Winters Absolution
An Obsidian Blades MC Novel
By: Kristina Canady
Text copyright © 2016 by Kristina Canady
All rights reserved.
First E-book Edition: May 25, 2017
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a fictional novel. All content, including: names, characters, incidences, and places, are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is not intended by the author and is coincidental.
Warning: This book contains strong adult content, and trigger situations such as graphic sex, rape and language and is not intended for persons under the age of 18 or anyone who may be offended by such content.
Cataloging-in-Publication Date is on-file at the Library of Congress
Book design/formatting by Kristina Canady
Cover design and layout by Sassy Queens of Design
Cover Model Stefan NorthField
Photo of Stefan Northfield by Eric Battershell Photography
Editing Acknowledgments: Kathleen Payne
Dedication:
To all of those who have ever had their own free will stripped from their delicate grasp, without their permission. To all of those who have ever witnessed or experienced the unimaginable. To all of those who have been lost in the dark, nonsensical, mosaic tiled pieces of a trauma filled mind. To all of those who have proudly self-sacrificed in the service of others, only to walk away with things they cannot shake; they wouldn’t change it for the world, but they are scarred nonetheless. May you all warrior on in your search to heal, to become whole again, to find healthy ways to fill the void with long lasting, life affirming matter. You are not alone. Your voice does matter. Your story is important. You are divine and are not defined by your experiences. We all find our way to recovery on the path that makes sense to us, as there is no one pill, one exercise, one therapeutic measure that can fit all. Recovery must be custom tailored, custom fit to the remarkable, uniqueness of you. Thank you for being so very brave.
Winter’s Absolution Prologue
Summer 2016
“Dr. Louvel, did you hear me?” Maria’s sweet voice traverses through the distant memories of my past.
“I’m sorry. Yes, Maria. You were just talking about the shame you feel when walking in public. Please, go on.” I hate that big cases like Maria’s still have the ability to trigger me like this. It becomes a match of wills within myself just to hold it together and not break down in front of my clients. They need me to be strong.
The lines in her pinched brow smooth back out, and she continues with a bit more confidence. “Yeah, maybe it’s the guilt I still feel too… driving the shame? Feeling guilty for feeling shame? I don’t know. It’s all twisted and stupid.” She runs a hand over her perfectly smoothed bun.
“Maria, you are allowed to feel how you feel. No one has a right to tell you otherwise. Our process is our process.” I cross and uncross my legs, trying to shake off my own crap.
“I know. You said that last time. I’m trying to remember that.” She lets out a frustrated sigh.
“It’s more about accepting. When we accept all parts of ourselves, good and bad, they start to lose their power over us.”
“But that feels like I’m giving the bad parts permission to keep messing up my life.” She picks at the invisible lint on her floral print dress, not meeting my eyes.
“I can respect that. I felt the same way at one time. But I quickly learned that acknowledgment of a behavior wasn’t a pass to let it keep going on. Acknowledging it led to an understanding, so I could then turn around and change it. It’s like this—no one is perfect. We all have our things. Me personally? I’m a super bitch when I’m hungry; I’ll tear anyone’s head off. I used to just do it and not think twice. Now, I understand it, so when it hits, I explain to those I’m with that I need a snack before my anger gets the best of me. I accept this about myself. When it comes up, I remind myself that it’s just that thing again. To chill out and eat a Snickers. Accepting it for what it is, and working to change the behavior isn’t giving oneself permission to be an ultimate bitch and take it out on everyone else. I own it, so I take accountability for it. Make sense?”
“Yeah, I guess. Still trying to figure out how I apply that to the bigger things like the guilt and shame that make it hard to function,” she says in a meek voice, sounding hopeless.
“Let’s start with shame. You were brutally raped and left for dead. You already know you didn’t do anything to deserve it.”
“Kinda, but still working on it,” Maria replies.
“It’s all work—work that won’t ever stop. We just get better at doing it. Don’t expect perfection with this process.”
If perfection was the end goal, we’d all be fucked for life, I think with a barely suppressed sigh.
Her big brown eyes jump up to find my grey ones. “But I just want to be whole again,” she almost begs. God, my heart breaks for her, like it does for every survivor who walks through my door.
“Maria, you already are whole, all by yourself. We are just hammering out a few dents and dings, but that doesn’t ever make you less than. Not ever.” Her eyes begin to shimmer with heaviness as the emotional weight of what she battles just to get out of bed every morning takes over. It’s a struggle I know all too well.
“I feel like a piece of Swiss cheese, full of holes. Who the hell is ever going to want me after that?”
“We can’t stop our brains from creating stories around traumatic situations. We all respond differently, developing our own brand of anxiety and self-discrimination. However, we can take some of the power out of those negative thoughts that run around like ill-behaved demons in our heads. Can we try something?”
Maria shifts uncomfortably in her overstuffed seat, then tucks her feet up under her before nodding.
“This is going to be uncomfortable at first. Do you trust me?” She nods once. “I know we’ve done some cognitive therapy before using the imagination, but this will be a bit more in depth. Close your eyes and picture yourself lying on the floor of that hotel room.”
She squirms and shakes her head, her throat closing off with apparent emotion as she tries to clear it.
“Maria, please try?”
She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. I give her as much time as she needs as her face pales in remembrance of that horrific day. No doubt, the morbid details she’d rather forget—from the pain of the first strike, to the sound of his flesh slapping on hers, to the specks of blood that will never come out of her favorite dress—violently take over her mind.
The little indoor water fountain I have bubbles away as I intently watch her. I can sense the calming music in the background lulling her heightened emotions back to a more serene place as she unconsciously sways to the beat. “Okay,” she says, letting me know she is finally there.
“What do you see?” My eyes track her every movement—the subtle actions tell me more than words ever can. Her shoulders remain slumped as they have this whole session, but her hands begin to fist the lengths of her skirt as fear and anger creep in.
“I see a pathetic, weak woman who knew better. She saw the signs at the beginning of the date, but she didn’t listen to her gut. She should feel ashamed of hers
elf,” she grits out as hot tears spill down her rounded cheeks.
“Maria, stay in the moment. Hold onto the picture in your mind, but this time, imagine it is your sister instead. Same story. She saw the signs too, but she didn’t listen. Now describe to me what you see.”
She whimpers through the snot the tears have brought. Producing a tissue from one of her balled-up fists, she angrily wipes at her beautiful face. “I can’t do this,” she says in disgust.
“Please try. This is just an exercise. Julia is safe.”
It takes Maria a few minutes to get back into character. Apparently trusting that I’d never ask her to do something like this unless there was a healing purpose, she tries to slow her emotional tide with a few deep breaths before answering. “I see an innocent woman, one who was probably lost in her own hope and desire for love, getting her dignity ripped from her for no reason. I see a woman suffering at the hands of some insane psychopath.” The last word is shaky.
“Very good. Keep your mind fixed right there. Is she weak and pathetic?” The gentleness in my tone is meant to soothe.
“God, no!” It’s a horrified whisper. Her puffy features tighten, and she hits the pillow on her lap.
“Should she be ashamed?” I keep my voice calm.
“Not at all.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s innocent.”
“Did Julia deserve that treatment?”
“No! No one does—not ever.” The reverberation in her conviction slowly takes hold of the moment.
“Does Julia deserve the world looking at her in shame?”
“No! She’s a beautiful, innocent woman who deserves all the love in the world,” Maria replies in an explosion of emotion, throwing her head forward into her hands. I give her a moment to move through the pain of the exercise. Her shoulders tremble as seconds slip into minutes.
Sensing the need to continue, I move on before my window is lost. “Maria, can you still see the image of the woman on the floor of the hotel room?”
She nods into her hands.
“Replace her face with yours and repeat what you just said.”
Maria shifts again, eyes remaining closed. “She’s a beautiful, innocent woman who deserves all the love in the world,” she mumbles through fingers still pressed to her lips. It didn’t come out with as much strength as when she pictured her sister. It sounds more like she is trying on the words, seeing how they fit.
I find people often lack the right words to appropriately describe emotions, which makes the whole process of healing a tricky bitch.
“Open your eyes,” I say patiently. “Say it again, but this time, start your sentence with I.’”
“I am a beautiful, innocent woman who deserves all the love in the world.” Maria sits straight up and repeats it a few more times, each repetition gaining a bit more conviction. By the end of the fifth, she’s sitting the tallest I’ve ever seen. Her shoulders are back, chin is up, and her hands have relaxed in her lap.
“Now, every time your mind wants to play tricks on you—tell you some bullshit about guilt and shame—what are you going to say to yourself to remove the power from the false story?”
“I’m a beautiful, innocent woman who deserves all the love in the world.”
“Yes, you are, and you do, Maria. Did you do anything to earn the guilt and shame from your rape?” I’m struggling to hide my excitement when I see the light starting to shine through her torrent of emotions.
She flinches at my choice of words. “No. No, I did not.” Her voice remains strong.
“Then you have nothing to be ashamed about, do you?” Saying it out loud and repeating statements helps rewire the broken transmissions that torment our brains after trauma is inflicted, so I push her to be brave and say it until she believes it.
“No, I don’t.”
“Did it make you any less deserving of being loved?”
“No.”
“The negative stories that cycle in our heads post-trauma never die, we just learn how to change our response to them. So, tell me, Maria, what is your response going to be when the doubt creeps in?”
“I’m a beautiful, innocent woman who deserves all the love in the world.” Her voice finally takes on a powerful air of conviction. She’s normally quiet and depressive, even more so by the end of a session. But now strength slowly finds its way back to her. It’s apparent in the color in her cheeks and her proud posture.
I smile. This is the first non-robotic breakthrough she’s had in a month of sessions. Finally, there’s a crack in the icy exterior. I’ll take it. Seeing her like this fills my chest with pride, reminding me why I force myself out of the house a few days a week to come into the city to work.
After we wrap up, I see her out, hugging her hard before closing the door to my office. My next appointment won’t be until after lunch. Walking over to the chaise under the window, I pick up my latest read, kick off my heels, and curl up with the chenille throw as I stare off into the city landscape below. A pigeon glides by as the sun beats down, the beat of his wings triggering my vision to shift into my own violent past.
With a rustling of disrupted pages, the book in my hands falls to the wayside when I’m seized by the one life-defining moment I will never be able to fully escape. The flashbacks don’t happen as often as they used to, hardly at all these days, but intense cases like Maria’s have a habit of bringing them roaring back. Like a movie on horrific replay, it starts without my permission, taking hold of my body, soul, and mind.
Chapter 1
Fall 2003
Luna
“Daddy!” I scream as the screen blares to life, the aged lines of his face slowly animating across the static fields of our spotty internet connection.
“Hi baby girl, how’s my little moonbeam?” His jovial voice cracks through a fog of pain hovering behind his tired eyes, something that I didn’t quite understand through my youthful mind.
“Daddy! I’m so happy to see you, I’m good.” A million questions for him flit through my young mind but are lost to my bubbling excitement.
“You being good for your momma?” Loud noises begin to erupt from behind him but all I can see are his bright green eyes shining at me in adoration, the sudden commotion in the back nothing but a blur.
“Moonbeam, I love you more than anything in this whole world, don’t ever forget that!” His voice booms as a loud blast screeches through the background and his computer flies through the air giving me random glimpses of his barracks before going black.
“Daddy!” I scream so loud and hard, my throat feels like it’s ripping apart as hot tears pour down my face.
I fly up from the concrete slab I had fallen asleep on, swiping the wetness from my dirty cheeks, accidentally scratching myself with jagged nails. That damn dream has haunted me from the day it happened, the day my perfect little world began to crumble like a rock slide. Stretching my arms up, my ripped shirt rises over my jutting, boney hips, showing a glimpse of my malnourished state. Quickly pulling the remaining fabric back down, I grab my sweats off the ground that had been ripped off me and put them back on. The basement faucet drips into the little sink, sending an echo through this dank hole, calling me to it like a beacon. Shaky hands turn the rusty knob. A forced, spattering gurgle rumbling up from ancient pipes, ice cold water sprays every which way but down, getting my forearms and shirt wet. Gathering up the sliver of soap from the dish, I begin my morning ritual of scrubbing myself as clean as I can from last night’s events. They shouldn’t even be called attacks any more, it is what it is. He owns my flesh, whether anyone likes it or not. He will never own my spirit. My hoarse whisper forcefully reminds.
Heavy footsteps ring out from the basement stairs, causing an involuntary shudder throughout my bones as the sounds register through my hazy state. Trying to ignore it, I continue washing the blood from under my nails.
“Hey, bitch, food.” The gruff voice calls out before my cage door rattles, the scraping of
a tray assaults my ears, making my shoulders hunch as he slides it into my cell, and retreats without another word. Only when the door clicks back into place do I dare raise my eyes to the broken mirror above the sink. The old starburst pattern stemming out from where an object had made impact in the center catches a ray of early morning light. Fragmented beams dance around the sink, distracting me from the haunting reflection lying just beyond, that of a beaten down and broken woman.
“Daddy, why, why did you have to die? This never would have happened to me had you been around.” The words lightly tumble, tears wanting to come but, alas, these hollowed out eyes are all cried out. Wrenching the squeaky faucet knob off, I use my damp hands to smooth my unruly hair from my face as I walk over to the tray. My chin drops in exhaustion to view today's gourmet selection; a half-eaten can of corned beef and hash, the bent fork left in it. That’s probably the same utensil he fed into that disgusting crooked mouth of his, a mouth that had a revolting smell and made me want to gag. His dental hygiene severely lacking as evidenced by his few remaining, cigarette stained teeth. He has rubbed his entire body all over me. Nothing, not even his tiny dick, disgusted me more than that horrendous mouth, and the smell that came from it. That’s saying a lot considering the state his manhood was in. Ugly thing that was, too, not that I’d seen many before I was kidnapped. It literally looked like someone had taken an old, leathery worm, stood it up on end, and hit its head with a rubber mallet. I’m pretty sure that’s not normal.
“I gotta get out of here,” I whisper again, walking away from the tray and dropping to the cement, fingering up a pebble to scratch in a hash mark to count my days in hell. Four hundred and sixty two. Every day I’ve counted, every day I’ve cried, and every day I’ve held myself together with false hope of escaping and getting back to my home. Sure, at this rate there was probably no one actually waiting for me, but it sure as hell beats this shit. A cold draft breezes through the broken basement window sending goose bumps across my greying flesh. I pull my shirt down over my boney knees and curl into myself, rocking on my haunches, wondering how a peaceful death has not met me yet. At least then I could be held in the arms of my dad, the only person who ever loved me. Sure as hell would be better than this. Leaning my head against the gritty wall, my eyes close and try to picture him before he was deployed, handsome as ever in his fatigues. The image barely starts to come when my mind hazes in starvation, and I slip back into oblivion, praying to whoever might still give a fuck about my sorry ass.
Winter's Absolution (Obsidian Blades MC Book 1) Page 1