“Aren’t you?” Before I can react to that statement, she continues. “Do you know where we get our name from?”
“The all-women Greek warriors.”
“You’re a warrior, Shiloh.” She grins suddenly. “Even if you’re technically a Raider. If you ever feel like flipping sides, we’d take you in a heartbeat.”
Been there, done that, never want to go back. “Pass.”
She nods. “I figured you’d say that. Now, stop trying to change the subject and tell me.”
Better to get it out and be done with it. Malone is like a cat. If I try to dodge this subject indefinitely, it will activate all her predator instincts, and she’ll latch on to it. Better to give her just enough truth to satisfy her. “Give me a minute.”
“Take your time.” She says it almost gently, as if she recognizes I need more armor than just a towel to have this conversation. To have any conversation. I go to the small dresser that I shoved my stuff in earlier before Monroe and Broderick got back and pull on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. It’s late enough that I doubt even Monroe will get up to no good before she passes out.
Back in the bedroom, I find her exactly where I left her, cross-legged on the bed. As tempting as it is to start pacing, I refuse to give even that much energy to the memories weighing me down. I sink onto the edge of the mattress and stare at the door. “My story sucks, but it could be worse. Poor little rich girl with her religious zealot parents who wanted to burn the sin right out of her.” Parents who held prestige by proximity to the Amazon throne, by being distantly related to some past Herald. I’m still not sure why they latched on to sin as the thing I contained. For all that Sabine Valley harkens back to ancient practices, the only faction that’s truly religious is the Mystic.
Most everyone else gives some kind of nod to the various gods but doesn’t dive deep. Unfortunately, my parents were the exception. Best I can tell, they picked a god at random and devoted themselves entirely to her. Astrea. Goddess of many things, but among them…purity.
A purity I never had when they looked at me.
I take a deep breath, hating that it shudders a little. “For all that, they didn’t have much in the way of creativity, so they used a curling iron.” Sometimes, in my nightmares, I can still smell the scent of my skin burning.
They did so much worse than that, but I’m not about to get into that now. Or ever.
I can’t help glancing at Monroe. She’s got her expression locked down, but the fury in her green eyes makes them almost glow. Rage. Not pity. That’s something, at least. There is more than one reason I don’t like talking about my past, and it’s not simply to avoid being pigeonholed by the location I happened to be born into. I don’t want anyone’s pity. I survived. I’ve done more than survive.
Monroe finally says, “No one helped you.”
That gives me the strength to answer. “No. No one helped me.” Not even the Amazon queen who at least had some hint of what I was experiencing. I was hardly the picture of childhood health the one time she laid eyes on me. “I got myself out when I turned eighteen.”
“How old are you, Shiloh?”
My throat feels too tight. “Thirty.”
“How long have you been with the Paines?”
I can see where she’s going with this, but there’s no point in trying to detour. “Seven years, give or take.”
Monroe narrows her eyes. “Four years between leaving your parents and finding the Paines.”
The sensation of choking gets stronger. I swallow hard. Finding the Paine brothers was sheer luck on my part, and them taking me in was even more luck. That situation could have gone so much worse for me.
They had more than their fair share of trauma, too. Even without asking too many questions, I felt a kinship with Broderick and his brothers and the people they’d gathered around them. I…fit. In a way that I had never experienced before in my life.
I didn’t want to come back to this city, but these people are the family I chose. I figured it wouldn’t be the same, that I could navigate my way through whatever challenges that arose from the ghosts of my past.
I never bargained on Broderick being paired with the Amazon heir. Or on my being assigned as her permanent guard. Or for her to take such a pointed interest in me.
In short, I never bargained on Monroe.
“It was closer to five before I found them.” She opens her mouth to continue questioning me, but I cut in before she gets the words out. “I survived. End of story.” I wouldn’t talk about what I had to do to survive. I had little life experience when I landed in Chicago. I didn’t know how to deal with people, didn’t know how to control the rage that bubbled up in me after too many years kept locked down. After I smashed a glass over the head of a customer who grabbed my ass at the restaurant I where I worked, I realized customer service wasn’t going to get me anything but arrested.