Hush (Black Lotus #3)

by E. K. Blair

  “Oh, my God, Declan. He has a daughter. He has a whole family!”

  He reaches over to me and pulls my hand into his lap as all the years of longing burn up in roaring flames. I was disposed of by my dad; I don’t exist in his life.

  How could he do this?

  How could he replace me?

  Not only did my mother not want me, but I never thought my dad would feel the same way.

  “I thought he loved me,” I cry, and the tears feel like hot splashes of acid as they coat my cheeks and drip from my chin. The pain overwhelms like a cleaver to my heart, and everything I thought I knew feels like pure deception. I feel worthless and unloved by the man I’ve killed for.

  I never gave up on life because of him.

  I kept going because of him.

  It was all for naught though. He’s moved on when twenty-three years later I’m still living for him, dreaming of him, longing for him.

  To feel like a nobody to the person who’s your everybody is a jagged spike that skewers through the scar tissue of every one of life’s blows that mark a permanent wound on my soul.

  Suddenly this car is suffocating.

  It’s too small.

  My skin is too tight.

  The air is too thick.

  I can’t breathe.

  “Pull over!” I demand, and he does instantly.

  Ripping off my seatbelt, I leap out of the car and run.

  I don’t know where I’m going.

  But I run as fast as I can.

  I run hard, feet pounding the grass under my feet as I zip across a random field.

  “Elizabeth!” Declan’s voice echoes behind me, but I don’t slow.

  My legs begin to burn, my lungs are on fire, but I keep going.

  I can hear Declan’s feet racing behind me, and I push harder, screaming out my pain. I force it out of my lungs and into the night. The air whips through my hair, and the tears on my face chill against the wind.

  “Elizabeth!” he calls again before his hand clutches my arm, sending me tumbling to the ground.

  With my hands pressed against Earth’s foundation, I tilt my head up to the heavens I can no longer believe in and scream. I scream so hard it hurts, ripping through my vocal cords, searing them, slicing them.

  Declan wraps his whole body around mine, every one of his muscles flexing, cocooning me in a steel vice grip. And when my screams strain into an unbearable bleeding agony, I melt and crumple into Declan’s warm body.

  And I cry.

  I cry like I did when I was five years old and watched my daddy as he was being handcuffed and taken from me.

  I cry because that’s what you do when the person you love most in this world doesn’t love you back.

  Declan strokes my hair, petting me while he presses his lips to my ear, whispering gently, “Shh, baby.”

  I allow my mind to focus on his touch, on his smell, and on the sound of his voice. He rocks me in a slow sway, comforting me, and I grip my hands to his back, fisting his shirt with my fingers. And through my cries, I ask, “Why did he do this to me?”

  “I don’t know, darling,” he responds. “But we’ll find out. I’ll get you answers.”

  “I don’t understand why he never came for me. He’s been alive this whole time—my whole life—and he never came for me.”

  “Maybe it’s not what you think,” he says, and I look into his eyes and weep, “How could you not come back for your child?”

  He doesn’t say anything else, he’s probably scared he’ll dig the knife in deeper. Instead, he stands and scoops me up in his arms, cradling me against his chest. As he walks us back to the car, I rest my head in the crook of his neck and let the tears fall.

  He puts me into the car, buckles me in, and not another word is spoken. When we arrive back at our hotel room, he takes over. I’m dead inside, so he bathes me, brushes my teeth, and puts me to bed—all in silence—all while I cling to him.

  Because without him, I don’t exist—and I need to exist.

  I’M WALKING ALONG a busy city street. I’m not sure what city I’m in, but it’s filled with noisy cars and too many people to count. I don’t know where I’m going, but I go. I follow the crowds. Maybe they know where they’re headed.

  We all stop at an intersection and wait for the crosswalk sign to light up. Leaning against a large flowerbed that hugs the perimeter of a tall building, I look down to see pink daisies. I grab one of the stems, pluck it from the soil, and watch as a little caterpillar emerges.

  I smile when I see my friend.

  “There you are, Elizabeth,” he greets in his British accent.

  “Carnegie!”

  I lower my hand for him to crawl onto and then lift him up to my face.

  “I’ve missed you,” I tell him.

  “It’s been much too long.”

  I stumble on my feet when a bicyclist nearly sideswipes me. Looking back to my hand, Carnegie is no longer there. I scramble, skittering my eyes along the sidewalk, turning in circles.

  “Carnegie?” I call out, but he’s nowhere to be found.

  I’m jostled again, this time by a man as he rushes past me.

  “Hey!” I shout, and when the man turns to apologize, I see his face. “Dad?”

  “Sorry, miss,” my father says as if he doesn’t recognize me.

  “Dad! It’s me!”

  He turns, no longer acknowledging me, and I chase after him.

  “Dad, wait! It’s me!”

  He’s only walking, but somehow the gap between us widens, and I’m losing him. I whip around a corner and nearly lose my footing. When I right myself, I catch my reflection in the mirrored glass of a building.

  I’m five years old and still wearing my glittery princess dress from our last tea party. Turning back in the direction my father was heading, I run while continuing to call out to him. I weave through the crowds of people, dodging elbows, and pushing my way through.

  “Daddy!”

  I finally catch up to him when he’s stuck at a crosswalk.

  “Dad,” I say when I walk up to him.

  He looks down at me with an aged face and silver hair. “Little girl, are you lost?”

  “No, Daddy. It’s me, your daughter.”

  He shakes his head. “No, little girl.” He then points his finger to a blonde-haired child across the street waving at him. “That’s my daughter over there.”

  I wake with a start.

  The room is black.

  My heavy breaths are the only sounds I hear.

  I roll over, my body numb.

  Declan is sound asleep, and when I slide out of bed to get a drink of water, I see that it’s five in the morning. I’m rattled by my dream as I sip from a bottle of water while I sit in the living room. I stare out the window at the full moon, and it feels strange to know that only twenty minutes away, the same moon hangs above my dad. Although I doubt I ever cross his mind like he crosses mine.

  I think about the girl in my dream—the same girl I saw him call princess last night in his driveway. She was young, maybe eight or so. And the more I think about her, the more my hands tingle in acerbic bitterness. Vile thoughts run rampant, thoughts of kidnapping her, thoughts of killing her.

  My legs shake erratically, bouncing up and down at a rapid pace. I can’t sit still. They’re out there—he’s out there—and I’m stuck in this hotel room. Thoughts about his new family fester.

  I peer at Declan through the bedroom door, and he’s still fast asleep. Gently, I close the door after slipping on a pair of pants and a top. Grabbing the keys to the car, I quietly sneak out of the room. He’s going to be pissed when he wakes up to find that I’m gone, but if I told him what I’m about to do, he’d refuse. And I can’t just sit in that room and drive myself crazy.

  Once I’m in the car, I drive back to Gig Harbor and park along the street a few houses down from my dad’s. His SUV is no longer in the driveway where he parked it last night. I’m not even sure what I’m doing
here.

  Time passes, the sun makes her appearance, and eventually the garage door opens. A car begins to back out and then stops halfway down the driveway. I sink down, worried I’ll be seen, but keep watching. The driver’s side window rolls down and the woman I saw last night hangs her head out and hollers, “Come on, kids!”

  A few beats later the blonde girl and the brown-haired boy run out from the garage with backpacks hanging from their shoulders. They hop in the back seat, and when the car starts driving away, I sit up and follow. When we turn out of the neighborhood, I make sure to follow with one car between us.

  Hate rises in my soul for these people that my father’s chosen over me. Good or bad, I don’t give a shit—I want to hurt them. I want to take them away from him, then maybe he’ll be so lonely that he’ll finally want me.

  My knuckles are white as my hands choke the steering wheel so hard it just might snap. The car pulls off into a strip shopping center, and I follow, parking several spots down from them. The kids hop out of the car, cash in their hands, and run into a smoothie shop while the woman stays in the vehicle.

  Without much thought, and honestly, just not caring, I get out of my car. I walk past the woman and see she’s paying no attention as she’s chatting away on her phone. She’s blonde as well and appears many years younger than my dad, and I wish I had a brick to throw through her windshield to smash her pretty little face.

  The bell above the door jingles when I step inside the smoothie shop. The two kids are watching the blenders mix up their drinks.

  “What can I get for you this morning?” the guy behind the register asks in a much too peppy tone for it being so early in the morning.

  I pick a random drink from the menu on the wall and shove him some cash.

  “Hailey,” one of the employees calls out, and the girl runs to grab her drink.

  Her name’s Hailey. How fucking precious.

  When I see her walking to the door, I fake clumsiness and bump into her, sending her smoothie to splatter all over the floor.

  “Oh, I am so sorry. I wasn’t paying any attention at all.”

  “It’s okay,” she says. “Accidents happen.”

  I grab a wad of napkins, and with her help, we do our best to clean up the sticky mess

  “Let me get you another drink. What flavor did you have?” I offer.

  “You don’t have to do that. I can get more money from my mom.”

  “I insist.”

  She tells me her drink and I place the order.

  I reach out my hand and introduce myself. “I’m Erin, by the way.”

  She shakes my hand enthusiastically, and giggles, saying, “My name is Hailey.”

  “I’m going back out to the car,” her brother announces as he takes his smoothie with him to the exit. “Hurry up; I don’t want to be late to school.”

  “And that,” Hailey says, “Is my annoying older brother, Steve.”

  Steve. My dad passed his name down to that little fucker.

  “You look like you’re all ready for school. What grade are you in?” I ask while we wait for her drink.

  “Fifth grade.”

  “Wow. Big girl on campus. So how old does that make you?”

  “Eleven.”

  Her perfect voice, her perfect hair, her perfect clothes all make me want to ball my fist up and slam it through her perfect smile.

  “Hailey,” the employee calls out, and I fight the overwhelming urge to grab her and run.

  “I gotta go. Thanks for the smoothie, Erin.” She’s so polite it irritates me to the point I want to claw my own skin from my bones.

  She practically skips out the door, leaving me to watch their car as it pulls out and drives away.

  I snap around when there’s a tap on my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” the employee says as he holds out a cup. “I called your name, but I guess you didn’t hear me.”

  Without a word, I turn away from him and walk out the door as he stands there like an asshole, still holding my drink.

  I hate everyone in this shit town.

  Sitting in my car, I can’t bring myself to drive just yet. She’s eleven years old and has the life I was supposed to have. I was supposed to be the bubbly and polite girl who wore the pretty clothes and grabbed a smoothie before heading off to school. I was supposed to be her. Instead, when I was eleven, I was tied up to a garment rod and locked away in a closet for days on end. I was in the darkness with no food or water, left to piss and shit on myself. And when I wasn’t in the closet, I was down in that dank basement being molested, raped, sodomized, pissed on, beaten, and whipped. I wasn’t skipping out the goddamn door with my Raspberry Paradise smoothie. Her biggest struggle in life is having an annoying older brother.

  I should’ve grabbed her when I had the chance.

  Anger does nothing but ferment in my bones. It aches and pricks from the inside out, and I ball my hands, pounding them against the steering wheel as I growl between my clenched teeth. When I look up, I see an elderly lady staring at me in horror as she walks on by.

  She has no idea that she’s staring at a monster.

  Smoothing my hair back off my forehead, I straighten myself and start the car. It’s edging on eight o’clock, and I need to get back to the hotel.

  I stand outside of our room and prepare myself for the wrath of Declan before opening the door.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” he seethes as soon as I walk in. “Tell me it’s not what I’m thinking. Tell me you didn’t go back to that house.”

  Keeping my cool so I don’t rile him up any more than he already is, I admit, “I went back to the house.”

  “Jesus Christ! What were you thinking?” he snaps, grabbing my arms and shaking me.

  “I don’t know, but I had to go. I knew you wouldn’t allow it, so I snuck out.”

  He shoves me over to the couch and pushes me down, releasing my arms. I watch as he paces the room a couple times before walking back over to me. He takes a seat on the coffee table and faces me. His jaw is locked, a tell to his immense anger. I knew how much my sneaking away would affect him. Declan has to hold all the power for him to feel safe, and I stole that from him this morning.

  “It’s not what you think.” I attempt to mollify him.

  “Tell me, since you seem to know everything about me. Tell me what it is I’m thinking.” He throws his derisive words in my face.

  “I had to see them. I had to know more.”

  “Them?” he questions, growing more irritated. “You mean his kids?”

  I nod.

  “Christ, Elizabeth,” he barks, standing and walking away from me.

  “Stop yelling at me!” I snap, getting off the couch and stepping up to him. “You’re pissed, I get it! But the expectation you have for me to just sit and be patient is something I can’t do.”

  “You can’t or you won’t?”

  “I’m not apologizing, if that’s what you’re after.”

  I watch him grind his teeth as he glares down at me, and I turn this around on him, saying, “Why don’t you tell me something . . . If this were reversed, and it were your mother in this situation, tell me you’d be okay just hanging back. Tell me you wouldn’t act on every single one of your instincts.”

  His eyes pierce mine, and I push him even more.

  “Tell me you could restrain yourself and stay away.”

  We meet each other’s opposition, neither one of us backing down.

  “He’s my dad, so don’t you dare yell at me and belittle me for acting on my desperation, because you’d do the same thing.”

  I turn to walk away from him, and when I do, he finally speaks.

  “You won’t defy me again. Do you understand?”

  I look back at him and respond, “Then I need you to bend and trust me. I snuck away because I knew you’d refuse to allow me to go. All I’m asking is for you to at least try to see things my way every once in a while.” />
  “Come here,” he orders, and I obey, walking back over to him. He takes my face in his hands, telling me, “I’ll try and bend for you.”

  “Thank you,” I respond with an appeased smile.

  “You will be punished, so I wouldn’t be smiling if I were you,” he threatens, and I don’t contest.

  Declan needs this to feel in control, and I want to give him that because it’s what secures him. He depends on it. He can’t function without it.

  “I want you on the ground on all fours with your pants pulled down to your knees.”

  He lashes his voice out in anger, and I turn my back to him, positioning myself as instructed. It might be debasing for most, but I understand his need for this. It’s how his life has molded him to be, and I’m the perfect one to give him this outlet that he’s been deprived of in the past. I’m sure the women he’s been with previously have valued their bodies in a way I don’t. And because I love him so much, I have no problem handing myself over to him in this way.

  I hear him move around the room, and then he kneels down in front of me to tie my wrists together with one of his ties.

  “Tell me why I’m punishing you.”

  I crane my neck to look at him, and answer, “Because I snuck off and took the control away from you.”

  “Do you know what that did to me?”

  “Yes.”

  He then stands and moves behind me.

  “Keep your eyes on the floor,” he commands, and I hear something rattling before being set on the ground. “Spread your knees.”

  I do, and I’m instantly greeted by the piercing pain of an ice cube being shoved into my pussy. And then another and another and another and another.

  I cry out in blistering pain and then he begins to spank my ass with a force so great I have to tense my whole body up to keep myself from falling over. The ice feels like I’m being sliced with razors from the inside, and I know I should be focusing on the pain that’s radiating from my ass because it’s so minimal compared to what’s happening inside my pussy.

  With each welting blow he delivers, I scream out as the ice begins to melt and the water spills out of me and runs down my thighs.

  “Tell me you’re my property,” he grits, and I instantly respond, “I’m your property.”