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EMERSYN
“Did it help?”
“The water? Yes.” Exhaustion weighed down on me. Every single one of my muscles was too heavy. “Thank you.” Manners were so crucial to every situation, whether it was to the maid who cleaned my room or to the waitress who brought coffee at two in the morning.
Rome snorted softly, and I glanced over to find him shaking his head. There was a hint of a smile on his face as his pencil continued to scratch at the paper. “I meant telling you my name.”
Oh. I’d said that it could help, and now he wanted to know if it did. As uncertain of that answer as I was about my location, I said nothing until he verbally prodded me again.
“I don’t know.” I wanted to turn away but it hurt to twist, so I had to settle for just closing my eyes.
* * *
I was still sittingon the floor reading when Kestrel arrived.
The door thudded down the hall, and I glanced up from the page in time to see Kestrel arrive at the top of the steps. He stared at me and then at the closed door as he approached.
“No sign of him?”
I shook my head. “I don’t even know if he’s in there.” The thought had actually occurred to me a couple of hours earlier. “I might have been sitting out here reading aloud for just myself all day.”
Leaning over, Kestrel hit the door with his fist in a rapid beat. “Freddie, open your fucking mouth and tell Sparrow thank you for spending her whole day sitting on this hard, fucking cold ass floor for you.”
Mouth agape, I stared up at Kestrel as he extended that hand to me. I clasped it and let him pull me to my feet. I ignored the soreness radiating up my butt from where it had gone numb again down my legs, which also protested the absolute lack of movement all day.
A few seconds later, the door opened to the near pitch-dark room. I couldn’t see Freddie, but I could smell him, and the scent of sweat and body odor was a little strong.
“Thanks, Boo-Boo,” he said in a raw voice. “I really liked you reading.”
“There’s a sandwich here for you. A couple of them.”
When I would have picked them up, Kestrel tugged me back from the door. “He’s a big boy. He can get them. You’ve looked after him all day. Let’s look after you, shall we?”
* * *
"Are you high?"The question slipped out before I could swallow it back as I shot a look at Doc. "I don't have a brother." The soft, lazy good mood from the night before vanished. Dread-infused anger iced in my system as I went hot and cold all at once.
What the hell was going on?
"Dove," Vaughn said quietly, and I cut a look away from the pained expression on Doc's face to the measured one on Vaughn's. There it was—in his topaz eyes—worry and sadness. His face, like Kellan's, was also marked up. Neither of them was bleeding though, not like Jasper.
That didn't mean they hadn't been bleeding.
I jerked a look back at the bruiser in front of me. He was huge. Big, like they all were, yet there seemed to be something much more dangerous about him. Dark brown eyes locked on me and I shook my head.
"I don't have a brother," I repeated slowly. "Trust me, I would have known."
* * *
I swallowedagainst the burn in my throat and in my eyes. “I don’t remember a time when my uncle didn’t touch me.” It was so hard to utter those words and I stared at the darkness of the room, terrified someone would hear it. Hear me.
Worse, they would hear me telling Freddie.
His back stiffened against me.
“He used to dress me up, or he would have his staff do it…” I licked my lips even though there was no spit. “He liked to take my clothes off, pet me, and dress me up again.”
The bile from earlier just seemed to sit there, and one of the tears slid free.
