by Holly Hart
“Yes,” I whisper, my throat raw with emotion, “But it’s a good kind of pain.”
Something flares in Ridley’s eyes. I can’t tell what it is, or whether he’s just living my pain. But there was something there. I’m sure of it.
I just don’t know what.
10
Ridley
I try to be as quiet as I can, but cooking in the hideaway’s kitchen, without making a sound, is a hell of a task. I guess I’m nowhere near as stealthy as I think, because, before long, I hear Frankie stir on the sofa.
I look down at her and smile. I don’t have to fake it. Even with her fiery red hair strewn all across the sofa, all messy with sleep, Frankie’s still the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I know she’s not here under perfect circumstances – not even close – but already I love having her here. I guess being one of Boston’s most eligible bachelors gives you a blind spot and you don’t realize how lonely you really are. Frankie’s changed all that.
“Hey, sleepyhead; you hungry?”
Frankie nods. She’s still befuddled by sleep. She blinks a couple of extra times as she looks at me, almost as if she’s making sure this isn’t a dream. I know how she feels. Seeing her there, on the sofa, I half expect to turn round and see a gaggle of children running around the living room.
Whoa there cowboy, don’t get ahead of yourself…
“How long was I out?” Frankie murmurs, cracking her neck; and then rolling her head from side to side to iron out the kinks. She’s moving slowly: as if every muscle is as slow and heavy as lead. I don’t doubt it. After what her body has been through, she probably needs more than a couple of night’s sleep to recover.
“Oh, only about an hour,” I grin, chopping a big bell pepper into tiny chunks. “I figured ye needed the rest, so I let you be.”
Frankie sits up straight, squinting at me. “You cook?”
I push the peppers into a small frying pan with the back of my knife and crack a couple of eggs into a glass jar.
“Omelets,” I say with a wry smile dancing across my lips. “Don’t get too excited … I’m not Gordon Ramsay over here, but I try.”
“Hey,” Frankie says, smiling shyly. “Don’t put yourself down. I’m sure it’ll be lovely.” She stands up, a wicked smile finding its way to her mouth. “That’s right … the fridge. Just champagne and eggs for omelets …”
“Breakfast of champions,” I grin, pushing the peppers around the pan. They are sizzling in butter, and the sound of the butter cracking and popping and fizzing is doing a number on my stomach.
“It’s not breakfast, silly…” Frankie says, walking over and stroking my arm.
It takes a lot of effort not to shiver at her touch. God, it feels good. I never knew a woman’s touch could make me feel this way. But Frankie’s no ordinary woman. After the things she’s been through, she’s nothing short of a goddamn hero. Well, heroine, I guess.
“Depends what time you get to bed,” I wink.
I toss the omelet in the air once, as if I’m making pancakes, and then serve it up. I come close – really close – to giving myself a bigger share, but somehow hold back. I’m not sure I’ve ever done that before. Frankie really must be getting to me.
We carry our plates over to a small dining alcove set into the wall. I eat like I always have: shoveling food into my mouth like it’s going out of style. It takes me a couple of minutes to realize that the only cutlery clinking against porcelain is mine. I look up.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
It’s damn lucky I don’t do it through a mouthful of food. Frankie’s staring at me: not quite open-mouthed, but close. “What?” I protest, looking down and wiping my chest. “Did I drop something? Was it something I said?”
Frankie shakes her head and giggles. It sounds like the tinkling of a tiny silver hand bell. I could listen to her laugh all day and never get tired of it.
“It’s nothing. Just the way you eat. It’s amazing.”
I spin a pepper with my fork and shoot her a wicked smile. “I grew up in a house of five boys, and I was bang in the middle. Brother number three. Trust me: if you moved too slowly, you didn’t eat.”
Frankie looks me up and down. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was checking me out. But I know better. Don’t I?
“Oh, I trust you,” Frankie says. “By the looks of things, you didn’t struggle …”
I make a conscious effort to slow down for the rest of the meal. I’m not sure how much good it does. When you eat the same way, day after day, year after year, it kind of becomes a habit. I’m not sure I ever really taste the food that enters my mouth. Then again, I’m not a Michelin-star-restaurant kind of guy. It would be wasted on me.
We dump the used plates and flatware by the sink as we move on over to the sofa. Frankie sits next to me, her legs tucked up underneath her on the sofa, elbow dug into a cushion for support.
“Feeling better?” I ask, talking about the food.
Frankie nods, playing with her hair. A shadow flits across her face, and her lips quiver like a racing driver gunning his engine with the brakes locked hard. I can tell she’s reading a whole lot more into my question than what I mean.
“I –”
Frankie reaches over and grabs my hand, moving as fast as a striking cobra. The feel of her touch on my skin is electric. Not sexual: it’s way beyond that. This moment feels pregnant with emotion and meaning. I don’t want to say anything in case I mess everything up.
I can’t look away from Frankie’s face. I feel like that shadow on her face means something more. I don’t know why, but I get the sense that Frankie’s holding onto a secret; a secret that is causing her a mountain of pain. Finally she summons the courage: or maybe the strength; or maybe both; to speak.
“No one’s ever been as kind to me as you have, Ridley, and I don’t even know you. You –” She stops dead, and nervously runs her fingers through her hair. “You deserve to know what happened to me.”
I squeeze Frankie’s hand. God: I wanted to know what happened to her more than anything. That question has been gnawing at me since I first saved her. But now that the moment’s here, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, I don’t want Frankie to do anything that will cause her pain.
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” I say. “What happened to you is for you, and no one else. That is, unless you need to tell me, or someone, then you shouldn’t feel ashamed for holding onto it.”
Frankie squeezes my hand so hard her nails dig into my palm. I don’t blink.
“I do,” she whispers, a tear glinting in the corner of her eye. “And I don’t want to tell just anyone. I want to tell you. You: you cared when no one else did. Maybe that’s stupid, maybe I’m stupid –”
I grab Frankie’s arm, squeezing it tightly. I barely know her, but already it hurts me to see her this way, as if she’s a shipwrecked sailor, casting about for dry land. I might not be willing to accept it yet; but I’m starting to feel something for this girl: the first inklings of something big. So when Frankie puts herself down like that, it doesn’t just hurt her – it hurts me.
“Don’t ye dare say that about yourself. You’re only hurting one person, Frankie: you. You want the plain, honest truth?”
I stare at her, directly in the eyes. I know she’s damaged, and I know she’s hurting – but she needs to hear this. Someone needs to treat Frankie like a damn human being. That means giving her the rough with the smooth. Not that she’s had a whole lot of smooth in her life.
“I guess,” Frankie sniffs, “you’re going to give it to me.”
I drag my fingers up her arm, scraping her bare skin until I’m foiled by my own T-shirt. I let my fingers come to rest on her shoulder and squeeze it tight, holding it there: anchoring the both of us to each other.
“Damn right I am,” I grin. “You’ll learn that about me. Least, I hope you will. If you stick around…”
I don’t give Frankie a chance to
reply. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to hear the answer; just in case it doesn’t go my way.
“Like I said; you’re hurting. In my line of work, I’ve seen a lot of people like you, Frankie. I don’t see a lot of people recover from what has hurt them. Maybe it’s too hard, to dig in deep and confront an issue. Anyone can squash the pain down: cover it with drink and drugs –”
A lance of emotion strikes Frankie’s face as I say the word drugs. She looks just as she would if I had slapped her. My next sentence catches in my throat. I force it out anyway. It doesn’t give me any pleasure to treat Frankie this way, but I’ve got to: for her sake.
“– and let it fester; let it build, until it overwhelms them; because it will happen. You can tell yourself that it’s just one drink, but it’s never just one drink. It’s never just one pill. It’s never just one line off a mirror, and it’s never just one hit from a syringe.”
Frankie’s eyes fall away from my face. She stares at the ground, watching hopefully for it to pull apart and swallow her up.
“Look at me, Frankie,” I command. I keep my tone hard – using a voice I imagine ship captains, from years gone by, used on the open sea. I need to be listened to, not just obeyed. Frankie has to buy into what I’m saying; because that’s the only way it will hold. You can train a dog, but there might come a day when circumstances could push an animal beyond its training; so, what do you do then?
If Frankie was a dog, she’d have a goddamn pedigree; and always on the show circuit. Westminster in Madison Square Gardens, Crufts in London, the National Dog Championship in Philadelphia – you name it, she’d be there. But she ain’t a dog. She’s a hell of a lot more. It’s about time she started thinking about herself that way.
No: obedience isn’t enough. So don’t throw me that “stupid” bullshit.
“I am,” she whispers, raising her eyes high enough that her gaze falls upon my chest, my chin – but nowhere higher.
“You’re not,” I growl. “Don’t lie to me, Frankie.”
“I’m not!” Frankie protests, her gaze snapping upwards, her voice laced with irritation. Good. That’s what I want. I want to see the fight in her, not the blackness of despair.
“Better.” I growl. I fall silent, and simply stare into Frankie’s eyes: blue as stained glass colored like sky; hard enough to kill. I stretch out the silence until it’s just my breath and hers: heavy and deep; versus shallow and fast.
“Do you want to go that way, Frankie?” I ask. “end up in a ditch: or choking on your own vomit by the side of the road?”
“No.”
My eyebrow dances upward like a puppet on a string. “Really?”
“No! I mean yes!” Frankie protests, her throat ragged and hoarse. “What are you trying to say, Ridley? Please, just tell me and stop playing games.”
I shake my head. “No. You: you tell me.”
Frankie grinds her teeth together, her chin jutting out like Popeye. Her eyes alternately shoot daggers at mine; then look away with embarrassment. I let the silence hold, and build. It’s up to her what happens now.
I wait, but not for long. I knew the time would be short. There is a story in Frankie, and it’s dying to escape. It’s not a hero’s journey, not a grand quest. But it’s no less important for all that.
“You know I can feel it, don’t you,” Frankie says, her voice dull and lifeless. “Right now: all the time; it’s like a dull ache; always there, always reminding me what they did to me.”
I don’t say a word. I give Frankie a canvas, and I let her paint. Besides – I don’t know what I would say. I’m a man of violence: a breaker. Suddenly, I realize that I’m on uneven ground. I’m the kind of man who can taunt Frankie into revealing her deepest, darkest secrets. But that doesn’t mean I’m the kind of guy who can put her back together again.
“I told you that I spat those pills out the first time they tried shoving them down my throat. Did I tell you what happened next?”
I shake my head. I’ve heard stories, but I know better than to say that. Right now, Frankie needs to step out from underneath the burden that’s weighing down her soul.
“All those girls,” Frankie says, her voice cracking beneath the memory.
“In one room, huddled around like moths around a light bulb, we held onto each other for warmth. Then they stormed in,” she spits, “masks covering their mouths; only their eyes on show. They’d grab a girl. They grabbed me, and it didn’t matter what I did: whether I kicked; whether I spat; or bit; or scratched. They waited out the storm until I was limp and exhausted. It didn’t take long. They didn’t feed us much. They fed their dogs better.”
Frankie’s voice builds to a crescendo. Black clouds of anger build and swirl on her face. I didn’t know that a girl who looked that sweet could turn on a dime and look so dangerous.
“Then that’s when they struck. One man held open my mouth, and another threw the pill inside, then pressed his palm against my lips so I couldn’t spit it out.”
Frankie’s hand finds mine, her fingers clutch mine, her nails dig in until they are buried so deep I can almost taste the blood flowing out of my skin. I don’t care. Her pain is my pain.
“I tried, Ridley,” she says in a voice that’s now plaintive, “I tried to keep it in my mouth: tried to keep my tongue dry so it wouldn’t dissolve; tried to stop it mixing with my saliva and sliding down my throat. God I tried.”
“What then?” I prompt. I don’t want to. My stomach is turning already. I’m close to retching. But I need to. I need to get Frankie through this. However much it hurts me, it’s hurting her a million times more.
“And then one of them. The man with the wedding ring tattoos – the one you shot – he made me look at him. He strode over to another one of the girls: number seven. They numbered us, can you believe that? She was seven, and I was eight.” Frankie’s babbling now, immersed in the memory. I want to stop her and hold her, but I can’t. Not now. She’s doing what I wanted her to do – confronting the memory. I just wish it didn’t have to hurt so damn much.
“He grabbed 7 by the hair, punched her in the stomach and held her there, dangling by the roots of her hair, while she struggled for breath. I swallowed it then: and the next time; and the next. I found out what happened to girls who disobeyed.”
“Did they…?” I asked in a shushed voice. Does anyone question that would cause me this much angst – but I can’t even bring myself to ask it.
It doesn’t matter. Frankie knows, almost as if she can read my mind. “Hurt me? Rape me?”
I hold her gaze. I can’t look away. I don’t dare to. I feel my heart rate doubling inside my chest, pounding, thudding against my rib cage. I’m desperate to know the answer – and desperate to remain ignorant.
Frankie draws out the question like a master showman.
And she shakes her head. I almost double over with relief, letting a hot, good breath stream from my lips.
“No,” she whispers, collapsing against me. “They were saving me. Waiting until I was hooked on the pills before they sold me. Said I was too disobedient. Then – you saved me.”
I clutch Frankie to my chest, drinking in deep breaths of cleansing air as I press my nose into her hair.
“Thank God,” I whisper.
Frankie shakes her head against my body.
“No, Ridley. Thank you.”
11
Ridley
I’m pissed.
Hell, pissed doesn’t come close to covering what I’m feeling. I barely slept at all last night. After Frankie finally fell asleep on my chest, I stayed awake, turning what she told me over and over in my mind. In my head, I saw everything that happened to her: every punch; every kick; every indignity.
While dreaming, I only lived through a fraction of the pain Frankie suffered. But the horrors I imagined – saw – were enough to fill my whole lifetime of nightmares.
Those demons were more than enough to propel me here, down by the docks, following the instruct
ions I took from that old drunk in the Red Lion.
“Got anywhere ye need to be, boss?” The guy at the gate says as he notices me sauntering out of the nearest parking lot, hands thrust into the pockets of a set of workman’s overalls.
I get lucky – like half of damn Boston, the guy is a flame-haired Irishman. Even better, he knows the old ways. He knows on which side his bread is buttered: and that standing by my family is the smart move; the only move; especially when I’m in a mood like this.
“I can help you, if you want?”
I shake my head. This early on a Saturday morning, the place is almost empty. I can find my own way around easy enough. Besides; this guy seems a little too eager for my tastes. He has obviously recognized my face, and wants a slice of action to talk about down the pub. I don’t like getting civvies involved. It only ends up in them getting hurt.
“I’m good. If ye hear anything…”
“I won’t,” the redheaded Irishman answers and grins while tapping his nose. “I’ll keep quiet. Me ma trained me better than to talk…”
“Good man. I’m looking fer Building 37. You know where it is?”
The redhead’s face wrinkles at the question. “Why the hell you needing time back there? That whole area’s abandoned; it’s scheduled to be demolished by the end of the year.”
I don’t answer, though my mind races. This is sounding more and more promising by the second. I start to wonder whether I should call for backup:one of my brothers, maybe. I know that Mac would come without so much as a second question. I guess that’s part of what being a twin is all about.
The Irishman just grins at my stubborn silence. “Okay then. It’s –, oh, about two thirds of a mile that way. You’ll have to duck under some metal fencing, I’m afraid. Whole area’s walled off.”
“Thanks,” I grunt. “I’ll remember your help.”
I give him a nod of thanks as he raises the gate for me.