Taming Cross (Love Inc.) (24 page)

“I-I don't know how I could.” I shrug, unsure what is making him so mad but taking his anger upon me nonetheless. “I just tried to do the best I could.” A tear spills down my face, and before I know it, I'm up and on my feet, dashing down the hallway to my room. I slam the door and fling my body onto the bed. I feel...humiliated.

I remember a line from
The Only Alien on the Planet
, one of my favorite books in honors eighth grade English. The main character is lamenting a part of his life that was lost because of some really awful crap he went through. His friend is telling him that he'll get over what happened, and he says,
“Whatever I become. Wherever I go. There will always be—this.”

His friend asks if he can just move past it.

He says,
“No.”

I feel that sentiment so strongly right now. I just want to live in a world where I was never Missy King. Unless I can erase my past, I'll never be happy. I'll never be free.

All the misery and shame that I've been ignoring while I worked at the clinic bubbles up, and I am sobbing in my pillow. Sobbing for my pretty, framed college diploma that I left in my old place in Atlanta. Sobbing for the way my byline looked in the pretty, sleek newspaper fonts: MEREDITH KINSEY, STAFF WRITER. God, I want to see that again. I cry for my aunt and uncle, for my buddies at
The
Red & Black
. Every year there's a reunion and I've never even been. I should have gone. I should have a job, a boyfriend. I should be down here writing about this stuff. I should never be living it. And then I sob harder because somewhere in my heart, I know it's not my fault. It's Priscilla's fault and it's Jim Gunn's fault. It's Guapo's fault and Jesus's fault. It's not my fault. And that makes me a victim.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I watch Merri disappear, then I step into the hallway leading to the laundry room and smash my fist into the stony wall. It’s a stupid idea, but it makes my heart stop pounding so hard, and with the pain buzzing through my head, I’m not seeing red anymore. I walk back to the kitchen sink and run my bleeding, bruised knuckles under cold water while I try to get myself together.

I'm going to go after her, of course. We’re in this together—even if she doesn’t know it yet. And after we get back to the States, I'm going to beat my bastard father to a bloody pulp. I should have done it the last time I saw him, and I hate myself because I didn't. I guess I was reserving final judgment for when I found 'Missy'. And the only reason for someone to do that is if they think that maybe—just
maybe
—it's the victim's fault.

I lower my hand to my side, glad to feel it pounding. I deserve it.

I draw the hand back up to my chest and work the fingers. The stinging, aching pain is nothing to the pain I've felt before, so it doesn't bother me that much. I don't think anything is broken.

I hold out both hands, the battered right one and the useless left one, which hangs limp from my wrist. I look at my hands, and at the opulence of the room around me. I think about the dead man in the laundry room and the dead back at the convent clinic. I think about Merri racing down that hall because she couldn't stand to face me anymore, and my eyes sting.

I take my time walking down the hall to Merri's room. I practice some of my meditative breathing and try to send my emotions away for now. This is not about me.

I knock twice with my elbow and when she doesn't answer, I press my ear to the door. I can hear her sobbing.

Fuck.

I feel like a predator slipping into her dark room, but there's no way I'm going to stand out in the hall. I see the bump of her form on the bed, a curled-up ball that melds into the shadowed shapes of the pillows. More than anything, I want to lie beside her, but I'm not sure if I should.

“Merri?”

When her sobbing continues, I climb up on the bed and lie on my side, leaving a few inches of space between our bodies. I'm getting near wall-punching frustration levels again when I decide to take the small liberty of putting my hand on her back.

Within seconds, she rocks against me and I have my arm around her.

“That's right. Here.” I shift her closer to me, so her back's against my chest. My left arm is wrapped around her mid-section; her soft t-shirt tickling the upper part of my arm, where I still have feeling. Her sobbing doesn't sound as violent as it did a few moments ago, but she's still pretty upset.

Moving gently, slowly, I lower my face to the back of her head, nuzzling her hair. When her crying quiets a little, I brush my lips against her head and whisper in her ear. “It's okay, Merri. It's okay.”

I can feel her shake her head. I press my face against her hair and wish like hell that I could clasp my left hand around her. Really hold her. Half a heartbeat later, her hand comes up and clasps my arm. She folds me more tightly around her—effectively doing exactly what I’d wanted.

The room is quiet except for her gasping breaths. I can feel her frantic heartbeat underneath my arm, can feel her ribcage furiously pumping in and out. I continue whispering, a mantra of
it's okay
s and
shhhh, Merri
s.

I lie against her a little more and murmur, “It wasn’t your fault. No matter what you did, you didn’t deserve this.” Re-balancing my weight, I take my right hand from under my cheek, where it was propping me up, and use it to play with a strand of her hair. “Sometimes good people make mistakes. You know how you can tell if you're one of the good ones?”

“No,” she whispers, tiny in the dark.

“Because good people feel guilty afterward.”

For the longest time, I play with her sweet-scented hair. When I shut my eyes and allow myself to focus on the soft warmth of her against me, my cock gets the wrong idea, so I shift my legs where Merri can't feel it up against her back and try to focus on her hair.

“You're good at that,” she whispers hoarsely.

“This?” I twirl her hair around my finger and nuzzle the back of her head again. I'm not trying to come onto her, though I would like to; I can simply tell she needs to be touched. She needs to be held and cared for, and I'm happy to do it. She did the same for me.

“Yeah,” she murmurs. “You must have sisters.”

Mention of my family pierces me, but I try not to let her feel the tension in my body. “No sisters. Just me.”

She waits a moment, and even though I don't have feeling in my hand, I can tell she's stroking my wrist and the tops of my fingers, on the side of my pinkie, where it's free of bandages.

“Is that uncomfortable?” she whispers.

“No.”

Some of the tension leaves her body. I can feel her sink into the mattress. I wonder how tired she is. Whether she was always afraid, back at the clinic. I wonder what her life was like with Jesus. But Merri’s not offering any stories. Just whispered questions.

“Where will I go when we get to the States?”

I don't even think before I answer. “With me.”

“Really? You won't leave me when we get there?”

“No.” I wait a breath or two. My pulse sounds like a drum inside my ears. “I still want to know what happened,” I say. “It doesn't have to be right now. You can wait and get a notepad or a computer and write it for me if you don't feel like saying it. But I need to know. I won't let these people get away with what they did to you.”

A hoarse sound vibrates in her throat. “I'll tell you,” she whispers. “But Evan?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Don't stop holding me.”

It was a Monday, and I thought Drake had gone back to California. Jim Gunn called and told me different, so I rushed around my little room, getting ready. I wore a pretty, knee-length brown dress that I thought made me look classy. Like a college girl going out to a piano bar. I'd gotten some emerald earrings as a gift from Drake a week or two before, and I remember tilting my head to make them sparkle in the mirror.

Missy King, he called me.
“You're not my mistress,” he said. “Mistresses are old. You're my Missy.”

“
And King?”
I asked him.

“
It sounds regal. Only the best for my girl.”

I accepted the name because I didn't have another one.

“I was going out with him that night,” I whisper. “I thought he had already gone home—that he wasn’t in town—but Jim Gunn, one of his Vegas body guards, called and told me he wanted to see me. So I got ready for him.”

I exhale, and Evan's body tightens around me.

“Well Jim Gunn pulls up to get me, and he isn’t in the Bentley like he usually is. He’s in a SUV. I don’t know what kind. Maybe it was a Suburban. It was big and black. And Jim is driving like he usually is, but this time I'm not alone in the back seat. Priscilla Heat is there, and...I'm sorry if this is graphic or gross, but it smelled like sex.” Tears fill my eyes, because I hate what I have to tell him next. Evan's hand smooths some hair back from my face, and I squeeze my eyes shut, letting the tears fall down my cheek.

It’s just like confessing. Just get it out.

“As soon as I'm in the car, she smashes something into my face, and I guess it made me pass out. When I woke up, I was in the very back of the car, like where you put luggage, Priscilla was dressed differently. More casual, almost in a workout suit.” I remember it had those tacky fake jewels on it. I remember her lipstick was blood red. I remember how she held me down with her hand on my throat. It makes me shudder. Evan holds me closer.

“She told me she had found out who I was and that they wanted to find me back in Georgia.” I pause, remembering that Evan doesn't know what I'm talking about. “The trouble with my boyfriend there is he was dealing marijuana and when they caught him, I was with him. I had always worried he might have blamed it on me or something.” I exhale slowly. “Sean was that kind of guy. And when Priscilla said that, I really thought he had.”

Evan's arm around me tightens, and I feel him nod. I shut my eyes again.

“She had a phone, and she showed me the Georgia number for reporting someone like me. She said that she would keep me tied up until they came to get me if I wanted, or I could go along with something she was planning.”

I chew my lip until I taste a coppery tang. Evan's fingers are stroking my hair. It makes me feel strong enough to keep going.

“I don’t know why, but I decided I didn’t believe her, so I told her ‘no’. She said Jim Gunn had gone to tell the— my client that I had made a play for Jim Gunn. That I’d been having sex with him. She said she was going to tell my client that she had heard I was a journalist from Georgia, and tell him my real name so he could confirm, and tell him I was trying to blackmail him. Either I would give over this footage I supposedly had of he and I to someone in the media, or he would need to pay me several million dollars.” Another big, deep breath. My voice cracks. “That just makes me so mad, still.”

He strokes my neck, and I can hear the echo of him saying,
It's okay.

“I told her she could kiss off, but...she had this Taser.” When I say that, Evan's body stiffens so much I wish I hadn't. I put my hand on his arm again and stroke his warm skin. “She had the Taser, and she used it on me a few times.” Tears drip down my face. I lick the salt off my lips. “I wasn't strong like you. It didn't take that long for me to cave. I let her call him and I told him what he'd heard was true.”

Evan nudges me, and I realize he's wanting me to turn around and face him. I want to. I want to be held so badly my stomach churns—but I just can’t. I rock back against him and bury my head in my elbow, and he folds himself around me. Silence swims around us, and there’s no pressure in it. Evan is just here, and I think that’s why I’m able to keep talking.

“She was supposed to let me go after that. I would never tell anyone what had happened. That's what she said. But instead, when she got off the phone she knocked me out again with...I guess it was ether or something. And when I woke up, she and Jim Gunn were in the front seat and I was in the back of the SUV, and they told me we were going to Mexico.”