Taming Cross

I can feel her shake her head. I press my face against her hair and wish like hell that I could clasp my left hand around her. Really hold her. Half a heartbeat later, her hand comes up and clasps my arm. She folds me more tightly around her—effectively doing exactly what I’d wanted.

The room is quiet except for her gasping breaths. I can feel her frantic heartbeat underneath my arm, can feel her ribcage furiously pumping in and out. I continue whispering, a mantra of it’s okays and shhhh, Merris.

I lie against her a little more and murmur, “It wasn’t your fault. No matter what you did, you didn’t deserve this.” Re-balancing my weight, I take my right hand from under my cheek, where it was propping me up, and use it to play with a strand of her hair. “Sometimes good people make mistakes. You know how you can tell if you’re one of the good ones?”

“No,” she whispers, tiny in the dark.

“Because good people feel guilty afterward.”

For the longest time, I play with her sweet-scented hair. When I shut my eyes and allow myself to focus on the soft warmth of her against me, my c**k gets the wrong idea, so I shift my legs where Merri can’t feel it up against her back and try to focus on her hair.

“You’re good at that,” she whispers hoarsely.

“This?” I twirl her hair around my finger and nuzzle the back of her head again. I’m not trying to come onto her, though I would like to; I can simply tell she needs to be touched. She needs to be held and cared for, and I’m happy to do it. She did the same for me.

“Yeah,” she murmurs. “You must have sisters.”

Mention of my family pierces me, but I try not to let her feel the tension in my body. “No sisters. Just me.”

She waits a moment, and even though I don’t have feeling in my hand, I can tell she’s stroking my wrist and the tops of my fingers, on the side of my pinkie, where it’s free of bandages.

“Is that uncomfortable?” she whispers.

“No.”

Some of the tension leaves her body. I can feel her sink into the mattress. I wonder how tired she is. Whether she was always afraid, back at the clinic. I wonder what her life was like with Jesus. But Merri’s not offering any stories. Just whispered questions.

“Where will I go when we get to the States?”

I don’t even think before I answer. “With me.”

“Really? You won’t leave me when we get there?”

“No.” I wait a breath or two. My pulse sounds like a drum inside my ears. “I still want to know what happened,” I say. “It doesn’t have to be right now. You can wait and get a notepad or a computer and write it for me if you don’t feel like saying it. But I need to know. I won’t let these people get away with what they did to you.”

A hoarse sound vibrates in her throat. “I’ll tell you,” she whispers. “But Evan?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t stop holding me.”

It was a Monday, and I thought Drake had gone back to California. Jim Gunn called and told me different, so I rushed around my little room, getting ready. I wore a pretty, knee-length brown dress that I thought made me look classy. Like a college girl going out to a piano bar. I’d gotten some emerald earrings as a gift from Drake a week or two before, and I remember tilting my head to make them sparkle in the mirror.

Missy King, he called me. “You’re not my mistress,” he said. “Mistresses are old. You’re my Missy.”

“And King?” I asked him.

“It sounds regal. Only the best for my girl.”

I accepted the name because I didn’t have another one.

“I was going out with him that night,” I whisper. “I thought he had already gone home—that he wasn’t in town—but Jim Gunn, one of his Vegas body guards, called and told me he wanted to see me. So I got ready for him.”

I exhale, and Evan’s body tightens around me.

“Well Jim Gunn pulls up to get me, and he isn’t in the Bentley like he usually is. He’s in a SUV. I don’t know what kind. Maybe it was a Suburban. It was big and black. And Jim is driving like he usually is, but this time I’m not alone in the back seat. Priscilla Heat is there, and…I’m sorry if this is graphic or gross, but it smelled like sex.” Tears fill my eyes, because I hate what I have to tell him next. Evan’s hand smooths some hair back from my face, and I squeeze my eyes shut, letting the tears fall down my cheek.

It’s just like confessing. Just get it out.

“As soon as I’m in the car, she smashes something into my face, and I guess it made me pass out. When I woke up, I was in the very back of the car, like where you put luggage, Priscilla was dressed differently. More casual, almost in a workout suit.” I remember it had those tacky fake jewels on it. I remember her lipstick was blood red. I remember how she held me down with her hand on my throat. It makes me shudder. Evan holds me closer.

“She told me she had found out who I was and that they wanted to find me back in Georgia.” I pause, remembering that Evan doesn’t know what I’m talking about. “The trouble with my boyfriend there is he was dealing marijuana and when they caught him, I was with him. I had always worried he might have blamed it on me or something.” I exhale slowly. “Sean was that kind of guy. And when Priscilla said that, I really thought he had.”

Evan’s arm around me tightens, and I feel him nod. I shut my eyes again.

“She had a phone, and she showed me the Georgia number for reporting someone like me. She said that she would keep me tied up until they came to get me if I wanted, or I could go along with something she was planning.”

I chew my lip until I taste a coppery tang. Evan’s fingers are stroking my hair. It makes me feel strong enough to keep going.

“I don’t know why, but I decided I didn’t believe her, so I told her ‘no’. She said Jim Gunn had gone to tell the— my client that I had made a play for Jim Gunn. That I’d been having sex with him. She said she was going to tell my client that she had heard I was a journalist from Georgia, and tell him my real name so he could confirm, and tell him I was trying to blackmail him. Either I would give over this footage I supposedly had of he and I to someone in the media, or he would need to pay me several million dollars.” Another big, deep breath. My voice cracks. “That just makes me so mad, still.”

He strokes my neck, and I can hear the echo of him saying, It’s okay.

“I told her she could kiss off, but…she had this Taser.” When I say that, Evan’s body stiffens so much I wish I hadn’t. I put my hand on his arm again and stroke his warm skin. “She had the Taser, and she used it on me a few times.” Tears drip down my face. I lick the salt off my lips. “I wasn’t strong like you. It didn’t take that long for me to cave. I let her call him and I told him what he’d heard was true.”