by Logan Fox
I gently grasp his wrist and lift it. Slow. Easy. I keep it suspended as I carefully wriggle to the side.
The tendons in Gabriel’s wrist go tight. He murmurs something inaudible as he tries to hold onto me in his sleep.
I freeze, eyes squeezing shut, and send a prayer to any higher power who might be listening.
Our father, which art in heaven.
Hallowed by thy name.
The prayer becomes a mantra that cycles over and over in my mind as I slowly make my way to the edge of the bed. As soon as I’m clear, I put his hand down on the sheets.
The instant I let go, he turns over, dragging the bedding with him. Leaving me exposed and naked on the far side of the bed.
I slip out and stand hunched over, my heart thudding relentlessly in my chest. With his back to me, I don’t know if his eyes are open. They can’t be—why would they?—but that doesn’t change a thing.
Deliver us from evil.
All I need is for him to stay exactly as he is. Lost in whatever perverted dream he’s having right now.
I back up out of the room, hesitate at the threshold, and then pull the door closed as I creep into the hallway outside. I’d have locked it, but the key’s gone.
I know I shouldn’t be wasting a millisecond, but I can’t run into the street naked. And it will only take a few seconds to put on clothes. Just pants and a shirt. I won’t even bother with underwear or shoes.
That’s the plan, anyway. But when I step into my room, it’s as if the world does a somersault around me.
I freeze.
It looks like a tornado went through this place.
My closet doors are wide open. Everything inside them has been dumped on the floor or on the bed. Little ornaments—the kind of knick-knacks you accumulate when you’re young—are everywhere. Some shattered. Tears and scuffs on the wallpaper where he threw things against the wall.
Was he looking for something? Or did my accusations really piss him off that much?
Move, Trinity! He could be waking up any second now, and you’re just standing there? You’ve established he’s a nut job—now how about you get on with escaping?
I force myself deeper into my room, but it’s like I’m in a trance. There’s so much chaos in here I can’t find anything.
I pick up a jacket that doesn’t have a zipper or buttons—pointless.
A scarf.
That goes around my neck, because, well, that’s where scarfs go.
I find leggings. Pull them on. They’re not fully opaque, but they’re better than nothing.
Finally, the last piece of the puzzle. A sleeping shirt. Picture of a grumpy cat on it. Something about needing coffee. I tug it over my head as I turn to head out the room.
Gabriel’s standing by the door. Chin down as he watches me. Hands opening and closing at his sides.
Panic slices into me like frozen razor blades. I wrap my arms over my chest and take a step back. “I was getting cold,” I say.
He’s wearing only a pair of sweatpants. I hadn’t even realized that when he was in bed with me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him bare chested. I had no idea he was so muscular. So strong. No wonder I couldn’t fight him.
He lifts his chin. “You have to accept the things you cannot change.” He turns his palms to face me, arms still at his sides. “I’m your father. That’s never going to change.”
His body fills the doorway. I can only get out if he comes closer. It’s that or jump out of a second-story window. There’s a tree outside—I could maybe catch hold of a branch.
That’s a big maybe.
How badly would it hurt if I missed the tree?
Maybe I can try and find out what Gabriel wants. I mean, I could be over-thinking this. What if he just wants to take me to the mall, watch a movie together, eat some take out?
As long as I don’t mention the Brotherhood, or the basement, I should be fine. Even now, he looks calm.
“I…”
Lord, why is this so difficult?
He puts his head to the side, waiting. Always so patient.
“What are…we doing?” Another swallow. “Here, I mean?”
He frowns, glances around. Then he reaches out and straightens a framed picture I drew when I still believed in unicorns and how awsum they were.
“I’ve always liked this house,” he says. “Spent much more time here than I should have.”
His eyes fix on me again. I don’t know how I could ever have thought those brown irises were warm, or comforting. Now they look cruel. Calculating, even. “They left it to me, the house.”
“Don’t you have a house? Why don’t we go there instead?”
I don’t know if it’s better being here or in a different place, but we’d have to be in a car, on a road, out in public to get there. If I can convince him—
“My house?” Gabriel purses his lips. Shakes his head. “No. My house is no place for a little girl.”
Ghostly fingers crawl up my back and start toying with my hair. That’s what he thinks of me? A little girl? Does he even know how old I am?
It sickens me to think about it, but maybe that’s the only card I have to play right now. He keeps calling me daughter—maybe I can count on his paternal instincts to get me out of this jam.
“I’m kinda hungry,” I say, putting a hand to my stomach. “Can you make me something to eat?”
The kitchen has knives. Pans. Several objects I can use to hurt him with. It’s also closer to the front door, which has a lock I can turn from the inside without needing a key.
If I can get to the front door, I can get out of the house. I can run down the driveway and scream at the top of my lungs. The neighbors would hear. They’d have to look out their windows. And they’d see me running like a lunatic—
“No.”
My shoulders sag a little. “But I’m—”
Gabriel’s eyes narrow. “Do you really think I don’t know what you’re trying to do?”
Fuck.
Fuck!
I try and look innocent. “Really, I just want some—”
“You’ve been bad,” he says, stepping closer.
Yeah, come closer, you fucking creep. Close enough that I can run around you and out of the room. Down the stairs. To the front door.
I wish I’d thought of that yesterday. I’d been a few yards from the front door. But I’d been so doped up on heroin, I hadn’t even thought about it.
No. I’d been convinced my father was in the kitchen cooking breakfast.
Ha, ha, ha. I guess he was.
“Slut like you, you don’t deserve to eat.”
Oh Lord. It’s all coming back to me now. The things I told him when we were in the bathroom. Boy do I regret that plan.
I need to turn this around.
I wish it didn’t have to come to this, but I can’t think of any other way of doing that.
“Father, please.”
There’s a flicker of something in his eyes.
“Please, I’m sorry.” Denial isn’t the way to go. But confession might just work. “I sinned. I know that now, I see it. I just…”
I drop my head. The tears that come aren’t all that forced. I’ve had a lot of practice with feeling sorry for myself.
I’ve been doing it my whole life.
I pitied the fact that I had such strict parents. That I could never do all the fun stuff other kids did.
Then I pitied myself because I’d been orphaned by a random twist of fate. That God had let two of his sheep die. Then came Saint Amos, and oh boy did my pity party turn into a rager.
Now this.
I used to challenge the Universe. I’d shout “What else you got?” in my head when I was feeling particularly downtrodden.
But I’ve met a group of men who could have pitied themselves day in and day out. I can’t believe how weak I am, compared to them. How little it took to defeat me.
The attention of one man, when they’ve had to withstand many.
Two days, when they lasted years.
So yeah. I think I can suck it up and play pretend for a while.
“Will you help me, father?”
Gabriel’s chin lifts a little higher. “Help you?” His voice is faint. He frowns, opens his mouth. But I cut him off with a sob that’s not at all feigned.
Every cell in my body is screaming at me to stop, but this is the only way.
That’s how you overcome fear, right? You face it.
I walk up to him, stumbling over the things scattered over the floor, and I put my arms around him, and I hug him hard.
When I close my eyes, I can almost believe it’s my first day at Saint Amos, and he’s just arrived outside my room.
The familiar smell of his fabric softener, his aftershave, him...wafts up to me. When he wraps his arms around me so tight.
“Please, father.” Another sob. “Help me find the light.”
His chest expands as he inhales, and I shiver when he kisses the top of my head.
“Of course, child,” he murmurs.
Hands find my face. He draws back my head and stares down into my eyes. His smile is wide, and warm, and genuine. It shouldn’t, but it lights a candle inside me.
He strokes away a tear with his thumb. “Come. Let’s eat.”
My body is ten pounds lighter as he grabs my hand and laces my fingers with his. I float behind him, barely touching the ground as he leads me down the stairs. I force myself not to look at the front door as we pass it, and my body complies.
A gust of wind slams raindrops hard against a nearby windowpane. And then he turns away from the kitchen.
My hope shatters like a glass trinket hitting a stone floor.
The hand around mine is suddenly too tight. He’s pulling me a little too hard.
“Father—”
I cut off with a pained sound as he yanks me after him. “You want to find the light?” he yells, glancing back at me with wild eyes. “I know just the place.” He turns again, and my heart sinks deep into the churning depths of my stomach when I realize where he’s taking me.
I kick back, scream.
He pulls at me until I’m close, and then grabs me. Slaps a hand over my mouth. All the while still walking toward the door at the end of a long passage.
Hidden away like a nasty secret. Even the keypad beside the door is flat and discrete. You probably wouldn’t see it unless you were close.
Gabriel keys in a combination—so fast, I only catch the first two numbers, 4 and 2. When he opens the thick door, the smell of damp earth and crawling things slams into me.
He slaps a hand against the wall, and the basement light flickers on. It’s not much—a bare bulb that only seems to solidify the shadows into something more sinister than before.
Gabriel brings me in front, an arm around my waist to keep me tight, a hand over my mouth to keep me silent. He forces me down the stairs one at a time. I struggle as much as I can, despite the fact that we could both take a tumble and land up with broken necks.
Especially when the sagging metal frame of my old single bed comes into view. Because then I know a broken neck is the only winning hand in this game.
I’d wondered about the lock on the basement before—the pilot light is down here, so we’d be stuck if he wasn’t around to light it again if it ever went out. But who was I to question Dad’s wisdom? His quirks and his rules? How could I, when Mom didn’t?
I’ve never been down here before. Hell, I wasn’t even allowed in the passage back there. The space is surprisingly small, until I realize the walls are soundproofed. Someone closed up this space on purpose. Turned a massive basement into a much smaller, more intimate space.
Someone? You know exactly who did this.
But my mind rejects the thought.
My old mattress is still on that rusting bed frame. There’s even a sheet over it, but its moth-eaten and stained.
And then I see my old potty trainer.
And then I see the ropes still attached to the bed frame.
I start kicking up my legs, twisting and wriggling, but it doesn’t help. Gabriel holds me with ease. His voice doesn’t even sound strained when he speaks.
“No better place to look for the light,” he murmurs into my ear, “than down here in the dark.”
And then…then I see the video camera.
Chapter Fourteen
Trinity
I wish I knew a bible verse by heart right now. Or lots of them. Then I could choose the perfect one. Something Old Testament about going to hell for your sins.
Probably wouldn’t have helped. I mean, Gabriel’s a priest. He knows the bible back to front, and not one verse ever swayed him toward the light.
He shoves me away from him. My hands fly out and barely catch me against the plastic sheet lining the floor.
I scramble onto my back, ready to kick out if he comes close.
The room is small, claustrophobic even. The bed takes up most of the space. If I can distract him, I can try and get past him and up to the stairs.
Like I haven’t tried that before.
“What do you want?” I try to keep my voice calm in case he lunges at me to keep me quiet. Or maybe it doesn’t matter down here with all this soundproofing.
I’ve certainly never heard sounds coming from the basement. Or had I dismissed them as my imagination?
Gabriel lifts his hands, showing me his palms. As if he wants me to trust him.
What a joke.
“You said you want to find the light.” His voice is tight and unsteady, like he’s barely keeping it under control. “Many boys have found the light down here.”
I shake my head before I can stop.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Dad would never—”
Gabriel’s bitter laugh cuts me off. He walks up to me, dodging effortlessly when I kick. Then he grabs me by the hair and hoists me to my feet, shaking me mercilessly.
His other hand grabs my chin, turning my face and forcing me to look around the small room.
“Who do you think built this place?” he hisses in my ear. “It wasn’t me, child.”
If I could shake my head, I would. The things he’d said after I hobbled up to his room at Saint Amos and told him I had to show him something in the bell tower…
But my mind rejects what he’s telling me.
“No,” I murmur. “Dad was a good man. A holy man. He would never—”
“Your dad?” Gabriel croons, mocking me. He’s becoming unhinged again, like he did back in the bathroom.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I’m sorry, Father, I didn’t mean—”
He shakes me into silence. “Always blameless,” he whispers as he drags me close against him. “No one ever suspected. Not even you.”
Of course not. Why would they? My dad kept to himself and both my parents were quiet people. But they loved the church. They loved people. I never heard them say a bad thing about anyone. Oh, they’d fight behind their closed bedroom door, but I wasn’t idiotic enough to believe they had a perfect marriage. Dad was gone a lot and Mom didn’t like staying home to look after me. She never said it, but I could see she missed him when he wasn’t around.
When I was younger they’d sometimes go away for a week or two, but that stopped as soon as I hit puberty. It was Dad who told Mom to stay at home. He probably thought I would lure a boy back home or something. He seemed to think I was a whore as much as Gabriel did.
I always thought he was strict because of his faith, but maybe he was actually trying to protect me from people like him? Deviants and pedophiles who would see me in a short skirt and obsess about what they could do to me if they had me to themselves?
Somewhere hidden. Somewhere secret.
A dark, soundproofed room like this.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please stop.”
I can’t let him destroy my past. It’s all I have.
“Forgiveness requires confession, child,” Gabri
el says, his lips brushing my ear. He shakes me again, kisses my temple. “Only through confession can we be cleansed of sin.”
“P-please.”
“I told your mother that so many times. But she wouldn’t listen, just like you.”
My heart stutters in my chest.
Mom knew?
Oh Lord, who am I kidding? Of course she knew. But logic doesn’t ease the pain of realizing my mother kept Dad’s secret.
I stab my elbow into Gabriel’s stomach.
I get lucky. He’s distracted, and I manage to hit him hard enough, and in just the right spot, that I knock the air from his lungs.
He doubles over with pain, his grip releasing just enough for me to wriggle free.
I make a dash for the stairs, for the door, for freedom.
My foot lands on the first stair, and then Gabriel kicks it out from under me. I fall face first, my chin slamming into the wooden step. Blood leaks into my mouth from the cut my teeth sliced into the inside of my cheek.
But I’m already scrambling up, ignoring the pain, ignoring the sound of Gabriel’s furious breathing behind me.
I don’t reach the door.
Halfway up the stairs, Gabriel latches onto the back of my sleeping shirt and tugs. I go flying down the stairs, missing all of them. I land on my back on the plastic sheeting with a loud crump.
Air gushes out of my lungs. I roll onto my side, groaning as a dull ache spreads through my body from the impact.
When I force my eyes open, they fix on Gabriel’s loafers.
He grabs my hair and drags me over the floor. My scalp is on fire where he’s pulling, hurting more the harder I fight.
The bed squeaks when he throws me down, and I scream in panic. I try to roll off, but he slaps me so hard I see stars. There’s a violent yank on my arm, the rough kiss of a rope, and then I’m bound.
Like he’s done this a thousand times before.
I start sobbing with frustration, fear, desperation. “P-please!”
“That’s it,” he says, voice menacingly low. “Keep begging. That’s just how he liked it.”
What. The. Fuck?