Page 6 of My Girl to Protect
“I told you the guy was solid.”
“You did.”
Zane had talked about Wilder House plenty back when we were deployed together—long nights sitting on crates beside a helicopter while he ran through stories about the strange halfway house he’d stayed in for a few months. At the time it sounded like the last place I’d ever end up.
Funny how things change.
“You still planning on staying a few months?” Zane asks.
“That’s the plan.”
“What then?”
My gaze drifts back toward the building entrance. I exhale slowly. “Haven’t decided yet.”
That’s the truth. After the Army, everything feels like an open question. No mission. No orders. Just a wide stretch of empty road I haven’t figured out how to walk yet.
Zane pauses. “You’ll figure it out.”
“Maybe.”
“Hey,” he adds after a second. “At least you’ve got a roof over your head for now.”
“Thanks to you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get sentimental on me.”
I almost smile. I know he’s just trying to make small talk to keep my mind off everything.
“And the furniture’s still there?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” He chuckles. “Figured I’d leave it for whoever came next. Didn’t think it’d be a six-foot brick wall with a thousand-yard stare.”
“Funny.”
“You know I’m right.”
My mind drifts—back to the pale girl with blond hair and frightened eyes, stepping out of Wilder’s truck like she wasn’t sure what was waiting around the next corner. Zane keeps talking, but part of my attention stays fixed on the building around me. To the studio apartment just down the hall. She could be anywhere in the building.
Still, I feel the strange, steady pull settling low in my chest. I don’t even know her name. But somehow, I know one thing for sure.
She’s the reason Wilder House suddenly doesn’t feel quite as quiet as it did yesterday.
Chapter Two
Cammi
I sprint down the hallway of Wilder House, shoes slapping against the wood floor. My bag bounces against my side, heavy with clothes I barely had time to throw in. Two strikes for being late. The next one costs me my job. I can’t. Not today.
I need every dollar I can get. Millie and Wilder told me to take my time, but I can’t sit in that apartment as a charity case—paying my own way is the only thing that’ll make it feel like mine. Even after just two days, I know I have to do everything I can to stay.
I round the corner too fast and—
Smash.
I hit someone. Hard. My feet skid. My bag slides across the floor, my hands scrape against the wall, and I land on my backside.
