Poppet reaches for Cain.
Eric reaches for Poppet.
Cain sweeps her up and into the train car. As soon as she’s out of reach, Eric trips and rolls away. Poppet leaps away from Cain and into my arms. The two of us lie on the rusted floor and pant for breath. I don’t want to let her go. All my fears at being touched vanish as her heart beats against mine. She’s here. She’s safe.
We’re safe.
That’s when I see the pink elephant grasped in Poppet’s hand. I can’t help but laugh. “You brought the elephant.”
Poppet rolls off me and faces the ceiling. Cool air rushes through the opening and sweeps over our bodies, carries our fear up and away. “It’s the only good thing I got from that place.” She frowns. “I couldn’t make it on with the whole bag.”
Cain offers us each a hand and pulls us to our feet. “What are we going to do now?”
Poppet brushes off her backside. “Domino will figure it out. If she can get us on a moving train, she can do anything.” She slaps my rear playfully. Then her fingers move over my back pocket with intention. “What’s in your pocket?”
Cain glances at me sideways, and I shrug. Digging my finger in, I feel a thick fold of something warm and crinkly. I pull it out, and tears sting my eyes.
“Whoa,” Poppet says. “Where’d you get the money?”
I look at Cain, a cautious smile spreading across my face when I remember Angie’s awkward hug. “It was Angie. She slipped it into my pocket.”
It’s not enough to start a new life. But it is enough for a motel room and something to eat. And it may be just the thing we need to make it far enough away to ask for help, for us, and for the girls we left behind.
As the train clatters through the night and Cain and Poppet smile in my direction, I close my fist around the money a quietly defiant woman gave me, and imagine everything will be okay.
Maybe, just maybe, we’ve already made it out safely.
And that no one got hurt in the process.
Chapter Sixty
Vacancy
We ride the train through four station stops until Texas plains give way to the flatlands of Carlsbad, New Mexico. This time when the train stops, we disembark and jog along the tracks. Then we walk for several miles, my mouth dry and sticky, until we spot a red-and-white motel with a buzzing vacancy sign. Three tin horses sit on springs out front for children to play on, but the paint has long faded, and the horses’ grins seem sinister in the fading light.
I pay the desk guy half our money for a room while Cain and Poppet wait outside. If Eric and his guys find out we landed in Carlsbad, I don’t want this employee saying he saw three travelers come through together.
The hotel room has two queen beds with a white rose pattern, and a television that picks up six stations. Although for an additional twelve dollars we can have all the adult movies we want. Tempting.
Poppet scrunches her nose. “This place is glamorous.”
I plop down on the bed. “Don’t act like you’ve stayed in better.”
“A girl can pretend, can’t she?” Poppet climbs beneath the covers and tucks that pink elephant beneath her arm. “I’m so tired I feel sick, but I’m afraid I’ll never be able to sleep.”
I exchange a glance with Cain before approaching the other side of her bed. It couldn’t be later than eight o’clock, not even twenty-four hours since we left Pox, but I’m exhausted enough to sleep for three days.
Poppet snatches away the covers when she sees I’m climbing in. “No way. Get your own bed.” She lowers her voice so Cain can’t hear, and winks. “I’m doing you a favor.”
Then she smashes her face into the pillow and tries to hide her grin.
I turn to Cain, heat creeping into my cheeks.
“I’ll sleep on the floor.” Cain grabs a pillow from the opposite bed.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Poppet complains. “You’re both adults, sort of. Besides, I know you’ve slept in the same bed before.”
Cain shoots a look at me and, even after everything, I smile.
He smiles, too.
I roll my eyes and climb in, and Cain climbs in after me. The sheets against my skin, Cain’s body heat warm under the covers, Poppet giggling from her bed—it’s almost too much happiness for one room. The terror that last night brought feels distant when the three of us are here, safe. In a room we paid for with Angie’s money.
“It was a nice thing Angie did,” I whisper to Cain.
He scoots a fraction closer and finds my hand beneath the comforter. “She’s a good person. But I’m worried Madam Karina’s going to find out she helped us.”
“She won’t.” I say this, but anxiety still twists my belly. It would destroy me if something bad happened to Angie. Angie isn’t perfect, by any means, but she’s true. When you look at her, you know what you’re getting. And that’s no small thing. Not when you’ve lived with a mother with two faces, or a madam with three.
Poppet flips off the lamp, and before long her breathing deepens.
Cain holds my hand until I can’t keep my eyes open a second longer.
Chapter Sixty-One
Happiness Within Reach
When I wake the next morning, Cain is watching me. He realizes I’ve caught him in the act and slams his lids closed.
“Creeper,” I say, my voice raspy from sleep.
He grins with one corner of his mouth but keeps his eyes closed.
“Oh, yeah,” I whisper. “You’re totally asleep.”
When he doesn’t move, I spider my fingers across the space between us and over his rib cage, feeling courageous. Sometime during the night, he must have shed the plaid shirt he wore, because when I touch him, my fingers feel bare skin. Cain’s eyes snap open.
“You wouldn’t,” he says quietly.
“Dare me not to.”
“I won’t.”
I tickle him, digging my fingers into the sensitive spaces between his ribs. His face turns red from holding in the laughter. He doesn’t want to wake Poppet, and I know that. I hold the tickle power. And I am merciless!
Once we’ve showered and dressed, we’ll have to walk into town and find the local police station. Then we’ll most likely spend hours telling them what we’ve seen, and where they can find the imprisoned girls, and the other girls who may be staying with Madam Karina out of fear.
But for now there is only this bed.
And Cain’s painfully gorgeous smile.
And my friend asleep in the bed a few feet over.
“You guys think I’m not hearing this?” Poppet groans. “Geez, get a room.”
Cain bursts into laughter and bounds on top of me, pins my wrist above my head. “The girl’s awake. Your power over me is broken. Do you have any final words before I inflict punishment?”
“It wasn’t me.”
Cain laughs, and the sound stretches my insides, pours sunshine through my veins. “I believe it was.”
My head cranes backward as Cain tickles me, running his fingers up my sides and over my serpent tattoo.
“Say mercy!” he bellows.
“You guys are one moment away from doing it,” Poppet declares. “And lucky for you, I want breakfast.”
Despite my tickle agony, I see Poppet striding toward the door, throwing a wink my way.
“I’ll just be downstairs checking if they have any coffee.” She grabs the key card from the dresser. “Might be gone for about twenty minutes. Enough for anything to happen, really.”
“Poppet, no!” I yell through my torture. “I’ll go with you.”
Cain stops tickling me and glances over his shoulder at her. “Yeah, we should stick in pairs when we can.”
“No way. I didn’t run barefoot alongside a freaking train to live in fear.”
She salutes us, giggling, and disappears through the door.
“Should we go after her?” Cain asks, still sitting on top of me.
“Yeah,” I answer. But as soon as he swings off me,
I leap on his back and wrap my legs around his waist. Then I am tickle champion once again. Cain groans and falls backward, smashing me between his body and the bed. I think I’ve won this battle, but in one sharp, smart movement, Cain grabs onto my thigh, pulls me from his back and hurdles over my frame until he’s on top.
“What will I do with you?” he says quietly, lust warming his gaze. “I can’t even turn my back on you, you villain.”
He kisses me.
His lips are soft and urgent and everything Jack’s lips were not. My body reacts without hesitation. I am arms and legs around him, back arched, mouth open. Here is the boy who knows my secrets and wants me anyway. The boy who punished Jack for his sins, who flew through the air like a warcraft and delivered retribution to Mr. Hodge.
He is broken like me.
I am broken like him.
But together, we fill our missing pieces—glue and gentle fingers and kisses on bruises.
What destruction could we bring together?
What good could we bring to others who have seen what we’ve seen?
This may not be the right thing, but it is the thing I choose. Cain pushes his arms beneath my back and pulls me closer, his tongue causing a clap of thunder to rumble through my body. His hands run through my pink wig, and he pulls it away, tosses it to the floor. Good riddance. I don’t want it. I don’t want anything between us.
Look at my face, Cain, please.
See me.
Almost as if he can read my mind, he stops and stares into my eyes, searching. “I am yours, Domino. And I want to know you. I want to know everything.” He buries his face in my neck and kisses me softly. “Stay with me?”
His need heals a sharp, jagged place in my soul. Smooths the edges so it’s not as hazardous. It is always me who needs others. But he needs me. I don’t know what promises I can keep in this lifetime, but I can’t breathe until I say, “I’m staying. Cain.” It feels so right to voice the words. A prophecy I’m desperate to fulfill.
I run my hands slowly over Cain’s body, taking in the sloping curves of his biceps, the rises and valleys of his muscled back, the swell of his shoulders. I’m swallowed by his body, and it feels amazing. My trepidation at being touched is all but gone when it comes to Cain. Maybe I never had a problem with touch to begin with. Maybe it was the people touching me I feared.
Cain kisses the hollow between my collarbones and then trails kisses up my throat until our lips meet.
“I want you,” Cain whispers against my mouth.
I arch my back in response, telling him I’m right here, though nerves shoot through my legs. Do I want this now? Here? I’m not sure I’m ready.
“When we’re away from here,” Cain continues, “starting our new life in Kansas, there’s going to come a moment when I won’t be able to stop myself. If you don’t want me to, that is.”
I smile against his skin. “You want to go to Kansas?”
He nods. “After we finish this, I want to do that thing you said. See if I could still play. Even if I can’t, maybe I could try to enroll anyway. Maybe you could, too.”
I think about this. About getting my GED and applying for college in Kansas. Watching Cain play football and cheering him on, Poppet and I sucking on sour pickles in the bleachers, our blood running the same color as his jersey. We’ll have an apartment near campus with two bedrooms, one for Poppet and one for Cain and me. We’ll make friends, have parties, dream about our futures, make cappuccinos for paychecks, and vote for the first time in a public election. I’ll learn how to make a proper casserole, and Poppet will meet a boy she admits she loves.
Cain will keep us safe. Wilson will quietly slip away, unneeded, and we’ll stretch our arms toward the possibilities that life holds.
And one day, quietly, after Poppet has moved in with her boyfriend of two years, Cain and I will look around us and say, we should buy a home of our own. Cain will insist I pick the place, and I’ll do so with him in mind.
The walls in our house will be blue. We’ll paint them using long strokes, and we’ll put on three coats if that’s what it takes. In the backyard there will be a swing lounging in the sun. We’ll paint that red and watch as the years of rain erode our work. Inside there will be soft couches bought from real furniture stores and a dining table where we’ll eat eggs and toast with raspberry jam.
And in our room. In our room we’ll have a king-sized bed with a violet comforter. It’ll be big enough for us to spread out in, but small enough so that we can always feel each other there. It’ll be a room we’ll sleep in. Dream in. It will be our room.
I laugh at my imagination. All I ever wanted was a real home and to be invisible. Now all I want is a home with Cain, and for him to see me, and see me, and see me.
Cain dips his head, touches our foreheads together like he wants to breathe in the sound of my laughter.
We stay like that for several minutes, daydreaming, kissing, cuddling beneath warm sheets, until a single thought occurs to me.
“Cain? How long has Poppet been gone?”
Chapter Sixty-Two
Do the Things I Cannot
Cain lifts his head and glances toward the curtained window. I can see his mind ticking, calculating the time since she left. He hesitates too long, and my stomach churns. I tap his side and he rolls away from me, gets to his feet.
Cain pulls on his shirt, and I step into my jeans. We’re frantic as we dress, and silent.
She’s fine, I tell myself. She’s just giving us space because that’s the kind of friend she is. Thoughtful, kind.
Still, I bolt through the front door and search the parking lot. The morning sun casts a harsh glare across the pavement. I rush toward the concrete stairs and hurry down, Cain right behind me. Poppet said she was going to the front for coffee, but she isn’t there when we go inside. She isn’t anywhere.
Not in the lobby bathroom.
Not at the gated, drained pool.
Not back in our motel room because we might have missed her.
My ears pound and my breathing accelerates until the world spins.
“She probably went for a walk,” Cain says. “She’ll be back any minute.”
I can’t hear his words. I can’t think past anything besides what my eyes have spotted in the parking lot. Near the front tire of a Dodge Ram truck is a flash of pink. Long elephant trunk, sewed on eyelashes, a belly stuffed with cotton.
“Cain…” I point toward Poppet’s pink elephant, and a sob breaks in my throat.
He rushes toward the parking lot and, as I stand on the second story walkway—Cain frantically searching for our friend—my fear and horror transform into something else. I was so close to happiness. There it was, cupped in my palm, shivering with excitement. A future so bright and bold it could color a canvas.
I held it in my mind for a moment. All that joy. All that potential. Cain and Poppet and me and laughter and fresh starts. No one getting hurt. No turning back.
Cain yells at me from the parking lot, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. I’m comatose. Lost in the fog of something that could have been. But they took a crucial piece of my plan, didn’t they? They took my friend.
I descend the stairs slowly, robotic. When my feet touch the ground, I stride past Cain and over to Poppet’s lost toy. I crouch down and take the pink elephant. Think how silly it is that she took it with her to get coffee. I hand it to Cain and tell him to pull it apart. He does—and there it is. The small, intricate tracking device that told them exactly where to go should we escape.
Madam Karina practically handed Poppet the stuffed animal. But not quite. To do so would have given her away. She’s much too sly for that.
“Do you think they took her?” Cain asks. “I didn’t hear anything.”
My head snaps up. “It doesn’t matter.”
“How does it not matter?” Cain runs his hand over his shorn head, and paces. “We have to get her back. We have to tell someone.” He glances around like he’s just
now realizing something. “We have to get out of here. They could be close by.”
“We’re going to get her back ourselves,” I say evenly. “I can’t risk waiting for someone else to help.” Besides, there’s a reason they didn’t wait to find us, too. Madam Karina loves that I’m forced to return on my own or leave my friend behind.
“Domino, if we go back there, we won’t stand a chance of leaving again. Madam Karina, Mr. Hodge, the Pox police, the girls at the house… We’re outnumbered.”
Anger courses through me, a thousand ravenous suns drinking every last drop of thick, red blood. My veins run with fire and sulfur, with vengeance and rage. My happiness was waiting in a field of tall grass, but they burned it down around me. They’ve taken and manipulated and hurt. They’ve done wrong, and there’s nothing I do better than enacting punishment on those my mother deems unworthy.
And if my mother were here, she would find these people unworthy.
“We won’t get Poppet back,” I say, standing. “But I know someone who will.”
“Who?” Cain holds the elephant’s smiling, glassy-eyed head in his right hand.
“Wilson.”
Wilson snaps to attention. You mean it? Do you really mean it?
Can you get her back? I ask.
I can get her back. Wilson licks his lips, tries to control his excitement. I’ll need complete control though. No sharing.
“Domino?” Cain touches my elbow. “Who is Wilson?”
My hands cradle my head. I’m so tired, Wilson.
I know you are. Let me finish this for you.
The fire in my veins beats in time with my heart. The pulsing reminds me of what I’ve lost. So close to freedom. So close to the dreams I had.
Taken.
Wilson? I whisper.
Yes, I’m here. What do you need? Name it.
Make them pay.
Wilson cracks his knuckles, grins until the corners of his mouth touch the bottom of his ears. Say the words.
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