Page 7 of Dauntless

“I can see Dane all over you, you fucked him.” Her tone was blunt. “Simon says Dane’s real smart. He only picks the best. They still need to check your body; test you, get you to spill your dreams. He can become yours if you’re a good girl. You’ll spread and beg for all of them. It’s fun. They are good in bed. But stay free. They always want new toys. That’s why Dane traded me.”

My stomach soured. Somehow the man who had her, Simon had convinced her that Dane had traded her to them. They had poisoned her mind against him. I didn’t know if there was a way to convince her otherwise now. Still, I had to try: “Sorry, Angel, but Simon lied to you. The Agency and their men kept you away from Dane and all the people that cared about you, but not anymore. No one will hurt you now. Dane, the FBI, and the police will make sure they’re all brought to justice.”

“No, you have it all wrong,” she said sadly. “He lied to you. You talk like I don’t know nothing, like I’m dumb. You think you’re better than me. He’ll show you that you’re not. You’ll have no one else. You’ll need him, and that’s when he’ll have you.”

I shook my head. “No, Angel, Simon lied to you. Dane’s not the bad person here. He loves you and Melinda. Dane’s been looking for you for years. Since you left on your trip to Seattle and didn’t return to New York. He and Elliott, who’s in the FBI, saved you and me. You’re safe now.”

She shook her head, and her eyes darted around agitatedly. “Dane collects and owns. Elliott fucks and plays, too. You’re playing their game. I won mine. Melinda’s not Dane’s baby.”

My heart ached at her suffering. I gentled my tone. “I’m sorry you think that way. Really, I’m sorry for everything that happened to you.”

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me,” she barked. “I feel sorry for you. They already taught you to not trust me. You think you’re smart, but I know things. I’m free. I won. I got to laugh in his face. Simon promised me I don’t have to play anymore. Simon loves me.”

“Simon traded you, is that love?” I asked.

“No, Simon didn’t trade me to be kept forever. Dimitri didn’t want to let me go, but he’s dead now. I killed him,” she giggled.

A chill went down my spine. “Is Dimitri the one who had you; the one who was sick? Didn’t Vincent say he’d send you back to him or was that Simon?”

She giggled. “The Santiagos are nobodies. Vincent was too proud. He tried to make his own fun. They sent me to play with him.” She pointed to her head. “I got a tracker. That’s how Simon found me…. he’s been gone too long, but I’ll help him. He’ll collect me where he first found me.” Her heart monitor started beeping rapidly.

The nurse came in and motioned for me to go. “You must leave now.” She went over to check Angel’s vitals and the machines to which she was hooked up.

I rose from my seat. I was unsure if I had obtained anything useful from the conversation. What she did share had my head spinning. Then again, Angel wasn’t mentally stable. She believed he was tracking her. However, everything couldn’t be a lie. Was there any truth in anything she said?

There couldn’t be. Whoever had her must have played with her mind and made her think everything happening to her was a game. “I’m sorry for what happened to you. I…I wish you well, and if you ever need someone to talk to...”

“Wait,” Angel called to me. “I need to say something else.”

“What is that?” I asked. She gestured for me to come close to her face, and I reluctantly did. “Tell my friend, Loren Blake, she can speak with you.”

I lifted my brows. “Okay.”

She lightly pressed my shoulder, and I moved back. “Be good, or you really will be traded next time. If you do, your game starts over with someone new.”

I shivered at the thought but nodded at her before leaving the room. I’d wished I had more than the fractured conversation I had with Angel, but when I saw Elliott on the other side of the curtain, he looked as if he’d found a gold mine. He pocketed his recorder, and we walked out of the unit.

“She said a lot of things,” I murmured once we were outside the door.

I glimpsed him hating the doubt that her conversation raised in my mind. Elliott and Dane had saved me. Everything that happened, however bizarre, hadn’t been a part of an elaborate game, right?

He stopped me at the hospital exit. “Angel went through years of physical and mental abuse. She said a lot more to you than she said to any of us, and I’ll have to decipher the meaning. I know it’s hard, but try to put what she said out of your mind.”

I couldn’t explain why Angel was so against Dane or why she would warn me off him. She must’ve been poisoned by the man who had kept her. It hurts to think she didn’t appreciate all he’d done to find her. That was what I should have been thinking, but as we met up with Dane and left the hospital, my thoughts kept returning back to her words. They were quite fragmented and scattered, but there were warnings. I tried to discount the doubts she had planted in my mind though what she shared had residues that clung to me.

I seated first in the limo, and both men entered from either side such that I ended up seated between them. The door closed, and their hands went high on my thighs. I couldn’t help but wonder, was this to be how my game starts, or how it ends?

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