by Riley Ashby
He grabbed at my shirt, yanking me to my feet by the collar, but I made myself dead weight and dug in my heels.
“You’ll never have me,” I growled. My hands slammed against his chest with a thud, having no discernible impact on him, and he jerked at me harder. I reached behind me to grab something, anything that I could use as a weapon or use as leverage to keep from being pulled toward him. But there was nothing to hold on to, and when I looked over my shoulder I quailed at the sight of the bed on the far end of the room.
“I already do, my dear.” He sneered as he pulled harder, the seams in my collar popping under the strain. “It’s just a matter of details now.”
My shirt tore down the center with a rip. As his hold on me loosened I fell backward onto the ground. I winced as my tailbone hit, then scrambled to get out of his reach before he could recover. But he was so fast.
His hand lashed out and grabbed my arm, pressing new bruises into the skin. I couldn’t just resist now, I had to fight. I tried to hit him again but he lifted me and walked us both across the room with two long steps, then turned me around and bent me over, pressing my cheek against the mattress with one hand, while he pulled the torn shirt from my back with the other.
“This skin is gorgeous,” he said, palm running down my spine until he hit my bra and undid the clasp. “Reminds me of your mother.” He let go of my arm only long enough to grab a fistful of my hair, and then he was pulling me back upright and reaching around to yank my bra off. I clapped an arm over my breasts, as if keeping him from seeing me could protect me, but my knees buckled at a sharp pain in my shoulder.
“What the fuck!” I drove my elbow into his stomach, freeing myself, but he only laughed.
“You taste like her, too.”
“Stop saying that.” I was crying, there was no helping it. He wrapped one hand around my top as he bit my neck, then pulled at my shorts. Determination was completely replaced by unadulterated fear. “Conrad, just let me go.”
“Not a chance. God, I’ve dreamed of this.”
I threw my elbow again but he was ready this time. He wrapped his hand around my bones and nerves and squeezed too tight for me to escape. Still, I twisted as much as I could with him holding me so tightly. “Please stop. I won’t try to escape again. Just don’t do this.”
He kissed my shoulder. I didn’t even try to stop my reaction, the way my body shuddered in disgust. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. “You know, asking me to stop usually earned Meyer an open wound.”
My body moved before my head realized what was happening and I flew through the air, landing on my shoulder with a thud. I opened my mouth to cry out but there was no sound, not with the pain freezing my entire body. I couldn’t do anything, not even breathe, as I watched Conrad walk across the room before falling on top of me. He ripped off my shorts, the last bit of clothing I had, and finally there was absolutely nothing protecting me from him. In his eyes was a familiar predatory look, one I’d almost seen in Meyer the night he came for me. But Meyer had still been human. I couldn’t see any of that in his father. There would be no talking Conrad back from that edge. I knew that with unwavering certainty. This had been his plan all along.
I sucked in a gasp of air as my lungs finally unlocked, but the motion only brought my chest up to him faster as he locked his teeth onto my breast as if trying to rip off my skin. My hands pummeled against his head ineffectually; he punched my injured shoulder to send me reeling with pain once more while he moved down my stomach with more burning slices of his teeth.
“Your mother made those promises too. ‘I won’t try it again, Conrad. I’ll do whatever you want, Conrad. Please don’t hurt my baby.’” He sat up and reached behind him, and when his hand came back into view it held a knife identical to the one I’d watched Meyer injure himself with. I began to struggle harder, trying to free my hips from between his knees, but I had to freeze when he brought the blade against my skin. “She never did learn her lesson.”
I smarted and jerked away from the blade as he pushed it into me, but there was no escaping. He put one hand on my chest to hold me as he drew a line across my stomach, from navel to hip, then licked his lips as he admired his handiwork.
“Spilling her blood usually served to keep her in line for a few days. Maybe even weeks, if it weakened her enough.” He pointed the knife between my legs now, at the artery inside my thigh that could cause me to bleed out if cut deeply enough. I froze. “I’ve become very good at patching wounds.”
“Please,” I whispered. I was still as he moved the knife closer, then pressed the tip into my skin. Not enough to draw blood. But close. “I don’t want to die.”
“Then stop. Fucking. Fighting.”
I had to close my eyes. The blood falling off my hip was already too much; the promise of more would send me over the edge into a full-fledged panic. I couldn’t afford to lose my head right now. What if I could get my hands on that knife? If I let him—
“Don’t be thinking you can find a way to turn this weapon against me, either. Your mother tried that more than once, and she couldn’t eat for days as a result.”
When I opened my eyes, the knife was gone, and he was leaning over once more to bite me. God, he was obsessed. It was as if he wanted to literally consume me, make me a part of him, and not because he felt any connection with me. No, as he’d said, he wanted to rip me apart and cauterize my very existence; wipe me clean off the slate as if I’d never been born.
I forced myself to try and roll over, crawl away from him, but I was only able to move if he allowed me to do so. He bit my injured shoulder, pressed his fingers into my back to force me to fall back to the carpet.
“Do you understand how long I’ve dreamed of doing this? I knew destroying you would be the ultimate revenge on your cunt of a mother for running out on me.”
“She’s a survivor.” Even now, he was intent on this illusion that my mother had somehow been a willing party to his madness. Because he’d tricked her into entering his home, he thought he owned every part of her for the rest of her life. “Just like your son. And just like me. Long after you’ve lost everything you care about, we’ll still be here, dancing and spitting on your grave.”
I braced for a hit, or maybe another cut, but he only laughed. The booming noise reverberated throughout the room. “I’ve heard those threats before, girl. And this is how they always end.”
The clink of his belt buckle hit my ears, and my brain struggled to choose the right reaction.
Freeze. It’ll hurt less.
Fight back. You can escape him. At the very least, delay the inevitable.
If it is inevitable, why bother to struggle? Why waste the energy?
Don’t just give up like this. You didn’t when Meyer tried to hurt you. You didn’t when you were freezing to death in the lake. You haven’t come this far just to let him take it all away.
I clawed my fingers into the floor and dragged myself forward, not daring to look back. But focusing in front of me only highlighted the dark stains on the carpet, fluids soaked into the fibers too deeply to ever be removed, and deep in my should I knew it was the blood of the women who had come before me.
As he pressed against my body, I flung forward one hand to touch the stain closest to me. Maybe it was my mother’s.
Maybe she could help me survive this.
The door slammed open.
“Mr. Schaf—”
“I told you not to interrupt me!” Conrad sounded enraged, and I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears I’d been fighting so hard to hold back. Joshua had just made it so much worse.
“You’ll want to hear this.”
I forced myself to turn my head towards the sound of Joshua’s voice. He’d seen me naked before, after all. But it wasn’t him I locked on to standing in the doorway, because right next to him was…
“Mom,” I whispered, pushing onto my elbows once more. Conrad put his hand on my back, but didn’t shove me down. There was clinki
ng behind me as he refastened his belt.
“I need to talk to you, Conrad.” Mom didn’t even look at me. She was standing tall, chin raised, but even from across the room her fear was palpable. Her arms at her sides were too stiff, the trembling in her knees subtle but still all too present. “Please give my daughter her clothes back.”
“I actually rather thought I’d keep her naked.” Conrad stood, pulling me with him, and when he held me against his front his semi-hard penis pushed into my ass. My head jerked forward as I fought back the vomit rising in my throat before finally forcing myself to swallow it. “Her humiliation is delicious.”
“It’s not her that you want.”
I stared at my mother, begging her to look at me. “Mom, what are you doing?”
“Be quiet, Mads.” She softened her voice as she spoke my name.
She grabbed her shirt at the hem and pulled it over her head with jerky movements. Still avoiding my gaze, she reached behind to unhook her bra.
“I should have come directly to you first, Conrad. That’s what you really wanted, right? What this whole ordeal has been about?”
“This was about punishing you.”
“No. It was about getting me back.” She unbuttoned her jeans and shimmied them down her legs along with her underwear before kicking them to the side. They landed in a pile with her shirt. “Well, I’m here.”
Conrad’s hand stroked my stomach, reopening the cut that had just begun to clot, smearing blood across my skin. “You have a rather high opinion of yourself.”
She took one step forward, then stopped. Her chest rose and fell too fast, nostrils flaring as she struggled to breathe. And then, she finally looked at me. Our eyes met and my tears fell over, falling down my face as fast as the blood on my stomach.
“Mommy, no, it’s okay.” I could barely support myself, my knees buckling under my own weight, but Mom took another step. Then another. And then she was standing in front of both of us, eyes still on me for a moment longer, her body sure and resolute as she looked away from me and back to Conrad.
“Let my daughter go, Conrad. Meyer too. You have me for as long as you want me. I’ll do whatever you want. I won’t fight back. And I’ll never leave you again.”
I was a slobbering mess, barely able to see through my tears, much less breathe around the cement that seemed to have filled my throat and lungs. “Mom, please don’t, it’s not that bad, I can’t—”
“Joshua, go get Meyer.”
I barely looked at Joshua as he nodded and went down the hallway, focusing instead on my mother. I had never in my life seen anyone stand as tall and proud as she did in that moment, stripped naked before the man who stole her childhood, ready to give up the rest of her life as well. She looked at Conrad with all the courage in the world, the spirit I’d always thought I had in myself until the man currently holding me had ground it to dust beneath his heel.
Heavy footsteps ran down the hallway, then Meyer burst into the room.
“Maddie?”
I closed my eyes rather than look at him. I might not be able to escape his voice, but I didn’t have to look at him. This was his fault. If only he’d held on to me the way he promised, we wouldn’t be here now.
Mom’s voice was steady. “Take her out of here, Meyer.”
This wasn’t what I meant when I said I’d do anything. “No, I won’t go, I can’t leave you.”
But Conrad had already let go of me and was shoving me forward, so I fell to my hands and knees in front of my mom. I grabbed her ankles, pulled myself up so I could see her, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at him.
“When she walks out of here, this is over. You never look for her again. And in return, I’ll be yours forever.”
“What does your husband have to say about this little arrangement?”
I choked back a sob and wrapped my arms around my mom’s legs, hugging her as Meyer’s footsteps sounded on the floor. He crouched in front of me, pulling at my hands, but I held on to her tighter than I had to anyone ever before.
“He knows what’s at stake. We’re in agreement.”
Meyer’s hands gripped mine tighter, prying my fingers away from my arms to untangle me from my mom’s legs.
“No, I won’t let you, this can’t be what happens.” I clawed at my own mother’s skin as Meyer pulled me back and into his arms, lifting my dead weight off the floor. Mom stepped forward, and Conrad’s hand snatched out to grab her.
“There’s no going back from this, Eva.”
“I know.”
“NO!” I fought, kicking and punching in an attempt to free myself, but Meyer held me still.
“It’s done, Maddie. We have to go.”
“She’s my mother, Meyer! Mom! You can’t!” I looked around wildly, from Conrad to my mother to Meyer and back again, but no one was paying attention to me. I found myself staring at my mother’s back as Meyer dragged me out the door, and then it slammed, and I couldn’t see them at all.
Meyer
I screamed as loud as I could once he tore her from my arms, though I knew no one could hear me. The room was sound proof for a reason. Still, I howled until my throat seemed to bleed just as much as my neck where the collar cut into my skin. No matter how hard I pulled at the chain and the hook connecting it to the wall, there was no freeing myself. Dozens of girls had figured that out long before me. But I couldn’t not try. I’d die first.
When Joshua unlocked me from the collar, I was on him in a second. I didn’t care if he hurt me, broke my bones, there was nothing keeping me from getting to her. There had to be a way to keep this from happening. I clawed at his eyes with both hands, and even with his superior strength he was unable to hold me back.
“…Eva!” he ground out.
“Don’t say her name!” I roared at him, the traitor.
“Meyer, she’s here!”
That made me freeze mid swing. I shifted my grip to his throat, squeezing too tight. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“She’s down the hall,” he wheezed. “She wants to trade.”
In the next breath, I released him and was through the door.
Madeline couldn’t leave her mother, I knew that. I didn’t fault her for offering to sacrifice herself. But it was going to make her difficult to get out of the house and to safety, where I could clean off the blood on her body and help her begin to heal.
So I sedated her. I felt sick doing it, but it was the only way I was getting her out of there. The moment the doors to my father’s bedroom closed, she became a wild animal, fighting and kicking, starting the bleeding fresh on her stomach but seeming not to care.
“Let me go back! Mom! Mommy!”
“Maddie, please. Just … this is how it has to be.”
There was no noise coming from the bedroom, and despite my revulsion I found myself wondering what was happening. What would be his first move now that he had her again, and she’d promised not to fight? Did he want to keep her alive, or would he put a bullet in her head the first chance he got? And if he did let her live, what kind of hell was she expecting to endure for the rest of her life?
Jesus, who was I kidding? He was going to rape her. Again. I tried to beat down the thought but it popped up again and again, like a bad song stuck in my head, reminding me of how I’d failed. She’d escaped all those years ago only to give herself up again, this time without an exit strategy. And of all people, I was the one who’d put her in this position. Because I couldn’t get over her leaving in the first place.
I couldn’t let myself go down that road. Eva made a decision, and I had what I wanted. That was what I needed to focus on.
Maddie was completely wild, more hysterical than I had ever seen her. She made no effort to avoid striking me as she usually did; her hands and feet hit against my bones with surprising strength. Joshua was watching us, unmoving, and I snapped at him without thinking.
“Help me with her. She’s going to hurt herself.”
&nb
sp; He didn’t miss a beat. “I got this ready.” He reached behind him and produced a syringe, and I held her as still as I could while he injected whatever it contained into her arm. Within moments she grew weak and heavy, and then collapsed completely into unconsciousness. I laid her gently on the floor and stroked her tear-stained face, wishing I could undo everything that had happened in the past week.
“I’m sorry, Maddie.” I kissed her forehead gently. When I looked up, Joshua was holding a pile of clothes in one hand and a first aid kid in another.
“For her,” he said, and I snatched them from his hands.
“I think you’ve done enough.” I dumped some rubbing alcohol directly onto her cut and wiped away the liquid with gauze, then slapped some bandages over the open wound. They quickly turned red as the blood continued to flow, but at least it was contained. A quick glance over her body didn’t reveal anything else requiring immediate attention, thank God, but there was still so much blood on her neck and chest from the collar. Joshua tapped me on the shoulder and produced a wet towel, enough for me to wipe away the worst of the dried blood.
Thank Eva, not God. She’s the one who gave up her entire being in order to give Maddie back to you.
Joshua crouched next to me, reaching to help clean the bite marks on her skin, but I slapped away his hand. He sighed and leaned back, hands on his knees. “It was nothing personal.”
“Shut the fuck up. You’re lucky I don’t castrate you right here. How long have you been in his pocket instead of mine?”
He didn’t answer, and I looked at him once I pulled one of my ragged high school t-shirts over her head and tugged it down her torso. “From the beginning, then.”
“I wish things had gone down differently.”
“We’ve all done a lot of wishing in the past few weeks, and look where it got us.” The shorts were far too large for her, but I tied them as tight as I could. With her dressed, somewhat protected from others’ gazes, I allowed myself to release some of the tension in my jaw. Eva had arrived just in time. Barely.