Three, Two, One (321)
Page 48

I walk back to my room and get back in bed with Blue.
“What was that about?”
“Nothing,” I say, pulling her close to me again. I like the way she smells right now. It’s a mixture of the three of us. “I need to take you to the clinic today. Get some pills.”
“No,” she says, very firmly.
“What do you mean no? I came inside you. You’re not on any birth control. We need to be more careful, so that involves a trip to the clinic.”
“I’m not leaving.”
Hmmm. So it is true. She’s confining herself inside. “Why not?”
She turns in bed so she’s facing me. “I panic when I have to go outside. That’s why when you found me, I was all shaky and out of breath. I was trying to hide under that awning, to make the space close in on me. I need closed spaces.”
Well, that’s interesting. “How am I supposed to take you out to dinner?”
She laughs. “What?”
“Dinner. I have those clothes for you, remember? We were gonna go to dinner the other night and we got sidetracked. So if you don’t leave the house, I can’t take you out.”
She studies my face intently. Like she’s trying to decide if I’m serious.
I am. So she’s convinced. “I can cook.”
OK, that’s all I needed. She’s not unreasonable. She’s scared of something. I highly doubt she has agoraphobia, but I do believe she has a good reason for wanting to stay in.
She doesn’t have a fear of leaving the house. She has a fear of getting caught. It’s just, I can’t figure out what she’s afraid of getting caught for. Was she raped? It seems possible with all the marks on her. They are beginning to fade now, which tells me they probably happened that morning we found her.
But she’s alluded to being a willing participant in some sexually deviant thing on several occasions. So who is looking for her?
“I can see your mind spinning, you know.”
“Is that right?” I ask. “What am I thinking?”
“You want answers. And I’m not going to offer them up. Not yet. If I leave this loft, I’m not coming back.”
“What?” I sit up for this part. “Explain.”
She shrugs and turns over, showing me her marred back in the bright morning sun. I lift up her hair and study the brand. “It’s a circle, so that means forever.”
“Yes,” she says in a low voice.
“But there’s no legally binding contract on forever, Blue.”
“I’m aware.”
“So what are you afraid of? That someone will see you and take you back?”
“Something like that.”
“Kill you?”
Silence.
I take a deep breath and lie back down, my arm pushing under her hip so I can circle her waist. “We can stay in. It’s no big deal. We’ll have dinners together.”
She turns her head a little, looking over her shoulder at me. “We can? All three of us?”
I shrug. “I don’t control JD, but yeah. I’ll eat your food.”
She turns all the way over this time and stares at me. “What’s this about? You’re Mr. Agreeable now?”
“I’m never Mr. Disagreeable.”
“Whatever,” she laughs. “You’re nosy and bossy. You want to call all the shots and you hate it when you can’t. I barely know you, and these things are so true, I figured them out on day one.”
“Day one? You were out of it on day one.”
“And still I had you pegged.”
I stare at her for a few seconds. She needs to eat more, that’s for sure. She’s not sick-looking, like the first day she got here. But she’s still too thin and she looks weak. Her complexion is far too pale and her hair isn’t shiny and bright. But her eyes are getting there. And this gives me hope. Enough hope to allow her some leeway in finding her way forward. “I just want what’s good for you, that’s all. Staying in or going out isn’t a fight I’m interested in fighting just yet.”
She reaches up and touches my face. “Why are you interested at all?”
I take her finger and pull it to my lips to give it a kiss. “I think you need help. And I want to be the one to give it to you.”
“You’re a good Samaritan?”
“Something like that.”
She chuckles at the way I mimic her answer a few seconds ago. “OK, then. I’ll make you guys food and you will eat with me and not pressure me to leave here.”
“Deal,” I tell her. “Now let’s go back to sleep. With any luck, JD will get lost on his way to the breakfast place and leave us alone for a little while.”
She turns back around, her back pressed against my chest. “I know you worry about it. But I don’t understand why. He seems fine to me.”
“Well, Blue, if you ever get a desire to leave the loft, maybe one day you can follow him. Then you’ll know what he’s up to. Then you’ll know why I worry.”
“Is it bad?” Her voice betrays her worry.
“It can be. But it’s not bad now. So just let me take care of it. And the birth control. I’ll set up a time for the doctor to come here and see you.”
“What doctor? You have a doctor in mind?”
“The one we send the girls to.”
“Your whore doctor?” She pushes off me, but I wrap my arms tighter and lean into her ear.