Blade

 

“I can’t let you buy me something to eat,” Maggie said when it was her turn to order at the diner just up the road from the warehouse where the auction had been.

 

“Look, if what you told me earlier was true, you need something to eat,” I told her. Then, I ordered her a cheeseburger and some fries.

 

“Blade, don’t,” she protested. I could see in her face that regardless of how hungry she must have been, she was not happy letting someone else pick up the tab.

 

“Look, don’t worry about it. You’ll get a chance to pay me back one day, and it’ll even out, okay? Don’t sweat it,” I told her, even though I had no intention of letting her pay me back. There was no need to even talk about it as far as I was concerned, but I could tell she needed something to help her sense of pride.

 

I could also tell she expected something from me in the form of a demand or a favor, something like that, but I didn’t have any orders to bark at her. I wasn’t one of those guys from the warehouse. I wasn’t going to try to get into her pants like that just because I had helped her out of there.

 

“I want to know what you were doing there,” I told her, leaning forward. “I want to know what your story is. If you can tell me that, I’ll consider us even.”

 

“I already told you,” she said. Luckily, the food showed up just in time to interrupt us, or else I could have pursued her a little further.

 

I had asked her in the car where her home was and told her I would have been happy to take her there if she would just tell me, but she refused to say much. I figured a little food would soften her up and get her to start talking.

 

That was when I had decided to bring her to the diner where I always stopped for a bite to eat after an auction. It always amused me that they weren’t even a block away from the warehouse, but they had no idea that we had all just met right down the street to sell young girls into sexual slavery. Most people had no idea that the auctions were even taking place right under their noses. Sure, Vlad chose a vacant spot in a seedy part of town so he wouldn’t be monitored as closely, but it blew my mind every month.

 

We thanked our server for our food, and she handed me the bill before walking away. I expected to hear more arguments from Maggie as to why she couldn’t accept my gracious offer of the best cheeseburger in town and perfect fries, but she didn’t say anything else once the food was in front of her.

 

I grabbed the ketchup and went to offer it to her before using it for my fries and burger, but she was already halfway through the massive cheeseburger. I watched, stunned, as that little redhead wolfed down her sandwich. She attacked it and took it down like she hadn’t eaten in days.

 

I started to think there might have been something to her homeless story. I drizzled ketchup over my fries and put some on my cheeseburger, and I started to eat, slowly, civilly, and not at all like a wild animal. I didn’t want to bother her while she was eating. It looked like a pretty dangerous move. So I sat back with my food and waited.

 

When she finished eating, she drank down a whole glass of water and looked at me. “Sorry,” she said. “I was really hungry.”

 

“That’s fine. I imagine it’s been a while since you ate?”

 

She thought about her answer for a moment before saying anything. Then, “Yeah, it’s been a while.”

 

“Care to talk about it?” I asked her.

 

“No, I just…that was a good burger. Thank you,” she said, and she started to get up.

 

“No. Sit back down,” I told her, throwing on a more commanding tone than I had used with her so far.

 

She froze for a brief moment and looked back at me in shock. I nodded back towards where she had been sitting, ordering her to sit back down. She cautiously backed up and sat back in the booth, not taking her eyes off of me.

 

“We’re not done here,” I told her.

 

“What do you mean? Is there anything else you want from me?” she asked.

 

“You still haven’t given me the first thing I asked for,” I reminded her.

 

“Look, I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

 

“Well, you’re sticking with me until you do,” I told her. “After all, I did pay for your release.” I chose my words carefully since we were in public.

 

She sighed and slumped back against the booth. She pouted like a kid, and I wondered again how old she was. She definitely seemed underage. I didn’t need to get mixed up in any trouble with an underage girl, but I also didn’t know where to drop her off so I could get rid of her. And, honestly, I got the feeling she wasn’t as young as she looked.

 

“Look, if you’ll just tell me where home is, I’ll drop you there,” I told her again, trying to get her to open up to me.

 

“I don’t have a home, all right?” she insisted.

 

I tilted my head and examined her face. I wanted to be able to trust her, but there was something she wasn’t telling me. Even if they had picked her up off the street, she hadn’t been there for long. She didn’t look homeless. She didn’t look like a street kid. That hard, ratty edge that the street kids got wasn’t there yet. And that defeated look that so many homeless people had wasn’t there either.

 

If she were on the street, something must have happened fairly recently to put her there, and I wanted to know what that was. I wanted to know this cute little redhead’s story. I studied her soft features, her emerald green eyes, and her unruly red hair. The jacket I’d given her swallowed her whole in the booth. The jeans and shoes seemed to fit fine, but the shirt was too big, as well. The shirts were selected specifically to be bigger than necessary, to get the intended effect.

 

There was no way I was going to deposit someone so young and vulnerable back on the street. I had seen what the streets did to people. Even the hardest, most resilient people could be broken by the harsh realities of that world. It might have been unfair of me, but I didn’t think Maggie had what it took to survive, especially not in the cold.

 

I continued eating while we sat in silence. She looked away, sitting with her arms crossed. She was definitely attractive. If I had left her on the auction block, she probably would have pulled in much more than the other girls. They were all young and pretty, but there was something about Maggie that stood out from the rest of them and made them look very plain.

 

“Did you enjoy your burger?” I asked after the silence grew painfully awkward between us.

 

“Yeah, it was all right,” she said, dismissing me.

 

“Just all right? I’d like to know where you’ve eaten better.”

 

“Places.” It was clear she wasn’t going to talk.

 

I finished my food and took a look drink of water. “Let’s go,” I said, dropping a couple of bills on the table to cover the food and a generous tip for our server.

 

“Oh, now we’re leaving?” she asked.

 

“Yeah, come on.” I didn’t want to ask her anymore questions in the diner. I felt like we were starting to really attract the attention of the bored employees.

 

I grabbed her arm and pulled her with me. My grip wasn’t friendly, but I wasn’t trying to leave any bruises either. I just wanted her to know I meant for her to come with me. I wasn’t playing anymore. I meant business.

 

I could have sat there all night admiring her, but it wouldn’t have changed the fact that I didn’t really know anything about Maggie. For all I knew, she could have been working with another organization that had been trying to take the Marauders down. But that would have meant they knew about my arrangement with Vlad.

 

The Marauders didn’t even know about the auctions, just that I had some side business that would occasionally bring money in for the MC.

 

I had to find out who she really was and what she was up to. I didn’t have any time for lies. Every attractive woman in my life had lied to me, and this one was up there in the top three, if not the most attractive woman I had ever met.

 

“Aren’t you worried they’ll call the cops if you’re too rough with me?” she snapped once we were outside again.

 

“Do I look like I’m too worried about what other people are thinking right now?” I asked her.

 

The cool, crisp air nipped at my cheeks and my nose. It caressed my arms. I could feel her shivering in my grip as I pulled her with me to the car. The night just seemed to continue growing darker. It was well after midnight, entering the darkest hours of night.

 

“You’re going to talk to me, and you’re going to tell me everything,” I told her. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

 

“I’ve already told you everything, so whenever you want to let me go, that will be just fine,” she said.

 

“Okay, so basically all you’ve told me so far is that you’re homeless and I can drop you off wherever; you’ll find your way,” I paraphrased what she’d told me so far.

 

“That’s about it, yeah.” She pulled her arm out of my grip and crossed her arms defiantly, leaning against the side of my car.

 

“All right, fine, get in,” I told her.

 

“You’re still not letting me go?”

 

“Nope. Get in the car.” I unlocked her door and opened it. “I’m not letting you go until you tell me what’s going on with you. Tell me where home is or why you’re homeless.”

 

“You don’t believe me, do you?” she asked as she ducked into the car.

 

“No, I don’t. You don’t have that look. You don’t look like someone who’s been on the street for a long time. You look like someone who has had a safe, comfortable place to rest her head every night for most of her life. You look like someone who might lie about where she lives to stay out of trouble,” I told her.

 

“Okay, and you don’t look half as nice as the men who wanted to buy me as a sex slave, so what does that make you?” she shot back at me.

 

“Fair enough, but, remember, I’m the one trying to get you out of trouble, Maggie. Just let me help you.”

 

“For all I know, you’re just trying to play this whole good-guy role so I’ll let my guard down around you. Then, you’re just going to turn out to be an asshole like the rest of them.” She turned and sat facing the windshield.

 

I closed the door without another word, but her words struck me. She was thinking the same thing I was, that this person in front of her was no better than any of the others she’d dealt with before. She was expecting me to drop the façade and turn into a monster, and I was expecting her to lie to me.

 

I walked around and got in. We had hours to go, alone together. I had errands to run in the morning, and I didn’t have anywhere else to be before then. I wasn’t afraid to keep using the fact I’d paid for her to gain time with her.

 

I had to accept that she might have been telling the truth about not having anywhere to go. I imagined she would have told me where to take her if she’d had anywhere to go. She should have at least given me a place to drop her off that was close to where she needed to be, but she wasn’t giving me anything.

 

All the while, she was taking advantage of my generosity, as if it had been a while since anyone had treated her with even the slightest shred of decency.

 

I couldn’t figure her out, and it was driving me crazy. Every possibility seemed just as plausible as any other.