by Jody Klaire
The guy who looked like he was in charge got up and said something to another one that sounded like, “Outside.”
I stepped forward, not caring if it was protocol or not. The kid was not being put down. “I will pay to fix her.”
Frei and the medics turned around and stared at me.
“Get her to the best hospital and get the best doctor. Fix her. I’m paying.” The words were rolling faster than my brain could keep up. My mouth had taken over again.
The medics exchanged looks but the senior guy shook his head.
“Do you want it in writing?” My voice sounded more dangerous than I’d ever heard it. Even Frei lifted onto the balls of her feet with it.
“You’re not eligible,” the senior medic said.
“Ain’t I?” My voice got deadlier. “I ain’t no slave. She’s worth nothing to you now.”
They whispered amongst one another. I glanced down at the kid, trying to show her that I was on her side. If I had to beat every one of them to get her out, I was not losing her.
“She’s no good to you. Saves filling out all those forms.” I sounded so sure of my words. I had no idea what was going on.
The senior guy pulled out a pad from his back pocket and started scribbling.
“Done.” He tapped the bottom with his pen.
I stared down at it. They had forms for selling kids. I took the pen and signed.
He nodded, ripped off the sheet of paper, and the team launched into action.
“Any of these chumps speak her language?” I asked Frei, unsure what she was thinking. Her face was stoic.
She shook her head.
“You do though.”
She nodded.
“Can you translate for me?”
She nodded again.
As the crew attached all manner of restraints to the girl, Frei followed me over to her. “You’re gonna get help now. They’ll look after you.”
I turned to Frei who blinked a few times before turning to the girl and speaking.
“When you get there, someone is going to take good care of you but you can’t tell others what happened here.”
I turned to Frei as she translated.
“When you’re all squared away, it’s up to you what you do. I just bought your ticket out of here but it’s up to you to cash it and go enjoy your life.”
Frei again stared at me. She cleared her throat and told the girl the rest as the medics hoisted her up.
“You’re free,” I whispered to her, smiling down as Frei translated. “Make it count.”
Frei’s voice cracked, tears pulsed down her cheeks. The girl searched my eyes and hers showed that although Frei had reassured her, she’d known. She’d known what they’d do.
The medics took great care as they wheeled her out and the second the door shut behind her, Frei’s shoulders shook as she started to sob. I put my arm around her and she turned and buried her head in my shoulder.
“God bless you,” she mumbled over and over.
“He has. If I can fix it, I will.” I chewed on my lip. “I just need you to . . .” How did I tell her to call my mother? “You need to tell her to go fetch the girl and check on her.”
Frei met my eyes. I knew she understood.
I squeezed her tight, wishing I could squeeze the pain from her. “If I could give every cent I have and free these kids, I would.”
She clung onto me. “I know.”
“That’s the whole point of suffering anyhow, right?” I said, guiding her out of the building to our villa. The school bell rang and Jed and my group spilled out into the sunshine. Most of the students turned and watched as a helicopter roared up and swung into the clear blue sky. Amazing what care they provided when money was involved.
“Is there ever any point to suffering?” she asked as I led her inside the villa and over to the chair she loved so much.
“Yeah, it helps you understand what it feels like, what it takes to survive it, and how you can help others who are hurting.” I shrugged. “Stop them giving up.” Frei stared up at me with such a lost look. “You can’t always take the hurt away but you can be there to help.”
“Are you talking about me or her?” she asked in a strained, quiet voice. I poured her a drink and added ice.
“Both. You suffered so you’re facing it to help others. That made you ask me. So, even though the kid’s got healing to do, she’s got something she never dared hope for before.” I smiled. “So you’ve helped her get freedom because you suffered, see?”
Frei took the glass. “You did that, not me.”
“Nope. I just paid her medical bills.” I showed her the paper. “They’d written her off. It’s just a form declaring I’d cover the expenses.”
Frei took it. “You played them. You waited until they assessed her . . .”
I held up my hands. “I ain’t that quick.”
“It was incredible.”
It was a stroke of inspiration that came from desperation. “Turn the situation to your advantage by presenting the person negotiating with an option. Make it appear as though it is the only plausible cause of action.”
Frei’s mouth dropped open. “Did you swallow the textbook?”
“No, I listened when you were talking. You’re a great teacher.” I was surprised I remembered it word for word but Frei had drilled it into me during CIG training.
“Either way, Lorelei, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to hug someone this much.” She got to her feet and did just that.
“You’re just pleased that I got enough ice in your drink.” My cheeks burned up as she hugged me. When she let go, I rubbed the back of my neck.
“That too.” Her eyes twinkled. She strolled back to her chair and picked up the glass.
“You think she’ll recover?” I asked. The injury had felt serious. No matter what freedom she now had, she was pretty beat up.
“That depends on her body and a lot of other odds. She’ll need the best care.” Frei sighed. “Which she has now, thanks to you.”
“Least I could do.” I turned to the fridge and wondered if I stuck my head in it if it would calm my throbbing cheeks down.
“Aeron?”
I stopped at the fridge door and risked glancing her way. My face was on fire as it was. I weren’t great with compliments. “Yeah?”
“You’re not so bad, you know that?” She smiled and lifted her glass in a toast. “To a recovering free-woman.”
I pulled out a bottle of water and matched her toast. “Let’s hope she gives my dear mother a hard time.”
Frei’s chuckle said more than words ever could. She’d opened up to me, let me in, and the relieved smile on her face said that she wasn’t regretting it. She was happy not just to be a survivor anymore, not just a leader, or anyone else but just plain old Ursula Frei.
Funny because it felt as though, in this place of all places, she realized that she had friends. More important was that no matter what this place had thrown at her, she’d beaten them.
Just like the girl, she was free and that was definitely worth a toast.
Chapter 27
THERE’RE TIMES THAT even though I love Renee, she tests my temper to the limit. She’s fiery and feisty which I understand is part of her character. It makes her intense and amazing at her job. The fire drives her to do what is necessary but sometimes in the process, she can also drive me nuts.
After seeing what Frei went through when the girl fell, it didn’t take any kind of burden to understand that she felt every loss of a child deep inside. A couple of days after, even though Lilia had called her to tell her the girl was just fine, Frei was still suffering.
I decided, after a weird flash, to cheer her up by taking her a popsicle. The heat was beyond unbearable as it prickled my face as I walked. The ground shimmered with it, buildings too. Walking from the villa to Frei’s building had left me with sticky hands from dribbling popsicles.
There were four students left in Frei’s age-group due t
o “graduate.” They were busy doing something circus-worthy with their bodies as I headed inside. For somebody who couldn’t touch my toes, I was fascinated at how they could stick their legs over their heads. Nan had always said that if God had wanted her to touch her toes, He would have put them on her knees. I chuckled to myself at that as I stared at these contorted kids. I was fascinated and slightly creeped out.
“Is that for me?” Frei said to my right, making me jump and splatter drops from the icy treats all over the floor.
“Sure,” I thrust one dribbling excuse for a popsicle her way. “Catch it while it’s melting.”
Frei didn’t need asking twice. I’d never seen someone attack a frozen treat with such fervor. My flash must have been right.
“Is it a prerequisite for them to look like they’ve been shut in a suitcase?” I thumbed at the kids as she led me outside to the porch area.
Frei licked her stick clean. I handed her mine.
“You need to get into some tiny spaces.” She took my offered treat like it was treasure and grinned. “But that’s not what they’re doing.” She set about devouring the popsicle. “They’re doing Yoga.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Mrs. Stein went to yoga at the Scout’s Hall back home . . . I can’t see her doing that.”
The visual it provoked made me hope she didn’t either.
“Different levels,” Frei murmured between nibbles. “It’s good for your back. Keeping your spine healthy is key to your body being healthy.”
“My spine is happy holding me upright.” I shrugged as she chuckled. “Yoga looks like it’s for short folks.”
“You think?”
I nodded. I was sure. Small folks could reach their toes ’cause they were nearer to them. Mine were much further away.
“I taught them.” She finished the second popsicle and chewed on the stick.
“You exceed all expectations.” I shook my head at the stick in her mouth. “Next time though, I’ll just bring the cooler with me.”
“I’d give it my best shot.” She gazed out at the baking ground between her building and mine. “Before . . .” She smiled, let out a long breath, and shook her head.
“Tell me.”
Frei met my eyes, hers misting up. “You don’t want sob stories.”
“I do.” I leaned against the wall as she sat on the window sill. “I’d like to know more about you.”
Frei stared out at the buildings opposite. Her back rigid, her eyes intense. “We lived by the sea.”
“Sounds nice.” I’d never seen the sea.
She frowned as she replayed some memory in her head. “I was young. I can only remember snatches.” She frowned. Her blonde brow twitched. “A storm. Big one. Swept a whole load of people away.” She stared off into the distance. “They find a lot of slaves trawling after natural disasters, conflict zones. Easy to assume that the kids are lost.”
“You remember your parents?”
She sighed. “Don’t think life was easy.” She glanced at me. “One memory of them stuck.”
“I’m guessing that’s where your love of the popsicle comes in?”
Her eyes wrinkled up as she smiled. “My sister and I were with them. We sat on a pier. The wood was warm underneath my thighs, the sea was freezing on my feet. My mother had my sister in her arms. I sat beside my father.” Life shone through her, pulsed from her eyes. “We were eating these.” She flicked the stick with her finger. “My sister’s hands were covered with more of it than went in her mouth.” She laughed a laugh from somewhere deep inside. “I can hear my mother telling her that she was always covered in something.”
I smiled. I got the impression that Frei had tried to take care of her sister.
“Didn’t the storm . . . ?” I shook my head. “Sorry, forget I asked.”
“Same day.” Her eyes dimmed, the twinkle gone. “An hour later everything changed. I was holding onto my sister on our roof . . . or a roof . . . she cried. The water swept so much away.”
I put my arm around her and bumped my head to hers. Her voice showed that she’d accepted it some time ago but it was, and would always be, a scar on her heart.
“I can’t remember anyone calling us by name.”
I squeezed her.
Frei nodded. “My mother gave me her wedding ring that day. I used to wear it on a necklace.”
My eye was drawn to her left hand and the silver ring that seemed bonded to her. “You think she knew?”
Frei lifted her hand and flexed her fingers to make it glint. “It’s expensive. Why would you give a child your wedding ring?”
“That’s where Huber found you?”
“Rescue crew who sold us to Huber.” She stared down at the ring. “I tried to find out what would have made her leave, who she was. It was no good.”
It was an elaborate ring with markings I had no clue of what they meant. “Maybe someday you will find out more?”
I watched Jed wander past to my right from the direction of the dining hall. He spotted us and waved, not an ounce of teenage coolness in sight. I liked him.
“Huber doesn’t know. Even if he did, he wouldn’t tell me.”
I wanted to take the ring off her but I knew those burdens were gone too. I could’ve told her where she was from. Maybe I could help her find out.
“I will try again someday.” Frei raised her eyebrows at me. “You’ll all throw a party then. You’ll be Frankenfrei free.”
I sniggered at the nickname I’d given her. “Depends on if you stay the cool person I know now or you stick your walls back up.”
She sucked in a breath. “Sounded loaded, Lorelei.”
“It was.” I rested my head on top of hers.
I weren’t good at showing comfort to folks. I didn’t do physical affection but I could feel sometimes when somebody needed it and something told me, right now, she needed it. When I huddled in, it filled her with the reminder that she wasn’t alone. She didn’t have to fight alone. She was opening up, slowly, but I could feel her starting to trust me.
The more she trusted me, the more I could see past the ice. If that meant I had to hug her every couple of minutes to get her through this, I would. Anything to stop this place getting inside and tormenting her. She had friends. We were by her side.
“Renee, huh?”
I sighed. “Pretty much. It’s so hard to keep up with her moods since . . . well after Oppidum.” I closed my eyes, the cool shady porch lulling me into a doze. “I don’t know if she can stand the sight of me sometimes.”
“She’s been through a lot.”
I “mmmed” my agreement. “So have you, and you ain’t blowing hot and cold on me.”
“Different backgrounds.” Frei sounded as sleepy as I felt. “Don’t give up on her.”
I opened my eyes at that. “I didn’t say nothing about giving up.”
I smiled as Frei crinkled up her brow, confusion in her eyes.
“When I’m on your side, when I care, it ain’t easily changed.” I could see her warring with herself. Did she trust those words. Did she dare let me in. “I got your back.”
A barrier dropped and her eyes filled with warmth. She threw herself into a hug, knocking me off balance. It was like she thought I’d take it back or run.
“You’re something else, you know that?”
“Cozy.” Renee’s venomous tone made me look up. Her gray eyes narrowed, hands on her hips. Anger pulsed from her in waves.
Frei sighed and pulled away from me. She rubbed at her tears as if being given comfort was a crime.
“What’s happened?” I asked. Renee must have been worried or upset to act so strange. Her normal reaction would be to check why, to ask why I was comforting Frei and offer help. Was it her cover?
“Maybe I should be asking you that,” she snapped.
I folded my arms. Frei couldn’t even look at her. She stared at the floor. I wracked my brain, trying to figure out what Renee was so mad about.
Was it co
de?
Frei couldn’t ask her, she weren’t supposed to know her. She couldn’t look at her because she was staff. Renee must be trying to tell us something.
“Jed get your prize student drunk again, Worthington?” I shot her way in my best bored tone. Jed had been heading toward the gym so I couldn’t see how but maybe that would give her a place to start.
“Missing students,” she snapped back. Her entire focus was on Frei as if she wanted to flatten her just with her eyes. “Six gone from your group. Don’t think I didn’t notice the helicopter.”
I glanced at Frei whose eyes sharpened into chips of ice at the tone. Hurt and anger pulsed up from somewhere deep inside her. I looked from one to the other, not knowing what was going on.
“Why don’t you focus on your own failures, professor?” I hoped my tone told her to quit being so mean.
Renee rounded on me. Her intense focus, a wave of heat. “I don’t have the deputy principal drooling all over me. Maybe that’s why your kids are safe.”
Was she mad about the fact a madman was drooling over me? I was pretty sure she wouldn’t want him finding excuses to “drop in.”
Every day he found something to come and talk to me about. My group found it funny, I didn’t.
“No, but you’ve got the delightful Professor Smarmy to do that.”
Renee blinked a few times like I’d stunned her. “That’s what you think of me? A set of big eyes and I’m easy?”
Now I was confused. That sounded personal and my senses were sounding the alarm that she wasn’t talking as an agent now. What did she want? Why was she mad? Was she mad or pretending?
I needed my burdens.
I missed my burdens.
Did I ask her straight out what was bugging her so I could fix it? I glanced at Frei for help. Her angry bubbling look at Renee made me glad she weren’t armed. At least I hoped she wasn’t.
I’d missed a chapter somewhere along the line and ended up in a different book. I needed Nan. I needed my burdens. Normal sucked.
“I don’t know you, Professor Worthington,” I muttered, Nan would have told me what was happening. “You don’t know me.”