by Emilia Finn
“These princesses,” Tina starts softly after a long silent minute. “They used to have a prince. But he turned out to be the ogre.”
I frown, equal parts excited and terrified that she seems to be talking tonight. “This ogre… Did he get his nuts kicked up into his throat?”
She smiles, her voice still low, in storytelling mode. “In a manner of speaking. This ogre was a scary ogre, and he hurt the princesses sometimes, so they ran away to their tower. But now the princesses are happy.”
“But the princesses still need a prince.”
“Well, they don’t need a prince,” she points out defiantly. “Nevertheless, one of the princesses has dated a couple… suitors, recently, but mostly they’re all ogres too. Just regular ogres, not the scary kind.”
“But then there was one that was mean to you,” I add, still feeling like shit about that night.
“It’s okay, the princess isn’t mad,” she says with a soft smile. “She actually thinks it’s a cute story now.”
“You think he’s cute?” I ask gruffly, my smile tugging up the side of my face and I watch the way Tina’s eyes track the movement.
“The princess thinks the story is cute… she thinks he’s… different.”
“Different sounds like the biggest cop out ever,” I laugh quietly, careful not to wake Evie as she sleeps. Her eyelids are twitching, her pouty mouth still bent in a small smile.
“She also thinks he’s s.e.x.y as sin, and she also heard about what Jimmy overheard. She stands by her words, even though she’s humiliated that big mouth Uncle Jimmy spilled the beans.”
“I’d really like to -- ah, that is, the Prince would really like to see the princess again, formally, without any annoying uncles or aunts chaperoning.”
“The princess could be open to that, since even though she doesn’t want to like you, she thinks you’re cute, and she finds herself getting jealous of her daughter’s boyfriend.”
Jealous of her daughter’s boyfriend. I like that. “I prefer your other description of me.”
“Different?”
“No, sexy,” I daringly tell her and her eyes flash to my smiling mouth.
“Alright, well. That one is definitely true. But still…”
Her face has turned stormy again, dragging my curiosity deeper, refusing to release me until I know everything, every nuance, every secret. “What Peaches?”
“If Princess Peach were to get to know a man again, she needs to finish her ogre story. It’s not a very pretty story, and it ends in the middle of the night with new scars…”
I stretch my arm across the space between us and cup her jaw. “I’m listening, Peaches. I gotcha.”
I was worried she’d flinch away, that my touch would be unwelcome, but she pushes against my hand, burrowing in like a cat and sighing softly.
How long has it been since a man touched her?
“A couple years ago, a princess named… Sarah.” Her breath hitches on the name, giving me a glimpse of how much this retelling will hurt. Like a festering sore. She needs to purge, she needs to get rid of it to begin healing. “A princess named Sarah was living with a man. He was a… powerful man. He had staff. Loyal staff that would die for him. Literally. Or alternatively, they would kill for him. They had. They did.”
I look down at Evie between us. She’s asleep now, deep under, her eyelids no longer fluttering. Then I look back up to Tina and nod for her to continue.
“He was mean. He was a possessive man, not because he loved – I’m not sure he’s capable of love, not really – but because he was like that kid in the sand box. You know those kids? He might not have wanted the toy, but he wouldn’t allow someone else to have it either. Princess Peach was his toy.”
Her quiet admission forces me to concentrate on not squeezing her fragile jaw in my hand.
“He moved his princess into his castle, and the princess was blinded by all the glitter. She moved in happily, practically sprinted there and marveled at the opulence. She thought it was romantic as hell,” Tina adds bitterly.
“Princess Peach had silks and linens and jewels brought to her daily. The designers wanted her to wear them and use them, then to tell her rich friends about them so those friends would buy them. This superficial and greedy princess drove Range Rovers, one of dozens that sat around the property. She never had to work, she was allowed to do whatever she wanted; so she learned how to take pretty pictures. He gave her anything and everything she ever asked for. She thought he was the kindest, sweetest, most handsome man she ever met.”
Tina goes quiet for a moment, and although I feel a pang of jealousy about this sweet and handsome man, I know the bad stuff is coming. This is going to hurt. I’m going to want her to get the sweet man back again, simply so she doesn’t hurt.
“Anyway, Princess Peach was living a princess life. She had freedom for the most part. She got in trouble if other men spoke to her, but she thought that was a cute, alpha thing. She thought it meant he loved her. She wasn’t away from the prince all that much anyway, so there weren’t a lot of opportunities for that. Not that she was looking. She was happy with the prince.
“The prince began asking her to marry him, and although she was living a fairytale life, she wasn’t ready to marry yet. She was only twenty, almost twenty one years old. Still a baby herself. He asked but she said she wasn’t ready. He didn’t like that. He was a materialistic man; he liked to own things, including people. Perhaps especially people.
“He asked again and again. She said she was happy the way things were... Peach was on the pill. She’d never ever, not once had an accidental pregnancy. It might be total coincidence, but anyway, surprise baby. That’s where Peach and the prince meet their baby, but he was still pushing for marriage. He wanted to own her.
“Later on, she had her baby, who was by the way, not born with the same name she carries now,” Tina adds, bringing reality crashing down over me, constricting my chest and squeezing my heart. I’d never even considered that Evie wasn’t always Evie. But it makes sense, if Tina was Sarah…
Wanting to be closer to her, I carefully scoot Evie down the bed between us, then I lay my head on the pillow and spread my arm across toward Tina.
She doesn’t move, doesn’t accept my invitation, so I place my open palm on the back of her head and softly pull her down. She resists with fear plain in her eyes, but after a short moment she moves with my hand.
So we both meet at the head but our feet flare, creating a tent over Evie, Tina lays her head on my shoulder, her hair fanning over my forearm, her nose touching the soft part of my neck, her breath bathing my skin.
I swallow hard, not meaning my next words at all, but knowing they need to be said. “Go on.”
“So the prince basically owned her by that point,” she continues. “He controlled everything. Everything. Everyone knew who she was and they watched every step she took. He had his own private obstetrician treat her. When bruises started showing up, the OB looked the other way. When a broken wrist was discovered, it was treated then forgotten. When the baby was born early, due to trauma after a fall, princess and baby were treated quietly then the birth was celebrated by many, since she was basically royalty. She was royalty, according to them. Too bad she was a she, because if she was a he… well. That would have been different.”
He beat her? He beat her when she was pregnant?
I work hard to regulate my breathing, to stay lying in this bed and not get up to kill a motherfucker. He beat Tina. And Evie. What kind of fucking animal does that? Who beats a woman? Who beats a pregnant fucking woman?
Tina moves her head back to look me in the eyes. “Do you want me to finish it?”
I work to school my features but my whole body vibrates with rage. Red hot, manic rage. I probably look really fucking dangerous right now; not a good look for a guy trying to earn her trust. A guy lying in bed with her and her daughter; vulnerable.
Do I want her to finish it? No. “I want you to do w
hat you want to do. Tell me what you’re comfortable telling me.”
“Are you mad?”
“At you?” I ask disbelievingly and she nods. “No Peaches, not at you. Never at you.
“Are you mad at all?”
“Yeah, I’m feeling pretty mad right now,” I admit, biting my words off again when she moves back from me, a subtle retreat. “No honey, I’ll never be so mad that I’ll hurt you. Not ever. I promise.” I pull her head back in so her face tucks into my neck. Her body is stiff for a moment, but eventually she relaxes, moving in closer so her head rests near my chest now, not just my shoulder. “I’m so mad right now that I could kill him. But not you. Never you. Never Evie. I swear.”
She lies silently for a minute, weighing my words, gauging if I’m telling the truth I guess. “Finish your story Peaches.”
“Alright, well, anyway, he got meaner and meaner, and obviously that told the princess her instincts were on point; to not marry him. But the longer she denied him, the meaner he got. One time,” she begins, choking on her words, the devastation in them wildly contrasting with the mostly neutral tone she’s used till this point. “Umm, one time, he took the baby from her, he snatched her from my arms. This princess was knocked from her tower and instead locked in a basement. She listened to her baby cry all night long. All. Night. Long.
“He left his infant daughter in her crib all night. Unfed. Not bathed. Dirty diaper. He left her to cry. She cried,” Tina says, crying now too. “She cried for me for a long time. Until she eventually passed out from exhaustion. And I cried for her. I was in the basement, a room directly beneath hers. I could hear her. She begged for me and I spent the night banging on the locked door. I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t get to her. I screamed for him then. I told him I’d marry him, I told him I’d do anything he wanted me to. So just like that, he came downstairs in his fancy clothes and ugly shoes and he let me out, greeting me as though he’d just walked in from the office, or as though I’d been to some spa retreat all weekend. He made me swear, he made arrangements for our wedding the very next day.
“I ran back to her, to Katie. I ran upstairs and I snatched her from her crib. She was filthy. She had a soiled diaper. She was all puffy faced from crying all night. She was lethargic, starving and dehydrated and exhausted. I nursed her then. She stayed attached to my boob for the next few hours. She suckled even while she slept. I was overfull from not nursing her all night. She was starving. She drank me dry, then she slept and kept suckling. She wouldn’t let me put her down, but that was okay, because I was never putting her down again anyway. We did this while my fiancé planned our wedding. We were to be married the next day. He wasn’t waiting any longer.
“My parents,” she says, holding her breath again then letting it out on an exhausted puff. I wonder if she realizes she’s no longer referring to the princess, but using “I”, “me” and “my.”
“My parents thought he was wonderful. I told them a hundred times that he hurt me but they accused me of telling stories.”
“What about the bruising? The broken bones--”
“My own clumsiness.” She shrugs against me. “My own silly clumsiness. And they didn’t believe me because I was young and he was so… enigmatic and charming.”
“They deserted you.”
“Yep. By that point, he’d had them set up and comfortable in their own castle. They weren’t going to bite the hand that fed them. So they believed him. Money is a powerful motivational tool, I guess.”
“But they were your parents.”
She shrugs again, resolved with her fate. “We can’t all be blessed with the Nelly and Bryan Kincaid’s of the world.”
No, I guess not.
“So, anyway,” she continues. “Exciting news rang out in the kingdom; we were to wed the next day. My mother was thrilled. His mother was thrilled. The whole fucking world was thrilled… That night, I put Evie – Katie – to bed, then he took me to our room. He… he made love to me. I would call it something a little less consensual, but he disagreed. Apparently it’s not rape if I was already his. He then took me to our fully set dining room where we dined on shrimp and salad. Shrimp and salad…” she repeats, shivers running through her small body. “I’ll never eat shrimp again. He listed his expectations from then on out. How I would behave. How I would dress. Who I would speak to. How many children I would grow for him. He took a carving knife… I don’t even know why he had one, it’s not like we were having steak. He took his carving knife and he held it to my throat and he told me if I ever disobey him again, he would kill me, but not before he…” she pauses again, her breath shaky and deep. “Not before he gutted my baby and made me watch. She was only a girl, after all. We could get plenty more and hopefully get a boy next time. I believed him. I believed every word he said… so I took that knife and I stuck it in his gut.”
“You…” I blink. Once. Twice. A dozen times. “What?” Holy shit.
“He was going to kill us, Aiden. Eventually he would kill us. I… he, he took it out and lunged at me. He cut me.”
“Your scars,” I murmur, reigning in the fury that begs to be let free. I want to find him, and I want to kill him. I want to take a blunt knife and I want to slice him up, real fucking slow.
Instead in an attempt to stay present, I run my fingers over the scar along her neck, hesitant to touch the one that reopened just today and is currently taped back together.
It’s taped back together. Of course she’s talking now; she reopened a fucking wound that he inflicted on her.
“Actually, no. Those scars come a little later. We’ll get to that,” she says neutrally, like it’s no big fucking deal. It is. It’s a huge fucking deal.
“He sliced me open. I bit and scratched and pulled his hair. I did everything I could to fight him off, because if I’d died that night, if I’d given in to him, he would have killed my baby too. She would have been five minutes behind me. So I thought I killed him. I tried to. I wanted to. I really thought I did. I ran upstairs and grabbed her, I grabbed my Katie… she hadn’t even had her first birthday yet. I had to escape. We had to run and never be found again, because even if he was dead, he had men… loyal men, who would have tracked us down. Who are still tracking us down…
“This is turning into a really long story, sorry.” She nervously fusses with the fabric of my shirt.
“Keep going, Peaches. I wanna know the rest. You can trust me, honey.”
“Well, the rest is fairly simple. He followed me upstairs, he knocked me down again. He was going to kill me that time. There would be no wedding the next day. He cut me, here,” she says, gingerly touching her reopened forehead. “Here.” She lifts her wrist, showing me a long, roughly healed gash along her arm, stretching from her wrist and spanning most of her forearm. I never noticed that one before. Then using that same hand, she points to her neck, then other spots on her face that hold old scars. “Here, and here and here.”
“How’d you get away?”
“I don’t know. I just… did. I hurt him back, I grabbed Evie and I ran. He had men patrolling the grounds. I used one of his shiny new cars and I left, not caring who I hit or how bad they were hurt. Because they would have stopped me if they could. Their loyalties were with him, not me.”
“I’m not judging, Peaches. I swear to god I’m not judging. You did so good, and you saved both of your lives that day.”
“I’d do it again. I will do it again when he finds us.”
“He won’t find you.”
“But he will. He has before. He’s constantly looking. We’ve moved thirteen times since we left. This is the longest we’ve stayed anywhere. Everywhere else was temporary, dives. We slept on dirty floors for a night, a weekend, a month at the most. We came here, we stayed for a few weeks and… nothing. It was blissful silence. He hadn’t found us yet. So I decided to look for a job… the thing is, when you can’t use your real name, it’s really hard to get a legitimate job.”
“You don’t
use your real name because he tracks you that way?”
“Yeah. He tracked us that way the first few times. I was dumb and didn’t think. I tried dropping into emergency rooms, for my injuries. For Evie’s… he broke her arm that night.”
“He what?” I almost shout and Tina’s whole body tenses. “Shit, I’m sorry. It’s okay, I’m not mad,” I tell her, sorry for worrying her. Sorry for potentially waking Evie with my harsh movements. Evie… Katie.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat again. “Keep going.”
“He broke her arm. He knocked us over, he hurt me, he grabbed her really hard. I… I didn’t even know it was broken right away. I mean, right away, after we got out. I was so busy running, I didn’t even know it was broken for about forty-eight hours or so. I’m a terrible mom,” she admits shakily. “I took her in once I figured it out. We were reported, because broken bones in infants is pretty bad. Their bones are so bendable; if they’re broken, it’s probably through nefarious ways. So they reported us while we were in the waiting room. Somehow he found out and came searching. I snuck us out, then I took her to a different emergency room half a day’s drive away, then I took her in but didn’t use our names. That was the beginning of our new identities. I told them I’d pay cash. Gave them a made up address. Got her arm reset. I don’t know who got my bill, but I never paid it. We kept moving around, kept saying we’d pay cash, kept skipping out again. It’s what we had to do to survive. We eventually got here, Tina and Evie were our newest names, the Kincaid girls inundated us when we least wanted it and that brings us full circle.”
“That’s… a lot.”
“Yes, it is. But I’m telling you because it’s likely we’ll leave town soon. We won’t have a chance to tell you. We’ll just be gone--”
“Wait. What?” I sit up this time, forcing Tina to lift to her bent arm. “You’re not leaving. You can’t.”
“We can, and we probably will,” she explains patiently. “He’ll kill us. And he’ll kill you, or Bobby, or Kit or Jim or anyone else. He’ll kill them if he finds us here. So we’ll have to go eventually.”