Dark Hope (18 page)

“Ten.”

Tabitha unleashed a string of curse words that in ordinary times would have made me blush. But right now, I was too stunned to care.

“After that, it didn’t matter what they did to me,” Maria continued in a flat voice. “Nothing mattered. I just pretended I was far away and that it was happening to someone else.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a door opened. “Your name isn’t really Maria Delgado, is it?” I asked, my voice low.

She shook her head no.

“Why won’t you tell the FBI or Mrs. Blankenship your real name? Or what you told us?”

Tears welled up in Maria’s eyes once again. “You don’t get it. If I tell them my name and where I am from, they will send me back. And I can’t go back there.”

Tabitha frowned. “But why not?”

Maria gaped at us, wondering at our naïveté. “If he knew what really happened, my father would disown me. Or worse—my uncle could do it all over again. Besides, I can’t leave here. Not yet.”

I felt my own forehead folding into creases, puzzled. “Why not?”

Maria gripped the edge of the table and leaned in, her face intense. “Because that police raid didn’t bring in my sister.” My stomach sank with horror as I thought of the little girl, still out there, alone. “I have to find her before it is too late.”

Maria, worn out by the retelling of her story and the effort of speaking English, collapsed back into her chair, refusing to speak any longer.

We pressed the button signaling for our release. While we waited, I tore a little slip of paper from Tabitha’s notebook and scribbled my name and cell phone number on it.

“Thank you,” I said, reaching across the table to press the number into Maria’s hand. “If there is anything I can do, or if you ever need someone to talk to, call me.”

She looked at the slip of paper with amusement. “Hope. You are just what I need now,” she whispered, closing her tiny fist around the scrap. “Hope.”

The locks began turning and the door swung open. When it closed again on Maria, she was still sitting in the chair, alone, clutching the paper.

seven

T
he next morning, I shuffled toward my locker, trying to stifle a yawn. Our interview with Maria had ignited a sense of urgency in me. I’d pored over Internet sites until long after midnight, absorbing all the information I could about her hometown and the trafficking business. Like a teller at the DMV, I mindlessly processed photo after photo, statistic after statistic, using the rote activity to keep my mind and my emotions at bay until I collapsed into my bed in exhaustion. But in my dreams—or rather, one specific dream, more like a nightmare, that I didn’t want to think of right now—it was not as easy to push aside the questions that I did not want to answer. Was my father right in being so protective? Did I run from what I had thought was a prison only to find that I had run right into a trap? And what would have happened to me if Michael had not killed my kidnapper all those years ago?

Michael. The thought of him brought a complicated set of emotions right to the surface. Gratitude, surely. But resentment, too: resentment of the need to be watched, resentment of his lies,
resentment and even fear of what his presence implied. And more. I blushed, not wanting to think about those other feelings.

I lifted my head and there he was, stationed at my locker. A casual observer would guess that he was lounging, but I could see the taut look of his eyes and the way his muscles seemed coiled for action. I flushed again more deeply as I took in his sleek body and thought of the warmth that had surged through my own at his touch, as well as the glimpse of physical perfection I’d had when he’d revealed himself to me.

Could it have really happened? Or was it all part of the hazy nightmares that had plagued me last night?

I smiled, nerves on edge as I began to spin my combination.

He leaned toward me nonchalantly, but his tone when he spoke was demanding. “Where were you yesterday?”

I remembered the neat stack of messages my mother had left on the kitchen counter and felt a surge of guilt, like a child who has been caught playing in her mother’s makeup drawer.

“I was busy.”

“Where?” he pressed. “You weren’t at Tabitha’s. I checked.”

Indignation swelled within me, and I fumbled my combination. Frustrated, I turned to him. “You’re not my father. I don’t need you checking up on me.”

“But it seems you do,” he said, his eyes narrowing as he closed the distance between us to mere inches. “You were at home but you didn’t want to be disturbed. What was so important that you couldn’t talk to me, Hope?”

His stern eyes were shot through with anger. I looked away, but he gently took my chin in his fingers, forcing me to meet his gaze. “What are you hiding? Or are you just hiding from me?”

A wave of warmth began spreading from his hands, warring
with the anger that was swamping my body. Furiously, I pushed his hand away.

“Leave me alone. I don’t owe you any explanations. What I do on my own time is my business, not yours.” We stared each other down: him, frustrated by my vagueness, me, refusing to let him intimidate me. My cheeks were burning—whether from the lingering effects of his touch or my own fury, I wasn’t sure. All I knew is that I didn’t want to talk to him about Street Grace or Maria, and he couldn’t push me around. The bell rang for first period and I turned to my locker with unseeing eyes. I tried my lock again with mechanical stiffness, willing him to look away. I tried the lock but it wouldn’t give. I spun the numbers again—once, twice, three times—until my locker door opened. I studiously examined its contents with exaggerated interest.

Eventually, I heard him sigh. When I turned from my locker, he was gone. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lucas and his friends approaching. Hurriedly, I closed my own locker and headed for my class.

Why hadn’t I just told Michael? As I worked over my pinch pot in art class, I turned the question over and over in my mind. Was it because I didn’t want a watchdog on my tail every minute of the day? Or was I trying to build a wall to keep some distance between me and the one person who knew my deepest secret, and who knew it even better than I did? Maybe I was hiding from him after all. Or maybe I was just scared.

Frustrated, I squashed the pot with my fist. Whatever complicated reasons I had, it was going to be hard to avoid him. Our blissfully comingled schedules now loomed ahead of me like a series of traps.

The day exhausted me. In every class we shared, I diligently
avoided Michael’s probing eyes, pretending I could not feel them watching my every move. I hung onto each teacher’s words and found endlessly fascinating tidbits of information in the footnotes of my textbooks. And I took every excuse I had to leave, running notes to the office and staying through lunch period to get extra help. But through it all, I was acutely aware of the closeness of his body.

So I was already on edge when Michael approached Tabitha and me during Contemporary Issues.

“Can I join your group?” he asked. “I was absent when we chose topics and need to catch up.”

Tabitha took her time as she stacked her notebooks and folders neatly on top of each other. She crossed her hands carefully on top of the pile, examining her long black nails with feigned intensity. The new coldness between Michael and me had not been lost on her, and she was relishing putting Michael on the spot.

“You have to ask Hope,” she finally said.

With that she sank back into her chair, her rows of bracelets jingling as she folded her arms across her chest. She nodded at me, letting me know it was truly up to me before skewering Michael with a look of disdain. “Go on, ask her.” She crossed her feet jauntily on top of the desk and leaned back, relishing the prospect of seeing me shoot down Michael.

Michael rolled his eyes. “Fine. Hope? Can I join your group?” He flashed me that cocksure grin of his, but underneath I could see, for the first time ever, a glimpse of uncertainty. He leaned in over my desk, so close that my head swam with the scent of honey and hay that emanated from him. I took a trembling breath, unable to break his gaze.

Through the fog, my mind was screaming,
No! No! No!
Yet I couldn’t bring myself to let him know how he’d gotten under my
skin. How much things had changed … how out of balance I really was, when it came to me and him. I could barely even admit to myself that there was a part of me that was afraid of him, scared of what he was and what it meant to have him here, guarding me.

I shoved down my feelings and picked up a pen.

“Sure,” I shrugged, deliberately doodling on my notebook to underscore how little I cared. “Suit yourself.”

Tabitha’s brow wrinkled. This was not what she’d expected. She dropped her feet to the ground. “You can’t change our topic,” she stated flatly, challenging Michael. “We’re already too far into it.”

Michael held up his hands in protest, his eyes twinkling. “Of course not. It wouldn’t help me catch up if we had to start from scratch, would it?” He pulled his desk over to ours and straddled his chair. I noticed the ripple of his thighs and felt myself weaken.

“What are we writing about?” Michael asked.

“Human trafficking,” Tabitha said, pushing some papers toward him. “Here’s our outline and some notes I made from our interview yesterday.”

Michael peered at the pages, swiftly turning them as he scanned with machinelike speed.

“You talked with an actual victim?” He lifted his head and fixed me with his gaze, boring his eyes into mine. I squirmed in my seat.

Tabitha answered for me. “She’d been kidnapped and sold as a sex slave. Her sister is still out there somewhere, probably in Atlanta.”

Michael drew his lips tightly together, never breaking his gaze. “I see,” he said softly. “So this is what you were doing last night. You were doing more research, weren’t you?”

Tabitha didn’t notice that this admission seemed significant to Michael. Instead, she squealed with glee and dove into my stack of papers. “You did more research, Hope? Let me see!”

In her enthusiasm, Tabitha kept up a running monologue, only pausing momentarily to get Michael and I to agree to her latest plans for completing the project. We agreed automatically, our eyes locked on one another’s, knowing that our conversation was not over.

As much as I wasn’t crazy about being trapped in a small car with Michael, I desperately wanted him to believe me when I said it was no big deal, that nothing was going on. He’d know I was lying if I willingly climbed the steps into the clutches of Bus Boy and his minions. So into the Charger I went, just like usual, to ride home with him after school. Before we’d even left the parking lot, I knew it was a bad decision.

“Don’t you think it’s a little funny?” Michael demanded, slamming the car door shut behind him with a hollow metallic thud. He didn’t wait for my answer. “Of all the topics in the world, you picked the one that would dredge up your own past.”

Michael’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his anger barely in control. The car lurched forward as he put it into gear. I shrank into my seat, wishing—not for the first time—for the reassurance of a seat belt.

My chin lifted defiantly. “Tabitha picked the topic. It’s just a coincidence. Besides, what happened to Maria isn’t at all like what happened to me.”

“Is that so?” he demanded, darting me a glance. “Then why wouldn’t you tell me about it?”

I blushed, knowing he’d pinpointed the source of my own confusion. “I don’t know.”

“You
do
know!” he shouted, slamming his hand on the wheel.
“You know it feels wrong, is wrong. With everything that is going on, the last thing you need to be doing is putting yourself in more danger!”

“Maybe I just need to understand what could have happened if—”

“If what?” he interrupted tersely. “If I hadn’t been there to stop that man? Do you really need to put yourself through that?”

I wheeled on him, not bothering to hide the fury that shook my voice.

“It’s easy for you to say—you wiped him out and then put me from your mind for over eleven years. Did you ever stop to think what it was like for me, all those years? It broke up my parents’ marriage, Michael. More than anything else, it defined my identity, and I can’t even remember it!”