I watched Sienna closely as she stood up and followed the officer out of the interview room. I wanted to gauge the aftermath of the old wounds Sienna had to open up to let her story be known. I had only heard the tidbits of it. But the unimaginable horrors that Sienna Reid had to suffer in the hands of that maniacal bastard made me simmer with heat. I glanced at Rhys and I could tell he shared the rage that filled me up. To think I had not wanted to take this job at first. I was wrong. There was a connection between me and Sienna. The basis of it might have been that her experiences reminded me of my own mother's awful experience but there was something else. An affection I could not quite comprehend, neither did I know where it would lead. All that enlightened my mind was that I intended to explore it. Was this why Rhys was so obsessed with being by her side, I wondered.
Rhys stood to his feet and walked up to Sienna. I noticed her face were closed up when he pulled her to his rock hard chest. Her little hands clinged to his back and with a cold detached voice, she spoke. "I want to leave. Take me home. Take me home now." Sienna pleased without bothering to look into either of our eyes. She then broke the hug and strode towards the front door.
With an approving nod to the officer, we followed the path Sienna took only to see her standing beside our vehicle while she waited on us.
"How about we take you for lunch?" Rhys asked her tentatively. "To take your mind off things."
Still refusing to meet our gaze, Sienna shook her head implying a blunt refusal.to the idea of lunch before saying, "No, I just want to go home. I'm tired and need some time." At that, she turned around and waited for one of us to unlock the door. She was becoming increasingly impatient and I worried she would faint if we didn't do as she was begging soon.
The drive back to Sienna's house was quiet. She had lost some of that sass and while I was okay with it, I could tell it greatly bothered Rhys. More of it happened to be because Rhys was a chronic flirt however, the latter of it was also because he wanted to get Sienna's mind off the bleak reality she has segregated her heart to.
I myself did not know the girl well enough but from our little time eelnt together, I knew that Sienna only had the energy to fend off Rhys' 'subtle' advances when she was mentally capable and right now, she was drained. The new quiet and closed off version of her had me very worried despite how much I liked the ride back predominantly quiet. I had lived in this nightmare carousel once and watching Sienna go through the same hell felt like my sufferings had anewed.
"Are you okay?" I found myself asking.
Sienna swallowed and looked into my eyes. She managed to smile at me and muttered an inaudible yes. She was insistent that she was doing just great and implying that all she needed was some time alone. I had seen it a million times. Nothing was okay and it would never got better if that bastard wasn't milked out to pay for his crimes.
We pulled up at Sienna's house, following her out of the vehicle and up to her door. We intended to go inside with her just to ensure she was doing okay mentally but Sienna's words stopped us at the door.
"You both can leave." She whispered, slipping the key in her hand into the right slot therefore unlocking the thing. "I don't have the energy to be social or put up with two over-bearing men right now." Sienna then proceeded to walk inside. She didn't even bother waiting for our response before she slammed the door in our faces and locked it from within.
"Shit!" Rhys exploded.
"Calm down Caveman. She is overwhelmed and needs a break. You heard some of that stuff she told the officer. Sienna has been through hell." I pronounced to Rhys. He wasn't stupid. He was just a worried individual who had much difficulty converting how he felt.
Walking back to the car, Rhys hopped in and started it but watched her house for a few minutes. Thinking about some of the things this stalker had done to her made us both sick. I wanted to wrap her up and protect her, but I also knew we wouldn't be able to until Sienna decided to open up a little more to us. For now we had to leave, with a promise from the officer that someone would be doing regular drive-bys to ensure she was safe.
"Call Slate and Archer and see what they can dig up on Sienna's past. Who she was before the incident and who was around her." Rhys instructed me. Slate and Archer were a couple that I knew could find out what we needed to know. The missing pieces included. They worked in a special task force for Mr. Ansel and sometimes the FBI doing God knows what, but they could find things that the most trained hacker couldn't and that was why they were the first to come to mind.
Remembering the horrific things that Sienna had to face in the hands of the man, the things she couldnnt even mention when she gave her testimonial to the officers. Ripping her clothes to shreds, Pasting vulgar photos around her house and the worst of it all was when he broke in, drugged her so she was susceptible and masturbated to her face. It was sick, and she must have been terrified.Again, that familiar connection to her hit me. She was in a really bad spot right now. The last thing I wanted was to leave her alone in that house. That damn bastard already knew where she lives and that meant he would be making several stops. This was not a hypothesis. I had lived through it. but there was so use putting her if we got nothing done. I was certain we could have something if we could get rid of this stalker.
Dialing the secure number for Archer, I waited for her to pick up. "What?" Archer grouched upon answering.
"It's still work hours, vampire, could you any be less irritated?" I joked.
"Hello! Looks like someone forgot timezones existed. Christian , it's like 2 a.m. here and I just managed to fall sleep. What the hell do you want?"
"Okay," I quickly tabled my matter. "There is this girl we're working a case for and I need info like soon. She has got an unstable stalker and we've got absolutely no leads." I explained.
"You aren't usually this bothered, Christian, there's more to it, isn't there?What is she to you?" Archer probed
Sighing at the inevitability of how perceptive Archer could be, I reluctantly answered. "We only met her today and I assure you there is nothing going on. O don't know about Rhys. He's the one who is always trying to fix people. So maybe there is something there. If you askk me, he's basically become an obedient golden retriever." My derogatory statement made Rhys immediately snatch the phone from my hands.
"Yes, I like her Archer but in order to explore anything, we need to remove this bastard toad from her life."
"Alright. I need her name, where she was born, a birthday, and where she acquired this stalker," Archer said.
Giving her the information she wanted, I hung up feeling slightly better that we had someone else helping out. The likelihood of getting it out in the open with Archer and Slate's help was exponentially higher.
"Archer will be looking into it when she's done doing her private business in Afghanistan." I explained to Rhys.
"What do we do about Sienna? She's shutting down. I thought talking about it, reporting it would help. But damn, did she look bad coming out of there."
"I dunno. Give her time, I guess. We'll just have to keep checking on her."
I wasn't even sure the words that came out of my mouth convinced me. My mother had told me the to give it time the first time some disgusting man beat her up just for being a shade darker. My mom was so certain they would give up the taunting and soon become bored but her resistance only seemed to egg them. It didn't end well for her and if we didn't do something, It wouldn't end well for Sienna Reid too.