Re: The woods
Sam wanted to bury her head in the fucking sand somewhere. It was one thing to have him know the kind of people she came from, but it was another to have him see it. All this shit did was solidify her belief that if her parents ever caught up with her ass, she'd needed to cut contact with him to keep them from taking him for every last penny. Neil wasn't careful with his fucking money, which she knew well enough, since she'd been stealing from him for months without him even fucking realizing it.
She groaned when he agreed to stay for dinner, because that was a stupid fucking move, and she stood from the chair a second later, prepared to drag him out of there, Lou or no Lou.
But then Iris starting talking gibberish, and then the gibberish turned into wailing, and her dad was pointing at the rail-thin blonde girl on the mattress. "This is your fault," he was telling her mom, not caring that they were arguing in front of someone they'd just met.
That started a screamfest, one Sam would have barely paid attention to if it wasn't for the fact that Neil was there to witness the entire embarrassing thing. Tess finally gave in, and disappeared back into the rear room with her husband, and the sounds of sex filtered in moments later over the arguing.
It was Louis that filled in the blanks, his long fingers tracing along Neil's arm as he gave him an apologetic look. "They always fight about this," he told Neil in a whisper. "When mom couldn't have kids anymore, she made dad bring Iris and me back," he explained.
Which made Sam realize there were a shit ton of kids missing, and that explained why the place looked even shittier than it had when she was home; fewer kids to steal shit.
Great.
She walked over to Neil, and she glanced at Louis. "Unless I don't exist, he's not fucking real, Neil. We have to go." And maybe she wasn't as caring about it as she should be, but she'd lived this fucking life, and she really didn't think anything of it. It was embarrassing, sure, but it wouldn't kill anyone. She'd been sold off to the Spanish man, and Tess had been sold off to Kevin. Iris and Lou had been sold off. That was just fucking life.
But Louis was holding on tight, and giving Neil an impossibly hungry look, even as their dad shoved their mom into the kitchen to get dinner ready.
"So," the man said, turning his attention back to Neil. "How much you willing to pay? You'll be good to him? Help us out when we need it?" he asked, greedily staring at the meal ticket standing in his living room.