All the Little Raindrops(13)

Or at least, that’s what it felt like to Evan.

Noelle groaned softly, her fingers slipping free of his as she rolled onto her back, stretching and opening her eyes. Her expression barely changed, but he swore he could see the moment reality set in, even though his only view was of her profile. It was like he’d witnessed a slap to her soul, some form of deflating that he sensed as much as saw. Would there be a “morning” they’d wake here when it wouldn’t be a traumatic shock? And should he wish for that? He didn’t think so.

She ran her fingers through her hair, sitting up slowly. “So that’s it then,” she said after a moment. Her voice was bland, listless.

He frowned, running his hand through his own hair. “What?”

“The motive. The one we were trying to figure out. We’re being rented out to sickos and perverts. It’s as simple as that.”

He rolled the words over in his mind. She was right. As far as motives went, it was a simple one. They’d been trafficked. And now they were being bought and sold. How much? he wondered. What was their going rate?

“Did he hurt you?” he asked softly.

He felt suddenly zapped of any and all energy, and maybe she did, too, because she lay down again, facing him, and he lay down as well so they were looking at each other through their bars.

“Of course he hurt me.”

He closed his eyes, blew out a breath. I’m a virgin. “I mean—”

“Was it more than sex? No.”

He felt a smidgeon of relief, not much, but something. She’d been raped, but she hadn’t been brutalized. In a turbulent sea of horrible, it was a small life raft. Something to hold on to. Of course, that experience might have been an outlier. Who knew what was in store for them? Who knew what type of monster might rent one of them next?

He was here too. And he wondered if they were up on some dark marketplace. The very thought made him want to fall willingly into the abyss of madness.

“The items on that counter, the ones behind the ice pick?” she said.

“Yes?” He asked the word hesitantly. He almost didn’t want to know.

“They’re power tools. Smaller ones.”

Power tools. An ice pick. Fear coagulated in his throat. He wouldn’t think about them. He wouldn’t.

He couldn’t help it, though.

Come with me or we’ll take his fingers.

He knew very well what the tools were for.

They turned in unison when they heard the dumbwaiters on the wall slide open, both crawling toward their deliveries.

He reached, pulling the corner of the tray toward himself and gazing down at it. Bread and water, their current staples, were there, but so was a handful of peanuts. Oh, hot damn.

Protein.

He picked a singular peanut up gingerly and placed it on his tongue, crushing it on the roof of his mouth and moving it from side to side to extract the small amount of oil. Oh, that’s good. Oil. Salt. He’d never known how much pleasure could be contained in one peanut.

“What did you get?” Noelle asked.

“Peanuts,” he answered. “What about you?”

She plucked something from her tray and held it up. “A chocolate-covered strawberry.” She glanced down. “On a bed of artificial rose petals.”

“Romantic.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she murmured, and if she’d attempted to add some levity to her tone, she’d failed.

He’d scooped up the peanuts and begun counting them but now paused. “Yesterday you were given peaches, and then . . . you . . .” He paused, and she nodded. Thank God. He hadn’t wanted to say that out loud. “Is there a connection between these deliveries and what was done to you?”

“Like what?”

He couldn’t think of anything that made sense. “I don’t know,” he said as he continued to try to understand the situation they were in based on the new information.

“Did the man who . . . do you think he’s the one who took us?” he asked her after a moment.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I don’t think so. He wasn’t very . . . he wasn’t strong.”

“How do you think he knew about you, then? About us? Where did he rent you?”

She met his eyes. “A marketplace where you can buy and sell . . . people. I . . . I don’t know.”

Yes, he’d had the same dark suspicion. He’d even come up with the same word—marketplace. “Okay, yes, I agree. So then maybe these are . . . gifts . . . and are from the people who rent . . . us?”

“Gifts?” she asked and then shrugged. “It’s possible.”

“Why, though? I don’t think wooing is necessary. We’re sort of a sure thing.”

“Not funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be.”

She stared morosely down at her strawberry for a moment before using her fingernail to score the middle and then pull it apart. She reached through the bars, giving him half. “It doesn’t matter. Rejecting this food won’t get us anywhere. We need it.”

He took the strawberry and set it on his tray, quickly counting the peanuts and handing her half plus one on account of the one he’d already eaten.

They ate in silence, allowing the other to savor the food, especially the chocolate, which he continued to suck from his teeth long after it was gone. He knew she was as aware as him that it would be the only small pleasure they’d receive that day.