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“Christ, J. She thought my cock was motion-activated. Her social and sexual boundaries are about six inches in front of her. Do you not think she’d remember if she’d had sex?”
Jasper said nothing.
Horror slid through his veins as he finally figured out what his friend wasn’t saying. Saul shook his head adamantly. “No. No. Do not…don’t you fucking…no.”
“I’m not saying they did. I’m warning you that there’s a chance.”
Sick to the stomach—hell, to his goddamn soul—Saul snarled. “She would have been seven.”
“Younger, most likely, if that’s what happened. Age was never a factor for them. Gaining data, testing new products, continuing the line. Those were the priorities. Maybe if they felt she was substandard to the goal, they didn’t subject her to anything sexual, but the brain protects itself for a reason.”
“Jasper, stop.” Connie intervened before Saul’s rage bubbled free and decimated everything in a five-mile radius. She laid her hand on his arm—in comfort or restraint, he didn’t know. “It doesn’t matter. If Caera was abused as a minor, it’s a trauma she will have to deal with as and when it comes back to her. If she wasn’t, and we can only pray those monsters left some part of her innocence intact, there is no reason to put the idea in her head. Are we all clear on that?”
If Caera wasn’t sleeping on his back, her arms dangling loosely over his shoulders now, Saul would have taken a swing at Jasper. Not because he’d dared to put a voice to devastating possibilities, but because he was the perfect target for Saul’s simmering fury.
Jasper would fight back, give as good as he got, and wouldn’t complain about a black eye or split lip.
Instead of brawling in the dark, Saul grunted his agreement.
Caera couldn’t be allowed to know this had even been raised in conversation. They would simply have to tackle it if and when her memories returned, no matter what they revealed. Until then…fuck, the pain of not knowing might just kill him.
“Jasper?” Using her best Domme voice, Connie focused on the sadist.
“Lips are sealed.”
“All right then. Let’s get Caera home and into a bed. Archie and Thane went home to sort out the sleeping arrangements. Jasper volunteered to take the couch if Archie can fit in the guest bed with you guys.”
Saul snorted, a spark of humor lighting the gloom of his thoughts. “That’s not going to work for me. I don’t want my arms breaking if I wake up in the morning touching something that doesn’t belong to me. I’ll take the couch with Caera—she’ll wake screaming if I don’t sit up with her, and Anarchy shouldn’t have to be disturbed that way.”
“My kitten has nightmares of her own. She’d understand.”
Crisis temporarily stored away, they headed toward the trees and the last stretch of the pathway before sanctuary returned to civilization.
“Are you getting any sleep yourself?” Connie asked.
“I just doze on and off. The signs are easy to recognize when the nightmares start. If I catch them early, I can wake her up long enough to break the cycle before she drops off again. We’re building a better routine, and it seems to be working, for the most part.” He adjusted his hands on her thighs. “Sometimes I catch an hour when I know she’s watching TV or reading. Eventually, I’m hoping she’ll sleep through the night.”
“It’s not healthy for you.”
“Caera’s the priority, Con. I know my limits.”
“Yes, well, tonight you’ve reached them. I’ll take the first shift, Thane can take the second. Do not argue with me,” she warned flatly, poking his arm. “You’ve been taking care of her for over a week, you’ve had a long journey home, and today has just been a big, fat heap of stress. Both of you need some proper downtime.”
“Con—”
“Don’t argue with her,” Jasper suggested as they passed through the trees and back into the residential area. “She’ll outtalk you seven ways to Sunday, and you’ll still end up where she wants you to be. Just say yes, Mistress and be thankful she doesn’t twist your earlobe until you cry like a baby.”
Too tired to argue with either of his friends, Saul trudged over the grass towards Jasper’s truck, silently debating whether it would be less disruptive to everyone to just shove Caera into his jeep when they got back, drive across town to his own home, and drink enough coffee to wire his system until dawn.
Christ, now he was thinking like Caera.
Right this second, he couldn’t give a fuck what surface his body dropped onto for rest. With all the doubts and the new theories coming to light, it would be a miracle if his brain switched off long enough for sleep to kick in.
If those fuckers had touched his girl, if they’d raped her when she wasn’t even eight years old, then Jasper’s parents had better keep on running around the world like the scared fucking cowards they were. Jasper might have his own grudges against Dominic and Rita, but by all that was holy, Saul vowed he would take his goddamn pound of flesh from at least one of the assholes.
Arguing with himself, he almost fell off the curb, correcting his footing before he went sprawling across the asphalt, sending Caera tumbling beside him. He felt Jasper’s arm slam across his chest as support, but Saul had already recovered from the misstep.
“Careful with the cargo, brother.”
