by Lily White
But not me.
I knew her mind was like an old steamer trunk, one that held far too many secrets and remained closed by a heavy iron lock to which only Maggie held the key. There were many times I wanted to wrestle those truths out of her, but I couldn’t bring myself to damage a girl that had been hurt and abused by the very things I needed to hear from her.
Her father abused her by failing to protect her.
Her brothers abused her in ways I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
And the secrets she carried abused her by whispering in her ear the dark truth of what was hidden by the shadows of the world around her.
The lurid details weren’t necessary to know how bad those secrets were, I just needed to put an end to the men who’d created them. I needed to stop them before the secrets became so numerous that they destroyed the beautiful girl who struggled daily to contain them.
Destroying Maggie in the process would be unavoidable, but hopefully, she’d have enough to put the pieces of her life back together. Hopefully, she’d finally learn that there was more to the world around her than the scant traces of humanity those books she read allowed her to see.
She deserved first kisses and broken hearts. She deserved furtive glances and shy smiles. She deserved the first time a man that truly loved her laid her down and made her body sing. But most of all, she deserved to know what it felt like to have her heart swell with love and the knowledge that, with the right person beside you, the shadows of her gloomy existence would practically disappear.
Above all, Maggie deserved to know what it was to love and to be loved in return.
I couldn’t give her those moments, but I could clear the path for the person - for the lucky man - who could.
Glancing at the clock, I saw that it was time to go. My plan was to wait until I saw Maggie enter the woods, to give her enough time to reach the abandoned farm and two-story house where she wouldn’t find me as expected. And while the hours ticked by breaking her heart into shards and filling her mind with the truth that I never intended to take her away, I would be ending the Crows, one by one, leaving a blood bath in my wake until the moment came where I ended myself.
Five steps had me outside where I turned to lock my door for the final time. Cool air washed against the skin of my face as I lugged the last heavy duffel bag I’d packed to throw it in the bed of my truck. And as I climbed up to sink my weight against the soft leather bench seat and wrap my fingers over the wheel, I convinced myself that Maggie would overcome this.
She had to.
There was no other choice.
Red rain. It was a memory that relentlessly stalked me through my short life, the terrifying, yet beautiful sparkle of rubies wetting the grass in my mind each time I allowed myself to think back.
I couldn’t remember what the rubies looked like once they dried in the hot sun. Couldn’t remember much except for when they disappeared fully beneath a blanket of dirt my brothers threw over them.
Maybe if I’d been allowed to watch, I would have realized that those rubies changed from a bright red to a dull maroon, and finally disguised themselves within a festering black that mimicked the rough hue of uncut onyx.
If only I’d been given the chance to see what happens when that red is left to dry. Maybe it would have prepared me for the spot I stared at now.
“Just clean the shit up before your dad comes looking for you. I’ll go grab some clean sheets to replace that mess.”
Life hadn’t prepared me at all. Not for the mess, not for the heartache, and not for the nightmare I’d walked into the second I’d returned home.
Especially not for the husband that stood waiting for me when I’d returned.
Refusing to think of myself as stupid, I tried to ignore the scathing words echoing in my thoughts. On my way home, Elliot’s voice had been a soft caress in my head - his pleas for me to run away with him, his desperation to keep me from returning home one last time to say goodbye. I should have listened to him. But the simple fact that I didn’t allowed the scathing words to intrude and drown out the rough grit of Elliot’s voice in my head.
You stupid girl…
…idiotic…dumb…naive…
You can only blame yourself…
My fingers gripped into the wrinkled, white cotton sheets, my eyes fixed to the stain of red, a puddle this time rather than the sprinkle of rain.
Tears welled in my eyes, my vision blurred, and I fought to blink away the sting of memory that shook me. I was succeeding in not sobbing, at least until Jack’s sudden intrusion broke me apart.
“You still haven’t pulled the damn sheets off?”
The tears slipped slowly down my cheeks as soon as I heard his voice.
“Here,” throwing a clean set of sheets at me, Jack paused and smirked. “Would you look at those tears,” he taunted, the tone of his voice slithery and sadistic. “I remember those from last night. And here I thought you’d run out.”
His smirk widened. “Guess not.”
Jack took a step closer, his lewd stare touching every part of my body. He had electric fingers that hurt instead of tickling, claws that were rough and solid, with talons that could rip your soul right from your body. But all of that was disguised behind a crooked smile and dimples that were charming. Jack had a mess of blond hair, and brown eyes with flecks of gold. However, behind those eyes was the same sickness I had seen in my father and brothers over the years, the same sickness that invaded my dreams until I woke up drenched in the sweat of terror.
I heard the women scream when I looked into Jack’s eyes, and now my scream was just one voice within the symphony.
Flinching at the small sensation of his fingertip trailing after one of my tears, I ground my teeth until my jaw ached. I knew better than to move away. Eventually, his finger moved down my cheek and along my jawline.
“There ain’t nothing sweeter than a virgin’s body. It’s a shame I only get to have it one time with you.” He chuckled, the sound causing bile to fight its way up my throat. “Thankfully,” he added, “there’s more women like you for me to ride. When the mood strikes.”
His mouth dropped open in feigned surprise, but it was only seconds before it closed again and his lips pulled up into a lascivious grin. “Oh, but don’t you worry, Maggie. It’ll be months before I move on to something better. It’ll take me that long, at least, to wear you out so much that you’re not fun anymore. By the time shoving my dick in you feels like tossing a hot dog down a hallway, I’ll have found better uses for you. Maybe your brothers can help come up with something.”
Finding my breast, Jack’s fingers wrapped around the weight, the tips digging into the bruises that were there from his attack the night before. With the sun beginning its slow rise over the horizon, shadows crossed over my bedroom, and my mind flashed back. Slumping forward, my shoulders could barely hold the weight of the memories that slammed down on me.
Hurrying home after seeing Elliot had been difficult. Taking those last few steps up the front steps and into the house had been nearly impossible. My father had called out to me as soon as he heard the door creak open and I’d marched through the kitchen, only to turn a corner into the living room and find a nightmare waiting for me from which there would never be the relief of waking.
My father sat in his favorite chair. Finn, Brody and a man I didn’t know waited for me with anticipation blazing behind eyes already dazed with the alcohol I could smell permeating the air. Each man had a bottle in his hand and all four sets of eyes were glued to me as soon as I made my appearance.
“Meet your new husband, Maggie Pie. And don’t give me no argument about it.”
There was no proposal. No ring. No ceremony and no preacher. The cake was absent as were the flowers. There wasn’t a bridesmaid wishing she could be a bride or a first dance. There was simply a sentence and a threat delivered by the mouth of a dying man. A demand that I had no choice to refuse.
I cried as my family joked and carri
ed on. An hour passed before my father’s eyes slowly closed as he slipped off into a drunken sleep. Not a minute passed after he began softly snoring before my brothers turned up the music blasting from a small radio and Jack dragged me back to my room.
The details of my first sexual experience are as harrowing as they are hazy. The pain was my first memory, the humiliation closely following. Not even my desperation to imagine Elliot’s face over Jack’s was enough to ease me through the degradation of my first responsibility as a new wife.
For once the music that hid the screams of the women my family abused was used to hide my screams, and for as loud as I became, for as desperately as I wanted my father to hear me and stop Jack from everything he was doing, the music only became louder.
Snapping me back to the present, Jack’s voice filled the room, amusement set into the tone of his words that forced more tears from my eyes. “I knew that was too much blood for a damn virgin. Filthy bitch. You could have mentioned you were on your fucking period before I fucked you.”
His fist hit the wall near my head. “Clean it the fuck up.”
Leaving me alone in the room, Jack stumbled his way down the hallway toward the living room where my brothers and father still slept off the liquor they consumed the night before.
Unable to stop staring at the blood that covered the sheets, I crumpled down to the floor, pain lancing through my body when the memento Jack had given me to remember my first night with him touched the filthy carpet.
“Stop crying, bitch. They’re just my initials. I want every man who touches you after me to know that I was the first person here.”
It was just a small pocketknife that he’d used, something so small that a person wouldn’t feel threatened by the blade. From the pain, I would have sworn he’d carved so deep that he was etching bone, however I knew that he’d barely sliced the skin where he’d cut me.
Sobs escaped me as my body shook violently, my teeth biting into my lip to keep the sound as soft as possible. I didn’t need Finn or Brody hearing me cry. They would only punish me for not feeling appreciative of the gift they’d given me in Jack.
Gift. Yeah, right. They’d called him that as he’d dragged me away, but I knew better. But even knowing that I was being led off to have my choice stripped away from me, I never realized how bad losing that choice would feel.
I’d been handed off to become somebody else’s problem, and in the process I’d been stripped from the only man that didn’t see me as the burden I’d somehow become to the men who’d raised me.
However, even after I’d been used, abused and left to cry, I still found the strength to keep moving. It took me a few minutes to gather myself enough to push to my feet, and it took another few minutes for me to go through the motions of stripping the bed of the dirty sheets and replacing it with the new ones. What took longer was walking into the bathroom and staring at myself in the mirror – staring, but not really seeing, the girl who now stood before me.
She had the same green eyes, the same black hair and the same round face as I remembered. But the light was missing from her eyes, the hair was a mess of curls that had lost their bounce and luster, and the face no longer held the smile that Elliot had worked so hard to put there.
From one night to the next I’d changed in ways that made me a stranger even to myself. Reality was a crushing weight on my shoulders and the future I’d always wondered about and wanted was now nothing more than a curse.
Showering was as pleasant as it was painful. I washed away the heavy scent of cheap cologne that Jack had left on my skin. I hissed when the water washed down my body to erase the red stain of blood. Daring to look, I twisted around just enough to see that the initials carved into my bottom weren’t so deep that they’d leave more than just a faint white scar when they finally healed. Thankfully the marks were in a place where I wouldn’t see them on a daily basis, and if the opportunity ever came for me to get away from the man who put them there, those scars were something I could ignore.
Not wanting to give up the only time I had to myself, I stood in the shower until the water became too cold for my skin. Gone were the tears, the blood, and the smell of a man I detested – but the bruises still lingered, the pain held tight, and the shame clogged my throat as I climbed out of the shower and got dressed.
My reprieve ended all too soon when the door shook to my right. Someone’s fist pounded against the other side, but they didn’t speak to announce themself.
Pound. Pound. Pound. Each beat made my stomach turn as it vibrated through my battered body.
Swallowing down the scream of frustration that worked its way up my throat, I shuffled across the dirty floor to flip the lock.
“It’s about damn time. There’s something in there that we need.”
Brody stared down at me, his large body blocking the single bulb light in the hallway. “Are you going to move out of my way or what?”
Stepping back, I let him enter the bathroom, the steam escaping out the door as if it, too, had no desire to be in the same space as my brother. Without speaking, I watched Brody pull open the medicine cabinet door and fight through the numerous bottles of out of date painkillers and expired antacids. His hand locked over a small black bag, but his lack of coordination caused him to drop it into the sink as he pulled it from the cabinet.
It wasn’t like I’d never seen the contents of that bag before. Several hypodermic needles and a vial of clear liquid rattled at the bottom of the sink before Brody quickly picked them up and shoved them back into the black bag that contained them.
Turning to me, he grinned. “We’re heading out to hunt. Dad’s staying behind to watch you and make sure you don’t run off before we get back. There’s some groceries in the fridge and we expect dinner to be ready when we return.”
All I could do was nod my head in response. Arguing, crying, screaming…none of those things would do me a lick of good. They would only ensure that the next beating I endured would be harder.
The sun sank past the horizon at half past seven. Sending up a few brilliant rays in protest, it painted the sky a breathtaking rainbow of reds, oranges and pinks that caught my eye and reminded me that beyond this life there was something far more magical, far more fair and beautiful than what I’d ever had the chance to experience.
Peace existed in the afterlife, peace and the serenity of knowing I might see Katelyn again, knowing that I might have the chance to kiss my son one more time before I’m dragged down to whatever punishment God had in store for me. Sure, I hadn’t committed the sins that would damn me just yet, but I would commit them before the sun rose again.
I would maim. I would torture. I would kill. And for that, I would fry. But I wanted to believe that I’d be granted at least one brief moment with the two people who were stolen from me, and that moment would be enough. To see them smile, to know they were okay and together: it would be enough to satisfy me so that I could release my spirit into whatever pit of fire awaited me, and I could smile while I burned.
On one side of me were the shadows of a thick forest. On the other were the wide opened fields of the Crow property, the landscape dotted with nothing but tall weeds, sparse trees and the dilapidated house that stood bastion against the ever darkening sky. The windows were lit by the inside, and every so often a shadow would pass by. I was too far away to see if it was Maggie that paced the room that faced my direction, but I hoped the girl was biding her time, packing her things and preparing to leave the property.
I’d asked her to meet me at eight, and I’d reminded her to wait as long as it took for me to arrive.
Although the sun hadn’t fully disappeared and the moon hadn’t yet taken reign of the night sky, a bonfire shot up in wicked, dancing flames in front of the old house. With clawed fingers, the flames scraped at what remained of a beautiful sunlit day and cast out bits of embers that twinkled upwards into the sky like fireflies released from a netted trap. I’d lost count of how many bits of ash I’d
watched burst into the night air and become lost to the gentle breeze that flowed past me in a chilled whisper of sound.
Around the bonfire sat several chairs; dirty, white plastic that was as broken and weathered as the house from which they’d been pulled. Several times, I’d watched Maggie’s brothers come out of the house to drag out a radio, some food and two oversized coolers that I assumed held the alcohol for the night. Classic rock was a gentle hum in my ear, the radio not loud enough for me to enjoy the music that was playing, but just loud enough for me to recognize a lyric or two before the voice of the singer became lost among the crackle of the bonfire and the rustling of the branches that moved above my head.
Crouched down, I was in the perfect position to monitor the house and as soon as I saw Maggie make her way into the woods, I would carry out the plan I’d been waiting years to finish.
It took everything in me to remain still as Jonah and his boys came meandering out of the house. Obviously inebriated, despite the young hour, they stumbled over the packed dirt and weeds, their low voices carrying across the expanse. I wasn’t able to make out their grumbled words, but I didn’t need to hear what they were saying. Just seeing them lit a fire under my ass that had me fighting myself to keep from ending this all in a quick round of bullets that would slice the night air open and spill Crow blood.
A high-pitched scream tore away from the house drawing my gaze from the Crows. Eyelids narrowed, I peered into the distance to watch a fourth man come ambling around the corner, a woman dragged beside him, her tangled black hair caught viciously in his hand. The woman struggled against his unrelenting hold, her hands grasping at his fist, her feet stumbling beneath her as she fought to free herself.