Wasted Lust - JA Huss Page 0,83

if I trust you and your promise, you’ll break it. They’ll make you break it. They’ll kill you to get to me, and I’ll still be here. That’s my curse. I’m a survivor, remember? I’m a survivor. But it’s no fun being the only survivor, Jax. It’s no fun being the only one left.”

I place my hand on her cheek, mimicking her tender gesture. “I won’t let that happen, Sasha. I won’t.”

“I went to a little girl’s birthday party today. Sparrow, her name is. She’s the daughter of one of my mom’s best friends. And they all had babies together, ya know? Like best friends do when they all get married. And it hit me while I was watching all those little precious girls play and laugh and have a good time. It hit me that I will never get that opportunity. I will never have children, Jax. Because every child who comes from my bloodline will be Company property.”

“Sasha…” But she’s right. She can’t escape her fate. She is who she is.

“I can’t bring a girl into this world and risk them being stolen away and turned into me, or Harper, or God forbid, Sydney. And I can’t have a baby boy without wondering if they will make him crazy like James or Nick.

“My mom has no idea what they really do. She didn’t listen to Sydney tell her story from beginning to end, like I did. They treated her like an animal. Trained her like the dogs my dad keeps for protection. Only our dogs are family members. They are loved. Sydney’s humanity was… discarded. She went crazy and lost touch with reality. She tried to kill me and Merc. Two years ago I was abducted by her handler. He poisoned me with drugs and almost—”

Her words drop off, and my rage builds as the understanding of what he almost did sinks in.

“When Sydney was being controlled, she held a gun to my head and threatened to kill me if Merc didn’t drop his rifle.” Sasha looks at me and shakes her head. “And he did, Jax. He dropped that rifle without a second thought about what would happen to him. And maybe the Company didn’t succeed with me. But they have so many opportunities. Because when people fall in love, they want to express that love by having children. The Company will never run out of opportunities, Jax, because people will never stop falling in love.”

“We can’t let them win, Sasha. We can’t.”

“They’ve already won. You remember when I came home early from my trip to Peru last summer? And you thought I was seeing Nick?”

“Yeah,” I whisper.

“I wasn’t seeing Nick, Jax. I was setting up a safe house of my own. Only not for me. For Company girls. I have a house in Golden, Colorado. Up near my old school. And I have it stocked and ready. I even have a girl who lives there full time. Her sole purpose is to take care of these girls we find.”

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry for accusing—”

But she stops my words with a shake of her head. “No, you don’t understand. We have the house, the supplies, everything. But we have no girls. We can’t even find them. We have no idea where to start looking. And it’s like fate is spitting in my face, Jax. It’s telling me to give up. Because I can’t ever succeed. I can try and try and try. I have millions of dollars from when we stole the Company’s money and all I want to do with my life is help those Company girls. Harper and Sydney and I talked about it once. We said we’d never let it happen again. That we’d find a way. So I set up that safe house. But none of that matters in the end, because I have no idea where to find the girls. They are everywhere, I know that. And that’s so much worse. Because they’re nowhere at the same time. I’m a total failure. I’m a fraud. I’m a killer masquerading as an academic. Hiding behind a new name and a new life. But none of it is real. Sasha Aston isn’t real. Only Sasha Cherlin exists. And she’s dead, Jax. She’s a ghost. So what’s left for me?”

I lean down slowly and cover her lips with mine. I kiss her and she tastes like tears. It hurts my heart when her sadness melts into my mouth. And then I pull back and