Page 29 of Burn

No matter how hard she worked to divorce herself, the tone didn’t quite ring true. Kidnapped. Waking up in a strange place. Shackled. Women being raped around her. Then being raped herself.

She didn’t describe it that way, but whether she went along with the plan or not to prevent injury didn’t make it anything but forced consent.

“In the morning, there were shouts and fighting. I don’t know who the people were that came in, but there was also gunfire. I think I just froze, in the hallway. The man tried to make me go with him, but I couldn’t move.”

Now she folded her arms and rubbed her hands against her biceps as though trying to chase away a chill. I didn’t doubt the memories she detailed were unpleasant.

“You were going into shock,” Alphabet told her. While there was a rough sympathy in his eyes, he didn’t try to comfort her. “It’s normal in live fire. Especially if you’re not used to it.”

“He gave up and left me there.”

“Fucking coward,” Lunchbox muttered. I didn’t disagree, but leaving her there put her on that rig. If he’d gotten her out, she might not be sitting here.

After, she described hitting her head and then waking up in the truck.

“I have no idea how long I was on there. I don’t even really know what day it is. I was going to look at my place and then those guys came in and I froze again.”

“You didn’t freeze for long,” Lunchbox said. “You were fighting.”

“I guess,” she said. “So…now you know what I know. Does that tell you where Amorette is? Or how we can get to her?”

“No,” I answered. “It gives us a place to start. We need another day for Alphabet to rest and you should too. You’re still shocky.”

“I am not,” she argued, a frown tightening her brow.

“You are,” Voodoo slid right into the fray without batting an eyelash. He liked to smooth things over. “Your breathing is shallow. You’re pale. Your eyes are glassy. You have zoned out twice during the debrief. Being in shock isn’t an insult or a weakness. It is, however, something we can’t ignore.”

“He’s right,” Alphabet said, frowning as he studied her. “We need you whole and that means looking after yourself.”

“But if we spend another day here, that’s another day before we can even try to call Am.” She clasped onto the razor thin thread connecting her to hope where her sister was concerned.

I was under no such illusions. Yes, we would verify everything, but based on what she told us, her sister was most likely abducted and was fuck knew where at the moment, or she was dead.

I kept the latter to myself.

“Gracie,” Lunchbox put a hand over hers where she white-knuckled the coffee cup. “You resting doesn’t mean we stopworking. We need supplies and gear. We need to make arrangements to move to another location. Voodoo will need time to get you a burner and we can also reach out to contacts and start a line of inquiry.”

Not a bad plan. One of those contacts would obviously be Doc. He was the one who called us in the first place.

“And I do what? Just sleep? Stare at the walls?”

“You rest, you regain your strength and tomorrow, we will get on the road.” I rose. “If you want to argue and refuse to sleep, then we could be here another day or longer. The last thing that will help your sister is if you collapse or freeze up because you haven’t dealt with the shock.”

Cold? Maybe. But she seemed to respond to the facts.

Grace stared at me. A dozen arguments sparked and then died in her eyes without her saying a word. The impasse lasted another minute, then she jerked her hands from Lunchbox and shoved the chair back.

While she didn’t run, she did stride down the hall to the room she’d slept in the night before. The soft click of the door echoed far louder than if she’d slammed it.

“That was a bastard thing to do,” Alphabet said, glaring at me.

“It was necessary,” I reminded him. “She’s not the only one who needs rest. Get some rack time. I’m going to make some calls.”

None of them argued, not even the compromised pair. Voodoo had played his part, but he didn’t look any happier about it. Making the girl miserable wasn’t the goal.

Keeping her alive was.

She didn’t have to like it. She just had to live.

---