Chapter Two
Jade
Today’s girl’s name was Bria, and she chewed her pencil eraser down to nothing while she puzzled over her long division.
I didn’t stop her. Eraser-chewing was the least destructive habit I’d seen in this place, including my own.
She was ten, with her mother’s tired eyes and a gap between her front teeth that would cost her mom a fortune in orthodontics someday.
She attacked her worksheet with the ferocity of someone who had decided that math was a personal enemy, and she was going to defeat it on principle.
“You’re carrying the wrong number,” I said, pointing to the third problem.
My sleeve rode up when I reached across the table, and I caught the last remains of the yellow bruise on my wrist before I could pull the fabric back down.
Bria didn’t notice. She was already erasing furiously, her small tongue pressed to the corner of her mouth in concentration as the damp eraser left a dark gray streak where she corrected her answer.
“There.” Bria pushed the paper toward me, beaming with the knowledge she’d done excellent work and wanted that fact acknowledged immediately.
I checked it. All correct. “Perfect,” I said, and meant it.
She flashed me a bright smile before grabbing the worksheet and stuffing it into her folder with approximately the same reverence most people applied to fast food wrappers.
Then she was gone, sprinting across the common room toward a cluster of other kids near the television, already forgetting I existed.
I stood, and turned around to find Mia standing at the entrance to the common room.
She had her arms wrapped around her chest like she was holding herself together, and she was watching me with an expression I couldn’t decode from across the room.
She looked the same as she always had. Better, actually, and with good reason.
Mia had something good happening in her life.
Oktober doted on her, giving her all the love and support a woman could want.
If anyone deserved to have that kind of acceptance and appreciation, it was Mia. Her gray-eyed gaze found me and held.
I looked away first. My shoulders curved inward as I tried to make myself smaller.
I’d wronged Mia in the worst possible way.
She’d been my best friend and Eric had me so completely under his thumb, I’d betrayed her by doing whatever he wanted.
Including fucking him. I think he used me for the things he couldn’t get from Mia.
Generally unpleasant forms of sex I went along with because he had leverage on me, and I felt powerless to fight back.
Those reasons didn’t excuse my actions, and I’d never try to justify myself. Especially not to Mia.
I studied the table in front of me as I heard Mia’s footsteps cross the room. They stopped a few feet away. I didn’t want her to stop near me, but I knew she wouldn’t go away until she’d said what she needed to say.
The silence went on long enough to become its own kind of conversation. Everything I’d done was in that silence. My weakness and Eric’s manipulation and the terrible stupid choices I’d made that had cost me the only real friend I’d ever had.
“Mia.” My voice came out barely above a whisper. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I’m sorry.” I made myself look up at her, because she deserved to see my face when I said it. “I have no defense.”
Mia’s expression didn’t change immediately. Whatever was left of the version of Jade Harper she’d once known had long abandoned me. I had no idea what Mia saw when she looked at me, but I would never diminish my actions or the way they’d hurt her.
She pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.
I hadn’t expected that. She didn’t say anything for another moment.
Then she exhaled through her nose and said, “Eric knew exactly what he was doing. With both of us.” Her voice was soft.
I heard the slight tremble but figured it signaled her anger rather than grief at losing either me or Eric.
I’d been just as shitty a friend as he’d been a boyfriend.
“I don’t think either of us had a chance.
” I opened my mouth, and she held up one hand.
“I’m not saying that absolves anything,” she said.
“I’m not there yet. I don’t know if I’ll get there.
” She paused, looking at the table, then back at me.
“But I’ve thought about it. How he operated.
He had you convinced that what you were doing was something other than what it was. He was good at that.”
My throat tightened. I wanted to accept her words like a lifeline, let them do the work of explaining away what I’d done, wrap myself in the narrative that I’d been manipulated and therefore wasn’t really responsible. But that wasn’t the truth. Not entirely.
“He did manipulate me,” I said carefully.
“But I knew it was wrong, and I did it anyway. He made it easier to do the wrong thing by blackmailing me, but the choice was mine.” My voice cracked on the last word, and I hated the sound of it.
I pressed my lips together. “I knew what I was doing to you, and I chose to protect myself over protecting you.”
Mia studied me for a long moment. “You look terrible,” she said finally.
A sound came out of me that surprised us both. A small, involuntary laugh. “Yeah. I know.”
“He did that.”
I wanted to believe her. “Maybe,” I whispered. “Or maybe I did it to myself.”
Mia sat with that, her arms still wrapped around herself, her expression so complicated I couldn’t read her at all.
We weren’t OK. We weren’t anywhere near OK.
But she was still sitting across from me.
I wanted to reach out to her, to have her tell me we’d still be friends, but I knew better.
I’d killed anything we had. I’d never forgive myself for hurting Mia the way I had.
She’d been the sister I’d always wanted.
I’d been too stupid to see through Eric’s lies and manipulations to stick up for either of us.
The common room hummed quietly around us. Then the soft but insistent chime of Haven’s security alarm interrupted our awkward silence.
The overhead lights flashed three times in quick succession, a sign to the hearing impaired.
We all knew to go to the “safe room” in the event of the alarm and had practiced it at least once a week since I’d been here.
The goal was to get the younger residents used to the sight and sound without being terrified, so they knew what to do and where to go.
We might not know if actual danger headed in our direction or if they’d give us the all-clear a few minutes later, but no one hesitated.
I knew the drill. Even if danger stood outside the gate, we’d never know because the guys in the club made sure nothing touched us.
And there had been more than one incident where a man had come to intimidate or harm a woman in Haven.
No one ever got in. Unfortunately, though, my body already had its own opinion about the situation and reacted accordingly.
Every muscle seized. My hands shot out and gripped the edge of the table so hard the wood bit into my palms.
“Jade.” Mia’s voice cut through the noise, sharp and direct. “Look at me.”
I couldn’t. I was focused on the doorway. Waiting for the monster to come through the door. Only, Rip was already there. He filled the entrance, not just with his physical size but with a deliberate intent of keeping anything from getting through him.
The common room had a solid wall between it and the lobby. The only way into the common room from the outside was through the lobby. A window with one-way, bulletproof glass let anyone in the common room see into the lobby without being observed.
Rip’s face reflected in that glass where he stood between us and whatever threat we faced. I understood they’d put one-way glass there, but, honestly, if anyone could see his face, there was no way they would stay here. I’d never seen a man look so scary.
His black T-shirt strained as the muscles in his arms bulged where he’d clenched his fists, and veins roped up his forearms and biceps. After taking a quick look through the glass, Rip spoke quietly into a radio, then turned and went back to his office.
Moments later, the chime stopped. Rip exited his office before going back to the window.
This time, he held a tablet and glanced down at it occasionally before swiping and speaking again.
I finally realized he’d put himself between us and the outside while he went through some kind of security checklist. He continued to speak.
I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate on the sound of his voice to anchor myself when I was really spinning out of control.
“Jade!” I felt Mia grip my hand, but she sounded like she yelled from deep inside a tunnel I couldn’t see the end of. All I could focus on was the door separating me from whoever waited outside. And Rip, the man standing between us and our demons.
After several seconds, he turned, his gaze passing over me as he glanced around the room, taking in everything and everyone still in the room. Before he went back to his office, Rip looked at me once more, giving me a concerned look.
“Jade!” Mia took my face in both her hands and forced me to look at her.
“Hey! Eyes on me. Focus on me, Jade.” I sucked in a shuddering breath before letting out a small sob.
“That’s it. You’re OK.” Mia smoothed my hair back from my face.
“Let me get you some water.” She stood and crossed to the drink fridge.
I could tell she wanted to be anywhere but with me, but Mia would always be Mia. She’d never turn her back on someone if she thought they needed help. Even me.
The silence around me seemed almost as loud as the ringing in my ears from my panic attack. The few residents here had all moved to the safe room. Only me, Mia, and Rip remained.