Paradise Falls (39 page)

Jennifer swallowed, hard. She looked around the room and met the gaze of the redheaded girl, and walked over. She was clustered in the corner with her sister, the two huddled together up against one of Jacob’s bookcases.

The older of the two tackled Jennifer in the trailer. She had tattoos up and down both arms and more on her back, but they did a poor job of covering track marks.

“We’re going to get sick, aren’t we?”

“You’re going to be fine,” said Jennifer. “I mean it. What’s your name?”

“Kirsten.”

“I’m Hailey,” the younger one said.

“We’re going to do our best to get you home.”

“We can’t go home. Dad kicked us out.”

“I have to talk to you,” said Kirsten. “Can we go somewhere else? Private?”

Jennifer chewed her lip, and nodded. She offered the girl a hand and walked her to the front porch, and closed the door. They sat down on the bench together next to the door. The girl plunged her face into her hands and sobbed.

“I’m sorry,” she wailed.

Gingerly, Jennifer laid an arm across her shoulders and smoothed the scraggly, over-dyed hair out of her face.

“What did you want to talk about, hon?”

“Stuff,” she sniffed. “It’s hard to say. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that. I was scared my sister would get hurt.”

“I know. I have a sister. I know how that would feel, I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through, but it’s over now-“

“It’s not over,” Kirsten choked, hugging herself. “
Look
at me. What am I going to do now? Where am I going to go?”

“I don’t know,” said Jennifer. “I barely know my own name right now. We’re going to get you clean and get your life back. I promise. You have your whole life ahead of you.” Jennifer looked at the girl’s arm- she was completely inked, full sleeves. The designs were all different, but interwoven- Celtic knots, flowers, even a cartoon character that Jennifer didn’t know. The other arm was the same and she had a design on her back, flaming wings around an oddly blank spot.

“Did they make you get tattoos?”

“No. I got these before I got kicked out of the house. I had a fake ID. When Elliot came to-“

“Wait,” said Jennifer. “What did you say?”

The girl pulled back, eyes wide with terror.

“You’re safe,” said Jennifer, touching her wrist. “I’m not angry. What Elliot?”

“Tall. Dirty blonde hair. He was important. All the guys at the bar wouldn’t look at him when he came around with the cop. He was allowed to take girls away from the bar.”

A shiver passed through Jennifer, from real pain. She was clenching her teeth so hard it made the spot where her wisdom tooth used to be throb, like she was trying to bite through steel.

“Did he,” she said, forcing herself to sound calm, “Take you away.”

“Yeah. He took me out for dates. He got me to dye my hair red. It’s brown.”

“Dates?” said Jennifer. “Did he…”

“Yes,” she said, staring down at the deck.

Jennifer launched to her feet, leaned down and rested her hands on the porch railing, and bit back a scream. Her head drooped and it took a minute or so to resume breathing normally.

“He wanted to take me away for good, but I begged them not to. I couldn’t leave my sister. So he started taking another girl. They put me back on the trucks. He said if I wanted to be a whore I could be one.”

Jennifer’s fingers were white from pressing on the wood rail. She pulled them back and clenched her fists until the heat in her throat, a blend of nausea and fury, settled.“Let’s go back inside.”

Jennifer let out another sigh and stood up. There were almost two dozen girls in the living room, huddled under blankets or towels or whatever Faisal could find to cover them up while Ana checked them over. She came over to Jennifer and walked with her into the kitchen.

“Wait,” said Kirsten.

“What can I do?”

“Faisal and I will handle this. Go upstairs.”

Jennifer nodded and went through the kitchen to the stairs, avoiding the living room. Every step up felt like she had lead weights around her ankles, and when she reached the top landing she wanted to flop right there and sleep, but she dragged herself into the bedroom anyway and sat down by the bed, and laboriously stripped off her vest and other gear.

She stank. The hot water in the shower scoured her skin but she still felt dirty when she came out and wrapped her hair up in a towel. Before she turned on the shower she raided her boxes of clothes for something to wear, a long t-shirt and heavy pajama bottoms, but as she held the pants in her hands and glanced out into the bedroom, with trembling hands she hung the bottoms on a hook and walked out in only the shirt and her underwear and crawled into the bed next to Jacob.

“You don’t have to…” he trailed off.

“I’m not doing this because I have to.”

She rolled on her side, facing away from him. She had her hair up in a bun, loosely bound at the nape of her neck.

She wriggled on the bed until her head was pillowed in the crook of his elbow. His skin was warm and had a fascinating, earthy scent. She slipped her leg back, working it between his. A gasp escaped her throat when his chin brushed the back of her neck. He was sniffing her hair. Every muscle was like a coiled spring, and she was trembling. He started to pull away.

“If you’re not comfortable with…”

“Just give me a minute. It’s not you.”

“I know.”

It took more than a minute, but slowly, inch by inch, she began to relax. His presence warmed the satin, his chest pressed against her back made the feeling of exposure she always had when she slept on her side fade away.

“I like this.”

Her ring itched.

Sleep came, falling over her like a blanket. A deep, heavy sleep, and without dreams. It was the kind of sleep that left her groggy when she woke up, and wake up she did. It was mid-morning, by the light coming in the windows, and she was still sleepy. The cut on her face ached, but she didn’t care. Jacob breathed easily, regularly.
 

Jennifer almost jumped when he spoke.

“Did you know that you snore?”

“I do not.”

“You sound like someone killing a warthog with a chainsaw.”

“If this is flirting, you’re not very good at it.”

“I don’t get much practice.”
 

“I can’t believe that. You’ve been with girls before.”

“There were lots of pretty girls in high school, but none of them compared to you. What is a candle, beside the sun?”

She laughed. “That was lame, Jacob.”

“Sorry.”

He shifted, and something brushed her back.

Oh.

“Um,” he said, “Ah, sorry, I can’t, ah, that, um…”

She shivered, and squeezed his hand.

“Jennifer? Jennifer, I’m sorry.”

He pulled back and she wriggled along with him, grinning to herself as she ground her backside against him.

“Jennifer?”

“Be quiet,” she said.
 

He put his arms around her. Her heart pounded in her chest as she rolled over, turning in his arms to face him. His hand flitted to the back of her neck and he loosed her hair, spilling it through his fingers, and put his hand on her shoulder. He let out a little sound as she swung her leg over and settled on his stomach. She pulled back, wide-eyed.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” she choked, “Does it hurt-“

“It hurts. I just don’t care.”

He pulled her down by the arms. There was a twinge of fear, or the memory of it, a little twist in her stomach that she pushed down and away, embracing the other feeling, heat spreading through her body. Jennifer hadn’t felt like this in years.

To silence her unquiet mind, she kissed him.

Jacob’s eyes flew all the way open, then drifted closed, as hers did. She ran her hand gingerly up his sides, over his chest. The pads of her fingers traced lightly along the ridged, puckered scars that criss-crossed his body, and he pulled away from the kiss. It was a good thing he did. She needed to breathe.
 

“Do they still hurt? I mean the old ones.”

“Yes,” he said.

“You’re self-conscious about them, aren’t you?”

“Sometimes.”

“You don’t need to be,” said Jennifer. “They make you look like, um, a badass,” she had to say the last word quickly, to get it out at all. She must have been beet red.

Her hands moved up to cup his cheeks and she dipped in to kiss him again. He settled his hands on the small of her back, and her bare spread around his hips, inching up the hem of her shirt.

A flash of light hit her eye. The sun caught her ring, and it was like her left hand dipped in boiling water. She yelped and jumped up, clutching it to her chest. The itch exploded into phantom pain, throbbing. She fell to the side and bounced on the bed, and curled up in a ball. Jacob sat up Cold fear flooded into her. It was like he was standing behind her, watching. Her husband. She was a married woman in bed with another man, still wearing her wedding band.

He’s dead
, she told herself,
he wouldn’t want me to
-

Very convenient,
her inner voice said back, and it sounded a lot like her mother.

Jacob reached for her but she batted his hands away.

“Not now, please. Just give me a minute.”

He sighed and sank back into the bed, staring at the ceiling. Jennifer hugged her knees to her chest and rested her face on her arms, and choked back tears.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

She could feel his hand before it rested on her back, hovering above her skin, asking for permission. He rubbed her back, gentle, comforting. She managed to sit up and take a deep breath and stretch her legs out, and finally lie back down. Her ring refused to budge.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to get this thing off,” she whispered.

“Stop.”

He took her hand, gently, and laced his fingers through hers, and looked into her eyes with his big green ones.

“You don’t have to leave Franklin behind for me,” he said. “I know you can’t just turn it off. I just hope you can make room for me.”

“I want to,” she said, blinking back the sting of tears. “I want to so bad. I can’t control it. I told you, I just want to be a normal person. I want to…” she trailed off. “Um. I want to, ah, you know.”

“You want to you know,” he said.

Jennifer snorted. “Oh my God. I sound like I’m twelve.”

He sighed. “I can’t believe you just blurted it out like that.”

“Neither can I.”

“So, um,” he said.

She rolled over and let out a long sigh. “I can’t. I’m not ready. I’m going to be ready, I promise. Just give me time.”

“Take all the time you need.”

“Aren’t you a perfect gentleman. Now go to sleep. And stop moving.”

12.

Jennifer woke up to the soft sound of Jacob breathing. He hadn’t moved, or at least he hadn’t moved much. His bandages were all in place. As soon as Jennifer sat up his eyes opened and he put his hand on her back. She pulled her knees up and leaned on them, and sighed.

“What’s wrong?” said Jacob.

“I don’t know.”

Her hands trembled when she looked at them.

“It’s like everything yesterday was a dream. I’m supposed to be feeling something, but I’m not. I might have killed someone.”

“Someone who was trying to kill you,” Jacob said, quickly. “You defended yourself.”

“I couldn’t do it. I had to shoot the tire out.”

“That was a hell of a shot to make. I told you, you’re good.”

She choked. “I don’t want to be good at hurting people.”

“Is that all we did?”

Jennifer folded her legs under herself and wrapped the blanket around her body. She thought of those girls lying downstairs, and the way she found them in that trailer. She shook her head.

“No. I think we did the right thing. I want to think that.”

Sighing, she looked over at the window. Sunlight still poured in.

Still?

“What time is it?” said Jacob.

Jennifer slipped out of the bed and tugged her shirt down to cover herself as she walked over to the table and picked up her phone. The air on her legs made her toes curl and her cheeks heated.

“Uh, it’s tomorrow. It’s Friday already. We must have slept all night.”

Jacob sat up. Jennifer almost threw the phone down and rushed over, trying to push him back down.

“I have work to do.”

“No, you don’t. Lay down.”

“I can’t.”

“Jacob,” Jennifer said, and planted her fists on her hips. “You’re not supposed to be moving.”

“I’ll be fine. Help me with the sling. I’ll go back to bed, I just want to stretch my legs. Please.”

Sighing deeply, Jennifer helped tuck his left arm into a sling and took a look at the bandage on his shoulder. It was good enough, she supposed. He leaned on her as he stood up and she grunted from the weight. When he stood up he steadied himself took a few steps, stopped, and breathed deeply.

“See? I’m fine.”

Jennifer folded her arms and scowled, but walked behind him out of the bedroom.

The house had an odd air to it, like Christmas morning. It was early, before seven o’clock yet. Jacob moved to the room he’d dedicated to his sister’s things and cracked the door, and blinked a few times. Jennifer peered over his shoulder, standing on her tip-toes to see over.

Three of the girls were curled up together in his sister’s bed, dead asleep. More lay on sleeping pads in the office, and the rest were on cots in the living room. Ana was asleep on the couch, sitting up, Faisal on the other side, leaning over the arm and drooling in his sleep.

“Back to bed,” Jennifer ordered, softly.

“If you insist.”

When she woke up he was already awake and propped up on a pile of pillows, sipping coffee from a cup with a computer in his lap.

“Where’d you get a laptop?”

“Rich,” Jacob shrugged, and winced.

Jennifer sat up and scooted back to sit next to him.

“Rolling gun battle in Port Carol,” she read from the screen. “Police suspect motorcycle club rivalry is to blame.”

“We’re in a motorcycle club now,” said Jacob.

Jennifer snorted. “Right.”