Mycousin? I didn’t have a cousin. Maybe a second one in Costa Rica I’d never met before.
But as far as I knew, no one had kept in touch with my grandparents since that letter had arrived from my mom.
“Tell me a little something. I’ll even tell you who gave us your new name, and you can do with that what you will. Family should always take care of family.”
My eyes wanted to widen. I didn’t want to believe that that was how they’d found me, but… what? Before we’d changed our last name, my grandma used to talk to someone on the phone. Her sister maybe? Niece? I knew there had been someone obviously, since my mom had found a way to get in contact with them the one time. I hadn’t thought about that in forever. And if someone in the family knew something, why had they waited so long to rat us out? Rat me out? Because of desperation? Because of a debt?
Ice snaked its way down my spine.
“I’m ready when you are,” she said with a mocking smile.
I knew in my heart that there was a good chance I wasn’t getting out of here alive. Maybe The Defender wouldn’t be able to get us out. Maybe this raging asshole would really drown me or cause me some kind of brain damage and life as I knew it would end.
My life had been so small for so long, I hadn’t had a whole lot of opportunities to prove to myself who I was. But I did know who I’d always wanted to be. Someone I could or would admire.
And being a snitch to save myself some pain—or a whole lot of it—wasn’t worth it. Not when I would be betraying someone who might not exactly be the person I’d thought he was but still did the right thing. And maybe that was more impressive than if he did what he did because of some altruistic gene in his body.
She could eat shit.
All of it. She could eat all the shit in the world. Her and her whole fucking family and every person she knew and every person she would ever know.
I hoped she got a kidney stone.
I hoped it hurt when she passed it too.
But the most important thing at this point was to buy The Defender time. As much as I wanted to tell her to fuck herself, I had to do what I had to do, and that was be a bigger person. For him. For the rest of humanity.
So I ducked my head back down and planted it on my stacked arms.
She was probably going to kill me and harvest my organs, but I hadn’t been joking. If I saw a white light, I was going the other way. Grandma used to say that her grandma had stuck around after she had passed away, until her husband eventually died. Apparently, he’d cheated on her and she had taken revenge in her own way.
I think I would have liked her.
If this was the end, it was the end. I didn’t want it to be, but I wasn’t willing to give up on the only person who might someday make this fucker pay for what she had done to me. Sure, it wouldn’t be in my honor, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy it.
Fear and misery fought a battle in my heart as I pretended she wasn’t there. I shivered and then shivered some more before the sound of the door opening cut through the quietness in the room. “All right,” she said in that bored, flat voice. “Remember you asked for this.”
And I wasn’t surprised when the two assholes moved toward me, grabbing my arms and lifting me. There were more zip ties. Another cloth. One of them was already holding the spewing hose. They aimed it at my face.
Then they did it again.
CHAPTERELEVEN
I flinchedat the sound of the door opening and tucked my arms into my sides even closer, like my body had any heat left to make a difference.
It didn’t.
I’d tried thinking about all the hot afternoons working in my garden that had been almost unbearable.
I’d tried remembering how warm it had gotten in the houses we’d always lived in because none of them had had efficient air conditioners.
None of that worked either.
I was cold down to my damn bones. My jaw hurt from how hard and long my teeth had rattled.
Plus, my head hurt like hell, my throat felt like it was battling a mutant strain of strep throat, and basically every single inch of my body hurt too from how hard I’d been shaking for hours. Or had it been days? Everything seemed so blurry now, so I had no idea. I felt straight awful as I lifted my head and peered at the doorway, expecting the worst.
Two men were there, dressed in the same black clothes as the last shitheads, but they weren’t the same people.
