EVENTUALLY THE SOBS quieted and my body slowly stopped shaking. Triven kept me pressed to his chest, but he never said a word. I was revolted with myself. Despite all of my bravado, all my effort to keep up the hardened façade, he now knew how broken I was. And there was no taking it back. I hated him… I hated that he made me get into the grate. I hated that he was stronger than me. I hated that he was a better person than I was. But what I hated most is that I didn't hate him at all.
Honestly, it scared me. For years I had repressed my emotions, choked back my fear just as I did my screams every morning. But tonight, in that grate, everything finally caught up to me. Despite my best efforts I couldn’t outrun my past. The repressed memories mauled me with their razored talons until I lay raw and naked. The little girl I had thought died—that I had desperately wanted to die in the alley— was still alive somewhere in me. And her presence burned. The little girl had never left. I had just bound and gagged her. Kept her temporarily silent.
Then, something in my mind clicked. Words came to me through the haze. What had the deep-voiced man said tonight?
“Find the girl.” I whispered to myself as the gears clicked back into place. A completely different kind of fear overshadowed my thoughts.
“What?” Triven relaxed his grip on me. Pushing him away I sprung to me feet in a panic.
“Find the girl!” I screamed at him.
He looked back at me lost. His dark eyebrows pulled together.
“Find the girl, Triven! Those men tonight, they were from The Sanctuary weren’t they?” My body was vibrating with tension.
“Yes… well some of them I think. But there were Ravagers too, the one with the eye patch seemed to be in charge.”
I was thankful he had kept his eyes open when I could not. I knew I recognized that voice.
“I know who they’re looking for.” I snatched my bag from Triven’s side. He must have grabbed it before following me. I turned and started walking in the opposite direction, shoving all of my own pain back down.
“How?” Triven grabbed his bag and jogged after me, perplexed.
“Because of the man with the eye patch.”
“You know him?”
“I’m the one who gave him that eye patch. I threw a knife in his eye when I rescued the girl from him.” I stopped dead, staring pointedly at him.
“It’s Mouse…” He realized his eyes widened with fear.
New World Rising Page 29
