Page 63 of Dauntless

My mind raced on about what this meant. Was he off to prepare the bath or was he planning to leave me to die? “No… please no,” I pleaded.

He walked over and covered my mouth and nose with his hand. “You don’t speak.”

I gasped. My hand moved to grip his, but I was slow. I whimpered.

“Sir,” Loren stepped up to his side. “You pray for guidance, and I wait for your word?”

He looked at her and suddenly let go. I coughed and choked as I struggled to fill my lungs with air.

“Yes… Yes,” Thomas nodded quickly. “You pray with her, and I’ll seek the way forward for the two of us.” He closed the door behind him and locked us inside.

I tried to appeal to Loren who was fidgeting as she looked down at me. I didn’t have a mirror, but I could somehow feel the bruises and sickness on my body. That couldn’t be unseen and surprisingly brought tears to her eyes.

“You look really sick,” she said despondently.

She held the juice pack for me to sip and I tried to sip. In truth, I didn’t care about myself. I was more worried about those I care about that needed me. “Please bring a phone, so I can speak to my dad. He’s ill too. Please just let me say goodbye to him. Tell him I love him.” I choked.

She covered her face with her hands. “That’s awful. I’m sure he knows.” She leaned over my ear. “They’re not in danger. You’ll need to trust me on that.” She tilted her head toward the camera. “No more speaking.”

I took a short breath. Dimitri didn’t have people on my friends and family. I was relieved to hear that, but I wasn’t going to stop talking now. Not if there was a chance she’d let me go. I had to try.

“Please help me,” I pleaded. “I’m starting to want the E-comply drugs. Is that how it happens? Will it damage my brain like Angel? She thinks she’s playing a game. She doesn’t know what’s real anymore.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Stop. Please. She will be fine. In a few months, you will go home and will be able to put this behind you.”

“I’ll be dead,” I pretended to sob. “Or I’ll lose my mind, like Angel.”

“Please don’t tell me more,” she cried and shook her head back and forth. “Angel will be fine. Simon says she has Dane and with you out of the way, they have a real chance now.”

Was this the reason why she was so willing to go along with hurting me? She was justifying hurting me in her own messed up way of helping Angel. “Dane and I are now friends. We had decided it. Why do you think I was back in Seattle? We had parted ways.”

“No,” she said. “Dimitri said that you needed to come to help Angel.”

“And Angel told me to come to you,” I said. “She believed you were a good friend to her. She trusted you. Dimitri and Walter brainwashed Angel into thinking she would hurt her precious little daughter by being around her. Isn’t that sad? She’s afraid of her own baby.”

She started sobbing now. “She’ll… she’ll get better. She forgave me. God forgives.”

“Will you be forgiven again?” I asked. “Choose you this day who you will serve.” I didn’t know the exact verse I quoted from the Bible, but I could see it had an effect on her.

Tears poured down her face. “Stop speaking,” she wailed. “Don’t speak or I’ll tell…tell Thomas to make you quiet.”

“Yes, go on and do that,” I continued. “What will you tell your babies? What if they take them away to punish you like they did Angel and you only get to see them when he feels generous? You must help me and help the police end this.”

“I… I can’t,” she said. “And you need to be quiet, or you will be in trouble.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going to stop, and I’m not going to forgive you. You’re just as guilty as Dimitri. He has an out: he dies. You go to jail for kidnapping.”

“What can I do?” she wailed. She touched the gold chain around her neck that had a cross at the end of it, and tucked it back inside her sweater.

“Bring me to safety, and I’ll make sure you don’t do jail time,” I said. “I’ll say you were coerced.”

She hesitated. “But Thomas… I can’t let him be hurt. He saved me. It’s better they don’t find you.”

I swallowed the fear that gripped my chest at her words and kept speaking. “You could fight for him outside,” I said. “But both of you locked up won’t help.”

She wrung her hands, her eyes shifting from me to the door. Even though I was sick, her confliction gave me strength and Hope. Please.

“Can…can you move?” she stuttered her eyes lifting toward the camera.

---