Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
JADE
This is the part I’ve been dreading.
When I have to put voice to the memories.
Rationally, and as a medical professional, I know getting them out is better. I’d tell any patient who’d been through a traumatic experience that talking about the memories is healthy. I have said that; many times, actually.
Now I feel kind of like a fraud. It’s so easy to say when I’m not the one that has to relive them. When I’m Jade the PA, calm and patient and empathetic, gently giving advice about things I know in study, but not in real life.
When I get back to my job, I’m going to be more understanding.
Assuming I have a job, since I’m sure Dr. Regan isn’t too thrilled that I disappeared for a week without explanation. But he’s a good man; surely he’ll let me come back if he knows the reason.
Then again, that means I’ll have to tell him, and I’m not sure I can. He’ll never look at me the same. I won’t be the unflappable PA I promised to be when I interviewed for the job last year. He’ll always wonder if I’m going to fall apart. If I’m damaged.
That’s assuming I can even go back to work soon. Just because I’m about to tell Niall’s team everything doesn’t mean they can find out who was behind my abduction, and if they can, how long it will take.
Not just abduction. I was taken to be sold. To be one of the millions of trafficking victims I read about in articles, never dreaming it could happen to me.
Trafficking. Sold.
The belt around my chest cinches tighter. My breaths stutter. All the emotions I’ve been squeezing into a teeny box threaten to escape. A tiny sound comes from the back of my throat.
Niall turns to me, worry written all over his features. “Jade, hun. What’s wrong?” He pushes his hand through his hair and I distractedly notice that it’s longer than the last time I saw him; now long enough to show bronze highlights amid the darker brown. I guess it makes sense he’d have his hair longer, now that he’s not active duty anymore.
A shaft of guilt spears through me. Niall loved serving as a Green Beret. Maybe if I’d noticed things with Shea sooner, if it hadn’t gotten so bad, he wouldn’t have had to leave.
“Jade?” His forehead creases. “If this is too soon, we don’t have to do this. It can wait another day.”
“We can wait,” echoes Dante, who’s sitting in the armchair across from us. “The last thing we want to do is push you into something you’re not ready for.”
Rhiannon leans forward in the matching chair, resting her hands on her knees. Her gaze is warm and sympathetic. “You’re in control, Jade. You tell us what you want to do.”
Niall is still watching me intently, his strong features softening as he says gently, “You’re safe here. No one will make you do anything you don’t want to.”
Oh .
Out of the blue, I’m struck with the most irrational desire. I want to crawl into Niall’s lap and just curl up there. I want his strong arms—very muscly, it’s impossible not to notice—to come around me and hug me and I can rest my head on his chest and hear the reassuring thud of his heart?—
What?
Yes, I’ve known Niall was good-looking. Tall, almost a foot taller than my five foot four, muscles bulging from the hours of training I know he does every day. He has intense blue eyes that shift from twilight to sapphire depending on his mood, strong, angular features, and an infectious smile that could be used as a weapon if he chose to.
But he’s never been anything but brotherly toward me. And after everything, less than that.
It didn’t matter that I thought he was the most handsome man I’d ever met. Or that I respected him immensely. Or that my skin would tingle the rare time he’d touch me.
Plus. Why am I thinking about this now ? The last thing I should be thinking about is touching a man. Especially one who has reason to dislike me, even if he claims he doesn’t.
Still, my hand inches over toward Niall’s of its own volition. Before I can stop myself, I touch his fingers, and his eyes flare in surprise. But he doesn’t pull away. Instead, he gently takes my hand in his, and the warmth and comfort of it helps me breathe again.
“I want to do it,” I say quietly. Then a little more strongly, I add, “I know I need to.”
Niall gives my hand a little squeeze as Dante says kindly, “Okay. Why don’t you start at the beginning? I might interrupt to ask a question here and there, but don’t stress about remembering everything. Alright?”
Before Dante and Rhiannon got to his apartment, Niall explained that since Dante is their official team leader, he’ll be the one leading the questioning. “Not that I can’t do it,” he told me. “But we thought since I know you, it might make it harder if I’m the one asking all the questions.”
I’m not sure if he meant harder for him or me, and I didn’t ask. Honestly, I’d rather Dante ask the questions, so I don’t have to look Niall in the eye while I talk about how strange, masked men touched me.
Exhaling slowly, I meet Dante’s gaze. “I woke up and there was someone standing over me.”
With the first words, I’m thrown right back into it. Some small noise waking me up, seeing the figure in the dark, not believing what I was seeing. “Just for a second, I thought it was a dream. Then I smelled him. And I heard him breathing. That’s when I knew it was real.”
My breath catches at the memory—the paralyzing fear warring with the frantic instinct to flee. “I couldn’t move at first. I was too shocked. And then… he grabbed me. Covered my mouth so I couldn’t scream. And he injected me with something. That’s when I started fighting, but it was too late.”
Dante’s face is all hard lines and dark shadows, but his voice is gentle as he asks, “How did you know it was a man?”
“His smell, at first. It was just… his body odor. And then how strong he was. How easily he held me down. I mean…” I glance at Niall and he looks absolutely furious, which oddly makes me feel better. “I suppose it could have been a woman. But I really don’t think so.”
“And after that?” Dante asks.
“I woke up there .” My nails dig into Niall’s hand as a shudder ripples through me. “And I couldn’t move.”
Chest tight, heart racing, I tell them about waking up in a strange room that looked scarily similar to a hospital room. How I was held down by padded cuffs around my wrists and ankles. How I got sick from the drugs lingering in my system and a grim-faced nurse cleaned me up without a word.
I keep my eyes fixed on the coffee table as I tell them about the injections they gave me that kept me sedated, but still aware. About the tests they ran on me that first day, ones I could identify but couldn’t understand.
“Everything was foggy,” I recall, “but I knew what they were doing. I just couldn’t figure out why, at first. Why did they want to test my heart function? Or my lung capacity? And they took so much blood. Vials and vials of it.”
Dante scribbles a few things on his tablet before setting it down on his lap. “Was it always nurses? Or were there other people?”
“It was mostly nurses. At least, I assume they were. They were all in scrubs, like the ones I had on. But there was a man who seemed like a doctor. He ran most of the tests, and he knew what he was doing. If he wasn’t a doctor, he definitely had medical training.”
“Would you be able to describe him? If we brought a sketch artist?”
“I don’t think so. He had a surgical mask and cap on. And glasses. So there wasn’t—” Frustration wells up, thickening my throat. “I wish I could. But they were so careful .”
“It’s fine,” Niall soothes as he rubs his thumb across the back of my hand. “You’re fine. Whatever you remember is fine.”
But it doesn’t feel fine as I get closer to the part I really don’t want to talk about.
When I’m recalling the sedatives and the tests and the sullen nurses, it’s easier to be clinical about it. I can talk about the vision and hearing tests they forced me to do without feeling like I’m about to be sick.
It’s easier to be detached—to look at myself as just a patient—when I’m describing the frequency of the injections and how long they lasted.
“I don’t think they wanted me completely out, because that would be harder to monitor,” I explain. “A deeper sedation would require supplemental oxygen, a heart monitor, and someone watching at all times. But I was already restrained, so I think they just wanted to keep me calm. Quiet. They didn’t want me?—”
The memories slam into me, a tsunami of terror and panic and rage. All the worst parts, that I’ve desperately been trying to contain, all bursting out at once.
My lungs don’t want to work. Breathing seems an impossibility.
“Jade?” Niall gently squeezes my hand. “Do you want a break?”
Yes.
No. I’m strong. Other women have been through so much worse. I owe them—I owe the other women I left behind in the facility—to finish this story.
“No.” It comes out louder than I intended. In a lower tone, I say, “No. I want to get through this.”
So I take a deep breath and face the worst of it.
I tell them about the men who came to look at me.
Dressed in black scrubs and full black face masks, all I could see were their eyes as they leered at me.
All different body types—tall, short, lanky, rotund—all came into my room with the same intent. To inspect me.
“There was always a nurse in the room,” I recall in a near whisper. “Reminding the men what they could and couldn’t do. Each man had five minutes to… look. They could touch my arms and my face, but nothing else. One man tried to… reach for my breasts, and she rapped him with a little cane. Like a teacher used to punish a student.”
A low growl rumbles from beside me, and the fingers wrapped around mine go rigid.
“That’s when I knew for sure. Why they were there. Why I was there. Because they’d ask the nurse questions. How was my health? When would all the test results be back? Could they pay extra for genetic testing?”
Under his breath, Niall grits out, “ Fuck .”
I don’t want to keep going, but I force myself to. “I didn’t want to believe it. But then… these two men came in together. I guess they were… friends? And they were talking. While one man touched my face, the other speculated about how much I’d go for. He thought I’d start at”—my lungs seize up for a second—“five million.”
All the air feels like it’s been sucked from the room.
My voice shakes as I continue. “Five million. And the man who had his clammy fingers on me said he’d pay double that. Triple if my genetics looked good.”
Now that the memories are loose, they’re ricocheting crazily in my head. Hungry gazes looking at me like something to buy. Something to own. Their hands on me, unable to get away. The first time I tried to say something, my voice slurring as I told them to leave me alone, and the nurse hissed at me, “We’d rather not use a gag. The clients don’t like them. But we will.”
I can’t breathe.
It feels like an earthquake in here. Is the couch shaking?
No. It’s me.
I’m not sure how much time goes by before I hear Niall say, “Jade. You need a break. This is enough for now.”
He’s no longer on the couch, but crouched on the floor in front of me, both his hands clasping mine. “Jade,” he repeats gently, “We can finish this later. Just breathe. You’re safe. Okay?”
“We can come back tomorrow,” Dante adds. “There’s no need to do this all now.”
Rhiannon’s eyes are filled with compassion. “But if you want to talk… I’m here.”
A reprieve. I can push this all back in the box again until tomorrow. I can watch a movie without paying attention to it while Niall fusses around me.
Except. I don’t want to put it off. I want to finish this.
“I don’t want a break.” Drawing on the same courage I had when I attacked the nurse, I set my shoulders and lift my chin. “I want to tell the rest of it.”
So I do.
While Niall holds my hands, I explain how I convinced the nurses to give me pills instead of injections, and how I hid the pills before spitting them out.
“Nice,” Rhiannon says quietly, nodding in appreciation.
I tell them how I only allowed myself to sleep in quick bursts; always on edge, afraid of missing something.
I take them through the days of relative lucidity when I came up with my plan. How I watched the nurses, tried to figure out their schedules, so I’d be ready when the blonde one came to check on me. And I describe the moments leading to my escape.
“I punched her in the throat.” This is mainly to Niall, though Dante and Rhiannon are listening intently. “I remembered you teaching us back in college. I practiced, back then.” The tiniest hint of a smile tugs at my lips. “I used a pillow.”
“Ah, Jade.” A strange expression crosses Niall’s face. “I never imagined… You shouldn’t have had to. But I’m so… Shit. Jade. That’s just…”
“Really impressive,” Dante finishes with a small smile.
When I tell them about the chokehold, Niall makes a little choking sound of his own. Almost disbelievingly, he asks, “You put the nurse in a chokehold? Knocked her out? Changed her clothes and put her on the bed? After everything you’d been through?”
A warm flush of pride chases away some of the clinging cold I can’t seem to shake. “Yes.”
Niall isn’t the only one giving me an admiring look. Dante and Rhiannon both look just as impressed, and Rhiannon says teasingly, “Remind me not to get on your bad side, Jade. And that goes for you, too, Niall. She’ll kick your ass.”
Niall holds my gaze, his eyes soft with something that looks a lot like affection. “I know.”
The weight on my chest lifts a little after that.
The rest of my escape is almost anticlimactic. Just hours of terrified running, silently praying I wouldn’t be discovered. And then that interminable hour—that’s how long Niall said it took to get to me—waiting in the woods.
“Tomorrow, we’ll sit down with some maps,” Dante says. “Try to figure out exactly how far you ran, if you saw any landmarks, anything that can give us an idea of where the facility is.”
“It was so dark,” I tell him apologetically, “And I was trying to keep off the roads. So I didn’t see much of anything.”
“It’s okay,” he replies. “Even the distance you ran can help. We’ll figure it out.”
I’ve almost stopped shaking by the time I reach the end of my story. Or at least, to the point when Niall picked me up and brought me here. When I finish with, “I saw Niall walking into the woods. And I ran to him. Then I started to think I might actually be safe.”
The room falls into silence for a few seconds. Niall moves back to the couch and sits beside me, tucking my hand back into his again.
Dante stares at his tablet, his forehead wrinkled in thought. Then he glances at Niall and some sort of silent message passes between them in a series of chin lifts and eyebrow raises. After a moment, Niall sighs. “This is the last question for today. Jade’s had enough.”
Turning to Niall, I say, “I’m okay. I can keep going.”
“Hun.” His voice gentles. “You’re shaking. And you’re pale as a ghost. Pushing isn’t going to help anything.”
Am I still shaking? Lifting my free hand to look at it, I realize, yes, it’s trembling like a proverbial leaf. And I do feel like the slightest wind could knock me over. “Okay.”
Dante dips his head at me. “Okay. Last one. Why didn’t you want us contacting the police? Or the hospital?”
Oh crap. My stomach turns to lead.
There’s still another terrifying part.
I clutch Niall’s hand as I answer, “Because I heard the men talking in the hallway. There were no names used; everyone was there anonymously. But some of them knew each other. And the things they talked about…”
My heart races.
“They were important men. Powerful. One talked about an upcoming political campaign. Another mentioned a big hospital benefit in San Antonio. And one man… he said he had the charges against him cleared. That he had the police in his pocket, and they conveniently lost the evidence against him.”
Dante grits out a low, “Shit.”
“Another one was an actor, I think. And one… he was laughing about a trial. He might have been a judge. I wasn’t taking the drugs anymore by then. So I remember everything.”
Niall turns to me, his brows pulled into a V. “But you didn’t see any of them?”
“I have no idea who any of them are,” I admit quietly. “I should have tried harder to figure it out. But I was so scared. And I was focused on trying to escape. If only I’d?—”
“Absolutely not.” Niall holds my gaze. “What you did, Jade? It was incredible. I’m so…” He swallows hard, and his eyes darken to a deep twilight. “You were amazing, hun. You are amazing.”