Page 5 of Her Defiant Warrior

“She’s beautiful,” Renzo said.

“They were torturing her. Little kids were beating and torturing her.” Jase’s voice broke. “How could they be doing that? I don’t understand.” He finally turned to look at Renzo.

“This place turns everyone into animals,” Renzo said.

“They’re evil.” Jace ground out.

“The adults are evil. The kids didn’t start out evil. The adults made them that way.”

Jase didn’t believe him. All he cared about was his angel. He had to protect her. There was no way he was leaving her.

“Look at this.”

Renzo stared for long moments at the roadmap of abuse on her tiny, gaunt body. “Fuck. Maybe they are evil,” he breathed out.

Renzo held out his finger, and the little girl took another long look at him.

He smiled at her, but she just had that solemn expression on her face.

“She’s so thin,” Renzo said. “She has to be hungry. You’re hungry, aren’t you, Little Angel?” he asked in Spanish.

Jase smiled. He wasn’t surprised in the least that Renzo was also calling her Angel.

“Jase!” It was his mom calling.

“Here, you take her,” Jase said softly as he gently transferred the girl to Renzo.

As he began walking away, he heard Renzo start humming. It was a different song, but it, too, sounded like a lullaby.

He stopped and stared when he saw that there were two men and three women who were all dressed in the light-blue teacher uniforms, surrounded by most of the spectators who had come with his mom to visit the orphanage. One of the lady teachers had two women holding her as she yelled at them. She was shouting curse words at everyone. Over and over again she screamed the children couldn’t be let out of the cages. She kept saying they were filth and animals and retards.

Renzo was right; they were evil devils.

“Jase!”

He turned and saw his mother. He jogged up to where she was towering over the little weasel of a director. The guy with the camera was filming everything.

As soon as she spotted him, he could see just how distressed she was.

“Where have you been? I’ve been calling for you.” She reached out and put her arm around his shoulders, pulling him close.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” and he meant it. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“This is awful,” she whispered into the side of his head. “So awful.” He heard the tremor in her voice. Then she sucked in a deep breath and turned to face him.

“Jace. I need you, Son. It’s important.”

“Anything.” Always. He would always do anything for his mother.

She pointed at the crowd around the teachers. “Some of those people are going to go into town and contact the police. Nita is going to take you to the job site, and I want you to get your dad. I want you to bring him here. Got it?”

Now that she had a plan, and she was getting dad, she wasn’t worried anymore. Now she was mad. Jase didn’t think he’d ever seen her so mad.

“Mom, I need you to come see something first, okay?”

She reached out and cupped his cheek. She’d done that all of his life. It didn’t matter that now he was inches taller than her. “I really need you to hurry, Honey,” she said.

“This is important, Mom.”