She whimpered. “No.”
My brow furrowed. “No? No, what? You don’t want to give me your information? That’s okay. We can—”
“No, I don’t want to go home.”
My mouth opened, but no words came out for a few seconds, so I cleared my throat. “Uh, okay. That’s… fine. Can I ask why?”
She met my gaze for a few seconds, then looked away and mumbled, “M-my family… they… they’re the ones who… sent me here.”
Shock and anger on her behalf warred within me for a few seconds, but I knew that wasn’t what this woman needed right now, so I gathered myself—closed my eyes and took a breath—and met her eyes. “We won’t send you back home. We’ll help you. We’ll find a safe place for you.”
She shook her head. “Nowhere’s safe from them. They… they’ll hunt me down and send me back.” Tears started rolling faster down her cheeks. “I just know it. They’ll send me back. Nowhere’s safe. Nowhere.”
I didn’t know what to say for a few seconds. I didn’t know how to help. I glanced over at Tan, who was taking charge and directing everyone, telling people where to go, who to take with them, and what to do. He would know what to do here. He would…
I turned back to the woman. “What about the tower in the capital? We can bring you there. My dad has plenty of apartments, so I’m sure we could find you a place to…” I trailed off when I caught the look on her face.
“Oh my Mother, you’re… you’re royalty.”
I shrugged because technically she was right, but I didn’t really feel like royalty. “Uh, yeah… my dad’s the king.”
“Holy shit,” she said under her breath before her wide eyes met mine. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t bow or—”
“Please don’t. You did nothing wrong. I’m here to help you, okay? Don’t worry about any of that.”
She searched my eyes for a long moment. “You’ll really take me to the tower?”
“Absolutely.”
After taking a deep breath, she nodded. “Okay. I… well, my name’s Lilura Periculum, and my family’s been helping these… these criminals for a very long time, and I want to stop them.”
Huh. That sounded promising. “Okay, Lilura, I’m Oakley.”
She sent me a small smile. “I know. I, um… I think I might be able to help…”
Hopefully, I wasn’t totally off base here, but I felt like she was telling the truth. Maybe… maybe this was the break we needed.
Fingers—and toes—crossed.
“Lilura Periculum and a handful of others are being driven back to the capital now,” Tan said as we got back into our vehicle, finally ready to head back to the safe house.
“Good,” I said, climbing into the back with Jed. This SUV had three rows, and somehow, the two of us got the short straw and were ordered to get in the very last row. So annoying. “I’m glad she’s going back there already. Hopefully she’ll feel safe there.”
“Gar will make sure of it,” Tan said as he sat in the passenger seat.
“I know he will.”
“She seems like she wants to help.”
“Yeah, I think she does.”
Roman, from the driver’s seat, asked, “Do you think she’s telling the truth?”
“From what I could tell, yes,” I said.
Tan added, “Same here. She seems legit.”
Roman hummed. “I just… I’m wondering if she’s a plant.”
