The first being that trauma doesn’t make you special. Everyone has some flavor of it. Mine was horrific, but it’s nothing compared to what Broderick has experienced, let alone some of the others who joined up over the years.
More, I don’t want to be pitied.
I sure as hell don’t want to take a walk down memory lane to the first eighteen years of my life. I’ve worked hard to move past that time, to forget as much as I’m able. I knew coming to Sabine Valley would be difficult for a number of reasons, but I never expected this.
An Amazon demanding to know what happened to me.
The irony would make me laugh if I could find breath in my lungs. Monroe’s sitting on that bed, looking sexy as hell in that ridiculous shirt, and ready to commit murder. If only she knew the truth.
She crosses her legs and studies me. “Tell me.” After the briefest hesitation. “Please, Shiloh.”
I’ve never felt so naked, and this towel covers me from mid-chest to nearly my knees. Monroe can be conniving and manipulative, but I haven’t found her to be overly cruel. At least not to me. I don’t understand why she’s so insistent on this. “Why?”
“So I can kill them, preferably rather slowly, but I’m willing to do it quickly if you’d rather they not suffer overmuch.”
I blink. Wait for the punchline. But Monroe is still staring at me with that intent expression, not a single smile in sight. “You’re serious.”
“Of course. I never joke about murder. People might not take me seriously when I need to threaten them.”
But… That doesn’t make any sense. As far as she’s aware, I’m not one of her people. She has absolutely no reason to go to battle for me. If anything, as a newly minted Raider, she should be happy for whatever harm I experience. I’m the enemy, after all. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ll use small words.” She smiles a little as she says it, but her green eyes stay icy. “Someone tortured you when you were a child.”
“You say that like children aren’t harmed every day in this country—in this city, even.”
“Not in the Amazon faction.”
I roll my eyes. I can’t help it. There is the Amazon superiority complex I get hints of from her on occasion. The deep belief that Amazons are somehow better than anyone else, that they aren’t capable of being just as monstrous as the rest of the world. She doesn’t know how wrong she is. “Amazons are no different than other people at their core. That means you have predators just like the rest of the population, and sometimes predators harm children.” Sometimes those predators torture their own children for eighteen long years before that child escapes and runs for their life.
Sometimes.
“You’re right.” She nods slowly. “It’s not unheard of. But we value our children highly. As such, the punishment is…” Monroe trails off, her gaze going distant for a moment. She blinks and she’s back, and angrier than ever. “Child predators don’t stay in our faction for long. Not alive, at least. The punishment isn’t worth the risk. My family has made sure of that.”
My mouth goes dry. She says it so simply. As if that’s really the truth and not some fantasy she’s spun because true harm has never come from inside her household. She’s never hidden and held her breath, hoping her parents don’t come looking. “I never thought you’d be that naive.”
“It’s not naivety. It’s fact.” She tucks her blond hair behind her ears, staring intently at me. “It does happen from time to time. I won’t lie and say it doesn’t, but we don’t bother with the song and dance of a public trial or jail time when it comes to someone who harms a child. The investigation is handled quietly to avoid the child being ostracized. Once the facts are assured, someone from the royal family handles it.”
She’s serious. She really is naive. No matter what she thinks, Amazons truly aren’t different from other communities when it comes to monsters in their midst. I’m more than proof of that. And the royal family taking care of it the moment they know? Don’t make me laugh. “Child abuse is prevalent, and most victims never come forward.”
“In the rest of the world, yes.” She shrugs. “I don’t blame them. The justice system leaves a lot to be desired. Predators rarely see the consequences they should.”
She truly believes that. That it’s as simple as a victim coming forward and removing the predator, as if there aren’t people conditioned to silence by the time they learn how to speak. I open my mouth to keep arguing, but I don’t have the heart for it right now. More, I can’t say anything that won’t reveal far too much about me and my past. Finally, I settle on, “I’m not an Amazon, so I don’t see why it matters.”