by Riley Ashby
“Hit. Me. BACK!”
His rage was too much, and I had too many years of conditioning and fear instilled in me to fight back any more. All I could do was throw up my hands as he beat me, but eventually even those were useless as he shoved them aside and rained blow after blow down on my body. Familiar pain points lit up like beacons beneath my skin. Old bruises that never fully healed reopened for the hundredth time. And when his fists became too sore from beating on my muscles and bones, he grabbed my right hand and squeezed until I had no choice but to scream in pain.
“Stop!” I begged, even knowing it would only earn more more pain. His fist landed in my stomach.
“What have I told you?” He finally dropped my hand and grabbed my head, pushing my face into the carpet. “You never tell me what to do, least of all when I’m teaching you a lesson!”
“I’ve learned enough from you,” I bit out, one desperate last attempt to be better than the child he always made me regress to, and brought my knee up into his stomach. He grunted, hold slackening, and I was able to roll to my side so that he wasn’t holding me down so tightly. “There’s nothing more you can teach me.”
I sucked in a breath as he suddenly released me. Falling to my back, I coughed as I watched him walk back to his desk and take a drink straight from the bottle. I wiped my face hurriedly while he was looking away, hiding the tears that had appeared unbidden despite my efforts.
Get up. If I stayed down, he wouldn’t take anything that had just happened seriously. Still coughing, I rolled to my side and pushed up to sitting, then my knee, then finally standing, even as black spots continued to swim in front of my vision. My hand was screaming, and if I wanted it to work again I needed to get the brace back on it as soon as possible. My clothes were twisted across my body, collar of my shirt pulling at my neck like an invisible hand. I tugged at my jacket, righting it on my shoulders, and moved to fasten it before I realized the button had been lost in our struggle.
Blood welled in my mouth, and I choked it down my throat. “One of the two women. Make your decision.” Why isn’t he saying anything? He should have thrown me out by now, for telling him to stop in addition to fighting back. Self-defense was never allowed.
“I never cave in negotiations.”
“This isn’t a negotiation,” I growled. My voice was trembling too much, but I didn’t know what else to do. I needed a drink. I needed to cut. I needed Madeline holding me while I slept. “You. Owe. Me.”
“I don’t owe you SHIT!” The entire bottle went to the ground this time, too thick to shatter but cracking and spilling clear liquor across the floor all the same.
How many times were we going to go around like this? But still, he’d let me get up. That had never happened before.
We both panted for a minute, him pacing across the floor, me occasionally wiping at the blood dripping from my nose. I needed to see a doctor or the thing would never sit right again.
He closed his eyes as he breathed deeply through his nose, then exhaled. “I don’t know where she is.”
My breath froze in my lungs. Had Madeline managed to get away? Why hadn’t she contacted me?
“No one’s seen Anita since yesterday morning, when I left to go to the office. And the GPS on her car isn’t sending a signal anymore.”
I turned to the window with a curse, my heart sinking as I ran a hand through my mussed hair. Of course he wouldn’t give up Madeline. He cared more about his revenge than even his favorite child. “And no one tailed her?”
“I’ve never felt the need to keep as close an eye on her.” He didn’t need to clarify who he did need to monitor closely. I was always the flight risk. “We’re watching her cell phone, and her credit cards, but there’s nothing. She hasn’t even withdrawn any cash.”
I swallowed thickly. She could be anywhere. “She was probably waiting for this day. She must have made plans to leave as soon as she saw the news.” That was why she went after Madeline. She hadn’t planned on being around much longer, one way or another.
“We’ll track her down eventually.”
My tie was loose; I yanked it off completely and shoved it in my pocket. “Then I want Madeline back.”
“Not happening.”
“You can trade me whenever Anita turns up.”
“I’m not a fucking idiot, Meyer. She isn’t coming back, and even if she did, you’d be long gone with Madeline by then.”
Shit.
I threw up my hands, not caring how defeated it made me look. He’d won without even trying. “Then what, Conrad? You expect me to walk out of here empty-handed?”
“Yes.”
“No.” I shook my head. I had to come up with something for him to give me. This was a shot in the dark, but it was the last thing I could take that would actually hurt him. “Give me the stock.”
He laughed out loud at that, a mirthless sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “I’m even less likely to give you that than Anita.”
“I want—”
“Listen to me, boy.” He walked over to me, finger extended as if he meant to shoot me with it. “You think you can extort me?” He grabbed me around the neck, and I forced myself to hold still. His other finger dug into my chest. “You want to see her, I’ll bring her down here. I’ll throw her on the floor and rape her while Joshua holds you back from helping her at all.”
I didn’t even realize I was reaching for him until he flattened his palm against my chest, the other hand tightening too hard around my neck and suddenly I could barely breathe. Still, I tried to reach for him, tried to fight, but he was holding me too far back, and every second that passed with my vision turned darker.
“You’ll sit here and listen to every scream, every cry for help, and there will be nothing you can do about it. And when I’m done, maybe you’ll both leave me the fuck alone.”
A moment before I lost consciousness he suddenly released me and shoved against my chest, sending me falling to the ground. I gasped and held my throat, trying to suck in enough air to stay aware of my surroundings.
“I’ll be back for her,” I said, but with my breath wheezing through my throat the words couldn’t be taken seriously. Conrad turned his back and waved his hand, dismissing me. He picked up his desk phone and pressed a button.
“I’ll need another drink, and a new laptop.”
He ignored the response from his staff, staring at me until I took one step toward the door, then another, until I was across the room with Conrad’s eyes boring into my back. I paused with my left hand hovering above the handle. There had to be something else. Come on, think!
“Keep walking, son.” Conrad’s voice was too close. He’d snuck up on me, and I hadn’t noticed. I grabbed the handle and yanked open the door and nearly ran into a wide-eyed attendant holding a brand new bottle of gin and a sparking glass on a tray. They rattled as I bumped him with my shoulder. It was petty, to take out my anger on the staff, but it was all I could manage at the moment. I could barely think past the pain in my hand. My arm where I’d cut not two hours before was bleeding again; I could feel it soaking through my suit jacket. If Shawn couldn’t care for me, we’d have to call a doctor.
Joshua was waiting for me in the foyer, and opened the door as soon as I approached.
“You put up a good effort,” he murmured as I passed him.
I slammed into him as I passed, smearing some of my blood on his white shirt. “Fuck you.”
Outside, Shawn’s car was still running, though it sat in darkness with the lights off. That was probably the first thing to alert me that something was wrong. He didn’t jump out of the car to greet me, or ask me where Maddie was, or demand that I go back inside and come back out only when I had her with me. I stopped outside the passenger door, staring at the darkened interior, but something kept me from reaching for the handle.
Slowly, as if by delaying the inevitable, I walked around the front to stand by the driver’s side. Even as I stood there I knew.
I should have sent him home, even if it meant ending my friendship with him. He didn’t know what he was getting into, couldn’t comprehend the lengths my father would go to to protect his reputation and his legacy. Cutting off my only friend would have been better than whatever was waiting for me on the other side of that door.
I didn’t open the door for several minutes, because as long as it stayed closed, it meant he could still be alive. A chill unrelated to the cool weather seeped into my bones with every passing second. There was no noise, no wildlife or crickets to disturb the silence informing me I was the only living person out here. I looked back toward the house, once, and imagined I saw someone step away from a window just as turned my head.
The not knowing was going to kill me. My hand snatched out to grab the handle, pulling open the door as the rest of my body jumped back to avoid what was waiting for me behind the door. I wanted to close my eyes, but I was focused on the blood that splashed onto my shoes as my best friend’s body tumbled onto the pavement. Shawn gazed up at me with lifeless eyes, the veins on his wrists split open too wide for there to have ever been any hope of repairing them. Yet another reminder from my father of what my personal failings had taken from me.
I stood there and watched, knowing there was no way of ever making this car or these clothes clean again, as his blood poured out of the car like rain.
Maddie
Sleeping that first night felt much like those early morning hours after Meyer attacked me, bound up with worry and jumping at the slightest sound. When I opened my eyes, I half expected to see Meyer across the room in front of his window with a knife in hand; to hear him speaking to me as if through deep water. But it was Conrad standing at the side of the bed, reminding me that my nightmare was in waking, not sleep.
“Call her,” he said, tossing a cell phone onto the bed next to me. I glanced at it briefly before staring at him again. He was just handing me a phone? I blinked as I pushed up to sitting and rubbed at my eyes.
“What—”
“It’s been programmed to only dial one number,” he said, “so don’t get any big ideas.”
“Whose?” I asked. His answering smirk told me all I needed to know.
Sleep was falling away from me quickly. Crossing my arms and pulling the threadbare blanket to my chest, I sat back against the wall, trying to put as much distance between us as I could in the small space. Was this what my mother had felt like, those first days she sat in here, still a child herself with only an even smaller child for company? “You’ve done enough to my family already. I won’t put them through even more hell.”
He was on me in an instant, a fistful of my hair in his hand before I even had time to react. He moved fast for someone his age. The joints in my stiff neck popped as he twisted my head to the side, shoving my face against the wall.
“Do you think what you’ve been through with my son in the past few weeks has been a joke? I’ll make whatever he did to you seem like a walk in the fucking park. There’s a reason your mother never talked about what happened to her, Mads. I fucking broke her. And I’m going to do the same to you.”
I wanted to be mad at him for using my nickname, but I couldn’t think past my pain and discomfort. The inside of my cheek was bleeding. The muscles in my neck felt like they were about to snap. I flailed, trying to hit him, but a punch to my kidney left me gasping for breath. My back arched, trying to bend and protect my aching organs, but he held my head in place and limited my movement. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.
“Playtime is over. My son may have let you get away with this bullshit, but I won’t put up with it. I will break every bone in your body if that’s what it takes to get you to listen to me.”
Just as I was able to take a full breath, he yanked me away from the wall and sent me flying across the room. I slammed into the crib, wooden slats cracking beneath my skull. My lungs were screaming but there was no chance to breathe as I fell to the side, retching from pain. The moment it passed I sucked in a deep breath. What oxygen I was able to breathe in was promptly lost once more as his foot drove into my stomach.
“Call. Her.”
I wheezed, then wasted precious breath to speak. “No.”
He grabbed my shoulders and lifted me, throwing me onto the bed, and grabbed the phone himself. I buried my face in the baby blanket as ringing sounded through the line, first muted and then louder as he put it on speaker.
“I don’t generally do things myself that I’ve asked other people to do, but I’ll make an exception in this case.”
Ring.
“How long has it been since you’ve talked to her, Mads? Will she be glad to hear from you, do you think?”
Ring.
I cowered in on myself, my entire insides aching.
“Or will she let it go to voicemail? I have an idea for the kind of message we can leave her. One she’ll listen to over and over, even if she can’t help it. It’ll be the last thing she hears of your voice.”
My tears came freely now, but I still held out hope that I could get out of this. She didn’t like to answer strange numbers. And maybe her mailbox was full; she always forgot to clear out old messages. Just not today, not today, I couldn’t bear to have her hear me like this.
“Hello?”
My eyes flew open. No. This wasn’t happening. Why did she answer?
“Mom, hang up!” I screamed as I rolled toward him, reaching for the phone, desperate to end the call before she heard any more.
“Mads?” Her voice was higher now, slightly garbled through the speaker on the cheap burner phone. “Mads, what’s wrong?”
“Just hang—”
I tasted Conrad’s skin as he slapped his hand over my mouth, silencing me mid-sentence. “Good afternoon, Eva.”
There was nothing for several long seconds, and I began to hope she had listened to me and ended the call before anything else could happen. Even if he called her back, she’d know not to answer. Maybe she could take it to the police, trace the call somehow? But just as I became convinced that she had done as I said and saved me from the nightmare of having to scream for my mother beneath the hands of the man who abused her, she began to speak again. This time her voice was more level, collected. She knew who she was dealing with.
“Conrad. Why do you have my daughter?”
He laughed, the sound slightly unhinged. “Why wouldn’t I?” He raised his hand off my mouth only to grab the back of my head and push me into Meyer’s baby blanket. My mouth went wide, struggling to breathe against the mattress. “I take what I want, Eva, you certainly know that by now. Or have you forgotten all the lessons I worked so hard to teach you?”
“I thought she was meant for Meyer.” So she knew. Somehow, she knew that Meyer never quite became the man his father had tried to mold him into. She’d held out faith for twenty-two years that he would be a better person than the man she’d left him with. But even though he wasn’t a complete monster, that little boy she’d raised was the one responsible for me being here. The one who’d chosen to let me fall into the hands of the true beast when he should have been protecting me.
“And she’s not any more.”
“Conrad, where is he?” There was real panic in her voice now. Her other child, the one she never got to see grow up, was at just as much risk as I was. I heard the unspoken question behind her words: Is he already dead?
Tears leaked from my eyes as I pushed back against Conrad’s hand, struggling to free myself, but he climbed over my body and held me to the bed with his weight. I groaned into the pillow ensuring my silence, the sound swallowed in the fabric like every other cry for help that had emanated from this room.
“If he knows what’s good for him, he’s at the office working to fix this mess the company is in. Your daughter was proving to be a little too much of a distraction for him, and not in the way I would have liked.”
Why had we thought we could hide from the man who thrived on having complete control over his son’
s life? Of course he had seen the change in Meyer, the way he touched me with tenderness instead of malice. Me, leaping onto Conrad’s back to try and prevent him from hurting the man I loved. Meyer, falling on top of my body and taking the blows that were meant for me. Who could have missed it? Without even trying, I had worked my way further into Meyer’s fractured spirit in three weeks than Conrad had managed to in thirty years.
I twisted my hips one way and my shoulders the other, trying to gain some breathing space, and finally succeeded in freeing my head enough to take in a deep breath. Around Meyer, I couldn’t breathe for the affection he inspired in me, the rock that settled in my chest every time I looked at him. Conrad took me away from him, but still cut off my air in another way.
Words reached my ears as oxygen flooded my brain once more. Mom and Conrad were still talking.
“…thought I was some weak little girl, Conrad, but I won’t let this happen. I hoped that she could bring out the better part of Meyer that got buried when I left. But I should have known you wouldn’t let him grow. You want to keep him like he was, a child, under your thumb.”
“He’s nothing without me,” Conrad hissed. He loosened his grip on my hand as he focused hard on what my mother had to say. “If I hadn’t raised him the way I did, he would be a sniveling mess working a minimum wage job. As it is, he’s barely been holding his shit together ever since your daughter showed up.”
“You mean since you took her.”
“Let’s not get bogged down in the details.”
I jerked again and Conrad shifted off me, but kept his knee in the small of my back as he tightened the hand on my head once more. My mother was speaking, I could hear that, but the words were unintelligible. I twisted my head enough to see Conrad out of the corner of my eye. He held the phone to his ear now, no longer trusting speaker phone.
“I called you, Eva, so that you can understand exactly how fucked your daughter is. Literally and figuratively.”