“This was not my ship that is sinking,” he explained cryptically. “I am merely cleaning up my wife’s mess. I have a feeling it is I who must leave now, not you. But, mi abejita,” he paused to stroke his hand down my hair again. “I will see you again soon.”
I wasn’t surprised when he reared back with a regretful smile to backhand me across the face on the very same cheek Greg had struck.
And when I fainted, I was somewhat relieved.
* * *
* * *
“Lila.”
I was dreaming.
In that dream, Dane was sitting beside me in the flower meadow beside the Booths’. He was picking flowers, a massive armful so tall, I could barely see his face.
“Lila,” he called, even though I was there beside him, happy to sit in the grass with him and never leave. “Lila!”
My eyes popped open, the light assaulting my corneas so violently I gagged again, bending over someone’s arm as they held me to relieve my stomach of the acid churning through it.
A big, rough hand held my hair back until I was done then helped me right myself.
“Is this one of them?” A thickly accented voice demanded.
We were above deck on a massive freighter just outside of the inner harbour in Vancouver. It was twilight, the shadows long enough to obscure the details of the shipping containers housed on deck. But I could see enough to make out the tall, thick man standing with four armed guards and the group of grimy, damp women clustered together before them.
“She is,” the person holding me said in answer to the question.
I jerked in his arms to stare up at Dane, his eyes pale and glowing in the muted light. He gave me a little squeeze as he set me on my feet.
“Ah, this is the one I remember from her video,” the other man, clearly in charge, stated as he strolled forward to check me over. “The one I might keep for myself.”
The men chuckled darkly.
But that was it.
I was done.
Overwhelmed with disgust and hatred, tired and hopeless, I didn’t care if they killed me where I stood.
I was tired of being objectified.
I wasn’t this man’s property or Javier’s or Ellie’s or Ignacio’s.
I was my own.
So I collected the bare amount of spit I had on my tongue and hurled it at his feet.
Beside me, Dane sighed a split second before the asshole sex trafficker shouted something in a language I didn’t recognize and raised a gun between my eyes.
“No,” Dane said, stepping forward with his weapon to press it against the man’s temple. “That’s my sister.”
The man looked at him, so shocked it would have been comical in any other situation. “Shaytan, you will not kill me.”
A gun fired, but it wasn’t Dane’s, and the man fell to the floor at my feet.
I looked up to see Nova, Zeus, Bat, and Axe-Man with weapons drawn, running across the deck, a ladder thrown over the side of the ship.
I only had one moment to lock eyes with Nova across the stern before all hell broke loose.
I ducked as bullets started flying, moving toward the girls who were screaming and crying, looking for shelter.
“Come on,” I yelled, catching sight of Honey’s strawberry blonde hair.
I ducked behind one of the massive shipping containers, dragging the girls with me by blindly reaching for their hands. Honey was there, and she launched herself at me, crying and holding me so tightly it hurt.
I looked up to see Nova, Zeus, Bat, and Axe-Man with weapons drawn, running across the deck a ladder thrown over the side of the ship.
I only had one moment to lock eyes with Nova across the stern and then all hell broke loose.
I ducked as bullets started flying, moving toward the girls who were screaming and crying, looking for shelter.
“Come on,” I yelled, catching sight of Honey’s strawberry blonde hair.
I ducked behind one of the massive shipping containers, dragging girls with me by blindly reaching for their hands. Honey was there, and she launched herself at me, crying and holding me so tightly it hurt.
“This is so fucked up,” she yelled in my ear.
I patted her back, then moved her away, back into the press of women huddling together beside me. “It’s okay, The Fallen are here.”
Honey’s dark eyes flashed and her mouth went flat. I realized I’d never seen her so sober, but I was still surprised when she spat on the ground at her feet and said, “Fucking Fallen men.”
My frown quickly transformed to a gasp when strong hands pulled me away from the girls and an arm wrapped around my throat.
A moment later, something cold pressed to my temple.
“I’m getting out of here,” someone hissed in my ear. “And you’re the ticket, aren’t you, pretty thing?”
I tried to rear back in the way Bat has taught me, thrusting my head into my attacker’s nose, but he shifted me to the side so I missed. Which was okay, because Bat had also taught me what to do in that case. Using the space his maneuver had given me I brought my forearm up and angled my elbow in a downward thrust that connected beautifully with the man’s groin.