Even if she wasn’t vulnerable to possession, which she obviously is, just thinking about this has to be hard for her. She’s living her life, and we’re just…demanding her time, asking her to do things for us.
She was the most obvious solution, but if we need to use her to help Tom, then I guess we need to come to terms with the fact that we might not be able to help the kid at all.
"You don’t owe us anything," I say, looking into her glimmering chestnut eyes. "And you might get hurt."
"You might," Salinas says from behind me, sounding far more relaxed than he has any right to be. "But you might also get answers. You want answers, right, Trine? That’s why you decided to meet up with us again in the first place."
"Ignore him," I say, aware that she’s not going to. "I’ll drive you back to your apartment and we can forget this ever happened."
"The priest is right, though. I do want answers."
"You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do," Woods says softly from behind her, taking a step toward her, and his hand is on her waist before I can process what’s happening. She doesn’t turn to look at him, but blood rushes to her cheeks and she has to clear her throat before she speaks again.
I don’t let go of her shoulders. I don’t see why I should have to, and she has yet to shrug me off.
It seems like she doesn’t know what to do with herself, not until Woods leans down to speak in her ear. It’s not a whisper; we can all hear him, and I’m sure he wants it exactly that way.
"Don’t worry, we’ll protect you," he says. "Whatever happens, we’ll be there."
Trine closes her eyes, her breath shaky. "Okay," she says, her eyes shooting open again, meeting my gaze as her jaw hardens. "Okay, I’ll do it."
When she looks at me, I clamp my mouth shut. I’m not sure why or how I know this, but I realize that at this point, there’s nothing in the world I can say to convince her otherwise.