“Mm-hmm. Well, on the side of it, in the trees.”
“And then what?”
“I got off the highway at exit seventeen because it said Pine Street. And then I walked until I found Hive.”
“Didn’t you see anyone? Ask for help?”
“I hid.”
Sure. Once she got off the highway there were plenty of alleys and doorways to duck into and his part of town wasn’t exactly hopping in the middle of the night or any other time really.
“How did you get to exit fourteen?”
Cosima shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Were you blindfolded?” he offered, trying to puzzle this out. How could she not know?
“I don’t know.”
“Were you…were you in the trunk of a car?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated, her voice sharper, more defensive. “I just woke up there, okay?”
This time the noise Eric made was strangled and Hudson was right there with him although he did his best to keep his reactions in check. Sure, sure. This fucker had dumped an unconscious woman by the side of the highway. Sounded about right.
“Okay,” he said, rubbing a thumb over the back of her hand. Fuck it was brutal just listening to her talk about it, he couldn’t imagine what it had been like to experience anything she’d gone through.
He hated to use her kind nature as a battering ram but telling her she might be able to help other people had seemed like the best way to get her to talk. And maybe she wouldn’t share any information for her own sake, but that’s sure as fuck what he’d be using it for. To hunt this asshole down and destroy him.
“I’m sorry if I’m really awkward. It’s hard for me to talk about and I’m sure it’s even harder for you. Can you… Cosy, please. I’m begging you. Can you give me his name? You don’t have to say it out loud if it’s too scary. You can whisper it in my ear or write it down. Use Morse code if you know it, but I can’t stand the idea of this happening to anyone else. I hate so much that it happened to you and I didn’t do anything to stop it.”
She gazed at him for a long moment, one of her amber gold eyes still mostly swollen shut, and he squeezed her hand. If she didn’t tell him it wouldn’t be the end of the world. He’d keep trying.
But then she turned to pick up a pen and a pad of paper from the stand beside her bed and set her jaw in a line of grim determination and began to write. Brave, brave little girl.