“No.”
“You used to live there, didn’t you?”
Shaking my head a little, I rasp, “Different house. They were prostitutes. They all took the pill.”
I used to watch them take it every day, given to them like clockwork at eight o’clock every morning, like the drugs they give inmates in an insane asylum.
“What is that, Mommy?”
“It’s to make sure we stay in business, Luna.”
I only learned what that meant later on, when I was adult enough to understand.
“Why pregnant?”
Jett leans back in the chair. “You can make a lot more money selling babies. A lot of infertile women in the world dying to be mothers.”
Horror dives into my bloodstream. I remember the disappearing babies, the ones where the pill either didn’t work, or the women didn’t swallow. It must have given him the idea.
Jett rises from the chair and takes me into his arms. “Shhhh…it’s over.”
“Oh my God,” I stutter into the soft, black t-shirt. “He’s…so…evil!”
“He’s dead, Sunshine. He’s dead, baby. It’s over. You did it.” We stay like this until the sobs stop. Jett kisses my hair and looks in my eyes. “They’re safe now. A lot of them are reunited with family. Donations came in from all over. Some women got homes together.” I nod, sniffling. He reaches for a tiny hospital box of tissues and hands me one, shaking his head and muttering, “It’s a lot of fuckin’ therapy but they’re gonna be okay now.”
He gets up and walks to the door to make sure it’s closed. When he returns, I know something big is coming. In a low volume he tells me how his friends fixed it so I look like I was saving Matias.
Anger flashes into me. “I would never save him!”
“No no no!” Jett holds his hands up to stop me. “Don’t get excited. Think about where you’d be right now if we didn’t. With all those girls and the condition they were in? We had to call the police. We NEVER call the police. Understand? We had to make you the hero. Which you fuckin’ are!” He lowers his voice to somberly add, “But the law wouldn’t see it that way.”
I’m so upset. I know he’s right, but it still makes me furious for anyone to believe I’d come to that bastard’s aid.
“I’d rather be in jail.”
Jett goes for my hand but I tug it back. “Luna, you know the truth. That’s all that should matter. I stopped caring about what other people thought of me a long time ago.”
Meeting his eyes, I stare at him. He’s right.
I’m too stubborn to tell him that.
“You just called me Luna,” I whisper, glancing away.
Jett
They removed the bandages when the wounds healed, two weeks and two days after her surgery. Over the past few months I’ve left the room only so they could wash her hair and clean her up. The side of her head is shaved, and growing back nicely over a scar. She looks like she got that cool cut that’s popular now — half-shaved, the other long and wavy.
They brought in a better bed for me when they figured out I planned to stay.
I’ve been here every day and night.
When a male, well-built physical therapist arrived, he told me he was there to move her limbs around so that her circulation stayed healthy and she didn’t get bedsores. I put that brakes on that. “Show me how to do it, then take a hike.”
Pretty sure I’ve watched every episode of Law and Order, which is a fuckin’ lot. Castle and CSI, too. I’m pissed they cancelled Castle without an official season finale. That’s bullshit right there. It’s like closing up a book series without writing about the final wolf. What the fuck? Must have had a good reason...but I hate it just the same.
The Ciphers left a few days after the cops gave us leave to. All except Tonk.
He’s been seeing Carmen and taking it really slow since she’s of course pretty messed up. Eager to heal, though. She’s a brave girl deep down, no matter how fragile she appears. They didn’t get any sunlight in that place, so he’s been taking her to parks and to the beach almost every day.
Since she never thought she’d escape that place, she views everything on the outside with wonder and a little fear, except him.
Him she looks at like a god.
He’s upside down in love with her. I respect the hell out of how he’s treatin’ that girl.
As I return from asking the nurse when she can eat, Luna whispers “You don’t have to stay.”
“Yeah, right,” I mutter.
This one’s not like Carmen at all.
This one fights me at every turn.