Wow, the woman would be terrified when she realized they were gone. She’d be really worried.
“I’ll call her so she’s not concerned.” He stopped. This was one of those times that required him to stretch his parenting skills. His mother would have called it a teaching moment. “Girls, it’s never okay to run away. The adults around you love you very much, and we would all be terribly worried about you if you vanished. Please, promise me not to do this again.”
Ella sighed, letting go of him. “Daphne said that you needed us.”
He picked up the phone. Well, that was an interesting piece of information. First things first, however—he had to call and let Annie know he had the girls. His neighbor picked up on the first ring, which didn’t surprise him, since he suspected she was already running through the house in a nervous frenzy.
“Hello, Ms. Annie.” He leaned up against the wall as he spoke. “I have the girls.”
“Oh, thank God.” His neighbor spoke so fast that her words all stuck together like they were one word. “I woke up and they were gone. Ben, I’m so sorry.”
“No, don’t be sorry. They can be a handful. I’ve taken care of them their entire lives, and they still get around me.” He glared at Daphne, who smiled at him, making his heart melt a little. He was going to be in so much trouble when they got older if they could already manipulate him so well.
Annie gasped. “Have they been around the monster?”
He didn’t have to ask who “the monster” was. He was only mildly surprised that Annie had reverted to speaking of Seven that way after having called her a girl the night before.
“Yes, but everything is fine. Everyone is safe.” Except for me.
He looked over at the scene before him. Ella seemed to be drawing Seven a picture, and Daphne was laughing. It was downright homey.
“Ben, I can come pick up the girls—”
He interrupted her. “No, I’ve got it.” He cleared his throat. Sort of. “Gotta go.”
After he hung up the phone and meticulously placed it back on its holder, he took a deep breath. How in the hell was he supposed to handle this?
“Daddy,” Daphne called his attention as she stood up. “She needs a name. Give her one.”
“She has a name, Daphne. It’s Seven.” He moved toward them. There was no point in pretending he didn’t know to what his daughter was referring.
Ella sighed. “Daddy, seven is a number. It’s not a name.”
“In her case, it’s both.” He opened the cabinet that had the cereal in it. Pouring milk onto pre-made food was about all he could handle at the moment. “And to be technical, it’s not her full name. It’s just the first number in her name.”
“That’s dumb.”
Ben glared at Ella. “That’s not nice language and not how well-brought-up young ladies speak.”
“I’m not brought up yet.” She grinned. “I’m six.”
He couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him. She sounded so much like his brother when she got argumentative. In contrast, Daphne was so serious, so much like Ben had once been.
“That’s true. So don’t make me punish you.” He whirled around to finish pouring the milk. “What did you mean that I needed you, Daph?”
She laughed as she shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seemed to me that you needed us to come home and help you and Seven look for the ghosts.”
He whirled around, spilling some of the milk onto the floor.
“What?”
Seven’s eyes were huge. “I didn’t tell them anything about anything to do with that.” She paused. “I swear it.”
Even in his intense fury over the idea that his daughters knew anything about the Conditioned mess he was in, he could hear the quiver in her voice. She wasn’t lying. She was terrified.
After nudging Daphne gently from her lap, Seven stood up from the floor. “I mean it, Ben. I would never do anything to harm a child, and these are your children. I wouldn’t tell them anything without your permission.”
She backed up a few steps, and he felt the distance between them as if she’d plunged a dagger into his heart. Was she afraid of him? No. That wasn’t acceptable. Not after the night they’d spent together and the sensual, completely inappropriate thoughts he was having about her on a regular basis.
“I believe you.” He stalked to her, knowing his temper was probably not helping her to feel less afraid of him. He grabbed her arm, pulling her forward until she was pressed up against him. His reasons for needing to touch her were not going to be examined while he was in the room with his daughters. “Come on, we’ll all eat breakfast.”
She looked at him as though he had two heads. “Breakfast? We never did end up eating those pancakes. I guess… we forgot.”
“Things got a little crazy last night. We left them undone. So, yes, first meal of the day. You’re familiar with it?”
When he’d made sure she was seated on the stool, he let go of her arm. He hadn’t hurt her, but even he knew he’d crossed some kind of line by grabbing her as he had. Hopefully she’d gotten what he was trying to silently communicate. She wasn’t to be afraid of him, and she wasn’t to run away.
“I know what breakfast is.”
He’d forgotten that he’d asked her that question. “Good. Then you won’t have any problem eating it.”
He placed one of the bowls of cereal in front of her as his daughters hopped up onto the stools next to her. They were content and had, hopefully, missed some of the undertones of aggression he’d just displayed.
After he set bowls down in front of his daughters, he grabbed a towel to clean up the mess he’d made on the floor.
“Where did you get the idea that we are looking for ghosts, Daphne?”
She answered him with her mouth full, which he would normally have corrected her for but at the moment he really didn’t care about. “Because that’s what you’re doing.”
“Yes.” He had to find his patience or get a nap. Or do something to fix his temper before he really lost his mind. “But who told you about it? Was Ms. Annie discussing it around you girls?”
“No, Daddy.” Daphne shrugged. “Sometimes I just know things.”
The room was silent except for the sounds of crunching cereal in his daughters’ mouths. Seven had stopped eating and regarded him with sad, quiet eyes. He closed his.
Ben had found that, sometimes in life, moments that were really important took a few seconds to register in his mind. He’d had a few of them. When he’d heard he was going to be a father—surprise—that had been one of those moments. The news that his wife had only months to live had been a less happy one. His daughter announcing that she was probably Conditioned, in a room with a Conditioned person, felt like the same sort of jarring to his soul those other times had been.
“No, you don’t.”
Seven’s voice made him look up from the space on the tile floor that had occupied his gaze since his daughter’s announcement. Had it been only seconds ago? It felt like hours.
Daphne turned in her chair, still eating. “What?”
Ella sighed. “She said you don’t know things sometimes, but you do. You do.”
Seven nodded, taking both girls by the hands. “Yes. That is true. It’s a real… talent.” She turned her head until both girls had stared at her eyes for a few seconds each. “But that is going to be our secret. You are never, ever, in a million years, going to tell anyone outside the four of us what Daphne can do. Promise me, Daphne. Promise me, Ella.”
Daphne’s grin had fallen. “Why are you afraid, Seven? Has someone done something to you? Daddy didn’t mean to grab your arm. He only does that when he’s scared, and he’s never hurt us.”
Seven placed her hands on Daphne’s cheeks. “No, I’m not afraid of your daddy. He’s a gentle soul.”
He was? What was it about this woman that so consumed him? He hung on her every word as if it were gospel.
“There are some people in the world who won’t l
ike that you know things. It’s important that they never know. We will all keep it our secret. Can you do that?”
“I can.” Daphne looked so serious for a moment before she launched herself into Seven’s arms. The woman he’d been fantasizing about hugged his daughter as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Good.” He stood up from the floor. “And I am sorry I grabbed you, Seven.”
She met his gaze over his daughter’s shoulder. “That’s okay. I kind of liked it.”
She had? His mouth fell open, and he guessed that he looked a bit like a landed fish.
“What are we going to do today? It’s Saturday.” Ella enunciated the last word like it was important he hear it.
“I know what day it is.” He laughed and leaned against the counter, amazed at how many things had happened in such a short period of time. “I need to get Ms. Seven some clothes, and then she and I need to go about finding our… ghosts.”
“I can stay in what I have on,” Seven said.
“No.” He looked at her orange jumpsuit. He didn’t think in his entire life he’d ever disliked an article of clothing as much as he hated that. “You’re much taller than my wife, Dana, was, so I don’t think anything I have here will fit you.”
Ben had given most of what she’d had away a few months after her death. Some things he’d saved, thinking the girls might like to have some of their mother’s clothing someday. Still, it wouldn’t do them any good right now.
“That sounds like a good idea.” Ella nodded. “Daphne and I will come with y’all.”
He supposed they would have to. There was no way he could leave them here alone, and he needed Seven to come with him to try on any clothes he picked out.
That meant it was a family outing.
“Go get dressed.”
The girls jumped off their seats and charged up the stairs as if they were being chased. Maybe they were. Maybe, at their age, every moment that wasn’t filled with fun was somehow motivating them, making them move faster.
“Don’t ever let them get her.”
Seven’s voice jarred him out of his thoughts and he stared at her. He didn’t need to ask her what she meant.
“Do you think she’ll keep her promise?”
Seven stood up. “Make her.”
“What will they do to her if they catch her, Seven?”
He had almost been unable to bring himself to ask her that question. It was too real, and keeping his head in the sand about Daphne’s Condition was one of his favorite activities. If he pretended all was well, and Daphne managed to keep from blurting out things in front of the wrong people, then nothing bad could happen to them. He had to believe that.
“You don’t want to know, Ben.” Her eyes flashed when she answered him.
“Yes, I do.” He did. More than anything. He needed to hear the truth of what could happen to his baby. Of what had happened to the woman standing in front of him.
She reached out and took his hand. “Before they’re done with her, she won’t remember any of this.” Letting go of his hand, she waved her arm to indicate the room. “She might not ever know again who you are, who Ella is. Everything about who she is now will be gone. She’ll be Conditioned. That is all she will be.”
He could hear the underlying meaning of what she said. If all Daphne would be was Conditioned, then that was all Seven thought she was as well.
“How can that be? I can’t believe that. They’d never be able to kill all that is the human spirit.”
She laughed, a bitter sound that seemed foreign coming from Seven’s mouth.
“In the Institutions, there is no such thing. We’re not human. We’re Conditioned.”
“You’re human.”
Everything about her was human and very, very female. His libido was keenly aware of just how feminine she actually was. It was all he could do not to slam her against the wall and be a much more aggressive lover than he’d ever been in his life.
“Don’t let them take her. They’ll turn her into me.”
Six
It was obvious to Seven that Ben was uncomfortable—well, maybe uncomfortable wasn’t a strong enough word. He was downright horrified about what was going on around them. She wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Taking her out in public was always a bit of a problem. In her bright-orange jumpsuit with the Crescent insignia on the side, everyone knew she was Conditioned.
Some people stared. Some people gaped. Some even ran away—fast. But Seven was pretty sure that being escorted out of two stores the second they walked in had been the biggest horror for Ben thus far.
They’d ceased trying to buy clothes and sat in the car, watching his girls eat ice cream. The six-year-old beauties, who were a combination of Ben and his late wife, chatted happily as strawberry ice cream dribbled all over their faces.
“Ice cream for lunch?” She tried to smile, hoping it would make Ben smile again. It was better when he was happy. His joyfulness made her feel soothed in the depths of her being.
He didn’t seem to hear her as his fingers drummed lightly on the steering wheel of his car. “It’s like that movie with Julia Roberts. You know the one? Where she’s the prostitute? What is that called?”
“I’ve never seen a movie in the Institutions. They don’t let us watch television.”
In the last house she’d been in, which had unfortunately ended badly, the owners had enjoyed movies where people got naked and had hard, painful-looking sex. She hadn’t liked being forced to watch those at all. Ben watched movies about prostitutes? Maybe he liked those kinds of movies, too. Did everyone?
“It’s called… Pretty Woman. Yes, that’s it. My wife loved it.” He grinned. “Anyway, they won’t let her buy clothes in one particular store because she’s a hooker.”
Seven nodded, trying to find a way to follow his conversation. “And that reminds you of this because we can’t seem to get inside any stores to buy me clothes?”
He smiled. “I’m making very little sense to you, aren’t I?”
“As much as anyone makes. It’s hard to talk to me because I can’t follow cultural references, and I can’t read or write.”
“You can’t read?” asked Ella.
Seven smiled. She’d known them only hours, but she wasn’t surprised that Ella’s sharp hearing hadn’t missed that little tidbit.
“Nope.” She smiled as if it were no big deal and gazed at them for a second before turning back around. Truthfully, it was her biggest regret, even if the lack in her education wasn’t her fault. She’d always wanted to read.
Daphne smiled, sitting forward. “Then we’ll teach you.”
“No.” At the child’s simple words of sweetness, Seven’s voice cracked, and she was shocked to feel that tears had formed in her eyes. “It’s not allowed.”
Ella was clearly not going to let this go. “Why?”
“Your father will explain it to you someday.” She looked back at Ben, hoping to change the subject. “So what shall we do, then? I think the best course of action would be to leave me as I am in these clothes and let me go and find your ghost energy.”
A tap on the window had them both jumping. Ben lowered the window, his gaze guarded, and Seven wondered if he expected trouble from the woman who stood outside.
“I bought her clothes.” The woman, who had graying hair and a round, sweet face, spoke in hushed tones.
“What?” Ben grabbed Seven’s hand and squeezed. She took that to mean he wanted her to be quiet. At least, she thought that was what he wanted. That was what she was doing, either way.
“I saw y’all inside, and you couldn’t get served.” She shook her head. “They wouldn’t even let you buy her sweatpants.”
Ben laughed. “I never would have suspected a mall in Metairie to be so afraid of one woman, but apparently she’s too much for the salespeople.”
Tears sprang from the woman’s eyes, and Seven gasped. She had a sudden urge to dart from the car and throw her arms
around her. Ben squeezed her hand more tightly.
“My son… they took him from me when he was ten. I’m not even sure how they knew he was Conditioned. No one had seen him do what he could do, but somehow they knew.” She sniffed. “I’d like to think that if he could somehow get out of wherever they put him, that someone would buy him clothes.”
“Oh.” Seven couldn’t stand it anymore. She had to say something. “I’m not out, I’m just on assignment, and Mr. Lavelle is trying to be nice to me by buying me some clothes to wear.”
“Well.” The woman sniffed again. “I hope he somehow found a way to get out.”
That was doubtful, but this woman was too nice for Seven to disillusion her. Maybe, somewhere out there in the world, there was someone who worried about all of them, who thought of them in quiet moments, who regretted the life fate had given their loved ones.
“Anyway, I guessed, but I think you’re a size four. Is that right?”
Seven looked at Ben, but he shrugged. “I really have no idea, ma’am. I’ve never had clothes that had sizes on them.”
“Well, my best guess is that these will fit you. You’re so tall and thin. Really, you have the most lovely figure.”
Ben interrupted. “Thank you.” He pulled out his wallet.
“How much do I owe you for the clothes?”
The woman passed a bag of clothes through the window to Ben. “Consider it a gift. I insist.”
Money. Seven didn’t understand it. She’d never even handled any. But it meant something to Ben, as he continued to argue with the woman about needing to pay for the clothes and she kept insisting a gift was a gift.
Not sure what to do, Seven turned around to regard the girls. “How is your ice cream?”
Ella smiled as Daphne nodded. “Good,” they said in unison.
Well, that hadn’t distracted her for very long. Seven sat back in the seat. Ben continued to try to hand the woman some money. Finally, Seven placed her hand on his strong arm.
“I think she really wants this to be a gift.”
He regarded her silently, and she wished, not for the first time, that with Ben she had the ability to read minds. It would have been a much more useful Condition when dealing with him. She wondered if his wife had been able to read all his expressions and how long it had taken her to learn how to do that.
Illicit Connections (Illicit Minds Book 2) Page 6
