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“I need to do that too,” I tell him. At his questioning look, I debate how much to admit, but at this point, I’m not sure my secrecy will help much. “I have some contacts who work against the traders. Rescue their victims. Stuff like that. They depend on me and my home, and they need to know it’s not available.”
“You work with the underground?” Zeb pauses. “Wait, you run La Fleur, don’t you? That’s—” A startled scoff leaves him. “That’s what your house… Oh, shit.”
I wait for him to finish and then nod. “I need to let my associates know what’s going on.”
“Of course.” Zeb motions for me to go.
I can feel him watching me while I take out my phone, and a moment passes before he disappears into the next room to make his own calls.
No one is happy to hear about the fire, and not just because of the traders. La Fleur is a safe haven for any number of groups passing through.
The traders screwed over more than me and Creepy when they burned it.
After I finally get done reaching out to all my contacts, I call Tamira. She’s made it safely to Hattiesburg after following a twisting route north, and she assures me she’s going to keep going. She’s got family in Nashville who embrace Southern hospitality like it’s a religion, and they’ve already got a room ready for her to stay in for as long as she needs.
I think I take my first deep breath in ages at the sheer relief of knowing she made it out of town okay.
When I get done, Zeb is still in the other room on the phone. Huck has stayed nearby, though, hovering by the front door and keeping an eye on the windows like he’s concerned the traders will have learned how to fly.
Or maybe he’s just watching for drones.
The thought isn’t comforting, and I make a beeline for the curtain nearest to me, tugging it closed tighter.
“Well, that’s hardly helpful, isn’t it?” Zeb snaps sarcastically in the other room. He paces to the door and shuts it, never glancing our way.
I sink down onto the sofa. It’s a stiff seat, all satin fabric and wooden armrests. It probably costs more than my car.
Assuming my car is still intact, anyway.
Creepy shifts in my mind, not liking all the levels of uncertainty we’re suddenly facing. Her preference is simply to eat or kill anything that bothers her, and right now, we can’t do either.
The stiff cushions give a little beneath me as Huck sits down nearby.
Silence reigns.
It grates on me as the seconds pass, like the stillness is turning into needles that poke at me with knowledge of every damn thing that’s gone wrong over the past twelve hours.
“So…” I say, unable to stand the quiet any longer. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t bother me.
Today is nothing resembling ordinary.
“You all have a lot of contacts.” I glance at Huck, waiting to see what he’ll say.
“They do.”
My curiosity piques. “But not you?”
He turns to me, those icy-blue eyes still so worried, and I swear the concern is for me. “You liked your home, didn’t you? It was nice?”
Fuck, this isn’t where I wanted the conversation going.
“Yeah.” I shrug and hope he’ll drop it.
Huck just nods thoughtfully as he turns back to watch the windows and door. “I grew up in a cage.”
Okay, not where I saw that going either. “Um, you did?”
He nods again. “A wealthy man held me in one. He bought me from some traders when I was small. I don’t remember a home before the cage.”
