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  I didn't know what to say after that. I'd exhausted my conversational abilities. There was just too much to talk about, too much to wonder and think about him. Beast was working for the cops after all, my father hit an undercover lady thinking he was hitting a poor strung-out tweaker…

  Again, Beast tried to smother a yawn.

  “I'm really sorry I woke you up like that,” I said in a small voice. “That was pretty crappy of me.”

  He sighed.

  “No, you're fine,” he said. “Really. I've been dragging you along for the ride on this case, and that's not fair to you. I bet you were confused and scared, and I'm sorry, I was trying to keep you from that, but I was stuck.”

  “How did all of this start?”

  “You mean, with you being here?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Your father was talking about you when he was trying the crystal one time,” he said, with a heavy sigh. “He was saying that he had three kids, and two he had to be real careful with, but one was all his since her momma had died.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  All his. All my father's.

  “He started talking about you, saying you'd do anything for your little sisters, implying a lot of crappy things. Saying I could buy you for a few hours or a week, and you'd be good to me. That he'd done it before and you knew what to do.”

  I looked away.

  “I was so pissed, but I couldn't just punch the dude and kick him out, that was the whole point. Someone else said that they might want you, so I said I had first dibs. I woudn't trust Flores alone with anyone. Then I had to follow through. Then I was afraid that he'd just sell you when you weren't with me, so I wanted you to be at my place as much as possible.”

  “What about my sisters?” I asked. “Weren't you worried about them?”

  He shook his head, frowning.

  “Not really,” he admitted. “He said that there was no way he could do anything to them, that their momma would find out right away and run like a rabbit. He seemed pretty irritated about it.”

  I dropped my glass of water as I was picking it up.

  I stared at him, not caring that the glass rolled off the table to shatter on the floor, or that water was soaking into the wood of the table's top.

  “That's why?” I asked.

  “Tabitha, what's wrong?” he asked, concern writ large on his face.

  “That's why my father leaves the girls alone? Because of Kandy?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he was pretty clear,” he said. “He's bitched about it a few times since. Apparently he tried once, a year or so back, and his ex – Kandy? - was like a little tiger, said that he could get fucked up all day long for all she cared, but if he let anyone hurt those girls she'd rip his balls off and get her Daddy to pay for a lawyer to make him eat them. Sounded like he believed her. Apparently her family has some money.”

  “That fucking-”

  I couldn't even think of a word bad enough.

  I stood up, knocking my chair over, and kicked out behind me, knocking it into the kitchen cabinets. I was panting with rage, shaking with terror.

  Beast got up and took a few slow steps toward me, and I shook my head, jerkily. I was afraid that I'd end up hurting him if he touched me, no matter how kind and comforting he was trying to be.

  I whirled around, almost tripping over my own discarded chair, and headed out the back door.

  “FUCK,” I yelled, screaming it into the clearing.

  Beast followed me out and stayed on the porch as I marched across the yard and grabbed a stick, beating the clunky old rusting car with it until the stick broke.

  I screamed again, a wordless cry of rage and pain.

  When my third stick broke, I started beating on the car with my fists, sobbing, not caring that the rust was scraping across my knuckles and leaving the skin of my hands raw and bleeding.

  I felt so stupid, losing my shit like that in front of Beast. I felt so stupid, hitting a car until my hands were hurt. I felt so stupid, wasting years of my life.

  I felt so stupid.

  It wasn't because of me.

  I wasn't the one who was keeping Karla and Krystal safe.

  It had been Kandy all along.

  I thought I was so smart, such a good big sister, protecting them. Protecting them with my body and my dignity and my freedom.

  They never needed it.

  I could have called CPS and gotten out of there any time I wanted. I could have told my high school friends and they would have helped me. I could have just packed up and walked out the day I turned eighteen.

  Nothing had been stopping me after all.

  I thought that I'd been locked tight up by bindings of love, but they were fucking cobwebs after all.

  Why had it taken me so long to realize that my father was controlling me, not bargaining with me? That he would never let me go and he would tell me any lie to get me to stay.

  I sank to my knees, sobbing.

  Beast came over to me and sat on the ground beside me. He put his hand on my shoulder and sat there, waiting, letting the simple touch warm and soothe me.

  I didn't deserve him.

  I was so stupid.

  “So, you know?” I asked him, taking a shaky breath.

  I still couldn't look at him, let alone meet his eyes. There was just no way I had that kind of courage.

  “About what?” he asked, his low rumble of a voice gentle.

  “About… about the things I've done. You know I'm not a virgin or anything. Not for a long time. I've done…” I laughed, a little, bitterly. “Everything.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know about some of that.”

  “You've known this whole time?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I thought you knew.”

  “No,” I said. “I was trying to keep my slutty past from you. I mean, I know he traded me to you, but I thought maybe you would think it was the first time.”

  His hand tightened on my shoulder. “Let's be very clear,” he said. “You were not a slut, or a whore, or anything like that. You didn't have a choice. Even if you did, I don't care how much sex you've had. I only care about when someone hurts you.”

  I shook my head at him, involuntarily.

  “Is that why you got so upset?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  I took in a shaky breath.

  “I thought I was the one protecting them,” I said. “He told me that he would send my sisters in my place if I didn't obey him and let him sell me to other guys. He sold me when I was pretty young, so I believed him.”

  Beast didn't say anything.

  “All this time, I've been- I didn't have to. I could have gotten away from him anytime I wanted. The day I turned eighteen, I could have walked out and gone to a new town and hidden from him and he never would have known. Nothing would have happened to them.”

  I drew in another shaky breath.

  “I've been beating myself up for months. I thought I was spending too much time with you, not enough time protecting them. I thought I was a terrible sister. I thought I was being selfish and risking them because I wanted to be with you too badly.”

  The next breath I took was a little steadier.

  “It didn't matter after all. None of it mattered. Kandy was the one protecting them, and I was just being some sort of stupid pointless martyr to nothing.”

  Deep breath.

  “I feel so stupid.”

  He reached out his other hand and wiped a tear from my cheek with his thumb. “Oh, honey,” he said. “Tabitha, honey. You weren't stupid. You just didn't know.”

  I shook my head, still looking away from him.

  “You love your sisters and you knew your father would let a little girl get hurt, because he'd done it to you. You had no reason not to believe him.”

  “I could have called the police instead of letting him sell me to every drugged-up dealer in three counties,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, well, Capt
ain Hindsight, maybe you could have. Maybe it would have worked. Or maybe you'd have ended up back in his house with no case against him, but him knowing you tried to snitch. He might have killed you.”

  “You think so?”

  “Johnnie Lowe is one fucked-up dude, Tabitha. You weren't stupid. He's really, really, really good at twisting people until they do what he wants. That's not your fault. You were raised by him, he got to put his hooks in you early and deep.”

  I nodded.

  “You weren't stupid, honey, you were scared. Going to the cops would have been a big risk, as far as you knew. No one on earth would blame you for not taking it. You weren't a coward, you were doing the best you could for your sisters.”

  “I tried,” I whispered.

  “May I hug you?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  Slowly, gently, he took me into his arms and pulled me against his broad chest.

  He rocked me like a child in his lap, patting my hair and whispering to me comforting lies about how brave I was, how hard I tried to protect my sisters, how I couldn't have known my father was twisting the facts to use me.

  A few sniffles later, I was lost.

  Beast held me safe against him as I ugly cried, sobbing into his shoulder and doubting everything I'd ever done, sitting awkwardly in the early morning dew.

  When I stopped crying, I went limp in his arms.

  I was so tired of holding myself together all the time, and it turned out to have been pointless. I could have gotten a real job and left the house, gotten an apartment and a roommate.

  The years of abuse I'd suffered were for no one's benefit but my father.

  I started to cry again, but I was so tired that it wasn't the gasping sobs I'd started with, just an exhausted weeping, tears running silently down my cheeks.

  Beast stood up, lifting me easily and keeping me cradled against him.

  “House?” he asked.

  I nodded my head and then turned and buried my face in his chest. He smelled good, like pine trees and something masculine.

  He carried me into the kitchen and it felt so good to be in his arms, safe and protected.

  I never wanted to leave. I hoped he wouldn't put me down right away, although I wouldn't blame him if he did. I was too big to be carried like that.

  “Do you want me to take you to your bedroom?” he asked. “Or do you want to be on the couch together?”

  “Couch,” I said.

  He carried me into the living room, narrowly missing knocking my head against the dining room door frame on the way. “Whoops,” he said, pulling my closer to him for a minute.

  He sat on the couch, me still in his arms.

  “Do you wanna cuddle for a bit?” he asked.

  I reached out, stretching away from him, missing the contact of his chest against my back, and snagged the quilt from the chair with my fingertips.

  I pulled the blanket over us, settling back into his lap.

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “Please.”

  “You know, my mother made this quilt,” he said, smoothing it over my shoulders. “When I was a teenager. She said she knew I was leaving the house soon and she wanted me to have something to carry with me.”

  I nodded.

  “I took it when I left, and I brought it back when I came home without her here,” he said. “Sometimes, when I miss her, I curl up under it and cry.”

  Beast, crying.

  Beast, weak.

  The thought was totally foreign.

  He was too proud and strong and brave to cry under a blanket – but he also wasn't the type to lie, so I had to believe him.

  Apparently it wasn't just me.

  “My favorite colors are blue and green,” he said. “Most of my clothing was black, though, and she didn't want it in the quilt, so… this patch is from an old pair of my boxers from when I was fifteen.”

  I felt the corner of my lip twitch in a small smile.

  “I'm serious,” he said. “Boxer quilt. I mean, okay, it's not just boxers, but she wanted to cut up some of my old clothes, some of hers, a shirt of my father's. Have the whole family in the quilt. I just didn't cooperate by wearing enough colors.”

  I took a deep breath and leaned against him, shutting my eyes.

  “Want to keep watching Top Chef?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “If you fall asleep, I'll tell you what happens,” he said. “Or I'll pause it. Depends on how nice I'm feeling,” he said, gently shoving my shoulder.

  It made me feel better that he was teasing me.

  He wasn't treating me like I was made of glass, but like I was okay. Like I would get over this.

  I definitely wasn't okay, but it was very kind of him to pretend.

  Beast was always kind. It was what I loved about him most.

  I stopped myself for a minute.

  Did I really just think that I loved Beast?

  I think I did.

  “I love you,” I said, reaching a hand up to stroke his cheek. His eyes fluttered shut for a minute, and he turned his head away.

  “Shh,” he said. “You're tired and upset. I don't want us to say anything you'd regret, okay?”

  “I wouldn't regret it,” I said.

  Now that I had said it out loud, I knew that it was the truth. I'd stayed with him, away from my sisters, because I loved him. I couldn't imagine my life without him in it, his solid, comforting presence, his sexy chuckle, his kind eyes, his unholy love of cooking shows.

  I hadn't been happy since my mother died, not until he came into my life.

  Even with my sisters, I was always afraid, always wondering when the next shoe would drop and I'd find out that I'd failed them.

  I still loved them, I still wanted them in my life.

  I always would.

  Maybe, though, just maybe I didn't have to feel totally responsible for them.

  As the sounds of a crowded kitchen filled the room, I shut my eyes and drifted, thinking about Kandy.

  I'd been wrong about her.

  A few months ago, I had thought that I was the only thing standing between the girls and my father, and Kandy didn't know he could hurt them. I thought she didn't care about me and wasn't smart enough to fear for Krystal and Karla, let alone for herself.

  I was wrong, wrong on every count.

  She'd gotten in touch with me and helped me see the girls without my father.

  She'd threatened him, she had a plan to get a lawyer if he ever hurt the girls.

  I had to admit that he was an okay father to them. He said the right things, generally stuck around, bought them whatever they needed and wanted.

  I could force myself to see why Kandy might keep the girls around him.

  After all, he'd never hurt them.

  For years, she'd said that she didn't understood why I was sticking around at my father's place, eating him out of house and home, not starting my own life.

  I had thought that she was clueless or nasty.

  Maybe I was wrong about that too.

  I clearly hated him and yet I lived in his house and – as far as she knew – refused to leave. That would be weird, strange ungrateful.

  I could see how Kandy might think I was just a crappy teenage daughter. She seemed so happy when she thought I had a boyfriend, but I still wanted to see the girls. Maybe she thought I was going to disappear, abandon them for a guy.

  Maybe she was trying to protect them from me.

  She had never been really bad to me, just frustrated. Snide.

  There was a difference, I realized, between her saying crappy things sometimes and my father... being my father.

  Maybe I could live here, with Beast, and never, ever, ever, ever, see my father, and not totally miss out on the girls. Maybe she would let me visit them every week.

  I would watch them at her house and give her time to herself if she wanted.

  To do meth? I thought. Was she really an okay mother if she was using fucking meth?

  I
shifted restlessly in Beast's arms as I tried to think fairly about it.

  She definitely drank around my father, but lots of people drank, and she knew I was with the girls. I'd never gotten home to find her drunk with them.