I shake my head, giving him a strained smile. “I promise, they didn’t touch me there, see,” I lift my skirt to show them the blood is only located on the visible part of my legs, and my panties are still clean and in place. Well… cleanish considering what I got up to with Sly earlier.
A grunt comes from Elias, his eyes glued to my panties, and I yank my skirt down, my cheeks heating with embarrassment. “Whoops.”
“Why did you want them to think you’d been touched?” Sly asks, pulling a cloth from who knows where as he starts to clean my face.
“I heard the men talking about how they wanted to… you know… do things to me. But they said if they did, Ivan would kill them. So I had hoped that if Ivan thought they had, he’d kill them.”
“Well, shit!” Pete lets out a strained laugh. “That was a bit of a gamble, did it work?”
I nod as Jagger pulls out his own cloth, kneeling in front of me as he starts cleaning the blood off my thighs.
I grip his shoulders as I look at Pete and nod. “Yeah, as soon as I saw Ivan, I cried rape and ran behind him.”
“Oh, I bet his ego loved that,” Elias huffs, finally shaking himself enough to join the conversation. Jagger’s fingers tighten on the back of my thigh, but he doesn’t pause his cleaning.
“He didn’t hesitate to shoot them, then I took off. How did you find me?” I ask, needing to know.
Pete pulls something from his pocket. As he reaches for my hand, I gasp.
“My watch!”
He nods, but looks upset as he tells me, “We followed the signal here, and after the shooting stopped, I followed it to a guy on the ground with a hole in his head. I searched his pocket and found your watch.” He finishes fastening it to my wrist, but doesn’t let go of my hand as his pained green eyes connect with mine. “I was so fucking scared,” he whispers. “I didn’t know what that meant. Where you were, if you were hurt.”
He licks his lips and swallows, and I lean around Jagger to hug him again.
“I knew you’d find me,” I whisper to him. He squeezes me a little tighter, and when I try to return the squeeze, I wince.
“What’s wrong?” Several voices ask at once, and I try not to roll my eyes at their alarm. It’s cute, really.
“It’s my arm,” I say, clutching it to my chest. “One of those guys yanked me out of the trunk by it and wrenched my shoulder.”
I watch as anger rolls through five sets of eyes. They’re silent, as if unsure what to say, and Elias is the one to finally break the quiet.
“They had you in the trunk that whole time?” he asks, looking pained. I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. Elias knew I was claustrophobic, but I never admitted why. I was too embarrassed at the time, thinking it was my fault for not obeying Robert. I didn’t want Elias to think I was bad, too.
I should have told him. We were only fifteen at the time, but maybe if he had known how bad it really was, he could have gotten me out of there sooner.
That’s when the dam breaks. I cover my face as a sob bursts out of me that I’m unable to contain. The fear of being kidnapped and trapped, mixed with the pain and anxiety from every time Robert locked me in a closet. Throw in the emotional high of them finding me and being angry on my behalf that I was taken and injured, and it’s all just too much at once; my mind shatters in the form of giant tears raining down my cheeks.
Jagger lifts me as he stands, and I wrap my good arm around his neck, cradling my other one between us as I press my face to his neck. He cradles my butt with one hand while the other rubs up and down my back.
I feel other hands reach out to soothe me as I try to getmyself under control. Nobody tells me to stop crying, none of them get upset that I‘m wailing like a child, and no one tells me to suck it up. They just let me get it out, as if they understand I need this release of my pent-up emotions.
Jagger starts to walk, and I’m thankful they aren’t pressing me to talk.
After a few minutes, my crying calms to just some silent tears. I hear car doors opening, and turn my head to see the guys standing outside our SUV, glaring at each other with their arms crossed.
“Get in the front,” Pete says angrily to Elias, pointing to the passenger seat.
“No way! You guys haven’t let me sit with her once, and we’ve been traveling for three goddamned days!”
“That’s because she’sourgirlfriend, notyours.”
“She’s still my best friend.” Elias takes a deep breath, lowering his voice as he continues. “Please? It’s killing me not to hold her right now.”
His eyes flick to mine, and I can see the pain and restraint there. I feel bad about keeping him at arm's length when we used to be so close. But part of me is afraid to get close to him, fearful that my feelings aren’t as platonic as they used to be.
Regardless, I owe it to him to give him some of my time. He might not be my boyfriend, but he is right; he’s still my best friend.
