Captive Heart by Mina Carter, J.William Mitchell Page B

dragged through the woods, shot at by goons, or to lose her best friend, the woman she considered to be the closest thing she had to a mother.
    What had she done wrong? What had she done to deserve this? All she wanted was to help change the world, to save mankind by saving the planet. Ever since she had been old enough to understand that if she wanted to survive in this world she had to fend for herself, she had tried to live as normally as she possibly could.
    It hadn’t been easy for a young girl, barely in her teens, who had to survive in the harsh reality of life on the streets. She had been tempted to follow the other street kids and live the life they did, but she didn’t think the same way. She knew she’d end up just like them, either dead in a ditch with two bullets in the head or, given her looks, living the rest of her life as a crack whore.
    So she used her smarts. By day, she’d put herself through school and got past the system by faking a pair of parents who didn’t exist. She had left virtually no time for her social activities, focusing on maintaining her grades and working to achieve a scholarship. By night, she pretended to be a boy and worked odd jobs. When she was old enough she started working at the bars as a waitress then learned the trade, became a bartender. She graduated at the top of her class at Carnegie Mellon and, shortly after, everything was history.
    But while she had succeeded in getting out of the gutter all by herself, she still envied the other kids at school. While they didn’t receive awards, they had parents, families, and significant others who shared their joy with them while the poor, smart girl had to make an excuse that her parents were in an archaeological dig somewhere and couldn’t make it.
    Friends were all she had left. The ones she had made growing up were either dead, dying, or in jail. Some of her college friends now had successful careers of their own, while some had become enemies when pride settled in. Boys, and then men, had tried to claim her heart, but seemed more tempted with her body, and then her money and fame; all but shallow opportunists. In the end, there were only a handful of people that were truly there for her.
    Marie had been the most steadfast. Rollie had wanted to believe she’d always be there for her, but now she, too, had been taken away. Just like everything and everyone else. She didn’t realize that tears were streaming down her cheeks, not until she felt a drop fall onto her hand. She finally broke down, the tears falling in earnest.
    Day woke with a start. Eyes unfocused for a moment, he looked up at the tattered roof lining of the truck. Shit. It had been a dream . He closed his eyes again, hoping beyond hope to be able to slide back into it, but a soft sound in the truck stopped him, brought him back to full wakefulness. It was the sound of someone…crying?
    Opening his eyes again, he turned his head to see Rollie curled up in a small ball in the passenger seat, her shoulders heaving as she sobbed. Deep, heart-rending sobs. Day moved without thinking, and in the next instant, she was in his arms, tucked under his chin and half across his lap as he stroked her back. “Hey… Hey, it’s okay. We got out.”
    Day didn’t say anything as she literally tried to burrow into him like some small creature. A small, wounded creature. At a loss for anything else to do, he made soothing noises as she cried.
    Just what had happened to her to cause this sort of reaction? He’d seen people after disasters, seen survivors of combat zones and civil wars. Hell, he’d even seen hostage victims before the medical crews got to them. So he was familiar with shock and all its stages.
    This wasn’t shock. Not just shock anyway. This was something else as well.
    Several moments went by, and her crying subsided into quiet tears and sniffles. But she didn’t let go of him. Not just yet. She turned her head to look up at him, her eyes misty from