Page 86 of Mimic

“Do you know who that is?”

She nodded before softy saying, “He came to the Trick Pony with his father.”

“Son of a bitch,” I hissed. “Did he?”

She lifted her head. “You already know the answer to that. We aren’t talking about me. Not yet.”

She laid her head back down and swirled her fingers over my abdomen. I didn’t want to talk; I wanted to feel. I wanted to concentrate on the way she made me feel. I grabbed her hand and held it.

“I can’t fucking concentrate when you do that.” The giggle that escaped from her mouth shocked her as much as it shocked me, and she slapped her hand over her mouth. I barked out alaugh, telling her, “My life’s mission will forever be making you giggle like you just fucking did.”

She smacked my abs. “Continue.”

We settled in together as I told her my story.

“My whole life, Rose and I were hidden away. We never went to school, or the park, or museums. We stayed home. The only reason we were allowed outside in the backyard was because there was a high fence shielding us from our neighbors.”

“Why?”

“My mother told us no one could know who we were. That if anyone ever found us, they would take us from her. Rose and I were ten when Dakota took our mother away. He still didn’t know about us. I’d heard a conversation one day when he showed up asking about the baby. I didn’t realize until later that he was talking about me. He and his father knew my mother had been pregnant, but she told him she’d lost the baby. He never knew there were two of us.”

“Why did he want you?”

I inhaled and exhaled deeply before continuing, “My father. It all had to do with my father.”

“What was so special about him?”

“No fucking clue. Never even met him, and I never will. He was killed last year. The same night George Stone was.”

She lifted her head to look at me. “Okay, rewind for a minute. What happened when Dakota took you?”

“I was put in a cell with a cot, where I stayed, unless I was training. Every day, Dakota would come get me and teach me how to fight.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “Dakota followed instructions. He did what his father told him to do. When I started to learn, started getting the best of him, he would beat the shit out of me. I’ve broken more bones and had more stitches than I can count.

“George would give me time to rest, and that was the time I used to study. He’d filled my cell with books. I wasn’t allowed a computer or internet, but I could read as much as I wanted to. History books, medical books, encyclopedias. Anything I could get my hands on to pass the time.

“Dakota would also use this time toeducateme. He’d bring women into the room and fuck them. Some were complicit, but most weren’t. He didn’t care. He fucked them anyway.”

My arms tightened around her, thinking about what Dakota might have done to her.

“Hey, I’m okay. I survived. We both did.” She snuggled closer, laying her head on my shoulder so she could watch me as I spoke. I stared at the ceiling, not wanting her to see inside me. What I had become.

“If he didn’t bring a woman in, he used the time to manipulate me. He’d say things about my mother and my father. I didn’t care what he said about my father. If George and Dakota had known my mother was pregnant, then chances are my father knew too. He left her alone. Unprotected against two narcissistic assholes.

“He told me my mother didn’t want me. That she told him how to find me. Let him have me.”

Indie sat up, the blanket falling to her waist, and God help me, I couldn’t stop my eyes from dropping down to feast on her perfect tits.

She pulled the blanket up, and I lifted my eyes. “You know he was lying. They did the same thing to me.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged.

“No, not maybe. A mother who hides her children for ten years trying to protect them doesn’t one day just decide to give up on them. And if she did, why didn’t she give up Rose too? You have to know your mother would never do that.”

“You don’t know my mother.”