Page 30 of Defending Van

His hand came down on her backside, still tender from the caning, and she yelped in surprise, since from this position she hadn't seen it coming. The others laughed, and she knew without being able to see that Van was doing that obnoxious smirk of his.

“See? I'm the only one that can keep her in line, so if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, the lady and I are going to enjoy a little one-on-one time,” Van announced as he started walking with her over his shoulder.

“Nice to see you away from a screen for a change,” Hank said.

“You should definitely do this more often,” Henry added.

Van said nothing else. Just walked back down the stairs with her, and she hated that she’d been so close to freedom only to be caught and dragged right back all over again.

Depressing as it was, she guessed she should at least be happy it was Van who had found her. He hadn't given her much of a punishment, and she was sure he wouldn't actually do anything to her once he got her into one of the rooms.

As he walked through the hall, they passed the room where she’d attacked Josh and knocked him out. Surprised to see him still lying in a pool of his own blood, she didn't say anything about it as Van entered one of the other rooms. There was a bed in this one, and he carried her to it, adjusting his hold on her until she was cradled in his arms.

“You okay for me to set you down?”

“Why wouldn't I be?” she asked, although she actually was quite comfortable where she was.

“Your, uh … bottom might be sore,” he said, his cheeks going the most adorable shade of red.

“Are you blushing?” she asked with a grin, that had to be the cutest thing. This man worked undercover as part of a sex trafficking ring, and yet he blushed when mentioning her butt.

“No,” he muttered, but it was clear he was uncomfortable.

“It’s okay to feel, Van. You know that, right?” How many kids had she asked that same question to over the years? It wasn't like she’d walked away from her hellish childhood unscathed. It had taken her years of therapy while in college to get herself together. But she’d been determined. Her parents, her foster parents, had already taken so much from her, she hadn't been willing to give them her future. Her childhood was already gone, that innocence she was supposed to have enjoyed shattered, but she still had a chance of living the rest of her life on her own terms, and she wasn't giving that up for anyone.

“I don’t feel,” he said simply, like it was a fact, but it was anything but.

“Everyone feels,” she reminded him. It was true. Even sociopaths felt things, they just weren't the same things the rest of the population experienced. But anger was a feeling, self-preservation was a feeling, and fulfilling the things that brought you joy—even if those things were violent and harmful to others—was a feeling.

“No, they don’t,” he muttered as he set her very gently down on the bed. She did wince slightly as her abused bottom contacted the mattress, but it wasn't so bad.

When he went to move away from her, she grabbed his hand, keeping him close. Maybe she shouldn’t, but she seemed to feel better, safer, when he was nearby. “You grew up in the system, too, didn't you?”

Cocking his head to the side, he examined her for a moment, like he was trying to decide whether to open up to her. Of course, he didn't. He wasn't here to play babysitter, and he’d already done more for her than he had to.

But then he nodded. “Yeah.”

“It sucks, doesn’t it? Losing your childhood.”

“Yeah, it sucks,” he agreed with a weariness Makayla wished she could shoulder for him. It was in her nature to help, to save, to give of herself. Some days, she wondered if she had enough in her to keep giving pieces of herself away, but she couldn’t imagine living her life any other way.

Van needed a piece of her. He needed someone to see him, to remind him that he still had humanity left even if he didn't see it.

“At least you took all the bad they put you through and turned it into something good,” she told him. That was something she admired and tried to help all her kids see and recognize. No one could undo the horrors they’d suffered, but they had gotten an up close and personal look at darkness. They had to do everything they could to only put light out into the world. It didn’t matter how they did it, whether volunteering at a soup kitchen, giving a few dollars to a homeless person, offering a smile to someone who looked like they were having a bad day, helping the kid at school who was bullied, giving your children the life you were deprived of, or being the best version of you it was possible to be.

“There’s nothing good in me, Makayla.”

“You say that, yet I'm sitting right here.”

“Exactly,” he said, like she’d just proved his point. “Sitting here, in this room, still a prisoner, instead of running down the street with a chance at escape.”

“They found Josh. I wouldn't have made it,” she reminded him. She wasn't stupid, she’d known when she heard the shouts that she wasn't getting out. “You stepped in and protected me.”

“I used you.” His dark gaze dropped to her lips, and she knew he felt remorse for using her the way he had.

“You did what you had to do. And now, instead of being with one of them, I'm sitting here, safe, on a bed, with a bit of time to pull myself together again. Because of you, Van. Even if you don’t want to admit it, even if you think you're empty inside, incapable of empathy, you're taking care of me the best you can under the circumstances.”

“You're seeing things that aren't there.”