Restraints.
We were burning this place down.
With care, I crept over to her bed, but I didn’t touch her as I crouched down. “Boo-Boo?”
The sleepy eyes she opened didn’t focus right away and my heart sank. Had they medicated her again?
“Freddie?” She went to sit up but the restraints kept her down. “Is this a dream?”
“Am I naked?”
She blinked, but the fact I was this close hid her eyes in the shadows. “Why would you be naked?”
“I’m always naked in my dreams,” I told her. “I better be naked in yours.”
Her mouth opened, then closed with a little pop before a snicker escaped her. I grinned. Making Boo-Boo laugh was the best fucking thing.
“Why are you in my room—oh shit, Freddie if they catch you.”
“Key word there, if. They won’t.” If they did, what were they gonna do? For now, I just ignored that and focused on her. “I’m here because I wanted to see you and talk to you without an audience.”
“I thought you liked your new friend.” She shifted again and yeah, I’d had enough of these restraints. I stripped away the Velcro. The ripping sound seemed to echo loudly in the room. I’d no sooner gotten her free then she wrapped her arms around me.
Shock held me still and then I hugged her back.
“Hey, Boo-Boo,” I whispered as her arms tightened.
“Hey, Freddie.”
We just sat like that for a long time. I’d have to go soon, but I could stay a little longer.
“Do we have a plan?” she asked, face buried against my throat. She was so damn skinny. Even in the pajamas that seemed to dwarf her, they really did hide how much weight she’d lost. Another black mark in the book against these guys.
“Yep,” I told her. “Can you hang on for another day or two?”
She swallowed. “Yes.” That didn’t sound so certain. Leaning back, I stared at her.
“Boo-Boo?”
“Don’t ask me,” she whispered.
“Is someone here hurting you?”
She scraped her teeth over her lower lip. “Not—exactly.”
“Tell me?”
“I—” She rubbed her arms like she was cold and I wrapped around her again. Sometimes it was easier to tell secrets when you couldn’t see the other person’s face.
“Trust me,” I whispered. “Tell me who is hurting you.”
They could die first.
CHAPTER 24
EMERSYN
The night after Freddie crept into my room, he snuck in again. I tried to stay awake, but I had no idea when he would get there. Or if he would. He’d asked me to trust him and to tell him who was hurting me. But the words got stuck in my throat. Then he had to go.
When he showed up the second night, I wanted to cry. I was having trouble focusing. After he freed me from the restraints, I wrapped my arms around him again. Freddie wasn’t a hugger. Sure, he would sit next to me or hang out, but he wasn’t the cuddling type. Yet, here I was climbing all over him.
Thankfully, he didn’t shove me away. I clung to him even when he squeezed all the air out of me. “We gotta feed you more, Boo-Boo, don’t they got like the expensive stuff over here?”
A watery laugh escaped me. “Controlled diet,” I told him and he pulled back to peer at me.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Just—controlled. No carbs. Lots of proteins. Some veggies. Though I was getting really nasty oatmeal for a while.” I tried not to slur, but it was hard to make my lips form with the words when they were numb.
Searching my face, even in the half-dark since there was a nightlight in the bathroom, Freddie frowned. “More pills?”
I shook my head. Not tonight. “I had a relapse, I think.” I frowned. “It’s kind of foggy.”
"You were fine in the community room earlier.” Something weird was going on in his voice. Freddie all sober and stern wasn’t Freddie. It was so weird.
“Did I go to the community room?”
Had I? I didn’t remember that.
I sighed. “I’m sorry, Freddie. I don’t know how much help I’m going to be.”
Even if we were alone and the door was closed, I kept whispering. I didn’t want him to get into trouble. “It’ll be fine. The plan is all on me, anyway.”
No. “You said you needed my help.”
His teeth flashed when he grinned. “I’d love your help, but I’m the one who came here to rescue you.” The brightness of his smile vanished. “You were the one who got stuck here.”
Guilt raked through me and I shifted to let him go. He was right.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to him. “You shouldn’t have had to come here.”
“No, I absolutely should have come here,” he argued. “You’re here. Besides, don’t tell me what I shouldn’t do. I’m terrible at the reverse psychology thing, it just makes me want to do all the things and none of them.”
A reluctant smile skated over my lips, but I couldn’t hold onto it. None of them should be in this place. “You’re only here because I left.”
“No, I’m only here because they put you here. Or someone did. I can’t decide if it was your parents or not.”
This, I didn’t want to talk about.
“How did you get in here, anyway?”
He hadn’t told me that part. Freddie sighed and slung himself back against the bed. “This bed sucks. For as exclusive as this place is.”
I shrugged. “They don’t care. It’s not about our comfort.” It really wasn’t.
“What is it about?”
“Compliance. Cooperation. Silence.”
“Three things I suck at,” Freddie mused. “Well, maybe not the cooperation part, I can be very cooperative—sometimes.”
I stole a look at him.
“Boo-Boo, why won’t you trust me?”
“It’s not about trusting you,” I promised him. “It’s about…”
“The threats?”
My stomach bottomed out.
“Rome found them,” he told me.
I swallowed hard. The images were kind of fuzzy. A lot of stuff had gotten fuzzier. The white static—it was getting louder. The inexplicable sadness seemed to grow deeper. “I shouldn’t have left them…”
“No, you shouldn’t have left.” The scolding tone was so different from how Freddie normally spoke to me, I blinked at him. “But I forgive you.”
“You do?”
“Yep. Cause I’ve done dumb stuff, too.”
“It wasn’t dumb.” Anger burned away some of the fog. “He’s hurt people before. He’s dangerous.”
“So are we.”
“Freddie,” I sighed. “That’s not the point.”
“It is the point, Boo-Boo.’ He sat up and moved to sit right next to me on the bed. “We would have protected you. We want to protect you. I want to.”
“So why can’t I want to protect you, too?”
Instead of arguing, Freddie bounced his knee. When I stole a look at him, he had his chin down and his expression hidden in the shadows created by his hair. “A lot of people have protected me.” The soft confession held me riveted. “Sometimes, too many times. Jasper—”