Page 5

Four

JAXON

J ared didn’t give us much to go off, but he gave us enough. A website that requires a certain VPN, one that’s on his laptop. I shake my head as I wash my hands, trying to get Dimitri’s shocked expression out of my mind before he slammed the laptop shut. It doesn’t work though, nothing will work.

I keep thinking about the past. It teases me in bits and pieces, driving me insane one memory at a time.

“Why isn’t she here?” I ask Coach.

“Coming to games is a privilege she hasn’t earned. Why do you care?” he asks.

He watches me with something frustrated and demanding, then orders me to get on the field and focus. I don’t think about it a second time.

Monday at school, Hope is wearing long sleeves despite the heat. In our one shared class with Mrs. Ray, I notice her sink further into her chair to avoid Mrs. Ray’s gaze.

Who am I to question Coach? He knows her better than we do. He’s made it clear what she’s like.

She barely talks to other people.

“Come out of your thoughts,” Dimitri says.

I blink and glance over at him. “What?”

“You’re scowling and you’re going to break the door if you keep gripping it that hard. We have a lead,” Dimitri says.

I can tell he’s still pissed. He’s trying to hide it, maybe because he’s worried about my temper, but I know he’s just as pissy as I am when it comes to this situation. Coach shouldn’t have ever gotten to her a second time. We should have stopped it the first time around.

“This is our fault,” I say darkly.

“We didn’t make him do a damn thing,” Dimitri growls. “Don’t blame yourself for his shit. We didn’t tell him to take her.”

“We didn’t stop him either,” I hiss. “We had chances back then. We could have—”

“We can’t change it. And focusing on that distracts us from what we can do now. So let’s do what we can. You have the info and I have the way to use it. That will give us a direction.”

“Yeah,” I say. As if that will change the way we all treated her.

I get her avoidance now. But she loves us.

I know she does. She may not want to admit it.

She might want to pretend she doesn’t because of the past, but she loves us.

If she wants to keep being rough on me and keep making me prove that I can love those dark pieces of her and still see how much she’s grown, I’ll happily do it.

“We’re getting her back,” I snarl. “She belongs with us. And once we have her back, I’m not letting her go. No one else gets to touch her. She’ll never be unprotected.”

Dimitri doesn’t say anything to that. Instead, he parks and we get out of the car and head back up to Jared’s apartment.

No one stops us. If anyone notices, they don’t say a damn thing.

I don’t care if it’s because they’re afraid of us or because they recognize Jared’s a piece of shit. Either way, we’re getting our answers.

We sit by the coffee table and Dimitri mutters to himself as he opens the laptop and pulls up the website. I stare at it. I don’t know what else to do. It’s stare or punch the screen and lose our access.

Every heinous kink, every bit of violence that could be turned into sex appeal is here and it’s in the titles as if it has to be made easy.

“Kidnapping and torture with top buyer picks,” I hiss.

“That’s not Hope.”

“But she’s on this fucking website! Torturing her isn’t enough. He has to put her online and make money off her pain!” I yell.

Dimitri takes a slow breath and looks at me. “Justice later. Hope now. That’s how I’m operating. Can you handle this or do you need to go somewhere else?”

If we’d called Coach on how twisted he was, he wouldn’t think he could get away with this. If we would have recognized how shitty everything was, we wouldn’t have invited him here or exposed her to him. This is our fault. It’s our job to fix it. But we won’t be able to fix it all.

That thought haunts me, ripples across my body until I can either break or break something else. I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood, then nod to Dimitri. I’m not missing out on anything else.

Hope belongs in my arms and nothing will stop me.

Dimitri takes a slow breath. He scrolls through things, eliminates the worst of things—namely kids, torture, animal, and snuff things. It limits the videos. We’re looking at thousands instead of millions. I can’t focus on my feelings about that.

I just keep looking for Hope. “Try her name.”

Dimitri looks at me for a long moment. “You think he’d be that stupid?”

“I do,” I agree. “Jared connected the dots.”

With that in mind, Dimitri eliminates all the filters he’s put on and puts in ‘hope.’ Plenty of videos come up with the title of ‘no hope,’ but he pauses his scrolling and hesitates. We both stare at where the curser is. It’s Hope, much younger, definitely in high school.

My throat tightens until I’m sure I’m going to choke or pass out.

He clicks on it and there she is. She moves like a zombie towards her dad.

He keeps patting his lap. When she hesitates, he jerks her down and slaps her, calling her an ungrateful bitch, saying no one else will love her or want her, that she’s useless except for one thing.

“Turn it off,” I hiss.

“It might have an answer.”

“I can’t watch this. I can’t watch him touch what’s ours. She’s ours! I’d never talk to her like that. You wouldn’t say that to her,” I growl.

Now.

Another unwelcome reminder. We wouldn’t talk to her like that now .

“We were kids too, Jax,” Dimitri says.

I don’t like that he seems to know where my mind goes. But he mutes the video. He pulls up another, and once we click on the person who uploads it, we see they’re all about Hope.

Then a new one comes through. My throat dries and I look at Dimitri.

This is difficult for us. Knowing that it’s worse for her, that I can’t rip through the screen and get her, can’t wrap myself around her and make a snuff video of her father…

Knowing that threatens to shred what’s left of my restraint

“I need to see her,” I say when Dimitri hesitates.

He clicks on it. She’s there, with her eye swollen shut, new bruises, and staring at a sponge and a basin of soapy water. There’s a bottle of water that she just keeps staring at but she flips it upside down and water drips through the lid.

“Don’t drink it,” I whisper.

She empties it to the side and stares at the bottle before slowly looking at the soapy water.

“Living isn’t an option for him,” Dimitri says darkly. “If she wasn’t so smart…”

“No worst-case thinking. Our girl knows what she’s doing,” I say, rubbing his shoulder. “She belongs with us and she knows that. She’s going to keep herself safe.”

As long as she can . The unspoken words hang between us.

At the end of the day, she has to do the surviving. She has to keep herself safe. She has to trust that we’re going to come for her. And I’m worried that’s too much to ask.

What if she caves because it’s easier? What if we lose her because it’s just too much?

I can’t blame her for that either.

“We’re going to get you,” I say as I touch the screen.

Dimitri nods. “No matter what, baby. You belong right here. We’re going to make it happen.”

“Soon,” I say when the camera angle changes to follow Hope. “Very soon. And I’m going to make him pay for everything he does—whether you know what it is or not.”

“Not just you,” Dimitri hisses. “We all want to make him eat his comments and feel what he’s put her through.”

HOPE

“My dad is an ass too,” Jaxon whispers and an unfamiliar warmth spreads through due to his kindness. Hope sprinkles inside as I see a way out.

I ignore my father’s speeches, his foul words as I stuff myself full with the food Jaxon plated for me.

Perhaps I was right, and things will change because of them.

I blink away the memory and stare at the food and water my dad gave me.

He’s trying to poison me, I just know it. I won’t eat what he gave me. I’m not going to drink the water even though my throat is so dry that talking feels like torture. I don’t have anything to say to him anyway. I stare at the soapy water. If I get to the bottom, will it still taste like soap?

Will it make me sick?

Why am I still here? Why hasn’t anyone noticed I’m missing?

I have a job. I have friends. I have… my three stalkers or…

whatever they are. Knox hasn’t left me alone even when I ordered it.

Jaxon claims I’m his and looks at me with hunger and heat even when I tell him to fuck off.

And Dimitri has been the unmoving mountain, steady and lurking. Why aren’t they here?

A part of me is sure that they know exactly where I am because they found me even when I ran.

It’s a stupid thought. A really stupid thought which proves that I need food and more than a few hours of sleep.

I blink at the soapy water again. It’s so tempting.

I lick my bottom lip. Instead, I grab the bucket of soapy water and drag it closer.

I try to hide myself as I clean up slowly. Every muscle hurts.

I’m crunchy from not having any activity.

No matter how much I dream of the life I was just stolen from, I always end up right back here.

There’s no escape for long. There’s no real escape from my father. The last few years might as well be the dream and this captivity my reality.

Shuddering, I finish cleaning up and change into the dress I’ve been left. I feel more exposed but being clean is a luxury I’m not going to waste.

I wish I could hide my clothes to keep them, but instead, I wash them in the soapy water and find a way to hang them up for later. My underwear included. I deserve to still feel like a person and that means being clean. Even if it means feeling like I’m easier access.

Fighting is the best option. I’ve already started finding his weaknesses. I can keep finding them. Maybe I can find ways to gross him out. What if I yell someone else’s name, bring up the guys? I’ll find ways to keep my dad on his toes.

I’ll find ways to push him back, to keep him off me.

Closing my eyes, I take a breath and let myself drift into something else.

I stare at Knox and Dimitri across the table. There’s a kindness in their eyes, beneath the stoic grumpy looks on their faces. Sometimes, I get a faint smile, something sweeter than I’m used to.

Perhaps others could want me. Others could love me.

Does my dad? Would he let anyone else love me?

I open my eyes.

No.

He’ll never let anyone else love me. Because he doesn’t see me as a person.

He can’t see me as a person and treat me this way.

My eyes flick to the door. The door is the only way in and out. The door is the only option. I have to go through there… no matter what I give up in the process.