Page 42 of Shame

She tilts her head. “You were in a fight? Why?”

“I… was a little frustrated.”

“Did you hit someone for me?”

“Maybe. In a way.”

She looks down, chewing on her lip, then she says in a barely audible tone, “I wish I could do that myself.”

I reach for her and she lets me take her little hand. A jolt runs through me, feeling her warm skin on mine. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to put up with this.”

I’ve never seen such desolate eyes in my life, not even after last time. I remember them filled with agony and somehow shut off. The despair, and hopelessness she radiates now is like a blow to my chest.

“I won’t give up on you,” I mumble and caress her hand with my thumb, stroking back and forth over her smooth caramel colored skin. I take in her face, and her little form under my leather jacket. “Are you hurt?”

She nods. “Yes.”

I push open the door to the cabinet by my feet and grab the bottle of Advil and a coke. “It’s not much, but it’s what I’ve got. Here.” I unscrew the cork and hand her two pills, which she obediently swallows. “I’ll drive you to the house.”

As I put us back on the road, my mind starts spinning the options. I am getting her out of this shit. There’s no doubt in my mind. I’ll find a way in deeper into the organization and figure out what their weaknesses are. I don’t care what happens to me but fuck me if I’m gonna let them keep doing this to her.

I pull up outside the house and hop out to go wake up the matron but before I can close the door, she buzzes me again. Pulling open the back door, I stick in my head.

“Yeah?”

“Just help me to my room. Please. Don’t wake anyone up.”

“Okay.”

On shaky legs, she makes her way out. Barefoot on the gravel, she looks so vulnerable, and as I put my jacket over her shoulders, impotent rage rises in me again. I fight it down. It’s of no use to me right now. I’ll find that feeling again when I need it.

The house is quiet as we tiptoe through the common area, up the stairs, through the dark corridor, all the way to her room that is located at the far end. It’s the second to the last door on the left side. I know the way by heart. I’ve kept coming here, every day, reading to her, laughing with her, listening to stories from her home country, telling her stories from the farm. It’s funny, because it turns out that in a way we’re not that different. She gets something warm in her gaze as she talks about the mountains, and the open sky. She has made me realize that the years with my grandparents were the best two years of my life. I was young and stupid, and thought it was boring shit. Now, I’ve come to feel suffocated in the foggy city, waking up to a lid of smog every morning. Every street corner stinking of garbage and exhaust from cars.

I pull the comforter to the side, Carmen hands me my jacket and slides into bed, still laying carefully on the side. Tucking her in, I want nothing more than to watch over her, to keep her safe, and tend to her every need.

“Carmen… can I stay?”

“You don’t have to. I’ll be okay. I just need to sleep.” She lays with her eyes closed already, her voice a mere mumble.

“Please, let me. I can read to you when you wake up.”

She peeks up at me, scoots back, then tugs at the comforter, pulling it to her. “Come lie with me, then. Just hold me, please.”

I spring to action, toeing off my shoes, and pulling off my jeans.

As I slide in under the duvet, and she nestles in with her head on my shoulder, my heart swells. I don’t care what she thinks, what she says, that she tries to scare me away. She’s mine and I’ll be there for her no matter what happens.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Carmen

My sweet, sweet Lucas snores lightly after he has fallen asleep. I doze off from time to time, but my whole backside is scorching hot, sending arrows of pain through me every time I move even the slightest and it’s hard to come to peace. My pussy and ass ache, and I feel filthy with Salvatore’s cum in me, on me, and from the memory of all those men pinching, groping, shooting their disgusting spunk all over my body. It’s getting harder to dissociate, to put it away in the box of things I can’t stand living with. It’s as if that box doesn’t close properly anymore, as if it’s getting too full.

I study the man next to me, drinking in his features. He smells of unbrushed teeth and faint remains of alcohol. I don’t mind it one bit. I’m much worse off myself. Lucas is like no one I’ve ever met before. He looks so macho, tall, broad-shouldered, a mountain of muscles, but his heart is open and honest. I’ve never met a man so capable of caring. He asks, he doesn’t just take. He gives without demanding anything in return. What have I done to deserve his presence in my life?

I jerk as someone knocks on the door. Before I can answer the door opens and the matron sticks in her head. Her gaze darts to Lucas and then back at me, her eyebrows shooting up on her forehead.

“I wondered what the limo was doing here. How are you, love?”

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