"Bullet," Ronan said. "That name was all Seth." I could hear the softness in his voice as he said his husband's name.
Even with Ronan at my side as I reached the larger animal, I couldn't stifle my reaction to him. My blood ran cold at the memory of running through the woods with barking dogs quickly catching up to me, then latching onto me and dragging me to the ground.
"Do you want me to put them outside?" Ronan asked, probably because I hadn’t moved in several minutes.
I shook my head. "Can we just talk right here so I can get used to him?" I asked. I knew I was being ridiculous, and the man probably thought I was the biggest coward on the planet, but I didn't want to give up on this. So many of the things in my past that I hadn't had the energy to fight were things that were easy enough to avoid, like encountering dogs and riding in the backs of cars.
Or trusting in people.
"Of course," Ronan said. "What can I do for you?"
"You already did it," I said. "But I never thanked you for any of it. Helping Violet, me… now and two years ago. The methadone program, the apartment, the job… I should have thanked you for all of that sooner, but I guess…"
"You guess what?" Ronan asked gently.
"I guess part of me wasn't actually grateful," I admitted. If I expected judgment, I didn't get it because Ronan continued to look at me in the same way… with understanding. It helped me to continue with my explanation. "I think there were times when I just wanted to have that excuse to go back to the way things were. Especially in those early days. Using was the only thing I really ever knew how to do. It was easy to say, ‘if only,’ but then you and Dante actually gave me that if only. There were no more excuses for losing myself in drugs or selling my body. Or keeping people at a distance. Having all those things meant it wasn't okay to fail. Does that make sense?"
Ronan nodded. "I kept secrets from Seth when we first got together. I told myself it was better for him, but there was a part of me that wanted him to find out so he’d know I wasn't worth it. So that he'd be the one to walk away."
I looked around the hallway, specifically at all the family pictures that lined it. "Guess it didn't work," I said with a smile.
Ronan chuckled. "Not even a little bit." He glanced at the pictures himself and I could see the pure joy in his eyes. I couldn't imagine the man having ever not wanted what he was looking at. As his gaze settled on me again, he said, "And you're very welcome, Remy, for everything. I wish we could have made it so you never had to fight all those battles."
I felt the backs of my eyes stinging. "That's the other reason I came here," I said. "I spent a long time in that world. I know names, I know faces. I remember some of the places they took me. I was never very good in school, but I always had a pretty decent memory. If I tell you stuff, would it help? Would it help get some other kids out?"
"Yes," Ronan said without hesitation. "We may not find a kid today or tomorrow, but even just knowing a name or two will lead to another and another. Getting those people off the streets means saving all the kids they would've hurt. So yes, anything you tell us will help one way or the other."
I nodded, both nervous and relieved. I'd spent so many years dealing with the fallout of being abducted that I hadn't even considered that some good could come from it. I knew that not having shared what I knew hadn’t necessarily made me a selfish person, but watching Gio struggle with everything he'd been through had been an eye-opener in a different way.
I thought about all the kids who were yet to be taken… all the families out there who were going about their lives not knowing what was coming. Maybe I couldn't bring kids home like Luca and his brothers had, but maybe there was another Gio out there who wouldn't lose his mother to an act of violence or have to fight his own mind to remember his father.
It had been over a week since Gio had admitted to remembering Luca, but it hadn't been some quick, joyous reunion. While Gio hadn't reverted to his near vegetative state, he had become very quiet and withdrawn again. There were days that Luca would go to the hospital and just sit in the room with his son, no words spoken between them. But every once in a while, there'd been a sliver of light as Gio would seem to remember some snippet of his childhood and would ask Luca if it were real or not.