Page 59 of Healing Conviction
“Fine.” She sighed heavily and shrugged. “How do you feel about it all, Drake?”
“I’m fuckingfurious. I’m furious that nearly a decade of my life might’ve been for nothing, or worse. I’m furious that I lost an entire year of my life after failing you. And I’m furious that we weren’t here in time to stop this poor girl from having her life ruined so much that she couldn’t stand living it anymore. Now…” He let go of her face and squeezed her waist with both hands. “You go.”
Green glassy eyes searched his. She bit her trembling lip until finally she seemed to find what she was looking for.
“I… I’m mad, Drake.” Her words came out in a fierce whisper but gained volume with every sentence. “I’mso angrybecause sickos and undeserving men use women up all the time until there’s nothing left. Until women like Shanna are left. Untilthis—” She threw her hand out at the headstone. “Untilthisis left. A simple sentence carved in stone, and both will be around longer than she ever was.”
She collapsed against him, tucking her head in the crook of his neck and they sat, letting the humid air gently blow around them as she caught her breath.
“Drake? Do you ever imagine what’ll be on your gravestone?”
“Goddamnit, Pix, don’t talk like that.”
She stayed silent for a breath until she tried again. “I imagined what would be on yours.”
Curiosity kept him from objecting further. If this was her way of talking her feelings out, he needed to listen. It wasn’t her fault he was already plagued by nightmares of her being kidnapped in front of him.
“What did you come up with?”
She pulled back and sat up in his lap, looking at the stone in front of them. A soft smile played on her lips.
“‘He gave everything for a stranger.’” She turned her head to look at him and meet his eyes again. “No one’s ever done that for me before. I think that, more than anything, is what initially drew me to you.”
“I’d do it again. Over and over and over.”
“I know you would. That’s what’s so crazy to me about it. Because… I mean, why?”
“What do you mean, why? Because you’re you, idiot.”
She snorted and wiped at her damp face. “Not everyone has the same glowing perception of me, you know. My own mother didn’t.”
The opportunity to learn more about her stilled him like one of the many stones around them, and he felt the weight of anticipation grip his chest.
“I was a means to an end for her. My family’s from a little Eastern European town but my mom had huge dreams. Everything was drama, drama, drama, and she always wantedmore. What we had was never enough for her.Iwas never enough for her. I’ve always been small, but she still thought I took up too much space. One day, my mom got an opportunity to make more than she could imagine. At least I hope it was a lot of money. All she had to do was part with something she already didn’t want. Me.”
“Your mothersoldyou?” Draco asked in a strained whisper, his anger barely contained underneath his skin. “How old were you?”
“Thirteen,” Nora answered with a shake of her head. “And no. Shetried. But I ran away and did everything I could to get a one-way ticket to the States. That ticket ended up having a crap ton of stops along the way. Metaphorically and literally, especially since I had even less to bargain with than my mother. One thing I did have that she never did, though, was people smarts. I get people and I get math and—at least in my experience—that’s all you need to get by.
“Still, I got mixed up with the wrong people along the way. The only good thing that came out of that was probably all the scrappy fighting I had to learn and I met this hacker who taught me pretty much everything computer-y that I know. No one ever thinks it’s the tiny little girl who did the crime, so I was his perfect partner and didanythinghe asked to make him happy. But I was too young to know that relationship was… wrong. I fell in love and that’s when I realized my mother wasn’t the only monster. He just, um… showed it differently, I guess you could say.”
“When you were thirteen?” A painful growl rattled the stale air burning in his chest.
“Yeah. It’s funny, because looking back, I don’t know which outcome—being used for my mother’s money, or being used for free—would’ve been worse.”
Nora leaned into his chest and rested her head against him again. She was delicate in his arms, and apparently oblivious that he was barely holding back the urge to scorch the earth around them until everyone who had ever hurt her was frying in hell. Her gentle hands stroked the dragon ouroboros tattoo on his forearm, but for once, her soft touch did little to soothe the beast inside him.
Finally, he gritted through his anger enough to ask the question that would light the match. “Who is this fucker, Pix? I swear to god I’ll—”
“I killed him.”
A small jolt of shock had him straightening at that, but then he relaxed and hugged her tighter. “Good. Whatever you did to him, he deserved worse.”
“Maybe.” She huffed out a laugh. “One day, I looked in the mirror at my bruises and realized I kept giving myself to people who wanted to suck my soul from my chest and call it love. I depended on him and he used that against me, used what I felt for him against me, until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I began to build my plan and used all the things he’d taught me against him. That last night, before he had a chance to, um, t-take me again—” She tugged on her ear. “He used to, um… from behind. It was better that way because I didn’t have to look at him. But then he’d whisper in my ear and tell me I liked it. I didn’t.”
He squeezed her tight, trying to focus on her words instead of his rage. Her breath shuddered from her and trembled down her body as she continued.
“That night, though, I hid his gun underneath my pillow. When he didn’t listen, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I… I shot him. Then I took the new identity I’d made and enough money to survive for a while. Thanks to him, I became Honora French. So I learned everything there was to know about America, trained my accent away and took odd jobs here and there across the world until I eventually found Jules. And the rest is history, I guess. I wasn’t always a good person, doing what I needed to survive. If Hawk or Snake knew half the things I did, they’d probably have me locked up.”