“Remember when we were in Istanbul? Remember that girl in the alley? The girl who had been trafficked? Do you remember what I said to you then, when you wanted to rescue her?”
I drew a blank.
He tilted his head, his dark eyes suddenly pooling with uncharacteristic kindness.
“You asked me if I could heal her,” he said. “I told you then that sometimes people are too broken to be fixed, too broken to even want to be saved. Are you prepared to see whatever it is you will find when we locate your sister and her friend?”
I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat.
“Just pack up the car,” I said brusquely, pushing past him so that I could be alone.
We were halfway through the drive, in the middle of Wyoming and approaching midnight. We’d relegated Enoch and Raph, with all their snide bickering, to the backseat of the SUV where, after a stultifying meal of fast food, they’d succumbed to the natural rhythms of their human bodies and fallen asleep.
I snuck a peek at them in the rear view mirror.
“Are they curled up together?” I chuckled, not believing my eyes.
“Take a picture,” Michael joked. “They’ll deny it in the morning.”
We laughed, a small break in the silence that had enveloped us for most of the ride.
I watched Michael’s hands on the steering wheel—sure and steady—and thought of all the times we’d been together like this, him driving, me beside him in the passenger seat. The times in his beat-up but beloved Charger. The time he’d stolen me away to Las Vegas in my mom’s Audi, after rescuing me from Lucas. The fancy car we rented in Vegas as we looked for Enoch and the Key, searching for my friend Ana at the same time.
So many times. But it wasn’t the same.
At least that was what I kept telling my body, which felt the pull of him, so close to me, like the moon moving the tides.
The ring of a bell told me I’d received a text. I swiped the screen to see a note from Tabby.
Any news?
I frowned. With my thumbs I typed a quick response: Headed to ND. Find out anything you can. As an afterthought, I added, Scratch Ollie’s ears for me.
The screen showed her busily typing a response.
What about U & Michael? Anything?
I sighed. In the course of the day, my feelings for him had swung from sheer rage to longing. There were moments where it had seemed just as it had been once we’d accepted our fates and set aside the lies—he and I, allies, standing against a common enemy. All I wanted to do right now was reach over and touch him. How to explain my conflicted feelings? I shoved the phone back in my purse, avoiding the topic.
As if reading my thoughts, he began to speak. “It was nice today. Working together like that. Like a team.”
I nodded. “It was nice,” I echoed, deliberately training my eyes on the inky Wyoming sky outside my window.
He waited for me to say more. When it became obvious that I wasn’t going to, he cleared his throat.
“You know, Hope. That’s the way it should be. That’s the way it’s meant to be. If you would just listen to me.”
I closed my eyes.
“Not now, Michael.”
“Then when?” he persisted.
“Not when Enoch and Raph are right behind us.”
“They’re sound asleep. A blizzard could blow through the car and they wouldn’t budge.”
I squirmed in my seat. God knows they’d been witness to enough awkward moments in the train wreck that had been Michael’s and my relationship.
“You’re not going to drop it, are you?” I asked.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him grin—the wicked, playful grin that always made my heart do flips.
“Nope.”
“Fine,” I conceded, throwing my hands up. “But there’s nothing that you can say that will change what happened.”
The strong line of his jaw tensed. I’d hit a nerve.
“Gabrielle told me that whatever was happening in Atlanta wasn’t important enough for me to go back, Hope. There was no reason for me to doubt her.”
“No reason but your instincts,” I said, straining to keep my voice low. “You decided to believe her over them. Even though you knew how she felt about humans. You trusted her more than you took seriously your obligation to me. Either that, or you were so desperate to prove her wrong and show that you remained committed to your role as God’s general that you simply ignored your better judgment. And because of that, my mom is dead and Rorie is missing.”
He didn’t say anything, his vein throbbing.
“And I know it’s my fault,” I said, wiping a hand at the hot, frustrated tears that had managed their way to the surface. “I wouldn’t give you an answer. I kept you waiting too long. I couldn’t decide. So you were caught in a bind—conflicted between your dueling responsibilities, Gabrielle manipulating you at every turn. But you didn’t trust me enough to confide in me, to tell me that she was accusing you of shirking your duties—or, even worse, that you felt guilty because you were dropping the ball. Instead, you just put pressure on me, trying to deal with it on your own, trying to force a solution without having to admit that there was anything wrong.”
I turned in my seat so that I could read his face. “Did you realize that I had honestly begun to think that you were cheating on me with Gabrielle?” A sputtering sound, half laugh, half sob, escaped my lips. “I know it makes no sense, but between her weird behavior and yours, I was so confused. If she hadn’t confessed to what she had done at the trial, I might have gone on believing it. Why couldn’t you trust me with the truth? Of all things, why would you keep that from me? Why didn’t you just tell me?”
The slightest tightening of his jaw gave away his guilt. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You don’t know?”
He didn’t answer, letting the soft whir of the tires on the asphalt road below us fill in the silence.
“Well, that doesn’t excuse it. And that doesn’t mean you don’t have a debt to Rorie now. You owe me that much.”
“You know how much I care about Rorie, Hope,” he admonished me, his voice breaking. “I didn’t need you to sue me to go after her. I would have done it anyway. Nothing could have stopped me. Nothing.”
I stole a glance at him. He’d fished something out of his pocket, letting it dangle from his free hand as he kept the other on the steering wheel. For a split second, it caught the dim light of a passing car, and I realized with a start that it was Rorie’s agate pendant—the one he’d given her earlier this year.
“Where did you get that?”
“I fished it out of the rubble of the house. Can you believe it survived the heat? The cord is barely even scorched.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, enfolding the paper-thin slice of stone in his grip. “She’ll be like that, Hope. Resilient. No matter what is happening, she’ll make it. I know she will,” he whispered. “We’ll find her.” He looked at me, his eyes almost desperately seeking confirmation. “We have to.”
I refused to answer, training my eyes on the white lines of the interstate. The road whipped by, the occasional tumbleweed caught in our headlights.
“I guess we have nothing to talk about anymore,” Michael finally said.
We drove the rest of the way without speaking.
sixteen
LUCAS
Where were they?
My impatience was acute. By now, Michael’s every nerve ending should be shrieking, red hot with God’s fire, demanding he fulfill his pledge and rescue Rorie—just like mine were screaming out for relief. It was exhausting. And it could be over so easily—if only they would show up and finish this thing, once and for all.
Surely his senses were not so dulled by his dalliance with Hope that he couldn’t feel the pull of Rorie’s presence in this hellish place? Surely the effects of their folly had faded with time? For my own pain scorched every sense, was all-consuming and unrelenting, annihilating everything but my will to
lash out and punish those who had stood against me.
I’d waited long enough, I thought. Time for the next stage. Time to make the call to Michael loud enough to force him to respond.
Luckily, it was easy enough to manipulate the craven people who ran this operation. Their own minds were drug-addled and stunted from years of abuse as it was, barely able to pull together a plan. Barely able to think beyond the immediate situation before them.
That’s where I came in.
I rattled the cage, jarring Macey. “Wakey, wakey,” I cooed with false cheer. “Today you get to go out.”
Macey rolled over in her crate, still clutching the raggedy blanket that had become her boon companion. A string of drool dripped from her lip. Her thighs and arms bore the crosshatch of the steel bars she’d lain against. Her eyes still had the drugged haze of confusion I’d come to recognize around this place.
She’d better be a little more energetic by show time, I thought. Customers wanted a little life, not a member of the walking dead. I passed her a bag of Oreos through the bars of the crate.
“Here,” I said brusquely as she stared at them in my outstretched hand. “Luke told me that Oreos were your favorite.”
Invoking Luke seemed to snap her out of her hesitation. She snatched the bag from my hand and fell upon the cookies, ravenous. I watched her, fascinated and a little disgusted.
“Come on, Macey. Be a good girl,” I cooed as she finished up, wiping the crumbs on the back of her hand. I unlocked the padlock and swung open the door to the dog crate. “Come on out. Time to get dressed.”
“Don’t do it, Macey. Don’t go. He’s only going to hurt you,” Rorie urged from her cage. She was huddled about as upright as she could get, watching us intently.
“You,” I said, menacingly, glaring at the interfering little chit. “You shut up.” I kicked Macey’s cage. “I won’t ask nice next time. Get out here.”
Macey peered out between the bars. “He won’t hurt me,” she said. “He brought me cookies because Luke asked him to. And I know he’ll give me my fix. Won’t you?” Macey crawled out of the crate, standing up on wobbly legs. I sniffed at her. She was rank. I ignored her blatant plea for drugs.
“Come in here and clean her up,” I called through the open door to one of the women. She took Macey away, leading her by the hand, speaking in low murmuring tones, trying to calm her for what lay ahead.
I knew she’d be coddled and fed, cleansed from head to toe. Her matted hair would be washed and dried, and then styled into the sort of ringlets that suggested innocence. With makeup, short skirts, and lingerie, she would arguably look older than her years; old enough for a buyer to tell himself she looked of age, old enough for a buyer to deceive himself that he didn’t know, that it was all in good faith. That she did what she did willingly.
That she wanted it.
I laughed.
She would obey me because she saw no choice. She would obey because her childish brain reasoned that if she did it just this once, it would all go away. That she was doing it to help support Luke, the boy who still had not come back to claim her. She would do it because I promised her more drugs if she was a good girl. She would do it because she feared for her life. She would do it because by now, she thought this was all that she was worth, that there was no way out.
The stab of pain that shredded my body confirmed that I was on the right path.
It was quiet. Too early for dogfights. Too early for the steady stream of girls coming and going to their next appointments. It was so quiet that I could hear Rorie breathing as she sat, defiant, in her crate. The only sound was the hollow, tinny clang of her dragging her fingers back and forth against the cage. Back and forth, back and forth, grating in its impudence. Suddenly, I could not abide her temerity. I could not bear that her spirit was not yet broken.
I had to break her.
I gritted my teeth, forcing my mouth into a twisted smile, before I turned back to Rorie’s cage.
“You’ll be next,” I taunted her.
She simply stared at me with hate-filled eyes, drawing her fingertips against the metal in a challenge, daring me to stop her.
“Yes, you’re next, but you’ll be more valuable,” I continued. “You’re not used up and damaged like your friend. People here will pay top dollar for you.”
She flinched, but quickly composed herself. She didn’t want me to see her fear, I thought. How cute.
“Macey’s not damaged,” she insisted, curling her fingers around the wires of the crate.
“You don’t think so?” I answered, charmed by her naiveté. “Did you not see her yourself? She’s dirty. Already, she probably harbors at least one disease within her weakened body. She has sores and injuries that will haunt her for the rest of her life, which will probably be, for her sake, mercifully short.”
I circled closer to her crate.
“Most importantly, she has given up. Her spirit is broken. She will let me, let any man or woman, do anything they’d like to her now. She is beyond caring, Rorie. Can’t you see that? If that is not the definition of damaged, I don’t know what is.”
She shook her head, not wanting to believe me, unwilling to see the obvious.
I came even closer. “But you? You are special. You are like a wild stallion, waiting to be broken and made to take the saddle. I’ve been drawing out the auction for you.”
She looks up at me through the bars, surprised. This close, I could see the tracks of her tears in her dirty face.
“You didn’t know that I was auctioning you? I put an ad for you on Backpage. ‘Sweet girl, new in town.’ It’s catchy, don’t you think? The ad will expire tomorrow, and that is when you, too, will go out and earn your keep.”
She was shaken. I smiled again, enjoying my ability to inject hopelessness into her psyche. It almost made me feel sorry for her.
On a whim, I opened the door of the crate, reaching in to caress her face. She shrank back as far as she could, but there was nowhere to go. I trailed my hand over the soft skin of her cheek, imagining what it would be like for her when she met her first customer.
And then she moved, too quickly for me to stop her.
“Damn it!” I shrieked, yanking my hand away.
The child had bitten me. There, in the fleshy pad under my thumb, I could see her teeth marks. She’d even drawn blood.
I slammed the door shut, imprisoning her once again.
“You’ll pay for this,” I warned, leaning close to the bars. Her eyes were defiant. “Disobedience is the one thing I will not tolerate.”
“There’s nothing you can do to me to make me obey you, you monster,” she countered. She spat in my face and drew back into the corner of her crate, proud that she had taken a stand.
I wiped away the saliva from my chin and pressed my shirt over my injury.
“We’ll see about that,” I promised her cryptically.
Just then, Macey’s keeper entered the room, drawing Macey behind her. Just as I’d predicted, she was dressed and ready to go. To the unpracticed or self-deceptive eye, she looked like a sultry sixteen, or older. To me, however, she looked like a little girl who’d gotten into her mommy’s makeup drawer.
“You can go,” I said, dismissing the woman. I closed and locked the door behind her. I didn’t want anyone interrupting me.
Macey stood still in the middle of the room, unsure of what to do. I began to circle her, enjoying her confusion. And when I spoke, I kept my voice low.
“You don’t care for your own safety, Rorie? You think you can defy me and get away with it? That may very well be. But the person who will absorb your punishment on your behalf will be Macey.”
Macey’s eyes widened. “No!” Rorie shouted.
“Oh, yes. You think you’re so strong. You think you’re able to brave the worst. Well, now you’re going to have to watch me beat your friend within an inch of her life because of your bad choices.” I rolled up my shirtsleeves.
Rorie flung
herself against the bars of the crate. “No! You can’t hurt her because of me! Please, whatever you’re doing, do it to me! Macey doesn’t deserve this!”
I smiled, a taut, angry smile.
“You’re right. Macey doesn’t deserve this. Neither did your mother deserve the beating that she took.” I stopped, enjoying her bewildered shock. “You didn’t think I knew about that, but I do. Macey’s boyfriend Luke told me all about it. And that was your fault, too, Rorie,” I taunted. “You couldn’t keep your nose out of other people’s business then, and you’re doing it again. You never seem to learn your lesson, do you? So now you’re going to have to watch. Watch and learn.”
I drew my arm back for the first swing.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I said with mock sincerity to Macey. “You’re not going anywhere tonight. Tonight, you’re all mine.”
“No!”
I wheeled to look at Rorie, pressing herself up against the bars of her crate.
“Punish me! She didn’t do anything. Don’t hurt her. Hurt me! I deserve it.”
Her face was shiny with tears. I couldn’t help myself. I grinned.
“Very well,” I said. “If you insist.”
I walked to the wall and pulled the key off the hook. Slowly, deliberately, I approached the crate and crouched over it, twirling the keychain around my finger. She peered through the grates, chewing her lip.
I unlocked the crate and watched her scramble to her feet. Her T-shirt hung loosely about her pale, tiny body.
“Come with me. You stay here, Macey.”
Macey nodded, keeping her eyes glued to the floor as Rorie walked just ahead. I guided her from the room, closing and locking the door behind me.
“Where are we going?” she demanded, a note of fear in her voice.
“We’re just going to take a little walk. Just keep going that way.”
I gave her a little nudge in the back and set her walking down the long hallway in bare feet. I watched, amused, as she pulled the shirt about her, tugging at it as she tried to cover her exposed body.
At the end of the corridor, we reached a door. She stopped, confused.
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