Page 81 of Ruined
“I know we didn’t end on the greatest terms,” she said, “but I need your help. Please tell me you have a place where you can keep Nora safe. Out of view. Away from here.”
There was an island off the coast that was fairly secluded. Few people had property there. I had purchased a beachfront house years ago, though I hadn’t used it much. Best of all, Aldrich had no knowledge of the purchase. I would gladly take Nora there.
But there was another matter to solve.
“You’re not taking him on by yourself,” I said. “Go to the police.
“I can’t risk that,” she said. “If I go to them, I risk exposing the Dahlia District for what it really is. And I can’t let all of the servers go to jail.”
“Wouldn’t they be protected under trafficking laws?”
She shook her head. “There are no guarantees.”
I sucked in a deep breath. Fine. If we had to do it this way, then so bet it. “I’ll drop Nora off. Be back in a few hours to help you.”
“No,” she said. She put up a hand. “You have to stay with her. Protect Nora. She’s all I have left.”
Nora waved from the backseat. “Howdy.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to her,” Haley said.
But I couldn’t let Haley face Aldrich alone. “I’ll take care of him,” I said.
She stepped forward and put a hand on my arm. “No. I need to do this. I need you to protect Nora. Keep her safe.”
There was a passionate look on her face. Those green eyes penetrated my soul, seeing deep within, their gaze strong. After all of the bullshit I had put her through, Haley was still trusting me. To do what was right. To stand up against the evil in the world. Evil that disregarded human life. Evil that I had once been a part of.
She had faith in me. Like I should have had faith in her.
But I could start trusting her now.
“Go,” I said. It hurt, but I had to let her fight her own battles.
“I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep her safe. Even if that means…” She stopped, looked around, and bit her lip. I knew what that meant.
I went to my car and opened the dashboard compartment, removing a pistol with a silencer.
“If you’re going to face him,” I said, handing her the gun, “Be prepared for anything.”
“Did you really just give my sister a gun?” Nora said. “What is wrong with you?”
Haley looked over at her sister, then turned back to me and shrugged. “Maybe Aldrich will surprise us and be reasonable,” Haley said. I wanted so badly to kiss her forehead, to tell her that I’d be ready to defend her as soon as she called.
Instead, I simply shook my head.
“Be prepared for the worst.”
***
Nora sat in the front seat of my car, stroking her bushy ponytail. I admit that I didn’t have much experience with kids. She was quiet at first, taking in the sights shadowed in the darkness. It must have been a shock for her to be taken away from school on short notice, to be put under the guard of someone she had never met before.
As we came up to the private hangar at the airport, she sat up. “Whoa,” she said. I didn’t know much about Haley’s sister, but I knew that Haley wanted to protect Nora from the outside world, so that Dahlia never saw Nora as a valuable resource. I wondered if that meant that Nora rarely, if ever, left the confines of the academy. Was this the first plane she had ever been on? Perhaps the only place she had ever seen?
“What’s your name, anyway?” she asked. I parked the car and we went through a gate in the fence, which led us to the tarmac.
“Lucas Conway,” I said.
She raised her eyebrows at me. “Oh.”
