Thumper by Marie James
Chapter 25
Cara
“You didn’t have to do that, but thank you,” I whisper as I take the plate from Cannon’s hands and place it on the table in front of me.
He shrugs. “No big deal. I was already standing up.”
Kincaid told the truth; all of the Cerberus men are gone. They disappeared like smoke shortly after the meeting I had with him in the conference room two days ago.
“It’s so quiet around here,” Emmalyn says as she walks into the kitchen.
I give her a small smile when she looks at me. “Good morning.”
“Careful with those eggs if Cannon made them.” She points to the untouched plate sitting in front of me. “He likes really spicy foods.”
“Noted,” I respond. “I like spicy foods, too. Have you heard anything?”
Emmalyn’s smile falters a fraction before she can put it back in place as she walks to the coffee pot. “I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”
I don’t know what the plan is. There was nothing about their trip that was discussed with me. I know Lauren said that Javier has a tracker on him and that they were headed to Central America, but that’s the extent of my knowledge.
“Thank you,” I whisper, picking up my fork and mixing the scrambled eggs on my plate. I won’t eat much of it, and that has more to do with my lack of appetite rather than the same fear of being poisoned like I had before.
“Have you seen Mom this morning?” Cannon asks, looking over his shoulder and directing the question to Emmalyn.
“She and Khloe went to the grocery store. She’ll be back soon.”
Cannon turns off the water in the faucet and dries his hands on a dish towel before giving us both a quick nod and walking out of the kitchen.
I realize that he made me breakfast without making something for himself. The thought of being catered to doesn’t sit right with me. It’s not a bad feeling, just different. I’ve been doing everything for myself for so long, it’s weird to have others do things for me.
“How are you sleeping?” Emmalyn asks as she places her cup of coffee on the table and takes a seat across from me.
“I’m okay. The bed is really comfortable. I appreciate being able to stay here, and I promise to pay you back—”
She holds her hand up. “I’ll have none of that. There’s nothing to pay back.”
“I’ve been eating your food and sleeping here. I took a shower so long yesterday the water ran cold. I owe—”
“You owe nothing.” She smiles again, a compassionate soft hitch of her lips. “But if you want to do something to help, I have a suggestion.”
“Anything,” I say. “I can cook or clean or—”
“None of that. I want you to talk to someone.”
“Like a counselor?”
“I want you to talk to Mia.”
“I met Mia. She’s very nice. Just when she approached me, I was tired. I didn’t mean to be rude, but I didn’t not want to talk to her. It was late and—”
A chuckle escapes her lips. “I don’t mean just have a regular conversation. If you’re tired, you don’t have to make excuses to be around anyone or go to bed. You have complete freedom to do what you want when you want around here. Mia was abducted several years ago, and I think speaking with her will help.”
I nod, emotion clogging my throat. “She was?”
“Yes, and of course I’ve suggested it, but I want you to do it on your own time if you do it at all. It’s not a requirement to stay.”
“Thank you,” I say as she stands, taking her cup of coffee with her.
“And if you feel like it, we’re all going to be trying some new recipes at my house this afternoon.”
“Okay.”
She gives me another sweet smile before leaving the room.
Delilah was right about this place being different, so much so, that I feel a little guilty for even mentally comparing it to Knight Salvation. These women aren’t brainwashed and abused, and I blame my own upbringing, and my mom’s inability to escape my horrible father in the years before he just took off and never came back. Then she met and married a cult leader. I haven’t witnessed any stability in my life other than what I’ve been able to create myself, and that has been a long, hard road considering I spent more time working to pay bills and survive than actually living a fulfilling life.
These people are a family, some related by blood, but some choosing the others to bond with.
“Good morning,” Mia says as she enters the kitchen, and the timing is so perfect I have to wonder if it was coordinated with Emmalyn.
“Morning.” I’m not upset if it was, I was already wondering how I was going to approach her. “Listen, about last night.”
“You have nothing to worry about. I’m the one who had the energy drink too late in the day.”
“Trouble sleeping?” I know all about that.
She pours a cup of coffee. “I don’t sleep well when Ryan is gone.”
“Which one is he?”
“Scooter.” She smiles as she sits down across from me. “I’m comfortable here, and I’ve never had any reason to doubt my safety, but some nights when he’s gone are worse than others. It’s been years, but sometimes I’m still scared.”
“Years since you were abducted?” I ask, knowing parts of her story from what Emmalyn has mentioned.
She nods. “Most days I feel strong and all ‘I am woman hear me roar,’ but there are times when the shadows creep in.”
“How long were you gone? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I don’t mind.” Her fingers toy with the handle on her coffee cup. “I was gone for nearly two months.”
“I feel guilty for being so upset I was gone for only two weeks.”
“Don’t say only. That’s a horrible word. Trauma begins the second you realize something bad is going to happen. You don’t have to minimize it for me or anyone else around here, but especially don’t minimize it for yourself.”
Mia goes on, talking about what happened to her in Venezuela years ago, how Scooter rescued her, how she clung to him like a life raft the second he picked her up from the filthy floor in that hellhole she was stuck in. She chuckles without humor when those same shadows that still haunt her also creep into her mind, making her wonder if he only stuck around because she was too weak to let him go.
I wish I could picture Javier as my savior, but it’s been hard to fully wrap my mind around him not being a bad guy. Even with the proof I have, including his interactions with me, I still can’t seem to let go of the fear I felt every second that I was there.
“The man who bought me is an undercover FBI agent,” I explain.
“So, he protected you?” she asks after looking over her shoulder, making it clear she wouldn’t feel comfortable having this conversation if others were around.
“I guess. He never physically hurt me, but another man there raped one of the girls. She starved herself to death after.”
Mia frowns, her cheeks turning pink, and I wonder if she’s fighting as hard as I am to keep from crying.
“People respond differently in those situations. Some fight until they can’t anymore. Some try to manipulate their way out of it by flirting and being what they think the men want. Every situation is hard to watch as it unfolds.”
I nod, not knowing which category I would’ve fit in had I been Megan when Juan attacked.
“I just can’t wrap my head around Javier being a good guy, and how fucked up is it that I could never fully wrap my head around him being a bad guy either.”
“Our minds are built to try to find answers to questions that are impossible to explain. It’s hard to accept that sometimes the answers aren’t always yes or no or black and white.”
I nod, understanding what she’s saying even though it doesn’t help solve my problem.
“Is it weird that I don’t hate him?”
“No, and just like what I said about people handling things differently, I don’t think you’d be horrible if he did hurt you and you didn’t hate him. We’re not single-minded creatures. Humans are insanely complex, and science will spend the rest of eternity trying to figure out how we operate, and it will never be fully understood.”
“He raped a woman, twice. Or at least I thought he did.”
“That woman you came here with?”
I nod. “She’s also an agent, and apparently they have a history. What I thought happened wasn’t what really happened, but I’m—”
“Having a hard time consolidating the two?”
“Exactly.”
“And that may take time, or you may never be able to look at him and not see the man you thought was capable of hurting someone like that.”
My eyes drift down to the still uneaten plate of eggs. They’re cold by now, and I feel bad that Cannon wasted his energy to make them for me.
“Are you planning to stay here? I only ask because if they find Thumper, they’re going to bring him back here. You’re going to have to see him. Are you going to be okay with that?”
“I don’t know,” I say, not answering the first question because I don’t know the answer to the other.
Will I be okay to see Javier, knowing everything I know now? Can I look at him and not see the man I thought he was? It didn’t take much for me to see Lauren as an agent, but the entire time I thought she was a victim.
I close my eyes, thinking back to the times I spent in his office, and my mind chooses to focus on the push-ups and the sit-ups I saw him doing, his golden skin working up a sheen of sweat, the dips and curves, and all of that raw, masculine power. I have to snap my eyes open because despite his undercover status, I was his captive.
You can trust him.
I hate that Lauren’s words have been on constant replay in my head since she said it.
“Are you questioning why you think he’s handsome?”
“I don’t think he’s—”
She cocks an eyebrow at my lie falling from my lips.
“I’ve seen the man. I’m in a committed relationship with Ryan, but I still have eyes. Thumper is good looking.”
“All the guys here are good looking. It’s like—”
“Being gorgeous is a club requirement?” she asks with a laugh. “I know, right?”
I give her a weak smile. “It’s just that he was a bad guy and then he wasn’t. He didn’t hurt me, but the threat was there that he could. He hurt Lauren, but then I find out he didn’t actually hurt Lauren.”
“What did you feel when you found out he wasn’t really raping her?”
I blink in her direction. This woman isn’t pulling any punches, is she?
“You don’t have to answer out loud, but maybe in your head. Really dig deep and try to determine that emotion, what you felt in that second.”
“Anger,” I say automatically. “I was mad.”
“Were you mad because you were lied to, that you believed something that wasn’t real or because he was having sex with another woman?”
I clench my jaw closed, and from the look in her eyes, I can tell she knows the answer without me even having to say it out loud.
“I’m so fucked up,” I whisper.
“You’re not. I promise.”
“Is it Stockholm syndrome?”
“I honestly couldn’t tell you. I don’t know that a year of weekly therapy sessions could answer that question either. Thumper isn’t a bad guy even though for the last couple of weeks, we all thought he was. I mean the guys don’t talk to us, but it wasn’t hard to figure out the correlation between him being gone and everyone being put on lockdown. You aren’t the only one around here who is going to struggle with his choices. That’s if you want to be here if he comes back.”
I hate the word if, but I’m not so delusional to think that there won’t be the possibility that he’s already dead. The bodies in that house were proof enough that human life isn’t valued by the men who went through and killed everyone there.
“Ivy offered to let me stay across the street with her and Griffin.”
“And you want to? Please, don’t feel bad for accepting anything someone around here offers if it’s what you want. They aren’t making you a charity case or feeling sorry for you. They genuinely want to help and make you comfortable. I grew up with two loving parents, and the people around here love me just as much. It’s an amazing thing to witness, but it’s indescribable when they welcome you into that fold.”
“I may go over there. I don’t want to be uncomfortable around him, but I also don’t want to force my proximity on him either.”
“That’s commendable.”
“Can I ask you one more question?”
“Sure.”
“When you were gone, were there any men that were nice, like they didn’t take advantage or hurt others?”
She shakes her head. “Not a single one. Every man I encountered in Florida was out for themselves. They didn’t bat an eye taking what they wanted when they wanted it.”
I nod in understanding, wondering if Angel was part of Javier’s team as well. I focus back on my eggs, knowing I won’t eat them, but wishing I had something else to distract me from the memories of seeing his body in the middle of the living room.