Page 41 of Ginger

"And later?" I pressed.

"More," he whispered. "More often."

I thought about Ginger, about how she flinched when people moved too quickly around her. About how she couldn't stand to be in enclosed spaces. About the night terrors that left her screaming and drenched in sweat.

"Did you hurt her physically?" I asked, though I already knew the answer from the scars I'd seen on her body.

Martin's gazze shifted away to the general direction of the old mattress. "Sometimes she wouldn't cooperate."

Bronx moved without warning, his massive fist connecting with Martin's kidney. Martin screamed, a high, thin sound that bounced off the concrete walls. The chair rocked but didn't tip over.

"You fucking broke her arm when she was thirteen," I said, my voice deadly quiet. "You told the hospital she fell down the stairs. Was that because she 'wouldn't cooperate'?"

Martin spat blood onto the concrete between us. "She was threatening to tell a teacher."

I closed my eyes briefly, trying to control the red wave of fury that threatened to drown me. When I opened them again, Martin flinched at whatever he saw in my gaze.

"You took everything from her," I said, each word precise and cutting. "Her childhood. Her sense of safety. Her trust in the world."

Bronx moved around to stand beside me, his face a mask of cold fury. "You took everything from her," he repeated, our voices joining in a damning chorus.

Martin's face twisted. "She wasn't innocent," he sneered. "She knew what she was doing, always walking around in those little shorts—"

I didn't consciously decide to move. One moment I was standing still; the next, my fist was connecting with his face, the impact sending a shock up my arm as his head snapped back. Blood erupted from his nose, splattering across his chest and my knuckles.

"She was a child," I roared, grabbing him by the hair and forcing him to look at me. "A fucking child!"

Bronx put a steadying hand on my shoulder. "Easy, brother. We need him talking."

I nodded, forcing myself to step back. I wiped Martin's blood from my knuckles onto my jeans, leaving dark smears against the denim.

"Tell me about the other girls," I said after taking a deep breath.

Reed's swollen eyes widened. "What other girls?"

"Ginger said there were others," I lied, watching his face carefully. She hadn’t said shit about it, but men like him? That hadn’t been his first time. "Girls from the neighborhood. From her school."

The flicker in his eyes told me everything I needed to know.

"Jesus Christ," Bronx muttered behind me.

"How many?" I demanded.

Martin licked his bloody lips. "Three or four. Maybe five. Neighborhood kids. I'd pay them to do chores sometimes."

The basement seemed to grow colder as the implications of his words sank in. It wasn't just Ginger. There were others. Other children whose lives he'd destroyed, whose innocence he'd stolen.

"You took everything from them," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

Martin's face crumpled, not with remorse but with the dawning recognition of his fate. "Look, I know I made mistakes," he babbled, blood and saliva dripping from his swollen lips. "I've got problems, okay? I need help, not—"

"Help?" I interrupted, incredulous. "You think you deserve help? After what you did?"

I turned away, pacing the length of the basement, trying to process the magnitude of his depravity. The single bulb cast my elongated shadow against the wall, rage pulsing through me.

“What about the other men? The ones you traded her to in order to repay debts or sweeten deals?” I asked.

Martin hung his head, whether in shame or simply from the pain of his injuries, I couldn't tell.I struck him—calculated blows to his ribs, his stomach, his face. Not enough to knock him unconscious, but enough to ensure he felt every moment.

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