Fractured Hearts

by SJD Peterson

Charlie tried to open her eyes as her brain flickered and tried to focus, but they refused to obey. A thick haze gripped her mind. What the hell happened? She tried to sit up but had no control over her arms and legs. The only thing she saw was darkness.

  She wasn’t sure how long she had been out, had floated in the blackness unable to think or form a rational thought. Her body hadn’t responded and somehow the blackness had pulled her back under. Only after blinking a few times did she realize she was staring at a dirty ceiling with the paint peeling, barely visible in the dark.

  Why does the ceiling look like it’s falling down?

  Her stomach rolled as something nagged at the back of her mind—Kegan, his eyes? Blackness narrowed her vision and she fought to keep it at bay, but it was growing too rapidly.

  The dark claimed her once again.

  Chapter Twenty

  Charlie’s eyes snapped open. A faint gray light illuminated the dilapidated ceiling.

  A silent sob broke from her throat. Only then was she aware of the warm tears sliding down her temples. Thankfully, she couldn’t remember whatever dream she’d had that was powerful enough to bring her tears into reality. She was shivering. She tried to roll over, seeking the body heat and comfort of one of her lovers, but was unable to move.

  She tried to move just her hands but couldn’t, the same with her feet. As her senses came back online, she became painfully aware of the throbbing in her head. Groaning harshly, she tried to swallow, but her throat was dry and thick. A horrible taste at the back of her tongue reminded her of something unpleasant and familiar.

  She fought past the haze that seemed to have taken over her brain. She needed to get up. Every instinct told her to get free and she struggled at the restraints that bound her, but they didn’t give. Something forced her head to the ground and she realized a tight binding pressure was across her forehead. She tried to look around as panic washed over her, but could only get glimpses of her surroundings. She seemed to be in a room, the air around her stale with rotting wood and mold.

  Where the hell was she?

  She tried to call out for Kegan and Trevor, but her throat was too raw and she could only force out a pitiful moan. She had to get it together and no more tears. She just needed a minute to think past the haze and figure out what had happened. She took deep breaths in through her nose as the pain in her throat made it impossible to breathe through her mouth. Her lips felt stripped of their flesh.

  Images began to flicker. Soaking in a hot tub… Special night with her cowboys… Dread… Dressing… Tight grip… Kegan’s eyes.

  Another sob broke from her as the image of Kegan’s eyes flashed in her mind. Wait, something was wrong with his eyes. They were still the brilliant sapphire blue she loved, but they were so swollen and red…

  So tired…

  Old…

  Realization hit her like a sucker punch to her gut, the bile threatening, burning.

  Oh God! No! Please, this isn’t happening!

  It hadn’t been Kegan’s eyes she had stared into before passing out.

  Drake. Somehow, Kegan’s father had brought her to this place. She tried to free herself from the restraints. She needed out now! She froze at the sound of a deep, evil-sounding laugh.

  “Struggle all you want, darlin’. I like my women with fight in them.” Drake loomed over her, leering with filthy yellow teeth, the stench causing her stomach to roil. “Kegan’s got damn fine taste in women. You and me, we gonna have us a mighty fine time together.”

  She breathed harshly and sweat broke out across her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut to block out the image of the fiend hovering over her. Please let me be dreaming! I want to wake up. Please.

  Charlie jerked as a hand touched her cheek, causing her flesh to crawl. She gritted her teeth and clenched her jaw to hold back the scream that tried to erupt from her throat.

  She refused to scream. Wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction. Her insides trembled with the herculean effort it took not to let it escape.

  “I remember you when you were just a shy little thing chasing after my boy.” His putrid smell grew stronger as he leaned down, lips against her ear. “I jerked myself off more than once thinking about tying you to my bed, that fine ass up high, and ramming my dick so far and deep in you.”

  She clamped down on her trembling muscles, held her breath. Oh God, please no, her mind screamed, but she kept the words from crossing her lips by pressing them together tight. She wouldn’t plead, knowing the man got off on hearing women beg for mercy. Kegan and Trevor had to know she was gone by now. They would find her, wouldn’t ever stop looking for her. She just needed to hold on until they arrived.

  Drake pulled back and grabbed her hair as he sat back on his haunches. “Yeah, well as much as I’m sure you would love to feel me balls-deep in your pretty little ass, I ain’t gonna fuck ya just yet. I got a feeling my boy will be more generous with his funds if you’re in one piece.”

  His grip tightened in her hair and she winced, felt it being pulled from its roots, but refused to scream or acknowledge the pain. “You better hope he’s feelin’ generous, ’cause if not, I’m gonna take out my due deep inside you.”

  He yanked one last time to punctuate his threat before he walked away. She held her breath as he moved, and only when his footsteps started to fade did she let it out and silently cry.

  She prayed Kegan and Trevor found her before he came back.

  * * * *

  Kegan and Trevor had searched every known abandoned homestead within a ten-mile radius of the ranch, keeping a less-than-jubilant Sheriff Johnson apprised of their progress and checking in regularly. Trevor completely agreed with Kegan’s refusal to take Sheriff Johnson’s advice and allow him and his deputies to do the searching. They wouldn’t stop. If they wanted to throw his and Kegan’s ass in jail, they would just have to wait until Charlie was safe. They’d searched through the night and well into morning, but still they refused to give up.

  Drake couldn’t have taken her far. He had no car or money, couldn’t even know the area. What the fuck am I missing?

  Trevor refused to give into his need for sleep, knew Kegan felt the same. He worried that Kegan was barely holding onto his sanity, the deep lines around his eyes and the hard set of his jaw a testament to how hard he tried to hold on to his emotions.

  “Let’s swing by the ranch, grab another thermos of coffee and check in with the sheriff before making the rounds again, yeah?”

  Kegan laid his head back against the headrest and released an exhausted sigh. “I don’t know what to do, Trev. I feel like my heart has been ripped from my chest. Tell me what to do. Please, I need some help here.”

  The agony in Kegan’s plea nearly tore his own heart out. “I already told you what we are going to do. Head back to the ranch, check in and start looking again.”

  “Look where?” Tears fell from Kegan’s eyes, left glistening trails down his cheeks, and wrenched claw marks in Trevor’s heart. “Where else is there to look?”

  Trevor pulled the truck to the side of the road and put it in Park before he turned in his seat to face the man beside him. “Don’t you fucking do this. Goddammit, Kegan, don’t you dare!”

  Kegan didn’t open his eyes. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “The hell you’re not. You’re blaming yourself for what your old man’s done, and it’s not your fault.”

  In a blink of an eye, Kegan was in his face, rage, guilt and hopelessness swirling in his livid blue eyes. “Yes it is! I should have been there with her, should have refused to leave the damn ranch.”

  “Then I guess you blame me too, huh? Half that guilt you got weighing on your shoulders is mine.”

  “No…”

  “The hell it’s not. I wasn’t there either and left the ranch same as you. So, sorry, bud, but you’re just gonna have to make room for one more at the fucking pity party you’re headed to.”

  Trevor braced himself for the fury he knew Kegan wou
ld unleash on him, but to Trevor’s surprise, Kegan’s shoulders slumped and he leaned back against the headrest of the truck again. Eyes closed, he heaved in a breath in an obvious attempt to get control of himself.

  When he had first met Kegan, he’d never talked much and always turned inward in some silent battle to keep a rein on his emotions, afraid to lash out. It wasn’t until Trevor had learned of the horrors in Kegan’s life when he was younger that Trevor had understood what a hellish battle it was for him to maintain control.

  After they had bought the ranch together, Kegan had eventually begun to open up about his childhood, and as time went on, he said he found it easier to talk to Trevor about shit rather than having to go it alone. He hated to see Kegan revert to his old ways, couldn’t stand the anguish and pain on his face. He would do anything to keep his best friend from having to deal with the pain alone.

  Trevor ran his fingers through his hair and clasped his hands behind his neck. “Talk to me, Kegan. Please don’t shut me out.”

  Kegan stared out of the window, not really seeing anything, but unwilling to look Trevor in the eye. He tried not to give into the despair that consumed him, that had settled over him like a thick, black, ominous cloud. Something in the back of his mind nagged at him, but he couldn’t quite get a grasp on it.

  Kegan closed his eyes, poked around the edges of a faint memory, something he had buried deep. Whatever it was that would explain the hopelessness taking him over, only part of which was fear for Charlie’s safety.

  He continued to poke it again and again. The bubble popped and long-repressed memories came rushing back.

  “Daddy, whatcha doin’ with yer bed?”

  “Boy, get your ass back in bed before I tan your hide.” His dad’s voice was stern and angry, his breathing labored as he pulled the mattress through the hall.

  Kegan stood at the door to his room and watched his daddy fight with the old floppy mattress. He knew he should do as he was told, but he couldn’t seem to get his feet moving. He stood staring, watching his daddy struggle. He knew good and well that if he was caught disobeying him, he’d get a whoopin’ with the man’s thick leather belt and fists, but still he couldn’t move.

  He waited…waited to hear Daddy move out into the living room so he could run to his parents’ room and find his mamma. She couldn’t protect him from the old man’s anger anymore or stop the brutal blows he was sure gonna get. She’d tried too many times and each time she ended up beat up even worse than he was. Mamma had learned that when she tried to protect him, it was worse for him. His daddy was always meaner and hit him a lot more times after he put Mamma in her place. Kegan was glad when she stopped trying to protect him and would hide in her room and whimper with each blow he took. At least then the beatings didn’t seem to be as bad.

  He made his way toward the open door to their room. He’d heard her screaming in the night but had been too scared to leave his bed, had only pulled his pillow up over his head and tried to drown out the sounds of slaps, thuds and screams. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard his daddy beatin’ on his mamma in the night. But just like Mamma, he’d learned fast not to try to stop it because it only made Daddy madder.

  Standing in the doorway, he was surprised his mamma wasn’t there. The bed was just a frame, both mattresses missing. He silently moved toward the kitchen after hearing the back door slam and clutched the bear Mamma had given him when he was a baby, the same bear that Daddy would whoop him good for if he knew he still had it. Daddy said he was not a pansy baby and had forbidden him from keeping it. Mamma had rescued it from the trash and hidden it under his bed for him, told him to be sure it stayed their secret, and he had. The house was dark and he couldn’t hear anyone moving around. Kegan hated the dark, but he mustered all his courage and kept moving, his need to find his mamma stronger than his fear.

  “Mamma,” he whispered into the kitchen, but the only sounds he heard was the drone of the old Frigidaire and his daddy cursin’ in the backyard. He crept to the sink and pulled over the little stepstool Mamma had gotten him so he could help with cooking and dishes, and peered out into the backyard. He watched as his daddy poured something all over the mattresses laid out at the burn pit and set them on fire.

  Kegan stared at the leaping orange and red, fascinated and lulled by the dance of flames. He couldn’t help but wonder why Daddy was burning his bed. Where were he and Mamma gonna sleep now? A movement at the corner of his eye made him hop down from the stool and run toward his room as he spotted Daddy moving back toward the house.

  In his room, he leaped across the floor, landing in the center of his small bed and pulling the covers up over his head. He lay there for what seemed like forever, shaking and silently praying that Daddy wouldn’t know he’d been bad. God seemed to be answering his prayers because Daddy didn’t even come into his room, and for the first time since he could remember, he didn’t get a spanking at all the whole day.

  At supper time, he finally worked up enough courage to ask. “Daddy…where’s Mamma?” Before the words had even fully left his mouth, blinding pain exploded in his head and he was hurled across the kitchen and slammed into the cupboards. Kegan cowered against the cabinet, using his small hands to cover his face as his daddy stood over him and began raining down blows on his head.

  “Don’t you ever talk about that bitch in my house again, you hear me, boy?”

  He wanted to tell him he wouldn’t, that he would be a good boy, but the blows kept coming and Daddy kept screaming.

  “The slut done up and left me to take care of your sorry ass.”

  Kegan wanted to cry and beg God to let him go with his mamma, prayed that she would come back for him and take him to wherever she was. But darkness started creeping up on him, and he embraced it like an old friend. In the dark there was no pain.

  He’d given up on God after that day, ’cause no matter how good he’d been and how he’d done all his chores without complaint, Mamma had never come back for him. He’d never asked his daddy again where she had gone and had never made another promise to God.

  Kegan blinked away the tears as he returned to the present. He knew he was shutting down, especially from Trevor, but he wasn’t sure he could let him in, not with this. If he told him what he suspected his father really was, it would only cause Trevor more worry and pain, which was the last thing he wanted to do.

  Trevor was in as bad a shape as Kegan was without knowing the true evil that his old man was. Trevor knew about the sick sex games, the rapes, and of course, the prison sentence, but he didn’t know how far the man could go. Not only was he a rapist but a murderer as well.

  “Dammit, Kegan, talk to me. I’m going crazy worrying about Charlie and I need you to stay with me here. I need us to stick together and figure out how to find her, and we can’t do that if you shut me out.”

  Kegan opened his eyes, his gaze locked on Trevor’s. He winced at the pure torment in his friend’s eyes. Ah hell.

  “I’m just trying to think, but my damn brain is like mush. I know I’m missing something, I just can’t wrap my head around it.” Liar.

  “Then let’s talk to the sheriff, maybe he knows of some place we haven’t looked, something we missed.” Trevor laid his hand on Kegan’s thigh, gave him a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t try to figure this out alone, we need each other. We have to keep our heads together, she needs both of us.”

  Kegan nodded, hating that he was keeping shit from Trevor, but what good would it do to tell him? Trevor didn’t need the extra fear, and Kegan certainly didn’t need to put voice to that part of his past right now. He needed to find Charlie.

  As they stepped through the back door and into the kitchen, Kegan’s jaw dropped at the sight before him. Sheriff Johnson had their kitchen set up like a military strategist. Maps, papers and recording devices had taken up residence on the counters and walls.

  “Hey, glad you’re back. Come take a look at this.” He walked over to the map he had taped to the cabin
ets. “The red circles are places that we need to check out. We got the support of two other county law agencies willing to help and State sent down a chopper to do an aerial search, so I need an update on where you’ve searched. We don’t want to waste time checking any of the same places twice.”

  Kegan stepped closer to the map and looked at the size of the area they needed to cover. They’d stayed in contact with the sheriff throughout the night so most of the places were already crossed off. Hell, they hadn’t even made a dent in the areas that still needed to be covered. They pointed out the last two places they had searched and Sheriff Johnson ran an X through them.

  A feeling of powerlessness and self-doubt began to worm its way through Kegan. “Shit, I didn’t realize there were so many abandoned places around here.”

  “A lot more than there used to be. The economy is for shit and it’s hit this area pretty hard. But these areas aren’t just homesteads—some are shacks, caves and such. I’ve had my men scouting in town for any information, but so far no one’s seen a stranger fitting Drake’s description. I think it’s safe to say he didn’t go into town. No reports of stolen vehicles or break-ins, so I’m gonna assume that he is still somewhere close. You know how people are around here, if he had been in town, someone would have noticed him.”

  “Has he tried to call?” Trevor asked.

  “Not a word yet. The phone’s been ringing off the hook, people calling, offering any help they can give, hundreds helping in the search. You two don’t worry. We’re gonna find her.”

  Kegan wished he could feel as confident as the sheriff sounded, but he had a damn hard time clamping down the dread that had taken up residence in his heart and his gut.

  He took the coffee Trevor offered him and went back to staring at the map. He found comfort in the feel of Trevor standing next to him, shoulders touching in a gesture of silent support. How in the hell would they make it through this if they lost her?

  Kegan had been a goner for her the first time he had laid eyes on her. Back then, she had been such a pain in the ass, always following him around like a lost puppy, going out of her way to irritate him, but the looks she had given him had melted him from day one. She’d always had this look in her eyes when they were young, like he was her hero. No one had ever given a damn about him until her. Funny thing was, he had never felt much like a hero—hell if anything, she had been his. His daddy hadn’t let him go into town much—he hadn’t even been allowed to stay after school long enough to really make any friends, and joining a sports team had totally been out of the question. Charlie had been his only real friend. He remembered the moment when Charlie had moved from being his only friend to his everything.