“No, not to join us! Tomorrow is just for me. I just meant, do you want to go back to the club, explore a little on your own?”
“Oh, right.” Embarrassment manifests on her face. “I’ll think about it.”
“Okay, well, I think you should. You’ll have fun.” I drain the last of the few precious drops of coffee from my cup.
“Rylan, can I ask you something?”
“Sure, anything.”
“When you told me about your dad…”
Tatum didn’t ask many questions when I opened up to her the last time we were at this coffee shop. I guess she’s had something on the tip of her tongue since then.
“I sensed there was more to the story, and you seem guarded, maybe even closed off, whenever you mention your mom. What happened between you and her?”
“My mom was an addict. I think she was my whole life, but when my dad passed, she couldn’t keep it hidden anymore.”
“Things got bad after your dad died? I mean, your relationship with her?”
“Yeah, Tatum. Things got bad between my mom and me.” Real bad.
“I’m sorry, Rylan. I can’t even imagine.”
“It’s okay. It’s in the past.” Is it though? Sometimes, I have trouble believing the things we go through ever really leave us completely.
I open my computer, shutting down my emotions. I told Tatum she could ask me anything, but I’ve never been great at opening up, especially about my mom.
Tatum takes my hint. “I should probably head over to group, so I’m not late.”
I figuratively brush the dark clouds from around my head, striving for normalcy. “Tatum, how long have you been going to those meetings?”
“I’ve been going every week for about six months.” She stands and reaches for her purse.
“And you go on your own? No one is mandating you to attend?”
Tatum edges away from our table. “Yep, all me. Sometimes, you just need to adjust the bolts and tighten the screws. I really need to go now.”
Tatum leaves, and I’m left alone, still thinking about my life after my dad died. I planned to work on my latest article, but instead of working, I lightly tap the keys and allow the blank page to mock me.
Rylan
Fifteen Years Old
My tired body hits the sheets with a thud. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in over a week because of all the chaos within my home, and on top of that, I’ve had midterm exams every day. To say I’m exhausted is an understatement, but tonight, my house is finally quiet. My eyes close after only a few seconds, and I begin to drift.
Late at night, I can’t help but think about my dad. He died two years ago of sudden cardiac arrest, and I’ve been in silent pain every day since.
That moment in this very bedroom ripped out my heart and branded me. Death has a scarlet letter, too, and its marking is powerful enough to take over who you are completely. I’ve become a teenager pissed off at fate, and the rage inside me is toxic. That day in the car with Aria, I didn’t know what my existence would become. I thought I had to learn how to live without the man I’d idolized my whole life, which was true but the changes were so much more than that. Everything else changed, too—my friends, my tastes, and even my morals. Not to mention, the way the world saw me and the way I saw the world, the people I could trust, my experiences, and my story. That day changed the path of my innocence, and my childhood was gone. I had been living in the light before Dad died, but now, everything was dark.
What was once perfect is now damaged.
A door downstairs slams, and I groan, interrupted from drifting off to sleep.
Voices echo against the walls, and music starts to blare. I pull a pillow over my head in an effort to drown out the noise, but it does very little, and I begin to toss and turn. My quiet night just shifted into another sleepless one.
This sort of thing has been happening a lot lately. It seems the only way Mom can cope is by finding the bottom of a bottle and surrounding herself with scum.
The revolving door of drunks and sketchy men opened only a few months after my dad’s funeral. My home that was once filled with love has quickly become a party spot for middle-aged train wrecks and men that stare a little too long at a girl much too young for them.
The transformation was so quick. Any traces of Dad vanished. Pictures, mementos, and his favorite coffee mug in the cabinet were there one day and gone the next. In one of Mom’s selfish fits of depression and booze, she didn’t even think to ask me if there was anything of his I wanted before tossing it all.
I lie in bed, too tired to even think but unable to rest.
Late into the morning, the house finally begins to settle. Drunks get in their cars, putting other lives at risk by driving home. The music shuts off, and the voices become murmurs until everything goes quiet.
I roll over on my side, hopeful I can finally sleep.
Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.
My whole body goes deathly still as my eyes open and stare, unblinking, at my doorknob. The handle on my door shakes, but it’s locked, so it doesn’t open. A shadow of whoever is outside cuts two dark patches into the hallway light filtering under the crack of my door. I sit up in my bed, unable to escape, petrified about who is on the other side. I was being so naive, believing the night was over.
In the last few years, I’ve discovered monsters that go bump in the night are very real. Living, breathing boogeymen and Bloody Marys bring more chills than anything hidden under your bed or summoned in your bathroom mirror.
This reminder gives me the courage to move. My hands shake as I tiptoe out of my bed, scanning the room. I can hear the lock being jimmied, and I pick up my speed. I use all my strength to push my dresser in front of my bedroom door. It’s heavy, and I have to brace my foot against a wall to leverage myself, but I move it. Just as the piece of furniture barricades me in, the lock clicks, and my door cracks open.
Tears spring up in my eyes, and I back up, hoping the piece of furniture is enough to keep whoever it is out. I sink to the floor against my closet door and pull my knees to my chest, willing my hands not to shake. Both fear and anger surge through me.
How can my mom bring these beasts into our home? She obviously gives very little thought about me.
“Let me in,” a slurred voice urges.
Panic turns my stomach as the man uses his shoulder to push the door, shoving the dresser hard enough that it moves a few inches. A beam of dim light slices through my room, and I know the man can see me. He pushes again, and my barricade begins to crumble.
Instinct takes over.
I need to get the hell out of here.
His eyes follow me through the dark. I scramble into action, find my backpack in the corner of the room, and sling it over my shoulder. I open my window with jerky movements and glance down at the ground from my second-story bedroom. Then, I pop the screen out, damaging it in my hurry. The dresser no longer holds him back, and books tumble to the floor. My right foot joins my left on the roof just as he successfully enters. His head darts out the window as I scale the edge of the roof and jump to the ground.
My ankle twists on impact, and my skin is scraped from the landing, but there are much more detrimental bruises that occur within. I now know that I’m on my own, and Mom can’t be counted on to keep me safe. I won’t let her turn me into a victim. I’ll have to adapt to my new normal. I need to survive even if the person I once was doesn’t.
I walk to the neighborhood park and curl up for the night. The realization that the cold metal of a public bench is safer than my own bedroom hits me hard. I’m in and out of sleep for a few hours, but it isn’t long before the sun peeks over the horizon, and I head over to Aria’s. She is my only safety now, my last foothold left in a world that can be good. She’ll keep the evil from completely tarnishing me.
My knuckles tap against the glass, and it wakes Aria up. With sleepy eyes, she opens her window, and without question, she lets me in. I crawl into her bed
and relive my nightmare with the only person in the world I can count on. She cries for my circumstances, and I comfort her. It doesn’t sound like the dynamic that should follow, but it is exactly what I need, and she knows that. She is brave enough to cry for me because I can’t let down the barriers. When I comfort her, I am really consoling the scared little girl I have tucked away inside myself. It’s the only way I can be vulnerable while needing to be strong. In this scenario with my best friend we pretend I am the fearless one.
“Don’t you dare sleep in that park again, Rylan. Your place is with me,” she scolds me with a desperate plea in her voice.
I know she’s telling me that what’s hers is mine, and I love her for it. If I had anything to give her, I would give it to her, too.
“I promise.” I cuddle in closer to her bright light.
“I love you almost as much as tacos.” Her lips kiss my forehead.
“I love you almost as much as ice cream.” Sometimes, that declaration is automatic, but this morning, it couldn’t hold more meaning.
The alarm next to her bed goes off, and we both get out of her bed quietly. I dress in her clothes after getting ready with her things in her bathroom, too afraid to go back to my own home. Aria attempts to hide the dark circles under my eyes with her makeup, but it doesn’t really work.
I go about another day of exams at school, even more exhausted than I was yesterday. I blow off one of my tests and hide in the girls’ locker room to get some sleep. It isn’t the first test I’ve blown off since Dad died, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
I am now the girl from the broken home. Over the last few years, I’ve grown used to the whispered truths about my family. People pretend what is happening isn’t, but lately, my family baggage has been out there for everyone to see. Mom makes sure we can’t keep our dirty secrets hidden. She drinks, and the neighbors politely clink glasses with her. She causes a public spectacle, and with pity-filled eyes, people blame grief.
They rationalize.
They excuse.
She has a lot going on. She’s dealing with her loss the only way she can manage. She just needs time and understanding.
What about me? What about the daughter she is supposed to protect? What about my grief? Does anyone care?
I’ve quickly learned that not rocking society’s cradle is much more important than a young girl in serious trouble. I have turned into the girl people like to ignore because it’s rude to give power to what my reality has become—dark and hopeless, a sordid tale the neighbors pretend doesn’t exist. I’ve learned that friendly people are everywhere to be found when things are good but flutter like smoke in the wind when everything goes wrong. No one wants to be involved. No one wants to overstep boundaries. No one sees, but everyone gossips.
Everyone, except for Aria.
She is there for everything—the good, bad, and ugly.
But last night chipped away little pieces of my soul, and eventually, there might be nothing left.
Callen
Heads turn when Rylan enters the club. Men and women stop what they’re doing to openly gawk at her. In a club full of naked bodies with aphrodisiac seeping from the walls, she still holds everyone’s attention. The brazenness of her attitude, her confidence, and the glint of something wicked behind her eyes are all reasons she captures a room.
Tonight, she’s mine—to destroy, to conquer, and to bleed dry.
When I’m done with her, she’ll have nothing left to give.
I can taste her submission.
I’m going to break her and enjoy every fucking second of her dissolution.
“Hi, Callen.”
She comes to a stop on the other side of my table. She’s wearing the same black trench coat she escaped in the night I saw her leaving with her friend. The same friend who now stands beside her and looks much more like a mouse when she isn’t suited up with a plastic dick.
Rylan taps her pointed black heel as I take in the view of the two girls.
“Two for the price of one.” I stand to claim my prizes.
“One for the price of leaving you chained to the wall with your dick in your hand.”
I pull her friend toward me. “You didn’t even ask your friend, Little Bird. Maybe she wants to share you with me.”
“My name is Tatum, and I don’t like to share.”
Tatum pushes from my grasp. I guess the girl does have some fire inside her outside the bedroom. I didn’t really want her to join us—at least, not tonight. I plan to devote every bit of my attention to Rylan. She deserves it after her stunt. I smile at Tatum, who scowls back at me. Seems I didn’t make a very good impression.
“Are you done messing with my friend? I believe we have a room to book.”
Rylan takes hold of Tatum’s hand to send a silent message to her friend. They share a look, and Tatum walks off. The way girls can communicate like that is fucking freaky.
“The room is already booked. It’s ready when you are.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
The doorman, who is not the same one who was sent to unlock me, checks our ticket and then pushes the door open to let us through. We travel the hallways to the specialty area where the rooms for fetishes and more advanced kink are. She walks beside me with her head held high, and the sway of her hips is muted by the shape of the coat.
I can’t wait for her to break under my hands.
I open the door to room twelve, and our night begins.
“You didn’t book a private room?” she questions, interest coloring her words.
“I want everyone to see what’s about to happen to you. You like people watching, right?”
I want them to see me destroy her.
“We can see them watching us in this room,” she states the obvious as strangers waltz by the room outside the four walls around us.
“I want you to see their faces as you scream my name.”
“Do you think you can? Make me scream, that is?”
“Yes.”
“And how exactly do you think you’ll accomplish that?”
Curiosity thrums inside me as I tilt my head, taking her in. “I’m very good, Little Bird. Do you trust me?”
She scoffs and glances around the room before saying, “I trust you in here—with my body. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, but I don’t trust anyone completely.”
I wouldn’t trust any part of me with any part of her, but I guess there is a sense of safety for her here, in the club.
The equipment—the bondage set in the center of the room—draws my attention. It’s a platform for her to kneel on. A bar that looks like a guillotine but without the blade rises from the front of the stand. The bar isn’t for her head, though. It’s for her hands.
“Kneel,” is all I have to say.
And she drops her coat to the floor and kneels. I bind her ankles with the attached leather straps and stand back to admire my capture.
She’s in all red tonight, and the sight of her briefly stuns me. Her tits are pushed up high, practically spilling out of the corset laced down her back. The set of strings impersonating a pair of panties does nothing to hide her wet cunt or the cheeks of her ass that I plan to redden. My dick swells behind my jeans at the thought.
“Arms behind you, on the bar.”
Without protest, she obeys my command, but before I can lock up her wrists, she speaks, causing me to pause, “One more thing, my safe word is apples, but I doubt you’ll hear it from me.”
“Apples? That’s an odd choice, right?”
“I think it’s perfect.”
There is a hidden secret within the smile she throws my way as the lock clicks, securing her wrists.
She’s mine—on her knees, restrained, and at my mercy.
I’m going to fucking love this. I pull the paddle from Rylan’s bag and glide back to her, so I’m standing behind her but just off to one side. I touch her lightly, trailing it from her shoulder and down her spine and ending with three light
taps across her flawless ass cheek.
“Are you nervous yet, Little Bird?”
“Not even a little.”
I lean forward, so I can whisper in her ear, “Well, you should be.”
I am going to fuck her, but first, I want to show her just what a bad idea it was to leave me the other day. A little voice in my head taunts me, telling me that it isn’t just about my wounded ego. That I’ll get off on bruising her skin in the same way I got off on carving the number into my last victim’s chest.
“Are you ready, Little Bird?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to ruin you.”
She moans. She fucking moans as the words leave my mouth.
Fucking Christ.
“You can try.”
WHACK.
The paddle vibrates in my hand as I bring it against her skin. An angry red mark begins to appear on her left cheek.
She turns to look over her shoulder at me, lust glazes her eyes as her lips part, and she breathes a single word, “More.”
I bring the paddle down again, my dick hardening at the satisfying noise it makes as it lands on her skin. Her eyes flutter closed, as if she’s in ecstasy, as I deliver another.
When I manage to drag my eyes away from her face, I find an imprint of the paddle clear on her skin. My fingers move to trace it, and heat radiates against the palm of my hand as I soothe the sting with a gentle touch. She moans and begs for more.
Breaking her will be harder than I thought but a lot more fun.
A crowd of people begins to form outside our room, peering at us through the glass.
Whack.
Whack.
I strike her two times on the opposite cheek. The left and right side of her ass now match. Not once did she scream in anguish as the wood struck her skin.
I drop the paddle and stand behind her, reaching out to touch the welted areas of her ass. I trace the ridges of her contusions, and she attempts to push herself back toward me.
“I’ve underestimated you.”
She just pushes back, exposing herself even more to me and giving me confirmation of just how much she enjoyed it. She’s soaked between her legs, and the wetness coats down the inside of her thighs. My hand leaves her ass, and my fingers play in her arousal.
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