He smiled from one side of his face to the other. “I’m free, Em. I haven’t felt like this in a really long time. I feel as though I’m starting with a brand-new life.”
I wiped the rest of the blood away, focused on my task. I had to scrub pretty hard to get the dry blood out of his hair.
“You’re worried,” he surmised. “What are you worried about?”
I chuckled. That was a loaded question. What wasn’t I worried about? “You come back with your face beaten to a pulp, and you wonder why I’m worried?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been beat up far worse than this.”
“That’s really comforting. I suppose we’ll have to keep a bucket of ice around if you’re going to live here.”
“Fighting used to be my life. But not anymore. I’m starting over, starting right now. I’ll never go back to that life again.”
I stopped and held on to the blood-soaked washcloth.
And he looked at me. “What?”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Griff wanted out of the underworld. And I wanted back in.
I sighed. “Never ever say never.”
He grabbed my hand and steadied it over his face, so that I was forced to look at him.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I won’t ruin this chance that I’ve been given. I won’t hurt you like that.”
Yeah. Like I’d never heard that before.
“You don’t believe me?” he asked.
“Close your eyes,” I grumbled. I put the wet cloth over his eyes, partly because his right eye was starting to swell shut, partly because I couldn’t stand him examining me like that anymore. It was like he was trying to get to me, to the Emily who was hiding behind the armor. It made me want to cry. And I was done crying.
It didn’t take long for Griff to fall asleep. I would have loved to follow suit, but he was taking up most of my bed. He emitted so much heat that it was like sleeping with roast beef. I finally gave up and left Meatball and Griff to fight each other with their snores.
I grabbed a spoon and jar of peanut butter from the kitchen and went to find my mail. The “dining room” was the place where we had a table, one that someone had put on the side of the road with his or her garbage and that my roommates had rolled back to the house, balancing it on two grocery carts. There were no chairs around it, but it made a great surface for gathering everyone’s junk and for storing empty beer cases.
I pulled a stack of boxes from under the table and sat on the stack, cuddling my jar. I was beyond starving. It was as though my stomach had grown a hole and everything I had ever eaten in my life had totally disappeared.
The carpet was sticky and crunchy. Someone from the party must have spilled something on the floor and used newspaper to soak it up or try to hide it.
And they criticize Meatball for being an animal, I sneered to myself.
While I was digging into the peanut butter jar, I was kicking at the newspapered floor. A picture on the front page of the paper diverted my attention. With the spoon still in my mouth, I bent over and pulled the paper off the floor.
I slid my fingers along its edges and got a paper cut. At least I knew I wasn’t dreaming.
There were allegations of corruption, of embezzlement, of fraud. Millions of dollars had been misappropriated … allegedly. Someone had been arrested and set free on bail. And in the middle of all this was a picture of a gray-haired man in an Armani suit—my father, in handcuffs, being led out of his office building. He was smiling, and so was his lawyer at his side.
I could probably count on my fingers the number of times I had seen my father growing up. He was more of a mythic figure in our household. On par with the Easter bunny, I supposed. But I always knew he wasn’t a figment of my imagination, because the father I had made up as a girl was a dentist who came home every night to make sure that I brushed my teeth.
Whether my father was at the office or he decided to stay home one odd day, there was always a reason. All reasons always lead to business. If he was home, that meant that someone important was coming over and I had to ensure to appear and disappear on command. Apart from the fact that he had been to a fancy law school—something that my mother would never let me forget—and had taken over the family empire, I knew very little of what my father did for a living. The newspaper article enlightened me on what he actually did, or at least how he was making so much money, allegedly.
From the smile on my father’s face, it seemed as though this had all been one major misunderstanding, one that the government would be paying dearly for. I wished I knew my father well enough to know if he were guilty or not. If he were guilty, the newspaper reporter surmised that the Sheppard empire could implode.
The paper was dated a few days earlier. How was it that I hadn’t heard of this until now?
While I was engrossed in my father’s smile, a glass of milk had come around my shoulder and been placed on the table in front of me.
“Milk might help that peanut butter go down even faster, if that’s possible,” Griff whispered.
I stashed the paper between my legs and yanked the spoon out of my mouth while Griff pulled a stack of beer boxes from under the table.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked.
I shook my head and took a big gulp of milk.
“I’ve been told more times than I can remember that I’m a blanket hog. Sorry. Should have warned you.”
I cracked a smile and arched a brow. “So, you’ve stolen a lot of other girls’ blankets, huh?”
He laughed. “Yeah. That’d be a better story.” Then he cleared his throat. “Nah. I used to have to share a bed with my two older brothers. They used to beat me up in the middle of the night when they got cold. That is, until I got bigger than them.”
Griff’s face was swollen, scratched, and bruised in spots. His hair went every which way. And he was completely relaxed. I could see the boy that he had once been, that he was becoming again. I couldn’t help myself from staring at him.
While I had been studying Griff, he had been studying me. Under the light of the kitchen, in the quiet darkness of the house, with nothing else to do but look at each other, I had all of a sudden become a little shy. By the ruddiness of Griff’s cheeks, I wasn’t the only one.
I smiled, and he smiled back. And we both chuckled a bit at our awkwardness.
Eventually, the smile left his lips, and he really assessed me.
“You’ve changed in the past couple months,” he told me.
“Have I?” I remarked, while I took up my love affair again with the peanut butter.
I could feel his eyes on my face. “You seem older. And a little sadder, I guess.”
“And here I thought the dim lighting was doing me a favor,” I said.
But Griff remained serious.
I had about a million questions for Griff. And I knew he had a million questions for me too, none of which I was prepared to answer. Where was I supposed to start? How much could I tell him?
“I’m sorry,” he said, interrupting my thoughts.
I cocked my head. “Whatever for?”
“I wasn’t there for you. I didn’t keep my promise of getting you out. Before it was too late.”
“I’m still here, aren’t I? I’m alive.”
He searched my face. “Are you?”
I gave him a blank look when I really wanted to stick out my tongue.
“Your roommates are worried about you,” he said.
I had a hard time believing this. “When did you have time to talk to my roommates? I’ve hardly seen you in the last week.”
“That Hunter kid won’t shut up. If he doesn’t let me sleep soon, I may have to choke him to sleep.”
I couldn’t tell if Griff was kidding. “Was this before or after you paid my rent?”
He only shrugged in answer to my question. “Do you really think no one notices you?”
Meatball came up and laid his head on my lap. I gave him a spoonful of peanut butter, which had
him smacking his lips and tongue loudly.
“I’m not exactly tight with my roommates.”
“You come back, bruised up, with a dog. You hide in your room. You don’t eat—”
“Is that what they told you?” A demand more than a question.
“I can see for myself, Em. I see how skinny you’re getting. I look at you, and I’m afraid you’re going to turn into a ghost soon. What happened over the summer … you can’t keep that stuff inside. Do any of your roommates know what happened to you this summer?”
“Did you tell them?” I hissed.
“Tell them what?” Griff was trying to keep his voice low. “I don’t even know what happened. One day I’m guarding some sleazeball’s house, thinking that my life is basically over. I’m in the darkest place I’ve ever been, and all of a sudden, this beautiful girl shows up. She’s this amazing person, and she makes me want to stay there forever. Then I realize that she’s not there of her own free will and I’m ready to put my life on the line to save her. Just as I’m planning to escape with her, to set us free, I get shipped off to a barn in the middle of nowhere where I have nothing to do but worry about my girl. I imagine the worst, and there’s nothing I can do because I’m being watched all day and all night. Until a couple weeks later when that beautiful girl walks in with the sleazeball, the worst person in the world. She smiles at me. Even though she shouldn’t be smiling. I smile back because I can’t help myself and she’s clearly delusional.”
“He wasn’t the worst person in the world,” I whispered, the blood rushing to my head.
“I start thinking of another escape plan and ways of trying to find my beautiful girl. Ways to try to save both of us again. Before I know it, I’m sent to be with her in this shithole, and I still have no idea who she is. And yet …”
Griff stopped to catch his breath.
“And yet?” I started for him once he had regained his composure.
“And yet,” he said, shaking his head, “I’m exactly where I want to be.”
Griff took my glass and finished my milk for me. Then he gently put the glass in front of him and waited … for me to speak? I felt dizzy. I had to lean over the table and rest my forehead on my hands. I didn’t know what to think, let alone say.
“Why are you here, Em?” he wondered, his voice serene.
“Because I go to school here,” I told him. That was the simple answer anyway.
“You know that’s not what I meant,” he said. “Why are you still here? On this earth? Alive?”
I froze and looked at him. He was so wound up, but I could tell that he was trying hard to keep calm for me.
“Do you really think no one notices these?” he whispered. He reached over and passed his thumb over the scar Victor had left on my cheek. I flinched, expecting pain. But the scars were healing, and the physical pain was gone. Only the heat of Griff’s thumb against my skin was left.
I managed a smile. “Are we comparing scars now? Because I fell off my bike when I was nine and got a really good gash on my knee.”
Griff’s lips spread thin. “Whatever happened, whoever did that to you, they deserve to die.”
I suppose that this was what I had been hoping for. A partner in revenge. But the dark look on Griff’s face made me miss the new Griff, the one who was free, the one who was never going back.
“Do you even want me here?” he asked me. I could see the despair in his eyes.
And my heart was already screaming the answer to this. I nodded and held his eyes, trying very hard to keep my tears at bay.
Then I pulled the newspaper from between my legs, held it for a few seconds, and handed it over to him.
I cleared my throat. “This is me.”
I waited as Griff scanned the article and the picture. He glanced back up and waited patiently for me to explain.
I took a breath. “My name is Emily Sheppard. And this man is my father. I’m still alive because of my family.”
Griff nodded. “So you’re still alive because your family paid your ransom.”
A nervous laugh escaped my lips. I doubted my parents would ever pay my ransom, especially now. “No, I’m alive because my parents are rich, and eventually, people would have figured out that I was missing. My face would have been plastered all over the news, and finding out what happened to me would have become a popular subject for every news agency around the world. Drug lords don’t need that kind of publicity.”
A wrinkle formed between Griff’s eyes. I could see him trying to understand this, as Spider had made me understand.
“Okay,” he said slowly. “You’re Emily Sheppard. Rich Emily Sheppard.”
“My parents are rich,” I corrected.
“Your parents are rich,” he said, trying to keep himself from looking too amused. “And you can’t afford to pay your rent in this crappy place?”
I was happy for the change in mood, even if it was at my expense. “I was going to pay my rent. I just needed a bit more time.”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s not the point—”
“You told me earlier that everything comes at a price. The same applies to my parents. Their money, their rules.” I pointed to the newspaper article. “You can see what kind of rules they live by. Money isn’t everything.”
“Says the girl who’s never had to share a bed with her siblings,” he joked.
But this had really hurt my feelings.
He leaned over and squeezed my shoulder so that I would look at him. Then he extended his hand, and I took it.
“It’s nice to meet you, Emily Sheppard.”
As Griff shook my hand, my heart tugged and squeezed. The blood rushed to my head again. All I could see was Cameron walking in the rain after I had crashed the car. We had shaken hands, in truce, in this same way.
“Hey,” Griff bellowed, “where’d you go?”
I forced myself to start breathing again.
“Did you really mean what you said earlier? About never going back into that world?”
Griff’s eyes darkened. “Why?”
“Do you remember the kid?” I asked, trying to keep myself composed.
He nodded somberly. “Of course I remember him. He was a great kid. I liked him a lot.”
“His name was Rocco.” Saying Rocco’s name aloud had felt like someone had just lit a match against my lips. “The night that Rocco died … I was there. He got killed trying to protect me. I saw everything … ”
I had started shaking. Griff grabbed me by the shoulders and steadied me. “I knew that the kid got somehow caught up … but I had no idea you were there. Jesus!”
I could see it in his eyes. The compassion. But that wasn’t what I was going for. I pulled his hands down and used my own hands to steady him.
“The people who are responsible for Rocco’s death are the same people who are responsible for what happened to me.”
Griff stared back at me, his eyes falling on the marks that Victor had left on my face.
“Em—” he started, his voice low-slung.
My face twisted. “I’m not looking for pity, Griff.”
“What are you getting at?”
I knew this was a pivotal moment. I had to decide whether I could trust him and tell him about my plans.
“I’m trying to tell you that I agree with you. That the people who are responsible for this need to die.”
He frowned. “Yes, I do feel that way. What happened to you, someone needs to pay for this. But if I’m understanding you correctly, I don’t think we’re on the same page as to who should make them pay for it.”
I bit my lip. I knew I’d have a hard time convincing Griff that this was what needed to be done. I had to try harder.
“Did you know that Rocco was only fourteen? They shot him down when he wasn’t even armed.”
Griff considered this and sighed. “How many people are we talking about?”
“Just two.”
“Just two,” he repeated in a mumble. “Let
me guess. The creep who walks around like he’s a god. The big boss man. The one you followed into the barn?”
I could feel my throat closing. “No. He’s long gone. I’m talking about the guy who used to work for him. The one with the spider tattoo on his neck.”
“Sheesh. Okay, so that’s psycho number one. Who’s psycho number two?”
“His name is Shield. His men killed Rocco, and he personally left his impression on my face.”
Griff took a moment to let all this sink in, his finger nervously tapping the table in front of him.
“Em, I’m sorry all this happened to you—”
“I already told you, Griff, I’m not looking for pity,” I said, my voice cold and steady. “I’m looking for your help.”
“What you’re asking is ridiculous,” he exclaimed. “What exactly is your plan? To march in with a gun and shoot these scumbags while their millions of armed minions look the other way?”
“That’s why I need your help.”
Griff got up, and I watched and waited as he paced the dining room.
He stopped and kneeled before me. “No,” he said, keeping my eyes.
“No?” I repeated, incredulous.
“No, I won’t help you. And no, I won’t let you do this.”
Heat rose to my cheeks. “You won’t let me?”
“I won’t let you put yourself in that kind of danger. These men you’re after, they eat girls like you with their afternoon tea. You’re safe now, and that’s how I’m going to keep it.”
“No, I’m not safe. They’ll eventually come after me.”
He squinted. “Why would they do that? Why would they have let you go just to come back to take you again?”
My hand had made its way to my stomach, but I pulled it away before he could notice.
Griff scowled. “Emily, are you telling me everything?”
I grabbed my stack of mail and pushed away from the table. I got up, and he followed my lead.
“I’m going to do this with or without your help,” I told him, holding his glare.
He pushed a strand of hair away from my face. “Then I won’t leave your side. Ever. I need you to stay safe, Emily. The fact that you’re still alive, the fact that you’re still in one piece, is a miracle. I’m not going to throw that away.”