by V. L. Brock
I was standing in front of the opened cutlery drawer in a trance–like state, not feeling as though I was really there just staring at the glinting silver blades of the knives in silence. My head awash with self-scolding which turned abruptly to anger and resent, I felt my heartbeat increase and vibrate throughout my body. I hated him for having control over me. I hated me for being so weak and not reclaiming it back. I hated that my instant reaction was to fold my fingers around the handle of a jagged blade.
With a shaky hand, I held up the blouse which he had contaminated with his brutality and pierced it with the razor-sharp edge of the knife continuously, shredding it to pieces, wishing it was my body, and letting it drift to the flooring. I soon followed. My body giving way to the burden and invisible heaviness of his, which loitered on my flesh, and with the knife in my hand, I met the floor in a crumpled heap.
Hearing the door slamming in the distance, I allowed myself to be overruled by my despair and dirtiness. The intensified burning of the blade, scouring to and fro across the inside of my forearm, stripping away his touch, was just the beginning. All I wanted was to let my rage and adrenaline bleed out as I took control back.
“Kady––” My breathing came in short, rapid pants, my mouth dry, while my gaze centered on the jagged edge in my hands. “Don’t you dare,” I saw his sneakers enter my peripheral vision when he entered the kitchen, taking the weapon from my hand and tossing it into the sink. “You don’t need to do this anymore, Kady,” he cautioned.
Blood gushed through my ears, my hands rose as I tossed my face into my palms, shaking my head. “I can’t do this…I can’t fucking do this. All I can see is…” When I peeked up from my hands, I didn’t expect to see him gone.
The slamming from down the hallway told me that he fled to the bedroom. I followed the sound of music emanating from behind the door, and in my anger, kicked it open. The sight of him on the edge of the bed, his hands in his hair and shaking was not something I was prepared to see.
“Walker…”
His eyes were fierce, his features, stone, when he peeked up. “I come back and see you attacked. I go out in search for the bastard responsible, and when I come back, I see you with a fucking knife! What the fuck are you thinking, Kady? You don’t need to do that shite anymore.” He pushed himself from the bed, the springs squealing as he reared to full height.
“Me…I wasn’t fucking thinking. I can’t fucking think, Walker; all I can focus on, all I can feel is his weight, his touch…it burns Walker, it fucking burns…” in my desperation, I fell to my knees. “I need help. I just need to numb it, please. Help me, make me numb.”
Seconds…minutes…I have no recollection how much time had passed, all I could do was focus on the hidden parasite burrowing further under my skin, crawling and clawing its way through my body and mind. Finally, the sound of a belt being yanked through the belt loops of his jeans, which were lying on the bed, had my gaze instantly scouring up the length of his body. I found my body rising with my stare. My thumbs naturally began to sink under the band of my pants when I was halted by his firm voice muttering, “No.”
Walker held out his hand, the strip of leather hanging from his grip.
“What are you doing?”
“Take it,” he ordered, his eyes dithering between me and the strap when I didn’t comply immediately.
“Why?”
“Just do it, Kady.”
Warily seizing it from his possession, I watched on as his arms curled behind his head, grasping the neck of his tank-top and pulling it up and off his body. The muscles of his abdomen tensed, his shoulders held back as he raised his head defiantly. Each scar obscuring the golden flesh of his torso was jittering with each quickened breath.
“What are you doing, Walker?”
“I’m helping you.”
Frowning at his words, I chanced a glimpse at the black leather in my hand before peering back at the wall of self-mutilation before me. Oh, no. My head shook without thought, my fingertips felt cold and numb, sending the weapon clattering to the floorboards.
“Pick it up, Kady,” he breathed. Still, I flailed my head as I backed away to put some distance between us, causing him to take a step forward.
“What are you doing?”
His hand came up to cradle the side of my mortified face, his thumb caressing my cheekbone. “I’m helping you––”
“This isn’t helping me, you know how to help me––”
“I’m not going to numb you anymore, Kady. You need it to feel in control. You need to learn to fight back; you need to turn your weakness into an advantage. You need to help me, to help you.”
“NO! I’m not doing it, and you can’t make me.” I stepped back again, feeling the bedside unit behind my legs.
“Pick up the fuckin’ belt, Kady!” he bellowed. “You’re not weak. You’re Kady Jenson. You’re a fucking fighter.” His mouth twitched as his eyes pled with me to let him help.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I sobbed.
With a smile, he muttered with finality, “You can’t hurt me, Kady. Now pick it up.”
Shaking my head with a snivel, I reluctantly lowered myself to the floor and swept up the strip of leather into my grasp. When I reared to full height, Walker was already falling to his knees in front of the bed, his back facing the door, and although his head was low, he was still aiming his gaze over his left shoulder. I watched through my horror as the black panther on his back shifted and expanded with each breath he drank.
My body was shaking, my stomach roiled as my grip tightened around the buckle.
“Take it back, Kady,” he softly commanded over his shoulder.
Sniveling on a trembling breath I looked up to the ceiling. My mouth quivering as twin tears slipped down my cheeks. It was so much easier to numb myself from these feelings. I didn’t want to face them. I didn’t want to embrace them to make me stronger, either. I wanted to feel detachment, numbness, and he wasn’t letting me.
“For each time he took that control from you, take it back.”
I was standing behind him, feeling his expectant gaze on me as I continued holding my head back and listened to his words, while the warmth of my tears left trails down my cheeks.
“Each time he degraded you…take it back.” My heart hammered against my ribcage, my labored breathing aiding yet more weeping gasps from my lips. “Each time he hit you…”
My fingers grew tighter around the buckle, and before I could stop, my arm lifted, my wrist flicked and the sound of leather cut through the air to end with a slash across healthy flesh, sending Walker jerking with the strike, a small gasp traveling on his following words, “Take it all back, Kady. Take it back.”
The re-raising of my arm was shadowed by the many memories of Liam’s deriding words, you’re nothing, you’re stupid, you’re delusional. The sound of cutting flesh from the edge of the belt shaded my words of empowerment, as I shouted my verification of belief between each statement, “I am something.” Whip.
I own you…
“You don’t own me!” Whip.
When an animal shits on your upholstery, you punish it…
“I’m not an animal! I’m not a nothing! I’m not hopeless! I am worth something!” Whip…
Each crash of my arm between statements sent Walker gasping for air and lurching back as the leather continued to rip through his back. Yet in that moment, I was watching from the opposite side of the fence, watching mortified as the man who once loved the woman who would’ve given her life for his, was debased by his ill-treatment and barbaric means. As an outsider, I fought back for the woman he stripped down and remolded into his plaything.
The many scenes of Liam’s hand grasping her jaw…his abusive arm pulling back…his leg colliding into her ribs time and time again…
“I didn’t deserve it!”
Whip…
His strike upon her leaving her cowering in the corner…her head being smashed into the wall…the tablet fo
rced down her throat…
“I am worth more!”
Whip…
“You. Didn’t. Deserve. Me!” Between each word, a rapid lash divided the air, and connected with the enflamed surface of Walker’s beaten back. The black edge of each screaming slash across the panther’s back was raised and raw.
Exhausted and emotionally drained, my fingers loosened around the belt and I fell to my knees. “You were supposed to love me,” I muttered, defeated, to Liam for subjecting me to his sadistic abuse, or to Walker for making me step out of the shadows, see the painful truth and take my control back, I don’t know, but what I did know without a shadow of doubt and a face soaked with tears, was that I was done being a victim.
Kneeling on the floor trembling and weeping, I soon felt warm, caring arms encase me. Careful not to touch the tender rips in his flesh that were done at my hand; I instinctively wrapped my arms around him.
“You were supposed to love me,” I wept into his neck.
As he held me against his chest, my hair was fingered and a kiss planted on top of my head. When I tore myself away and studied his gorgeous face, tears were streaming down his cheeks, too. “Why did you make me do that?”
“Because I had to break you to make you stronger,” his thumbs caught my tears. “Everything you learned while you were with him, everything you resorted to…it’s gone, darlin’. You don’t need to do it anymore…I’m not going to do it to you anymore. This is a chance for a new beginning.”
His words and the numerous acts of sheer, unquestionable passion and determination that he’d carried out during the time I’d known him, gradually began to clear through the torturous haze which obscured everything that I knew for far too long. And before I could talk myself into fighting it, I reached for it with both hands and embraced it. “I love you.”
Through his tears, his dimple appeared as he smiled. “I love you, too, darlin’.” When I snuggled back into the crook of his neck, he spoke again. “If you can find the strength to do that to someone you love, then you can find the strength to do it to someone you hate.”
What was he talking about? Confused, I breathed, “I don’t understand. He knows I’m scared––”
The shake of his head had my words ceasing. I pulled back, studying him. “No. The sick bastard’s using a weakness to control you. He thinks you’re scared. Let him think it and use it to your advantage. I know you’re stronger; you know you’re stronger. You just took control, Kady, and that’ll be the last thing he’ll expect.”
Chapter Eleven
“I remember the night I met you. As soon as I dropped you home I went straight to Laurie’s. She ripped the piss into me then warned me off, but I couldn’t stay away from you. You were a drug, my own personal addiction wrapped in perfection. I wanted to save you. I just wish I could’ve done it sooner. I’m sorry that I didn’t…”
I held onto his voice and the sensation of his fingers tracing my hairline as I was slowly reeled from slumber. Still, I couldn’t find the energy to open my eyes, so I continued to lay motionless at his side and let the soothing sound of his brogue wash over me.
“Seeing you laying in the hospital…it killed me. After everything that was said just before the accident…I was so excited. You have no idea how fucking much I loved that after all that time, you finally chose me. But when I saw the confusion in your eyes…when you couldn’t remember and asked for…” his faltering words were too painful to listen to. So, I fluttered my lids open to be met with a concerned scowl which slowly morphed into an adorning smile.
“Morning,” I muttered, stretching my legs and arching my back.
“Mornin’, darlin’,” he breathed softly. “How’d you sleep?”
The springs groaned when I rolled onto my left side and curled my left hand under my chin. “Surprisingly well,” I answered. My somewhat relieved tone altering into one of seriousness when I added, “Stop torturing yourself.”
“Torturing?”
“About the accident. It’s done; we can’t go back and stop it.” The strands of his hair slipped through my fingers as I pushed my right hand through it. “We got to make the best out of the situation.”
“And that is…?”
I shifted up the bed, and with my hand on his burn scar, I rolled him onto his back and clambered over his hips. He winced and several expletives trailed on his outbreath. “Shit, I’m so, so sorry, Walker. I totally forgot.”
“It’s okay, darlin’. Don’t worry about it. I’ll live, I’ve taken worse…fuck…I’ve done worse,” he muttered sullenly, and I watched as his gaze lazily drifted down to his left pectoral, before locking with me again. “You were about to enlighten me about making the best out of the situation…”
I grinned down at him, his hands clasped on either side of my hips holding me in place. Fingertips unconsciously traced each blemish and each scar of his torso. “We’re here, together. Things happen for a reason, Walker. We have to hit rock bottom and sometimes lose ourselves to remember who we were, who we can be. With the right person, a life can be revived.”
“I like that.”
“That was, Kady Jenson’s ‘Thought of the Day’,” I grinned, his appealing lips beckoning me as I lowered to taste them.
“And before your morning coffee, I am surprised, Miss Jenson…”
My kiss swallowed his words. Resurfacing for air didn’t last long, the instant I caught my breath I set about on a new trail, paving kisses over his stubble and down his jaw to his neck. “Yes, it is, Mr. Walker…” I felt the change in his demeanor instantly, as my endearment caused his entire body to stiffen beneath me. Still, I continued between pressing kisses, “You told me it was just Walker. So, what are you hiding?”
“It is just Walker, Kady.”
“Nuh-uh,” I nibbled on his earlobe, sending his hardened body into a shudder. “I was clearing up yesterday; some mail fell from the lower tier of the table. So what does the G stand for?”
“Nothing.”
“Gilbert?”
His hands wrapped around my upper arms, and I was abruptly torn away from my kissing spree. “Number one, I said nothing, darlin’. Number two, Gilbert? Really? I’m twenty-five and fucking Irish.”
“Gregory?”
His eyes hardened.
“Gaston?” I drawled.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Kady. Will you just leave it please? I don’t…I…it’s not something I want to talk about.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s too fucking hard. Now please, can you drop it?”
Well, that was a reaction I never in a million years contemplated receiving from him. Seeing the pain and conflict in his eyes, I nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. Now kiss me, wench…” and as I was pulled back down to his lips, his brief moment of pique was cast into oblivion, as his tongue was cast into my mouth with lavish, all-consuming sweeps.
“So what’s the plan for today?”
“I was supposed to go to the gym. Uncle Les has got a few jobs around there so I said I could help until I find something more…stable. But after yesterday, I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone.”
“Well, it’s funny you should say that because, I was thinking of going into work.”
His eyes widened, incredulous, “Work? Really? Are you sure that’s a good idea? Are you feeling up to it?”
I knotted my fingers with his then, still straddling him, straightened my back. “I can’t sit surrounded by four walls for the rest of my life, Walker. I’ve been made to feel a victim for long enough. It’s time for me to embrace this new found strength which a certain Irishman is helping me channel…”
He smiled his adorable, boyish smile.
“Plus, we’re only open half day on a Thursday. I was thinking maybe we could pop to Tiffani’s afterward, that’s if you’re not going to be swamped all day.”
“Tiffani’s sounds good.” When his attention wavered down my body and he appeared to be looking thro
ugh me rather than at me, I shuffled in my position, bringing him back to the here and now. “I was wondering––” he began, dazed.
“What?”
His crumpled brow and the deepening V scored between them betrayed his discomfort. “Shouldn’t we go to the police, about what happened yester––?”
My hands plummeted from his and I was soon clambering off his amazing body and stalking to the closet with a heavy foot. “The answer is no.”
“Kady, he assaulted you, sexually. I think we should get the cops.”
My head lulled back as I turned on my heel to face him. His body was shifting up the bed. “So I go down to the precinct, file a complaint then what? They go and bring him in, my word against his. He’ll make bail be royally pissed off then just come back,” I rushed in one single outbreath. With sagging shoulders, I continued, “Do you know why he did what he did? Because I called him.”
“You what?!”
“I called him when you left to tell him to leave us alone. He needs to feel like he has some form of control, Walker. I took that from him yesterday and I taunted him with it. That was why things escalated.”
I swear more of the plaster on the back wall crumbled when he tossed his head back, his hands balled into fists of exasperation, as he strained, “Jesus Christ, you’re doing it again, stop––”
“Stop what?” I shrieked, my arms flying up over my head before dropping heavily at my sides.
“Justifying his actions.”
“I’m not. I’m moving on from it, a new beginning with you. I’m done, no more. Now, could you drop me off at the shop or do I have to call Laurie to pick me up?” I asked, rummaging through the stakes of clothing in the cupboard at the foot of the bed, and I knew that the debate was over. For now, anyway.