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At least, I thought so while growing up.
I learned nowhere is safe. Not the small town I grew up in. Not even Mistletoe Creek. Which is why I probably won’t be able to stay here for very much longer.
This is the longest I’ve stayed in one place since I started to bounce around the country ten years ago. I needed to keep moving for a few reasons. Part of why I kept moving was to try and outrun my fears and demons. The bigger reason is I was trying to find out what happened to my best friend, Kyla.
I needed to find her.
I never did and five years ago, when I rolled into Mistletoe Creek, I finally accepted I probably never will. It was difficult to come to terms with but being in a place that almost felt like home helped. The way the people of this Christmas-loving small town accepted me helped as well.
I can’t help but wonder if they would have opened their hearts to me the way they did if they knew I’m putting them in danger by being here.
I don’t like putting them in danger and I’m almost positive it’s not imminent or anything. I just know if the people who I steal from found me, they wouldn’t forgive the town for harboring me. No one here knows what I do with my time other than the lies I tell them, but I’m not sure that would matter in the end.
As far as Mistletoe Creek is concerned, I work from home in the IT field. It’s not entirely a lie. I do work from home, and I do use my IT skills. I just use them to skim money from men who have too much of it and who have a hand in human trafficking.
They deserve it. They ruin lives with their actions.
I might never have found Kyla and the people behind her being taken and sold, but I used my hacking skills to learn a lot about traffickers across the country. It’s harder to hit the people at the top, but I find those on the fringes, and I make sure they don’t have the resources to ruin as many lives as they could.
I always do my research when it comes to who I steal from. The men I skim from have bloody hands and souls steeped in sin.
I had no idea how much trafficking was going on in and around Baltimore while I was growing up. My parents shielded me from that kind of thing, which is exactly what parents are supposed to do. I miss them, but this is the path my life has taken, and I can’t bring them into it.
Kyla’s family tried to protect her from the darkness of the world too. It didn’t stop the men who took her.
I take a deep breath and head to my desk and get to work. Christmas is right around the corner and the organizations I infuse with money will need more because of the holiday season. The victims the organizations help should have a happy Christmas. At least, as much of one as they can.
I don’t steal for me. It’s almost all for them.
I don’t need much, and my small apartment is a reminder of that. I don’t want to worry about a lot of stuff when I pack up to move. The things I have remind me of the life I had, the life Kyla had, and tide me over from day to day. It’s more than enough.
I pull up my files on the Devil’s Saints Motorcycle Club out of Seattle again and check to make sure the information I have is still the same. They’re not the only men I’ll be targeting today, but they’re the first, and the payout is going to be bigger to make sure those who need it get it in time for the holidays. They can afford to give a little to those whose lives have been ruined by men who think they have power because they have a dick.
Everything I’ve found says they have ties to the Russian mob in the area, the same mob which has been trafficking women out of the port for years. I shiver and close my eyes and breathe to try and settle my stomach. If I focus for too long on the horrors those who are stolen endure, I would be useless.
When I open my eyes again, my computer monitor swims across my vision as I try not to cry. Those same horrors are ones Kyla experienced.
I should have gone with her that night, but I was sick and could barely lift my head up from my pillow. I told her she shouldn’t go without me, but she didn’t listen. Which was a total Kyla thing to do, and it would be so easy to be mad at her because of it, but she’s not to blame. She should have been able to go to a concert.
How many people do the same thing all the time and get back home safely?
She just…didn’t.
I force myself to get to work even as my mind drifts off to memories of Kyla. We were opposites in so many ways and what they say about opposites attracting was true for us. She was tall at close to 6’, slim, and blonde. I have black hair just like my mom, curves and hips that won’t quit, and am still the same 5’4” I was when I was a freshman in high school.
I remember hoping that I would have a growth spurt, but I never did while Kyla, who I had been friends with since Kindergarten, shot up over one summer. I was jealous of her height, but she was such an amazing person that I couldn’t hold onto it for long.
She was the one who always pulled me out of myself and my head when I got stuck in it. She stood between me and the few mean girls who liked to bully me. No one wanted to get on her bad side, and it wasn’t just because she had a temper. She was popular but didn’t gain the attention or friends through cruelty.
She turned 18 right after spring break our senior year of high school, but I wasn’t going to turn until the summer. I remember going over to her house on the morning of her birthday and being greeted by her mom who hugged me and welcomed me into her home with a big smile on her face.
“Robyn,” she kept her voice low, no doubt because Kyla was still sleeping, and she was not someone you wanted to wake up if you could avoid it. “I’m making chocolate chip pancakes. How about you come and hang out with me and let the birthday girl sleep for a few more minutes?”
I grinned and teased her, something I was only comfortable doing because she felt like a second mom to me and their house was my home away from home, “Scared?”
She gave an overexaggerated shiver and laughed softly, “Petrified.”
I giggled as I followed her through the house and into the kitchen where I found Kyla’s dad drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. I rolled my eyes because no matter how many times we tried to get him to read it on his tablet, he always insisted he could feel the news better when he was touching the paper.
