Chapter 6
Caleb
I hadn’t been expecting him to tell me anything after he’d tensed up when I’d mentioned his sister, so I was momentarily shocked into silence at his admission.
“What happened?” I finally asked. I knew it wasn’t any of my business, but I was desperate to know more about Jace, and while it wasn’t exactly the best topic, I’d take anything he gave me. In the two years since he’d gotten me out of the psychiatric hospital, he’d never once talked about himself.
“She and her boyfriend went to Europe a couple years ago for a long backpacking trip. Everything was going fine until they got to Germany. She used to call me like clockwork every week to check in. Just like that, the calls stopped. There were no more posts to her social media pages, either. Her boyfriend’s parents didn’t hear anything either.
The German authorities said they’d likely just run away together…
decided to cut ties and just not come home.
They refused to even consider her missing until about three months later when her boyfriend’s body was discovered in a field outside Berlin. ”
Although Jace’s voice was even as he spoke, I could see the tightness in his jaw and the spark of pain in his eyes.
“There was no word of your sister?” I asked .
Jace shook his head. “It was like she just disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“How old is she?” I asked, careful not to use past tense.
“She’d be twenty-four now. Her name is Maggie.”
“I’m sorry, Jace,” I murmured. “I can’t even imagine,” I began, but then shook my head.
I understood the pain of losing a loved one, but knowing Nick was dead was somehow easier than imagining him being out in the world and not knowing if he was okay or not.
“Your parents? How are they dealing with it?”
“Our parents died when I was fifteen and Maggie was five. She and I were sent to live with an uncle, then later my grandmother.”
I could tell by the tone of his voice that there was more to that particular part of the story, but I refrained from asking about it. “Is your grandmother still—”
“No,” Jace cut in. “She died a few months before Maggie left for her trip. Maggie used her part of the inheritance our grandmother left us to pay for it.”
“God, I don’t even know what to say,” I managed to get out. I looked at him and said, “No, scratch that, I do know what to say. It fucking sucks, Jace. I can’t even imagine how hard all that’s been on you.”
Jace sent me a small smile, but he didn’t say anything.
“Are the police still looking for Maggie?”
“Not really. Once the news of a pretty young American girl going missing dies down, so does the interest in finding her. I go over there every time I get a new lead, but they’re few and far between.”
“Lead?” I asked in confusion. “Do you… do you know who took her?”
“I don’t know who,” Jace responded. “But I do know why.”
When he didn’t elaborate, I debated whether I should just let the terrible conversation die a natural death.
If he’d been anyone else, I would have. But he wasn’t just anyone – he was the one person who’d been there for me when I’d been at my most vulnerable.
Just hearing his voice as I’d been strapped to that hospital bed, my brain addled by countless drugs, had helped me feel a little less alone.
“Why was she taken?” I asked .
Jace hesitated, then pulled in a deep breath. “Have you heard of sex trafficking, Caleb?”
My throat threatened to close up as I nodded. I’d seen stories about it on the news every now and then. But it also hit closer to home.
“I heard Eli and Mav talking about it once… that’s what happened to Dante’s younger brother. He was taken when he was just a little boy and… and sold…”
I hadn’t actually met Aleks, but I’d occasionally met his brother, Dante, who worked with Mav and Memphis.
Dante and his fiancé, Magnus, had found Aleks a couple of years earlier and had managed to rescue him from the man who’d been holding him captive.
From everything I’d heard, Aleks was still struggling to find some sense of normalcy in his life.
To think Jace’s sister had been taken to be used like that…
I felt like I was going to be sick. “No,” I whispered. I’d wanted to be strong for Jace, but I was failing miserably. He was holding himself together just fine, but I felt like I was going to come apart.
“Are you sure?” I asked. Jace looked blurry through my watery eyes.
“I’m sure,” Jace said. “I’ve managed to find things here and there about her, but every time I think I’m getting close, the trail goes cold. I was there a few weeks ago, but the lead I was given didn’t pan out.”
I wanted to say something meaningful, something that would give him strength or hope, but I couldn’t manage to say anything at all, because my tears chose that moment to start streaking down my face.
Jace’s sister had to be so damned scared, and the suffering she endured every single day of her life…
“Hey,” Jace said as he leaned into me and then drew me forward. I felt the milk get plucked from my fingers and then I was being drawn against Jace’s chest.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted.
“For what?”
“For not saying the right thing… for not making it better somehow. Be cause it can’t be better. I can’t even imagine how scared you must be but you’re so strong—”
“Not strong,” Jace murmured with a shake of his head before he pressed his lips against the top of my head. “Just really good at faking it.”
I wouldn’t have believed him if it hadn’t been for the fine tremor that I felt go through his body. And the way he was holding me… so okay, maybe I couldn’t give him the right words, but maybe this moment was enough for now.
But he was wrong about one thing… he was strong. I would have given anything for even an ounce of whatever it was that kept him moving forward, despite the inevitable hopelessness he must have felt every time he’d had another lead on his sister dry up.
“And Caleb?”
“Yeah?”
His arms closed around me even tighter. “This helps,” he said gruffly.
I didn’t resist when Jace maneuvered us so that we were lying down.
Unlike the previous times he’d held me as we’d slept, this time I was pressed up against his chest, my head tucked right beneath his chin.
His fingers sifted through my hair and I found myself sinking more of my weight down onto him, even as my brain tried to warn me that I was getting too close.
“Make me understand, Caleb,” Jace said softly.
It didn’t take a genius to know what he was really asking me. I suspected he had a million questions for me, but the surprise would have been if he’d led with anything that wasn’t related to the scars on my arm.
“I don’t understand it myself sometimes,” I admitted.
“When did it start? I don’t remember… I don’t…” His voice dropped off, but I didn’t need him to continue. He didn’t remember seeing the scars on me when we’d first met two years earlier or the one Christmas we’d spent together.
“About six months ago,” I said. I could feel my anxiety building, so I began toying with the material of his shirt.
“This kid from school told me about it. I walked in on him when he was doing it in the bathroom. I saw the blood in the sink and the razor blade in his hand and I thought he was trying to kill himself. I told him I’d get help, but he just laughed at me.
Said help was already there and then he lifted the razor blade.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it – he was so… relaxed. Almost… happy.”
I was still playing with Jace’s shirt when his hand settled over mine. I smiled against his chest when he began to thrum our fingers together. I wondered how he knew I needed to keep some part of me moving at that point. Most people needed quiet to focus.
I wasn’t most people.
Quiet and I didn’t do well together.
“I’d been getting into trouble with Mav and Eli the past year because they caught me drinking a lot. The alcohol made it so I didn’t have to feel anything, but it was too hard to hide. I didn’t want to risk messing around with drugs, since I’d seen what they’d done to Nick.”
I felt Jace tense beneath me and his fingers stilled for a moment, but I continued. I wasn’t interested in dragging this whole thing out.
“Then I remembered the kid’s expression from that day in the bathroom and I decided to try it. I’ve never felt more in control than when I have that blade in my hand, Jace,” I admitted. “I know that sounds fucked up—”
“It doesn’t,” Jace interjected. “But you know it’s not real, right?”
I sighed because I did know that. “I know,” I murmured. “I don’t control it. It controls me.” I hesitated and said, “I’d still rather have the illusion, though.”
Jace sighed. “What happened to going to therapy? You told Eli you’d try.”
“I did,” I said softly. I pulled my fingers from Jace’s and let them rest on his chest. “Tell me how I was supposed to tell a complete stranger the truth, Jace. That not only did I let my father fuck me, but that I actually got jealous when he’d pretend I was someone else.”
Shame curled through me and I wasn’t surprised when Jace shifted us until we were both sitting upright. He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. “Don’t you dare try to take any of what that man did to you on yourself.”
I willed myself to remain quiet, but giving voice to that particular secret was like punching a tiny hole in the dam that was holding back all the shit that was threatening to drown me. “I hated him so much, Jace.”
“Of course you did, Caleb. The things your father did to you—”
“Not him,” I whispered. “Eli.”
Jace stilled. “What do you mean?” he asked carefully.