Page 33 of Marlin's Faith

“Yeah, yeah I do.”

“If I may?” I nodded, curious as to what she had to say, she stopped us up short and sighed, “It has been my experience with victims of human trafficking; that they hide their true feelings away, deeply, as these feelings are the one and only thing that these traffickers can’t take from them. Now, of course, I am purely speaking from years of experience but I am sure you can draw inferences, no?”

I listened, rapt and searched the doctor’s face, understanding dawning…

“Right. The more you care about it, the less you talk about it. The less you care, the more you talk, something like that?”

She patted my arm and beamed me a huge smile, “I can tell you care very deeply for Faith, and I can honestly say I have never met you or heard anything about you from anyone, ever before.”

“You like her.” I said smiling.

“Oh,” she laughed, “I like all of my patients,” she said with a wink and pressed the button on her key fob to unlock her car doors. I opened her door for her because I both liked and respected the woman. I was glad Faith was in her care.

“I shall see you on Tuesday,” she said and I smiled, nodding and shut the door.

“See you on Tuesday, Doc.” I called through the glass and shot the dame a salute. She smiled and pushed the button to start her car. I made strides back to my bike and settled on some wind therapy and some solid time to think. I ended up back at the marina, a bunch of the guys walking to and from the parking lot taking coolers down to the beach for the bonfire that night.

Spring break was in full swing in the little town me and the boys called home, so there more than a few fuckin’ douchebags taking up the parking down at the marina where they didn’t fuckin’ belong. I wasn’t about to chance having to whoop some guy’s ass for touching my bike, so I went straight for the line of cinderblock garages.

When she was safely stored, I made a beeline for my boat to change into some more comfortable beach wear versus my hot as fuck riding leathers. I grabbed my guitar almost as an afterthought on my way back out and down to the beach.

“Hey, Marlin! What’s up?” Radar called. Lightning straightened up from the cooler he was setting down by our pile of wood. I eyed our road captain, Pyro, doing his thing building his latest and greatest conflagration. It was a constant argument between him and Lighting on whether the pyramid or log cabin formation was more fuel efficient or which burned hotter or some shit. Me? I said, fuck it. Make a pile of wood and burn it. The one time I’d voiced my opinion aloud, both of those dumb motherfuckers had looked at me like I was bat-shit or something and had gone back to arguing. I hadn’t put in my two cents since; all I could do was shake my fuckin’ head when they started in together.

I set my guitar down against a washed up log we used as a backrest sometimes, until the next big storm took it out or relocated it on us. No one would fuck with it, but just in case, I looked around for Trike, our prospect. He caught my eye and I signed him the directive to keep an eye on it. He nodded and waved me off and I started lookin’ for who I really wanted to see, and sure as shit, there she was, standing in the surf, aquamarine eyes distant and staring over the water.

“Hey,” Hope called and came up next to me. She shaded her eyes with her arm which was, thankfully, cast free.

“Finally got that thing off huh?”

“Yeah, yesterday. I seriously need to work on my tan lines now.”

It’d been a couple of weeks since dinner at the Captain’s house and from what he and Hope told me, the nightmares were tearing my girl up.

“How was last night?”

“Bad.”

“Saw her doctor today.”

“Yeah?”

“Didn’t know a thing about me.”

“I figured as much.”

“Not pissed at me?”

“You’re trying to help her; I don’t know what to do.I can’tdo anything. I just want the screaming to stop…”

“Yeah, me too.”

Hope patted me on the arm and I looked over at her. She had this clouded look of helplessness on her face, and a look like I was her only fuckin’ hope.

“I can’t punch it in the face, I’m kind of fuckin’ useless,” she said and shrugged.

“Well, if there’s a threat you can punch in the face, you’d still have to beat me to it.”

“Game on,” she said.

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