Darn.
To buy time, I watched as I slid a hand up his chest, the skin warm and smooth, the muscle underneath hard and defined. I loved every inch. So I memorized the feel, knowing I’d be able to call that up anytime, always, for the rest of my life and remember it. Remember tonight. Remember every second. Every single second of my first time on the pier, by our lake, making love with Creed.
I pulled in a deep breath before I replied, “It wouldn’t feel right.”
“Too good of a girl,” Creed muttered and I looked up at him to see his eyes on the lake.
“He doesn’t deserve it but I’m not what my mother said. I’m not like him. I couldn’t live with myself if I just up and left. Didn’t tell him I was going. Didn’t tell him I wasn’t coming back. He’s not much of a father, Creed, but maybe somewhere in there, somewhere deep, he’d worry and I’d worry about that. At least, if he knows, I won’t have that worry.”
I heard and felt Creed heave a deep sigh but he didn’t speak.
I snuggled closer. “I’m all packed. First thing, I’ll tell him and then I’ll meet you here.”
His hand slid up my back and into my damp hair before he murmured, “You’re mine now, beautiful, in all the ways you can be. What we just shared, I loved it, it was right. Being here, our place, it was perfect. I want more. I want it all. I’m tired of waiting.”
I was too.
Still.
“Just a few more hours,” I whispered.
Creed’s hand cupped the back of my head so he could shove my face in his chest as he replied, “This proves it, baby. Nothin’ I won’t do for my Sylvie.”
I grinned against his chest and my arms around him gave him a squeeze.
I turned my head and pressed my cheek against his skin before I called it down.
“So, your friend has power of attorney to sign the papers to sell your house next week. I’m packed. I’ll tell Daddy, come here,” I gave him another squeeze, “you’ll give me my necklace, we’ll eat frozen Snickers bars for breakfast and then we’re gone.”
“Gotta find somethin’ different for you,” he muttered. “I’m thinkin’ I don’t like you knowin’ what you’re gonna get for your birthday for forever.”
My head jerked back and my eyes honed in on his face. “If you ever, ever get me anything but my peridot pendant, Creed, I… I… well, I don’t know what I’ll do but I’ll be super, extra pissy.”
I saw the white flash of his teeth. “Wouldn’t wanna make you super, extra pissy.”
“Don’t joke. I’m serious. Those necklaces are the only things I own that mean a thing to me.”
I saw the white flash of his teeth disappear right before I heard the guttural tone of his, “Jesus, Sylvie.”
“And they always will be,” I finished.
Both his arms closed around me tight, my head tipped back, his dipped down and he kissed me, hard, wet and long. A new kind of kiss. An unrestrained kiss.
Pure beauty.
Unfortunately, it didn’t last forever like I’d like it too. Creed broke it.
Then he murmured, “Let’s get you dressed and home. Our life starts in about four hours. Don’t want you nodding off when it does.”
“Probably a good plan,” I agreed, smiling at him.
I caught his smile back at me then he shifted, we were up and he placed me on my feet.
He held my hand as he walked me to my clothes. I gave him his shirt. He gave me my bikini top. He tied the back for me and I pulled on my tank and shorts and slipped on my flip-flops. Creed grabbed the blanket and again he held my hand as he walked me to my car.
At the door, again, he kissed me. This one I’d had before.
A good-bye kiss.
I savored it because it was the last one.
The last good-bye kiss ever.
Tomorrow, there would be nothing but the rest of our lives kisses, free and easy.
“Sleep good, beautiful,” he muttered against my mouth.
Like I was going to sleep.
Not.
“You too, Creed.”
“Soon, baby.”
“Soon, Creed.”
His arms gave me a squeeze. “Love you, Sylvie. Didn’t think I could do it more but after what you gave me tonight, know it can be more until infinity.”
Oh.
Wow.
People in town thought Winona Creed was a redneck hick, a floozy, stupid and a loser.
Creed fell very, very far from that tree. What he said might not rhyme but still, it was poetry.
“I love you too, Creed. Seems like I’ve loved you forever but I know that I will love you that way. Forever.”
I wasn’t as good at it but Creed didn’t seem to mind. I knew this when he bent his neck and gave me another good-bye kiss, soft, sweet and short.
Okay, so that kiss was the last one.
In my car, I waved, staring at his shadowed form in my rearview mirror, feeling light, feeling free, feeling happy, not having any clue I wouldn’t see that tall, muscled frame for sixteen years.
Not having any idea.
And feeling so happy, when I stole into the dark house I grew up in, through the foyer and up the stairs, thinking it was for the last time, I didn’t feel Daddy’s eyes watching me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
You Can’t See It
Present day, six days later…
They had him chained to the floor, cheek to the cement, tape on his upper and lower eyelids, stuck to his lashes, holding his eyes open.
So Creed saw her when they pushed her down and chained her to the floor six feet away.
At first glance, he thought she was me. Same hair. Same build. Same face shape. Even the same colored eyes.
She wasn’t me.
Daddy held his head down so Creed couldn’t even turn it. The tape held his eyes open so he couldn’t shut the visions away. There was no way he could close out the screams.
No.
He had to watch.
Watch as they ripped her clothes away.
Watch as, for hours, repeatedly, brutally, they raped her.
Watch as she fought the chains, strained, shrieked, begged.
Watch as the blood flowed from between her legs, where the chains gouged into her wrists, her neck, her ankles.
Watch as the fight left her, the light died in her eyes and she lay, her head turned, her gaze locked to Creed’s as they kept at her for hours, one after the other and then back again.
Five of them.
Then they were done.
“You know,” Daddy whispered into Creed’s ear, “you take her, you think to escape me, you know I’ll find you.”
He knew. Daddy had a lot of money. Daddy had a long reach.
Daddy kept talking.
“I’ve tried to talk sense into you but it’s come to this. You’ve already sullied her, taking her virginity. You take her, Tucker, I’ll find you. I’ll bring you both back. You take her, she’ll mean nothing to me. If you take her, I’ll bring you back and I’ll make you watch like you did just now as they do the same to Sylvie. But she’ll be safe if you leave her be.”
This time, Creed didn’t say, “never”.
His eyes forced open, his head still held down, he had no choice but to stare into the girl’s eyes. The girl, so young, maybe seventeen, maybe even sixteen, my hair, my body, bloodied, bruised, violated, the light in her eyes extinguished.
So like me.
So very like me.
He knew, if Daddy would do that to her, he’d do it to me.
Creed’s voice came, weak, raspy, “Promise me.”
Daddy’s hand left his head but she didn’t look away so Creed, now free to move his head, didn’t either. He gave her his gaze, the only thing he had to give, the only thing he had to offer her as even a scrap of comfort as she endured a nightmare.
“Promise?” Daddy asked.
Creed stared at the girl who was almost me.
“She’ll be happy.”
/> Quickly, Daddy declared, “I promise, Tucker, she’ll be happy.”
“Swear it.”
“You leave, never come back, never phone, never try to see her, I swear. She’ll be happy. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure she’s happy. You come back, phone, ever, ever try to contact her again, she’ll be lying there as that girl is and you’ll be lying right where you are, watching.”
“Just make her happy.”
“I’ll make her happy.”
Creed stared into the girl’s eyes and watched the fresh tear roll over the bridge of her nose, drop and mingle with the blood on the cement by her face.
So me.
So very me.
“Then I’ll leave.”
* * * * *
I shot up in the bed and, not thinking, my skin prickling, cold sweat trickling between my breasts, I jumped to my feet and for some reason hurdled over Creed’s body. My feet landed on the other side of the bed and I bounded to the floor. My foot lifting to run, flee, escape like that girl sixteen years ago was me and I had the chance, one shot, to get away before they destroyed me.
Creed’s arm hooked my waist and I flew backwards, landing in the bed and Creed rolled over me.
“It’s a dream, Sylvie. Just a dream,” he said what he’d said over and over again when I woke up after a dream assaulted me.
“I know those men. I know those men,” I panted, my breath coming fast, sharp, heavy, hurting as it tore up my throat and out of me. “I know them… knew them. Served them beer. Nachos. I knew those men, Creed.”
“Beautiful, what are you –?”
“The men, Richard’s men, those men who Daddy forced you to watch raping that girl who looked like me.”
“Fuck,” he clipped then bit out, “You’re dreaming that shit.”
My hands drove into either side of his hair and held tight. “I knew them. I brought them beers while they watched games on Richard’s huge ass TV.”
“They’re out of your life, Sylvie.”
“I knew them.”
“Baby, they’re gone.”
“I knew them!” I shrieked, Creed stilled then he rolled, sitting up, forcing me to straddle him but his arms clamped tight around me.
“Calm down, Sylvie,” he ordered firmly.
“I can’t, Creed.”
“You gotta try, baby.”
“I can’t, Creed. It’s hideous.”
I stopped speaking, shook my head and struggled in his lap. I had too much energy. I had to move. Pace. Run. Sprint. Stand up and scream.
Creed held firm and wouldn’t let me, so I gave up and kept talking.
“I can’t believe they did that. I can’t believe they taped your eyes open and made you watch. I can’t believe they found someone who looked like me and hurt her like that. Just because she was unlucky enough to look like me and they needed to make a point, hurt her in a way she’d never get over. Alter her life forever and you didn’t even know who she was. They probably didn’t know who she was!”
“I know who she was.”
That made me go still.
“You knew her?” I asked quietly.
“Not then,” he answered. “After. When I got into the business. When I had the resources. A few years later, I tracked her. She was from a county over. She was the girl in the picture with Dixon who I was too fucked up to note really wasn’t you.”
“Is she okay?”
Creed didn’t answer.
“Is she okay, Creed?”
Swiftly, like pulling off a Band-Aid, he gave it to me.
“She committed suicide two days after they released her and me.”
I closed my eyes and, not able to hold it up, my head fell forward and slammed into his collarbone.
“Maybe the best thing for her, baby,” he whispered. “She went home.”
“You don’t believe that,” I replied.
Creed said nothing.
I was right. He didn’t believe that. He was just spouting that shit to make me feel better.
“God, if they weren’t dead, I’d kill them,” I told his collarbone then lifted my head. “Or, in Richard’s case, I’d kill him again. Though this time, I’d find a better way to do it.”
“When you told me what went down, Sylvie, and while you were deciding whether or not to listen to me, got a buddy who has a buddy back home. I made a call and he made a call and his buddy looked into that shit. You hit Scott’s jugular. Report says he bled out in minutes. Seems you found the best way to do it.”
“Right then, I’ll amend. If I knew he was even more of a heartless sociopath than I already knew he was, I would have made it last a whole lot longer.”
“Baby, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. It’s over and you keep dreamin’ this shit so you need to see somebody.”
“I’ll call someone.”
“Yeah? When?” he shot back. “We been back here two weeks and you haven’t called anyone.”
“It’s been a little busy and the kids come up today. Not to mention, soon, I’m moving so why start now when I’ll have to find someone in Phoenix?”
“So you won’t wake up in a cold sweat and leap over me, runnin’ to God knows where to do whacked shit that freaks me way the fuck out.”
He had a point.
“I haven’t had a dream in days. Maybe they’re waning,” I suggested.
“He tied you down. He took you repeatedly,” Creed returned. “He violated you in ways you didn’t want. He controlled you. Sylvie, I am no psychologist and you got a heart of gold. You don’t know that girl, you weren’t there, it was nearly two decades ago and she is very dead but I still know you feel for her but this isn’t about her. This is about you. This is about you learning I watched that happen to her and then I learned that pretty much the same thing happened to you for six fuckin’ years. You givin’ me that shit and remembering it happened to you, both are fuckin’ with your head. I do not have the tools to sort that. You have got to find the tools to sort that. People in counseling move all the time. Psychologists know the drill. They start therapy and they transfer you to a new doctor but you gotta start therapy, Sylvie. You gotta work this shit out. For you. For me. For the family we’re making. For Charlene. For Adam. For everybody.”
Fuck it all, I hated it when he was right and it happened a lot.
So I did the only thing I could do.
I snapped my, “Okay.”
“That okay is an okay as in, you call to-fuckin’-day. I’m standin’ over you, Sylvie. Clock strikes nine in the morning, you’re on the goddamned phone finding a therapist you think you can work with.”
“Fine,” I bit out.
“Don’t think I’m joking.”
I didn’t think that. His tone told me he absolutely was not.
“I said fine,” I clipped.
“Jesus, this shit makes me wonder if I should have just let you think I left you.”
My blood turned cold.
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s haunting you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s bringing it all back. You had it under control. Now it’s in your face.”
“Don’t say that!” I shouted, jerked away, breaking free from his arms. Jumping to the side of the bed only to lean forward and point at him. “If you didn’t tell me, I’d never have let you back in.”
“Come back to bed, Sylvie.”
I swung my arm out. “You didn’t tell me, we wouldn’t have this.”
He leaned toward me, his tone cautious, and he ordered gently, “Baby, come back to bed.
I ignored him and carried on, this time my voice hoarse, beginning to grate, sounding like it would break, “You didn’t tell me, I wouldn’t have you.”
“Sylvie, come back to me.”
My voice was abrasive when I declared, “I’ll take nightmares every night for the rest of my fucking life if it comes with waking up to you.”
He reached out a hand, caught mine but
I leaned back, putting my weight into tearing free.
I couldn’t because Creed held tight.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I said that, beautiful. I should never have said that.”
“I watched you in my rearview mirror,” I told him.
He pulled on my hand and his voice was gruff when he pleaded, “Baby, fuckin’ please, come back to bed.”
“I was so happy.”
“Jesus, Sylvie.”
“I sat on that pier for hours the next day. It was so hot, the Snickers bars melted in their wrappers. I got sunburn.”
His hand tugged at mine and his voice was harsh when he said, “Fuck me, Sylvie, please, come back to bed.”
“I looked everywhere. I couldn’t find you.”
“Fuck.”
“Days, I looked and I couldn’t find you.”
“Baby, please.”
My voice broke on my repeated, “I couldn’t find you,” and Creed was done.
I knew this because he yanked on my arm and I went flying to him. Then I was in his arms in bed, tucked mostly under him, one of his hands cupping the back of my head, pressing it into his throat, both arms holding me tight.
“I couldn’t find you,” I whispered into his skin.
“I’m here.”
“You always protected me.”
“Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” he murmured into the top of my hair.
“When Daddy gave me to him, I knew you’d come back and take me away. Take care of me.”
“Fuck, Sylvie.”
“You didn’t come back.”
Creed said nothing.
I lay in his arms and it hit me what I was saying and what it must sound like.
“I don’t blame you,” I told him quickly.
Creed said nothing.
“After that, what they did to that girl, I would have done the same thing,” I declared.
Creed said nothing.
“You did what you thought was right. You couldn’t know. We didn’t know Daddy was hooked on blow. Hooked so bad, in so deep, he had to pay Richard off with me.”
Creed said nothing.
“Creed.”
Creed rolled over me and by the time I turned in bed I heard what I suspected was the lamp from my nightstand crash against the wall.
Then I heard his roar, “Fuck me!” and I shot out of bed, pressed myself to his back and circled his middle with my arms.
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