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I press my back into one corner of the elevator, watching her do the same. We watch each other but neither of us speak. What could we possibly have to say? Words can’t fix what we’ve broken, and she seems to be of the same mindset that it would be wasted energy.
I step off the elevator first, something most fucking idiots would consider rude, going ahead of a female, but if there was fucking danger in the goddamned lobby? People who spout shit about chivalry obviously don’t consider all fucking possibilities.
I don’t bother giving Ugly a second glance when he spots us crossing the lobby, but he isn’t as courteous.
“Ayla,” he says as he walks closer, and I fucking hate the man.
I didn’t want to learn her goddamned name this way.
It’s one more fucking thing that we’ve both been robbed of, because I never would’ve demanded it from her. I need it to be something she willingly gave to me after everything I took.
I growl at him, but the fucker either sees how weak I am from weeks of captivity or he’s too egotistical to consider anyone could get the better of him.
“You don’t have to go,” he says, having enough sense not to put himself between the two of us.
“Are you going to keep me from leaving?” she asks point blank.
“Of course not.”
She looks at him like she thinks he’s as much of an idiot as I do before walking right past him.
I follow her this time, but she freezes just outside the hotel. She has to have been a prisoner for longer than I was. She knew all the ins and outs of the operation. They were able to get compliance out of her. Being free must feel like a trick after so long. I know I was only gone for a couple weeks and the traffic and noise are overwhelming.
I don’t know that I’d react at all if I heard someone scream for help because I heard it so many times and was unable to do anything about it even if I were willing.
I walk past her, giving her the option to stay back with the Cerberus assholes or to follow. She asked me to tag along, not the other way around. I’m not going to be the type of man that requests a goddamned thing from her.
I can only imagine how many requests she got that were tainted with the threat against this Alani person she was willing to do anything to protect.
I roll my lips between my teeth as we walk down the sidewalk, away from the hotel, wanting so badly to ask her who that person is to her, but I don’t feel like I have the right.
I don’t honestly know why she chose this instead of staying. I make a right, walking several more blocks before making another right.
I have a gut feeling she’s going to change her mind, and there’s no sense in getting her too far from the hotel if that’s where she wants to return. I’d never walk away and tell her she needs to find her own way either.
Chapter 21
Ayla
The tip of my toe catches on a crack in the sidewalk, making me stumble.
He notices but doesn’t say a word. The clothes I’m wearing were given to me by Slick, shortly after I was brought to the hotel. I didn’t understand at the time why I was treated differently than the others. They pulled over a dozen women from Cortez’s compound, but I was the only one who accompanied them after they made sure the others were in good hands at a resource center.
I know now it was because of what they walked in on. They weren’t going to let me interact with the other women because they didn’t know how I was connected. It was just a taste of what Cortez threatened when he said he’d make everyone believe his narrative about who I was. I hate the man even more for it.
I seriously need to stop, but I don’t know that he’d pause his steps. I’m pretty sure the man would just keep walking. He didn’t look exactly happy that I asked if I could tag along. Maybe I should ask him what his plans are because we’ve passed the same damn store three times, and honestly, he seems fucking lost.
“I can’t,” I gasp, the bottoms of my feet burning like fire.
I press my palm into my side, but it does nothing to alleviate the hitch there.
I reach for him, hating the way he jerks away at just the slightest brush of my palm on his arm.
“Sorry,” he grumbles, but I shake my head.
“I shouldn’t have touched you.”
I reacted the same way back in the hotel room but it had more to do with the fact that I didn’t want his sympathy. I didn’t want him to feel like he needed to defend anything that happened to me.
