The Nines (The Nines #1) (10 page)

“You locked the door.” Her voice is shaky.

“I did. You’re not running out on me again. I want to know why you left in such a hurry.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t tell you. We need your help.”

“You think I won’t help you if you tell me.” I can’t imagine anything that she could possibility tell me that would suddenly change my mind about helping find Claire. “If she’s in trouble I’d be a real asshole if I didn’t help. Do you really think I’m that big of a prick?”

Tears begin to stream down her face and I can feel my heart ache in response. “Please don’t cry.”

I slowly make a move toward her. I don’t want to scare her, but I can also see she’s in pain. I just want to take the pain from her, at least for a moment.

As I put my arms around her and pull her close I thoroughly expect her to pull away, but to my utter surprise she doesn’t. She melts into me instead.

I’m tall and I try to stay as fit as possible, but I feel like a giant next to her. She’s much smaller and more fragile than she initially comes across as. I think her passion and spunky personality make her seem a lot bigger than she actually is.

As I inhale the sweet scent of her shampoo I enjoy the brief moment of having her in my arms. I know it won’t last—that it can’t last—but I want to make it last for as long as I can.
Beauty and the Beast
is a fairytale. Gorgeous girls like Roxie don’t fall for hideous monsters like me in real life.

And if I’m being totally realistic I know there won’t ever be a girl who will want me. I don’t expect to ever date, or fall in love, or get married. I’ve already come to terms with the loss of that part of my life.

But I think that realization makes a moment like this even more special. It’s a rare moment I may never have again.

And just like that it’s over. Roxie pulls away so that she can blow her nose and wipe her tearstained cheeks.

“I’m sorry.” She shakes her head, a bit flustered. “I didn’t mean to break down like that. I’m not usually like this at all.”

“It’s okay.”

Now she’s shaking her head even more vigorously. “It’s not okay. It’s really not.”

“You need to tell me what’s going on. I’m still a little in the dark here.”

“Can it wait until after we find Claire?”

I shake my head. “No. This first. Besides I can’t do much until her boyfriend sends the photos.”

She looks around the living room. “Can we sit down?”

“Sure.” I make my way over to the couch and take a seat.

I’m surprised, but also a little thrilled when she sits down right next to me.

After a moment she takes in a deep breath then lets it out. When she looks at me her eyes seem filled with shame. What could this angel possibly have done for her to look like that?

“I didn’t think I’d ever be telling this to anyone. I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to. I wanted to leave my past behind me, but it seems to have not only caught up to me to run ahead of me and is waiting for me to catch up with it.”

I wait for her to continue.

She brushes at a stray tear that has fallen down her cheek, but doesn’t quite manage to wipe it all away.

I can’t help but move my hand toward her face and wipe away the tear with my thumb. My hand lingers there a little longer than it should. Her skin is so soft and so unblemished. It’s nearly perfect. As I continue to move my thumb down her cheek and then over her chin she closes her eyes for a brief moment and allows me to touch her face.

“You’re beautiful,” I whisper so faintly, I don’t think she’ll hear me.

But when she gives me the faintest of smiles in return I know she’s heard my declaration.

“You need to stop,” she says finally.

And I do. Much to my chagrin. I could touch her face for an eternity and never tire of it.

“I won’t blame you if you hate me once you hear the truth.”

“I could never hate you.”

She gives a single cold laugh. “Never say never.”

“Please just tell me.”

She swallows and then says, “I legally changed my name. When I left Massachusetts. My birth name is Rovzan Baiev.”

It takes a moment for her words to sink in. Timur Biaev, the Back to School Bomber, had a younger sister. She was two years younger than we were. She was mentioned in the news a lot, but they only ever showed one photo of her. It was an old yearbook photo. When I saw it I remember thinking to myself how innocent she looked. Roxie’s grown up a lot since then.

When our eyes meet I see so much pain, and humiliation, and fear in her big brown orbs.

I’m not sure how to feel. I want to feel anger and bitterness, but it wasn’t Roxie who set off the bombs. I’m not even sure if she was close to her brother.

“Did you know he was going to do it?” I ask. “Could you have stopped him?”

She shakes her head. “I wish I had known. I wish I could have stopped him. But he didn’t talk to me. We hadn’t been close in several years. But I still feel like I should have done more. Like I should have known. There were signs that things weren’t right. He started hanging out with a bad crowd. He didn’t spend much time at home and when he did he was locked in his room. My parents thought he was going through a phase. They assumed when school started in the fall that he’d go back to being Mr. Popular. That he’d get involved in his classes and school activities again. But school didn’t start again. At least not for him. He bombed the school on the first day back. I’m sure it’s because he knew it was the day when the most people would be there.”

She wants me to hate her. She wants me to blame her for what her brother did. Part of me wants to blame her too. To exact some of my revenge on those close to him. But would hurting his sister truly hurt Timur?

I take her in. Every beautiful, perfect inch of her. And I realize that I could never hate her no matter how much I may want to because I like her too much.

“Do you want me to leave?” There’s so much uncertainty in her voice it squeezes my heart.

“I want you to help me.” As I say the words I realize there’s more to them than I may have initially intended.

She furrows her brow. Maybe she realizes there’s more to my request than what is on the surface.

“How can I help you?”

I want to tell her that her just being here with me, letting me touch her and hold her, is making me human again. It’s making me feel things that I thought I’d never feel again.

“Just don’t run away again, okay?”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“Now let’s see if we can find your roommate.”

When she nods I grab her hand. I’m glad when she doesn’t pull away. My hand is a quilt of various skin grafts taken from different parts of my body. It’s functional, but not the least bit aesthetically pleasing. Not that the rest of my body is any nicer to look at. I’m a mass of burn scars and mismatched replacement skin. 

I lead her into my study and she gasps when we enter. She’s not the only one with secrets and I’m about to reveal mine to her.

“What is all this?” She’s wide-eyed as she looks around the room.

This is the only area of my aunt’s house where I made significant changes, but out of necessity more than anything else. Nearly every inch of the space is filled with computer equipment: keyboards, monitors and storage capacity. I’m sure to someone who doesn’t do what I do the sight of all the equipment could look a little overwhelming.

“This is how we’re going to find your roommate. But first I want to show you something.”

I pull up one of several desk chairs I have in the room and motion for her to sit down then I sit in another chair right next to her. I flip a switch and all of my computers come to life. I do a bit of quick typing. Retrieve the photos that Julio emailed to me and then plug them into a few facial recognition databases to see if we can get any hits.

“This is unbelievable. I know you’re a computer major, but do you really need this much equipment?”

I shake my head. “I use my laptop in the living room for school. These computers are for something else.”

“What else?” Her question gets caught in her throat.

“Remember you promised not to run away.”

She frowns. “You really are a hacker?”

I nod.

“Do you do stuff that’s illegal?”

“I do.” I don’t want it to sound like I’m justifying my behavior by saying that I usually only hack other criminals.

Just like when we first met and I thought she might bolt she seems more curious about me than disturbed by my admission.

“Do you get paid to do this?”

I nod again.

“A lot?”

“Enough that I don’t really have to worry about earning my degree or going out into the world to get a legitimate job.”

She studies me. “It probably wouldn’t be easy. Getting a job, I mean.” She looks down at her black ballet flats as if she’s uncomfortable with stating the obvious. That no one would ever hire someone who looks the way I do.

“And I don’t really have anything to wear to an interview,” I joke.

When she looks back up at me her eyes are filled with tears again.

“You gotta stop doing that,” I complain.

“Doing what?”

“Watering your cheeks like that.”

That makes her laugh, but just as fast she’s serious again. “I’m really sorry.”

“For what?”

“For what my brother did to you.”

I’m not sure how to respond. It’s not really her apology to make, but I can understand her desire to make some kind of amends. I never thought it could happen, but I feel a tiny bit of the rage I have inside of me starts to dissipate. The angry vengeful me doesn’t feel quite as angry and vengeful as I did before Roxie pushed her way into my life.

“Sometimes I feel like my life ended before it really had a chance to begin,” I admit. “When you’re seventeen, just starting your senior year of high school, one of the star players on the varsity football team, you feel like you’ve got the world by the balls. You never expect your entire life to change in an instant. I went from being one of the most popular guys in school to being a sideshow freak.”

“Why would you say that? You’re not a freak.”

I let out a cynical laugh. “Even my own mother has trouble looking at me. I know what I look like and it isn’t pretty.”

I freeze when she lifts her hand and ever so slowly moves it toward my face. “Why do you wear this mask, even inside your own house?”

“I don’t like looking at myself any more than anyone else does. Have you ever seen someone who was severely burned before? It’s hard to look at.”

When she touches my face on the side that wasn’t burned as severely I take in a sharp breath.

“Is the skin underneath your mask like the skin on your hands?” Her eyes search mine with such intensity I’m chilled to the bone.

“It’s worse.”

“I want to see it.” It’s both a demand and a plea.

I shake my head. “I don’t let anyone see it.” What she probably doesn’t realize is I don’t let anyone see me with the mask on either. Not until she insisted on it.

Before we can continue that battle of wills one of my computers pings. “We’ve got a match.”

When I pull up the information my stomach sinks, but it’s not unexpected. “It’s a photo that was taken of her and another girl and they’re with a few of those Delta Omega Gamma guys. She looks wasted.”

“She doesn’t drink,” Roxie insists. “She would never drink. It would interfere with her medication.”

I enlarge the photo so we can look at it more closely. Her eyelids look heavy and she’s staring off into space. “She definitely appears to be under the influence of some kind of substance.”

Roxie’s face turns white. “From what Wendi told us it sounded like they drugged Claire…” Her voice trails off.

“Probably Rohypnol. It’s known as the date-rape drug.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Roxie exclaims before she falls back into her chair and puts her hands over her face.

“Would you like me to get you something to drink? Some water maybe?”

She closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath. “Do you think they have her at their house? In one of those rape rooms?”

“Probably. We can try to find out.” I take her hands into mine and just hold them for a few seconds. “Look at me.”

When she looks up at me she’s blinking back tears. “Yes, I’m watering my cheeks again.”

We both smile, but they fade just as quickly.

“Those guys videotape everything that goes on in their rape rooms.” Her eyes grow wide as I speak. “I can run a scan to see if we can find her on those tapes, but you understand what we’re going to be seeing.”

She gulps. “I know something is really wrong. I can feel it. I realize it’ll be awful, but we have to look at those tapes.”

I turn back to the monitor I’m working on and make my way back into the Delta Omega Gama system. I set up a search of all the recently uploaded videos against the biometrics we have for Claire and let the computer do its thing.