by Riley Ashby
Somehow, I got her into the house. She fought me every step of the way, aiming her nails for my face and eyes until I finally threw her into the bathroom and locked the door from the outside using the flimsy key.
“Let me out of here, Meyer!” Her fists beat against the door with incessant force; the door was heavy and thick, but it still shook from the force of her fight. She pulled on the handle with everything she had. The hinges trembled, but they weren’t going to give. I was less sure about the doorknob. Ignoring her screaming, I left the bedroom and locked that door as well for good measure.
Pausing at a mirror hung in the hallway, I examined my reflection. My lips and face still felt warm from the exertion of her fight, and my hair was mussed from where she had grabbed it. I smoothed myself as best I could.
The scene outside had barely subsided. The security had their Tasers out, aimed at both of Madeline’s parents, who were still fighting even though they were both on the ground with their arms pinned behind them. I crossed my arms, adopting the most intimidating stance I could manage, but I never got a chance to speak.
“Was this all that needed to happen for you to come back?”
Madeline’s mother froze on the ground, but her father fought even harder. Conrad appeared out of nowhere and walked over to Eva and motioned to Joshua to let her up. He offered her his hand, which she ignored while she rolled away from him, rushing to her husband. Even with a knee in his back, he was putting up a fight. There was dirt on his face.
Eva and I locked eyes. If she had looked sad before, she was devastated now. I grabbed that warped piece of emotion deep inside me and twisted it, gloating in the pain entrenched in her features.
You will never live through this.
She opened her mouth, and I braced myself for her fury. But when she spoke, her words weren’t what I expected.
“I’m sorry, Meyer.”
I took a full step back, reeling. I felt like I had been slapped.
Her husband’s head whipped around to look at her, snarling. “Don’t apologize to him, Eva.” The brute pushed his head into the ground again.
“Joseph, quiet.” She was crying, ugly, tears and snot running down her face in torrents. She turned her attention back to me. “I’m so sorry, little lamb. I abandoned you.”
The ice in my veins cracked. Not because it was warming. Because it suddenly froze deeper than ever before. It was straining against my capillaries, tearing me apart from the inside.
“Don’t fucking call me that,” I growled. Madeline was suddenly the furthest thing from my mind. I wanted to destroy Eva, beat her face to an unrecognizable pulp. I felt my short fingernails digging into my palms as I struggled to hold myself back.
“You lost that right long ago.” My head turned so quickly my eyes followed seconds later to focus on my father standing only a few feet away. Eva and Joseph were both still now. Conrad walked to Eva and twirled a finger through her dark hair. She looked sick. Joseph was shaking with rage.
But me … every ounce of anger was gone. I was vibrating with something else.
Conrad grabbed Eva’s face and kissed her, nothing soft. She tried to jerk away but was completely immobilized. Joseph was bleeding as he thrashed on the ground.
My father stepped back but still held Eva’s face, studying her. “It’s been too long, my dear.”
“A million years wouldn’t be long enough.” The words sounded forced; he was holding her jaw so tight I was surprised it didn’t snap. My brain rocked with a million flashbacks, vision blurring and fading to black. I coughed, trying to regain my composure.
Conrad walked away, circling the intruders. Eva desperately tried to follow him with her head, but Joshua didn’t let her move much. Conrad kicked up dust as he studied first her, then her husband, and finally me.
“How did you find this place, Eva?” He was looking at me but spoke to his former mistress. “It wasn’t built when you lived here. And I don’t think you found it just driving around.”
When she didn’t answer, he spun around quickly and slapped her. Joseph screamed epithets.
“Will you shut him up?” Conrad looked at Joseph like he was something distasteful, roadkill crawling with maggots. One of the brutes released him to gag him with a cloth pulled from his back pocket. As if he just walked around with gags on his person.
Turning his attention back to Eva, Conrad ran his fingers tenderly over the red mark on her cheek. Her hair was just as long as Madeline’s.
“How did you find us, Eva? Tell me, or I’ll break his hand.”
Eva choked as she spoke. “Her phone. It was on for a little bit earlier today.”
Conrad looked at me, but he didn’t ask for details. That interrogation would come later. “What an oversight on my son’s part. I can assure you no similar mistakes will happen again.”
“Just let us take her, Conrad. Please. Don’t destroy our family.”
“Why shouldn’t I? You destroyed mine.”
“Take me. I’ll stay.” My breath caught at her words. “Let Madeline go.”
I looked over at Joseph, frozen on the ground. Blood dripped down his face from several cuts, but he didn’t notice. He was staring at his wife with a level of fear echoing my own
“No.” I looked back at Conrad the second he spoke. The vise around my heart relaxed.
“Conrad, please, I’ll be good. I—”
“I said no, Eva. The good thing about this little trespass is it’s showing me exactly how well the current arrangement is working. It’s definitely having the desired effect.”
Eva broke free from Joshua and fell to her knees. Joshua moved to grab her again, but my father held up his hand, halting him. Eva was prostrate on the ground before him, her hands clasped in prayer.
“Please, Conrad, let her go. Don’t punish her for my sins. I’ll never fight you again.” Dirt clung to her face, trapped in her tears.
Conrad tipped up her head with his shoe. “No, I don’t think you will.”
I felt a sudden wave of relief—because I knew that tone. The tone that said he had made up his mind and was completely immovable.
It meant Madeline wasn’t going anywhere. She was still mine.
*
Less than five minutes later, they were gone, loaded into the back of a van. One of our men drove their car out after them. There were ineffectual threats of police action, futile when someone “donated” as much money to the local force as our family did. We were untouchable, and Eva and Joseph knew it. They would never see their daughter again unless we willed it.
Unless I willed it.
I pulled Joshua to the side as the dust kicked up by the retreating vehicles.
“Take care of her,” I ground out as quietly as I could, then shoved him toward the door. He looked at me over his shoulder, something akin to concern on his face, but closed the door behind him. I heard the deadbolt slide home.
I was trapped. Conrad and I faced each other, alone in the yard.
“You gave her, her phone, Meyer?”
My tongue was dry as a desert. “We made a deal. She cooperated last night, and I let her make a call today.”
His fist caught my jaw hard enough to loosen the crown that I had already replaced three times, but I didn’t go down. I resisted the knee-jerk reaction to cover the place I had been struck—to defuse the pain—knowing it would only bring on another more brutal blow.
I thought of Madeline, spitting back blood into my father’s face fearlessly.
“Do I even need to explain to you how incredibly stupid you have been? Why in the fuck would you let her have her phone for even a second?”
I didn’t answer. There was nothing I could say. Sometimes silence made the blows land just a little softer.
His foot in the back of my knee forced me to the ground. My suit pants shredded on the rough gravel, grinding stones into my skin.
Madeline on the ground in the loading bay, struggling to stand despite her bound hands and bruised ribs, unashamed to
be nearly naked and beaten in front of so many strange men.
“I can’t even begin to express how disappointed I am in you. I should have known you weren’t able to handle this responsibility.”
The next kick to my side sent me the rest of the way to the ground. Conrad put his foot on my ribs and leaned down with most of his weight, and I heard a rib snap out of place.
Madeline being so brave, demanding an explanation for her treatment as bruises bloomed across her perfect skin.
“If you fuck this up again, I will show you the true meaning of pain. I will torture both of you until not one inch of skin is left unbruised or unbroken to show you exactly how to hurt someone. Of all the things I’ve tried to teach you, I would have thought you would have learned that one lesson.”
I would never be half the person she would be.
And Conrad reminded me of that as blow after blow rained up on me, my blood mixing with Joseph’s in the dirt. I didn’t possess an ounce of courage to fight back.
Somewhere, I thought I heard Madeline cry my name.
Madeline
I screamed until my throat felt like it was bleeding. I pounded at the door until every surface of my hands was bruised or bloody. I kicked at the door handle until my ankles collapsed. My fingernails dug into the screws holding the hinges in place until they ripped away to nothing.
Every piece of me hurt.
I felt the pain down to my bones while my heart seemed to shatter inside my chest. I cried without realizing it until every spare ounce of water was leeched from my body.
When Conrad had abducted me weeks ago, my instinct had been to protect myself. I had been battered with fists and feet and focused on nothing besides making myself as small as possible, forming a protective shell against the bruises and insults.
Was that why I had found myself drawn to Meyer? Had I sought to alleviate the pain of my kidnapping and separation from my parents by forming an attachment to the man who held me? Perhaps I thought, in some dark recess of my brain, that bringing the two of us together could bridge the gap between our families—if not to undo the damage done between Conrad and my mother, then to at least prevent the perpetuation of this ghastly feud.
Had I really been so naïve as to think I could act out some modern-day Romeo and Juliet, changing the ending so we all lived happily ever after while the true criminal received his just desserts? I was unbelievably, unforgivably foolish. I had let myself think Meyer could be steered from his father’s shadow into the light of … what? Love?
I surprised myself by laughing out loud, clapping a hand over my mouth to stifle the sound. I was hysterical, and I knew it. Seeing my mother, my parents, together and risking their physical well-being to search for me, had me feeling unhinged. I had betrayed them in the most horrible way by letting myself feel something for Meyer despite how horrible he had been to me. Worse, I knew what I was doing while it happened.
After what felt like hours, I collapsed, facing the door, waiting for Meyer or—God forbid—Conrad to open the door and drag me to whatever torture he could think up to punish me for my mother’s appearance. Time disappeared completely.
I leaped to my feet as the door handle rattled, and whatever was blocking it was being pushed aside. I adopted the defensive stance I remembered from high school P.E. class, intent on leaping upon whoever was behind the door even if it was Conrad Schaf himself.
Instead, I found myself tangled among Joshua’s strange but all-too-overpowering limbs. He didn’t even have to wrestle with me, not really. He just held me in place until I couldn’t move any more. Spinning me around, he pressed me against the wall while twisting one arm behind me. The other dangled free as he held a round pill inches from my face.
“You’re going to swallow this.”
I kicked him in response. Pressing his body tighter against me to restrict my movement, he held my nose with one hand, forcing the pill into my mouth once I parted my lips to breathe. His hands closed again around my nose and mouth, holding my face back. Only once I swallowed did he release me, letting me stumble away from him into the bedroom.
Grateful I had left on my shoes, I scrambled through the doorway and stumbled through the hallways. If I could only get outside, maybe someone there could still help me. I was still so angry, so afraid, I felt drunk.
The door to the outside was locked, and a cry tore from my chest.
“MEYER!” I screamed, stumbling toward the kitchen. He had to be here somewhere. I was vaguely aware of a tingling sensation in my toes, then the complete lack of feeling as I fell to my knees in the hallway. I opened my mouth to cry again, but no sound emerged. I realized I was prone on the floor, attempting to crawl forward but all too aware that I was not moving at all.
Joshua crouched in front of me, somehow looking concerned as he took my pulse and smoothed the hair back from my face.
“You’re one of the lucky ones,” he said softly, the deep lines on his forehead creasing as his face contorted into something that could be construed as concern. He hooked his hands under my armpits, pulling me up and into his arms like a bride. I felt the sensation of walking, gentle waves of movement lulling me despite my resolution to stay conscious, stay awake, stay tethered to this deep feeling of hatred that had burned out all feelings of affection in my faithless heart.
“Don’t fear him, Madeline.” It was the first time he ever used my name. His hands were softer than I would have expected for a bodyguard. My head fell against his chest as I lost all control of my neck.
“Why shouldn’t I?” I demanded, but the words went unsaid. My head began to ache with the effort I was exercising to speak, to no avail, my own silence ringing in my ears as if taunting me.
I was dimly aware of settling against something soft, and I wondered why the carpet suddenly seemed so comfortable until the scent of forest and firewater touched my nose. With the last dregs of my strength, I tried to fight my way free, out of my captor’s bed, but it was useless. Black fingers floated from unseen depths, twisting around me into chains that held me locked in place. I drifted into unconsciousness, wrapped in the cologne and coverlets of my enemy.
*
Bright lights in my eyes wrenched me from a dreamless sleep, my hand flying up to knock away whatever was blinding me but barely rising from the mattress.
“That’s it. You were under for a long time. I thought you would want to be up.”
I blinked, the room around me coming into focus as feeling returned to my limbs. I had the sensation of coming out of a deep sleep, but I never remembered even lying down.
Turning my head, I saw Joshua sitting on the bed next to me. There was a small scar on his chin, a little divot slightly whiter than the rest of his face.
Pushing myself up to a sitting position, I searched my brain for my memories. It came back in waves—the horse, the barn, my parents, battering the door of the bathroom until my hands bled. Panic surged. What had happened while I lay unconscious? I pressed my fingers into the corners of my eyes, looking down, controlling my breathing.
“Where are my parents? What day is it?”
Joshua shifted. “It’s Monday. You don’t need to worry about them.”
I didn’t have the energy to push. I had never felt so defeated in my entire life. My chance to escape had come and gone, and I had spent it locked in the bathroom like a drunk girl at a party.
“Where is Meyer?”
Joshua shifted uncomfortably.
“He had to leave on an unexpected business trip. He won’t be back until the weekend.”
He was lying, and I knew it. I dropped my hands to my lap, slapping them against the comforter. “He ran away.”
Joshua shrugged. “If that’s how you want to interpret it.”
I forced myself to look at him, gritting my teeth. “And what am I supposed to do?”
He stood, buttoning his jacket, and gestured at the clothes folded on top of the dresser. “First, get dressed. Second, eat breakfast. We’ll go fro
m there.”
“We?”
He was walking out of the room. “Two minutes.”
I wasted at least thirty seconds thinking through what he said, then dragged myself out of bed and over to the pile of clothes set out for me. I felt like a toddler, dressing every day in an outfit someone else chose from me. I didn’t even know where the clothes came from. The only thing I put away and picked out myself was my makeshift pajamas, which Joshua must have dressed me in while I was knocked out.
I was just pulling the shirt over my head when the door opened, and I heard soft footfalls approach me. I turned around, nearly chest to chest with Joshua as he came up behind me and took my arm, steering me out of the room.
“Wait,” I insisted, digging in my heels, but he didn’t slow. I found my feet stuttering across the floor as I stumbled behind him. “What is happening? Why are you dragging me around?”
He responded without looking back. “Meyer is gone this week. You get free rein—more or less—while he’s not here to care for you.”
“Care for me?”
Joshua ignored me as we entered the breakfast room, depositing me in a chair. “I will be supervising you for the time being.” He pointed at the plate in front of me. “Eat.”
“And if I don’t?”
He sat down across from me, crossing his legs.
“I’ve been instructed to make sure you eat. If you won’t feed yourself, I’ll feed you.”
Now that I was fully awake, I felt the anger from last night that had never actually dissipated rising back to the surface. I picked up the fork in front of me, then slammed it back down. Joshua looked up from his phone, a grin on his face as if he was amused.
“This isn’t funny to me.”
He had the good grace to look humbled. “Of course not.” He turned to face me, setting down the phone and leaning on his elbows. “You must be very upset.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” The morning sun filtered through the windows, warming my skin. I shifted deeper into the shade of the room. “I was literally torn away from my mother yesterday. My hands—” I held them out before me, trembling, though I noticed my cuts had been cleaned, and there was some sort of ointment on my battered cuticles. “I’m never going to let this go.”