Jodie shot a look at Reyna, who held up her hands in surrender.
“You want to help me?” Jodie asked.
“Yes,” Meghan said. “I do.”
Jodie glanced down at her hands where she threaded her fingers together and then apart. “Then why did you never come for me?” It was the first time Jodie had sounded vulnerable. “Why did you leave me in there for ten years?”
Reyna could feel something slice open in Jodie. Her heart ripped and she spilled all the inner turmoil onto the floor. The abandonment, the years of tests, the hopelessness. It all came tumbling out.
Meghan’s eyes welled with tears. “Ten years?”
“You saved Reyna after eight weeks, but left me forever. Left all of those other kids forever? How could you do that?”
“I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I didn’t know, Jodie.”
“How could no one know?”
“I didn’t have access to that information. I had no idea that they had done this or that they had you or even that there were others like you. I found out when I went in and we got you out. I would get everyone out of there if I could. That is what we want long term. What we have always been fighting for.”
“You really didn’t know?” Jodie asked.
“No. And if I had, I would have done something about it. We’re still building up to the resources we need to make a break of that caliber. But I don’t want anyone in there any more than you do, Jodie.”
Jodie deflated. As if all the pomp and swagger she had been riding on had just dissolved. “I have a cousin, June Gardner. They took me from her.” Jodie looked up into Meghan’s face. “Can you help me find her?”
Meghan nodded automatically and shot both girls a bright smile. “Of course. I would love to help you find your cousin. Why don’t we start now?”
“You’re serious?”
“I think she is,” Reyna said.
“What’s the catch?” Jodie asked.
“There’s no catch, Jodie. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that we’re not Visage for it to sink in with you.”
“Probably a few more.”
“Come on. I bet Tony in tech can point us in the right direction.”
“Reyna, do you want to come?” Jodie asked uncertainly.
Reyna nodded. “If you don’t mind me hobbling around?”
Jodie snorted. “I don’t mind.”
“Why are you hobbling around? Are you sick or injured?”
“You could say that,” Reyna muttered.
“She’s been fucked properly.”
Meghan laughed. “Oh dear God, I don’t even want to know.”
Reyna carefully got out of bed and hobbled behind Meghan and Jodie. The idea of finding June had clearly already brightened up Jodie. She seemed more relaxed and less wary. If they could help her, maybe they could help all those people who had been stuck in Visage. One day she was going to make sure that Harrington paid for what he had done to all of those people. For what he had done to Jodie. For what he had done to her.
Chapter 23
“Reyna?” Beckham said casually a few days later.
He was dressed in a sharp black suit that must have been hand-tailored. It was distracting. All she could think about was tearing it off and seeing the magnificent man underneath.
Her eyes snapped back up to his. She got lost in the obsidian staring back. The gleaming dark eyes that sucked her in like a black hole.
“Hmm?” she asked.
“Were you even listening?”
“Um…”
He laughed. “Pay attention.”
“My mind’s on all the ways I was quite adept at paying attention a few days ago.”
He smirked. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Why not? I think I’m pretty good at following your rules.”
“Is that so?”
“Well, I think I got…open your mouth down pretty well. And get on your hands and knees,” she said with a sultry smile as she walked across the room to him. “I’m not sure I’m the best at keep your hands over your head, but I’d give it another shot.”
He grasped both of her wrists in one hand and pressed her back into the wall. His head dipped to the spot between her neck and shoulder. She shivered at the touch. He placed a deliberately slow and enticing kiss there. “You are impossible.”
“Uh-huh,” she said dreamily. Her mind was envisioning all the ways he would take her against this wall again. The bed wasn’t enough. She wanted to fuck him on every surface of this room.
He glanced into her eyes again. “What are you thinking?”
She told him.
“Every surface?” he asked with raised eyebrows.
“I’d like to not be able to walk for two days again.”
“Two days?” he asked, his eyebrows climbing higher. It wasn’t often that she shocked him.
“Yeah. Jodie said I looked like I’d been riding a horse.”
She thought maybe he would worry that he’d hurt her. That had always been his MO before. The monster was going to come out and break her. Blah blah blah. He couldn’t be trusted. Blah blah blah. Something or other.