Page 38 of Forged in Flames (Made of Steel 2)

"And you think she's going to choose you?" V said. "You were sitting outside her house while someone was hurting her. You could have stopped it! You could have protected her."

"I didn't know!" Eli said.

"It's written all over her face. I knew it as soon as I saw her. And you couldn't see it in all that time?"

I swallowed hard. The vigilante pities me. I hadn't thought about that before. He felt sorry for me. Is that why he started all this? I thought I had become great at pretending I was fine. He had stripped me of my mask as soon as he met me.

"People like you prey on weakness," V said. "You saw hers and you latched on. She's scared of you, you know that right? She thinks you're going to hurt her."

V thinks I'm weak.

"She's not scared of me," said Eli. "She likes me just as much as I like her."

"The only reason she even likes you is because you remind her of what she knows."

I felt like I was going to be sick. Was that true? Did Eli remind me of Don? I thought about the way his fingers seemed to dig into my skin when he was mad.

"You took advantage of her," V said. "You crossed the line. This whole time you should have been protecting her, and you did the fucking opposite. You're just as bad as him."

I couldn't take them talking about me like I couldn't hear every word they were saying. I didn't want to know what else the vigilante thought about me. That was already enough. I stood up and stormed out of the bathroom. At first neither of them noticed me. Eli's head and upper body were outlined with arrows. There was a little blood on the top of his right ear, like an arrow had skimmed it.

"What missing persons report?" I said. I wasn't going to acknowledge what else I had overheard. If V thought I was weak, scared, and pitiful that was fine. Fuck him. And fuck him for thinking I liked Eli because he reminded me of Don. The only reason I hadn't really fallen for Eli was because of the small similarities. They both thought they knew me. Well, neither one of them knew anything about me. Screw both of them.

They both turned to me.

"Thank God," Eli said. "Can you please untie me?"

"What report?" I repeated, ignoring him. If someone had been looking for me, I wanted to know who. It could point to something important.

"Tell her what you did," the vigilante said.

"It wasn't me who buried it. I hadn't even joined the force yet. I..."

Another arrow landed right next to his left arm.

"Okay." Eli was breathing heavily. "Okay, just stop shooting at me. When you were 12 years old, apparently you vanished. Officially, Summer Brooks has been missing for the past six years."

"I was in the foster care system. I was with Don that whole time. Liza said he adopted me," I added and glanced over at the vigilante. "And that he changed my name. But why? Why did he do it?"

"I don't know," Eli said. "But this is deeper than you might think. Don was never enrolled as a foster father. And it wasn't just a normal name change. He altered personal identities and made it look like you stole someone's identity. He wanted you to look like a criminal too. He's up to something big, I just don't know what."

"I already knew all that."

Another arrow sunk into the wall beside his arm.

"Stop!" I glared at V.

"You just said you already knew that. He's being unhelpful."

"Please stop shooting at him before you accidently miss. We're trying to get information, not kill him."

He sighed and lowered his bow.

"Who filed the missing persons report?" I asked.

The vigilante looked over at Eli.

"Someone named Rebecca Young," Eli said.

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