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FAWN

P arties meant punishments.

I let the tattered curtain in the upstairs window fall back in place, not wanting to watch Eddie’s friends park haphazardly across the overgrown front lawn. I didn’t want to feel the bitter disappointment when they emerged from their vehicles and carelessly crushed the wildflowers beneath their heavy boots.

Those tiny specks of color were the only beautiful things that still managed to grow, despite the darkness that clung to the air.

Maybe it was just me who sensed it. After all, the poppies still bloomed, and the men downstairs laughed and hooted and hollered, as if they were having the time of their lives. No one seemed to care that evil lingered here like a black cloak of death.

Music started up from a speaker, heavy rap, full of expletives and threats of violence.

Fitting for the men who’d hit the play button.

The volume cranked up to a level that sent a vibrating buzz through the walls of the old house, and I counted silently in my head.

One. Two…Ten…Fifteen…

“Fawn!”

Fifteen seconds to be summoned. It had been under ten last time.

Otis peeked up from his spot on the floor at my feet, his sweet brown eyes huge with fear at the sharp tone in his father’s voice. I knelt and quickly gathered him into my arms, engulfing his small body with mine and wishing with everything inside me it could be enough to keep him safe.

But it wasn’t. It never would be.

“Hide,” I whispered to him. “I’ll come for you as soon as I can, okay?”

He nodded obediently and scurried to the bathroom linen closet. I followed him, dragging the chains that kept me tethered to this house, keeping one eye on the staircase, the other on the boxes of old junk Otis pulled out from beneath the shelf of neatly folded sheets and towels. I grasped the edge of the largest box, labeled ‘old clothes for Goodwill’ though it hadn’t held those in a very long time.

Not since I’d cleared it out and replaced the contents with some pillows, books, and toys. Silent things a little boy could do in the darkness while he hid from monsters.

The kind who weren’t imaginary.

I’d left a bottle of water and some snacks that had been removed from any packaging that might make a sound. A flashlight, though we both knew he would never use it for fear of it giving away his hiding spot.

Otis climbed into the box without any prompting from me, and I battled back the tears that pricked at the backs of my eyes.

He knew what he needed to do, and it broke my heart every time.

“I love you,” I whispered to him, clasping his cheeks between my hands and turning his face up to mine. “No matter what happens, promise you won’t come out of this box until I come to get you.” It was the same thing I said to him every time.

He nodded solemnly, his eyes far too wise for a boy of only five. “I know, Mommy.” He picked up the earmuffs and fit them over his head, just like I’d taught him, before curling into a ball at the bottom of the box.

My heart broke into pieces at his thumb slipping into his mouth. Eddie scolded him whenever he did that. Taunting and teasing him about being too old to act like a baby.

But I never did.

I just hated he was so scared he needed the comfort.

I stared down at him, his dark-brown curls messy across his forehead. “I’m so sorry.”

But the words were empty. A hopeless apology for a situation I hadn’t created, nor could I fix.

I closed the box loosely and put it back into its place. It had holes I’d poked in the back for air, ones men wouldn’t notice unless they dragged the entire box out and inspected it. The closet itself was so poorly made, the door half hanging off its hinges, so it had never shut properly.

We’d done this dance enough times I knew he would have adequate air to survive.

What I didn’t know was how many times he could do this before his brain wouldn’t. How many times could he hide from his father and his friends before it did permanent psychological damage?

I doubted we weren’t already there.

Eddie ruined everything he touched. Including our son.

“Fawn! For fuck’s sake! Get your ass down here, you dumb bitch!”

The name-calling was nothing new. It washed over me now, as regular as any other word used in general conversation. I hurried down the stairs, my heavy chains rattling and digging into the cuffs around my ankles. I tried to smooth my hair as I went, as well as the faded dress that had never fit me properly. It hung off my too-slim frame, exposing my bony shoulders. I tugged at it, trying to make myself as presentable as possible so Eddie wasn’t embarrassed.

I stopped myself at the edge of the living room. A dozen men sat or stood around, more spilling out onto the porch and the steps beyond.

The nearest leered in my direction. “Hey there, sweetheart. You ever get sick of riding Eddie’s cock, you can come bounce on mine.”

The guy next to him gave a laugh that sounded like nails down a chalkboard. “Show us your mouth, pretty lady. We know it’s perfectly shaped for sucking.”

I said nothing, unimpressed they weren’t even brave enough to say it so Eddie could hear. Though perhaps I should have been impressed they had the smarts not to. Others had not been as clever, and pissing Eddie off was never a good idea.

For anyone.

He sat across the room, his legs spread wide, arm resting on the back of the couch. His gaze raked over me, then his lip curled with displeasure.

My heart sank. I’d already upset him.

He stood and crossed the room, grabbing me roughly by the arm and towing me into the kitchen, the door swinging shut behind us. He shoved me up against the refrigerator. “Are you trying to make a fool out of me?”

I shook my head. “I came down as quickly as I could—”

“Half your tits are hanging out of that dress. Are you trying to tempt my friends so one of them will take your scrawny ass?”

“Of course not.”

He leaned in closer, his nose running up the side of my neck. “That’s right. Because you belong to me, Peach. And only me. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes.” Despite having this conversation in one form or another on an almost daily basis, the word still scalded my tongue. Burned it until I wanted to cut the damn thing out with a rusted blade.

He rubbed himself against me. “That’s right. So go upstairs and put some decent fucking clothes on. And some lipstick. The red one. Then get your ass down here and bring us food.”

I nodded and slipped beneath his arm. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, staring at me. “The problem with you is you never fucking learn. It’s not your fault you’re stupid. I know that. But it doesn’t matter how many times I tell you, you still don’t do what I ask.”

“I’ll do better,” I promised.

I breathed a sigh of relief when my second attempt at escape was more successful.

But the reprieve was short-lived. My legs were heavy as I dragged them upstairs. I didn’t dare glance toward the closet where Otis hid. It wasn’t safe to check on him now Eddie’s friends were in the house. But I paused as I passed the bathroom and let myself feel the relief of not hearing a sound from Otis’s hiding place.

I rifled through my closet, but there wasn’t much to be found. Only dresses Eddie had bought me. I picked out one that fit better than the sack that apparently didn’t please him, hoping it would be what he wanted tonight. Before leaving the room, I swiped bright-red lipstick across my mouth, and for a second, thought about running a brush through my matted hair.

I hated brushing it. It had been long and blond once. Beautiful and shiny with health. But the blond had grown out long ago, leaving me with my natural brunette. And over the years, from the lack of good food and hair products, it had become dull and thin. When it had been well kept, Eddie had liked to run his fingers through it.

I never wanted him to have that opportunity again. So I’d stopped taking care of it, letting it turn into a matted bird’s nest.

Hopefully the lipstick and the dress would be enough he wouldn’t notice my hair.

I went back downstairs and straight to the kitchen. I busied myself in there, taking whatever I could find from both the cabinets and the refrigerator.

There wasn’t much. Some potato chips found their way into bowls, half of which would be broken by the end of the night because Eddie’s friends had about as much respect for our property as they did for the police or living a good, upstanding life.

Panic curled inside me because I knew that wouldn’t be enough. I found some cold cuts and bread and slathered on some mustard to make sandwiches. I made one trip out with the bowls of chips and a handful of sandwiches cut up into triangles, beelining for Eddie, even though his friends all swooped on me like vultures who hadn’t eaten in a month.

Even still, I managed to place a platter directly by his side. I paused after setting it down, waiting for his gaze to run over me and for him to decide whether he was happy with my appearance.

But he was deep in work mode, negotiating with a short, stocky gangbanger for a packet of snow-white powder Eddie pulled from deep inside his pocket.

This wasn’t the man’s first deal. I’d seen him here a few times now. I always made a point of trying to remember all of Eddie’s acquaintances’ names, as well as any little bits of information about them I managed to overhear. At first it had been because of a burning anger inside me. One that had been determined to tell the police everything when I finally got out of here. I used to lie awake at night, first in the basements Eddie kept me in, and then beside him as he snored in the bed next to me. I’d daydream about police busting down the doors and freeing me, then using everything I knew about Eddie and his friends to bring them all down.

For a while there, it had been the only way I got through each day.

But day by day, week by week, as months turned into years, those ambitions faded. Nobody was coming for me. Not the cops. Not the family I’d disowned. Not my friends.

They all assumed I was dead. I was sure of that. I very nearly had been. More than once. I couldn’t even blame them for giving up.

So now I forced myself to remember things about Eddie’s friends only so my brain had something to do. I’d never been a smart woman, flunking out of school early, but without any sort of input from the outside world, I craved new information.

Even if all the information was that Eddie’s drugs were going to a man they called Grass. I’d never picked up why. I’d never even seen him buy pot from Eddie, only ever the small bags of white powder that had to be coke.

Eddie waved it in front of the shorter man’s face tantalizingly. “Got the good stuff for you tonight. You want?”

Grass reached for it. “You know I do.”

Eddie yanked it out of his reach. “Money first.”

Grass waved a thick wad of cash and tossed it onto Eddie’s lap. “Take your fucking money. I want a taste.” He snatched the baggie from Eddie while he was distracted gathering up the bills.

Grass danced back a few steps and dipped a finger into the bag, quickly sticking the powder-coated digit into his mouth and rubbing it across his gums. He grinned, clutching his baggie happily. “A fucking plus, Ed.”

Despite the praise, irritation forced Eddie’s mouth into a deep scowl, before he noticed me standing there. “What are you fucking doing?” He shoved the cash at me. “Fucking count that instead of sitting there like a stunned mullet. Who’s next?”

I crouched at his feet, gathering all the bills into a neat pile and then quickly counting them.

Something didn’t feel right. I’d counted enough stacks of money for Eddie over the years that I knew what the notes were supposed to feel like. I’d stared at the dead presidents on each one enough I knew all the intricate lines of the portraits.

I paused, turning a note over in my fingers, and then holding it up to the light.

It was fake. I was sure of it.

“Eddie.”

He ignored me, too busy pulling out a new baggie of powder for the next man in line.

“Eddie,” I said again, my tone sharper this time.

It had the desired effect of catching the man’s attention. His dark-eyed gaze slid to me slowly.

Grass sniggered from behind the coffee table where he was creating a line of powder with the edge of a credit card he’d probably stolen. “Your Mrs. wants you, Eddie boy.” He leaned down, pressed one stubby finger to the side of his nose, and used the other nostril to snort the line.

Eddie’s jaw ticked with annoyance. At me or Grass, I couldn’t tell which. Probably both.

It was a risk, pointing out the counterfeit bills. If I was wrong, I’d look stupid and therefore make Eddie look bad. I’d disrespect Grass. He would let Grass punish me.

But if I said nothing, and Eddie realized later that he’d been ripped off, the consequences would be far worse. Eddie would be the one punishing me.

I was still sore from the last mistake I’d made.

I didn’t believe in God, but I prayed to one, anyone, hoping I was right. I leaned in, resting a hand lightly on Eddie’s shoulder so I could whisper in his ear. “The money is fake.”

He drew back sharply, and for a second, I thought I was going to catch the back of his hand for speaking out of place.

But his gaze flicked to Grass snorting another line, and then to the hundred-dollar bill clutched between my fingers. He snatched it and held it up to the light.

A quiet fell over the room. Though the music still pulsed in the background, the men’s attention was instantly on Eddie.

Everyone except Grass, who was well on his way to an overdose.

Eddie flicked the bill a few times, crumpled the edges in his fingers, and studied it the way I had a moment ago.

His eyes burned with slow anger, and I flinched away, stumbling back out of his reach, despite knowing running would be futile when he came after me.

But for once, his anger didn’t spew in my direction, but to the man on his knees in front of him. “You weaselly fucking liar.”

Grass glanced up, white still clinging to his nose and upper lip. “What?”

Eddie scooped up the stack of cash from where I’d left it at his feet. “You think I’m an idiot, do you, Grass?”

Eddie hated anyone questioning his intelligence. It was one of his biggest triggers, and one I had spent years trying not to set off.

Grass clearly had no such qualms. The high gangbanger wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “You do got that look about you. Like you got punched in the head one too many times.”

I squeezed my eyes closed, knowing what was to come.

The guys who’d come in with Grass chuckled at his attempt at humor.

But Eddie wasn’t laughing.

He let the stack of counterfeit cash rain down over Grass’ head. “Your money is fucking fake.”

The shorter man pushed to his feet, his expression twisting into one of malice.

But not before it flashed with the truth.

I let out a quiet breath filled with relief.

I was right. The money wasn’t real.

Eddie saw it too. Grass hadn’t been wrong when he’d said Eddie had the appearance of a boxer who’d been punched in the face one too many times. His nose had been broken at least twice and never set, so had healed badly. His eyes were squinty, too small for his meaty face. If you didn’t know him well, it would be easy to think he was all brawn and no brain.

But I knew better. I knew exactly how sharp he was. How determined.

And how he hated being underestimated because of the way he looked.

Eddie launched himself at Grass, fists flying.

I silenced a squeal of fear as men seemed to come from everywhere, like they’d just been waiting for a green light to lay into each other. Like it was sport.

Like hurting each other was fun.

I scuttled out of the way, wheezing when a stray elbow caught me in the ribs that were still tender from a beating I’d taken a few weeks earlier. The men brawled without care of destroying the living room I’d so painstakingly tried to make homey for Otis’s sake. An armchair fell backward, hitting the floor with a thump, and the TV cracked when a man was thrown into it.

I cowered in the corner of the room, covering my head, the only exit blocked by Eddie and Grass trading punches with sickening thuds. Each blow landed heavily, Grass smaller but younger than Eddie. He moved faster, so even though Eddie had him in size and strength, the two were more evenly matched than Eddie might have first thought.

Eddie let out a roar of frustration and tackled Grass, the two of them rolling on the floor, pummeling each other until there was blood flowing, and Eddie finally got the upper hand, pinning Grass beneath him.

“You fucking owe me, you piece of shit. You think you can come in here and try to fool me?”

His fingers wrapped around Grass’s neck, all his concentration on squeezing the life out of him.

He didn’t notice Grass pull a gun.

I did.

And I said nothing.

The gunshot was deafening, sending a painful ringing through my ears.

The room around me seemed to slow down.

Eddie slumped to one side with a howl of pain, clutching the wound in his leg and swearing violently at the top of his lungs.

Grass shoved Eddie off him and skittered away, pushing back onto his feet and then taking off through the front door without looking back, gun still clutched in one hand, a brick of stolen coke in the other.

The men who’d come with him stared down at Eddie bleeding on the floor, and then at their leader, disappearing into the night like a coward.

They ran after him without a word.

Eddie’s guys turned to him for guidance, and he swore at them bitterly. “Why are you just fucking standing there! Go get my goddamn drugs!”

Spider, who was the closest thing Eddie had to a second in charge, though he would never give another man any sort of power by labeling him as such, gaped at the blood seeping from between Eddie’s fingers. “You’re bleeding!”

“No shit, Sherlock. It’s a fucking leg wound. And I’m going to be bleeding a whole lot worse if I show up to meet Guerra ten K short. Go!”

Eddie’s crew took off after Grass, more gunshots splintering through the night air and mixing with the crunching of tires spinning on loose gravel.

With them all gone, a silence fell over the room, only punctuated by Eddie’s too-fast breathing and his groan of pain. He peeled his fingers away from the bullet wound to inspect it.

Blood spurted at an alarming rate.

For all Eddie looked like a stupid man, he wasn’t.

And both of us knew that bullet wound had severed something vital in his leg. Something that was going to need a lot more than Band-Aids or even homemade stitches.

“Fawn!” he hollered, like he hadn’t even realized I was still in the room.

I stood slowly, dragging my chains across the room, the rattle as loud in my ears as the gunshot. I stood over the man who’d kidnapped me. Beat me. Raped me. Made my life a living hell for more than five years.

“Help me, you stupid bitch! What are you doing just standing there?”

The blood mesmerized me, covering Eddie’s hands. “That’s too much bleeding for a flesh wound. It hit an artery.”

Eddie glared at me between fighting to keep pressure on the wound. “Help me.”

I couldn’t stop staring. There was so much blood. I hadn’t seen that much since he’d thrown me off the stairs and I’d lain at the bottom of them for days, him thinking I was dead.

But life was cruel. If it had been kinder, I would have died that day. Instead, I’d lived long enough for him to find me and nurse me back to health.

Only for him to spend the next five years making me wish my death could have been that swift.

“Fawn! For fuck’s sake! Help me!”

I didn’t want to. I wanted him to bleed out on the floor in front of me. I hoped it hurt.

Eddie’s eyes narrowed, like he could hear the voices in my head. His voice was suddenly calm. Cruel. Full of truth. “If I die, you die with me, Fawn. You know that. Without me, there’s nobody to go buy you food. And you’re all chained up. You can’t run.”

My gaze flickered involuntarily to the stairs, where Otis hid.

Eddie laughed, the sound deep and full of evil. “You think you can send that boy out to find help for you? You have no fucking idea where you are, and neither does he. You’ve heard the wolves howling at night. If you send him out to be their meal, you’re a crueler person than I am. He’ll die in those woods, alone and scared. And you’ll die here with me, just like you were always supposed to.”

He gripped the hem of my dress and yanked it sharply, forcing me to my knees so we were eye height once more. “You’re mine, Fawn. You’ve always been mine.”

My fingers shook at the very thought of Otis out in those woods alone at night, scared, screaming for me, and me unable to help him because I was forever chained inside this hell house.

I couldn’t do that to him. No matter how much I wanted Eddie dead, I wouldn’t sacrifice my child to make it happen.

“You need an ambulance.” I flicked my gaze to the heavy, wrought-iron safe in the middle of the room, where Eddie kept his phone, his guns, his drugs, and the keys to my chains. “I’ll call nine-one-one if you just tell me the code to the safe so I can get the phone.”

He shook his head. “Lying bitch. You think I’m that stupid? You’ll call the police and beg them to come rescue you.”

“I won’t! I promise! I love you!”

I didn’t love him. Not even a little bit. But I would have told him anything he wanted to hear in that moment. I pushed his hands away from the bullet hole and replaced them with my own, plugging the wound and slowing the bleeding. “Eddie, I can’t fix this. You’re going to die if you don’t tell me the code to that safe. You’re going to have to trust me!”

I didn’t need to look into his eyes to know he wouldn’t. To know he would rather us both die here, him from blood loss, me and Otis eventually starving to death painfully.

Tears spilled down my cheeks. “Please, Eddie! Let me help. Tell me the code.”

His jaw clenched into a firm line, his teeth bared, his secrets swallowed whole by the hate inside him.

I despised this man. Loathed him with everything I had.

And yet I kept pressure on his leg. Plugging the artery so he didn’t die.

I wasn’t like him. And I never would be.

Headlights lit up the front yard once more, and I jerked my head up, peering through the window at the truck arriving.

Spider burst in through the door a moment later. “We—”

“Call an ambulance,” I cut him off. “He’s going to die without one.”

Spider stopped and actually stared down at his boss. “You said you were okay!”

“Yeah, well, I’m fucking not. So just call the ambulance, would you?”

Spider pulled his phone from his back pocket. I stared at it longingly, dreaming of snatching it from his fingers and using it to call my family. My friends. The police. Anyone.

Eddie glanced at me then added to Spider, “Get her upstairs, out of sight before you say a word.”

There was no point in trying.

I had no strength to fight a fully grown man. Eddie kept me weak, lacking in energy to do even the simplest of tasks. If that hadn’t been enough, the threat of him hurting the little boy who’d had the unfortunate luck to be born into the middle of all of this would have been enough to keep me silent.

I did nothing when Spider forced me back up the stairs to the bathroom, promising with a wicked glint in his eye that I’d feel the end of his blade if I so much as made a sound when the paramedics arrived. He shoved a gag in my mouth, binding my hands to the exposed pipes beneath the sink with the rope Eddie kept there for exactly that purpose.

Spider closed the door, locked it, and then thundered back down the stairs.

The closet door opened quietly, and I sobbed, the pain and hate all coming out in violent shakes of my shoulders.

Until the little boy I loved more than life itself climbed from a box and put his skinny arms around me. “It’s going to be okay, Mommy.”

But it wasn’t. Nothing had been okay since Eddie had walked into my life.

And nothing would ever be okay again until he was out of it.