Page 66 of Fractured Future

“So this how you help people? By intimidating them?”

My thumb skates across her skin in a light stroke. I swear, I see a shiver roll over her. I’d be fired faster than I can spit out an excuse if anyone saw this, but pure instinct has taken over.

“If that’s what it takes.”

“Then by all means.” She waves her hand. “Continue.”

“I’m not here to intimidate you. Believe it or not, I do want to help.”

“Sure,” she scoffs.

“Why don’t you believe me?”

“Because you have me pinned against a fucking door?”

Forcibly shackling the beast raging inside me, I silence its possessive demands, whispering ideas like throwing her over my shoulder, marching her to the medical centre and tying her to the damn examination table.

After I take a step back to put space between us, Ember deflates against the door. She’s still trembling, but there isn’t an ounce of fear in her gaze. Instead, it burns with challenge.

“You can keep putting on this brave face, but I know what it feels like to have your entire life ripped away from you.”

“What the hell do you know about it?” she snarls.

“I know the devastation that it leaves behind. I know how it feels to look in the mirror and not recognise yourself or your life. I know what it’s like to yearn for something that’s lost forever.”

An aching sadness infiltrates the glimmering blue flecks in her storm cloud eyes, telling me all I need to know. I don’t know why I want to help her so badly, but fuck me… I do.

“When you’re ready to talk, you know where to find me,” I finish. “You don’t have to pretend around me.”

With that, I gently push her aside then walk past her into the conference room, holding the door open for her to follow. Ember doesn’t meet my gaze as she scuttles in, her head ducked.

She looks oddly vulnerable. Afraid. Like she can’t even contemplate the vast reach of her own demons, and acknowledging them will open floodgates that will never close again.

We might have rescued her.

But I don’t know if we can save her.

CHAPTER 9

EMBER

POISON – BRENT FAIYAZ

“How old was Gracie?”

By my second day of being interviewed, my raw throat is about ready to give up on me. I haven’t spoken this much since before I was taken. I’m completely drained.

Tom intervened yesterday when I couldn’t form words anymore, escorting me back to his spare room so I could decompress. Secretly, I think he was struggling too.

It couldn’t have been easy to hear the gory details of being drugged, restrained and deposited in a shipping container, let alone the subterranean hell that followed. Recounting those blurred days was difficult enough for me.

“She told me sixteen,” I choke out.

Warner jots that down. “Bloody hell.”

“She was young enough that she had to be taken for tests to determine if she was a virgin.”

Features crumpling in a disgusted look, he continues to take fast notes. “What kind of tests?”