Page 15 of Rogue Voice

“Just Rogue,” he said automatically.

“What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said. First rule of interrogations, be the one asking questions.

Her cheeks blushed dark pink. She looked guilty as hell. “I was …” She stopped, hesitating for an instant as she realized she did not have to answer his questions. Her jaw clamped together. “It’s really none of your business what I was doing.”

Rogue’s heart told him to leave her alone, but his brain reminded him he had a job to do. He took a step forward, using his greater height to crowd her and feeling like shit as she took the tiniest step back.

“What are you feeling so?—”

The door to the house opened, and a boy bounded out. He was young, couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old, gangly like a newborn colt, with inky black hair and eyes that seemed too large for his serious face.

“Ms. Beatriz, you forgot …” The words, spoken in halting English, died out as he saw Rogue standing there. His hands went to his back—fast as lighting but not fast enough for Rogue to miss the small package.

“What do you have there?” Rogue growled, stepping around Beatriz and grabbing the boy by the elbows, pulling his arms out from behind his back. The boy snarled—actually snarled—at him. “And what have we?—”

“Don’t hurt him!” Beatriz stepped between Rogue and the boy, her look ferocious. Her fingers wrapped around Rogue’s hand, her touch searing him. Something in Rogue’s belly tightened. Fuck, but she was hot. Rogue released the boy. But not before he’d seen what was in his hand. Now it was his turn to be speechless.

It was a book. The shape and size of the object she’d been hiding under her blouse when she’d first left the house.The Three Musketeers.

He grabbed it out of the boy’s hand and shook it, half expecting drugs to fall out of a hidden compartment. But it was just a book, the pages well-thumbed and stained with time. An expression of disgust crossed Beatriz’s pretty face. “Give that back to him.”

“I’m sorry,” Rogue told the boy, quickly pushing the book back into the boy’s shaking hands.

“You can keep it until next time, Manuel,” Beatriz said. “It’s okay. Go inside.”

Next time.Suddenly, it all clicked in Rogue’s mind. The curtains closing, the boy’s halting English, the hidden book. She was secretly teaching the boy English.

The boy didn’t need to be told twice. With a quick, apologetic look at Beatriz, he sped back into the house, the book clutched tightly in his hands.

“You were reading together.”

“Be quiet,” Beatriz hissed, her expression still disgusted, with him, he assumed. He studied her frown, as another idea hit him.Is that disgust, or fear?The thought tore him up inside.

“Listen, I don’t…” But he was speaking to her back. Because she’d turned, with a flair of her skirt, and left him standing there, feeling all sorts of foolish.

6

Bea

As dinner time grew closer, the knots in her stomach became tighter. She wished she could stay in bed, but that wasn’t an option. Her uncle wouldn’t like it.

The whole afternoon, she’d tensed each and every time she’d heard a noise out in the corridor, wondering if it was her uncle coming to see her. Rogue had certainly had enough time to speak to Emiliano about what he’d seen earlier that day.

There was no excusing what she’d done—no way she could claim ignorance. Emiliano had been crystal clear with her the last time he’d caught her out by the staff quarters. She wasn’t to approach the staff outside the house ever again unless she wanted to spend another week alone in the cellar.

The mere thought of another week like that made her throat go dry. The hunger, the thirst, the hallucinations—instead ofconjuring up an oasis, like a reasonable person might have done, she’d conjured up fire-breathing dragons that had huffed and puffed by the cellar stairs, as real as anything she’d ever seen. By the time her uncle had opened the door, Bea had been sure her uncle was going to leave her there to die. She shook her head to clear away the memory.

She understood why her uncle didn’t want her teaching Manuel, or any of the other kids. Not English, and not anything else. Because, while Emiliano was not an intelligent man, hewassmart enough to understand that knowledge gave you options. That teaching Manuel things would make him—and his parents—realize there might be a better life waiting for him outside the walls of thehacienda.

Bea wanted that for Manuel. She wanted that for all the children whose parents worked for her uncle.

Options.

She didn’t have many options herself—she knew if she ever tried to leave her uncle would drag her back by her hair, that he’d never let her go, no matter what—but she’d be damned if she’d stand by and watch Manuel grow up to join her uncle’s crew of drug-addled zombies. Not if she could help it.

And she could. Shewould. Manuel was one of the smartest kids she’d ever met. He loved adventure stories—had practically inhaledThe Count of Monte Cristo, and she had no doubt he’d finishThe Three Musketeersby the time she saw him the following week. They were only meeting once a week because Bea was a coward, and because it wasn’t just herself she was risking. She knew her uncle and knew he wouldn’t reserve his punishment for her alone. He would hurt Manuel and his parents, too, if he ever found out. He might already have done so since Rogue had had all day to tell her uncle about what he’d seen.

---