. “Well?” Brodie demanded through gritted teeth.
The Provost eyed Brodie cautiously and then looked at Kristen. “Excuse me, Lieutenant, but do you believe there was a chance your attacker may have intended to…” he paused and shot a nervous eye at Brodie who looked about ready to go off again.
“I don’t know for certain if he was intent on raping me,” she admitted, no longer afraid that people wouldn’t believe her or that they might use such an incident against her. Brodie and Graves would stand by her. She was certain of it. “Thankfully, this time there was someone around to make certain it never got that far.”