“Beautiful girl, I know it’s you…”
Legs shaking, I leaned against the wall as James’s strong but albeit panicked voice echoed through the phone, calming the worry that still rioted in my chest despite my newfound bravery.
“Are you hurt?”
Searching for the right words, I stared at the crumbling steps Faye had taken moments before, leaving me alone in the basement. Still immersed in endless torment, I opened my mouth to speak.
Only, the words didn’t come.
It pissed me right off.
“Tell me where you are and I’ll come to you.” At his rushed words, a simple whimper slipped past my lips, taking the place of the sentences I needed to form. “Sweetheart, fucking talk to me.”
At my continued silence, his panic rose.
It was the swift kick in the culo I needed.
“Baby—”
“Guapo,” I whispered on a soft cry, finding my voice despite the python coiled around my larynx. “I need you.”
Something, a door maybe, banged in the background on his end as he moved at what sounded like a run. “Where?”
Gut aching, I was close to vomiting.
Yet again.
“I’m at the mill,” I answered, shakily. “But I won’t be here for long.” The slam of a truck door, followed by the roar of an engine preceded my words. “It’s time. The bastardo is leaving tonight, and he’s not taking Chiquita with him.” Chin trembling, I wrapped an arm around my belly. “This is our shot.”
It may be the only one we get.
Heavy breathing filled the line, nearly drowning out the sound of squealing tires that reverberated in the background seconds later. “How much time do we have?”
I swallowed. “I don’t know. Hours, maybe.” Blunt nails digging into my side, I took a steadying breath as my head spun. “Meet me at the shelter. It’s closer than coming back here.” And it was. By about ten minutes. “Once I retrieve mi chicas, I’ll bring them there. Faye and Amelia too.”
But before such an escape could take place, I needed to come clean to the man who owned my heart, despite my many fears. “James,” I whimpered. “Bebé, there’s something you need to know…” Insides quaking, I paused. “I can’t go to the shelter. Not after—”
A horn blared, muting my words.
Hendrix’s furious voice followed.
“Move, motherfucker!” he screamed. “Goddamn idiot! Learn how to drive or get off the fuckin’ road!”
“Lock your damned temper down, son.” If the situation had been different, I would’ve smiled at the way James demanded Hendrix mollify his anger, even when his distorted voice served as proof that he was barely hanging on himself. “Or else I’m kicking you out of the truck.”
He wouldn’t…
“Carmen,” he said, turning his attention back to me. “Why can’t you go to the shelter?”
Pausing, he awaited my answer.
But I didn’t give him one.
Not yet.
He growled at my silence. “If you’re worried about Maddie being able to keep you safe, you don’t need to. I will park my ass outside the front door—”
“It’s not t-that,” I choked out, head feeling as though it would explode at any moment. “I can’t go there, because it’s you that I need.”
Before I could stop it, the darkness that stirred in my chest spilled out in a slew of verbal vomit, bringing forth the confessions my stomach had revolted at the thought of making.
“I’m sick,” I confessed, praying he’d understand the meaning behind my choked out words. “And I’m h-hurt.”
My eyes slammed shut.
I needed to hide…
From him.
From myself.
From the filth tainting my soul.
“Sweetheart,” the pain in his voice was my undoing. Without me having to speak them, he already knew that the truths weighing on me were heavy. “Tell me.”
“I didn’t want i-it,” I cried, repeating the same words I’d spoken to him at the motel. “I swear I didn’t, but the bastardo gave me no c-choice. He shot me up after I attacked him. T-then he…”
My words ceased.
I couldn’t say what I needed to.
The shame, the disgust…
Both were too much to bear.
“Then what?” Though his words were calm, I sensed he was close to exploding. “What else did the soon-to-be-dead piece of shit do to you?”
“James…”
Jolting shocks of pain ricocheted through my belly, up my sides, and into my chest, stealing my voice. I was fragmenting, ripping apart from the inside out.
My suffering had become too great.
Self-control vanishing, my bones nearly snapped at the joints as one gut-wrenching scream followed by another, all comprised of both agony and fury, climbed the length of my throat before bursting free and echoing off the surrounding walls.
I half expected Faye to rush back down the stairs, ready to shove her foot up my culo for being such a drama queen, but she didn’t, no matter how long or how hard I screamed.
And those screams?
They were the cathartic release I’d needed.
Feeling some of the tension paralyzing me ease, I inhaled, feeding my starving lungs the precious oxygen it craved. “He hurt me,” I cried, insides bleeding from the emotional trauma they’d been forced to endure for far too long. “He hurt me by taking what I have never, not once, given freely.”
It was such a repugnant truth.
The choice of who took pleasure from my body had never been mine to make. I’d kneeled, bent at the waist, and dropped to my back on a dime in the past, si, but I’d only done so to save a life, whether it be mine or someone else’s.
It was another thing that was ending.
From now on, I would have a choice.
Body twitching with nothing less than pure rage, I ripped my hand from my hip and smacked my palm against the wall, ignoring the slew of enraged curses James yelled on the other end of the line.
He was angry.
Downright incensed.
And it was because he cared…
Because he loved me.
“Guapo, death will come for me before it happens again.” My tears continued as something inside me metamorphosed, shifting from self-pity mixed with crippling terror to determination laced with strength. “The only hands allowed to touch my body from now on are yours.”
“Goddammit, I’m going to kill that—”
“I love you,
