Page 24

Instead, I stand, grab my food, and follow him, keeping my head down as we make our way to the exit.

“Yo, Atom, where you going?”

I would have kept walking, but Atom stopped before me and is blocking my way. I don’t turn back to the group like he does to answer.

“Nat has an appointment we’ve got to get to. We’ll be back.”

I glance up just enough to see his face. He usually calls me Natalie. This is the first time he’s called me Nat. Something I used to go by. When I had friends.

“What’s the appointment for?” Ruby. Of course it’s her who asks, and I turn my head without a thought, then curse myself for giving her even that much of me.

At one time, I was willing to stand in front of our captors and die for her to live. But what was only a few short months ago feels like years of betrayal between us now.

For me, choosing my sister, siding with my so-called family, makes you dead to me. Any allegiance we might have had is gone, never to be repaired.

Still, I can’t seem to just ignore her. When she speaks to me, I bite back each time. Which is why her man and Atom rarely let us get this close.

“Nails,” I say with a flip of my hair, glancing briefly at hers. “Some of us try not to look like a ho-bag on the daily.”

Something people don’t tell you as a kid is that when you get mad as an adult, stupid shit comes out of your mouth. Does it always make sense? No. Does it still feel good to say? Hell yeah.

Is Ruby a ho? That’s a laugh. The girl’s only slept with one person and got pregnant from it. She’s the quintessential billboard ad for kids not to engage in premarital sex.

Still… I say it because I know it will piss her off. She’s got a few hang-ups. One being the vamps the club keeps on as club girls who are available for brothers—both the single and married kind, I’m sure. Never seen a brother with an old lady take up with a vamp, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. And despite all Ruby’s talk, I know she still feels lacking. Especially since her man has a dozen years on her and didn’t save his cherry like she did.

So while Ruby might not be the definition of a ho, my words do what they’re meant to do: cause her pain and twist her heart.

Just like her words did to me when my freedom was taken from me for the last time.

“Oh, fuck you. You were always so prissy. Had to get your nails done each month like fucking clockwork. You’re just like your fucking sister, I bet.”

Being compared in any way to Reina makes me see red, and I snap before I can think better of it.

“Really? Just like her? Not in a fucking million years. Because while Reina was released only hours after we were snatched on the way home from school, I was kept. And each week that went by that my father didn’t pay my ransom, my captors pulled a nail out. Each and every one till they moved on and took my toe.” I snap off each nail on my left hand and shove the results in her face. The tears that slip down my cheeks are from how sensitive my nails are once exposed, or what’s left of them.

“Oh my God,” Izzy, the vice president’s woman, gasps.

“What did they do to you?” Jules, another old lady, asks as she squints at the damage to my nail beds.

“After each pull, before they mailed it to my father, they ‘cleaned’ my wound with Clorox. Nothing ever grows back.”

“How old were you?” Fairy, the one I tolerate better than the rest. She’s smart and doesn’t apologize for her lack of social cues, and I find it refreshing.

“Fifteen. I started being prissy at fifteen so I could get fake nails put on and not have people look at me like I’m a freak. All because my daddy didn’t want to pay for more than one child.”

I turn away and move around Atom this time, done with this show and tell.

“Nat,” Ruby calls out, just softly enough that I stop with gritted teeth. “I didn’t know.”

I turn my head so she can see my profile. “You didn’t care to ask.”

I push through the door and make my way to my transport, getting on the back of Atom’s bike after putting my helmet on and waiting him out. He’ll come. I know he will.

You can always rely on a captor to show up, no matter how much you wish to be alone.

As expected, the man comes out moments later and gets on the bike.

“Address?” is all he says as he hands me his phone to type it in for directions.