Page 52 of Auctioned to the Devil

“No.”

“Why didn’t your mother leave?”

“Same reasons women always give. Money. Fear. Nowhere to go. Thought he’d change.” He looks away. “Loved him.”

That last one carries the most bitterness.

“So you stayed for Abby.”

“Until she got out.”

“You could’ve left?”

“I had an Army recruiter calling me from the time I was seventeen.”

“But you waited.”

“She still had another year of school.”

Of course he waited.

“When she left for college, I enlisted.”

“Special Forces?”

“Eventually.”

“And you liked it?”

For the first time, he hesitates.

“Yeah.”

That surprises me.

“Why?”

“Rules made sense.”

He sets his beer down.

“You did your job. The guy beside you did his. You watched his back. He watched yours.”

“Simple.”

“Nothing about it was simple.”

“But you knew your place.”

His eyes return to mine. “Yeah.”

I understand that more than he probably realizes.

“What happened?”

Silence.

The fire cracks behind me.