Trinity Broken

by Jamie Craig

  “I know. I’m sorry I didn’t take the phone. I thought it might help if you talked to him a little bit.” He rubbed her back in slow circles. “Can you tell me what upset you?”

  “He…he…I thanked him for getting me away from, from…and then he said he was holding me in the car.” The words came faster as she spoke, until they were coming so swiftly her tongue tripped over the syllables. “And I remembered waking up, and what that felt like, and then I was back there, back in the cage and I had to fight him, but he was so strong, and he wouldn’t stop, even after I was down. He wouldn’t stop. He never stopped.”

  “Oh, Sara. Sara.” Josh simply held her, giving her his strength, warming her skin with his body, until she finally stopped trembling. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but Josh never shifted, never pulled away from her. “Come on, let’s lay down. The bed is more comfortable than standing here in the cold.”

  She nodded, a small movement that rubbed her cheek against his shirt. Josh laced his fingers through hers and led her over to the bed, guiding her to stretch out beneath the blankets. The moment he laid down, though, she curled into his side, almost more on top of him than on the bed, and he wrapped his arms around her, steady and sure.

  “I hate this,” she confessed. Her voice was tiny, nearly lost against his skin. “I hate being scared, and I hate feeling weak, and I hate that half of what I say or do gets you upset.”

  “I know you do. But you don’t have to be scared forever. And you’re not going to be weak forever.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’m not upset, Sara. Don’t worry about upsetting me.”

  It was a mild relief to hear him say the words, even if she didn’t believe him. She’d seen his face. She knew how hard this was for him.

  “Talk to me,” she said, almost pleading. “Tell me…” She searched for something that would be easy, something she wanted that wouldn’t create undue pain. “Tell me what’s been going on with my kids. Did they get somebody good in to replace me?”

  “Well…Linda Peters took over your class. The kids call her Miss Linda. She’s really good with them. And your kids are all growing up so fast. I know this because several of them still visit pretty regularly…”

  * * * *

  Cam stared at the phone for several seconds after Josh hung up on him without seeing it. All he heard was Sara’s voice in his head, saying over and over I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

  I can’t.

  “You can’t what, Sara? You can’t even talk to me?”

  He opened his fingers and dropped the phone to keep from throwing it. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he’d known he’d made a mistake. She didn’t want to see him, and she sure as hell didn’t want to think about him touching her. Now he’d be lucky if she even spoke to him again, much less let him see her.

  “Fuck.” He slapped the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

  Cam wasn’t angry with Sara. He wasn’t even angry with himself. But he was furious at the bastard who wore his face, who hurt her so badly she couldn’t even think of him touching her.

  Whoever it was would pay. The bloodlust pounded in his veins, darkening his vision. Tearing that fucker from limb to limb may not heal Sara, but it would sure make him feel better.

  He ran his hand over his face, wiping away the familiar dampness, and put the car in gear. At least he got to hear her voice. At least he knew she still remembered the good times, somehow. At least they hadn’t taken everything away from her.

  Forcing his anger aside, he concentrated on the thrill of joy he felt when he first heard her voice. Cam pulled back out onto the road, his headlights slicing through the darkness. He’d visit Sammie Jo as planned, and maybe when he was done talking to her, Josh would be free to call him.

  Chapter 8

  After taking four meals at the diner, Sara wasn’t as hesitant to venture out of the hotel with him when it came time to go apartment hunting. Josh had hesitated outside Cam’s door, but Sara didn’t notice. Or, if she noticed, she didn’t acknowledge it. Josh could easily imagine him stretched out on his stomach on the bed, his laptop open, his brow furrowed, scraps of paper surrounding him as he made notes to himself. He would be pretending to work, pretending it wasn’t killing him that they were leaving him behind.

  Josh escorted Sara out to the car, watching her carefully for any signs of being overwhelmed by the outside world. She tensed when a few cars passed them in the lot, but otherwise, she seemed to be okay. He made a point to lock the car doors once she was buckled up.

  As they drove to the first address, Josh kept up a steady flow of conversation, describing the three places they were going to see and how he had narrowed it down from the initial dozen options.

  “I wanted a place with at least two bedrooms, but I also looked at apartments with three, and even four. I did find a house that was easily within our range, but it’s not quite as nice as the apartment we’re going to see first, even if it is a bit more spacious.”

  Sara offered him a wan smile. In the brilliant Vegas sunlight, the shadows beneath her cheekbones and eyes were still prominent, but two days of regular sleep—even when he woke up in the wee hours of the morning and found her watching Nick at Nite—and meals that were more than broth and bread had smoothed over the pallor in her skin. It was nowhere near her normal rich caramel tone, but it was an improvement and that was all Josh saw.

  “I didn’t have to see them, you know,” she said. “Anything you pick is automatically going to be better than where I’ve been.”

  “You deserve to pick your own home, Sara, no matter how temporary that home might be.”

  Her eyes seemed to engulf her face as she looked at him. “Our home, you mean.”

  “Our home,” Josh corrected. “I just meant I want you to be comfortable. Happy, if that’s even possible.”

  She nodded in agreement and turned back to the window, staring out at the flat horizon. “I’ll be happy when I know those people aren’t hurting anybody else,” she said softly.

  Josh wanted to tell her Cam had foregone sleep for the past forty-eight hours in the name of research, but he avoided mentioning Cam. She was happier when his name didn’t come up at all, even if it was like a knife twisting in his chest every time he bit Cam’s name back.

  “They won’t.”

  Josh pulled into a sprawling apartment complex and parked in the red future residents only space.

  “Ready to go in?”

  She looked anything but ready, but she pushed the door open without any further prompting and stepped into the sunshine. When she paused before closing her door, Josh held still, too, watching in rapt attention as Sara closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sun. Little steps, he told himself. That was how she would get better. But when she did things like this, he had to quell the urge to barrel through the little steps for the huge ones to come later.

  She glowed. With life.

  He climbed out of the car with a small smile playing on his lips.

  Connie, the property manager, was waiting for them in a smart blue suit, a folder in her hand. “Are you Josh? You must be my one o’clock.”

  Josh held out his hand. “Yes, we talked on the phone yesterday. And this is Sara.”

  Connie nodded at her, but before Sara could greet her, they were being bustled out of the office. Connie talked as she led them to the model apartment, going about one hundred words per minute. Josh barely paid attention to a word she said, though he caught a few important phrases, like gated communities and on-premise security guard.

  “Here it is,” Connie announced, unlocking the door.

  Josh stepped aside to allow Sara to enter first, and then followed her into the spacious living room. Though it was furnished, it was large enough not to look cluttered, even with the overabundance of accoutrements such places put in to make it look like “home”. A smaller dining room led into the large kitchen, but Sara seemed fascinated by
the sliding doors that led to the small patio.

  “What floor is the available apartment on?” she asked as she gazed out into the community.

  “Oh, the second floor,” Connie answered.

  As Sara’s face fell, Josh moved to her side. “Do you want a place with a backyard?”

  “No, that’s all right.”

  But she wandered through the apartment with far less enthusiasm than she’d shown for the patio, and they left Connie behind to head back to the car without anything definitive being said.

  Josh’s next appointment was at another apartment, but he decided to bypass that and go directly to the house. She never looked away from the window, but he noticed she had her hands cradled over her stomach, like she was in some sort of pain. Josh worried his bottom lip, keeping one eye on her and the other on the road.

  “The owner will be here in about fifteen minutes,” Josh said as he pulled into the driveway. “We’re a little early.”

  Sara leaned forward to look at the house through the windshield. “It’s big. Why do you think it’s not as nice as the apartment?”

  “A house this size in our price range? The interior is less than stellar. It’s not disgusting, but it does need some major work. If we were staying longer than a month or so, I wouldn’t even suggest it.”

  She got out of the car and walked down to the sidewalk, looking around the neighborhood. It was working class, but clean, and Josh had seen enough of the neighbors not to be concerned about local trouble. But as he watched her, her hands kept straying back to her midsection, and one was still there when she returned to the car.

  “If the inside is livable,” she said, “let’s do this one. I like it. It feels like home.”

  “I like it, too.” He glanced at her stomach. “Do you want to get an early lunch?”

  Sara grimaced. “No, I don’t think I can eat anything. My stomach feels weird again. But if you’re hungry, don’t let me stop you.”

  “No, I’m not hungry.” He looped his arm through hers and led her around to the side of the house. “Look, they just installed this fence. The previous renters had a few large dogs they kept back here. And there’s a new security system.”

  Her gaze crawled up the side of the house. “Are the bedrooms on the second floor?”

  “The master bedroom is on the bottom floor, but there are decent-sized bedrooms on the second floor. I thought Cam would take the room downstairs.”

  She flinched slightly at his name, but it was the way she tried to cover up her reaction that hurt Josh the most. Pulling her arm free of his, Sara walked back up to the front porch, leaving him to trail behind.

  “Is it available right away?” she asked when he approached.

  “Yeah. The guy who owns this place is going to perform some major renovations in the spring, but wants to rent it out in the meantime.” She sat on the top step and he stood beside her, watching the interplay of light on her hair. He remembered his promise to Cam to try to get more information from her. There was never a good time to ask for her memories, never a good way to fit it into the conversation, but if he didn’t at least try, they were never going to get anywhere. “Sara, can I ask you something?”

  The trusting way she tilted her head up to him only tightened the knots. “Anything.”

  For a moment, he assumed his identity of scientist, desperately in need of the distance it provided. He could pretend he wasn’t asking this question of his lover, but of a subject. “What do you remember of the day they took you?”

  Her gaze slid sideways, softening with the pain of memories. “All of it. What do you want to know?”

  Josh reached for the small writing tablet in his shirt pocket. “What time of day was it?”

  “They came the first time at lunch. I was on playground patrol, and they were standing near the fence with Mrs. Ehle. She said they were checking out the school for their daughter.”

  Josh swallowed, already his persona slipping. This was going to be painful for both of them, but a necessary evil. “Did you see them again after school?”

  Sara nodded. She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on her knees. “I saw them talking to Mrs. Ehle again, so I went over to see if there was anything more I could tell them, to help them make their decision.” Her foot began to twitch, her heel tapping against the step. “They asked if I had time to talk to them over a cup of coffee, and I…said sure.”

  “A man and a woman?” She nodded and he made the note in his book, but he felt sick. A man and a woman who knew exactly where and when to find Sara. A man and a woman who could have taken a child, or one of the other teachers, but targeted Sara. Were they shifters? Based on what she had said earlier, he felt certain they were definitely looking for a shifter. “Did you agree to drive to the coffee shop with them?”

  “It seemed easier. I mean, you know what parking is like there, especially after school. All the high school kids hang out in the lot and it’s a zoo.” Sara leaned forward, a sudden fervor in her dark eyes. “They were normal, Josh. They had pictures of their daughter and everything. How was I supposed to know?”

  “You couldn’t have known, Sara. You had no reason to know anybody would…could…do what they did to you.” He brushed his thumb over her chin and coaxed her to look up to meet his eyes. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “Did you know about them?” she asked. “When you were trying to figure out what happened to me. Did Mrs. Ehle tell you and…Cam?”

  Josh didn’t miss the way she used Cam’s name without any prompting from him. Every little breakthrough was worth celebrating. “Mrs. Ehle gave a statement to the police, and they found the couple she identified and brought them in for some follow-up questions.” He paused, the words falling out of his mouth like stones. “Their story checked out.”

  “Their story was a lie!” It was the most vehement he’d ever seen her, without it being directed at Cam. Knocking his hand away, Sara rose to her feet and began pacing along the edge of the grass in front of the house. “That bitch wasn’t even a shifter. When I realized something was wrong, I shifted to fly out of there, and she screamed at him to go after me.”

  “There was a shifter working with an outsider…” Josh murmured. What if there had just been one shifter? Everybody had a price, after all, and the shifter may not have even known Sara. “Sara.” She didn’t stop pacing. He crossed the yard to take her arm. “Were there any other shifters there? Where they were keeping you. Do you ever remember seeing or sensing a second one?”

  It took a moment for his questions to break through her discomfiture, like she was processing each word individually. “You mean other than Ca—the one who looked like Cam?”

  Josh didn’t wince from her near slip—at least, not visibly. “Were there two? Or was the shifter you saw that afternoon the same one who changed into Cam’s form?”

  “I don’t…” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Don’t you get it? I only ever saw Cam. Him, and the doctor, and the guards. When they weren’t poking me with everything under the sun, they’d lock me in the cage with him, and then stand back to watch the show.”

  Josh backed off immediately, both from the questions and physically. She had answered his question indirectly, but it was enough for him. A truck pulled to a stop in front of them, and a large man with a friendly smile lumbered around the front.

  “Are you Josh? I’m Bob. We talked earlier, right?”

  Josh returned his smile and went through the required pleasantries. Sara didn’t speak at all, her mouth compressed in a thin line, her arms folded in front of her stomach again.

  When Bob unlocked the front door, a musty smell struck them, and Bob waved his hand in front of his face. “Sorry about that. It does need to be aired out a bit.”

  Sara seemed oblivious to the stale atmosphere and was the first to step over the threshold. By the time Josh entered, she was already gone from the front room, her footsteps echoing from deeper inside the h
ouse. He followed the sound to find her standing at the back door, overlooking the enclosed yard.

  “I want this,” she said without preamble. “This is the one.”

  “I brought the paperwork with me,” Bob volunteered. “It’s in my truck.”

  “Great. I’ve got my checkbook. I’ll sign everything now.” Josh watched Bob leave silently before reaching for his phone. “I think you should call Cam and tell him what we’ve found.”

  Sara whirled to face him. “What? Why? No. You do it.”

  “Nothing can hurt you over the phone, can it?” Josh pointed out. “And the shifter that looked like Cam never spoke, did he?” She didn’t look convinced. “Will you do it as a favor to me? You don’t have to have a long conversation with him. Just tell him what we’ve found and where we’re at.”

  A muscle ticked in her jaw. Her hand rubbed distractedly over her stomach while she weighed his words, then shot out, palm upward, toward him. “Fine. Give me the phone.”

  Josh scrolled to Cam’s number and pressed the call button before handing it to her. “You can give me the phone as soon as you want,” he promised, as she brought it to her ear.

  * * * *

  When the silence became too much for Cam to stand, he turned on the television, finding a movie that didn’t require his attention. The room filled with voices and music, and he was horrified to find the sound actually comforted him. When was the last time he needed the television to help alleviate his isolation?

  He wanted to call Josh. But he was careful to avoid contacting him when he knew Josh was with Sara, so he shifted his attention back to the laptop. Public records, search engines and the horde of shifters in the online community who had been following their story had all turned up bits and pieces of information, but not enough to fill in the puzzle yet.

  It didn’t help that his thoughts kept straying to Josh and Sara. Where were they? What had they found? What were they doing? Did she like any of the apartments Josh had picked out? He knew there was the chance Josh would return with two signed leases. It was hard to stay optimistic in the face of that thought.