by Lily White
“To kill your brothers.”
It felt good not having to lie for once. I’d planned on killing them anyway. All Maggie had done was give me more of a reason.
“You can’t!”
“No, sweetheart, I’m pretty damn sure I can. Painfully and slowly, if you really want to know.” Mad humor dripped from my words, a man on the verge of losing his mind.
“You can’t, Elliot. My father told them to do it.”
Every muscle in my body tensed, my molars gnashing together so hard my jaw felt like it would snap.
Forcing a few deep breaths through my lungs, I fought to control my temper. “Well, then I guess your father has to die, too.”
What kind of sick-minded, hillbilly, woman-beating family did this girl have? I shouldn’t have been surprised, not with what I knew about them already. But the way Maggie had always spoken about them, they protected her, at least.
“Please,” her body shook as she sobbed, her eyes clenching tight enough to turn the skin around them red.
Releasing her fingers from my arm, she slid down giving me barely enough time to catch her. Settling her softly on the floor, I didn’t miss the way she winced when her body touched the ground.
There comes a time in every person’s life when they feel like they’ll break apart completely under the pressure of some insurmountable problem. It didn’t matter who you were, how much money you had, or how good of a person you’ve been, that problem was going to find you one day when you least expected it and rip you apart piece by piece, leaving you deflated, dejected, and detached.
For me, that moment had come and gone so many times, I didn’t have enough fingers and toes to count how often, but never in my life had I felt it as thoroughly and painfully as this.
Losing the battle against the agony and grief inside me, I broke apart on the dirty floor where I sat. Elliot kneeled in front of me, his large, rough palm brushing down my cheek with a gentleness that was in stark contrast to the murderous look behind his eyes.
Unable to speak at first, I sat and cried, embarrassment coming in to fill the emptiness left behind by every tear I shed. Falling to pieces in front of a man who’d lost his family while he was off at war felt like a slap in the face.
Whereas he’d been so strong to continue living after everything he’d endured, I was contemplating what it would take for my life to finally end.
Instantly hating the gentleness of Elliot’s touch because of the weakness and shame it made me feel, I pulled away. Pain shot along my legs, bottom and back from the effort, causing me to cry out in response.
“I’m sorry you’re feeling this way, Maggie. No woman deserves what they’ve done to you.” An edge of barely controlled anger tainted his caring words. “How often does this happen? What haven’t you told me about your family?”
Too close, his questions were getting way too close for comfort. I didn’t know if I hated them because he couldn’t know the answers…or if it was because I wanted nothing more than to sing like a damn canary and finally release the secrets I’d held for so damn long.
He was too tempting, and here in his presence I could allow myself to believe that there was something he could do to make it all end, even if I knew deep down that he couldn’t.
“I have to go, Elliot. They might have followed me and if they find me here with you -”
A finger softly pressed against my lips to silence my words, my eyes trailing up to lock with his. I broke apart all over again when the desire I had for him came flooding back like water through a broken dam. But those desires were quickly cut through by the harsh memories of what my brothers had done.
The sting of the stick they used to beat me was still fresh on my skin. Laughter filled the night sky, laughter and the words that taunted me left ringing through my body as much as the pain. “You thought Daddy would always be here to protect you. Stupid fucking girl. It was only a matter of time…”
“They don’t scare me, Maggie. Stop telling me to run away.”
Another strike, my scream cutting through the dark sky. More laughter. Always laughter. “Your Daddy thinks Jack will keep you safe. He thinks he’ll keep you from the evil. Daddy doesn’t know that Jack’s only holding on to you until we both get our fill. Stealing a woman is one thing, Magpie. Raising her and destroying her when she’s pretty enough to fuck is something else entirely. It’s like raising a hog just to fatten it up for the slaughter.”
A shiver coursed down my spine as the memories assaulted me. Elliot’s observant eyes locked to every expression that crossed my face. “Talk to me, Maggie. Tell me what I can do to help you.”
“You need to leave here and never come back,” I whispered, my voice paralyzed by the fear and memories.
“Where have you been sneaking off to?” Another strike, this one cutting my skin from the force. “You better not have let some stupid fuck take what was rightfully mine.” A finger violating my body broke me apart so thoroughly I lost the ability to breathe. “Do you know what I’ll do to your boyfriend when I find him? Do you know that when I kill him, I’ll force you to watch? What will he see when he’s lying there dying, Maggie? He’ll see your face as I’m fucking you from behind.”
Swallowing down the lump of shame and regret, I cast my eyes at the ground, somehow finding the strength to speak again. “I need to go home. My brothers left for a few hours, but I don’t know if they’re out looking around for you right this moment. This farm is the first place they’d check.”
“I’m not scared of them, Maggie. Tell me what they did to you.”
Finn got so close to fucking me where I was bent over an old sawhorse in the backyard that Brody had to step in and pull him off. “Not now, Finn. The old man might look out here and see this is more than a spanking. Stand back, it’s my turn with the stick.” I glanced up when Finn circled to stand in front of me. His smile stretched from ear to ear. Unbuttoning his jeans, he pulled his dick into his hands, stroking himself with his eyes locked on me. “Be sure to hit her hard, Brody. It turns me on to hear her scream.”
Fighting to keep from retching at the memory, I shook my head. I couldn’t tell Elliot what they’d done to me. I was too ashamed.
Elliot’s finger caught me beneath the chin and tilted my face up to look at him. “I can take you away, Maggie. I can save you from all of them.”
Finn stroked himself long and hard, the motion of his hand speeding up with every strike of the stick against my ass. I opened my mouth on another scream and felt something warm and sticky hit my cheek. Unable to fight back, my body submitted when I heard my brothers laugh.
“Do you really want to stay with them, Maggie? Or would you rather be with me instead?”
“We’ll have to clean you up before taking you back in. It might finally kill the old man to see how much of a whore you’re becoming.” Using an old rag, Finn wiped the filth away, his eyes catching mine before he threatened, “And don’t even think about saying anything to him. He won’t believe you.”
“I can marry you, Maggie. I can give you a brand new life.”
My eyes shot up to stare at Elliot from behind the blur of tears. “You would do that?”
“Did you really think we share the same mommy and daddy, Maggie? Did you really think we were all just one big happy family?”
A kiss pressed to my forehead, I gave in and let Elliot take me into his arms, the memories assaulting me and tearing me apart on the inside.
“I’ve got you, beautiful. And if you’ll allow me to help you, I’ll never let you go.”
“Your mother wasn’t someone the old man loved. She was just another useless whore pregnant with another man’s baby.”
They weren’t my brothers. At least that’s what they’d claimed. I preferred to believe them even if I didn’t know whether they’d told the truth. Was the man I’d loved my entire life really my dad? Even if he wasn’t my biological father, he was still the man that raised me. My love for him was true regardless. I wa
sn’t sure I could leave him alone to die.
With each passing day, I was running out of options. I didn’t know what to believe. All my life had been lies, hiding spots and secrets. What’s to say that my entire existence hadn’t been more of the same?
Dragging in a shaky breath, I settled on what portions of truth I would give Elliot. He didn’t have to know the entire story. Carefully selected bits and pieces would suffice to make him understand without implicating my part in the sordid history of my family. He couldn’t know the full story. If he knew, he would hate me for what I’d done.
My voice barely a whisper, I explained, “I told you my father and brothers raised me. And I’ve told you that they’ve protected me from the world. None of that was a lie.”
“This doesn’t look like protection,” Elliot argued. “What this looks like is sadistic abuse.”
Nodding my head, I couldn’t disagree.
I’d winced while looking in the mirror that morning, covering my body with as loose a dress as possible to keep the material from aggravating the painful and angry marks.
“My father wants me to get married to some man I don’t even know. A friend of my brothers. He’s supposed to come to the house tonight and I told my father that I didn’t want to marry a stranger. For arguing, I got whipped with a switch. I’m not supposed to talk back or complain.”
Violence coursed through Elliot’s silent stare. Cold and ominous, the reaction was a vibration rolling off of him in vicious waves that crashed against me. Shivering in response, I lowered my eyes, turning my attention to anything besides the man that sat in judgment of my train wreck of a family.
“What happens if you refuse to marry him?” His voice was rough, but somehow gentle, grittiness giving it an edge I could feel down to my bones.
“They’ll make me marry him anyway,” I answered on a trembling breath. “It’s like Daddy said: I don’t have a real education. I’ve never had a job. And my brothers certainly won’t support me.”
Shivering at the thought of my brothers, I remembered I was spending too much time with Elliot. Every second that passed was only putting his life in more danger. Moving as if to get up, I was forced back down onto Elliot’s lap when his strong hand gripped my arm.
“You do realize that we live in the United States, right? And that the year is 2017?”
Narrowing my eyes at the odd question, I finally locked my gaze to his. “Yes. I might not have gone to school, but I’m far from stupid.”
His lips pulled into a smirk. “Well, if you know that, then why do you think anybody has the right to tell you who you will and will not marry? That’s your decision,” he tapped the tip of his finger on my nose, “and yours alone.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Marry me.”
It was the second time he’d said the words. My heart stuttered over the hope I knew better than to feel. Wishing it wasn’t that way, I hated that every time I let a little bit of light into my dark existence, the pain would come to take it all away.
Shaking my head, a tear rolled down my cheek. “You don’t mean it. You don’t even really know me -”
“I don’t need to,” Elliot answered. “Run away with me, Maggie. Let me take you from the life you’ve been forced to live and show you what it means to be happy with the life you choose to live. Right now, Maggie. Just walk away with me and don’t look back. You have the strength to make that choice.”
Choice. It was such a simple, one syllable word that rolled off the tongues of most people without true consideration of how fleeting the concept could be, at least that’s the way I saw it.
“Choice isn’t something I’m used to having. My family took that away from me from the minute I was born.”
Arching a brow at the statement, Elliot settled himself on the floor beneath me, no longer holding me in place because I’d given up running. “Nobody can take away your choice. Your family told you what to do. You made the choice to listen to them.”
Our eyes locked, my teeth worrying the back of my cheek. Lost in thought, and finally finding the answer I was seeking, I breathed out before saying, “What if the consequences of disobeying are torture or death?”
“You’re still choosing. Even if the choice is to die, it’s still yours to make.”
Silence fell between us, pregnant and weighted with the unanswered question that still hung precariously in the air.
“What’s your choice, Maggie?”
“What are you going to do when the old man dies, Maggie?” Finn’s soft laughter sent chills along my spine, my entire body limp and shaking from the punishment I’d endured. Lifted from the sawhorse by Brody, I was dragged away. Barely able to open my eyes, I saw Finn smile one more time before Brody was able to get me inside the house.
Elliot’s hands gripped my shoulders to shake me from the memory. “Maggie? You need to make a choice for once in your life. What is it going to be?”
It didn’t matter what Finn and Brody said, my father was still a person I loved dearly. Tears streamed down my cheeks, my heart racing hard as fear crept through me and stole my ability to breathe.
“Maggie?”
Locking my eyes with Elliot’s, I blinked away the tears that clung stubbornly to my lashes.
“I have to go home, Elliot. I have to say goodbye.”
When Elliot opened his mouth to protest, I shook my head, placing my hand softly over his lips.
“I can get away tomorrow night when they have their party. I can run, Elliot, and I can marry you.”
Henry showed up at my house late in the evening, which didn’t surprise me in the slightest. After assuring my boss that I was doing just fine, I requested the following day off to handle some personal matters. Henry didn’t ask questions, but simply told me to take as much time as I needed.
Thankful for that small favor, I made my final preparations through the night, including writing a letter to Henry about Maggie’s possible skills as a mechanic. As soon as word got out that the Crows and I had died, I knew it would only be a matter of time before my parents came by my place to tear it apart in search of answers. They’d find the letter, and being the respectable people they were, they’d deliver it to Henry.
Only able to sleep for a few hours, I got up the next morning before the sun took its place in the sky. After giving myself a quiet moment to enjoy a cup of black, bitter coffee, I made my way to the bank and pulled out what was left of my meager savings. It wasn’t much, but it would have to be enough for Maggie to get by.
Back at home, I set three envelopes - the letter to my parents, the letter to Henry, and the money intended for Maggie - on my desk. I had to believe my parents would do the right thing with the money by finding the girl I regretted having lied to and giving her the envelope.
Technically, I still had forty-eight hours left until the anniversary of Katelyn and Michael’s disappearance, but from what Maggie had admitted to me, the Crows would have flown off to their next destination if I waited that amount of time.
Only a fool would wait and pass up the opportunity to make things right.
I didn’t regret that tonight would be the end of my life. The people I loved and who loved me in return would just have to understand. Without Katelyn or Michael, I hadn’t truly lived a single day for the past fourteen years. Sure, my heart had beat its vengeful rhythm, and I’d drawn fetid breath into my lungs. My brain had fired and my body had moved through the usual motions, but none of that had been life.
My life had vanished into thin air with my family - their bodies, their laughter, their spirits lost to me so long ago. Finishing myself off once my vengeance had been sated would only be a small courtesy I paid for having endured so long to discover the truth of their fate.
Maggie still hadn’t admitted her family’s involvement. She’d been careful to never cross that line. But she had given me enough information about the men that raised her to give me a damn good excuse to go in and demand that informatio
n from the male Crows myself.
Thankfully, I now knew I could do what needed to be done with minimal concern about Maggie becoming collateral damage.
She’d believed the lie that I wouldn’t be able to reach the adjacent farm until after nightfall. She’d easily agreed to wait until late in the evening to meet me at the two story house that sat abandoned in the large field. But I would never meet her as I’d promised. Instead, she’d wait until her heart had shattered beneath the understanding that I never intended to run away with her, and she’d return to her home to discover the reason why.
It pleased me to know I wouldn’t have to worry about Maggie’s safety while taking my revenge, but it drove a sharp spike of pain through my soul to know that I would destroy her heart in the process.
Would she be able to survive on her own? That was the question that plagued me, the question that ran through my thoughts so forcefully that it tore me from sleep each night since I’d decided to end the Crows.
The question couldn’t matter in the end. Maggie wasn’t my concern. She wasn’t one of the two people I’d sworn to protect on the day I married Katelyn and on the day I first kissed the cheek of my newborn son. I’d failed to protect those people, and I would fail to protect Maggie from the aftermath of what I had planned for her family.
I had to believe she was strong enough to survive, not that I would change my mind even if I knew she wouldn’t. Nothing could stop me now that I’d set the final steps in motion.
Packing the final tools I’d need to carry out my plan, I fought to keep my mind from returning back to Maggie. I didn’t want to consider her as part of the grand plan. I didn’t want to acknowledge the harrowing truth that she would become collateral damage no matter what I did to prevent it.
She was as innocent as they came. Obviously sheltered her entire life, the girl knew nothing about the real world. From what she’d told me during the hours we’d spent together, her understanding of the world, beyond her family and home, came from the romance novels she’d been able to sneak under her father’s watchful gaze.
I wasn’t sure what to think of the old man. By Maggie’s account, he watched over her, protected her, loved her. But there was more to the story about Jonah Crow. I didn’t miss the way Maggie’s eyes shadowed over when I asked about their family business. I didn’t fail to notice the shiver of fear that crawled across her skin when she remembered back to events she was always quick to hide. She was skilled at changing subjects so quickly a normal person would only assume something more exciting had crossed her mind.