by Jadyn Chase
He saw the glance and stiffened. He looked toward the kitchen, too. “Are you hungry?”
I couldn’t answer. Desperation and blinding madness balled up in my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I needed to get out of here. I needed……I needed….
He tossed the magazine aside and swung to his feet. He jerked his thumb toward the counter. “If you’re hungry, I can get you something to eat. You just tell me.”
I bowed my head in misery. I couldn’t look at him. Tears sprang to my eyes. I dared not believe someone might actually care enough to give me what I wanted, but if I didn’t take a chance, I would probably die of dehydration.
He inclined his head to one side. “Morgan? Did you hear what I said?”
The word ripped out of my throat. It hurt so bad a tear overflowed my eye and streaked down my cheek. “Water!”
I sounded like an animal in distress, but I couldn’t say any more. I hated myself for being so needy and helpless. I couldn’t even get myself a drink of water.
His eyebrows flew up. “You want water? Are you thirsty?”
I averted my gaze. I couldn’t stand him looking at me like this. I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide like a rat.
He walked away to the kitchen. The faucet turned on. He came back with a large glass of water and held it out to me. “Here.”
I whipped around and snatched it out of his hand. I didn’t want to. I wanted to attack him and tear the flesh off his bones, but I needed the water more. I guzzled it as fast as I could panting half in ecstasy, half in terror that someone would take it away before I could finish drinking it.
My throat hurt so bad gulping it down, but after I drank it, I felt much better. I looked up to find Brayden studying me. He didn’t smile. The minute I laid eyes on him, the old hostility flared. He was my enemy. I didn’t care what he did. He was being nice to trick me.
I gathered my muscles together to launch at him, but before I got a chance, he bent over and took the glass out of my hand. He turned his back on me and went back to the kitchen.
He crashed around, opened and closed the fridge, and turned the faucet on and off. He did something in there. A moment later, something started sizzling in a frying pan. Food. My stomach churned from suppressed hunger, but I held myself alert and ready for some threat to leap out of nowhere.
No threat came, though. He worked around the kitchen casting occasional glimpses my way. He moved with ease from one task to another as though he spent a lot of time cooking in the kitchen. That didn’t comport with his badass attitude. Maybe I misjudged him.
No! I didn’t misjudge him. He attacked me in the warehouse and cuffed me. Then he brought me to this place against my will. I hated him! I just had to figure out a way to get out of here.
He said no one gets in and no one gets out, but that couldn’t be true. He got in with me somehow. There had to be a way out.
I peered through the double glass doors leading to the deck. If I could get out there and search the garden, I might find a weakness in the system. Just then, Brayden came back. He set a plate on the coffee table in front of me. I gazed down at a huge club sandwich next to a pile of steaming, thick-cut fried potatoes.
The intoxicating smell fractured my brain. Food. Good food. Food made by hand just for me.
“Here you go,” he breezed. “You better eat it. Otherwise, I’ll just have to leave it for the rats.”
He stepped around the coffee table to his old place and sat down. He propped up his heels and set another dish on his lap. An equally enormous sandwich and heap of potatoes covered his plate.
He stabbed a fork into a potato and stuffed it into his mouth. Then he picked up the sandwich and took a bite. He stared off to one side while he chewed. He completely wiped me out of his awareness—or at least he pretended to.
Could I really eat that food? Did I dare? He wasn’t watching. I calculated how fast I could eat it before he lunged off the couch and came after me. How many bites could I manage before I had to run for my life?
He didn’t look my way. He gave all his attention to eating his meal. He didn’t appear to notice me glancing back and forth between him and that sandwich.
I couldn’t remember any food looking so good in my life. Globs of melting butter and herbs studded the potatoes. Crispy bacon and avocado protruded from between the sandwich bread. Saliva welled up under my tongue. My stomach spasmed in knots. I had to have it. I had to taste it.
I cast one last fleeting glimpse at him and pounced on it. I scooped up the sandwich and started wolfing it down in massive bites. I eyed him while I ate to get the first clue if he changed his posture, but he didn’t. He went right on chewing and staring into space.
I got through the sandwich without really tasting it. A forgotten part of my brain registered the tragedy of letting such a delicacy go unappreciated, but I had to get it all into my stomach as quickly as possible.
I shoveled the potatoes into my mouth with my fingers and sucked the butter off them. Only after I finished did I experience the drugged lethargy of having stuffed myself to bursting. I felt full and satisfied but exhausted by the effort.
I couldn’t hold my eyes open. I fought to prop my eyelids up, but it didn’t work. I sank against the cushions. Brayden looked over like he just noticed my existence for the first time. “Are you tired?” He pulled a lap robe from the couch behind him. He spread it between his hands and advanced on me. “Here.”
He moved to drape it over me, but I reared back baring my teeth. “Get away from me!”
He smacked his lips and threw the robe on the floor. “Fine. Suit yourself.”
He flung himself down and snatched up the magazine. In an instant, he bent all his attention to reading it and erased me from existence.
The minute he did that, I regretted pushing him away. He tried to be nice to me. Now he might not ever try again. What was wrong with me?
I willed my eyes to stay open. I had to keep scanning the room and everything around me. Something might attack at any moment and get me and…. I didn’t know what it would do, but I had to hold myself on guard all the time. I couldn’t relax my vigilance for a second.
Brayden never looked at me again. He just sat there reading. After a while, he pitched the magazine on the table and started doodling on his phone. He completely ignored me.
He didn’t pose any threat to me—at least not right now. He gave me food and water. He even went as far as saying I could have anything I wanted. I just had to ask him. He might be a nice person after all, but that only alarmed me more. That might be his way of disarming me so I wouldn’t be ready to fight him when the time came.
In spite of my best efforts, the food and water made me drowsier. I couldn’t stay conscious. Did he drug my food to sedate me? Overpowering exhaustion and pain taxed my brain until I couldn’t remain upright another second.
I watched Brayden like a hawk, but when he still didn’t look up, I took a chance and stretched out on the couch. The minute I laid my head down, I couldn’t stay awake. My eyes drifted closed.
The last thing I saw before I passed out was Brayden glance up from his phone. His hard black eyes softened. Something close to a smile crept over his face, but his mouth didn’t change. Only his eyes expressed a deeper satisfaction and approval.
He was there. He was right there across the room. He said no one would hurt me and I believed him. I could close my eyes. As long as he was still there, he would make sure no one came near me, not even himself.
4
Brayden
The girl bolted straight up out of a sound sleep and screamed. She gripped the blanket in both fists, panting hard and looking around the room.
I switched my phone off and put it in my pocket. “Good morning—or should I say good evening. You’ve been asleep for almost twelve hours. Do you feel better?”
She glanced over at me, still staring at something horrible and unseen. I didn’t really expect a coherent answer out of her, but what the hell? A ma
n can try.
Instead, she swiveled right and left looking for something. “Where’s…..?”
I cocked my head. “Where’s what?”
“Where’s my…..?” She faltered, checked herself, and then wilted. “Nothing. It was just a dream.”
“Yeah?” I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “What did you dream about? Maybe your dream will give us a clue who you are and where you came from.”
She thought hard. Then she cradled her broken head in one hand and groaned. All at once, she burst into tears. She covered her face and sobbed ragged guttural expulsions of gasping breath.
I scrutinized her closer. That girl went through the wringer in the last few days, but I still had to watch her every move. This amnesia act still might turn out to be a charade to throw me off my game.
She pulled herself together and ran her wrist across her nose. When she took it away and looked at it, a smear of dissolved blood stained her arm. She blinked at it for a second before she realized it came from her.
“Why don’t you go take a shower?” I suggested. “I promise you’ll feel better. You look like absolute hell. You know that, don’t you?”
She didn’t appear to comprehend what I said. She just kept gaping at everything like her brain no longer worked. If this state of affairs kept up, this might turn out to be the single most boring job of my career.
I pushed myself to my feet and turned away. “Yeah, well, you’re probably hungry again.”
I went to the kitchen and took the pizza out of the oven. I carried it using a potholder and set it on top of that magazine. I positioned it in front of her and swiveled it around in a ridiculous hope of making it appear more appealing to her—as if her addled brain could understand and appreciate my efforts.
I returned to the fridge and came back with a jug of apple juice and the biggest glass I could find. I poured it full and left it next to the pizza.
She could have knocked me over with a feather when she checked herself. She looked back and forth between me and the pizza. “Did you order that?”
“Of course not,” I told her. “Nothing comes in and nothing goes out. Don’t you remember?”
“Where did you get it, then?”
“I made it. What do you think?” I tossed the potholder over the counter to the sink.
Her eyebrows flew up. “You made that?”
“Yes, I made it. Now you can show your gratitude by eating it. Otherwise, it’s going to go to waste—to say nothing of the time and effort I put into it.”
I flopped down on the couch again and took out my phone. She seemed to relax more when I didn’t look at her.
She scooted to the edge of the couch and hunched over the pizza. She lifted out a slice and took a bite. At least she remembered how to do that much.
She observed me over her food. “What are you gonna eat?”
Against my better inclinations to engage with her, I broke into a grin. “Do you think I would bother to put all that work into making just one pizza? I made two. I ate the other one.”
She didn’t smile. Getting her to treat me like a human being would be asking too much. Anyway, I didn’t want to treat her like a human being, either. She was a job, an exasperating job I didn’t want to do.
She munched her pizza and guzzled her juice. Getting kidnapped and beaten and locked in The Zone did nothing to diminish her appetite. I guess The Desperados didn’t bother much about feeding her.
She surprised me again. “Brayden?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s Los Diablos?”
My eyes snapped to her face. “Don’t you know?”
She shook her head.
“You’ve got it tattooed on your shoulder, munchkin.” I jerked my chin at her arm. “Don’t fuck with me. You know what it is.”
“I never knew what it was.” Her eyes darted to one side. “At least, I don’t remember what it was.”
I let my phone fall in my lap. “Why don’t you tell me what you do remember?”
She shrugged and took another bite of pizza. She moved it into her cheek while she chewed. “I don’t remember anything, but that dream I just had felt real. I was at home with my mother and father. We were playing on the lawn and I was wrestling with my dad and our dog. Dad called him Chopper.”
Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows. “Chopper! That’s a strange name for a dog.”
She shook her hair out of her face to take another bite. “That’s all there is.”
“You don’t remember getting that tat?”
“No.” She looked up at me with a frank, open expression. She really didn’t know.
I picked up my phone and swiped to my messages. “Well, Los Diablos is a biker gang from East LA. We control about ten square miles of barrio and defend it against incursion from five other gangs that would like to take it from us and slaughter all of our people. If you don’t know that much, then we’ve got a serious problem, girl.”
“What problem is that?”
My phone thumped against my thigh and I stared at her. She really was a piece of work. “The problem, Morgan dear, is that you’re wearing a Los Diablos brand that announces to the general population that you belong to our club. The problem, Morgan dear, is that you’re wearing a patch that’s about thirty-five years out of date and comes from another part of the country. We don’t use that patch anymore, and you could only have gotten it from a registered chapter of our club. If you didn’t, then we have a serious problem and you should either be killed or have the brand cut out because you have no business wearing it. That is the problem.”
She regarded me over her pizza, but my words didn’t make a dent in her. She chewed her food and considered. “So you’re going to kill me? Is that it?”
I snorted. “I’m not going to kill you—not until my Boss tells me to—and he won’t do that until he finds out who you are. If you really don’t remember, then you have nothing to worry about.”
“Except that I’m a prisoner here.” She surveyed the living room, and this time, she recognized exactly where she was and what it meant. “That’s something to worry about.”
“Be grateful you’re still alive.” I picked up my phone. “I was the one who found you in The Desperados’ stronghold and I was the one who took you out of it. We could have left you there.”
She leveled her eyes at me with the farthest thing from gratitude I could imagine. Those eyes shone clear and sharp now. She might be traumatized, but she was anything but stupid. She had a brain on her. That was certain.
She took another bite. While she chewed, she raised her hand and scratched some dried blood off her cheek. She looked down at her fingernails and saw the darkened crust.
I tapped out a message to Kane about the status so far. “Seriously,” I muttered, “you really ought to take a shower. I’m worried about those cuts getting infected and your hair is a sewer.”
She put her pizza down. “Yeah. I think I will.”
I glanced over the phone. Did I just hear that right?
She finished her mouthful. “Where do I go?”
I jumped up and waved down the hall. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
She followed me into the nearest bedroom and I motioned to the bathroom off to one side. “There’s plenty of clean towels in there and the first aid kit is under the sink. There’s shampoo and conditioner on the shelf.” I crossed to the closet and slid it open. “Here’s a clean pair of jeans and there’s panties and bras and stuff in that drawer over there. This is the female room so they have a range of sizes. You’ll have to work that out for yourself ‘cuz I don’t understand all that crap. Here’s a clean tank top.”
She shuffled her feet and scanned the bedroom while I piled her arms with clothes. “Thanks, Brayden.”
“You bet.” I sat down on the bed and went back to my phone.
She didn’t move. “What are you doing?”
I didn’t even look up. “I’m checking eBay. I’m in the market for a new gui
tar amp and I’m in a bidding war with some chump from Ontario. This bastard must be loaded.”
“Can’t you do that in the living room?”
My head swung up. “I told you I have to keep you in sight at all times. I won’t peep in on you if that’s what you’re worried about, but you have to keep the door open. Sorry. That’s orders.”
She wadded the clothes under one arm and squared her shoulders. “I am NOT taking my clothes off in front of you. Fuck that.”
“Whatever.” I continued tapping on my phone. “If you don’t at least wash your hair, you might as well shave it off now because it’s filthy and it sure as fuck ain’t getting any cleaner with you standing here giving me your attitude.”
There. Suck on that, bitch. She fidgeted a little longer before she wheeled and stormed into the bathroom. She pitched her clean clothes in the sink and stomped back to the drawers. She fished around, took out a few things, and left me alone.
I looked up just long enough to make sure she didn’t shut the door. She climbed into the bathtub and pulled the curtain. Then she tossed her old clothes out on the floor before she turned on the tap.
I went back to my own thing, but in a minute, FaceTime chimed. Roman Santiago. My heart skipped a beat and I answered. Carlos’s grizzled face appeared on the screen. “What’s up? How’s the patient?”
“She’s absolutely fucking demented,” I told him. “I’m really starting to believe she doesn’t remember anything.”
“That’s bullshit, Brayden,” he snapped. “I told you not to let her out of your sight.”
“I haven’t. I’m not that stupid, but thanks for the vote of confidence, anyway.”
He scowled down the phone. “Where is she, then?”
I jerked my head sideways. “She’s just taking a shower. She’s half-starved and dehydrated. I’m hoping to get her cleaned up and she’s having nightmares about her old life. If I can get her talking, I might be able to figure out where she came from.”
He arched one eyebrow. “You really think she’s telling the truth?”