by Korry Smith
“He didn’t know, officer,” I said quickly. “I told him that I was eighteen.”
“Hmm. Well, now Mr. Ryan knows. I’m sure you’ll stay away from her, won’t you?”
“Only for two more weeks. She has a birthday coming up,” Alex said through his gritted teeth.
The cop took an aggressive step towards Alex, sneering at him. “I suggest you get home now before I make up an excuse to haul your ass in for questioning regarding this Lamborghini business. Your record is more than enough cause to consider you a suspect.”
“Do it,” he said, testing the cop. “You can’t prove shit.”
“No!” I shouted, and looked pointedly at Alex, gesturing my head towards the gas station. “Don’t be stupid. Go. I’ll be fine. Please.”
“She’s a smart girl. I suggest you listen to her,” the cop said, tugging on my arm.
Alex clenched his fist tightly and glared at the officer. He didn’t want to leave me there, but I didn’t want him arrested. I was just a runaway; they would have to call my parents and release me to them. It was a few hours in a holding cell for me, but who knows what he would have to endure.
I pleaded to him with my eyes.
Please go.
The cop dragged me to the cruiser, my flip-flops slipping and caught underneath me, and I tripped the entire way. He opened the door and placed me in the backseat. I watched Alex from the window. My guy wanted to do something, but he promised me that he would behave. All he could do was mouth words to me, but I didn’t understand them. He repeated them over and over until finally, it clicked with me.
As the cop drove away, calling the station and telling them to contact my parents, I dreaded that moment when I would have to face them again.
Turning around in my seat, I stared at Alex in the distance, watching his still figure get smaller and smaller until I couldn’t see him anymore.
I just kept his words fresh in my head and on repeat: I’ll come for you.
The floors were a dingy white, and there were black scuff marks from the constant traffic. I counted how many times people dragged their feet and scraped their heels along the linoleum. I had to do something to keep myself busy. They had me seated in a small holding area with no one to give me company, and it had been the slowest passing of hours in my whole life.
They didn’t even have a clock.
If I had to guess, it must’ve been close to three in the morning. The law will keep me there all night and most of the day, and I doubt Terry and Susan were rushing up there to take me home.
The arresting officer tried to save me from my tragic life on the ride into the station. He gave the ‘Come to Jesus’ talk and lectured me on how I shouldn’t be hanging out with a worthless piece of shit like Alex.
“The guy doesn’t love you. You’re easy prey. All he wants in a young girl like you is a tight snatch.”
The cop actually said that to a seventeen-year-old girl.
It took all my restraint to not tell him to go fuck himself.
Instead, I was using Sawyer’s diplomacy and told him in a polite but firm way that he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. If anyone was taking advantage of anyone in this relationship, it was me and Alex was my prey.
If this holier than thou cop were genuinely concerned about my well-being, he wouldn’t be putting me back into the real boogieman’s evil grasp.
I could have told him about Terry, and how he has tried to rape me, but my pleas had a way of landing on deaf ears. It was strange how all these cops and doctors and social workers claimed they wanted to help me but were the first ones to refuse to listen or do anything about it. They let things build and escalate until Terry took it too far, and I ended up shattering the flowered vase, the one I made in the sixth grade, on his lopsided skull.
It’s just like what Nyx always said, ‘C’est la vie.’
“Madison Perez.”
My head shot up at the sound of my name. The guy in uniform standing over me had a baby-face and looked no older than twelve. He fiddled with his belt buckle and his gun’s holster. The unease and nervousness rolled off him and transferred over to me. Officer Grant was most likely a paper-pusher and rookie.
“Yeah?” I asked.
He reached down and released me from my cuffs. “Your parents are here to pick you up.”
“Perfect,” I said, massaging my wrists. “Both of them?”
He nodded. “They are up front waiting for you.”
“Well, let’s get the shit over with,” I said, standing up from the bench.
The officer placed his hand on my back and led me out. He was kind enough and offered up a conversation, but I wasn’t in the talking mood. My nerves were in my throat, and the hatred I felt for my ‘parents’ was increasing and expanding with every step I took in their direction.
I’m not sure what my plan was, but there was no way in hell I was going to go home with them. The Phoenix PD’s only obligation was to detain me until my parents showed up, but even that was excessive. The officer who took me in had lied to Alex. There was no law violation. Any other cop wouldn’t have wasted the trouble and paperwork on a runaway who was just weeks from her eighteenth birthday.
It was a personal decision the cop made, believing that I was in danger.
When the elevators opened, I saw Terry and Susan standing in the middle of the room. Their backs were facing me, but even from this angle, I knew they weren’t talking. It was the image I’d seen the day I walked out the door. If they’d been paying attention, they would have noticed their daughter leaving the house on a Saturday morning with a backpack full of clothes.
Well, here we go.
Twisting and popping my fingers, I approached them cautiously, like a zookeeper approaches a lion, but my dread turned into seething and unrestricted anger. It shifted my whole outlook on this reunion. There was nothing to fear or be panicked by, not by these degenerates; just a couple of fucking hicks in Prada clothing. They might be the same assholes as before, but I was different. I was stronger and had matured out of that scared, unsure girl they knew six months ago.
The rookie cleared his throat. “Mr. and Mrs. Boon?”
They both turned, but it was Terry who stiffened into a board when he saw me. It could have been a lot of things he noticed that were different. Maybe it was my stern and hateful glare, but doubtful, because he wasn’t looking that high. It was my clothing that made him take a long, hard look at me.
My shorts were shorter than my usual below the knee attire, and my tank top was thin, practically see-through, and highlighting my lack of bra underneath. The way he looked less than fatherly at my body reminded me why I dressed like a nun around him. What pissed me off more than his disgusting gawking was the sneer and sly smirk forming at the corners of his mouth. He believed he won, and that I was going to lie there for him; like a crippled animal.
“Hi, baby girl,” Susan said, after a forceful nudge from Terry. She about broke her aging and worn face with her strained smile. The dull sandy blonde hair hung in her eyes, and she nervously brushed it away.
The hatred she harbored for me was still there, but she held her arms open with the expectation of me to go running into them like I did when I was five. I stopped a few feet before them, keeping my distance and unwilling to help them put on a show.
Because that’s all, it was: a show. One big, outlandish farce.
“Madison?” Her voice was unnaturally high and cheery. “Stop that and come here to your mommy. I’ve missed you.”
I stood there unmoved, wanting to skip all this fake nonsense and get back to Alex. “Can we leave now?”
“Sure,” Susan answered tensely, her arms dropping limply to her sides. She glanced over at Terry, and he took a step towards me, reaching out to grip my arm.
I snatched it away and glared at him. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
“Madison Rose, darling.” Susan laughed uncomfortably, looking around to see if people were watching us. �
�Don’t make a scene.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course not, mother. We wouldn’t want these people knowing the truth about us, would we?”
“Why don’t we take this outside, ladies,” Terry said, gripping my arm tightly before I had a chance to jerk it away. He yanked me forward and dragged me out of the police station. “You think you’re so smart and that you can come and go as you please, don’t you? Thinking that there is no one you’ll have to answer to.”
Susan was behind us, bitching about how spoiled and inconsiderate I was. How they worried night after night thinking I was dead in a ditch somewhere.
Right.
That’s why they waited three months before calling the police and reporting me as a runaway. What bothered my mother so much was during the week I left home, she canceled two book groups. She blamed me for that, because of her grief and shit, but I knew better. The poor little socialite was a couple of chapters behind her horrible friends.
Oh, the fucking humanity!
“You guys do realize that I am just going to run away again,” I said, looking back and forth between them. “All of this is a waste of time.”
Susan narrowed her eyes. “Where are you going to go, huh? Back to prostituting yourself with a man who’s twice your age? I mean, for God sakes, Madison! He’s a criminal!”
Firstly, her math was off—by like, six years, and secondly? At what point in my short life did I do something so terrible and awful that I deserved such treatment from my mother?
Terry squeezed my arm harder and whispered into my ear. “And you said that you didn’t like older cock.”
His vile, rancid breath on my skin was fucking repulsive and sickening, and I didn’t want him touching me. He was arrogant and brave, speaking to me in such a way with his wife, and my mother, hot on his heels. God only knows how bold he could be when he got me alone.
I jerked my head away from him and hissed, “Fuck off.”
“Oh, you’re a sassy little pussy!” He laughed, heaving me over to him and crushing my body to his.
“And I swear, the things I found in your bedroom were deplorable,” Susan still chattered away, unaware what was happening between her husband and her underage daughter.
Holy fuck, this woman.
It was no wonder Terry felt he could say and do whatever he wanted with his wife just feet away. He was free from the fear of consequences and reprimanding. She showed him last year when she took his side over mine. Terry was her livelihood. He paid the bills and gave her the cushy life she always wanted. The tradeoff was simple: Terry got unlimited access to her young daughter. If he raped me, she would look away, just as long as he came back to the bed at night, kissed her on the cheek, and handed her a wad of cash.
How ironic that Susan uses prostitution as a slander when she’s been whoring me out for years.
We exited the building towards the parking lot, and I cataloged three visitor’s cars, two police cruisers, but no Chevelle. Terry and Susan’s BMW sat off at the far end of the lot and off by itself.
Why would they do that? He had a bum leg, and she bitched about everything.
It was an odd choice.
As Terry dragged me down the stairs, my feet caught the lip of several steps. When I lost one flip-flop, not only did they never stopped to retrieve it, but I nearly face planted on the cement. He lugged me up, and Susan complained about my clumsiness.
What a fucking freak show this was.
“Damn it!” She cursed loudly, reaching out and tugging on Terry’s shirt.
“What is it now?” he snapped, barely stopping to look back at her.
“I forgot my purse,” she said, waving us off. “You guys go on; I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Hurry up,” he barked, “I got to be at work in five hours.”
“Oh, hush,” she said, dashing back inside.
Terry smiled at me, towing me forward and down the rest of the stairs. Every time I tried to wriggle out of his grip, he would tighten his fingers even more. It eventually got to the point where it throbbed in pain. He was speed walking me across the street, and I had a feeling he wanted a little alone time with me before mother of the year returned.
“How’s that head of yours, Terry?” I asked, all innocent and sweet. “Are you still getting those migraines, you prick?”
“You know, I thought you had some spunk in you when you assaulted me that one day, but inside you were still that timid, scared of her own shadow, little girl, but this?” He threw me up against the side of his car and knocked the wind out of me. “This side of you is so much sweeter.”
“Enjoying your creation?” I spat, but he deserved zero credit for who I turned out to be. The only acknowledgment he gets from me was his relentless pursuit to make me a victim. That’s what pushed me out the door and into a criminal’s arms. “You’re disgusting.”
His eyes darted up towards the entrance to make sure we were alone, and I took that opportunity to make my escape, but as I turned to run, I caught a brief glimpse of a red Chevelle. It was parked down the road, vaguely obscured by trees.
He’s here.
But that slight hesitation on my part was a mistake. Terry had caught wind of my plans and grabbed me by the neck, thrusting me back hard against the car.
“Don’t even think about running, kid,” he said.
I’m not sure if it was because he was strangling me or the fact that he called me by the nickname that Alex had given me, it could have been a bit of both, but it unleashed a fury. I punched, cursed loudly, and jammed my knees into his legs. Anything I could do to get him to let me go.
Terry dodged my fists that came near his face. “Tough titty, said the kitty, but the milk’s still good.”
He was stronger and outweighed me by a hundred pounds. I tried to hurt him and get myself free, but his hands squeezed tighter around my neck, and my oxygen was running out. My sight blurred, and my brain got foggy. Slowly, but surely, I was losing the fight in me.
“Just wait, Terry,” I whispered; stilling and going limp.
He cackled, tauntingly putting his face up to mine. “Are you threatening me, little girl?”
“She’s not…” A decipherable and an all too consuming voice answered with a growl. There was cocking of a gun, and a glint as the light caught the chrome on the barrel’s surface, “…but I am.”
Chapter Eight
Terry’s sly smile faded as the cold metal dug into his cheek. The calloused and rough hands still wrapped around my throat, slowly loosening but never retreating. “Who in the hell are you?”
“There are three things of mine that I don’t take kindly to when someone goes and touches them without my permission: my car, my gun, and my girl,” Alex said, sliding the Colt up to Terry’s temple. “Guess which one you’re fucking touching right now?”
He begrudgingly dropped his hands from my neck and glared. “Your boyfriend, I presume?”
“That’s right, asshole. Now, back the fuck up.” Alex rammed the gun harder into Terry’s face, shoving him off me and over to the side.
The fat fuck stumbled under the duress and hit the car with a loud thud.
Still slightly dazed from the lack of air, my knees buckled, and I started to slide down to the ground. Alex reached out and gripped me by the arm to keep my body upright.
He frowned as his baby blues roamed over my face. “You okay?”
I rubbed out the soreness in my neck. “You’re late.”
“Sorry, baby. It won’t happen again…” He paused as his eyes zeroed in on my throat. What he saw, I had no idea, but it caused a low guttural growl. Snapping his head back at Terry, he took a purposeful step in his direction and pressed the gun to his forehead. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t fucking kill you?”
“Because you can’t,” he grunted as his eyes flashed over at me.
Alex stepped in front to block me from Terry’s view. “Oh, no, I assure you. I can.”
My mind was slow to catc
h up and follow the rapid actions, but there was so much awe for Alex. The fierce and deadly protection he had for me was more than about ownership, it was love and devotion. There was no fear with him by my side. He would die to keep me safe. It took all I had not to wrap my arms around him and kiss him until my lips fell off.
“Not with the cops so close,” Terry said, desperately grasping at straws. “They’ll be on you the moment that gun goes off.”
“Yeah, but you’d be dead.” Alex reached behind him and pulled me into his back. “It would be worth it to me.”
I laid my head against him and slipped my hands into his jean pockets. Taking deep breaths to inhale him in, my guy bombarded me with the smell of new leather, cigarette smoke, and peppermint.
“Here, just take it!” Dollar bills, coins, and credit cards hit the pavement. “It’s all I got.”
The muscles in Alex’s body tensed as his anger rolled off him in massive tidal waves. “You think I want your fucking money? You think that’s going to save your fucking life right now? What about those God damn marks on her neck? How are you going to pay for those?”
“So, what do you want then? Madison? If that’s what you want, take her. She’s nothing but a strain on my marriage, anyway.”
I rolled my eyes at that poor excuse for a man.
“Oh, I fucking plan on taking Madi far away from you and that worthless mother of hers,” he said, hugging me closer. “You don’t think I heard what you two assholes were saying? You pieces of shit make me sick.”
It only occurred to me then that Susan was still missing. How many minutes had passed? Ten? Twenty? Unless she left her purse on the other side of the world, she was purposely staying gone. It was nauseating to realize that my mom had thrown me into the lion’s den to be torn apart.
What if Alex hadn’t been there?
“We’re pieces of shit?” Terry snorted. “That’s rich coming from a man who’s screwing my seventeen-year-old daughter.”
“I am not your daughter!” I shouted furiously, stepping out from behind Alex’s back. “I’m just some teenage girl you tried to rape!”