Runaway Heart (A Game of Hearts #2) (18 page)

I doubt they’d even miss her, I wanted to say, but I didn’t. Instead, I took her hand in mine, linking our fingers together under the table, and waited for her protests.

I couldn’t help it. There was only so much time left, and I had so many more rules of hers to break.

She looked over at me, a storm of conflicting emotions brewing in her eyes. She held my gaze with such strength as the music faded around us. As the room went quiet, and the only sound I could hear was my own pulse beating in my ears.

Something heavy lifted from my heart when she didn’t pull her hand away. When she squeezed it, and then let my gaze go, resting her chin on the palm of her hand as she watched the sea of bodies across the room from us.

We sat like that for a while, watching Cherry and Charlie move around the pool table. Charlotte and Violet carried on their own conversation across from us, but there was no telling what they said. And really, I didn’t want to be caught up in a conversation with anyone else so long as Hannah kept rubbing her thumb against my palm. Each stroke undid me a little more.

Violet and Charlotte, probably tired of sitting, hopped out of their chairs and did some sort of hip shimmy to the music, dancing their way around the pool table, lost in the music.

I watched them, laughing along with the silly show they provided, until Hannah’s fingers clenched hard against mine.

My eyes snapped back to her and watched the color in her face drain to a sickly shade of white.

My pounding heart cranked to full throttle.

I tugged at her hand, trying to get her to look at me as my insides prickled like a hundred angry hornets stabbing my central nervous system in warning.

She wouldn’t. She was too busy staring at something over my shoulder, her eyebrows pressed into a crooked V.

“What is it?” I asked, more demanding that time. “What’s wro—?”

She jerked hard, dropping my hand and shooting from her seat. Her head shook back and forth, her lips moving, repeating the word
no
, over and over again. Every word repeated was a bullet to my heart. A swift kick in the ribs.

I came out of my chair and was in front of her in one swift move, ready to face whatever it was that put the look of terror in her eyes.

Across the room from us, in a darkened corner, was a bloke who had a girl cornered. He was shouting down at her, and all I could make of the girl was her arms up in the air, shielding her face from his assault.

Hannah pressed herself against the length of my back, shaking so hard it vibrated me all the way to the bottom of my feet. It shook loose the realization of just what had Hannah scared out of her mind.

Her chin pressed hard into my shoulder, her breath hot against the side of my neck as she pleaded, “Stop him, Ed. Oh, God, don’t let him—”

The bloke brought his fist back and, like a viper, it shot out into the darkness. The girl bent in half like a broken flower stem as he towered over her, snatching her arm to force her back up.

I shot across the room, all thoughts gone to the wind. The need to put a dent in his skull sizzled through me, hardening my fists.

When the girl didn’t move, he brought his foot back just as I slammed into him, ramming him against the wall.

The girl dropped to the floor and curled into a tight ball like one of those roly-poly bugs I’d seen before. There was nothing to be done about her at the moment. Not with a hundred-and-fifty-plus pounds of pissed-off bloke coming up for a swing at me.

His punch caught me in the jaw, snapping my head back hard enough for me to see white dots explode across my vision. I staggered back a step, shaking it off, all set to give him back a taste of his own medicine when Charlie popped up out of nowhere and slammed the guy to the ground, pulling his arms back behind him as he put his knee somewhere in the vicinity of the bloke’s kidneys.

The fight caused a stir, and a few guys parted the crowd and helped Charlie get the bloke off the floor, moving him toward the front of the club where he could be properly dealt with.

The coppery tang of blood filled my mouth. I forced myself to swallow it down since spitting it out on the floor wasn’t an option.

“Nothing like a little scrap to wake the blood cells up, yeah?” Charlie shouted over the music as he made his way back over to me.

I choked out a laugh, wiping the blood from my mouth onto the napkin he handed me.

Something like a shadow darted past me to the darkened corner and, the next thing I knew, Hannah had the girl tucked under her arm. She turned a desperate glance at me as if unsure what to do next. She couldn’t walk her through the front, or we might take the chance of running into her attacker.

I put my hand up, telling Hannah to give me just a minute. Slipping off to the bar, I caught one of the girls who worked there and asked if there was a back entrance we could use. She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind, so I spun a quick story about my girlfriend not feeling very well, and how it would be easier to get her out the back since she was prone to puking on anyone and anything in her path.

With a slightly queasy look, she’d given me the directions straight away, probably relieved she wouldn’t have to be called in to clean up a foul mess.

Heading back to Hannah, I grabbed our jackets, setting mine over the waif-like creature who refused to let go of Hannah, and then tried to put Hannah’s jacket over her. She waved me off, so I held on to it and led them out of the club.

Cherry, Charlotte, and Violet took note of where we were, but stayed put when Hannah shook her head at them and waved them back when they tried to follow us.

A cold burst of air slapped us when we made it outside. My ears throbbed in the silence, making it almost as deafening as the music had been inside.

Hannah moved away from me, pulling the girl alongside of her until they were a distance away from the back door. I moved slowly behind them, knowing if I made any sudden moves, the girl might take off.

I hated the distance driven between us because of fear. Hated how fucked up the night had turned, but I was grateful we’d been there to help the poor lass.

After a few minutes, Hannah gestured for me to come closer and I blew out a sigh of relief.

I drew up close, treading as if I were on eggshells, and held Hannah’s jacket up, helping her into it as I tried my hardest to sound soft-spoken. “Everything all right?”

Hannah knuckled away a tear as she shook her head, shivering against the night air. “She doesn’t have anywhere to go.”

The girl shook violently against the cold. My jacket slipped from her shoulders to the ground. She was like watching an animal that had been caged, finally set free. Watching that moment when the animal looked back at their owner, not knowing where to go or what to do with their freedom, and just sat there, giving up.

My insides felt toxic.

Slowly stretching my hands out toward her, I picked the jacket up from the ground, holding it as Hannah fed the girls arms through.

“We can’t leave her, and she doesn’t want to file charges against him,” Hannah said as though the girl weren’t standing right in front of us. A sob broke past Hannah’s lips as she fought to maintain herself.

“It’ll be all right, love,” I told her, pulling her close and hugging her tight against me.

“How? This isn’t all right, Ed. Nothing about this is all right. Why do they stay? Why do they let someone have that much power over them? They keep taking it and taking it, and it rips everything apart. Why?”

I kissed her on the forehead. “I don’t know, love. Maybe it’s because they’re scared. Maybe it’s because that’s all they’ve known.”

“Bu-but it’s not right. No one deserves that. No one should have to deal with… That bastard should be in jail,” she said, skipping one thought for another. “He should pay for what he did. Pay for how he hurt her again and again, until there was nothing left but a shell.”

There was something underlying in what she said. Something deep. She wasn’t just angry about what happened, she was hurt. An embedded kind of hurt. I saw it that night in Rum Cay, and again as she glanced back over at the girl, wiping tears from the corner of her eyes.

“She doesn’t have to go back to him,” I firmly said.

It had to end. The pain Hannah wore on her sleeve for far too long would finally be put to rest, if it were the last thing I did.

“Come on, let’s go down the road a bit and I’ll take care of it. Okay?” I said, thinking of the closest place to get us out of the biting cold and quiet enough so I could place a call to my aunt.

A DARK SEDAN ROLLED UP alongside the curb outside of the small sweet shop we’d huddled into. The girl hadn’t said much the entire time, even when Hannah tried asking her simple things about the weather or the music playing in the shop.

I knew without a doubt the girl sitting across the table had been through more than any one person should ever have to go through. She was thin, too thin, with haunted shadows that lingered on her face, giving her a sickly pallor in the bright light shining on us. Bruises, some bright blue, and others a ghastly shade of yellow, marred her arms and cheeks.

There was nothing either Hannah or I could do but sit and wait with her. My aunt would handle the rest. Of that, I had no doubt.

I got up from my seat as Aunt Della stepped out of the back of the car and ducked inside the shop.

She gave me a blinding smile as she pulled me in for a hug. “Edward, it’s good to see ye again after so long.”

I stepped back, clearing my throat, feeling like a complete ass that I hadn’t even made an effort to come see her, let alone call her since I’d come back from the States. Yet, I hadn’t hesitated to call her when I needed her.

“It’s good to see ye, Aunt Della. I’m sorry to call ye so late. It’s just—”

She waved me off, taking in the scene before her. Her eyes missed nothing. Her mouth quirked up when she noticed Hannah watching us. The curiosity lasted only briefly when her gaze shifted to the girl huddled up in a hunched form as if hiding unsuccessfully behind Hannah’s stiffened back.

“Oh, lovey,” my aunt crooned as she moved closer to the table, putting her hand on Hannah’s shoulder, silently asking her to move.

Hannah carefully detangled herself from the girl and moved over to stand beside me.

For the first time, I saw my aunt as the strong one.

My throat closed off, making it hard to breathe. I knew what she’d been through. Witnessed the bruising and excuses firsthand. To see her rise above it and be the one to offer her protection brought everything around full circle.

Aunt Della’s head bent low as she took the girl’s hands in her own. “Ye’re safe now,” she said. The girl shook her head, but my aunt kept speaking to her. “I’ve rescued many a lost soul. Make no mistake; ye’re safe now. Will ye come with me and let me help ye?”

The girl’s voice shook as she kept her head down. “I can’t. He’ll find me. It… it’ll only be worse when I go back.”

Aunt Della put her hand under the girl’s quivering chin and lifted her head up to look into her sunken, makeup-smeared eyes. “But ye’re not going back. There’s nothing left for ye there. And I can promise ye this… he will never find ye. That part of your life is over. Right now starts your new one.”

The girl blinked long, slow blinks as Aunt Della put her hand out. Watching them was like magic. Like watching hope and trust being born. Suddenly, it was just there as she placed her hand in Aunt Della’s and rose from her seat.

“Now, let’s get ye home,” Aunt Della said, leading her out the door with a quick smile in my direction.

Hannah and I didn’t move until the car door closed behind them and moved away from the curb.

I put my arm around Hannah and thanked the shop owner for allowing us to stay after the shop should have closed as she ushered the both of us out into the night.

“I’ve never seen something like that before. Who is your aunt, Ed? And what exactly is it that she does?” Hannah asked, looking bewildered.

I waved down a taxi. “It’s a long story, love. One I’ll tell you as soon as we get out of this God-forsaken cold.”