Page 43 of Unchained

“Shut it,” Lexi shot back without venom. “He begs me to make juices every day. This one’s a good one.” She winked and filled her plate.

Cam followed her to the table and took the seat next to Brooks. Lexi sat across from her and swung her gaze from Nash to her brother with interest.

“This is so good,” Brooks said. “I’m going to put weight on now that I’m out.”

The air in the room changed. Lexi froze, her fork midair. Cam wiggled in her seat under the stifling tension. “What do you mean ‘out’?” Lexi asked.

Brooks took a bite of his dinner roll, chewed, and set the rest of the bread on the side of his plate. He washed it down with the golden-orange elixir and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Uh, sorry.” His gaze moved awkwardly to Cam, and he reached under the table to grab her knee. “It’s a lot to explain. I don’t know where to start.”

Lexi pushed her plate forward and pasted her forearms, one over the other, on top of the table, her expression making her intent clear: she wasn’t letting this go. “Start with how you two met. We’ll piece in the rest as you go.”

Cam pulled back her shoulders and took Lexi’s cue. “I recently moved to Timber’s Terrain in Utah. I’m an RN, and I got a job at a rehab facility out in the desert.”

All eyes turned to her. Cam jiggled her knee, but Brooks’s heavy hand stopped her nerves from running out of control. She had to spit it out. If it was too hard for Brooks to talk about what he’d endured, she’d do it for him.

“During my first shift, I was instructed to inject Brooks with his medication—a sedative. But as soon as I looked at him, I knew something wasn’t right. He was covered in dirt, cuts, and bruises.” She dropped her gaze to the damask tablecloth. “I was late giving him his medication and then . . . he woke up. And I quickly learned he wasn’t there voluntarily.”

Her words landed like a bomb in the center of the table. The detonation was almost deafening. No one moved. Not a single person chewed or took their eyes from her. Scanning their faces, Cam’s belly twisted.

Brooks leaned forward. “Conrad kidnapped me. He held me out in the desert for months. Then he sold me to Dr. Leonetti.” Brooks’s hand dug into the tender flesh of her knee.

She circled her fingers around his forearm, and he quickly loosened his hold.

“They used me as a lab rat.” He held out his arm to reveal the scars that marred his skin. “They tortured me for hours, sometimes days. Had me living on a medication that made me violent, easily controlled, and gave me immense strength and endurance.” His mouth hooked up. “It also made me heal incredibly fast.”

Cam lifted her attention to Lexi. Her face was as pale as the white sweater she wore, her fingers crushed against her lips. Nash swept his arm around her shoulders and kissed her cheek, but it did nothing to stop the flow of tears.

“Tell me everything you remember,” she said on a choked gasp.

Cam sat quietly while Brooks unloaded the ways in which he’d suffered: the lack of food, his cell nine stories in the basement, and the psychological warfare he’d been up against.

“I can’t believe all this time Conrad could have told us where you were. He’s out on bail right now awaiting trial. The detective said the only thing they couldn’t get him to talk about was your whereabouts.”

Brooks flattened his hand next to his plate. “I’m going to kill him, Lex. I have to.”

Silence beat through the room again. Cam stared at Lexi and Nash. Even his newfound family wouldn’t be enough to settle the fury inside Brooks. He’d kill Conrad and anyone else in his path without a blink.

And Cam would be left with her heart exposed while Brooks suffered the consequences.

* * *

Brooks kept one eye on Cam, who was chatting softly with Nash at the island, while he sat with Lexi on the couch. After dinner, Nash and Cam had volunteered to clean up and Lexi had pulled him aside to talk. Had he known his dry comments about his enslavement would have caused her so much upset, he’d have found a gentler way to tell her. As it stood, he had a sobbing sister on his hands.

“You don’t remember anything from before? The drug did that to you?”

He rested his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers together. Lifting his eyes to her deep blues was like staring in a mirror—or at a sibling. Whatever. Their similarities struck him every time he looked at her. How had he gone months and forgotten about her?

“Memories hit me, but they usually happen so fast it’s a blur.”

She circled her arm around his bicep and pressed her side to his. “You remembered me, though. That’s a good sign.”

He winced, sensing more questions.

“Do you remember Mom and Dad?” Her voice was low and hesitant, as if she were afraid to spook a horse.

He rubbed his palm over his knuckles. A woman’s face and a face that looked just like his whirled through his mind often, followed by screams. But those memories were the ones that slipped through his fingers like sand. “Not really.” Keeping his gaze on the ground, an iron fist closed around his heart. He pressed his fingers to his temples as images flooded his head. Heat. Fire. A house ablaze.

“What is it?” Lexi’s presence softened some of the tension in his body.

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