A Kiss of Color: The Complete 3 Book Collection (12 page)

An image from the previous night popped into his head – of the young woman atop him in his easy chair, riding him with an abandon he thought he’d never see from the tight-laced pre-med student.

God, the things she did to him.

Xavier camped out in the spot where he and Helena usually had lunch, tearing into his burger ravenously. He waited for her to come rushing up to him in a frenzy about her notebook, preparing to soothe her worries – but to his surprise, she never came. For the entire hour, he lounged by himself in a corner of the main courtyard, growing more and more worried with every passing moment.

It wasn’t like Helena to miss their lunches. She was a very structured person. Her schedule was exceedingly predictable once she’d locked something in.

When the time came for his next class, however, Xavier was forced to put his worry aside and make nice for his programming instructor, who called on him a fair number of times to demonstrate concepts to the class.

By the time his last course of the day was over, a vague feeling of unease had settled in the pit of his stomach. The moment he was out of the classroom, he dialed the young woman’s cell, scowling when his call was directed straight to voicemail.

Clutching her notebook tightly in his hand, he made his way to her dorm, where he smooth talked his way past the girl manning the front entrance and sprinted to her second floor room. Loud music inside announced that it was occupied and he held his breath as he knocked. Magda answered the door in short order with a frown, but perked up once she saw who her visitor was.

“Hey, Xavier. What’s up?” The blonde was clad in the scantiest shorts and crop top he’d ever seen, and despite his current situation, he had to swallow a chuckle. Outlandish was Magda’s middle name.

“Have you seen Helena?” His voice was hopeful – perhaps a bit too much so. His hopes, however, were dashed when the young woman frowned, shaking her head.

“No. She hasn’t been home all day. I assumed she was with you.”

Fuck
.

Taking a deep breath, Xavier reassured himself. This wasn’t like Helena. She wouldn’t have just gone off somewhere without telling someone. He’d known that the previous night would make her pensive, but not so much that she isolated herself from everyone and turned off her phone. “She hasn’t contacted you at all today?”

His inquiry made Magda shake her head, her frown returning. “Why, is something wrong?” All at once, the blonde’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Did you guys have a fight? Did you say something to upset her?”

“No! Of course not.” His reply was, perhaps, a little bit too defensive, as Magda emerged from the room in her half naked glory, raising a finger warningly. “If you
hurt
her, Thompson, I swear to God, I’ll rip your intestines out through your anus.”

Good God, that was graphic. The very idea made him wince slightly. “I didn’t do anything, Magda.” He reassured the feisty girl lowly, before sighing as he ran a hand through his hair. “I just have no idea where she would be, and she’s not answering my calls.”

“Did you check the library?” The blonde inquired thoughtfully, “Or the science building?”

Almost before she’d finished speaking, Xavier was off to look with a hurried goodbye.

Magda had been…less than helpful, despite wanting to gut him if he’d hurt her roommate. Xavier, while he knew he was probably overreacting, couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

His suspicions were soon confirmed when he checked both the science building and the library and found neither hide nor hair of the woman he loved. What’s more, he found her organic chemistry professor, who beamed when Xavier mentioned his star student, but commented that, lamentably, she hadn’t been in class that day.

That was when alarm bells started going off in Xavier’s head. He called the young woman’s cell twice more, becoming more and more frustrated when it went to voicemail both times. He then returned to his apartment, neglecting his programming for the day, to stew.

As he sat on his couch, staring down at the notebook he held tightly in his hands, he tried to calm himself. People didn’t just disappear. Helena had to be somewhere nearby. She wouldn’t have gone far in eight hours – not with exams on the horizon. Unfortunately, he had no way of finding her. Not when she wouldn’t answer her cell phone.

The programmer slept fitfully that night, worry keeping him from getting more than a few hours shut eye before he rose, exhausted, the next morning to check his phone. Still, nothing from Helena.

And that was the last straw.

Glancing at the clock, Xavier observed that it was close to seven in the morning and hesitated only a moment before giving his sister a call.

In spite of the hour, she answered on the third ring with a loud yawn. “Xavier? What are you doing up at this hour?”

“It’s Helena.” He wouldn’t mince any words. Not when he was this worried.

“Oh, God.” Brandy groaned. “I’m so sorry about Mom and Dad, Xav. If I had known it was going to be like that, I wouldn’t have-”

“This isn’t about Mom and Dad.” He returned sharply. “Helena’s missing. I can’t find her. She’s not answering her phone, she didn’t attend any of her classes the other day and her roommate hadn’t seen her. This…this isn’t like her.”

A low sound of surprise escaped Brandy. “God. Well…do you think it might be because of what Mom said?”

Xavier shook his head, exasperated. “No. We got over that. I…made up for it.” That was putting it mildly, to say the least.

“Really?” Brandy’s tone was skeptical. “How did you manage to do that?”

Her brother groaned. “None of your business, Brandy. Just suffice it to say that she knows how few shits I give about Mom and Dad’s opinion on her, alright? I didn’t call you to talk about our parents, I called you because I need help.”

There was stunned silence on the other line, and for a moment, the young man regretted being so sharp, but he was at his wits end. He didn’t know where else to turn.

When Brandy next spoke, her voice was soft and concerned. “What do you need, Xavier?”

He took a deep breath, measuring his next words carefully. “Do you know any private investigators?”

“A few, yes. But they’re all upstate.”

“How quickly can you get one down here?” Xavier listened to his sister shift in bed, no doubt sitting up at his question.

“Probably a few hours; But Xavier, think about this. Are you sure you’re not overreacting just a tad bit?” Closing his eyes, he saw the young woman’s face relaxed in slumber, felt the warmth of her body curled against his. She wouldn’t have run away from him. Not like this.

“I’m sure.”

**

Three days.

Though Helena had once spent years under her mother’s thumb, it had never been worse than in the past three days.

For the first time in ages, she returned to her old house in Maynard, and was shocked to see the disrepair that it had fallen into. Large chunks of the roof had fallen in, half of the windows were boarded up and the smell was awful. It was like several small animals had crawled into the crevices to the house and died.

She was bundled into her own room – which obviously hadn’t been touched since she’d left six years ago, and so she was sitting on filthy sheets and wondering if there were rats in the corners. There, she was locked for most of the day. She was only allowed out to cook meals for her mother and to attempt to clean the space that she and her boyfriend, Tony, inhabited.

She had no idea what dynamic existed between her mother and the immense man. Tony was all muscle, but the brain behind it was clearly lacking. He grunted and growled and, several times, she heard the unmistakable sound of him and her mother screaming through the door and wondered if the man had ever hit her.

The prospect wasn’t so unlikely.

The day she’d arrived, she’d been very adamant in telling Janette that she didn’t have any money. The moment she let her mother know that she wasn’t broke, she would drain her like a leech, and Helena couldn’t let that happen. She still planned on going to med school – still planned on escaping.

She just had no idea how.

Her mother had taken everything. Her cell phone, her laptop, even the clothes on her back, leaving Helena to try and squeeze into moth-eaten clothing she’d worn at age sixteen. Needless to say, the garments she chose barely fit.

What the hell was her mother planning on doing with her now that she was here? She wanted Helena to leave school and cater to her every whim, but it was clear that she already had a boyfriend to take care of that – among other things. With no viable income, there was no way that Helena could make any more difference than making a few packages of ramen noodles a day.

Or so she thought.

On the evening of her third day back “home”, Janette entered the room with a plastic bag from the dollar mart down the street, her expression a simpering smile. “Hey baby. How you doin’?”

Was that a trick question? The woman had kidnapped her and now she wanted to know about her welfare? Helena said nothing, her stomach turning with uncertainty. She, better than anyone, knew that all it took was one wrong word for her mother to snap.

And once she did, things got nasty. “I brought you some things to wear…know it must be hard findin’ anything in here. I tried to keep it the way you left it.” She extended the bag to Helena, and the young woman took it tentatively.

Her mother never bought her anything. What was this, some kind of peace offering?

“You just put that on, sugar, and come on out when you’re done. Big Tony and I got a surprise for you.”

At her words, Helena’s brows disappeared into her hairline. A surprise?

She must be losing her mind. Why would her mother be kind to her all of a sudden? Patting Helena on the shoulder gently, Janette turned to leave the room, shutting the door behind her – and leaving it unlocked.

Helena could hardly believe her luck. They were letting her come out of her room on her own free will. With any luck, she could find some way and escape back to Xavier.

The thought made her chest tighten.

Xavier. He must be worried sick. Three days would be the longest they’d gone without speaking in a long while. Closing her eyes, she lie back on the sour smelling bed, remembering the way he’d held her close after they made love – the way he’d whispered things in her ear that made her blush as her heart warmed.

Had she been a fool for ever dreaming that he could be hers? If anything, the situation she was currently in was a prime example of why they could never be together. Her life was entirely too fucked up. Who was to say that her mother wouldn’t walk in on them someday and threaten him – threaten all they had together.

No, better to keep Xavier far away from all that. In that respect, at least, his parents had been right. The realization clogged her throat with grief and she forced herself to swallow her tears. She had to get out of here. As conflicted as her mother made her, she wasn’t going to give up the dreams that Isaiah Graves had implanted in her just for an addict’s whim.

No matter what she said.

With a sigh, Helena stifled her tears before looking down into the bag. At the sight of the garments there, she made a face of revulsion.
This
is what passed for clothes for her mother? If so, then her head was more screwed up than Helena thought.

Ten minutes later, she tentatively emerged from the room in the bright red skirt that barely reached her mid-thigh, exposing her behind to anyone who cared to look. The skirt was pared with a top that was more revealing than most of her bras – a string number that barely covered what needed to be covered. The shoes were a definite no-go. Helena refused to wear the clear, six inch high mules.

The moment she stepped into the living room, Big Tony eyed her with a distinctively lascivious expression that made her stomach turn before rising from his chair. Janette, on the other hand, rushed forward, gushing. “Oh, baby! You look so beautiful!”

Was that so? Because she felt like a bottom-of-the-barrel hoe. “Momma, I don’t feel comfortable in this.” It was the first sentence she had uttered to the woman all day. In all honesty, Helena felt like fleeing back to her room to re-don her ratty teenage t-shirts. Especially if this was the alternative.

“Oh, nonsense, honey. You look great. You know, you look so good that you and me are going to go for a little walk.” Helena’s eyes widened in incredulity. Go
out
? In this neighborhood? In this getup? It was asking for trouble – and that was the understatement of the century. As Janette tried to take her daughter’s arm, Helena yanked it out of her grip.

“I am
not
going out in this, Momma.”

Immediately, Janette’s expression turned ugly. She took a step back from her daughter, her eyes narrow. “You don’t want to walk with your momma? Fine.” She gestured to Big Tony, who immediately took an intimidating step towards her. “Let’s take her for a walk, Tony. I’m sure someone will pay good money to spend a little time with her.”

A little…what?

For a moment, Helena was so horrified that she was rooted in place. Her own mother was going to
sell
her? This couldn’t be happening. As Tony took a step towards her, she snapped back to her senses, turning in an attempt to flee. The huge man caught her by her arm, nearly breaking it as he yanked her back to him before hauling the screaming young woman over his shoulder.