Just One Touch (Slow Burn #5)(35)

"Who did they sell you to?" he repeated patiently. "And are they the ones after you now? The ones who shot me and Shadow?"

She flinched, flushing with guilt. "I don't know exactly who they are, but they're dangerous," she whispered. "They had guns. They always had guns. They offered the elders a lot of money for me but the elders had conditions. One was that I be made available anytime they needed my services and another was that I had to remain untouched."

She flushed deeply. "Their leader wanted to speak to me alone and he told me I was his property now, and then he laughed and said, 'Those crazy assholes believe that if you lose your virginity your powers will be gone, but you and I both know that isn't true, don't we?' "

She shivered and curled her body inward, pressing herself closer to Isaac, though he doubted she was conscious of it.

"He told me that he was going to enjoy fucking a virgin, that he would be the one to break me in, and then his men could have me as often as they wanted. He laughed more and told me that the elders would never have use of my powers again no matter what he'd agreed upon. He planned to kill them all when they came for me."

Isaac swore viciously, his fingers curling into tight fists as the urge to kill returned. And he would. He'd kill every last one of those fuckers before ever allowing them to touch what was his.

"The exchange was set up for a few days later and I knew I had to escape. I had to take the chance because even if I died, it would be preferable to being sold to those men."

Isaac closed his eyes, hurting for someone so innocent to have been exposed to so much evil in her young life. The knowledge that she'd embraced death so calmly as an alternative to being used and degraded by the men who'd bought her like a possession nearly broke him.

"God was with me," she said softly, surprising Isaac with her mention of God. He would have thought that with the twisted aberration the cult presented God as, she would have lost any and all faith in a higher being. 

"One of the elders had a heart attack. He was dying and I was called to heal him. Everyone knew how grave his condition was, and until him and then . . . you . . . I had never healed someone so close to death. So I did just enough that he wouldn't die and pretended to be completely incapacitated, drained and exhausted. I told them I had to rest and then I would need to do a second session to completely heal him, but that he wouldn't die. And that after the second time it would be as if the heart attack had never happened and he hadn't been at death's door."

She looked down in shame and his brow furrowed as he looked at her in question, waiting for her to continue.

"I wanted to kill him, to let him die," she whispered. "It was only because I knew this would be my only opportunity to finally escape that I helped him."

"He deserved to die," Isaac bit out. "Don't waste one minute feeling shame for wanting him to die, baby. After all they put you through, it's only human to feel the way you did. Not even God could blame you if you had let him die."

His reassurance seemed to mollify her and she sucked in a deep breath.

"They dragged me to my room and tossed me in, and then they all went back to pray for the elder. To pray," she said scornfully. "How does one pray to God to save the very face of evil? They didn't spare a single thought to my escaping because they'd witnessed how weak I was so many times before after I'd healed. And though I had greatly exaggerated my condition, I was very weak, and it took me a while to gain the strength to crawl to the door and drag myself up so I could escape.

"I had found maps in one of the elders' offices before, so I knew the layout of the compound and which direction was the shortest route through the dense woods surrounding the place. I managed to slip out quietly and then I ran. It was so dark and I was terrified. I couldn't see where I was going, and just prayed that I was running a straight line through the woods and not going in circles."

Isaac's stomach churned, imagining how helpless she was running through God only knew what in the woods, still weak from the forced healing session. He'd never craved someone's blood more than he craved the blood of those bastards for all they'd done to his angel. Never had he entertained killing anyone in cold blood, but in this minute, he knew if he ever caught any of them he'd take them apart with his bare hands.

"Not long after I entered the woods, I knew my escape had been discovered, because I heard them turn out the dogs."

She shivered, her small body quaking as she moved even closer into his body, almost as if trying to crawl right inside of him where she could feel warm and safe.

"I knew I had very little time before they caught up to me, so I ran faster and prayed for mercy. And for help. Just when I thought I had no hope, I stumbled out of the woods and fell flat on my face onto a gravel road. It was just beginning to get light enough that I could see into the distance and there was an old gas station down the road. I fled, praying the entire way to find a way into the city. I knew it was the last place they'd expect me to go because I'd never even seen the outside of the compound, so what were my odds of surviving five minutes in a city the size of Houston? I snuck into the bed of a truck that was hauling produce into the city and when the driver stopped after what seemed like forever, I slipped out and ran."