Page 108 of Morally Gray Daddies

“As I said,” he replied firmly, “somewhere where you won’t be hurt. Where you’ll be introduced to your new life.”

“My new life…” I repeated quietly, looking out of the window.

“Yes.”

“Is somewhere in… the desert?”

He followed my gaze. “No. We’re simply headed north. To get where we’re going this is a route that takes us away from the more crowded and congested freeways of Central California. It’s safer. And more scenic. Nothing more.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” I stared out at a land that with a slightly more reddish tint could easily be mistaken for Mars.

After a short hesitation, he asked, “Is that all you’re nervous about?”

I looked over. “No, sir. Of course not.”

“I trusted you, Aubrey,” he said, his tone reassuring. “Now I need you to trust me. I need you to have faith in me when I tell you you’re going to fit in perfectly with your new life.”

I searched his face, wanting to believe what he was saying at the same time every logical, rational part of me screamed it was ludicrous to even think so.

Have you completely lost your mind?

“You only met me today,” I countered. “How can you possibly know that?”

“I’ve always had a sixth sense in this regard. It’s why I’m good at what I do.”

“And what exactly is it you do, Sir?”

He paused for a second before answering. “There are two kinds of people in life, Aubrey. The takers and the taken. I’m a taker.”

“And me?”

He glanced over with a cocked eyebrow. “Come now. You’re a very intelligent young woman. I think you know the answer to that.”

“The taken,” I replied softly.

“Yes.”

Now I paused before asking, “So, what exactly do you take?”

“Whatever my employers tell me to,” he replied with a slight lift of his shoulders. “And, when I see an opportunity, whatever I want.”

“Am I an opportunity, sir?”

The road noise of the tires humming on the shimmering gray ribbon of highway filled the cab of the truck.

“Yes, you are,” he replied calmly.

“Do you… want me?” I waited for his answer, not fully understanding why I’d chosen to ask the question, even though a part of me knew.

“Yes, Aubrey, I do.”

Oh.

“Just not in the way you might be thinking right now,” he continued before I could say anything in response, “but in a way that someday you’ll understand?—”

He wants me.

“—and thank me for.”

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