Page 18

Istare blankly ahead, my unseeing eyes devoid of any semblance of life. I’m peering into the void itself, the dark abyss calling to me. Silent screams claw at the walls of my throat, tearing through my raw, bloodied flesh with each agonising moment. Agony courses through my veins, a relentless tide of acid that burns me from the inside out, reducing me to ashes one moment and leaving me brittle as frozen ice the next.

Exhaustion weighs heavily on every fibre of my being, dragging me down into the depths of despair where my darkness reigns supreme. With each laboured breath, I feel as though I’m being drained of life itself, my lungs pierced by shards of glass that cut deeper with every inhale.

A wet, rasping cough wracks my body, choking me as I struggle to swallow back the agony threatening to consume me. Each cough feels like a razor blade slicing through my already shredded flesh, leaving me gasping for air amidst the suffocating darkness.

At some point, Daryl appears, his presence a fleeting spectre in the desolate landscape of my mind. He tries to get me up, waving his hand in front of my vacant gaze, but I remain catatonic, lost in the labyrinth of my own anguish.

He pushes me, a futile attempt to elicit a reaction from me, but I simply topple over like a fallen tree, too numb, too weak, too lost to react. When I don’t move from where I land, he mutters, “Fucking freak,” and leaves. I haven’t moved since, a solitary figure cast adrift in a sea of shadows.

The fading light of the sun paints a haunting tableau on the barren walls around me. Time passing is nothing but an abstract concept to me as shadows move around me and I lay motionless. It all feels like a distant memory, a fading echo of someone else’s life.

I’m lost to the past being battered like machine gun fire by my memories but my fractured mind is making them real. I’m stuck reliving every moment, drowning in a never ending cycle of pain. Bone chilling dread seeps in through my pores holding me hostage as a barrage of mental assaults tear me apart.

The rank smell of cigarettes, vodka, and Lynx Africa invades my senses making it impossible to inhale anything but that nauseating aroma. Every muscle in my body locks up tight, frozen with terror as another memory becomes real, pulled from the depths of my mind, forming before my eyes.

“Hello, my sweet boy,” his husky, intoxicated voice rumbles as he presses his face into the back of my head, inhaling deeply. That whimper I was trying to hold in breaks through the seal of my lips and pierces the now silent room, leaving only the sound of my pulse thudding in my ears. I quickly slap a hand over my mouth, praying he didn’t hear it as I suck in a sharp breath. And terror ratchets through my body. “Now, now, little one,” he croons, running a rough knuckle down the exposed skin of my back. I feel the weight hit each notch of my spine as he moves it lower and lower still; each bump is nothing more than a countdown to the inevitable. His late-night visit explains why all my new pjs were missing from my drawers. I should have known, should have hidden. Ran. “I’ve come to spend some quality time with my favourite little boy.”

“B–but I?—“

“Shhhhh, Mummy’s not here. She’s at work. It’s her first night shift at the hospital. It’s just you and me all night. Won’t that be lovely?” His warm breath tickles the back of my neck, the acrid heat a stark contrast to the cold air of my room.

“But w-what about R?—“

“He won’t wake up till the morning,” he cuts me off before I can say any more, his tone cruel and calculated. “He’s in a very, very deep sleep and probably won’t even remember going to bed.” He chuckles.

Tears slip silently downmy cheeks carving my agony into my skin as the screams of my younger self ricochet in my skull as images, sensations and white hot pain attack my body.

“That’s it, sweet boy, wiggle that tight little ass against me. You say you don’t want this, but then you tease me like the little slut you are. You’ll be begging me before you know it, on your knees or… or…” He growls in my ear, and fear slices a path across my skin, leaving goose bumps in its wake.

“Oh my, you are desperate for me to take care of you tonight, aren’t you?” he purrs, his voice mocking, deep and rasping, and filled with desperation. With need.

“No… no… I’m not. I don’t want this, please. No. Don’t! It hurts. It always hurts so bad,” I cry out, breaking my silence. Pleading with him to spare me. My throat is so raw it burns with every breath I take.

“Don’t be so dramatic. You enjoy it. I know you do. You wouldn’t get hard otherwise. The very fact that you do proves to me just how much you love our special time.”

No sooner doesone memory release its hold on me and start to fade it morphs into another as the barrage continues to rip my psyche apart piece by fragile piece.

“Open,” he hisses, his voice low and chilling, as he pulls his grotesque stiff dick from his off-white boxers. My stomach churns like the violent seas with a mixture of disgust and terror as I stare at his rigid and pulsating member as it bobs in front of my nose. The sour stench of urine fills my nostrils as it saturates the air, making it impossible to breathe without gagging. “I said open!” he orders the growl rumbling deep in his chest. “Stick your tongue out for me.” I feel bile rising in my throat again as I comply, my tongue alive with fear as I push it out of my mouth. The taste of bile mingles with the acrid flavour of his flesh as he presses himself against me.

He pumps his short prick against the flat of my wet tongue till a drop of precum seeps from the slit, dragging the inflamed head against my lips he smears the fluid over my face.

“I’ve always known you were nothing more than a pathetic, insatiable whore, desperate for every inch of my cock,” he sneers. Cold, glacial-blue eyes bore into me with an intensity that sends icy shivers down my spine. I freeze mid-moan as his repulsive gaze rips through me like razor blades. “Now, as I look into blue eyes of yours, I see nothing but the hollow emptiness of a soulless, depraved slut who lives to be dominated by a real man like me. Your moans do nothing to me, they’re just the pathetic cries of a wanton little slut.”

“Wh-wh-what?”

There’s no logic,rhyme nor reason to the memories I’m forced to relive. All stages of my life under Neil’s unrelenting care are forced upon me like a deluge drowning me, slashing at my skin, slicing through my brain and ruining the remnants of my body. They hurt as much as they did the first time when he forced his way inside me making me bleed for his pleasure and capturing it all on camera so he could relive it time and time again just as I do.

He finds pleasure in my pain, exalts in my ruin. The devil in a human skin, he’s an aberration of what a father should be. He took my dream of a family and made it a living nightmare. One that I will never be safe from until he takes his last breath and if that costs me mine I’ll do it with a smile on my face because it will mean Rhys is finally free.

“Look at you, wiggling that tight hole in front of me. You’re a fucking little slut, aren’t you?”

“I’ve changed my mind,” he says almost thoughtfully. Calmly. Fear shreds my insides. It’s in his serenity that his vile sickness is truly free. “Reach back and pull your cheeks open. I want to see what I’m about to ruin.”

I don’t move; my fingers are locked as if they’re frozen solid, clinging on to the fabric for dear life. No more than a second has passed before a smouldering burn blisters across my back, causing me to cry out in pain. The sound rebounds off the walls in my small room.

“I said spread those fucking cheeks open for me, you little wretch, or I’ll strike you again. And this time, I’ll make it bleed, just like your hole will.”

It takes everything in me to hold back my screams as white-hot pain sears right through me. I feel like I’m being split in half from the inside out. His heavy weight holds me down, pushing my face into the mattress, blocking my airways and preventing me from breathing as I feel him batter my body. His innate power moves me as if I were a rag doll in the jaws of a thrashing beast. The sour taste of blood drenches my taste buds almost as quickly as it fills the air around me, overpowering his vile stench.

“That’s it, my sweet boy. Take everything I give you. If I can record your cries tonight, I’ll run you a shower afterwards as a reward.” His movements slow momentarily and I hear something click, and my eyelids glow a deep pink as if the sun is shining down on my face. But I can’t see. My eyes are screwed shut.

“No-no-no-more,” I chant into my covers, unable to form proper words as his hand coils around my throat, squeezing tightly and holding me still.

“Not good enough. Come on now, little one, scream for the camera.”

“Now, you little shit. When I tell you to scream… I fucking mean it.” He growls in my ear, changing his position. And with it brings a whole new level of hurt. With more force than I ever thought possible, he slams into me his hips cracking against the bare skin of my arse and I break. Succumbing to his wishes, I do as he orders.

I scream.

I scream until I can’t scream anymore, till my tears have run dry and the world has lost focus and I feel like I’m underwater. I’m numb. No more pain, just floating… drifting away not existing, utterly unfeeling.

“Kayden,shhhh. It’s okay. You’re safe.” The soothing voice croons softly, warm hands cup my face before brushing the hair back that clings to my damp skin. “I’ve got you, fight its hold and come back to yourself. You can do it, you’re stronger than you believe.

“NOOOOO. GET OFF ME. DON’T TOUCH MEEEEEE,” I bellow feeling my heart thundering with all the savagery of a stampeding herd of wild animals. I fight the too hot hold on my arms, my face, my legs. I thrash and arch my body trying to release the unrelinquishing hold. A scream echoes around me as white hot pain hits like lightning bolts searing through my skin and spider webbing through my veins. Turning one point of pain into an inferno strong enough to eviscerate me off the face of the plant.

“Kayden, focus on my voice.” I thrash my head from side to side, as the calming voice slips away like water through my fingertips, distorting into something menacing.

“Hello, my sweet boy… have you missed me?”

“Don’t let the past control you. You’re stronger than it.”

“You will always be my pathetic little slut. Pretending you don’t want me but falling to your knees as soon as I say.”

“You’re in your room here at Horizon House. You’re in your bed,” the soft voice hitches as if holding back tears. “Can you feel the blanket wrapped around your fingers?”

“You will never be free of me.” His lifeless blue eyes bore into me like he’s peeling back layers of my skin and can see the terrified little boy curled up in his dark room. A malicious grin splits his face as he licks his lips and moves towards me.

No, no, no, no. I won’t let you control me anymore. I belong to Rhys. I belong to Rhys. I love him and he loves me. I chant over and over inside my head as Neil’s roars start to diminish, the memories of his brutality start to fade becoming a shadowy echo. Before I can breathe a sigh of relief a new monster materialises in my mind. His voice flaying me alive, threatening to take the one good thing in my life from me.

“Ah, but will he still love you when he finds out you’re his half-brother? Hmmmm…?” his penetrating black eyes stare back at me, not an ounce of human emotion to be found in them. “I never had Rhys down as a brother fucker, did you?”

My eyes fly open as that last barbed word lands, splitting my heart down the middle pulling pulsing lumps of muscle right out of my chest. I clutch at my throat gasping for air, broken nails clawing at the skin. My vision blurs thanks to the torrent of tears flowing from my burning eyes as emotions are wrenched right out of them and laid bare for all to see.

“That’s it, Kayden listen to my voice.” A warm hand unwinds my fingers where they’re locked around the blanket on my bed and places it on their chest. Jenna. It’s Jenna, my mind slowly piecing together the shattered fragments of reality and piecing them back together. It’s her voice I’ve been hearing, calling me back from the black suffocating grasp of my sick, broken mind. She reached into the trenches of my suffering like a ray of light obliterating the darkness that I was drowning in and guided me free. “Feel my breaths and copy them. There. That’s good, keep going. In and out. In and out.”

My eyes shutter closed, burning from emotion as I focus on the steady rise and fall of her chest and the cadence of her soothing voice. “That’s really good Kayden, you’ve done so well.” She says softly as I slowly feel my body form around me, the numb feeling dissipating with every ragged inhale. The oxygen slowly filtering into my bloodstream brings sensation back to my fingers and toes, leaving nothing but a bone deep exhaustion in its wake.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Y-yes,” I rasp, my vocal cords grating against each other.

“Here you go.” She places a plastic cup to my lips and guides my shaking hand up to hold it. “Take it slowly, okay? Small sips of warm water should help you.” I follow her advice, taking small draws from the warm liquid, groaning softly as it eases the ache in my throat.

We settle into a comfortable silence as the rest of the world begins to filter in around us. With each familiar object that comes into view, I feel a sense of reassurance wash over me, confirming that her words were true. I’m here. It’s as if every piece of me, every broken fragment, is slowly starting to reform, like a particle of dust settling back into place, waiting for its rightful spot in the puzzle that is me.

“Here,” I murmur, passing the cup back to Jenna where she’s perched on the edge of my bed. Her dark honeyed eyes filled with compassion as she takes it from me.

“I suggest you get some rest. I’m sure you’re exhausted?—”

“No,” I bite out. “I mean yes, but…” I swallow around the glass shards embedded in my throat. “I am, but I don’t think I can sleep.” I raise a shaking hand and watch the tremors travel down my arm, tears prick the back of my burning eyes. “I-I don’t think my mind will switch off.”

A sad smile curls her lips, “I thought you might say that so I’ve something that will help you sleep and silence that mind of yours.” She lifts a small pot off the chest of drawers next to my bed and hands me another cup of water. “I’m sorry,” she sighs sadly.

I pause the pills almost to my mouth, confusion washing over me. “Sorry?”

“Yes, I’m sorry Kayden.” She gives my arm a reassuring squeeze. “I fear our session yesterday may have triggered you in a way I wasn’t expecting,” she sniffs and I finally notice her eyes are glassy. “I didn’t even begin to comprehend how deeply entrenched your pain was, and that’s my fault as your therapist for not offering you adequate support and aftercare yesterday.”

I swallow down the pills even though they still feel lodged in my throat. “Why do you care?” I whisper.

A look of sorrow flashes across her face before she schools her features. “I told you why I got into this line of work.” Her shoulders slump as she brushes the arms of her soft pink blouse down. “I do it because I care and there’s something about you that reminds me of my sister.” She clears her throat and looks away surreptitiously wiping at her eyes. “Maybe I’m getting too personally involved with you and your case.” I stiffen at those words because I know what’s coming. As a child I was always a burden to my mum and as an adult I’ve never been someone’s choice. I’ve always been an option, a place holder, something dispensable. Never wanted.

“That’s alright.” I drop my eyes and pick at one of the fresh scabs on my arm. “I’ll leave,” I rasp. “I don’t even know why or how I’m here, not really.”

“Kayden, you’re here because someone cares—” my eyes dart up to hers, secrets swirling in their brown depths. “I’m not at liberty to say more but your place here doesn’t hinge on anything other than your recovery, okay?”

I shake my head. “I don’t understand.”

She huffs out a breath. “Neither do I fully.” Jenna pauses and licks her lips. “But you’re safe here and I’ll help you any way I can.” The open expression on her face moments ago shutters leaving nothing but professionalism in its place. “Now, get some rest and hopefully you’ll feel up to coming down for dinner in a few hours.”

A yawn splits my face as she helps me under the rumpled blankets on my bed and tucks me in. I burrow under my sheets refusing to look closer at the emotion warming my chest as I feel the drugging pull of the tablets she gave me as they filter through my body pulling me under, dragging me into unconsciousness.