Mr. Brotella had taken advantage of that.
"I met Mr. Brotella at a bar," she said. "I was applying for a hostess position, and he saw me. He was having a drink there, and while I was waiting for the manager to come take my application, Mr. Brotella said that he had a business and needed new team members. He asked what I'd done before, and when I mentioned accounting, his eyes lit up."
She knew now that it was a set-up. He'd waited for her to say what she liked to do, and then he offered her that very thing. It had been a good ploy. It had worked on her fair and square. She’d been desperate, and she’d fallen for the line.
"He fed me a story about how he needed an accountant, and he set up a time to meet with me.
When I went to his office for the interview, I knew right away that something was wrong. I had a sinking feeling that something bad was going to happen. I just didn't know what."
A growl escaped the lips of the man sitting on the beach, and Zoa's eyes widened. Why had he growled? Somehow, she had the idea that he was angry with Brotella: not with her.
"Tell me," the man said. It was the first time he’d asked for more details, and she nodded. She would tell him what had happened to her.
It was hard to think about what had transpired, though. She’d been applying for so many different jobs, most of which were entry-level, that she had jumped at the chance to get a “real” position. It sounded like the job with Brotella was going to be similar to the work she’d done before. She liked playing with numbers. She liked math. Accounting was something that just made sense to her. Kellen’s offer had been perfectly timed, and she’d been desperate enough not to focus on the red flags.
"He started asking me questions. Everything seemed normal at first. He asked really standard questions. You know, he wanted to know where I’d gone to school. He asked about my previous experience. Then he’d casually asked about my family. He wanted to know if I had relatives in the area.”
It had been a strange question, but she hadn’t thought it was weird enough to get up and leave. In hindsight, she should have lied. She should have said she was living with her mom or that she was in town to spend more time with her dad. She could have told Kellen that she had a boyfriend or someone who cared about her. She could have said anything except was she actually had said, and then maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have taken her.
“I was truthful. My parents are dead. They died a couple of years ago. I really poured myself into work after they passed away, so I’m good at what I do. He seemed pleased by that. I thought it was just because he was glad to have an interviewee who was experienced, but now I know he was just happy nobody would miss me. Then someone brought in drinks for us..."
And that was where her personal safety training had gone out of the window. She knew perfectly well not to accept drinks from strange men, but that had always applied to bars - not business meetings. She had thought that this time, it was safe, but Zoa had been wrong, and it had cost her everything.
"When I woke up, I was in a bedroom in his house. The door was locked. I didn’t know what was happening. I had no idea where I was. I eavesdropped a lot. The air vents in his house...well, the sounds carry more than he knows." She took a deep breath. “He left me alone for a long time, locked up in that room. It didn’t take me long to figure out what he wanted to do to me, though.”
The thought made her sick.
Kellen hadn’t raped her. Not yet. He’d been like a cat with a mouse. He’d played with her over and over, hurting her in different ways, but never going in for the kill. Once he crossed that line, Zoa wasn’t sure if she’d be able to recover. Apparently, Kellen had sensed that weakness in her, so he’d waited.
"He was going to hurt you," the man on the beach said. His voice was low. He sounded tired. He sounded angry.
"He already did." Zoa blushed and then shook her head. "I tried to escape before today, so..."
"What did he do to you?"
Zoa could tell him. Right? It wouldn't be so bad. She could show him. She didn't want to, but somehow, she felt like she owed this man her truthful honesty. She could do this. After all, he’d patiently listened to her story, and he hadn’t seemed to judge her. He’d been angry, but that anger was directed at Kellen: not at her.
She stood up and climbed out of the basket. The man didn't move, and that made her feel a little more comfortable. Then she turned around and pulled off her shirt. She let it fall to the sand, and she heard the man gasp.
So, it was worse than she thought.
Fuck.
She knew her back was torn up. The guy had whipped her just days ago. It still hurt like a fucking bitch. Hell, every time she took her shirt off, the scabs were pulled away from the fabric. She bled a lot. She knew all of that. Being punched after the whipping had been bad enough that she’d passed out from the pain. Still, she’d tried to tell herself that she’d survived it, so it probably wasn’t as bad as she thought it was. This guy’s reaction made her realize just how horrible it really was.
"I'll kill him," the man whispered, but his voice was so quiet that she almost didn't hear him. It sounded like a vow. The promise didn't scare her as much as it probably should have.
It just made her feel...protected.
"May I heal you?" The man asked quietly. She turned around sharply, momentarily forgetting she was topless. Then his eyes dropped to her breasts, and she quickly covered them and blushed. Shit. So, this guy probably thought she was a huge slut now. Great.
But what did he mean?
"What?" Zoa whispered. He’d asked to heal her. What did that even consist of? She realized he was a shifter, of course, but she thought shifters just hurt people. Maybe this guy was the opposite of a shifter. Maybe shifters hurt people, but anti-shifters healed them. She didn’t know. It was all too much, and her head hurt from trying to understand.
"May I heal your wounds?"
Zoa noticed that he asked again in a very polite tone of voice. He spoke to her as though he was speaking to someone very fragile and frail, like a grandmother or a little child.