Page 20 of Scar Tissue

When she walks out of the hallway in front of Nathan, I notice that she’s changed into a pair of her new clothes, despite not washing them yet—but I’m not going to say anything. She looks more comfortable and that’s all that matters. Without looking at me, she plops down on the couch next to me, twiddling something between her fingers while Nathan gets his laptop hooked up to the television. I glance at her out of the corner of my eye; the tension in her shoulders is still there, but there’s something different, too. Something akin to relief. The object in her fingers catches the light and I realize that it’s a USB. She keeps flipping it open and closing it, her movements restless.

The television comes to life as Nathan’s laptop connects to it, hishome screen alight on the larger screen. “Claire, can you hand me the USB now, please?” The way he addresses her is patient, despite the way he scrubbed his hand down his face when he followed her from the hallway, almost like she put him through hell and back. She tosses it at him without a word and he barely catches it before it hits him in the face. He glares at her and I notice there is a hint of a smile that dashes across her lips, so I can’t help but smirk, too. Nathan plugs the USB in and a group of files pops up on the screen.

“What are we looking at?” I ask.

“When Claire got away, she managed to take this USB with her. We left a copy with the FBI because there is a lot to comb over, so we decided to divide and conquer. Essentially…it’s a list of operations and enterprises tied to the human trafficking network, amongst other things. But that’s not what I want to show you.” Claire glances at me then, looking just as confused as I feel.

She finally speaks up. “Why do you want to show her? What does she have to do with it?”

Instead of answering, Nathan clicks on a file and dozens of images flood the screen. My face blanches and I feel nauseated, because I know what I’m looking at. “Why?” My voice tremors.

“It may have been an accident, but I was never the cause. Do you ever remember hearing about a politician named Harrison Clark? He was on the town council when we lived there.” His voice takes on an edge.

Thinking, I rack my brain for any hint of familiarity when it comes to me. “Yeah, I think I do. He did a speech at our school for a fundraiser relating to childhood cancer. Mom talked about him, thinking he was charming. What does he have to do with this?”

Ripping off the Band-Aid he says, “He’s directly responsible for covering up the details of what caused the accident that night.”

Claire exchanges glances between the two of us, trying to decipher exactly how far back our relationship goes.

“Are you saying it’s his fault that my brother is dead?” The wordsare almost impossible to say, and I see understanding come across Claire’s face.

“Somewhat. The person in the other car that we collided with that night had been drinking. It just so happened to be that he had connections to Clark in the trafficking business, and as such, you could say he wanted to protect his…investments. So instead of the guy being held responsible at found at fault, they labeled it?—”

“An accident,” I finish for him. “But how?”

This time it’s Claire who speaks. “It pays when you have local law enforcement and the DA’s office in your back pocket. They’re all corrupt.”

Nathan’s jaw tightens, and he nods. “Exactly. The guy who hit us that night got off scot-fucking-free. No charges. And they buried any evidence that could’ve tied him to it.”

My heart is racing as the room threatens to close in on me. “Do we know who the guy was?”

But the somber expression on Nathan’s face already gives me the answer, even before he says, “No. But we’re working on it, just as we’re working on how deep this goes and how we can hold them all responsible for not only this, but their other crimes. What’s worse is that he’s looking at taking over the east coast network now thatThe Wraithhas been neutralized.”

I feel dizzy. Sick with the information. Unsure of how to process another world-altering detail. My throat feels dry and I don’t even know I’m speaking until the words are out of my mouth. “And this is where Claire comes in, I’m assuming?”

He nods again. “She has insider information. If we want to get close, she’s our best shot. Are you ready to share your story?” He directs his attention to where she’s tucked her legs underneath her, as if she’s already resigned to being here for a little bit.

The response he gets in return is a sigh before she starts to talk.

Chapter

Fourteen

NATHAN

“Iwas ten when I was taken. There isn’t much I remember from that day, but I’m pretty sure I was playing in a park down the road from my house. There wasn’t much for me to do most days unless I wanted to remain locked inside my room. My parents would make sure of it. They said that they didn’t want me ruining their ‘parties.’ I wasn’t stupid, I knew that they were doing things they weren’t supposed to be doing, but I never bothered looking past the skin of my teeth because if I did, it would end in a black eye or a belt lash across my back.” She pauses, looking outside as if she’s seeing something we aren’t. “It wasn’t uncommon for me to sneak out of the house at that point, and I never expected them to come and look for me most days that I did. But when I was dragged into the back of that van, I screamed for them for the first time in years.

“I thought that they would come looking for me when I didn’t show up that night. They may not have liked me much, but I was still their daughter, right? But days turned into weeks, turned into months, and then years. There was no one looking for me—no one left who cared. By the time I understood that, it was too late for me anyway. I never thought my life could get worse, but of course itlaughed right in my face.” She shakes her head and I see the way Thea tenses at her admission.

“What happened to your parents?” Thea asks, despite the look on her face that tells me she knows the answer anyway.

Claire just shrugs. “I didn’t ask. It isn’t like there is anything for me to go back to. Now that I’m older and less…naive, I understand that their ‘parties’ were more about getting their next hit. As kids we like to find any positive attribute we can hold onto; we try to mold ourselves into a version we think they would like better. But deep down I knew it would never matter what I did. But then again, I was ten—it wasn’t my responsibility to make them love me. The kind of love between a parent and a child should be unconditional, but it never applied to me.” She exhales sharply, as if trying to shake off the weight of her own words. “You know what’s funny?” she asks, despite there being no humor in her voice. “For a long time, I thought I was the one who did something wrong. There were moments they blamed me for things, so it must have been my fault. I thought that if I had just been better, more obedient, maybe they would’ve come looking for me and we would’ve been able to repair our relationship. But the truth is, some people just aren’t meant to be parents. I’ve never understood why people have kids when they evidently don’t want them. And I’ve never understood why kids who already have it rough, get it worse. Maybe some of us just don’t get to be saved.”

Thea flinches at that, her fingers curling into her sleeves. “But you were saved. You survived.”

Claire lets out a bitter laugh. “Because I learned that the only person I could rely on wasme.That’s the one thing I can thank my parents for. My childhood made me a survivor long before I was taken. I had become used to going hungry and fending for myself. Used to staying out of the way and making myself as small as possible. The only thing I hadn’t prepared myself for was the additional things that would be taken from me.”

She doesn’t need to go into detail for us to understand whatthose things are, and I’m sure as hell not going to push her to talk about it.