This was not his room. He had no idea where the fuck he was.
He jackknifed up to a seated position and glanced around.
The motel.
He scrubbed his hands down his face with a groan. He’d fallen asleep. A memory of his mother crying must have woken him up.
With a twist of his head, he glanced at the empty spot beside him. Had Chelle left? She had no way to get home unless someone had come to pick her up. Would she have left without telling him?
That didn’t make sense.
After they’d eaten pizza, after she’d texted her girls with her made-up excuse for not coming home, after they’d had sex a second time... They’d both drifted off to sleep.
He heard it again.
Soft crying. Not far away at all.
Fuck. It wasn’t a nightmare that woke him. It was reality.
He bolted out of bed and nabbed his boxer briefs from the pile of discarded clothes, slipping them on and going to the bathroom door.
He tilted his head and listened for a second, his hand hovering over the door knob.
Chelle was crying.
What the fuck.
He squeezed his eyes shut and simply breathed for a few seconds. After his fingers made contact with the metal doorknob, he still hesitated, trying to keep his heart in his chest. His stomach churned as he slowly turned the knob.
The bathroom was pitch black and he flipped the switch to see Chelle wearing his T-shirt, sitting on the linoleum floor in the corner against the tub, her face buried in her arms, which were crossed over her knees.
He quickly took the two steps to her and fell to his knees, putting one hand on her back. “Chelle.” His voice cracked on her name.
She sniffled but didn’t raise her head.
He cleared his throat and tried again. “Chelle,” he said louder, but still not more than a whisper. “What the fuck, Chelle?”
Hearing her cry was cracking his chest wide open.
“What’s the mad?” Fuck, fuck, fuck. He screwed that up. “Matter.” He wedged his hand under her chin to tip her face up.
Her eyes and nose were shiny and red, and tears flowed freely down her cheeks. She sniffled again.
“Are you hurt?” He didn’t see any blood or bruising or... fuck... anything. He couldn’t imagine this woman would cry over a stubbed toe. Curse, yes. Cry, no.
She nodded slightly.
“Where?”
She pressed a hand over her heart. “I hurt for you.”
His own heart seized, and his mind raced. What the fuck was she talking about?
“I don’t even know the details but my heart breaks for you.”
If she knew the details it would only be worse. So much fucking worse. Especially since she was a mother and would put herself in the place of his own mother that day at the mall. That day at the auction. The last day she ever saw her son before he was ripped away from her forever.
“Don’t need to cry for me,” he said slowly, trying to get the words right. He thumbed away a falling tear.
Julian had stopped crying for himself and the helplessness of his circumstances when he was five. It took him almost a year to figure out crying didn’t change a fucking thing. It was only a waste of energy and showed weakness.
“How can I not? I don’t know who did this to you and when. I’m picturing all kinds of scenarios in my head. And none of them... All of them...”
She sat up, cupped his face and looked right at him. Hell, right through him. Not like he was invisible, but like he wasn’t. She was trying to see inside him, right to his very soul. Her bottom lip trembled and a couple more tears spilled over from her beautiful brown eyes.
Every tear she shed was like a stab to his heart.
“At least tell me whoever did this to you went to jail, paid for what they did.”
None of them went to jail, or if they did, it wasn’t because of what they did to him. Whether they ended up behind bars after Julian was gone, he had no fucking clue.
“You’re not even going to tell me that?”
Hearing the raw pain in her voice was more torture than what any of his “daddies” and “uncles” had put him through. Julian had learned to block out the physical pain, but Shade couldn’t block Chelle’s genuine concern or the hurt she felt because of him keeping his past to himself.
“Don’t know the answer, Chelle.” It was sort of true, sort of not, since he hadn’t found everyone on his list yet. But the one who left the visible reminders, the scars that made her cry, was dead. That motherfucker had been first on his list. Shade was still working his way backward. All the way to that day in the mall parking lot. If he could find them all to give them what they deserved, he would. Every single fucking one of them.
Prison wasn’t good enough for monsters who ate little boys to satisfy their perverse hunger.
But he couldn’t share that with Chelle. Not now, not ever. Just like he’d never be able to tell her about what he did for the club up on Hillbilly Hill.
He had worried about how she would look at him after seeing his scars. The woman ended up crying over him with only his external ones. The ones she couldn’t see were so much worse. But if she knew about the rest... A decade of being a child sex slave or even with what he was doing with the Shirleys...
He rose to his feet and held out his hand. Without hesitation, she gripped it tightly and he helped her to stand. Without another word, he escorted her out of the bathroom and back to bed. Once he had her back under the covers, he tucked her into the curve of his body and held her close like he had earlier when they had fallen asleep.
He doubted either of them would do the same this time.
She pulled away and rolled until their faces were just inches apart. Her arms wrapped around him instead of the other way around.
With a hand to the back of his head, she pressed his face into her neck and squeezed him tightly. While he couldn’t see it and she tried to hide it, he knew she continued to cry. As she did so, the hand not holding his head stroked up and down his bare back.
Since she was the one upset, he should be comforting her, not the other way around. Tonight would be the first time in the last twenty-six years he received comfort from anyone.
It took him awhile, but when he finally let his muscles loosen and he breathed a bit easier, he realized he’d forgotten what that felt like.
Chapter Eighteen
Now that it was October, the leaves were beginning to drop and the greenery dying off for winter. Time was running out before his cover on the mountain would get sparse. Once late fall and winter came, he’d be too easy to spot. That meant he would have to finish the job come spring.
He didn’t want to do that, but he might not have a choice.
His concern was, during the winter they’d bring in more men from somewhere else. That somewhere else being wherever Shirleys sprouted from when they weren’t breeding their own on the mountain.
He’d been trying to keep track of their numbers, but it was difficult since they were never all together at the same time. Most likely on purpose. His best guess was only eight men remained. And eight men could still wreak havoc on their club if they had a mind to. On that, Shade was pretty fucking sure they were planning something because their survival depended on fighting back and stopping whoever was taking out their menfolk.
Shade spotted a few older male teens who could easily step into the missing men’s spots. Some might not be more than fourteen or so but by Shirley standards that was old enough to take a female and start breeding babies, even if the woman or teenage girl was related. Most likely, they would be related. The Shirley family tree looked like a straight trunk with barely a branch to be seen.