Chapter Nineteen
Hawkeye took a deepbreath and forced himself to look at the screen Pike still held for Delilah to see.He studied the man, memorizing the face.He wanted to recognize him if they walked past him on the street.
“You said he’s older now.How has he changed?”Hawkeye glanced at her and found Delilah tilting her head to one side.
“He’s thinner.He has a scar down the side of his face.”
“Which side?”Pike asked.
Hawkeye watched her, curious about how she would react.They’d asked a lot of questions.Mostly about someone that he wouldn’t want to think too much about in her shoes.She seemed unfazed.He watched as she closed her eyes and lifted her right hand.She lowered it before she opened her eyes and looked at Pike.
“It’s on the left side, from here,” she turned her head and used one finger to draw a line from her temple down to her jaw line, “to here.It’s puckered like it didn’t heal right and whiter than the rest of the skin around it.”
“Good.Any idea what happened?”
She shook her head.“He’s had it as long as I’ve known him and I learned quick not to ask more than I had to.”
Hawkeye frowned.“Why not?What did he do if you asked questions?”
“He found ways to punish me,” she said with a shrug.
He watched her, getting the feeling like there was more to it but he didn’t want to ask where everyone could hear.He made a mental note to ask later, when it was just the two of them.
Not knowing what to say, Hawkeye nodded once, then turned back to Pike.“What have you found so far?”Hawkeye could have pulled up the network folder, the one he’d set up so they could share information when they were doing shit like this and see what the other man had found on his own, but he hesitated to pull things up on his screen without knowing what he would find.Delilah could see his screen and he didn’t want to stumble across something that would upset her.
“Not much.I did find the right Hammond.”He tilted the top of his head toward Delilah, “Now I’m tracing his movements and trying to find when he got into The Calling.Once I identify when he got involved, I can start looking at who his associates were.That will lead me to more people to investigate.I’ll follow all the branches until I can find the core of the organization.Then I’ll focus on what we need to do to take them down.”
“Take them down?”Delilah asked, looking back and forth between the two of them.“Why are we taking them down?”Her eyes were wide and her teeth tugged at one corner of her lip.
“Because what they did to you is wrong, little dove.You weren’t the only one forced into a marriage far too young.It’s not right and now that we know about it, we can’t let it continue.”
“But,” Delilah hesitated, “what will happen to everyone?”
“The women and children won’t be hurt.We don’t hurt innocents, baby.But the men?That’s another story.You don’t need to know details, just know that they’ll never hurt anyone the way they hurt you again.”
She stared at him and Hawkeye wondered what she was thinking.Was she going to insist on knowing what would happen to the men in Jericho?He hoped not.He didn’t want to tell her.He didn’t want her knowing what he would do in order to protect her, how far he was willing to go to make sure she was safe from them, forever.It didn’t hurt that he would also know they wouldn’t be doing this to anyone else, ever again.
When she looked away, she turned to Pike.
“What can I do to help?”
