Chapter Eleven
Thankfully, we were staying in a penthouse.
Not only was the shower huge, it also provided unlimited hot water, or at least enough that the water hadn’t begun to run cold after forty-five minutes.
Bad for the environment, which was why I didn’t push it, even though I could still feel the grime and misery on my skin.
Some of it should’ve dissolved when Kiara spoke to her father on the phone, and her fearful tears had turned into ones of relief, then gratitude.
More should’ve leached away when Kiara told the girl—whose name was Mira—we had saved them, not taken them to give them to someone else.
Her tears had, too, turned into ones of relief.
That was, until the hospital had come into view. Then both of them turned hysterical.
It was Kiara who’d explained that Sparkle had told them under Islamic law, prostitution was an offense punishable by lashings.
He also told them they’d be taken to a prison camp and would never be released.
The girls believed this with such certainty, it required another phone call to Kiara’s father for him to explain no one was going to put them in prison or harm them.
A very kind older female doctor had looked over Kiara and Mira.
She didn’t try to separate them, or me from them, while she tended to Mira’s face.
She didn’t do a thorough examination; it was a very brief look at both to make sure there was nothing that needed to be taken care of immediately.
That also should’ve washed away some of the helplessness I felt.
It didn’t.
Neither did walking with them out to the back of the hospital, where a Bell 429 helicopter was waiting to take them to Bahrain.
Seeing Kiara’s wobbly, scared, brave smile did nothing but make me heartsick.
Seeing Mira’s face clean only made her look younger than she had when it was caked in blood. Seeing that made me want to throw up. I didn’t ask how old she was because I didn’t want to know. My soul could take no more.
I needed a reprieve.
I only had a few days before I’d walk into a different kind of hell. There would be no trash or horrendous smell of decay.
This new hell would be glamour and lavish trappings.
I finished drying off. Grabbed the white satin robe I’d set on the counter and pulled it on. I didn’t know who it belonged to, but I was helping myself, even if it only hit me mid-thigh and was a size too small.
I avoided my reflection in the mirror as I exited the bathroom. I didn’t need to see the hollowness—I felt it. It settled in my bones.
Why do I do this to myself?
How much longer can I do this to myself?
I ignored the bed and continued to the balcony door. When I slid it open, there was nothing but a whisper. I’d stayed in some expensive places, and never had a door been so quiet.
When I got to wherever I was going, I wanted whisper doors. I wanted nothing but silence. No girls with haunted eyes. No more blood. No more tears.
I walked to the railing and looked down. Way up high, the world looked so far away. That was what I wanted—to be far away from the world, from evil.
“You doing okay?” Mason’s rough voice gave me a start. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I turned to face him and immediately wished I hadn’t.
He was lounging on a chaise. Bare chested. Eyes glued to my legs.
I looked back at the fountains below and contemplated jumping. I could make my escape less dramatic and go back into my room.
“Sorry to disturb—”
“Adrenaline or overtired?” he asked.
Neither.
I was afraid of what I’d see in my dreams.
“Maybe both,” I lied.
“There’s another lounger,” he offered.
I glanced back over at him and his bare chest with a dusting of hair over his pecs. A perfectly formed happy trail disappeared beneath the elastic band of his track pants.
Yeah, I really should jump and put myself out of my misery.
Obviously I’d finally cracked. Something had to have broken inside of me.
This kind of attraction was not right. No one wanted to jump on top of a man she wanted to punch in the face more than seventy-five percent of the time she was around him and beg him to do naughty things to her.
Especially a woman who has never had anything close to naughty.
Unless getting to third base in high school was considered naughty. Then I’d been naughty.
But nothing after that.
“I should—”
“Come sit down, Calli.”
Before I could talk my feet out of obeying Mason, they took me to the chaise next to his. Instead of sitting, I stared at the tan cushion.
“I don’t bite, sweetness. You can sit.”
“I seem to remember you telling me that when you tried to get me to sleep with you,” I told him as I sat.
“Tried? I seem to remember waking up next to you.”
I carefully tugged the edge of the robe down, painfully aware I hadn’t put on panties.
As sad as it was, this was the most undressed I’d ever been around a man. I crossed my ankles, clenched my thighs, and stared at my toes.
Mason cleared his throat. “You did good tonight.”
I didn’t want to talk about tonight. Or what was going to happen in a few days. Or sex slaves. Or the state of the world.
“Where do you live?” I asked.
The silence that ensued had me glancing over at him.
He was doing that Mason thing again, where his eyes took in every detail, looking for the smallest element he could note and file away. Every microgesture. I was too tired to put in the effort of hiding who I was.
“Not tonight,” I whispered. “Don’t study me.
Don’t look for my tells. Don’t analyze my every word and movement.
Tonight, right now, I just need to be as normal as I can be.
I want to forget the evil, vile, wicked things people do to each other and sit up here and pretend it doesn’t exist. I want to be Calli.
I want you to be Mase. I want to pretend we didn’t zip-tie and gag three monsters earlier.
Though, before I forget them, I hope rats have chewed off their balls and have moved on to eat their eyeballs.
I just need to forget everything. Just for a few hours. ”
“Okay, Calli.”
He was giving in. Relief flooded.
“I live in Imperial Beach, in a condo a few blocks from the beach.”
“Is it peaceful?”
“Yeah, baby.”
“I’m glad you have that.”
Even though Mason was mostly a dick to me, he was still a good man who did good work. He deserved peace.
“Where do you live?”
“Nowhere.”
“Nowhere?” I didn’t miss the disbelief in his tone.
He’d told me more than once he didn’t trust me, and he obviously thought I was evading, not telling the truth.
“Nowhere,” I confirmed. “I have some stuff at my mom’s house, old keepsakes from high school that people keep until they’ve moved them enough times, they wonder why they have them and throw them away.
When I have downtime, which isn’t often, I do a short-term rental or stay in a hotel.
I do have a storage unit in Phoenix and one in Charleston.
Not furniture or anything personal. Clothes, shoes, cash, IDs, things like that. ”
“You didn’t mention staying with your mom during your downtime,” he pointed out.
I hesitated, but not for the reasons I normally would. There was nothing about my mother that was normal. But if I took a pass on his question, he might get up and leave me out here alone. And for once in my life, I didn’t want to be alone. Feel alone.
“I avoid spending time with her as much as possible.”
There.
Answered.
“Why?”
Shit. Goddamn.
“She’s a drunk. I can deal with her when she’s tipsy. I can mostly deal with her when she’s drunk. I cannot handle her when she’s three sheets to the wind, crying and carrying on about Lili and how I should’ve stopped my sister from going out with her boyfriend.”
I slid my gaze back to the high-rises, not wanting to witness his judgment. I knew it was coming; he’d said it would. Though in fairness, he was clear he didn’t shove his opinions onto other people.
Did he think I was an asshole for abandoning my mother? Did I? Some days, I could reconcile not visiting her by convincing myself I’d set boundaries. Other days, it was harder to sate the nagging in the back of my mind I’d left her alone in her grief.
The days when the guilt held me hostage, that was when I judged her, convicted her of not handling her pain the way I thought she should by punishing her with my absence.
Shame was a fickle bitch. Regret a prison. When they came together, they were an agonizing tornado of irrational emotions. I was caught in a never-ending cycle of self-loathing and guilt.
And I was a hypocrite.
I’d judged Mason from the time he’d stepped foot in my hotel room. I judged my mother and thought she was weak. Mason was right—and that pissed me off. I judged people every day.
The rumble radiating from Mason pulled my attention back to him. “She blames you?”
“Of course. I was with her at the mall with her and her boyfriend. He wanted to leave. I wanted to stay and meet up with some friends, so they left me there.”
I could almost feel my sister’s last hug in front of the Claire’s Boutique. I could smell the flowery lotion on her skin from Bath & Body Works. I could see her cute red tank top and matching flip-flops.
I didn’t watch her walk away. I’d turned and hustled to the food court where I knew my friends were.
If I had known that would be the last time I saw her, I would’ve watched. I would’ve hugged her tighter. I would have told her I loved her. But I didn’t.
“Why don’t you like the movie Forrest Gump?”
Mason’s jaw clenched, his shoulders stiffened, his abs contracted. I’d never seen a man turn to stone before my very eyes. It would’ve been fascinating if he didn’t look like he was about to come out of his skin.
“Never—”
“Jenny reminds me of someone I knew. Selfish to the core.”
I wanted to know more, but just that tidbit of information looked like it cost him to say out loud. I knew better than most some things were better left unsaid, left in the dark, left alone.