The story is on the tip of her tongue. If I just wait, I know she’ll trust me enough to share with me.
Repeatedly, Bunny’s mouth falls open only to close, eyes growing more distant. I wonder if that’s how I look whenever these thoughts come into my head. Does that dead, empty, pale wash over my skin too?
We should sit further in the sun, I stupidly think, when Bunny mumbles, “I was an orphan, living in a group home. It was a… shit situation.”
Oh.
I can relate to that.
“I had—have—a sister who’s still there. I was going to model and save enough to get her out… We were going to live together in the city, in one of those apartments with the big windows. You know what I’m sayin’? Those floor-to-ceiling ones?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I know which ones you mean.” Those are the kinds in the movies, the ones we all dream of escaping to.
“I was going to save us… I think Marone saw that desperation in me and just…”
Took.
“Yeah.”Me too.
“He told me I could work for him,” she continues, tears clogging up her throat. “I…assumedhe meant as a model because that’s what I was brought to him for. Or at least, that’s what I thought, but he put me in this…” Bunny pauses, confusion or bewilderment taking over her expression. “Apartment building instead.”
Marone’s intentions are clear before Bunny even says anything, but she continues, painting the picture for me. “We were stuck there, and I don’t know how many others, and men would just… come and go, at all hours of the day and night.”
Bunny goes on to describe nightmares—rough and bloody horrors—but then it turns brutal, with one name attached to it all.
“Jefferey Lakens is a sadist who didn’t just get off on fucking me but watching pieces of me chip away. He fucked until bones cracked, until you couldn’t tell if the blood was still flowing because of how much it was stained around us. He,” she stops, catching her breath, “wanted to make sure he’d never be forgotten. He’s the reason I got away… and he’s the reason I was taken somewhere worse… He?—”
“Who is he?” I ask, chewing on the corner of my lip to prevent my rage from bleeding onto her.
“He’s a cop. Jefferey Lakens is a police officer at the Riverton Police Department. I ran there when he left my door open, and he found me in an interrogation room… waiting for help.”
The blood is pooling down my throat at this point, flooding my insides as I attempt to keep my cool. Of course, he’s a fucking cop. Of fucking course he is! Marone’s best friends are the fucking police, the fucking FBI—the fucking military! I’ve met so many men who promised to save me, only to turn around and whisper what they would do to me if I didn’t win them money.
I’ve met so many liars and thieves and junkies and pedophiles. I’ve met the scum of the earth, and let me tell you, a fuck-ton of them wear a badge.
“A cop.”
“Yeah,” Bunny sighs, “a fucking cop.”
I think of all the times the cops stood outside the ring, watching me with guns in their hands, flashing me their badges with wide, careless grins. It was a taunt. The same people meant to protect me were there, paying to see me die. “Alright,” I grind out, wanting nothing more than to return the gesture.
I was steadfast in that decision. Bunny needs this, and I've told myself I'll do anything to deliver. But as the day rolled on, as her mind grew heavy with thoughts and ideas, mine began to swell with other realities. I kept them to myself, but then the next night came and I just… couldn’t hold it in anymore.
In the midst of her pacing, I just came out with it. “What if we don’t do this?” Her strides don’t stop, leaving a worn, stressed track on the carpet.
“Bun.”
“Huh?” she mumbles, thumb pressed against her bottom lip, eyes focused and yet still unsteady.
“We could just leave,” I try again, sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched from exhaustion with my hands tucked between my thighs. There’s a brief second where I think she could be considering what I’ve said, but then she turns swiftly, glaring at me with a sharp scowl.
“You know we can’t do that. They know where we live. They know who we love,” she enunciates. “They’re as dead as we are if we go back home.”
Conversation over on her end, Bunny drops to the floor, sitting cross-legged, reciting the plan for the millionth time since we created it. Her mind is racing; that much is clear, and I don’t want to be that asshole to shit all over her wishes, but again, I can’t stop myself.
“We could leave, Bun… together.” We could be free of all of this. I can make that happen. I could keep us safe.
A crestfallen look falls across her face, though, and I know it can’t happen. “I need this, Cade. Please understand… I’m never going to feel safe out there knowing that, at any moment, someone can just snatch me again, bringing me backthere.” Gulping down the rock forming in her throat, Bunny continues, “I want nothing more than to run and find some form of freedom with you, but I can’t… not like this.”
