“Of course he does, we were just going to go and start on lunch, and now we don’t have to leave you alone,” Rose explained.
“You don’t have to worry about that anyway,” he said, making up his mind and hoping the guys weren't angry he’d made this unilateral decision. “I'm not locking her in anymore. I didn't even need to last night, it was stupid, I don’t want Whitney to feel like she’s a prisoner here.”
“But I am,” Whitney tentatively said, although it came out sounding more like a question.
“No, you're not,” he contradicted firmly. “You're a part of this, as much a victim of Dr. Gardner and his plans as the rest of us. If we work together, we have a better chance of destroying him, and nobody deserves to be destroyed more than that man.”
If Whitney didn't trust them, it was because of him, of how he’d treated her when he first followed her, what he’d done to her, and how he’d hurt her. But he also knew that even without trust, she would give them everything she could, because that was all she saw herself as, her value was dependent on the knowledge she could share. So she’d share it, even if it cost her, and even if she still believed they’d kill her when it was all done.
“Told you it wouldn't last long,” Rose said as she climbed off the bed where she’d been sitting cross-legged.
“Come down to the kitchen when you're finished here,” Cassandra added as she too stood.
“Finished here?” Whitney asked.
“Finished with Blade,” Rose explained, and then winked, which made Whitney’s pale cheeks flame red, and he suddenly wished he’d been paying better attention to their conversations instead of trying to block them out.
The other two women left the room, and Whitney began to fidget with the hem of her sweater. It was a pretty shade of mint green, and looked velvety soft, although not as soft as her skin. Skin he was dying to mark up as his own. Blade liked the idea of knowing that Whitney had zero experience, that he could be her one and only.
But then he noticed the small scab at the corner of her eye from where he’d cut her. The bruises on her neck were darker today, Dragon’s fingerprints layered on top of his own. There were more cuts on her skin where he’d dragged his knife as he was cutting her clothes off her.
And those were just the physical marks his torture had left behind. It spoke nothing of the psychological damage he’d inflicted on a woman who had already been used and abused since she was just a child.
“You should go help the others with lunch,” he said, turning abruptly.
“Blade, wait.”
He heard her jump up and cross the floor, hovering just behind him, but he didn't turn around to look at her.
Couldn’t.
Or he’d have her in that bed, naked and spread out before him, quicker than she could offer a protest.
He heard, or felt, her hand lift to reach for him. Part of him prayed she didn't touch him, the other part prayed she did. When her small hand lightly, uncertainly, touched his, he turned and found her staring up at him.
“I … I have … I need … a favor.” She licked her lip as though unsure whether she could ask him for anything, having no ideashe could ask for anything at all and he’d find a way to make it happen for her. Anything to banish the shadows that lurked in the depths of her eyes and show her what it was like to have a team, to have people who cared.
“What's the favor you need, darlin’?”
“Would you … could you … I need you to teach me how to defend myself. How to fight. How to be like you.”
January 13th
11:31 A.M.
He was going to say no, and Whitney had zero idea how she was supposed to convince him otherwise.
But she had to.
This was something she needed desperately.
Once she gave the guys her intel, and they used it to finally find Dr. Gardner and kill him, something she was utterly confident that they could and would do, then she’d be leaving there. She’d be all alone in the world, and she didn't have the skills to keep herself safe.
With Dr. Gardner dead, it would eliminate the direct threat to her. Dead men couldn’t own other people, but he wasn't the only evil person that existed in the world. There was a whole world full of them. She’d met plenty. The guards who worked for Dr. Gardner and her fellow scientists. They might not outright hurt, maim, and kill the way the guards did, but they were evil in a different way. Their indifference to the suffering of the people enduring the trials of the drugs showed their true colors.
Maybe she would never truly feel safe again, but if she at least knew some self-defense maybe it would help her confidence and make her feel like she wasn't completely helpless.
“Please,” she whispered, as though that would make any difference.
