I’VE FELT WEAK a few times in my life. Even at ten, I understood weakness. When you have to stand and watch someone die, you understand there’s nothing you can do about it.
The first time I was marked, I felt weak, knowing I couldn’t stop them from branding me.
Letting Lucca walk out that door without me and leaving my sisters in his hands made me feel weak again.
I hold my head high and try to remind myself of all I have survived. All I will survive.
I stay in Lucca’s room for a while. I’m tempted to go downstairs and find Anita, but each time I’m ready to step out into the hall, a security man passes, driving me back inside. Looking out the window, I spot a few security men scattered around the front yard. The amount of security should make me feel more secure, but it doesn’t. It just feels suffocating right now.
“You okay, kitten?” Anita steps into the bedroom. She’s wearing trousers and a black-and-white polka dot shirt. The band in her hair is the same fabric and design as her outfit. She looks glamorous but cheap.
But it’s the kindness that pours from her that I cling to.
“No,” I answer honestly.
She enters the room. “Anything I can help with?”
I’m ready to tell her no. I don’t think she will help me leave, or Lucca wouldn’t have left me with her, but she could help me in another way.
“It’s Lucca,” I start.
She pulls at one of the large loops on her ear before sitting down on the bed. “Isn’t it always?” Her smile is similar to his.
“He was telling me about growing up in camp, and it hurt my heart.”
Anita grows serious, and I think I’ve taken this in the wrong direction.
“He told you about camp?” Disbelief coats her words.
“Yes. It sounded brutal.”
She nods, and her silver eyes darken. I take the moment to sit down beside her.
“My brother is so strong.”
I take her hand in mine. “You must have missed him so much.”
“I did. He was like a father to me. Our own was an absolute waste of space.” Anita pulls at her earring again and rolls her eyes. Her gaze has lightened like she’s referred to her father as that a million times.
“He spent our whole lives behind bars.”
I nod like I knew that.
“My mother always believed that was why Lucca went to the camp. That he wanted to be the man our father never was.”
It’s a drop in the ocean. It’s small, minor, some might even say insignificant, information, but the fact it’s about Lucca is enough to try to connect the dots.
“Your mother—is she still alive?” I ask.
Anita releases my hand and shakes her head. “She died a few years back.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks, kitten.” Anita stands, and I think that’s all the information I’m going to get out of her.
“What about you? Your parents in the land of the living?”
The question has a hand reaching in and squeezing my heart. I always believed they were, that one day they would find me. I believed that for eight years, that my dad would come and take me back to the shore of County Clare.
“I don’t know.”
Anita is staring at me like she’s waiting for me to expand, but I have no idea what more I can add to that statement.
“You hungry?” she asks.
I’m not, but I find myself nodding my head. I sit in the large spacious kitchen as she makes us a sandwich. I’m stuck in my head for a while, and we eat in silence. We both glance as security moves every few minutes past the door.
Anita rolls her eyes. “Lucca being dramatic.”
I smile at her words. I didn’t think Lucca could ever be dramatic. He was the least dramatic person I ever met.
It’s like my thoughts of Lucca conjure him as he pauses outside the kitchen.
Anita is up.
“What the hell happened to you?”
Lucca waves her off and turns to me. “Take your sandwich to your room.” He sounds angry with me, and I’m not sure why. I don’t pick up the sandwich but get up.
His face is cut pretty bad, and I want answers about my sisters. This doesn’t install much confidence in me.
“My sisters?” I ask.
“Sisters?” Anita repeats, her head jerking between Lucca and me, the large earring swinging widely.
“They weren’t there,” Lucca answers me, and my legs grow weak.
“You’re lying,” I fire back. I want it to be a lie.
“I said they weren’t there, Evie.” He turns away from me, and I’m moving toward him. He spins back around before I reach him. “They had been there, but they aren’t now.”
A lump forms in my throat, and an ache in my heart has me fighting the burning sensation at the back of my nose.
“You were attacked?” I reach up but don’t touch his face.
“It’s a flesh wound,” he answers.
Anita lets out a heavy breath, and I step away from her brother.
“You look like you went a few rounds with Jackie Chan.”
Lucca holds up his hands, a serious expression on his face, and Anita falls silent.
Lucca leaves the room, and I follow him. He glances back at me several times but doesn’t stop me as I follow him into the bathroom. The blood staining the front of his shirt still leaks from the cut on his face.
Lucca opens a glass cabinet and takes down some disinfectant wipes, along with some adhesive strips, and places them on the sink.
“Let me help.” I don’t wait for him to agree but reach around him for the disinfectant wipes. I meet his gaze in the mirror, and he holds it for a moment before turning to me.
He still hasn’t moved. “Do you want to sit down?” He’s so much taller than I am, and at this angle, it won’t be easy.
“No.” His jaw tightens.
I take out a wipe and step closer to Lucca until I’m surrounded by the smell of his cologne. His large hands hang at his side, and I try to focus on the task at hand.
I dab the wipe carefully across his cheek. The cut is deep, the skin puckered. I continue to clean the wound in silence before getting the strips and placing them across the cut, keeping it sealed. Lucca doesn’t move a muscle as I bandage him up.
“What did you find?” I finally ask, placing the second to last strip on his cheek.
“They were in the warehouse.”
My fingers falter, and I look into liquid silver eyes.
“I found where they had been sleeping. They were all together.”
Pain radiates across my body. I didn’t think the idea of them still together would make me feel homesick, but it does.
I pick up the final strip and press it to Lucca’s cheek.
“Do you think…” I look back up into Lucca’s eyes. “Do you think they’re still alive?”
“They are too valuable to kill.”
My stomach churns at the honesty of his words.
“So yes, I do believe they are alive.”
“You were attacked? Did you find out anything from your attacker?”
I’m praying that he did, but Lucca turns away from me and faces the mirror. “You did a neat job.”
His remark on my bandaging him up shouldn’t have any impact on me, but it does.
“Thank you.”
Lucca faces me. There’s a vulnerable look in his eyes like I’ve never seen before, and my heart starts to race.
“The men who attacked me are all dead. I didn’t get to question them.”
My stomach squeezes at the thoughts of him killing someone. But I’m not stupid. I knew that, but it was something I had pushed to the back of my mind, along with so much more.
“There was a man who saw the girls being placed into a van.” Lucca breaks eye contact and starts to remove his bloody shirt.
My heart thumps painfully in my chest. The girls are strong. We had already come through the worst. But Leah isn’t like us. She’s fragile. I can imagine her being placed in a van, maybe blindfolded. She would be terrified, but the other girls would take care of her. They have to.
“I’m sorry, Evie.” Lucca’s words have my head whipping up to him.
He sounds so sincere, which isn’t like him.
Heavy footsteps have Lucca moving me aside. I follow to see Anita in the bedroom.
“Igor is here.” Worry is etched into her words. Lucca moves past his sister and removes his shirt before placing a new one on.
“He’s here to take me back,” I say. I knew this day would come. But now that he’s here in Lucca’s house, fear squeezes my throat and the room tilts. I reach for the wall. “Please.” The air grows thin, and I have no idea what I’m begging him to do.
Lucca won’t look at me as he puts on his shirt.
“Lucca.” I plead his name, but he still won’t look at me. Too many things swirl through my mind. I don’t want to leave Lucca is one thought, which is crazy. But being with him gives me hope that I might get out of being sold.
Frustration claws up my throat, and I want to lash out.
“Stay with Evie. Don’t come out of this room no matter what.”
Lucca’s words to his sister pierce my veil of pure panic. I’m not going down. He’s leaving me up here. It doesn’t mean he won’t come back, but it gives me time to convince Anita not to let them take me.
Lucca leaves the room. Anita is staring at the door before she turns to me.
“I’m going to be sold,” I tell her.
She doesn’t respond, but she looks out of place as she pulls at her loopy earrings.
“I’m a virgin. That’s what they’re selling me for.” I push away from the wall.
Anita shakes her head, wild curls bouncing everywhere. “He won’t let them take you.”
Her words have no force behind them, and I half laugh and half cry.
“You think he will stop Igor?”
“I don’t know, Evie.” Anita turns away from me, and I don’t want her to ignore me.
“You can help me.” I move around her so I’m looking at her. “Please! You can help me get out of here.”
She’s shaking her head. “You really picked the wrong girl.” Anita looks at me with sympathy in her eyes. “I’m sorry, but I would never betray my brother.”
“I’m being trafficked, along with six other girls.”
She turns away, but I don’t stop.
“They took me at the age of ten.”
Her shoulders are hunched like she can fend off my words.
“They took me from my parents.” My voice breaks.
“They stole me.” I want to scream it at the top of my lungs so she will listen.
“They stole all of us. How is that right?”
Anita swings around. “It’s not.” Her voice rises. “But, I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
I blink and tears fall. I’m looking at the window, and for a split second, I think about opening it and jumping. Would I break my legs, my neck? Would it be a better fate than being sold? Or would I land on my feet?
I move to the window. Anita doesn’t stop me, but I can see why she doesn’t care. The yard has security everywhere and not just Lucca’s but also Igor’s men.
I turn back to Anita, who is watching me. I think if I had the power to help someone, I would do it. I wouldn’t be like Anita.
My mind trails back to the moment in the loading bay when I huddled behind the crates, ready to leave my sisters behind. My cheeks grow red. I didn’t take them with me, but I would have sent help. That much I know.
I hold my head and jut out my chin at Anita. “You are as bad as the rest of them.” I say my words clearly before sitting on the bed to await my fate.