Page 65 of Legacy of Danger
Chapter 16
Oh, no.
Had she said those words out loud? To a guy she'd only met a few days ago, no less.
Damn it, Mariah was too exhausted to care about anyone's opinion tonight.
God, it felt so good in the toasty circle of his hard chest and thick arms. Like somehow those demons couldn't haunt her here, with Vaughn. He held her firmly, but it was different. Maybe because she knew he wouldn't stop her if she needed to get away. Maybe it was just... him.
Every inch of her body pressed against him registered his tense muscles. The guy was like a hard, warm radiator.
"What happened?" he asked. How long had it been since someone cared about her on a deeper level than as a professional? Besides Kevin, of course.
Poor Vaughn. He'd spent his evening getting threatened by the Brands and then letting her use him as a landing pad for a meltdown. The least she could do was explain why she had freaked out.
The act of taking a deep breath hurt. "When I was about eight, my parents got wrapped up in a fundamentalist religious group. The leaders brainwashed my parents into believing that all the kids belonged to the group collective."
"Okay. That's bizarre."
Flashes of sleeping in bedrooms with eight, sometimes twelve, children zipped in front of her mind's eye. Hot, stuffy rooms, packed full of members' kids. "Seemed normal to most folks there. But, yeah, my parents didn't have a lot to do with us."
"So not very supportive?" The rolling rumble of his voice from his chest into hers gave her even more courage.
"More like not very involved. My brother and I were raised along with the other kids. On the rare occasions when we saw our parents, they treated us exactly like the other children. Cold. Businesslike. As I got older, though, I saw what happened to other girls. It was obvious the next step would be to marry me off to one of the group members."
His arms tightened around her. "How old?"
"Me? Fourteen. The selected member was fifty or so."
"That's sick."
"No argument here. The story gets even better. The last several 'wives' had come back from their honeymoons beaten to a pulp or sexually abused. Because they weren't obedient or pleasing enough or some other bull."
"Damn."
She had that strange sensation of being in a cocoon again. Comfortable and secure but not confined. A headache came and went across her forehead. Probably due to stress. "At the same time my marriage was being arranged, my brother, Kevin, who's younger by two years, was getting systematically beaten. The older men did this to most of the adolescent boys to keep them in line. Then, as they approached their mid-teen years, many of the boys disappeared. The leaders always said that the boys 'ran away,' but I had my suspicions."
"No way."
"Yes. So, when our future plans looked like pain for him and lecherous love for me, Kevin and I snuck out one night, escaped."
"And?" It sounded like the word was ripped from his throat.
A pinch formed in her chest. For a second, she was back in those terra cotta hills—dusty, sweaty, and exhausted, running for her life. "We were caught."
"Shit. What happened?"
"We both got a beating, but Kevin's was way worse. For several days, I was trapped in a small plywood room while armed men kept me from escaping. During that time, they were systematically tearing Kevin down, mentally and physically. I didn't dare try to open the door because I didn't know what they'd do to me, or Kevin, if I broke any more rules." She sighed. "Actually, no. I had a good idea what they'd do to me because another girl had gotten caught escaping a second time. Those people hurt her in every way a human can hurt another human."
"My God. I can't believe you went through that." He ran his fingers through her hair. Not sexual. But safe. Something she could get used to, damn it.
"So I was trapped for days. The worst part? I didn't know if my brother would be alive when I left that room." The texture of Vaughn's thermal shirt under her fingertips grounded her to the present, but her memories took her right back to the compound and that damned room with the moldy floor. "After they let me out, I did my chores and obeyed like a good member. I even helped plan my upcoming wedding."
The motion of his fingers paused. "What happened to Kevin?"
"He survived, but he was severely injured. He should have gone to the hospital. They beat him and left him to crawl back to one of the houses and sleep on the floor like a dog. I felt so helpless. I should have been able to help my little brother."
He squeezed her arm. "I know how you feel, wanting to protect him."
