Page 37 of Tell Me Something True

Innocent.

But the fear she’d experienced waking up in a strange bed had been too real. Her memories too strong.

“How old are you?” she asked, barely able to get the words out past the thickness in her throat.

If the girl thought the question out of place and an odd response to her chipper greeting, she didn’t show it. “I’m seventeen.”

“You don’t have to be here,” she told the girl.

“Well, as much as I didn’t want to come,” the girl said, “and as much as I hate what I’m about to do” —she shrugged— “I owe him.”

Tabitha went still with shock even as a tiny voice inside her head whispered she was wrong. That she was missing something important, something vital that would make sense of all of this. That Miles would never do something as heinous as what she was thinking.

The Miles she’d known would never abuse his position. Would never use it to lure a young girl to his home. Would never hold a favor or act of kindness over anyone’s head.

Would never make them do something they didn’t want to do.

But he wasn’t the same person. Hadn’t he told her that straight out?

I’m not that boy anymore.

“Is that what Assistant Chief Jennings told you?” she asked, slipping into professional mode, using Miles’s title, her tone calm despite the turmoil of her emotions. “That you owed him?”

“No, he—”

“Did he coerce you?” Tabitha continued, the question sounding wrong, so wrong, to her own ears. But she needed the truth. “Offer to get you out of trouble or reduce any charges against you in exchange for certain favors?”

“Wait. What?”

“If he touched you inappropriately” —the girl’s head snapped back— “or asked for any type of sexual satisfaction in return for those favors—”

“Oh. My. God.”

“—then he’s broken the law. But you,” she continued fiercely, covering the girl’s hand on the handlebar with her free one. “You are not at fault. You did nothing wrong. Nothing.”

The girl yanked her hand free, jerking the bike back so hard, she ran over her own foot. Straightening, mouth a thin line, she glared down at Tabitha. “First off, all that stuff you said… ew. Just… ew, ew, ew. Secondly, how dare you?”

The girl’s response wasn’t a surprise or completely unexpected. Unfortunately, in situations of abuse, victims sometimes defended their abusers for many reasons, including distorted thoughts, lack of self-worth, or fear.

Or because they’d been manipulated into trusting their abuser. Falling for them and their lies.

“You don’t have to be scared of him,” Tabitha assured her. “I can help you. I can protect you.”

“How dare you,” the girl demanded again. “How dare you accuse him of doing something so sleazy? So disgusting and reprehensible? You don’t know him. You couldn’t possibly know him at all if you thought, even for one second, that he was some sort of predatory creep who took advantage of his position of power to sexually and otherwise abuse women. And you,” she continued, looking over Tabitha’s shoulder. “Your taste in women sucks.”

Tabitha realized the girl was talking to someone behind her.

And felt sick once again.

Pulling her shoulders back, she turned.

Miles stood in the middle of the sidewalk, barefoot and bare chested, the gray sweatpants he’d worn last night sitting low on his hips. His short hair was mussed, his jaw tight, gaze hard.

But instead of being intimidated by his size, his strength. and the sheer fury emanating off him, she found herself straightening to her full height.

Seemed she had some fury of her own.

But when she opened her mouth to lay into him about having an underage girl come to his house, he gave a quick jerk of his head in the girl’s direction and bit off two, simple words:

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