She doesn’t hear one word I’ve said. “You’re leaving me behind,” she repeats.
“I’m not. I’m taking a detour, and then I’ll be back.”
“All those things you said earlier, they were to pacify me, right? Tell the little victim what she wants to hear.”
“No,” I protest. I realize I’ve fucked up on so many different levels that it will take a land mine specialist to get me out of this mess.
“Take her down to Ipanema. It’s safe there,” Pereya not so helpfully offers from the top of the stairs.
At this, Regan presses her lips together and looks at me militantly.
“I’ve got a tip. A lead on something important. But it’s in a real dangerous place, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
She’s not buying it. There’s no way I’m leaving her with Pereya. I can see it all over her face. With a sigh, I give in. I pack all the ammunition that I’ve bought from Pereya and drape my tactical vest around Regan’s shoulders. Maybe if everyone sees she’s armed, they’ll think twice about pointing a gun in our direction. Maybe.
Thirteen
Regan
THIS MAN IS SO FULL of shit. I won’t leave you behind, Regan. You can trust me, Regan. All lies. All stupid lies. He’s still trying to ditch me.
“It’s not safe for you to go with me,” he tells me, those blue eyes asking for me to understand.
I stare at him.
“I didn’t come this far for you to be killed.”
“And I didn’t come this far to end back up in a whorehouse,” I hiss at him, anger getting the best of me. I used to be such a nice girl. I never argued with anyone. Now I’m constantly screaming at Daniel. But it’s his fault, damn it. If he wasn’t so fired up to ditch me, I wouldn’t lose my shit so often.
He glances over at Pereya, then back at me. “Not here.” He calls over his shoulder, “We need our room again for a bit. See if you can find those jeans and boots for me.” And with that, Daniel grabs me by the arm and hauls me back to the safe room where we’d spent the night.
I let him drag me. That’s fine. His hand is pinching my arm, but if he’s hauling me along, he’s not leaving me behind. That’s all that I ask.
We shuffle back to the safe room, and Daniel flings the door shut, then turns and glares at me. “Okay. We need to talk.”
I adjust the heavy vest he draped over my shoulders. It’s bulky and doesn’t hang right over my boobs, but I’m not going to point that out. Fiddling with it gives me something to do without looking at Daniel. “So talk.”
“This place I have to go today? It’s a dangerous shithole.”
“As opposed to all the other nice, safe playgrounds you’ve taken me to so far?”
“Damn it, Regan, I’m serious. I need to get a tip from a guy in a soccer field that’s the favorite place of the local gangs for microwaving.”
I look up at him, puzzled. “Microwaving?” Somehow I don’t think he means Hot Pockets.
“Yeah. Someone fucks up, you take him out to the field, throw a few tires around him, douse him in gasoline, and set the whole thing on fire. Leaves a nice smoky skidmark to warn everyone else not to make the same mistake.”
I swallow hard. That sounds worse than awful. And Daniel wants to go to this place? Alone? What if he never comes back? What if he leaves me here and I’m sitting with Pereya for weeks, wondering what happened? How long before Pereya decides to sell me to the highest bidder? “Sounds like a shitty place. I’m still going.”
“No,” Daniel says. “I’m in charge of keeping you safe. Taking you there won’t keep you safe. We’re in the middle of some primo gang territory around here.”
“I don’t care!”
“Well, if you don’t give a shit about your life, I do.”
I gasp. How can he say that to me? I’ve clawed and scrambled for every inch of freedom in the last two months. I’ve survived hell. In fact, I’m still trying to escape it. The fact that the one person I can trust is secretly trying to ditch me? It fills me with anger and fury and more than a little hurt. I slap his chest. “You think I don’t care if I live or die? Really?”
Daniel closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath. “Regan, you know what I’m trying to say here…”
“No, you’re saying shitty things to try and get rid of me. I know how you work. You lie and you try to piss people off so they’ll go away. I’m not going away, though. Remember your promise? ‘I’m not leaving you, Regan. I’m going to stay at your side and protect you, Regan.’ What happened to that?”
“It didn’t involve taking you to a killing ground when you can sit here quietly—”
“And what?” I cry, beating a fist on his chest. I’ve smacked him a few times as we argue, but he doesn’t raise a hand to me. I know I shouldn’t hit him; I’m just so fucking frustrated. “What happens if you don’t come back? How long before someone sells the cute American pussy to the highest bidder again?”
His mouth flattens. “You have to trust me, Regan.”
“Trust? Now who’s crazy?” I laugh bitterly and throw my hands up in the air. “You said I was acting crazy when I jumped you, but I’m not so sure. I can guarantee that if you were getting your dick wet, you’d move heaven and earth to make sure I stayed at your side, instead of trying to ditch me. So now who’s crazy, huh?”
He reaches out and grabs the front of the flak jacket. I start to pull away, but he’s only tying together two strings at the neck that will keep it closed. “So,” he says flatly, “you want to talk about trust? How about you jumping all over me as soon as I close my eyes to try and manipulate me into keeping you around? How am I supposed to trust you after that?”
I’m shocked at his words, that he can turn the whole “trust” thing around on me and still make me wince after all this. It hits home. I have been manipulating him. “But . . . you like me,” I protest. “You think I’m sexy.”
“I do,” he agrees, tying the cord into a bow and then reaching for another one under my arm so he can fit the flak jacket tighter to my body. “I think you’re beautiful. I also think my appreciation of you is completely inappropriate, and I would never act on it. Have I done anything at all to make you uncomfortable? Acted inappropriately?”