“I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll never let anyone in here again.”
His tone grew even harder. “Hands on the desk!”
There was no point in trying to argue with him. I would never win. It was better just to get this over and done with.
I put my hands on the desk. My fingers twitched, and I wished I could tap and count to try and still my panicking mind and take myself away from focusing on the pain I knew was coming.
He pulled a meter-long wooden ruler from behind his desk. I didn’t know if he ever used it for anything other than beating me. I’d never seen him use it for anything else.
“Count,” he demanded.
The ruler whistled through the air and hit the backs of both my knuckles. The pain was excruciating, and fresh tears pricked my eyes.
“One!” I cried.
I fought against every instinct to yank both hands away, to rub each hand with the other to try and sooth the sting, but I knew if I did, the number of hits I’d receive would only be increased.
He lifted the ruler and hit me again, in exactly the same spot.
“Two!” I choked.
My knuckles burned like they were on fire, and each strike only made the next one worse.
He lifted it high and the wood whistled through the air again, hitting me with an audible crack.
“Three!”
He kept going until he reached ten. I could barely feel my individual fingers by that point, my hands an aura of agony. I knew they’d swell, and I’d struggle to bend my fingers for several days to come. Stupidly, I thought to how much harder I was going to find it to turn the pages of the books I still needed to read for school.
“You can remove your hands now,” he told me, placing the ruler back under the desk.
I did as he instructed, but I couldn’t even bring myself to rub my hands better now. I knew any kind of touch would feel like hell. Tears and snot streamed down my face, but I didn’t audibly cry. He wouldn’t like that.
“I’m not going to treat you with kid gloves, Angelo,” he said. “You’re going to be a man soon, and a man who cries at the slightest amount of pain won’t be good for anything. You need to take whatever you’re feeling and bury it deep. Don’t let anyone else know how you feel. No one will ever respect you if you don’t. Do you understand me?
I sucked in snot and tears, swiped away at them with the back of my hand. “Yes, Father.”
He was trying to teach me how to be a man. I had to remember that. He was only trying to help me.
At least that was what I kept telling myself, and as I struggled to sleep that night due to the pain, I knew I had to repeat it over and over, or else I was going to end up hating him.
Chapter Sixteen
Present Day
MY LEG THROBBED WITH the beat of my heart.
I didn’t think it was broken—I doubted I’d have been able to put any weight on it if it was. I’d broken bones before, mainly during my childhood when my father had punished me for something and it had gone wrong. I still had a slightly wonky middle finger on my left hand where he’d caught my hand in the door of the closet he liked to lock me in for days at a time as punishment for some misdemeanor or another. I’d been trying to get out when he’d slammed the door shut, my fingers still around the frame.
I didn’t trust the guy driving, though I was grateful for the ride. I hadn’t liked the way he’d looked at Catalina when he’d first picked us up, thinking he’d be getting her alone, and I made sure my bag containing my gun was close at hand. He’d have been an idiot to try something when there were two against one, even if one of us was injured and the other was a young woman, but there was a good chance I wasn’t the only one who was armed. There was no reason he wouldn’t have a gun wedged under his seat or in the glove compartment. Plenty of people carried these days. It seemed the world was only becoming a more dangerous place, though whether that was the truth or just the perception of our society due to what we were all fed by the media, I didn’t know.
We rode in an uncomfortable silence. I held Catalina’s hand as she sat facing the window, watching the world go by with wide-eyed amazement. I had to remind myself that these few days were the first time she’d been outside of the compound. Other than a couple of hiccups, I thought she’d done incredibly well. I remembered how I’d felt when I’d left for school, knowing I wasn’t going to return to the compound any time soon. The world had felt like a big, scary place, though admittedly I had been a child back then, but I’d never been held captive in the same way Catalina had been. My father allowed me to leave the compound when I’d been growing up, as long as I was accompanying him.
“Is it much farther?” I asked the man driving.
Neil glanced back, taking his eyes off the road for a moment. “Not much longer. Another fifteen minutes or so.”
I could tell he knew something wasn’t quite right with the two of us, but couldn’t put his finger on what. On the outside, we just looked like a young couple, even though one of us was hurt and we were clearly unprepared for hiking. We hadn’t actually done anything wrong, at least to his knowledge.
“Thanks.”
“It’s only a small town, so I expect the emergency room won’t have too much of a wait. You’re probably still going to be looking at a couple of hours, though.”
“That’s fine,” Catalina said. “We’re happy to wait.”
He snorted. “Guess it beats sitting on the side of the road.”
“Certainly does,” I agreed.
Just as Neil had predicted, within fifteen minutes, he took the exit, and soon we found ourselves driving through the streets of a town. He’d described the place as small, but it was far larger than the one we’d left. We passed apartment blocks, chain restaurants, and a couple of gas stations. I clocked the motels, remembering their locations for later. I didn’t know where we’d be going after the hospital. I guessed it depended on how long they kept me in, or what the treatment was going to be for my leg. I hoped they would just be able to give me a tetanus shot, and then we could get the hell out of there.
Neil located the hospital and pulled up outside of the Emergency Room. An ambulance was already in the spot, someone being rolled out of it on a trolley by a couple of paramedics. Others stood around, several people smoking under a Plexiglass shelter. I noted that one of them appeared to be hooked up to oxygen, and mentally I questioned if that was a wise decision.
“Thanks so much for the ride,” I said to Neil as Catalina opened her door and climbed out. I shuffled across the seat, wincing as the movement caused daggers of pain to stab up my leg. Catalina held out her hand and helped me down from the back and out onto the sidewalk outside the front of the hospital.
Neil gave us a nod. “Sure. You folks take care of each other now.”
“We will.”
There were good people in the world. People who would help out complete strangers on the side of the road, just because they could. I’d hardened my heart over all these years of being surrounded by my father and men like my father. I was suspicious of everyone, but sometimes people proved me wrong.
Neil pulled away, and we waved as he went
I turned to Catalina. “I think it might be a better idea for you to wait somewhere for me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Let me go in on my own, and I’ll meet you somewhere. It’s going to be easier for me to slip out after being treated without being seen if I’m alone.”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “No chance. I’m not leaving you alone. Bad things happen when people separate. Besides, you have no idea how long you’re going to be.”
“There’s a motel back along the way. Take some money and go and check in. I’ll meet you there when I’m done.”
“No. I’m not going to go anywhere without you.”
Her blue eyes were sharp with determination, her mouth set firm, her shoulders rigid.
I wasn’t used to seeing thi
s side of Catalina. She’d always been compliant before, but since leaving the compound, she was starting to know her own mind. It wasn’t that she didn’t have one before—of course, she did, and I’d caught glimpses of this Catalina on occasions, like when I’d suggested to her that I wouldn’t be the one who’d train her and that I’d give the job to someone else—but now she was free of the constraints my father had placed around her during her life.
“Okay, fine. We’ll go to the motel afterward. Together.”
She released a breath. “Good.”
“We’ll stick to the same story we gave the driver, okay? You’re Caroline, and I’m Adam. We’re traveling around together.”
“What are our surnames?”
“Umm, you can be Caroline Lloyd, and I’ll be Adam Hardie. We’ll say that someone went through our bags while we were camping out and stole our stuff. Then the bear trap happened while we were hiking to report the theft to the cops, and so we came straight here.”
She gave a tight smile, but hope lightened her eyes and she nodded. “Okay. I can do that.”
“But if things start looking like they’re going wrong, we need to just get the hell out of there, even if I haven’t been treated yet. Got it? Nothing is more important than your safety. I’d rather my leg ends up amputated than my father and Torres catch up with us.”
Alarm flashed across her face. “That won’t happen, will it?”
“No, no it won’t. I was exaggerating. Sorry.”
She had no concept of what might or might not happen in this world. Nothing to compare what I was saying to.
Catalina put her arm around my waist, wedging her shoulder into my armpit to support my bad side, and together we made our way inside, the double doors opening automatically as we approached.
The bustle of the busy hospital had Catalina shrinking into my side. She was half holding me up, while I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, keeping her close. Her gaze darted around, drinking in the numerous faces, the different injuries of the people waiting to be seen, the doctors and nurses racing around, the receptionists behind the desk, a protective screen surrounding them to prevent any violent patients attacking them. Someone was crying, and doctors shouted to one another. It was more activity and people in one place than she’d ever been exposed to before, and her body trembled against mine. A wave of protectiveness washed over me, but with it came a flicker of worry. I hoped Catalina’s skittish behavior wasn’t going to draw us any unwanted attention.
“Do you want to sit down while I see how soon someone can see me?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m staying with you.”
We lined up behind some other people waiting at the reception desk. A man in his forties was holding a bloodied towel around his hand, while the person in front appeared completely healthy, and I wondered what they were here for.
I stood practically one-legged, taking my weight off my bad leg, and using Catalina for support. “You okay?” I asked her. “Tell me if I’m squashing you.”
She smiled up at me. “I’m okay. I like having an excuse to keep you this close.”
Warmth expanded inside my chest, and I bent my head to kiss her nose. We squeezed each other tighter. Even after everything we’d been through and were still going through, there was no doubt in my mind that we’d done the right thing by running.
The person ahead of us finished, and we shuffled forward, getting closer to the desk.
“Hi. I need to see a doctor. I’ve had an accident and busted up my leg pretty badly.”
The woman behind the screen barely looked up. “You’re going to need to fill in some patient information, and I’m going to need to see some ID and see your insurance documents.”
“I don’t have any insurance,” I admitted, feeling like that was the safer route to take than trying to lie and have them not be able to find my fake name with the insurance company. “And I don’t have any ID either. My girlfriend and I had our stuff stolen when we were out hiking.”
The woman lifted her head and eyed our backpacks suspiciously.
“Someone went through our bags,” Catalina threw in. “We were sleeping, and they just snuck in and took anything that looked valuable.”
“I’m so mad at myself for not waking up,” I said, shaking my head at myself. “They must have been right at the foot of the tent.”
The receptionist frowned. “That’s terrible. Have you reported it to the police?”
“Not yet, but we will. I needed to get this seen to first. Stood on a bear trap and got my leg caught. I don’t think it’s broken, but the teeth pierced the skin.”
The woman didn’t seem in the slightest bit fazed by my description of my accident. I guessed she’d heard a lot worse.
She pushed a clipboard with some forms attached in my direction. “Fill in what information you have. We’ll have to send office admin down to you to sort out how you’re going to pay.”
“Sure.” I’d been expecting that.
“And you’re going to have at least a couple of hours’ wait. There are plenty of people in front of you.”
I’d been expecting that, too.
“Not a problem. We understand.”
We turned as one person, away from the desk and toward the rows of plastic seating which were occupied by all the people waiting to be seen. Catalina helped me over to a couple of free seats, and we both sank down into them. I kept my arm around her shoulders, and she leaned her head against my chest. We might as well make ourselves as comfortable as possible, since we’d probably be here awhile.
I balanced the clipboard on my knee and took the cheap plastic pen from where it had been wedged into the clip, and then tied on with a piece of string to stop anyone from stealing it. I wrote down a different address than the one I’d given back at the motel, not wanting anything to link us together. Even though I was taking every precaution, I still felt as though I was creating an invisible trail behind us, something that only my father and Elliot Torres would know how to follow.
Beside us, a woman sat with a small child with flushed cheeks, who kept coughing into her hand. I wished I could have convinced Catalina to take care of my goddamned leg ourselves. This place was a hive of germs, and I didn’t want either of us getting sick on top of me walking with a limp for the foreseeable future.
The urge to count and tap swept over me, but I clenched my fists together and pressed my lips into a thin line. I didn’t want to do anything that would make us both more noticeable or memorable, and me giving in to my annoying tick wouldn’t help matters.
Though I knew the chances of anyone knowing our location were slim, I was unable to relax. I paid attention to the people around us, staff and patients alike, checking to see if anyone was acting suspiciously. I was sure we’d covered all our tracks and there was no way my father or Torres could have followed us here, but I didn’t want to let my guard down for a moment. As well as the two men being after us, I was also fully aware that we were the perpetrators of a car theft, and we had no idea if the woman whose car we’d stolen had seen us and was able to give a description. She might have even had security cameras on her property, and so had actual images of us, or we may have been caught by another security system on the street. While the vehicle had been old and wasn’t worth much money, that sleepy little town didn’t look as though it had anything exciting going on for the police to get involved with. We’d been strangers in the town, and there was a good chance we’d been placed at the diner, too, especially since Catalina had stripped off in the bathroom and been seen. People tended to remember things like that.
I filled in the forms and handed them back in to the receptionist and sat back down again. My leg continued to throb, but it didn’t feel any worse than it had when I’d first been trapped, which I took as a good sign. The emergency room continued to remain busy as the hours slipped by. We shifted positions to get comfortable, and Catalina paid a trip to the vending machine for coffee and snacks. I watched, amused, as
she studied the machine with a frown, trying to figure out how it worked. Eventually, she got it to accept the correct amount of money, and she spun to me with a wide smile of delight, brandishing the candy bar the vending machine spat out like a kid at Christmas. I couldn’t help but grin back at her delight at such a simple thing. It was easy to forget how things I took for granted in my day to day life were still such a novelty in hers.
She brought back the candy and coffee. It was getting late now, and this was both our dinner, and provided much needed caffeine to keep us both awake. More people came and went around us, and still we waited.
“Adam Hardie?” someone called finally.
“Thank God.”
We were both stiff from sitting in the same position for so long, but Catalina helped me to my feet, and we made our way over to where the doctor waited, holding a clipboard.
“I’m Doctor Tuck.” He frowned down at my leg. “Do you need a wheelchair?”
I shook my head. “I’ve gotten this far. I’ll be fine.”
“Then follow me.”
He led us both into an examination room and gestured for me to take a seat on the gurney. I hauled myself up and onto it, and sat with my toes barely touching the floor, feeling like a child.
“So, what happened?” Doctor Tuck asked.
I explained the story of the hike and the bear trap.
He pulled a face. “Let’s take a look, then. I’m afraid I’m going to need to cut the leg of your jeans to get better access. Can I ask you to take off your boots, and you might want to empty out your pockets. I’m sure I’m not going to need to cut that high, but better to be safe than sorry.”
I realized my wallet was in the back pocket of my jeans. We’d given the story that we’d had all our stuff stolen, so I didn’t want the doctor to find it. Using my body as a shield, I twisted around, slipping the wallet from my back pocket and shoving it into my bag. Then I worked off my boots.
The doctor pulled over a chair to sit in front of me and used a sharp pair of scissors to cut the jeans leg. I’d rather he hadn’t, considering we were down to only a few items of clothing, but I couldn’t get in the way of him doing his job.
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