by Lisa Beeson
Henry Marlowe.
This man, with his Prince Charming good looks, posh lifestyle, and the means to take care of a hundred kids, had knocked up her mother then tossed them both aside as if they were trash.
Because of this man, her mother had been reduced to selling herself for money just to support them. Because of this man, her mother turned to drugs and alcohol to deal with what her life had become. Because of this man, her mother was murdered.
Anita had not been a bad person. She was just a desperate women pushed to her fate by this man and the monsters he worked for.
Val hated this man.
She launched herself forward, ready to scale the length of the table to tear him apart – to make him feel every ounce of pain she’d had to endure her entire life.
Iron grips on her shoulders halted her attack. She struggled against them with the fierceness of her anger and long suppressed pain – viciously and ruthlessly kicking, flailing, and tearing at anything in her reach. The green drink they had given her had suffused her with more strength than she had felt in weeks. She managed to inflict some damage to her restrainers, but was not able to gain an inch. Frustrated, she screamed with a primal rage. “How dare you show your face to me? I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you just like you killed my mother! You stupid evil bastard…”
When she got a lucky shot at the bad knee of the suited thug on her right, he grunted with suppressed anguish and raised his cattle prod, ready to use it on her. He did not see the subdued gesture Henry gave him to halt, the prod mere inches away from her chest, and suddenly let out a bloodcurdling scream and curled into a ball on the floor.
Shocked and confused, Val stopped fighting and saw that the man was not curled up in pain, but out of sheer terror. The acrid stench of urine filled the room, and Val stepped away in disgust as the younger suited man hastily released his grasp on her.
Henry stood up so he could stare down at the man shaking and cowering on the floor. “Lay a hand on my daughter again and the consequences will be much worse.” His gaze narrowed on the man’s gut and the thug screamed again before grabbing at his stomach and started retching as if he was about to vomit.
“That’s enough, Marlowe,” Zachary said in his bored monotone. “You’ve made your point.”
Henry moved his attention away from the suited man to look at Zachary, and the man collapsed in relief. He lay panting on the floor as his eyes filled with tears of anger and shame.
“I hope I have, Mr. Brandt,” Henry said with a malicious glint in his eye. “You may leave now. I want to speak with my daughter alone before the rest arrive.”
That was the second time he had referred to her as his daughter, and Val did not know how to feel about that. Even after she had screamed death threats at him, he had not just stopped that man from hurting her, he had punished him for even attempting it.
What was it that he actually did to him? Was it like her ability – some kind of infrasonic ability that induced fear and nausea? If so, how was he able to affect only him and no one else in the room?
“Are you sure, Marlowe?” Zachary asked. “Mr. Reinhold said –”
“Yes, I’m sure. Please leave.”
Zachary stared, calculating, before giving a brief nod.
“Hurry up, Briggs, and go clean yourself up,” he said dispassionately to the suited man slowly getting up to follow them out the door, his hitch now a full-blown limp.
When the doors closed behind them, Val returned her gaze back to Henry.
He was looking her over, taking in her condition bit by bit, and making himself see it, almost as if he was punishing himself. As he took it all in, his veneer of a confident, savvy lawyer fell away to reveal his vulnerable, underlying sadness and regret. It reminded her of the same look he had given her the day they had first met in his kitchen.
His eyes were shining with unshed tears. “I’m so sorry, Val.”
The fortress protecting her heart and holding her together began to crack, exposing scars that had never fully healed.
Instead of the millions of questions she wanted to ask, an embarrassing squeak was the only sound able to escape her swollen throat as it tightened with deeply repressed emotion. How could you have let all this happen? Why did you let her take me away…? Why were you silent…? Why wasn’t I enough…? Why couldn’t you be more…? Why didn’t you love me…?
Unable to stand the pain in her eyes, his gaze moved down and his mouth spread into a wistful smile. “You remembered,” he said pointing to Conejito peeking out from her waistband on her hip. “I was afraid that you would have forgotten about that old thing.”
Val had not even realized that Conejito and her shirt had gotten all twisted around while she had been fighting. She took him from her waistband and hastily put him on the table, embarrassed and a bit ashamed at having been caught with him. A second later, she thought better of it, and hid him behind her – unable to leave him on a table again, even for a moment. Then it dawned on her: Henry was the one to put him on the desk.
“You kept him all this time,” she asked in disbelief. “Why?”
“I was the one who gave it to you,” he said with a small, modest smile. “It made me happy to see that you had loved it so much, and sad that I wasn’t able to give you more. So I kept it safe until I had a chance to give it back to you.”
“But why weren’t you?” she asked, her chest roiling with a storm of emotions.
“Weren’t I what?”
“…able to give me more. You had the means,” she accused. “I know that we were an embarrassment to your pristine image, but you didn’t even have to acknowledge us. All you had to do was give us some money for food and rent. It didn’t even have to be a lot; just enough to keep us from going hungry and moving from one crummy motel to another. Just enough to keep her from selling herself…”
“I tried,” he said, his eyes full of sincerity. “Your mother was a proud woman. At first, she didn’t want to have anything to do with me. It took a miracle for her to even accept the rabbit the day you were born.”
Val gripped Conejito behind her back, subconsciously rubbing his left paw.
“I kept trying though,” he continued. “And eventually she started taking the money I offered. But I didn’t realize it was to facilitate her addiction until it was too late.”
Val shook her head in denial. It had to be a lie. If it was true, it meant that Anita had chosen to sell herself, and when that wasn’t enough to feed her addictions, she used the money meant to feed her child. She could have made their lives better, her daughter’s life better. Did she not think that I deserved that…? Did she really resent me that much…?
“No,” Val said with determination. “That’s not what I remember. She was desperate. She wouldn’t have chosen that life.”
“You were so young, Val. How much do you actually remember?”
Val had kept the memories of her mother in a safe place in her mind, readily available for her to pore over at any time. They were meager and – if she was being honest – incomplete, but they were all she had of her. The rest she put together through conjecture.
She distinctly remembered playing the mermaid game during her long bath times to drown out the sounds on the other side of the door. She remembered laying down and holding her breath under the bath water for as long as she could, convincing herself that she was in an ocean faraway protecting her treasures from evil smelly pirates. When Anita would finally unlock the bathroom door, there would be wads of cash on the motel dresser and the smell of stale smoke and sweat in their room. She remembered the sad, broken look in Anita’s eyes as she put Val to bed. The way she would protectively curl around Val when she thought she was asleep, her body shaking with silent sobs.
Val was sure that Anita hated what she had become and wanted a better life for her daughter, but how sure was she that she hadn’t molded the memories with her bias and filled in the holes with her imagination?
“Once we found out that
she had turned to hard drugs we started having Diana monitor you. We had to make sure that you were safe.”
Had Blake been telling the truth? Had they really kept Anita from selling her for another fix?
No! Diana said that they would try to twist my memories…
“If you cared so much for my wellbeing, then why didn’t you keep me when you had the chance? I was right there…” Val choked out. “Why didn’t you want me?”
“Trust me,” Henry pleaded. “I wanted nothing more than to pick you up and never let you go. But it was much more complicated than that. Sandra didn’t know about the Cause, and even if she did she wouldn’t have understood it. She was beautiful, but she was a fool. I only married her because her father was an influential judge and the Cause needed him in our pocket. Sandra was threatening to tear that all down if I kept you. And to be honest, at the time, Claudia needed me more.”
“Are you kidding me,” Val shrieked, furious and incredulous at the absolute unfairness of that last statement. “Claudia had everything!”
“She’s not nearly as strong as you. She doesn’t have that fierce drive to survive that you have.”
“But I’m not strong,” Val insisted. “And I only had that drive to survive, because I had to. No one else gave a damn if I lived or died!”
“I really do know what you’ve been through, Val,” he said, voice soft with understanding. “I wasn’t always rich and privileged. I was born the unwanted child of a teenage mother. I grew up in the system just like you. I’ve lived through that hell of fighting for everything you have. But it was that adversity that made me the man I am today. It taught me how to navigate this unpredictable world with its predictably selfish people. I learned how to read people, and use what they wanted to get what I wanted. It gave me the grit to survive anything and I wanted that for you.”
Val was at a complete loss. “So let me get this straight. You wanted me to feel like a worthless piece of trash, because it would be good for me?”
“I know it sounds harsh, but look what you were able to endure? I had to burn your world to test your mettle. And you survived, Val. You rose from the ashes as strong as I always knew you could be.”
“…I was raped,” she said thickly, as her eyes overflowed with hot tears and an unhealed scar tore open on her heart, leaking lifeblood. It cost her more than she could have possibly imagined admitting those words aloud. She was back in that little room, crushed by his weight and suffocating in his body odor and gasoline fumes, while he tore her apart. Out of self-preservation, she had pushed the reality of what had happened away, letting it be buried under all the dirt she would use to step out of the well. Laying layer by careful layer to separate her from what happened, hoping the distance would keep her safe. But it was exposed now, a stinking revenant corpse staring her in the face and tearing her to shreds. “I had to kill the man to keep him from doing it again and again…” she forced out through gritted teeth. She could feel Stan’s vengeful icy specter clinging to her soul, trying to drag her down into hell.
That dark maliciousness she had seen before, returned to Henry’s eyes. “Trust me. If you hadn’t killed him, I would have.”
Seeing the menace clouding in his eyes, she believed it. A monster lived inside that perfect Ken doll façade.
“Unfortunately, all that occurred after Diana selfishly decided to abandon the Cause. It never would have happened otherwise.” His hands shook with the extent of his fury, as he slowly started making his way around the table to her. “And as soon as I knew what had happened to you here, the ones responsible paid for their actions tenfold.”
Val figured Schweinhardt must had suffered what that suited thug just had, possibly even more so. The thought gave her a thrill of satisfaction. It was no less than he deserved. They all deserved to crumble to the floor in terror for what they’ve done.
“Though Claudia might physically resemble me the most, she is fragile like her mother. You are the daughter of my spirit. You are the most like me.” He smiled, and it felt as if the bright warm sun had just broken through the clouds. This handsome, charming man was looking at her as if she was important and valuable. More fissures began to fracture through her fortress. He had fought for her. She was his daughter.
“After everything you’ve been through, you still have that toughness I first saw in you, that grit to persevere. You have the drive to take what you want; because you know that no one will give it to you.” He noticed her reticence and added, “Believe me, Val, when I say that I am so proud of you.”
She hated the joy she felt at those words. Her father was proud of her – he cared. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? It was, but only if it was true. This man was a lawyer. It was his job to persuade people to his side. He even admitted that he knew how to read people, and use them to get what he wanted. The absolute truth was that he was never there when she needed him. He was only here now, because the Cause needed to use her. He is nothing but a spoiled narcissist who gets angry when someone messes with his things. Because that is what she was to him – a tool to manipulate and use the way he wanted. And in her experience, people that preface everything with “trust me” and “believe me” were trying to sell you on lies.
When Ari had held up her metaphorical mirror back in the greenhouse at Scion’s Keep, Val was able to see the light and beauty inside herself. Henry’s mirror only showed her the dark, vengeful, ugliness lurking in her heart. Faced with her inner demons, Val knew how easy it was to feed them, make them stronger, and let them take over.
She was tired of living in the perceived safety of the shadows. Sure, no one could hurt you, but no one could help you either. It was a cold, lonely, and bitter existence. She wanted more than that. She deserved more.
Like the girl from the group home, Val had had to face the eternal emptiness of death’s darkness to finally see the light of life’s potential.
For whatever reason, death had spared her. She was not going to waste her second chance by being the monster that was in her nature to become. That was not what she wanted to be. That was not who she truly was. She wanted to be the girl Ari saw. She wanted to be the beautiful girl mirrored in her eyes. And Val knew that in order to do that she had to fight for it.
“Did you know that Anita called you the Devil?” she asked, understanding completely why that was now. This man could stab you in the heart and talk his way into making you thank him for it.
He had the gall to blink as if he was surprised.
“Was it because you seduced her like the snake in Eden? Or was it because you forced yourself on her?”
“Now, it’s not what you think…” The clouds reemerged and his warmth disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. “I am not a rapist. And I never touched her like that. I was always faithful to my wife, even though she never believed it.”
Val’s eyes narrowed as she scowled, baffled by this man’s level of denial. “You do know how babies are made, right?”
“Just hear me out,” he said with unnerving patience. “After we had hired Anita at the house, I noticed that she had an ability.”
“What? Anita didn’t have any Progeny abilities?”
“I don’t even know if she realized she was doing it. If she did, she had been taught that it was evil so she lived in a sort of self-denial. She was brought up in a very strict religious household, and anything not deemed a miracle was considered witchcraft.”
“What was she able to do?”
“She could make bugs freeze in place.”
“What?” Val said. “That’s dumb.”
Henry chuckled at her disappointment. “Spiders and cockroaches would stop in their tracks and she’d just scoop them up and dispose of them. If I hadn’t seen it happen more than once I would have dismissed it completely. When I saw her make two flies fall straight out of the air at the same time, I had to tell the Reinhold’s about it. They agreed that she would make an excellent candidate for our Selective Genetics program.”
“What’s that?” It did not sound good, whatever it was.
“It’s just our way of trying to bring the Progeny back to our former glory – giving evolution a little nudge in the right direction.”
“Isn’t that kind of what the Nazi’s were trying to do with that Scandinavian baby-making project?” She remembered reading an online article about how one of the women from ABBA was a product of that project.
“The Nazi’s were children playing with incomplete science and faulty lore. They were trying to build a civilization based on stick drawings, while we have the full masterpiece. We are the descendants of gods, Val – living breathing gods that once walked this earth and ruled it.
“We possess only a small fraction of their true abilities, but through careful breeding and science that will allow shorter and shorter generational turnabout, there will be no limit to what our progeny can become. So I did my part, and donated my genes to the program.”
When she realized what he had actually donated, Val internally shuddered. Gross. These people are insane. “So, wait…Anita agreed to be part of this program?”
“Not exactly,” he admitted. “She was too staunchly catholic to accept any way of thinking of the past and our origins other than what’s in the bible. So, in a sense, I guess you can say that I seduced her. I would talk to her, take her out to cafés after work every once and awhile, gaining her friendship, slowly teasing her with the possibility of more to keep her interest.
“Then when the time was right, I gave her the most magical day of her life. I spared no expense; she was given everything she had ever wanted. I rented a penthouse suite and we had the most wonderfully long talk, suffused with ample amounts of alcohol to help her feel completely at ease. She told me about how she was raised by her grandparents in a small Mexican village. Her mother conceived her out of wedlock and died during childbirth. Her grandparents convinced her that her mother’s death was a judgement from God. They never let her forget that she was the product of sin, and they would punish her severely for minor infractions in an attempt to save her soul. When she was sixteen, she was given a chance to escape and she took it, hoping to finally be free to live how she wished.