Page 14 of Butch
“Why didn’t you come sooner? Why didn’t you try to fight them harder, asking where I was?” she asked, her voice cracking. “I was living in hell all those years, only a couple of streets away from where we went to high school. Why didn’t you come?”
Butch wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her toward him. Rae nuzzled her head between his shoulder and neck, wanting to be as close as possible as she sobbed for the second time that day.
“Why?” she asked. “Why?”
She had seen her mother a year after getting sold and asked about Butch. She wanted to know whether he had still come for her, to see if he was going to save her from the nightmare she was living in, but she had said he never come. The heartbreak she had felt in that moment. Rae had cried just like she was now, getting one of the worst beatings of her life and passing out.
Butch held her against him, gently patting her back to help her calm down. She could feel the vibrations from him talking to her or someone else. After some time, she pulled away from him and allowed him to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
I did press them for where you were. I punched my father in the face when he said something bad about you. I interrogated them and asked neighbors if they had seen you. I had one of our best guys investigate you to figure out where you ran off to, but he kept hitting dead end after dead end. It was like you had just disappeared off the face of the earth. He wrote.
She had.
“I never left the house,” she whispered. “He wouldn’t allow that.”
Rae had only seen the sun through a single window for the last seven years, never actually feeling it on her skin. To feel the gentle breeze flow right past her, giving her little goosebumps.
Butch’s head snapped to the door, and she shyly looked over to see a tall, scary-looking man in the doorway, holding a bowl. The man gazed at her and gave her a small smile, making her flinch and tighten her hand around Butch’s shirt.
Her eyes stayed on him as he walked further into the room, handing Butch the bowl. Not once did her eyes leave him. Every alarm was going off inside her brain to not turn her back to this man. He had a little glint in his eye, the same one Edmund had whenever he was going to do something bad to her.
“I—” She stopped herself, her heart rate increasing as the man sat down.
What was he doing? Why was he staying in the room?
Butch cupped her face and attempted to make her look at him, but she wouldn’t budge. She needed to keep her eyes on this man. What if he decided to do something to her when she wasn’t looking at him?
“Fairy,” she heard Butch say.
Her eyes quickly darted to him to find concern written all over his face. Her knuckles were white from how tightly she was gripping his shirt.
He started to speak again, and she looked at his mouth. He was repeating the same word over and over again.
Sa?
What was he trying to say?
Butch’s hands were still cupping her face, keeping her looking at him.
“Safe,” she finally heard.
Safe. Was he telling her she was safe?
Rae pulled her face out of his hands and looked over at the man. He was slouched in the chair now, his hands on his legs, almost as if he was showing her that he wasn’t going to do anything.
“Safe,” she repeated, and Butch nodded.
He let go of her face and started writing on the whiteboard. She wanted to tell him to talk. She was sick and tired of him writing on the whiteboard and not being able to hear his voice, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to understand him if he didn’t use the whiteboard.
Maybe she should take Butch up on his offer of paying for her to get something to assist her hearing… even if Edmund was still a risk. At least then she could have some normal moments in her life with the love of her life.
Reaper is here to ask a couple of questions about who is after you. Can you answer them for him?
Her eyes went wide, and she shook her head. There was no way she would give them any information for them to go after him.
No.
“Too dangerous,” she replied and shook her head once again. “Don’t want you to get hurt.”
