Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
WREN
“You’re not gonna change your mind about him, are you?”
“Nope,” I answer the mountain of muscle beside me. “I’m five feet tall. Stubbornness serves me well.”
Standing by the doorway of a kids’ playroom in a historic Charleston church, I’ve made the right decision about the man we’re staring at.
I haven’t stopped thinking about The Pastor.
How could I?
He’s the fallen angel who sacrificed his flesh for me.
And if I’m making the wrong decision about him—which I’m not—how much more fucked up can my life get?
I trust my instincts. They’re all I have left, and they’ve gotten me this far.
I also trust this total snack standing beside me. He’s the one who drove the passenger van to the fancy beach house where my life, and the lives of nine other girls, went from savage to saved.
It’s been a whirlwind of a week since then, but my heart has been like the eye of a storm. Calm. Certain of where I need to go next.
Staring at the back of the man God sent to me, I ask the other, “He’s your brother, isn’t he?”
Mr. Muscle doesn’t answer. We just watch the back of the jacked and tatted man in a tight, white T-shirt and jeans, who looks eerily like him.
Giggling kids surround The Pastor, but my stare falls to the white bandage wrapped around his left pinky. Or what remains of it. The rest? He sacrificed for me.
It’s why I’m here.
It was a sign.
I side-whisper, “What’s he doing?”
“Entertaining the kids while their parents take an English class.”
“But what are they doing to him?”
“Adding to the tattoos on his face.” Mr. Muscle leans against the doorjamb. “Hopefully, not with Sharpies this time. That shit was too funny, literally. He had a poop emoji on his forehead for a week.”
A giggle erupts from my throat, imagining it.
Before the hell of this past year, I was a happy person. It was a conscious choice. When you have nothing and no one, you can at least own a positive attitude.
And whenever my joy would waver, I’d ask myself, “WWDD?”
What Would Dolly Do?
Sorry, Jesus. You and I are tight, but Dolly Parton is the mother I never had. She’s taught me that smiles and kindness open doors if not hearts, and it’s how I’ve survived so far. Smiling and praying someone will open their door to me.
And here I am, doing it again.
The Pastor sits on a red plastic children’s chair. With a soulful voice and slight Southern twang, he sings a song about a bullfrog and “Joy to the World.”
He’s enchanting the kids who laugh with markers in their little hands, scribbling over the flesh I admire, too. Innocent, colorful doodles over black, ominous ink. On his face. His neck. His arms.
“So those markers will wash off?” I worry.
“He wouldn’t care if it didn’t.” I glance up at Mr. Muscle. He beams at the sight, revealing, “He’ll do anything for kids.”
Meeting my stare, Mr. Muscle’s blue eyes sparkle. They ease the threat of his menacing form. Otherwise, this guy is a snow-covered volcano—peaceful, beautiful, and huge until he blows.
“Like he did for you, little one.” He sounds worried, too. “But I’m not sure about this; me, bringing you to him. He has a good soul but an evil temper. Be warned.”
“Well,” I shrug, “I’m sure about him.”
Defiance edges my voice. The sound of it makes The Pastor turn his head. In an instant, his indigo eyes widen, surprised, before they narrow with fuming recognition.
“It’s me! Hi!” I sing out, yes, sounding like the Taylor Swift song, so I add to the awkwardness. WWDD?
I smile.
I wave.
Mr. Muscle huffs a chuckle, “This should be interesting.”
Fluent Spanish rolls off the tongue of The Pastor, slowly rising, tension rippling the muscles under his T-shirt.
Pointing to an older woman, holding a book and sitting in a rocking chair, he must be telling the kids it’s story time.
Eagerly, they circle her, but one little boy won’t leave his side.
The boy is two or so.
It’s my informed guess. Foster siblings surrounded me for the first sixteen years of my life.
The Pastor glances at the crying boy, tugging at his jeans, so he gently scoops him up in his inked arms … and … there go my ovaries. Content, the toddler rests his head on The Pastor’s chest.
But his sexy face, aimed at me?
It’s not giving Content.
No, common sense tells me to run from a man with tattoos on his face; he got them for a reason. They’re giving Fuck off or Die vibes. Even on a hot face like his.
But how can I be afraid of a dangerous man with rainbows doodled on his forehead?
He stares at me, and I stare at him. New, sparkling sensations plunge my depths, and I don’t know what to name them.
Even as he storms our way, his voice growling low at both of us, “What in the hell are you doing here?”
“She told me to bring her to you.” Mr. Muscle folds his beefy arms across his chest. “And she’s like a cute mosquito. Tiny and light. Biting and the most dangerous insect in the world. The fuck if I’ll say no to her.”
Smiling, I elbow him. “Jeez. Thanks, Mr. Muscle.”
In the past week, I’ve grown attached to him. His name is Jace. When our van arrived at the beach house, I heard the doctors, there to treat us, greet him with warmth.
Jace brought us meals, but never introduced himself, and I was a little busy recovering from shock.
I keep recalling what the therapist said to me after I was rescued. “Trusting another person may seem unimaginable right now, and that’s okay.”
She’s not wrong. Trust has been a gamble for me; a game I’ve lost until now.
But I’m right about The Pastor.
I more than trust him.
I belong with him.
Even though I don’t know his name.
The therapist’s name was Rachel, and I know the woman who saved us, who Jace works for, is Ms. Nadine Faye. She introduced herself in the van while she gave us blankets to wrap around our shivering flesh, and in a matter of hours, Ms. Faye felt like our mama bear.
I felt safe; a rare emotion for me.
And I don’t know why Luck has finally found me, too, but I’m not giving it back.
I am a mosquito.
Little, light brown, buzzing, and yeah, cute until I bite. I gotta survive, too.
“You can’t be here.” The Pastor cups the boy’s downy curls, his tenderness at odds with his menacing appearance and simmering rage. “You’re safe now. You need to go home.”
Be brave.
I don’t care he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen; he’s a beast right now, and I’m used to his kind.
“I don’t have a home.”
“Well, then, go back to wherever you came from.”
“That’s the last place that’s safe for me.”
“Then go to your family,” he seethes. “Parents. Grandparents. Aunts or uncles somewhere.”
I swallow. “I don’t have a family, either.”
And it’s all I’ve ever wanted.
There’s not a word for the hole in my heart. It just aches, empty and lonely, a void I smile through until I close my eyes every night and fill it with tears. It’s been there since I was days old and left on the steps of a chapel.
“The fuck, man?” The Pastor aims his ire at Mr. Muscle. “You got the intel from the girls. You took them back to their families. Why is she still here?”
My fists land on my waist. “Look, Crayola King, she can speak for herself. As I told Mister Muscle and Miss Faye, I have no home, no family, and where I came from is not safe, so I’m staying here…” It’s hard to breathe with the way he’s looking at me, but I insist, “I’m staying with you.”
A bomb drops in his deep blue eyes, but I’m right. I feel it in my soul. You recognize a prayer when it’s been answered.
Though he thinks I’m as wrong as sour milk. He flares his pierced nose at me like…
No.
Fucking.
Way.
Sure, I probably didn’t help my cause the first time we met. I told The Pastor we’d fall in love if he ever touched me.
Yep, that scared the shit out of him. It kinda scared me, too, but I couldn’t help it.
Sometimes…
Okay, almost every time, I don’t think about it. The truth just pops out of my mouth. I’m allergic to lies.
And after what The Pastor did for me? A man doesn’t need to be nailed to a cross for me to know he’s my salvation.
Some way, somehow, I’m meant to be with this man.
This menacing man, wrapped in ominous ink, who hates that I’ve invaded his sacred world. Yeah, him. He’s my answered prayer.
I suspect he won’t judge me for what I’ve done to survive, even though we’re painfully opposite people except for this…
“Thou hast made for thee to dwell in a Sanctuary, O Lord,” I shock The Pastor, “which thy hands have established.” I quote scripture, aiming my eyes at his bandaged hand.
Point.
Made.
“See what I mean?” Mr. Muscle gestures. “She’s all yours.”
He turns to leave, but The Pastor seethes, “Take her with you.”
He turns back. “You heard her, bro. She belongs with you. You’re two biblical peas in a pod.”
Yep, I knew it: brothers.
“Take her back to the safe house.”
“No can do.” He arches a thick brow. “Ms. Faye said to bring her to you. It’s what she wants.”
She? Does he mean the gorgeous mama bear who saved us? Or me? Or both?
Either way, Mr. Muscle said the name as if it’s a lie. Like, Ms. Faye isn’t who she really is. But she is a woman you’d best obey. That truth is crystal clear.
It’s in the eyes of both men; eyes that suspiciously look like Ms. Faye’s. They’re so ocean blue, you want to dive into their depths, even if it kills you.
“Padre.” The toddler starts poking his finger, fascinated by the diamond stud in The Pastor’s nostril. It amuses the boy and doesn’t annoy the devilish man who’s too busy glaring down at me.
Our eye contact feels like a standoff.
Like a battle has begun.
A war of heat, fire, and fate.
And I belong right here, holding my ground and fighting for my future. It’s all I’ve ever known.
His nostrils flare. “How old are you?”
So, I flare mine back. “Old enough to know when a man cuts his finger off for you, you belong with him.”
He seethes, “I did that so you wouldn’t belong to any man. You’re free to go.”
“I’m equally free to stay.”
“You can’t stay with me. I’m a pastor. Pretty, young women can’t live with me.”