Chapter 9 Anna
ANNA
Uh, I’m sorry, did he think I was a fucking dog?
I rushed to catch up with him and he growled at me.
Growled.
Nope, he was the dog.
“Anna, what the fuck are you—?”
“Bark at me like that again, and I’ll slap a leash on you,” I spat back as I stormed beside him.
And do you know what that motherfucker did?
He picked up the fucking pace.
I jogged alongside him. “Just because you have legs like the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk doesn’t mean you’re getting away from—”
“STOOOOOOP!”
“Dear God, get back to the room,” Brutus rumbled as he started running.
“Hey!” I exclaimed as I rushed after him.
Fuck these short fucking legs of mine.
I needed to get to the gym more.
It had to be the new girl screaming like that, it was the only logical conclusion.
“Please, I’m not going to hurt you. I just—”
“No!”
My brother’s voice stopped me in my tracks just as Brutus rounded the corner.
Did my brother just say ‘please’?
“The fuck?” I whispered to myself as I disappeared around the corner, following Brutus’s heavy footfalls.
“The hell’s going on in here?” Brutus commanded.
I skidded to a stop in the doorway. “King! The fuck are you doing!? Torturing the poor woman!?”
“Let her go!” Brutus demanded.
“Stop it! Let go of me!”
Jesus Christ.
Scratch marks down the poor girl’s face.
“Let! Me! Go!” she shrieked as she bucked against him.
My brother had his arms locked around her body, trapping her arms. “You’re hurting yourself. I won’t let you hurt yourself.”
“King,” Brutus barked.
“She’s hurting herself!” he barked back.
I heard footsteps thundering behind me as I slipped past Brutus and headed for the woman. Her hair was wild around her face. Blood pooled against her skin from the gash marks raked down her face. I looked down at her hands. Skin. Blood.
“Hey,” I said softly as I held up my hands in a sort of mocking surrender. “You’re bleeding. You need to see Doc.”
That woman reared back and slammed her head into my brother’s face before she leaned forward and screamed in mine.
“GET ME OUT OF HEEEEERE!”
“Let me through,” I heard Doc mutter behind me.
“Let her go, goddamn it!” Brutus bellowed.
My ribcage literally rattled with the sound. King’s eyes bounced to me like I was supposed to help him out of the damn situation?
“Seriously, if she doesn’t want to be held—”
“Hey, I told you so,” my brother muttered.
He released her.
The instant my brother released her, she lunged for me. Someone yanked my arm back, and I stumbled backward before slamming into something rock hard and immobile. An arm banded around my waist, but I didn’t care much about that.
Because I watched that woman as she hit herself.
“Let me out, let me out, LET! ME! OUT!”
“You’re out,” my brother said in a voice I’d never heard before. “I swear, you’re out.”
It was like everything happened in slow motion.
Doc stepped forward, and she lunged. Her nails were out like claws, jagged and scraped into points, as if she had intentionally filed them that way.
Doc attempted to reach for her, but the slash of her hand opened up skin on his forearm that made him hiss.
“Hey, no one is going to hurt you,” Doc said through clenched teeth. “We just need to—”
“NOOOOOOOO!” she practically roared like a dragon.
I shoved the arm around my waist away and took a step forward before holding my hands in the air and practically yelled at the woman.
“No one is touching you!”
Her eyes whipped around, wild and unfocused. Her hair, already matting to the blood that was drying on her face.
Her gaze found mine.
“Girl,” she whispered.
Just like that.
Dropped to a whisper.
Simply because a woman spoke to her.
“No one is touching you, see?” I asked as I looked around the room.
Dear god, the entire fucking crew and then some piled in.
“Everyone, hands up,” I said.
They all looked around at each other.
“You heard her,” Brutus said as he raised his hands. “Hands up.”
And one by one, the men slid their hands into the air over their heads.
“See?” I asked in a gentle voice as I turned back to face the woman whose name I still didn’t know. “Count the heads. Count the hands. No one is touching you. Not even me. I swear.”
I watched her head bob, and the more she counted, the more her eyes came back into focus. Her hand stopped shivering. Tears stopped falling from her eyes. Even the quaking of her body settled a little bit.
Her gaze came back to me. “No one’s touching me.”
I shook my head. “Absolutely no one.”
“No one,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around herself. “No one’s touching me. No one. No one.”
“Hey,” I said softly as I took the smallest step toward, hands still in the air. “What’s your name?”
“Charise,” King said.
I shot him a look. “Was I talking to you?”
I watched his jaw tick as he looked up at the ceiling, hands still in the air.
I turned my attention back to her. “What’s your name?”
She swallowed hard. “Charise.”
I nodded. “Hi, Charise. I’m Anna. The big guy behind me with the scary voice is Brutus. The man who had you in his hold to keep you from hurting yourself is my big brother. He’s an idiot. You can slap him.”
That got her to snicker just a smidge.
I smiled. “Don’t worry, slapping my brother makes me smile, too.”
“Hey,” King muttered.
I took another small step toward her, like I was approaching a wounded animal.
“I know these guys are big, and I know they look intimidating. But these guys are the reason you are no longer where you are. And I would feel a whole hell of a lot better if you let Doc clean up those gashes so that your pretty little face doesn’t get an infection from whatever is underneath your fingernails. ”
She swallowed hard. “So many of them.”
“Then, they’ll leave.”
But I heard no one falling back out the door. So I turned around.
“I said, then they’ll leave.”
I shot a pointed look at every single man who was packed into the room. They all looked at one another before nodding softly, and one by one, they backtracked out into the hallway.
Until the only two men in the room with me and Charise were Brutus and my brother.
“All right,” I said as I slowly lowered my hands and took a very deep breath. “Smells better without all of the sweaty boots, huh?”
That actually pulled a small giggle from her.
I wore that badge with pride as I took yet another small step to her.
“You okay?” I asked softly.
Another tear fell down her cheek and she hissed as it rumbled over a scratch mark. “I don’t understand.”
“And that’s okay,” I said softly as I stood maybe four feet away from her. “I know things are very scary and very weird right now. It’s okay to not understand. Just know that you’re safe here, with us.”
“It doesn’t feel safe,” she whispered.
I looked over at my brother, and the look that crossed his face was damn near painful.
I’d never seen him like that before.
I looked back at her. “Does my brother scare you?”
She peeked over at him, but I snapped my fingers and drew her attention to me.
“His reaction doesn’t matter,” I said as I took yet another step toward her, proud that she let me close the distance. “Yours does. Does he scare you?”
She swallowed hard before she nodded. “Yeah.”
A movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, and when I looked over, I saw my brother slouching. Fucking slouching, of all things. He slumped almost in defeat, and I had to take a second to study what that looked like on him.
My brother always walked so tall and proud.
This woman completely disarmed my brother, and it was a little weird to look at.
“Hey,” I heard Marla say from behind me. “Knock, knock.”
Charise jumped at the introduction of a new voice, but I wasn’t sure why in the hell I didn’t think about getting Marla sooner. If anyone understood the PTSD that came from something like this, it was her.
“Hey,” I said without turning my attention from Charise. “Come on in.”
“No more people,” Charise whimpered.
“It’s okay,” I said as I held my hands out again in a mocking surrender. “Marla understands what you’ve gone through. She can help.”
Charise paused, her gaze flickering between me and Marla as she stepped up to my side. “She… she does?”
“I do,” Marla said softly. “I was held captive for quite some time before the guys rescued me.”
“Rescued,” Charise whispered.
It took Marla and I some time before Charise could speak in full sentences without shivering on us. But we eventually got her to a point where she allowed us to be a close barrier in between her and the guys behind us.
“I’m out in the hallway whenever she’s ready,” Doc said.
Charise’s eyes almost immediately welled with tears.
I took her hand in mine. “Hey.”
She whipped her gaze to me. “Hi.”
“That’s just Doc. He’s our doctor. He’s going to want to clean up your face. You’ve gashed it pretty well.”
Marla picked up her other hand. “You’ve got lovely nails. Jasmine would have a field day with them. Do you want them painted?”
Charise looked over at Marla. “I… could paint them here?”
Marla smiled and nodded. “Of course. We’ve got lots of colors, too. Jasmine loves doing our nails.”
“Okay,” Charise said softly.
“Can you tell us what happened?” I asked. “Why you got so scared?”
And that was when she looked over at the bowl of lukewarm food sitting on the bedside table.
I didn’t even notice it.
“I’m lactose intolerant,” she said softly as her fearful stare came back to mine. “I thought my food was poisoned.”
Marla made a noise before she spoke. “Did they spike your food and then make you eat your own vomit?”
I slowly looked over at Marla.
The fuck did she just say?
“Yeah,” Charise whispered.
A growl resounded from behind me and Charise practically jumped at me, curling into my arms as I held them open for her.
“Can it, King,” I said flatly.
The growl got swallowed down somewhere behind me.
“I gotcha,” I whispered softly. “I gotcha. You’re okay.”
“I thought he wanted me to get sick again,” she blubbered out against me.
“Never,” I whispered as I held her close, tucking her weeping face into the crook of my neck. “My brother would never do that.”
“None of us would,” Brutus muttered in that low, soft voice of his.
“I’m sorry,” Charise stammered out through her crying.
“Ssshhh, sh, sh, sh, sh,” I said softly. “Nothing to be sorry about. You’re okay. You’re safe here. And we’re going to take care of you.”
“Would you like me to try warming up the food in the bowl for you?” I asked softly.
Charise’s stomach answered against mine before she did, so I peeked over at Marla. “Could you…?”
Marla nodded. “Of course. I’ll be right back.”
I just stood there, holding Charise while Marla scooped up the bowl of food. She whisked it out of the room, and within minutes, she was back with an ice-cold glass of water and a piping hot bowl of rice and vegetables.
“Here,” Marla said as I slowly peeled Charise away from me, “want me to take a bite and show you it’s not poisoned?”
Charise peeked over at her before she nodded. “Yes, please.”
Marla took a bite before handing me the bowl. She chewed and swallowed while I took a bite as well, and Charise watched us like fucking hawks. Marla swallowed and opened her mouth, even going so far as to lift her tongue, so I did in kind.
Then and only then did I see Charise relax.
“Better?” I asked.
She looked at the bowl of food. “Could I have some?”
“You can have as much as you’d like,” King said from behind me.
Her gaze flickered over my shoulder, but she didn’t flinch. She just nodded softly before reaching for the bowl. And as I watched her get settled on top of the bed with a pillow in her lap, I perched on the edge of the bed.
Trying my best to provide some sort of comfort in a situation I had no experience with.