He shrugs his shoulders. “You and Natasha are my family now. I asked about you.”
I nod. I don’t want to ask, but I have to. I need to know.
“Is she here?” I say and look around. “Have you seen her?”
“No,” he says as his lips tremble. “They got away with a few of the girls that were being sold outside the main auction.”
I wrinkle my brows. “I heard your voice. When they came for us in the truck. Why were you in the truck and not with Natasha? She said you were being sold with us.”
He frowns. “Something was changed at the last minute. When I went to break free, I lost my chance at the last second. I was placed on the truck not long before…” He trails off.
Not long before I was tossed inside, I assume. He must have been in transport at the same time as me. I pick at my muffin as I think about what this means.
Natasha never made it out. That John guy told more than one lie. Anger consumes me and I ball my fists on top of the table.
“Hey, she would want us to make the best of this,” Torque says, hurt and anger in his voice. “We have to make the best of this for her.”
I look across the table to see the blaze in his eyes. A look no fifteen-year-old should have. I want nothing more than to protect him. From the past, from these people, and from his own anger and bitterness.
He should not have this rage on his head. Something occurs to me as I look him over. It’s something I’ve pushed to the back of my mind for a long time.
“Torque?”
“Yeah.”
“If you don’t want to answer you don’t have to. But… did something happen to you there? Did… they…”
He drops his eyes to the table. If my rage could filet the skin off my body, I’d be nothing but flames. My head starts to hurt from the fury coursing through me.
“Never mind. You don’t have to answer.”
“We’ll find her, right?” he murmurs, lifting his gaze to mine once again.
I sit and stare at the look in his eyes. In this moment, he looks all of fifteen if not younger. I don’t want to lie to him, but I don’t think we will ever see her again.
“We don’t even know where to start,” I reply.
“They’re training us to secure, track, and hunt down people. We can use that to find her and we can make them pay for everything they did to us,” Torque says.
“We’re learning to be security.”
“Badass security. We can use it.”
His words sink in and take root. Something inside of me sparks, I don’t think I’ve ever been a quitter. He’s right, we could take what we learn and track Natasha down.
“How long would that take? She could be in danger now.” I think aloud.
“I don’t know, but I know that I’d want out no matter what or when. If I were still there, I’d be praying every day that someone would find me and get me out of there,” he says softly, a haunted look in his eyes.
I swallow hard as if his words are a pill. I know he’s right. When they were torturing me—even with Natasha and Torque in the cells beside me—I felt like I was crumbling from the inside out. I prayed every day that someone would end it all or come and get me out of there. I start to look at all of this differently.
I look at Torque, eyes filled with a new resolve, and give him a nod. We’ll do this, we just have to be smart. We’ll find her.
“All right. I’m in. We need to figure out where to start.”
“Cool. For now, we train and learn. Something we learn is bound to help us, right?”
“That’s what we have to hope for.”
He lifts the plate of bacon from his tray and pushes it toward me. “That means you need to get better. Eat up. You’ll need your strength. They kick our asses in those sessions,” he says with a smile.
“Okay, kid. Okay.”
John
I woke up with a gasp. It’s been the same every night for the last week. The same brown eyes and raspy voice.
Each time she’s reaching out for me to help, but I’m too far away. Right out of reach. I’ve tried hard to get her out of my head.
The dreams show her with all the details I remember