Page 81 of Dirty Roxie
Daria - Two Months Later
“What about pink?” Quinn asks.
“Pink? No. Definitely not.”
“Blue?”
“I think you’re too fixated on pink and blue right now.” I gesture to her mid-section, which has yet to show any growth at all. “What about green?”
“Hmm, what shade of green?”
“I don’t know, something soft, like maybe a greenish-blue?”
“Oh, like teal?”
“Sure. Like teal,” I say to appease her. Quinn flips through the bundle of paint chips in her hands until she finds one she likes. “How about this?”
I look at it. Then pick it up and study it closer, hold it further away. In the light, then shadowing it with my hand to see when it’s darker. “I like it.”
“Ohmigod, finally. I can’t believe we agree on a color.”
“Me neither.” And I can’t. We’ve been arguing about paint color for weeks. Which is part of the problem with trying to decorate a space on your own. But Quinn had rejected my idea of hiring someone, saying we should do it ourselves. Put our hearts into every part. I’ve yet to remind her we’d still be on schedule had we not spent two weeks trying to put our hearts into wall colors. But truth be told, I’ve enjoyed spending this time with her. It’s low-key and easy.
And not that I’ll admit it to her, but she’s right. We need to put our hearts into every part of this project. Because that’s what you do with something you are passionate about. And I’m passionate about supplying a safe haven for women. Not just for those who’ve made it out of trafficking situations, but also victims of abuse, rape, or psychological torture. Women who need a respite, a space to heal for however long that takes.
Which is why Quinn and I are starting anundergroundshelter of sorts. We found a large farmhouse on a remote piece of land, surrounded by mature trees, with a creek running through the middle. It’s quiet, serene, and perfect for what we want to do. Better yet, there are two smaller houses on the property, where Reed and Quinn and Mack and I live. I don’t think I could have dreamed up a more perfect layout. Mack has already designed a variety of protective measures that will fade right into the landscape, including gates, cameras, lights, and security alerts.
We can house twenty-five women at a time. And once we get this one up and running, we plan to open another. And another. Until there are safe havens for women all over. Or at least as close to all over as I can get. We won’t advertise or be open to the public, word of mouth only. Beginning with the women we’re able to rescue and working out from there.
I grab the tiny tester container of thetealcolor we’ve decided on and paint a few patches on the walls. Quinn sits by an open window because the paint fumes make her nauseous. At two months pregnant, everything makes her nauseous, but I don’t remind her of that.
“Do you think you’ll miss it?” she asks, chewing on a piece of ginger to help with said nausea.
“Miss what?” I ask.
“The hunt. The kill. I mean, you won’t be out there in the thick of it anymore. Will you get bored?”
I take a moment to think about my answer. Not that I haven’t thought of the same thing a thousand times over the last couple of months myself. “I think killing Viktor changed me.” I don’t call him my father any longer, mostly because I can’t bear to think of him that way. Especially since I’m the one who killed him. “Irrevocably.”
“In what way?”
“I just, I don’t know, I don’t feel the need. And to be honest, I’m tired of it. I mean, while there is definitely something good in removing the evil in the world, there’s also something negative, you know?”
“Maybe?” She says it more like a question that I’m supposed to answer, making me laugh.
“Well, I’m killing someone, and that’s a negative, right?”
She nods.
“But the person I’m killing is bad, and that’s a positive.”
“Definitely.”
“And it takes a toll, regardless. Chipping away pieces of your soul. Because you are still taking a life. And I realized after I shot Viktor that I didn’t feel remorse, and that scared me just a little.”
“I get it,” she says. “Like maybe it gets hard to tell the difference between basic right and wrong because you spend so much time righting your own wrongs which are really just you trying to right someone else’s wrongs.”
I think about it for a minute. Amazingly she makes sense.
