With all the help around here, I have yet to see any of the women or men, for that matter, leave their kids in their care. I have more than enough older kids to pawn mine off on since I’m the one with the battalion. The twins saw me coming and tried making a run for it. “You two fucks know how to swim in the deep? Get back here.”
Todd was already laughing as he grabbed his trip from the humongous playpen I swear Mancini had made somewhere. The shit was big enough to hold twenty toddlers easy. I grabbed my man Cody who was already nodding off after all the shit he’d been up to all day. Sometimes I think he gets into his grandfather’s stash as much shit as he gets up to.
“I’ll take care of Cody,” I smirked at Aiden, who I know of all my kids hates babysitting the most.
“That’s not fair, dad.”
“Why not?” He looked down at the kid in his arms.
“You know how they are, dad.”
“At least Todd got the worst of the bunch; quit complaining before I make you watch them all day tomorrow.”
He grumbled some shit and went to join his brother and brother in law. The three of them can bitch and moan all they like, but I figure this is the best birth control for their assess. I’m not raising anyone’s fucking kids, and neither is my wife. I have enough to deal with, with Kat and her brood. Fucking Mengele.
Roxy
They’re for real. The more time I spent with Jason and Track pouring over the list of names Track had generated, the more sure of that I became. Yes, up until that point, there was still a little bit of lingering doubt in my mind that these people could just be a more sophisticated group of monsters than the ones I’d escaped from.
Sure there were other signs that they weren’t anything like the child trafficking pieces of shit who’d taken me from my home, but I’ve learned never to take anything at face value.
But after spending hours working beside him both yesterday and now again today, I am thoroughly convinced. Now I have a new worry on my hands. If they’re legit, then that means that they hadn’t sent Jason to seduce me into giving in. It means that all those things he’s been saying to me are real as well.
And all those times he ran his hand over my hair while we sat next to each other on our own computer had been genuine. He does it so subconsciously, almost as if he can’t help himself. It started out gradually. Out of nowhere, I’d feel his hand in my hair, and when I looked up, his focus was still on his work, which made it seem as if it was just the most natural thing in the world for him to be doing.
The way he keeps looking out for me, asking after my comfort. Or when he called a halt and told Track that he needed to feed me because it had been hours since breakfast and ignored me when I said I wasn’t hungry. The way he just pulled me up from my seat and kissed my forehead before leading me out of the room and upstairs to join the others who were about to have lunch on the lanai. All of it was knocking against my barriers.
As lunch went on, I grew more and more relaxed. It was only my second full day here, but already I was beginning to feel… something. I started to look at them through new eyes, eyes that held less suspicion than they did just a short while ago. The men didn’t have a glaze of lust in their gaze when they looked at the young girls and boys, and the women didn’t seem cunning and manipulative, but most of all, it was the kids that got to me.
They seemed so free and relaxed, each with their own parents talking lovingly to them when they asked a question. And the way they went from one adult or another without fear and each time was accepted. They were noisy and happy and loved. I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt Jason’s thumb wiping away the lone tear that escaped. “It’s okay!” Those two words and the look in his eyes almost broke me. How did he know? How could he?
I swallowed hard and fought back more tears until I got myself together. “Roxy, you’re wearing Jason’s clothes again. Don’t you like the stuff I gave you?” His sister called me out good-naturedly from across the table. I’d forgotten that I was wearing his clothes since he’d gotten rid of mine for some inane reason. Maybe it was the hint of blood on them.