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Chapter Six
Cash
Lying in bed like we were, with Minx resting her head on my bare chest, one leg and arm flung across my body, it almost felt like we were more than whatever the fuck we were. Something normal, like a couple I guess. The only sounds in the room was our heavy breathing as it returned to normal.
There was that fucking word again.
Normal.
I didn’t know what it was or why it loomed so big between us, but I didn’t want to think about it. I only wanted to think about the soft strip of skin my hand moved up and down in a slow, soothing motion. The fact that she didn’t smack my hand away was a good sign. Then her soft voice broke through the quiet.
“I was thirteen-years-old. Hanging out at the park with my friend, Chloe, practicing our soccer skills for tryouts the next week. This lady came up to us and she looked normal, like she could have been one of my mom’s church friends with her mom jeans and short flipped out hairdo, so I didn’t think anything of it when she said her daughter was missing. Stupid me offered to help her look.” Her voice shook and her hand trembled in circles on my stomach. “By the time I realized we were too far from the park it was too late. She’d already shoved me into the back of a windowless van. Sometimes, at night, I can still hear the sound of those tires peeling away from the curb. In a big-ass hurry even though no one was chasing us.”
Her voice barely contained any emotions. It was rote, almost robotic but I didn’t dare interrupt. Sharing this was a big step, and I refused to fuck it up.
“That night we stopped at a house somewhere, I don’t know, but we hadn’t been on the road more than a few hours because it had just gone dark when we got there. Maybe we were still in Indiana, but I didn’t know. They put me in a room with ten other girls ranging in age from nine to sixteen. It was pitch black and there were no windows and just a few buckets in the room for us. As toilets.”
I held her tighter but bit my tongue to mask the anger building in my gut on her behalf. She didn’t need that right now. This was her shit, not mine.
“I got moved around the east coast for a while, New York. That’s where they made sure I knew…who was boss. It took a couple months, a few busted ribs and a concussion to learn, but I did. Then I spent some time in Chicago. It was really bad there, but I couldn’t let myself succumb to the drugs like the other girls. As long as I did what I was told, they didn’t force them into me. Then there was Denver, Albuquerque, Vegas and Portland. When Magnus found me in the back of that truck I was headed to Mexico.”
She fell silent for so long, and I felt like a jackass because I had no clue what to say to her. It explained so much about her quirks, but fuck, it also broke my heart for her. Made me angry enough to use my military skills to exact revenge for her. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, baby.”
“Yeah, me, too,” she sighed, and then rested her chin on the hand over my heart so she could look at me. “Do you know you’re the only person I’ve ever had sex with that I wanted to? Ever?”
Damn, there was nothing else she could have said to get to me. Fuck. I felt honored that she’d given herself to me, but I didn’t want her to stay in that dark place. Not for me. “It’s because I’m so irresistible,” I joked and tightened my grip on her, smacking a kiss on her forehead. “I can’t say I’m not glad you chose me, but fuck, I want to kill the pieces of shit who did this to you.”
She gave a wistful smile. “Good luck. That’s all I dreamed about my first year out. But I don’t know a
nyone’s real names or addresses, so I gave up. I guess the shit today just brought it all to the surface.” She blew out a long, shaky breath and pushed off me before sliding from the bed. “Now you know my story,” she said, and moments later I heard her in the kitchen. She stayed there for a few minutes and I let her, gave her the distance she needed after that.
“Thank you for telling me,” I told her when she returned to bed with two glasses of water in her hands.
“Thanks for coming to check on me.” She flashed a smile and placed her head on my chest again, this time right over my heart.
I opened my mouth to say something, hell to say anything. To tell her I would always check on her, but I didn’t. I didn’t know what she needed—wanted—to hear. By the time I found the words, her breathing was slow and deep. She’d fallen asleep. I gently tucked us under the blankets and held her tight through a restless, fitful sleep.
She cried out, kicked, and twitched in her sleep, and I realized why she never let me stay the night. And suddenly it all became so fucking clear I could have kicked myself for not realizing it sooner. Why she didn’t have food delivered and why this little cottage had a tricked out surveillance system.
Yeah, it made sense, but what the fuck was I supposed to do with it?
***
“You haven’t heard from her at all?”
I shook my head, pissed off and confused as hell about Minx’s disappearance. In the passenger seat of Mick’s old ass truck, I sulked as we headed to a town just over the border for our meeting with Lazarus. “Nope, she was quiet but fine the last time I saw her.” Which was the morning after she revealed her past to me. We made love on and off throughout the night, and she made me breakfast before kicking me out with a kiss that I could still feel on my lips. “I blame myself,” I told Mick. I was too fucking focused on whether or not I could handle what she had said that I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have. She couldn’t have been fine after reliving all that.
And I’d done fuck all to help her.
“Talon said she left a note.”
“Yeah.” It just said, “Thanks for everything. I need to clear my mind for a while. That was it. No promise to fucking return or check in. Nothing. Just peace out, see ya when I fucking see ya. Adios, motherfucker.”
“Can you handle it? I think you better figure that out before she comes back.”
If she comes back. “I can handle a lot. What I can’t fucking handle is running.”
Mick’s sigh said he thought I was a dumb shit. “Her parents never found her, and as far as she knows never even looked for her. No one saved her until Magnus, and even he left.”
