“Who’s Mylandra, Gia?”
“She’s hell come to reclaim an escaped inmate.”
“Where are you going?”
“Anywhere but
here.”
He stepped closer to her slowly. “And what are you going to do there?”
“Become someone else. I did it before and I’ll do it again, as many times as I have to.”
“No, baby.” He took the shirt from her hands and tossed it behind him. “You don’t run from the kind of trouble that can follow you across an ocean. You’ll always be looking over your shoulder and no matter how far and how fast you flee, it’ll never be enough.”
Her eyes flashed at him. “What the fuck do you know, Lefty? You know bullshit about what
I’ve been through. I won’t do it again. Nothing you or Demon says is going to keep me here, waiting around like a fucking sitting duck. Do you know what they do to girls who run and get caught?”
Her words were a sucker punch he’d never seen coming.
“Do you, Lefty?” She turned his name into a mockery.
His voice box stopped working. What do I say to that? Did she expect an answer? He shook his head no.
“That’s right, you fucking don’t. I’ve lived through shit, seen shit that would curdle your stomach, biker.” She fixed her gaze on him and stepped forward. “You ever been taken against your will? Over and over until all you could do was retreat so far into the back of your mind you didn’t give a shit what happened to you, or even know if you were dead or alive? You ever wake up with so many bodily fluids on your skin you throw up and it’s all you can do to drag your bruised and battered body out of the bed to the shower?”
The images painted in his head made him want to wretch. How could someone do this to
another person—to my Gia? How could she hold all this inside? He opened his mouth and closed it, shaking his head. He was shit even at the easiest of female crises, and this was some shrink level crazy.
“And there it is. That deer in the head lights, pity-filled stare I never wanted to see.” She pulled at her hair. “I can’t stay here. I can’t be her, not again.” She stepped away from him and paced the room.
Her maniac behavior somehow snapped him into action. “You won’t have to.”
“No, you don’t understand. Taffy and I were her favorites. She liked us. God, the things she made us do. She did.” Gia covered her mouth and ran for the bathroom on the other side of the room.
Lefty sank down on the edge of the bed, shaken. She just dropped the equivalent of a house on top of him. Rubbing his sweaty palms on his jeans, he patched together a plan. He would take her back to his place, talk her down, and call Pres. This shit was too heavy for him to make calls on solo. He understood the feeling of being helpless and feeling used. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His chest constricted and his mind raced. No person, man or woman, was
impenetrable. Everyone had their own experience with exploitation. But not to this degree.
* * * *
Gia swiped the back of her hand. Fuck. She never meant to run off at the mouth. Once she’d started talking, she couldn’t stop. Too many years of hiding turned her into a dam with a massive crack. Once the trickle of water got into the crevice, she was done for. The look of horror and shock in his eyes would be etched into her mind forever. She rubbed her gurgling stomach and rested her head against the side of the sink.
After all this time, she could feel those feelings of unworthiness and dirtiness creeping up inside of her and spreading like a thick black tar coating her insides. Her first instinct was to take a scalding hot shower, but she knew it would never rinse off the stain. No amount of scrubbing her skin had ever made her feel clean again.
Forcing her body to a standing position, she flushed the toilet and rinsed out her mouth. She always kept money in an offshore account under an alias for emergencies. She could live off of it comfortably for a while, if need be. What am I doing? Isn’t this why I aligned myself with bikers? In case this moment ever happened? If I run now, will I ever be able to stop?
Foresight didn’t mean shit right now. The thought of facing her past terrified her. Maybe I’m not a strong as I thought. She dropped her head, ashamed. It’d taken her years to even think about escaping and longer afterward to gather the courage to do it. If it wasn’t for Taffy, I might still be in that hell. The thought of her fallen friend energized her. I owe her this. The thought sobered her hysteria. She met her gaze in the mirror and balled her fists. All the years she’d spent hiding while others suffered and she did nothing. Now, it was her time to make a difference. She couldn’t shut down the entire skin trade…but just maybe, she could topple one.
Clinging to the kernel of bravery planted in her chest, she smoothed out her clothing and
walked out of the bathroom with her mask firmly in place. She learned early on to never let people see inside you to the torment playing on a loop. People used weakness to their own
advantage, and things always went smoother when you almost convinced yourself you were past caring.
Lefty rose from the bed and eyed her cautiously.