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“I don’t know.”
“Where did they take you, Rose,” he insists, pushing the gun against my forehead and making me rear back.
“I don’t know! I was fucking drugged and unconscious when we moved.” My jaw tightens. “I don’t know,” I repeat in a lower voice.
“Contact them, then. And ask them.”
“I don’t know how to contact them,” I rasp. So many ‘I don’t knows’. So many times forcing me to admit I was just a pawn. I can’t lift my eyes to him anymore. If I watch the look of victory on his face, I might try to fight him again. “I don’t know anything.”
Why do I feel so ashamed of it?
It’s a good thing.I force the words into my thoughts.
“Don’t worry,” he finally nods. “I’ve got my own leads. I did find them once, after all, when I was looking for you. I can do it again.” His British accent cuts through me like a knife.
I shake my head in defeat. My arms are hurting from keeping my hands behind my head. I feel like a criminal caught robbing a bank. I feel stupid and conquered. Although what tastes the worst is that I would have never imagined the person to make me feel this way would be Samuel Thomas.
“Friday. Lik will pick you up after his classes. You two will go to the Vue Club to get some info for me. Dress the part.”
His arm falls by his side and my eyebrows raise in surprise. That’s it? That’s all he wants from me? Fine. I can go to that fucking club. He won’t find anything there anyway.
He takes his attention away from me, grabs his knife again, and squats by Rachel’s side.
“Sam,” I panic. I don’t move, too afraid he’ll do something irreparable if I do.
All he does is cut the rope holding Rachel’s wrists together.
“Get out,” he orders both of us.
I practically jump on her as I help her undo the gag around her head. I grab her by the waist, helping her up, and hold her close to me.
She’s crying so hard I can’t make out her words, only desperate sobs are making it past her lips. I still discern the desperate four letters she weeps on repeat. It’s the name of a flower, though she’s making it sound like a poisonous plant. It’s a name that was always meant to sound magical from her lips. Something that should be murmured and moaned from a beautiful girl like her. Never spoken with that kind of despair.
“It’s okay, baby. I got you,” I whisper, trying to use the last of my strength to keep the both of us afloat.
“Mattock will drive you home.”
It’s all I need to leave the house. I’m walking toward the door, holding Rachel tightly against my heart and attempting to soothe her when he calls me again.
“Rose.” His voice is so cold that I stop dead in my tracks. “Don’t even think of going to Jake. I have a long list of people I can kill to keep you in line.”
I leave a beat before I walk again, but I don’t reply.
15
SAM
War– Sum 41
I need a PI. Call a detective, call the fucking FBI because I have no idea where the calm and patience I’m typically known for have disappeared. Silent me retired the second Rose refused to listen to me. I knew she wouldn’t, and I still lost it.
My eyes are glued to the door as she closes it behind her. The last thing I see is a wave of long, black hair. My hand itches to wrap it around my fist and bring her back here, kicking and screaming. Not because she so stubbornly stood up to me tonight. I expected nothing less from her. Rose was forced to obey against her will too many times in her life. If she can fight, she will with everything she has. And I know she’s not done fighting.
No, it wasn’t because she fought me that I want to drag her back and torture her for hours on end. And it wasn’t because she threatened to kill my boyfriend.
It was for what I saw in her eyes when she looked at Rachel. That look. When authors and poets need inspiration for it, when painters look for the color of it, when sculptors put a shape to it…they must look at what I saw in Rose’s eyes tonight.
Love.
