“She is! And you knew it!” I shouted, spittle flying from my mouth. I lunged for his collar and banged him against the truck. He raised his hands, defenseless, as he cringed back as far as he could.
“Honest. It said she was eighteen. It said she was eighteen. It said she was eighteen.” He repeated it like a talisman, trying to convince himself that he really hadn’t known.
“Did she look eighteen to you? When you wiped off the makeup, she looked like a baby, didn’t she? But you did it anyway.” Disgust dripped from my voice as I shoved him hard and stepped away, pressing my fingers to my temple. I couldn’t let my contempt keep me from getting the information we really needed. I took a deep breath.
“Where did you find her—online?”
He nodded, once, quickly dropping his eyes to the ground. “Backpage. They get new ones every week. She just got here. Her and a friend. They were in a picture together.”
My heart raced. It had to be them.
“You used her before?”
He nodded, refusing to lift his eyes.
I dreaded hearing his answer, but I had to know. “What about her friend?”
He shook his head side to side. “No. Just her.”
Relief and panic warred within me.
“What was her name?” I whispered, praying silently that it wasn’t either one of them.
His eyes darted away, trailing across the snow. “She told me her real name was Macey when she begged me not to hurt her. Not that I would,” he added in a rush. “I would never do something like that. It just seems like that was what she was expecting.”
Relief—that his victim was Macey and not my sister—surged through my body, quickly chased by guilt and rage.
“How often do they get used like this? How many times a night?” I managed to choke out my question, closing my eyes as I did so.
“All night. I don’t know how many times. Probably eight or ten.”
“Here? Do they always bring them here?”
“This girl, this pimp, yeah. Sometimes other places. They move around a lot. There are some other ones around town, too,” he volunteered.
My stomach was roiling, and a lone tear trickled down my cheek. I wiped it away angrily. I’d heard enough. “Let’s go,” I muttered to Michael. “We got what we came for. We need to go get her.”
“Not yet,” he said softly. I trailed his gaze as he looked over his shoulder, scanning the parking lot. We were still alone. Slowly, he let his attention return to the pathetic man by his truck, fixing him with a stony stare.
In an instant, Michael’s body pulsed with light, a throbbing ball of energy, particles like fire twinkling around him. I squinted, realizing immediately what he meant to do.
As the light receded, the particles fell in on themselves, a vortex at the center of Michael’s body. As they collapsed, Michael was revealed in his angelic splendor—muscle-bound in armor, vast wings spreading threateningly behind him.
The man’s jaw dropped. Michael took one step, then two, closing the distance between him and the man so that there was no more than an inch between them. I watched, bemused, as the man, terrified, seemed to shrink. A patch of dark wetness spread across his jeans.
“If you ever touch another child again, I will come back for you and send you to your grave,” he said. “Do you understand me?”
The man sank to his knees in the dirty snow. “Please don’t hurt me,” he begged. “Please. I won’t ever do it again. I promise. Please, I’ll do anything you say.” I felt the satisfaction in it—in this man being put into the same position he’d had Macey in, begging for his life, at Michael’s mercy.
Michael’s jaw tensed. “You disgust me. Don’t forget your promise.”
With that he turned, reaching his hand out to me. I clutched at it, my heart racing.
“Let’s go get Macey.”
He strode purposefully across the parking lot, his fury spurring him on, nearly dragging me as I struggled to keep up.
“Michael. Michael,” I pleaded, trying to contain the note of excitement in my voice. “He said he wasn’t with Rorie. He didn’t hurt her.”
He stopped dead in his tracks, turning to grip my shoulders. “Hope,” he whispered hoarsely, his voice breaking as he shook me a little. “Someone else could have hurt her. You know it as well as I.”
I shook my head. “I can’t think about that, Michael. We just have to find her.”
He gripped my arms, harder now, insistent. “You have to be ready for whatever we find. You need to steel yourself, Hope. Raph was right—the girls …”
He stuttered on his own words, unable to bring himself to say out loud what we both feared.
I looked into his eyes, my vision blurry with tears. As I stood there, feeling the heat of him through my coat, I could almost forget about what had happened between us. All that seemed to matter was that he was here, now, standing by my side.
I trusted him. I couldn’t do anything but.
A burst of icy wind whipped through the parking lot, swirling about us. A long strand of my hair fell into my face. Michael reached out, tucking it gently behind my ear. Carefully, he trailed his thumb across my cheekbone, wiping away a stray tear, before placing his hand back on my shoulder.
“We both have to be strong. For them.”
I swallowed hard and nodded, dashing away the tears that threatened to spill over.
“Michael, I’m scared.”
He nodded. “Me, too, Hope.”
Silently, I wrapped my arms around him, armor and all, and pressed myself to his chest.
And as I held him, I thought about what I wanted. I wanted to press my hand to his heart. I wanted to finally ask him what had really happened between him and Gabrielle. I wanted to tell him I was sorry.
But most of all, I wanted to hear him tell me that everything would be okay.
“What’s taking you so long?” Raph’s impatient voice interrupted my thoughts. I peeked around Michael and saw Raph poking his head outside of the SUV, its lights on and motor running.
“They left the room—and it was definitely Macey,” Raph continued. “Get in, we might still be able to catch them.”
twenty
LUCAS
Macey was back from her work during the long, cold North Dakota night. She was worn, the poor thing. I tallied up her wounds.
Her lip was cut, a tiny smear of dried blood in the corner of her mouth.
It was hard to tell against the darkness of her skin, but bruises— fingerprints—were blooming on her upper arm. They would eventually deepen, then turn yellow, and finally fade from sight, but for days they would remind her of the person who shook her hard when she tried to resist.
There were other injuries, I was sure, but right now I was disgusted by the cruelty of mankind as I looked at this child, blinking under the harsh fluorescent lights, wobbling, dead on her feet.
I reached out a hand to wipe away the blood on her lip and she didn’t flinch. She didn’t react at all. “You’ve earned your sleep. No more crate for you. Come with me.”
I reached out and took her hand to guide her, but when I did, what I saw startled me. She had managed to find a pen and had drawn a girlish heart in bright blue ink at the center of her palm. Under the heart, in the careful loopy script of childhood, she had entwined her and Luke’s names. The ink was smeared from her sweat.
I felt a surprising pang of sympathy for her. Still so innocent.
I led her to another room. It was plain, with no windows, but there was a mattress with sheets and a pillow pushed up against the wall.
“Are you hungry?”
She shook her head. No, of course she wasn’t.
“Then go ahead and lie down. No one will disturb you, I promise.”
She looked longingly at the bed, and then she turned to me, her face plaintive, her eyes, despite it all, trusting.
“What about Rorie?”
Ah, yes. Miss Rorie, my bait, my treasure. I’d nearly forgotten a
bout her. Wasn’t that ironic? The whole reason I’d come out to this Godforsaken place, and I’d practically abandoned her out in that shed.
I chided myself for being drawn into Macey’s troubles—now was not the time to get sentimental.
“I’ll go get her. Don’t you worry about it. I’ll bring her here as soon as she’s ready.”
Grateful, Macey slumped down on the mattress and pulled the sheet about her as she turned to face the wall. I was halfway out the door when she posed her question.
“When will Luke get here?”
The poor thing still believed her precious Luke was coming.
“Soon, Macey,” I said quietly. “He’ll be here soon.”
She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged the sheet even closer.
The walk down the corridor seemed long. All the girls were sleeping now, locked away or, for many of them, simply left to be, the will so knocked out of them that there was no risk of them running, no risk that they’d call the police. This was their home now. It was all they knew, maybe all they would ever know in their mercifully short lives.
I found Rorie huddled against the pipe, clinging to it like a lifeboat, her teeth chattering. She’d tucked as much of her tiny body and legs into the drapey T-shirt as she could, but it wasn’t enough to keep away the bitterness of the cold night. Her eyes were pressed closed, but I couldn’t tell if she was asleep or not. She was muttering and humming to herself, rocking a bit as she tried to soothe away her fears.
I flicked on the lights. She didn’t react, just kept rocking.
Annoyed, I looked around. Grabbing a flashlight, I shone it in her face. The delicate skin underneath her eyes was deeply shadowed; her lips purple with cold.
“Open your eyes, Aurora,” I commanded.
Her eyes flew wide open as she stared blindly into the light.
“Am I dead?” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse.
I tossed away the flashlight, laughing.
“No.”
Recognizing my voice, she shrank back as far as she could. Amused, I crouched down next to her.
“No, Aurora. You aren’t dead,” I whispered, leaning close. “In fact, you’ll never die. I won’t let you. I’m going to take really good care of you so that you can get used over and over and over again, just like Macey. But you’re stronger than Macey. You won’t break, like those other girls. No, your spirit is strong, isn’t it?”
I grabbed her chin and forced her to look at me.
“For you, there will not be the blessed oblivion of drugs. I will never let you lose yourself like all those other girls. I want you to remain painfully aware of everything that happens, to have every horrific thing done to you burned into your mind so that you can never forget. You are too strong to die, Rorie. So you will live every day in this hellhole, trying to sleep but able to do nothing but relive these memories over and over again. There will be no escape. Nobody is coming for you.”
She flinched, then, but she didn’t cry.
“I don’t believe you,” she whispered, her chin trembling. “You’re just saying those things to hurt me. You’re going to have to try harder than that.”
I raised a brow. Impressive. Bravery, strength, endurance. Even insight. So many of the gifts and blessings bestowed upon her as an infant on display, gifts that, twisted, were as good as any curse. So I dug deeper, each word calculated to wound, to isolate, to chip away at her resistance.
“Luke told me all about you, you know. And you know what else he told me? That your mother and sister aren’t coming, Aurora. That your sister doesn’t even care. She’s too wrapped up in her own life. Why would she disrupt what she has with her boyfriend— Michael, isn’t it?—to come chasing after you? Especially now that she knows what you’ve become.”
She opened her mouth to argue but stopped herself. I felt the corner of my mouth lift, despite myself.
“Your sister won’t come because she’s ashamed. Ashamed of you, and ashamed of herself. For she is the reason this is happening to you. What is happening to you is all her fault. And she will never, ever, ever have the courage to face you and admit it.”
She was staring now, confused and hurt. “I don’t understand.”
“And your mother? Your mother is embarrassed by you, too. How could she explain you to the country club set? You’re worthless and useless, Aurora. Your mother knows it. Your sister knows it. Luke knows it. This is all you are good for, now. You might as well accept it.”
I unlocked the handcuff and pulled her to her feet. Her stance was submissive, meek. Broken. When I let her go, she swayed, falling in on herself, her tiny body unable to bear her own weight after the night of cold.
Smiling to myself, I swept her up into my arms.
“As soon as you get some sleep,” I told her, “you’re going to start working—as early as tonight.”
As I carried her back to Macey, I let my mind wander, relishing my impending victory. I could almost taste it, taste the salty tears that would mar Hope’s face when she realized I’d destroyed her sister. An unforgiveable crime—and one, Hope would realize, that was all her fault.
But as I bore Rorie over the threshold, I heard her whisper with a note of triumph in her voice:
“If what you say is true, that means they’re still alive.”
twenty-one
HOPE
We’d been too late. By the time we’d gotten into the car, Macey’s pimp—for that was what we’d concluded that beefy man who’d gone in and out of the motel room was—had driven away, losing us before we’d really even taken up the chase.
We had the same sensation, Michael and I—the buzzing of voices, the irresistible pull that took us closer and closer. To what, though, we could not determine. We were surrounded by rows of ugly trailers and hastily erected sheds, any one of which could have held two hapless girls. Raph drove us in circles as we hoped for something—anything—to draw us closer to Rorie and Macey so that we could rescue them, but it was fruitless. In frustration, we’d gone back to a diner to nurse bitter coffee and try to brace ourselves for the day ahead.
We were exhausted, but there was no hope of getting a hotel room in this place. It was perhaps inevitable that the tension and stress set us all to arguing.
“What has happened to your vaunted skills now?” Raph taunted me. “And Michael’s, too. Perhaps Michael was better off with Gabrielle; at least then he could find his way. The two of you together couldn’t manage your way out of a paper bag.”
“That’s enough, Raphael,” Michael warned. His neck was corded, his jaw tense as he shot Raph a black look across the table.
“You’re right. It is enough. I have had enough of this desolate place. I have had enough of this weak human disguise. I will be elsewhere, waiting and restoring my strength in the glory I was meant for. I will await your command,” he said snidely. He slid out of the booth to tower over our table, scowling. “Enoch, come on.”
Enoch raised an eyebrow and looked to me.
I sighed and sank back against the vinyl banquette. “Go ahead. You might as well recharge your batteries while we think about our next move.”
Enoch patted my hand. “You’ll figure it out. The two of you, together.” Then he slipped out and followed Raph out the door.
“How will they know if we need them?” I wondered aloud.
“They’ll know,” Michael stated flatly.
I wasn’t so sure they would, and had my doubts about whether Raph would show up even if he did, but kept my thoughts to myself.
Instead, I text Tabby—We’re falling apart. I need you—and focused on Michael, seated directly across from me. I fiddled with the little rectangular packets of grape jelly and butter, piling them in little walls, sliding the salt and pepper shakers around as if I were building a little fort.
A fort to keep my heart safe from him.
It had seemed so natural—really, too easy—to put myself in his arms last night. Even now, it was all I could do to
stop myself from reaching out and grabbing his hand. I raised my head to look him in the eyes. He held my gaze, his eyes a stormy mix of gray and robin’s-egg blue. There were so many memories, so many experiences, that only he and I had shared. How could it be that we had come to this place? How could we not be together?
I let a monster yawn escape me.
“Come on,” Michael said, slapping some cash down on the table. “You need to get some rest.”
“There’s nowhere to go. And I won’t go to one of those rooms where they’re pimping the girls. I’m not that desperate.”
He stood up. “We’ll do like the locals. Come on,” he repeated, reaching out a hand.
Confused, I let him pull me out of the booth.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.”
The sun was just a dim promise on the horizon when we slipped out of the diner. The air was biting. I shivered involuntarily and Michael pulled me in, tight against his side.
Numbly, I walked along with him as he led me back to the SUV.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Nowhere. You’re going to the backseat to stretch out and rest while I keep watch.”
He opened the door for me. I peered in at the jumble of pillows, blankets, and granola bar wrappers that Enoch had left behind and sighed.
“I guess it’s our only option.”
I clambered in, wiping away the crumbs that had lodged themselves in the upholstery. Michael closed the door firmly and went to the driver’s side, lodging himself in the front seat and turning on the ignition.
“Go ahead,” he urged, darting a glance at me in the rear view mirror. “Stretch out. We have a nearly full tank of gas. It will warm up soon.”
I hesitated. “Sleeping isn’t going to solve our problems. We need to figure out where the girls are. Raph and Enoch never finished scanning Backpage. Maybe we should start there.”
“Let me work on that while you get some rest.” His voice was kindly but stern. I felt a twinge of guilt, knowing how draining he found it to be in a human body; how badly he, too, needed sleep— or, better yet, an escape to angelic form. But I didn’t argue. Instead, I shook out the blankets and made myself a nest, stretching across the full breadth of the SUV as I nestled in, trying to get warm.
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