Page 29 of Reacher
I nodded, suppressing a shudder at what I’d been told she’d gone through. I’d seen her after the rape. I’d helped her patch up the many small cuts, and wounds, that the bastard had left on her body. I’d witnessed how broken she’d been. Broken enough, that she’d tried ending her life soon after.
“Go on.” I tried to look reassuring. It was weird, because we’d worked together for almost four months, albeit mostly over the phone or by text. With me selecting, and drugging men, and then handing them off to her, for her to have her way with them, before she dumped them. We didn’t know each other well, but being the only two women here, selected by these biker men, it had led to us feeling closer. Like we’d bonded over this strange world we’d ended up in.
“Uh… it… I’m not able to…Jesus.” She placed her hands over her face, taking a breath. Maybe she wasn’t doing quite as well as I thought.
“Take your time, Tori. I’m in no rush.” Because the longer I kept Reacher waiting, the better, right? Besides, she clearly needed something, and I wanted to help her.
She let out another slow breath.
“We’ve been doing something that the others won’t approve of.”
Oh hell. I grabbed her hands, pulling them away from her face.
“Tell me.”
Her cheeks were red, and she couldn’t meet my eyes.
“The only way I can… I can be with him, is the way I was doing it… you know, before…”
Fuck. “You mean, the exact way you were with him the first time?”
She nodded, still not meeting my eyes.
“And he’s okay with that?”
She looked at me then, her eyes brimming with tears.
“It was his idea, Alicia. He arranged everything.”
My god… if that wasn’t love, I didn’t know what was.
“So, to be clear, we’re talking GHB and Viagra. He’s willingly letting you dope him up, and knock him out, so you can get off.”
She cursed, getting up and pacing. “It started that way, yeah.”
I had a sudden sinking feeling about this conversation.
“What does that mean, Tori? What has it become?”
She wrapped her arms around herself, an air of vulnerability in her very posture.
“When Dom kidnapped me… he used something he’d had engineered. Something new. It meant that I was awake, and aware. I could feel everything, but I was paralysed.”
I stood up, resting a hand on the table, because I felt oddly shaky. Wouldn’t that information make any woman feel vulnerable, even though she was perfectly safe?
“My god. That’s evil. That bastard.”
She nodded, looking like she was half here, and half of her was trapped in those memories. I approached her, pulling her into a hug, trying to offer some comfort.
She pulled back after a few moments.
“This is where it gets really bad.”
“Worse than that?”
She nodded, putting more distance between us as her eyes dodged mine again.
“Ice managed to get some for us.”
