Page 2 of Hidden By His Side

A sob escaped her, hanging in the air. She shook her head, her face going even paler.

“What’s it matter if I know, if you plan on being dead anyway?” he asked.

The wind swirled her skirt again, and her body shivered.

“Please,” she cried softly. Her eyes squeezed shut. “Please, don’t stop me.” Her foot tried to shift under his hand.

His grip tightened, unwilling to let her go.

“Convince me I should let you die.”

The wind almost snatched her next words. “You won’t want me to.”

“I already don’t want you to.” He stroked his thumb along the side of her foot. “You can say it. Pretend I’m not here.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s impossible.”

Ramiro was kind of hard to miss. He was a big guy. It served him well when trying to intimidate people. For the first time, he wondered if his size could work as a shield just as well.

“No one else needs to know. I can keep a secret. I’ve got plenty myself.” Ones from his own past and tidbits he picked up in the business. Knowledge was power, and power was something he’d need to break out of the hellhole he’d dug his way into.

“This isn’t a secret.” She looked down at the traffic. “Everyone knows.”

“I don’t. Tell me.”

Her tears welled, falling faster. “I can’t. I can’t do it!” Her hand moved to her stomach, the nails digging into the material there. “I can’t have this baby, but no one will listen.”

Ramiro tightened his hand on her foot. “You’re pregnant?” She had to still be in high school. His mother had been just as young. He stared at the girl’s flat stomach under her clawing fingers. Even her fingers looked too thin. Her body was frail, as if the next gust of wind would sweep her over the ledge. Much too frail to have a baby.

Why was no one feeding this girl?

“It’s crawling inside me. I don’t want it there. I don’t!” Her nails dug in tighter. They had to be marking her flesh through the thin dress, and he wanted to drag them away. “This piece of them they left behind is growing, taking over.” Her chindropped, her other arm coming around to clutch at her shoulder. “My body is no longer mine. It’s theirs. They took it.”

“They?” Ramiro asked. The vague picture of some prick knocking her up changed, shifting into something else.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” Her lips trembled. “But now that he said it, it feels true. In my nightmares, there’s more than one voice. Too many hands. And laughter. Why would they laugh?”

A bunch of fucking pricks with their hands on her—he wanted to shatter the image. Ramiro’s other hand curled into a fist. “He said? He who?”

Her nails dug into her shoulder as well, her lips clamping shut. Her head turned toward the neighborhood where his job had been.

“I shouldn’t have gone there.” She tried to shift again under his hand. “Let me go.”

Ramiro’s grip curled tighter around her bare foot. “Where are your shoes, baby girl?”

She blinked, her eyes drifting down to where he touched her. “Oh.” Her hand finally loosened on her stomach to wrap around herself instead. “He screamed that it wasn’t him, that it could be any of them, and grabbed me. It hurt. I couldn’t…” She swallowed. “I ran. I forgot his parents asked me to take off my shoes.”

“His parents were there?” At least the little prick didn’t fall far from the prick tree.

She shook her head, but not in denial. “It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have gone. I just thought—” She shivered. “My parents won’t let me, but maybe his—” Her eyes closed. “It was a mistake.”

Ramiro’s gaze moved to her bruised wrist. “He the one who did that?”

Her eyes followed his, and she shifted her arm out, staring down at her wrist. “This? This is nothing. After that night, the bruises—” Her breath caught.

“Tell me about that night,” Ramiro said, his thumb back to stroking her.

She shivered again. “I can’t. The memories are all fractured. It’s my fault.”

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