Page 18 of Beautifully Ruined

No. No, I’m not leaving.

“You didn’t look in the right place.” I take a step, tugging on Cade’s sleeve. “Come on.”

“No. Enzo’s right. We need to get out of here, Violet.”

But that’s not the right response. I don’t want to hear that. I shake my head and let go of him. “You go.”

“Violet…” A warning.

I ignore him, but Cade reaches out and grabs me.

I tug.

He doesn’t let me go. “We’re not going to look again.”

“Yes, we are. You didn’t look in the right place. There’s a girl down there, and I’m going to find her even if you won’t. You all go.” I pull, trying to free myself again, but he doesn’t let me go.

The two men exchange looks that hold whole books of words I don’t understand.

Shit, I don’t understand any of this.

There’s only one thing that’s crystal clear, and that’s I need to help Jean or whatever her name is.

I don’t think they thought about her when they ran…when that man with the gun and his thugs ran… I wouldn’t have been a thought except they wanted to use me as a motivator, to make Cade do his work. Whatever that was.

And if we leave, and they scrub this place clean they’ll kill her. Or if they just close it down and lock it up, she’ll die.

“Cade, please.” I search his face. “There’s another girl here, and she’s not in a good way at all. I think they were drugging her, they were hurting her, and they had her here for eight months.”

I don’t know where she’s from or her real name or anything about her, and I hate myself for that. I should have forced her to tell me something, anything, to help track down her family, to track down who she is.

And I should have done that from the start, when she was at her most coherent.

But I… I failed her.

So, I’m not going to fail her now. “They were probably going to sell her into slavery?—”

Enzo shakes his head. “After eight months? That’s a long time. We need to go. We’ll get someone to come back.”

“He’s right. This is too dangerous,” Cade says, breaking something in me.

And I stare at him, shaking my head.

“You go.” I shake him off and stumble back, narrowly missing stepping on a dead man, and my stomach heaves. “Both of you, but I’m not leaving without her.”

I turn and start to run, but Cade’s there, jumping in front of me, and a flash of agony crosses his face as he does so. “This place is huge, it’s one of those mansions that really sprawl. Where were you?”

“Where you were. We didn’t go far?—”

“Vi, you had a sack on your head. And you were scared. Time moves differently when you’re scared.” He tries to pull me into his arms, but I refuse to move.

I narrow my eyes, heart beating wildly. “I’m not leaving without her.”

He breathes out. “I was taken from a ground floor study to the basement, but it was a regular basement. And then up to what must have been meant to be a laundry room, one of those huge ones for a big household. Where we came from,” he says, gently, “Ivan had it set up for the computer shit.”

“Not very well,” Enzo mutters, earning a dark look from Cade. “We don’t know where the girl is. I’ll send someone?—”

“No.” I stand my ground.