Page 54

She waved my apology away, and I noted that her hand was shaking, and her words were beginning to slur.

“I was horrified. I had heard whispers that there had been girls before me, but I had never been shown any proof, so I hadn’t believed it.

Stupid little me. I thought I was special.

Alex wasn’t a paedophile or a groomer. I was just special. Different. This proved I wasn’t.

“I went up to my room and stripped off – more out of habit than anything else. Alex didn’t like me to wear clothes in the bedroom.

For some reason, I looked in the mirror for the first time in God knows how long, and I really saw myself.

I was on the dangerous side of skinny, covered in burn marks and bruises.

My skin looked grey, my cheeks were sunken, and I had this haunted look in my eyes that scared me.

Did I really want another girl to go through this?

I looked in the mirror, and it wasn’t even myself I saw.

It was my old friends, my nieces, random kids I had seen on the street.

This was their fate if I let this continue.

It was the wake-up call and reality check I needed.

When Alex came to bed, he was surprised to see me and got angry that I came home by myself.

He wanted to know who I had been with. We ended up arguing, and I confronted him about what I had heard.

He laughed in my face. The illusion shattered.

He asked me if I really thought I was that special I could keep his attention forever?

I had an expiration date, and it was fast approaching.

I asked him why he wanted my teeth removed then, if he no longer wanted me, and he grabbed my face and said he was planning on selling me to the highest bidder every night.

He hadn’t wasted so much time training me not to reap the rewards. ”

She swallowed thickly, her voice breaking.

“He said something along the lines of reaping the rewards right there and then and pushed me to the bed. I tried to fight, but it was pointless. His friends heard the banging, and they came rushing into the room. Two of them pinned my arms and legs to the bed, and they all took it in turns to rape me. It went on for hours. They were laughing the entire time. One of them even said this proved how fun I’d be when I had no working limbs.

When it was finally over, I ran. I went back to my parents and when they asked what had happened, I refused to tell them.

I had always kept my body covered around them, and they just assumed I was involved with a bad man who did drugs.

They had no idea the extent of it, and that’s what I told them.

I was too ashamed to admit what I had put up with all those years. ”

She paused, and wiped away a tear before it had the chance to fall. She sniffed and sat up straighter, all emotion gone.

“About two months later, Alex reappeared. My dad had given me his old phone, and he got my number from the local weed dealer. He would send me messages saying he wasn’t done with me, and I was foolish if I ever thought he was letting me go.

One day, my mother was cooking for a dinner party she was hosting and had sent my dad out to get something she had forgotten.

Alex had been watching the house and saw that as his opportunity to strike.

He text me to tell me he was coming to get me.

I panicked. I had only just started to heal.

I was finally beginning to leave the house again after weeks of being shut away in my bedroom.

I never went far, just for a walk around the garden, but it was progress.

I was recovering. And with one text from him, I was back to square one.

When I heard his car, I didn’t even think it through.

I waited at the door for him, and when I saw him coming down the garden path, I rushed at him and stabbed him in the stomach.

He was so shocked; all he could do was look at me.

I ripped the knife out and stabbed him again.

I went manic, stabbing him over and over, until someone dragged me off him.

” She took a deep breath, and I reached out to hold her hand.

“My dad was screaming in my face, asking me what the fuck I had just done. They assumed I did it through crazed withdrawal symptoms – at least my mother did. I think my dad recognised that something more was going on. The police arrived, and my dad took the blame.”

“Why did your mother say you killed him in cold blood?” I asked, my own blood seething with an uncontrollable rage.

“Because that’s what it looked like. He hadn’t done a thing to me that day, and I attacked him. Like I said, my parents had no idea the extent of what I went through. I don’t ever want them to know. They don’t deserve to know.”

“What? Why? They should know how much they failed you, Rachel. They should live with that guilt and shame for the rest of their lives. You were a child, and you were let down. Why wouldn’t you want them to know?”

She snatched her hand away from me. “Because they assumed the worst of me. I don’t want them to forgive what I had done because they feel sorry for me.

They automatically assumed I was high, or on a comedown, or whatever else.

Let them spend the rest of their days hating me.

I don’t care. If they didn’t love me enough to see that I was going through some pretty messed up shit, then they were shitty parents.

I want them – mainly my mother – to spend the rest of their lives wondering where they went so wrong that their daughter turned into a murderer.

I’m not having them justifying it because I was groomed, or whatever else. Let them think I’m truly psychotic.”

“You do realise that doesn’t make any sense, right?”

“Yep,” she said, popping the p. She swigged from the bottle once more, taking giant gulps.

“I don’t care,” she said, her jaw clenched.

I took the bottle from her hands and put it back on the table.

“They failed me, Dante. I swore to myself I would never explain myself to them. My mother still believes Alex didn’t deserve to die.

She’s a Christian woman and truly believes he could have repented for his sins.

Jesus would have forgiven him. I took away his chance to turn his life around, and now she has to live with the shame of having a husband in prison.

She can’t see past her own selfish existence. ”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, my anger close to erupting.

I don’t know what I had been expecting Rachel to say, but I definitely hadn’t expected anything I had heard.

“I want the names,” I told her in a voice I didn’t recognise. My eyes snapped open and locked with her own.

She dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “Its history.”

“It’s not fucking history.”

“Listen,” she said, standing up on wobbly legs. It sounded more like “lishen”, and I realised how much the alcohol had gone to her head. “I don’t need you coming in here and p-playing shaviour.”

“Saviour,” I correctly dryly.

“Whatever.” she swiped her hand again, knocking over the whiskey bottle. “You concentrate on your life; I’ll concentrate on mine. You’re no better than them, anyway.”

“I beg your fucking pardon?”

“You and Alex are peash in a pod.”

“You’re drunk. Go to bed, Rachel. Sleep it off,” I warned through gritted teeth.

“What’s the saying? Drunk words, shober thoughts.”

“I’m going to give you a pass, because clearly it’s hurt from bringing up old memories, but I suggest you remove yourself from my company before you say something you regret, and I do something I regret.”

“No,” she said stubbornly, her hands planted on top of the table to stop herself from swaying.

“Look around. You have club whores, throwing themselves at any of you. Is that any different from the trained girls Alex had? You kidnapped me. You kept me for yourself, just like Alex. You throw your weight around—”

Before I knew what I was doing, I was up on my feet and grabbing her jaw, squeezing her cheeks together to stop her from talking. “Watch it,” I hissed in her face.

The noise of the bar quietened as everyone turned to see what was happening.

“Point proven,” she spat at me. Literally spat at me. Her spit landed on my cheek, and I saw red.

I slammed her body against the wall, her head ricocheting off the wall. “Don’t take it out on me because you’ve got a shitty past. You think for someone that was raised on alcohol, you’d know how to handle it better. I guess Alex didn’t train you as well as you thought.”

You fucking asshole, Dante.

I hated myself. I knew it was too far. But it was too late to take the words back.

“And you’d think since one woman already killed herself to escape you, you’d consider treating them better. Old habits die hard, I guess.” She shot back, all traces of slurring gone.

I wanted to slam her into the wall so hard there would be a Rachel shaped hole in her place. She had taken a healed wound, and with one cruel sentence, she had ripped the scab off and exposed it all over again.

Which is exactly what I had done to her, too.

“Isn’t this the part where you call Vienna to come deal with the aftermath whilst you run away from the thing you caused?” She mocked me, not even bothering to try to get out of my punishing grip.

“Fuck off, Rachel.”

“Gladly. Show me the door and you won’t see me for dust. I never wanted to be here, and I certainly don’t want to be with you.”

The game was a mistake. Introducing alcohol to two people who couldn’t spend five minutes in each other's company was a mistake. Hindsight was a brilliant fucking thing.

But I wasn’t going to let her speak to me like that unpunished. I never pretended to be anything other than a cruel man who liked to get his own way. And I needed to take that smug smirk off her face.

And so I did it in the lowest way I could.

I brought my face close to hers and hissed down her ear.

“Ordinarily, I’d hit someone for a remark like that, but you’ve already been used as a punching bag.

No doubt you’d revert straight back into the role you were born to play.

It’s time you face facts, Rachel. Hate me as much as you want, but I’m all you’ve got.

You leave here, and it wouldn’t take much for me to find Alex’s remaining family and friends and tell them where you are.

You’re as trapped now as you were then.”

“Good,” she whispered back. I pulled my head back and looked at her, expecting to see tears, or anger, or something. But once again, that blank expression was back. It made me want to rip her skin off and rearrange her features. She pushed her head away from the wall and brought hers close to mine.

“I thrive in this environment,” she grinned at me.

A cold, evil grin. Her tongue came out, and she licked my face, from my chin, all the way up to under my eye.

“I’m not a scared seventeen-year-old. And as you’ve just learnt, I rectified my mistake and dealt with the problem.

Just as I’ll deal with you if you ever push me too far.

And this time, I promise the autopsy won’t say ‘nearly beheaded’. Now go fuck yourself.”

She pushed me away, and I was shocked enough to let her go.

“Oh, and whilst we’re handing out threats.

One phone call from me to social services, and Bee will be ripped out of here without a second thought.

No wife, no old lady, no daughter. Think about that next time you threaten me. We all have our fucking vices.”

She shoulder checked me as she walked past and grabbed another bottle off the bar.

“Hope you enjoyed the show, ladies and gents,” she shouted to the crowd. “Long reign, the new old lady.” She looked back at me. “Cheers,” she said in a voice like ice, bringing the bottle to her lips and took a long drink before letting it drop from her hand and smash to the floor.

She didn’t even flinch as it shattered and splashed up her legs. She just turned around and headed back upstairs without a word, leaving the entire bar in stunned silence.