Page 12 of Burn

It wasn’t even until the blanket was around me and cut off the wind that how chilly I was hit me. Food arrived with another group of men. There were hushed conversations. I caught snippets here and there. They needed to get us out of here, but no one wanted to suggest we get back on one of the trucks.

Good. I didn’t want to get back on one.

“Hola,” the doctor said in a gentle voice as he approached. “¿Hablas ingles?”

I debated it. Did I?

“Poquito.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a full lie, either.

He nodded, then motioned to my leg. “May I look at the wound?” The Spanish was a little rough. He knew enough to get by, but he wasn’t totally comfortable speaking it. That was fine.

“No duele,” I said with a shrug. It didn’t hurt. I had bruises everywhere. The largest one on my heart. At the moment, I’d rather no one else touched me if they didn’t have to. I still didn’t know if these guys were on our side or not.

Despite the relief in the air, no one had fully relaxed. How could we? I’d gone from one set of captors to another. Was this just a third set? Irritation scraped through me like sandpaper.

What I needed was to get out of here, regroup, and then find my sister. Maybe I should ask for a phone and call the cops. The problem was, I didn’t even knowwherewe were.

“If it doesn’t hurt,” he said, not taking a step toward me or trying to touch me. “Does anything else? I promise no one here wants to hurt you.”

I’d take it under advisement.

With another shrug, I shook my head. “No.”

The doctor exhaled a long, slow breath before he glanced at one of the men who’d opened the doors in the first place. He hada lovely face. Probably could have been a model. But the rest of him was hard as stone.

“She’s not going to let me examine her. None of these women are going to want to.”

The other man nodded. “I can’t say I blame them, Doc. One look in there just makes me want to kill the people who put them in chains. Do what you can. We’ve got a bus coming to pick them up. Then we need to see where we can place them.”

He frowned.

“It’s not your fault, Milo,” the doctor said. “It’s not on you or Jasper. You guys found them and got them out. We’ll take care of them from here.”

“How the fuck are we going to do that?” The man—Milo—said. “We have so many damn problems right now, Mickey. How are we supposed to take care of these people?”

“Easy,” the doctor said, gripping Milo’s shoulder. “We’ll figure it out.” Then the doctor spared me a glance, I cut my gaze away. I could retreat, but I also wanted to know what they were saying. “Look, come on…”

The pair walked away to continue their conversation and I huddled into the blanket. The bottoms of my feet ached. So did my ankle. Frankly, everything hurt. I took another drink from the water.

We spent another agonizing hour on the side of this empty road. It could have been longer or shorter, but either way, it felt like forever. Then, as the man Milo had said earlier, a bus appeared.

It looked like a converted school bus and it had a church name on the side of it. With care, they shuffled all of us toward the bus. The doctor even picked up one of the kids who was asleep and carried him aboard.

I moved with the crowd, but kept my distance. It was hard to trust anything these people said. If there had even been thesuggestion of a convenience store or a gas station, I’d have just headed for that.

Instead, we were leaving the middle of nowhere aboard a nondescript church bus. The kindness being shown was hard not to just fall for, because the men were being very kind.

That said, it was equally difficult to trust. I found a seat in the middle of the bus. Like me, the other former prisoners kept their distance. They huddled together in smaller groups. Some chose to sit alone. Our rescuers came through again with more blankets, fresh bottles of water, and what smelled like burgers and fries.

As much as I wanted to turn my nose up. I had a specific diet I was supposed to eat, I didn’t dare. Particularly after my stomach rolled over itself and cramped when the first scent hit me. The burgers were small and plain. The french fries were hot and salty.

Instead of devouring either as I wanted, I took my time. The last thing anyone needed was for me to throw up. Eventually, the bus doors closed and with the doctor and a couple of the other men aboard, we pulled away from the rigs. I studied them as we drove past.

We’d been in the back of some 18-wheeler. The harshness of that reality left me cold. It was too dark to make out the landscape. The accents said we were still in the States. But were we? I had no idea.

The one good thing about the shadowed interior of the bus was I didn’t have to pretend any feelings one way or another. I couldn’t see them and they couldn’t see me. My heart could break a little as I tried to imagine Amorette right now.

Where was she? Maybe they’d grabbed me and not her. That was a hope, right? The man before seemed to be very clear on the fact he wanted me. I spilled some of the water onto my hand and used it to wipe at my face.

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