Read Online Broken by Travis Thrasher - Free Book Online

it and begins to cram in items.
     There’s very little she needs to bring. Everything of value is already in the duffle bag, the one James had spotted, the one
     she had filled earlier in the day.
    Even slight mementos and reminders of her time in Greenville will stay behind. There’s no reason to take them.
    The question that rolls around is where she will go.
    And she thinks of the phone again, thinks about calling her family. But she can’t and won’t.
    That door closed a long time ago.
    She’s already dead to them.
    The phone rings, and she picks it up.
    “Okay—I’m heading over to my cousin’s. Do you need me to stop by before I go?”
    Laila shakes as she hides the tears and controls her voice. “Thank you.”
    Kyle is a good man. She knew she could rely on him, and regardless of his motives, he’s helping her out.
    “I can swing by if you want.”
    “No. Just—if you wouldn’t mind, could you bring it over right away?”
    “Of course.”
    “And stay. Just for a while?”
    “As long as you want me to.”
    Laila stares at the suitcase and finds herself lost, thinking of nothing and feeling tired and feeling everything. Then she
     fades out of her trance as she sees a small edge of something white lying underneath a T-shirt.
    She picks it up.
    It’s an old picture of Isabella. It’s a black-and-white square photo, a kind that she hasn’t seen in years. Isabella is standing
     proudly showing off her white coat.
    “She’s actually gray,” Laila says, mimicking her father’s accent. He would teach her things about horses. Nevertheless, Isabella
     was a tall and striking horse that looked white and shimmering and something out of a fantasy.
    Laila never brought any photos of Isabella with her when she left Texas.
    The image twitches at something deep inside of her.
    For a moment she feels more pain than when James Brennan was over and almost squeezed the life out of her.
    She takes the photo and puts it back in her suitcase, not sure where it came from and too tired to try and figure it out.
    •   •   •
    Lex twists his head, and something in his neck snaps. He howls in pain and tries to remember what side the phone is on. Then
     he realizes the ring filling the room isn’t his cell phone. He reaches for the receiver in the dark.
    “Yeah?”
    “Lex?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Come on down to the lobby.”
    “Who is this?”
    There’s nobody on the end to answer the question.
    He finds a light and turns it on, stretching as he stands up and searches for his jeans. The fancy alarm says that it’s 3:16
     a.m.
    “This is probably very stupid,” he says as he tries to comb back his mass of hair with his hand.
    The only person in the lobby is a man wearing a sports coat and pants with a casual shirt underneath. He isn’t particularly
     large or threatening, but he doesn’t give any sort of greeting either.
    “Are you Rodney?”
    “Come with me.”
    “Whoa, hold on. Where’re you going to take me?”
    “To a car waiting outside. He wants to meet you.”
    Ignoring his instincts, Lex climbs in the open town-car door. This is his only chance to find Laila. Another man waits inside,
     examining him with a tired, dismissive glance.
    The car starts to drive off with the first man behind the wheel.
    For a moment nobody says a word. The man in the seat next to him is stocky, maybe in his late forties, mostly bald, with a
     long face and narrow eyes.
    “This is all very mysterious,” Lex says, looking around the town car.
    “What do you want from me?”
    “Are you Rodney?”
    “You said you had something for me. Something from Laila.”
    “How do you know her?”
    The man shakes his head and lets out a chuckle. Then his jaw tightens as he grabs the back of Lex’s hair and slams his head
     into the seat in front of him.
    For a moment everything goes white and Lex remembers getting hit square in the face with a baseball when he was in high school.
     This feels about the same.
    He also feels