Chapter Twenty-Eight - Rook

 

I wake suddenly, the rush of my earlier panic attack making me sit straight up before I realize where I am. The dying sunlight from outside filters through the sheer curtains but it's dusky inside as well. Ronin is sitting across the living room from me. I smile at him, trying my hardest not to cry as the words come out. "You came."

He gets up and walks over to the couch, then sits down and sets my head in his lap. "Of course I came, Gidget. I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you." He drags a piece of hair off my forehead and then tucks it behind my ear with a little pink daisy.

My hand goes to the flower and I am overwhelmed with how much he means to me. "I'm sorry," I choke out between half-hidden sobs.

He lets out a soft chuckle and leans down to kiss my forehead. "What in the world do you have to be sorry for?"

"For not telling you I was legally married."

He sighs. "I won't pretend, it hurt a little to find that out from Spencer over the phone, but Rook, we barely know each other. It's not like you lied, it just never came up."

"So you're not mad at me?"

"No, Gidge. I'm not mad. We can talk about that stuff later. How are you feeling?"

I swallow down all my feelings and paint on a happy face. "I'm OK." He's staring down at me with a scowl. "What?"

"You don't look OK, Rook. Tell me the truth now."

The tears build up again and my whole face scrunches up as I try to stop them. "I'm scared, Ronin." He strokes my hair and waits for me to continue, so I take a deep breath. "Why can't he just go away? Why? How arrogant can he be? To put out a missing person's report on me after what he did? It's like he's still claiming me, you know?"

"He's not getting you. Ever. He's never coming near you again, Rook, so just put that thought out of your mind, OK?"

"But now he knows I'm here. There's a missing person's report, what does that mean? Will I have to go back?"

"No, Rook. The report has been cleared now, he knows it was cleared here in Larimer County, and that's it. Spencer and Ford already talked to the deputy who pulled you over and he said they have to file a report because they cleared the missing persons out of the database, but that's all they're required to do. They won't mention Spencer or the shop or anything."

I breathe out a little sigh of relief, but Ronin's not done talking yet. "But the problem is, you told everyone he's a computer forensics specialist?"

I nod up at him as my stomach roils with this 'but'.

"He has to know where you are. There's no way he doesn't know where you are. You've done nothing to hide yourself, your social's on record as working for us, you have a bank account…"

My whole face crumples under this news. "Oh, God."

"But look at it this way, Rook. He hasn't bothered you so he's probably given up."

I snort through my sobs. "He didn't give up. You don't understand. He threatened me! He tried to—"

I stop, because even though this is Ronin and I know he's one hundred percent on my side, admitting that I allowed this monster to do these things to me is so hard. It makes me feel so weak and stupid.

Ronin strokes my cheek. "He tried to what?" he asks softly. "Just tell me, Rook. I'm not gonna judge you and I know it must be hard to talk about, but we need to know what we're up against."

"I didn't want to marry him." I look up at Ronin, pleading with him to believe me. "I didn't. But he took me up to this island in the lake near Michigan, some stupid island where they have no cars. And he told me it was for my birthday, when I turned eighteen. Before that we sorta had to hide because he was already twenty-one when we started dating." I stop and meet Ronin's worried eyes. "I was only sixteen. But I was in a bad foster home and I ran away. I'm not even sure how it happened, but the next minute I was on the streets homeless, just wandering around. And I begged enough money to go inside this diner and get some food, and he was sitting next to me at the counter. I knew it was stupid then, but I was desperate. So I let him take me home.

"It was OK for a while. I turned seventeen a few months later, and he moved us to that dumpy house his uncle left him when he died. And then all the violence and weird shit started. He was always talking about marriage and at first I said no, I'm too young. But after a while that got me a smack and a long lecture about how I belonged to him. So I just agreed. Then he booked this trip to that island for my eighteenth birthday and when we got there we were staying in the honeymoon cabin at this crappy campground on the lake. And—"

I shake my head as I remember it.

"Tell me, Rook."

I look up at Ronin and just blurt it out. "He tried to drown me. He held me under the water that night, he choked me. I thought I was gonna die, Ronin. I swear. He said he'd kill me if I didn't agree to marry him and if I ever tried to leave him, he'd torture me. And I believed him because he had already done so many terrible, terrible things to my body by that time, drowning and torture were just the next logical steps."

Ronin brings his hands up and scrubs them across his face a few times but he says nothing.

"Please, Ronin, tell me what you're thinking right now. Do you hate me?"

He leans down and kisses my forehead one more time. "No, Rook. Hating you is the last thing I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about how easy it would be for us to kill that motherfucker."

"Us? As in me and you?"

He's got a far-off gaze now, just staring out into space. "No, Gidge. Us, as in Spencer, Ford, and me." He looks down and his eyes are blazing with anger. "It would be so easy, you have no idea."

I think back to what Ford said earlier. I'm sure Ronin's going to ask for favors when he comes back. "What do you mean by that, Ronin?"

He sighs and ignores my question. "You wanna stay here tonight? Or you wanna go home? It's only an hour and a half drive home. Wanna go home?"

"What about the footage we need for the show?"

"Fuck the show. We can do that another day."

"But we have to do it though, right? So let's just stay here and do that tomorrow and then it can be over with."

He gets up and takes my hand, pulling me up with him. "Come on, then. Let's wash your face and get something to eat. You hungry?"

I nod and let him take care of everything. There's nothing about this night I want to be responsible for, I just want him to do all of it.

After I splash some cold water on my face and wash off the dirt and tears, Ronin leads me out to the fire pit near the shop where the crews have a big BBQ going. Everyone is standing around joking and drinking. Even Spencer and Ford have eased in with the crowd. No one seems to know that I had a major meltdown or that my ex is a piece of shit woman-beater and is looking for me so he can come back and finish the job. So I just pack all that bad stuff away and quietly stick to Ronin's side.

It feels normal.

Ronin does this.

Ronin makes me feel normal.