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All I could see, all I could look at, was the red-headed girl wrapped up in blankets in front of me.
I’d failed her, but I wouldn’t let that happen again.
I’d keep her safe, no matter what it took.
2
KELLY
The light above my hospital bed buzzed while the monitor at my bedside lied and told everyone I was alive. The blanket on my bed scratched at my skin in rhythm with each of my breaths. Somewhere overhead, the air vents ticked as heat trickled through into the too-cold room. Each noise, each scratch, each and every sensation… they screamed at me what I already knew.
It was my fault.
All of it. Every last bit. Jen being taken. Vinny nearly drowning. All those women—some of them just girls. I’d brought Jen back to Chicago. I’d pushed her to go out with our co-worker, Aaron Parker, only to watch him get murdered right before my eyes before my captors loaded me onto that boat.
I’d relentlessly pined over Rhys Craigson from the moment we first met, wanting not much more in life than to have him take interest in me.
Well.
He took interest.
For weeks, he’d been interested, and like the idiot I was, I fell for it. I let him use me, let him do things to me I never should have because he gave me something I needed more than his attention.
My new addiction.
“It’s all your fault, Kelly,” he’d grunted out as he forced himself on me. “You know that, right? You’re the reason she’s here. Thanks to you, I’m finally going to get what I wanted all along.”
That wasn’t the first time he’d fucked me, but it was the first time I’d known how truly vile he really was.
And it was the only time he’d touched me without first getting me high.
That realization was too much. That he’d never wanted me. That he used me for this, to take me and my friend and sell us off overseas.
I was nothing to him.
And I was nothing now.
Outside my room, there was a mumble of quiet voices. My door pushed open, and I closed my eyes. I didn’t want another visitor. Another nurse or doctor or police officer trying to get my story, trying to read the lying monitors.
I was already dead.
It was just a matter of time before my body caught up.
“Kels?” I jerked and my eyes flashed open. Jen Lucas sat in front of me. The girl who used to be my best friend.
You did this to her. It’s all your fault.
Jen sat down in the chair beside my bed, giving me the first glimpse of what I’d done. Her hair was no longer wet, like it was on the helicopter ride, but it had dried in stringy waves that didn’t look a thing like the put-together girl I used to know. Her wrists were bandaged and her eyes…
They told me of my guilt.
“You doing okay?”
I couldn’t find the energy to shake my head. My eyes dropped closed, my lids too heavy to hold up. “You were there.” I didn’t know why I said it. I hadn’t intended to. She was there, because of me. She saw what happened, saw me being dragged into that room. Rhys told me what Jim had planned for her, and I couldn’t bear to know what really happened to her.
But damn, how I wanted to know.
One more nail in my coffin.
