Page 12 of Hideaway Whirlwind
“Not me—my mom. She joined when I was ten. Even at my age, I knew it was all crazy bullshit. I couldn’t believe she’d fallen for it. She was my stepfather’s third wife. I was my husband’s first,” I say, still trying to determine why Ifeel comfortable opening up to a man when it backfired so spectacularly with Quincy.
Elliott shoves his hair back on his head with a low growl. “How old were you when you got married?”
I move my hand up slowly so Elliott won’t notice when I have to clamp it over my mouth until I can speak without wanting to vomit. “Fourteen. I was lucky,” I say sarcastically—a tone that would have earned me two days and nights sleeping on the concrete stoop without food or water, waking up with sandy grit in my eyes and teeth. “At least Guxxer was my age, and we weren’t related. He wasn’t as bad as the rest.”At first. “We loved each other, in the beginning. Or what I thought was love. Some of my stepsisters weren’t so lucky.”
“Birdie…” My shoulders hunch up to my ears when he lays his hand gently on my head, but slowly settle when he simply slips a few strands of my hair through his fingers before letting his hand drop. “Were you with the kids who were rescued before the cult blew up their compound?”
I shake my head. “I wasn’t a kid by then,” I say with a bone-deep ache for my lost childhood. “Some of the boys who were kicked out over the years joined a group that helped smuggle women and children out of the cult. I escaped right before the raid with Dustin and Sydney. But my husband…he never made it out of the compound.” I smile behind my hand. Just a little one. Private, all for me. “Neither did my mom. I kept begging her to leave, but she chose to stay with her husband.” I try and fail to keep my voice down when I say heatedly, “I would never do something like that to my kids. Never.”
We go quiet when a car’s headlights streak through the room, and I discover Elliott staring directly into my eyes, wearing the same expression he wore at my apartment. Murderous. Theopposite of Quincy, whose eyes had turned soft and pitying, which I now know was performative. Elliott, though, looks like he wishes he could travel through time and blow the compound up all over again.
Ready to shove my bleak past back where it belongs—in the past—I ask, “What about you? Are you married? Have any kids?”
Elliott shifts his gaze down, squeezing his hands together on his lap. “Not married. No kids.”
“You never wanted any, or—sorry, that’s none of my business.”
“It’s…it’s fine,” he says, though he doesn’t answer my question. Instead, he lies down and throws the spotlight back on me. “Not that it’ll change things, but…Kendall’s dad…he isn’t going to raise a stink about us suddenly taking off with her, will he?”
“No. He—” I cough to cover the nervous giggle creeping up my throat. “He died a few months ago.”
Thank the devil for that, as my grandpa would say. If only he’d stayed in Tennessee instead of moving his then-young family to Nevada, the cult never would have been able to worm its way into my mom’s life and destroy it.
Elliott lets out what I think might be a sigh of relief, knowing he hasn’t done anything illegal, like facilitating Kendall’s kidnapping. “That demon at the apartment? Who’s she?”
“Kendall’s grandmother. I don’t think she’ll come this far for her, but…you never know.”
“You never have to worry ‘bout her again,” he says gruffly, as if he really believes it.
“Maybe.” There will always be thatwhat iflingering in the back of my mind.What ifPriscilla risks coming after us? Toget back at me, if nothing else.
“Definitely,” he promises.
I want to believe him. I really do. But how can I? I’ll always be looking over my shoulder, just as I have for any of the old cult leaders, though I know all of them died in the explosion. Deciding I’ve had enough of this grim trip down memory lane, though, I roll onto my back to stare at the low ceiling with its busted, dusty light fixture and whisper, “We should get some sleep.”
Elliott
I hadn’t known I’d fallen asleep after hoping Birdie would suddenly start our conversation back up again until Dustin kicks my shin, which sticks out farther than the bed, nearly tripping when tiptoeing past me into the restroom. My eyes pop open, and I reach for my gun stowed beneath the bed before I remember where I am and who I’m with. I stare blankly at the ceiling until my vision adjusts to the low light in the room. The cheap frame squeaks when Dustin climbs back into bed, and Birdie rolls onto her side in her sleep with her arm thrown over the edge, the covers slipping down to her hips.
I sit up to pinch the comforter, slowly drawing it back up to her chin, reprehensibly letting the backs of my fingers skim over her smooth skin and across her lips. I yank my hand away, sickened by my actions, and curl onto my side as well, facing away from her achingly beautiful—and too young—face.My god, the horror she’s lived through. Counting to ten repeatedlyto rid my mind of her works about as well as a single ice cube does to cool a ten-gallon pot of boiling water.
Damnit.
Birdie whimpers in her sleep, and I turn over immediately, wanting to slay the demons that haunt her and have followed her into her dream world. When she whimpers again, I reach for her hand dangling over the side and rub my thumb along her delicate inner wrist. Her next whimper is shorter, quieter this time, and I wonder if I’m there in her nightmare, protecting her. Letting her know that she doesn’t have to be scared. That I’m bigger and badder than anything she might face in there or out in the real world, and I’m on her side.
Another few seconds of rubbing her wrist leads to her relaxing, her lips parting on a puff of air until she goes quiet. I should let her hand go. Try to get back to sleep before we make the next leg of the trip.
But I don’t.
Can’t.
Worse, I prop myself up on an elbow so I can brush the back of her hand against my time-worn face. And when that’s not enough, I do sit up, leaning back against the mattress, placing her hand on the crook of my bare shoulder, my ear an inch from her mouth so I can feel her breath on my neck, wishing for a song.
I’m disgusted by the abhorrent relief that filled me to hear the kids’ dads were dead. Sickened that I was pleased more by the delusional idea that I could fit myself into that role for them after knowing them a grand total of forty-eight hours than I was by the knowledge that there wouldn’t be any trouble on our tails, at least where they were concerned. And for the first time in nearly thirty years, I let a tear roll down my cheek.
* **
The next time I wake, I’m slumped over, my back screaming at the uncomfortable position, with the shower running in the background.
