Over the top of her head buried in his shoulder, he said, “Guys, this is my sister, Rosie.”
Well before she was ready, he put her down with a muttered, “Let go,” and she knew the mistake she’d made was serious, her reaction way too intense for siblings.
With her feet firmly on the ground, some distance between them, and the awareness she’d caused a scene and they were still the center of attention, she played for the laugh.
“You smell like you rolled in dead things and the dead things rose up and barfed all over you.”
It wasn’t the wittiest line, but it got a roar of response, and it was the best she could do when all she wanted was to snap her fingers and disappear them both to a luxury hotel with room service, a huge tub, fluffy robes, and a bed big enough that Zeke could pass out in it for days. She’d doze in a chair, read and watch over him, make sure he didn’t disappear again.
“Hungry enough to eat a house. Think you can rustle something up?” he said.
She made a disgusted face. “I’m not coming within two feet of you till you boil that stink out.”
He lunged for her. “What? It’s good honest clean sweat.”
“It’s gross.” She ducked under his swinging arm, before he could smother her, and backed off, hitting peak teenager with the line, “I hate you,” before fleeing to the kitchen, to the tune of rude male laughter, her face hot enough to be used as a skillet.
For the first time her corner, her window away from everyone, was welcoming. She could stand there until her heart stopping jogging around her chest, until the pulse point in her neck quit trying to strangle her.
Of course he was safe. He was just off somewhere playing in the dirt and making friends. It was only the first week here and she knew they were trying to break her, and they’d done a superb job. Isolating her, ignoring her, manipulating the situation so that she felt powerless and alone and made a spectacle of herself.
This was so very different to the cons she usually ran but God, she needed to up her game to four-dimensional chess if she was going to avoid making dangerous mistakes.
She knew what came next. Once they were satisfied she was truly vulnerable, the love bombing would begin. It wouldn’t happen until they judged her broken down enough, ready to be grateful for the change in her circumstances.
There’d be offers of friendship, a more suitable job, opportunities to fit in and flattery to make her feel secure and comfortable again. It would be just as predatory in its own way as her isolation was, designed to make her feel dependent on those showering her with understanding and affection, to never want to go back to the time when she was sidelined and irrelevant.
For someone not prepared for this, the consequences would be devastating. The result: a coerced loyalty and dependence on a culture that only pretended to have your best interests at heart and could turn the love on and off at will, making it impossible to keep your balance, to think independently and act freely, leaving you always on guard and full of nervous pretense.
This little episode was an ass-kicking reminder to be better prepared.
Since she wasn’t breathing like she might hyperventilate anymore, her face had stopped flaming, and the activity in the kitchen was winding down, she could leave and Macy couldn’t complain she was shirking her responsibilities. She could’ve left anytime, and it’d been tempting, three times a day, but the more defiant she was, the longer her punishment would go on, and if they knew about the bunch of keys she’d taken from the belt loop of one of the men who strong-armed her out of HQ, they’d have a reason to go medieval on her.
She waited until Macy made eye contact, acknowledging her in her defined place, until the cleaning crew arrived, and she made for the door of the dining room, standing in the shadows waiting for Zeke.
She could see him drinking something in a pottery mug through a join in the open door she hid behind. She didn’t want to have to share him with anyone this time. One by one the men in his posse finished up and left the dining hall until he was alone with just the clean-up crew.
He came through the door with his pack over his shoulder and his awareness in the shadows where he’d know she’d be. He saw her before she had a chance to step out from her hiding place, moving into the darkness with her.
He looked like trash, his weariness coming off him in waves. She wanted to touch him all over, check him for bumps and breaks and burns but she contented herself to smooshing her face into his arm. “I mean it about how bad you smell.”
He rubbed a hand through his hair and a shower of grit fell on her, making her jump back. “Christ, I know. I’d like to burn these clothes. There was no water for bathing. I ache all over and I’m so tired I’m insensible.” He peered at her. “Are you okay?”
Stick together. She would be now that he was here, and they could talk. “I’m sorry about in there.” She gestured back to the now empty dining room. “I overreacted.”
“No one told you where I was.”
“I raised the roof trying to find out.”
He groaned. “That’s fucked. I think you covered up okay. They’d be expecting a reaction.”
That was what saved her bacon. “I spent all week putting my hand in my pocket searching for my phone wanting to call you.”
He yawned. “They haven’t returned them.”
She shook her head, taking his pack from his shoulder and lowering it to the ground. “The hand?”
“Nothing. I live in a cabin with four other men and a Longhorn skull on the porch. You got any idea how I find it?”