Arran: Don’t keep us waiting. Get inside.
I exhaled. “Arran’s getting stressed.”
“He knows we’re here?”
“I ordered him to clear the main corridor so randoms didn’t see ye.”
Dixie took a shaky breath and shivered. “I’m not feeling so brave anymore.”
My heart hurt. “We do this however ye want. I’ll shield ye. I’ll do the talking until you’re ready.”
“We’re sticking with my excuse that I came to you, right? That’s how we’re together?”
“Your choice. I won’t stop ye from telling the truth.”
Dixie huddled deeper in her seat. “Free pass. Ask me anything. One thing.”
I didn’t hesitate. I wanted it all, from the beginning. “Talk me through the night ye ran from the warehouse.”
“You’re wondering why I didn’t find Manny. Or you.”
“Aye. I don’t blame ye, but I need to know.”
Dixie kept her gaze on the red-brick building. “I was already a wreck. Cassie’s job wasn’t working out for me, and I felt like a failure. Trying to get back into sex work was my attempt to return to myself, and that crashed out as well. Then when I was already heading home, I heard Mila’s name. It was the final straw. I made a clean break.” She rolled her shoulders. “If I think about it now, I can see I was spiralling. Probably from this happening.” She touched her throat and the scar she’d spent time blending out with a makeup brush earlier.
“How are ye feeling now?”
“Weirdly invincible. That’s because of you, hun.”
It shouldn’t have bolstered me so much. I was a kidnapper. Her stalker. But the fact I’d helped her went straight to my head.
Almost desperately, I wanted to touch her. I didn’t. Every time I crossed that line, it cost me control. If I was hands-off, I could convince myself I was doing good. “Later, if you’re feeling up to it, it would be good to go over each of the people who might want to harm ye. For my piece of mind.”
She laughed softly. “You mean so you can go on more raids and take them out.”
No use in denying that. “Are we still going back to the ridge once this is over?”
Even in the dark, I picked out a flush on her cheeks. “Yes. I mean, I just unpacked and all.”
“Then that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
“There’s my psycho stalker. So considerate.”
She’d said it lightly. The words still thudded into my chest like arrows piercing a thick and scarred target.
Dixie took a fast breath and twisted in her seat. “Don’t leave me tonight. The things Mila might ask are going to dig up memories. Ones as bad as Sullivan. Maybe worse. I need to know you’re not far away.”
“Then I won’t be.”
“Take me inside.”
I rounded to her side of the car. Opened the door. Tucked her into my coat, the dark material swallowing her. At the back door, a guard opened it without comment, and we made our way to the central corridor.
Dixie kept her head down, cuddling into me. She didn’t peek at the wide-eyed people who dared to look too closely. Only the core team, but it was enough. Mila with her hands clasped to her mouth, Convict holding her close. Lovelyn already tearful, Kane stony, Cassie outraged. Arran…suspicious.
Shade met my gaze with unhidden concern.
It was good that all were here. They were her people. They cared.
