Peyton's Path: Fighting Fate Book 2

by SM Olivier

  I stared sightlessly at the wooden floors. No one moved. No one made a sound. They acted like this was totally normal. And for them, I guessed it was.

  27

  ●

  Fighting Fate

  My days ran into nights, and I lost all track of time. I could have been there for days or weeks, I knew not. My constant companions were hunger and pain.

  I was given limited freedom during the day. I knew it was part of my training. It was as if they wanted me to be a…wife, of sorts, to them. They had already told me they wanted me to cook, clean, and take care of the children.

  The first time I was given the command to cook, I felt a true glimmer of hope. Kitchens were notorious for sharp objects. If I could sneak out something and hide it, then I could have a weapon. But my expectations were dashed quickly away, when I found the one and only knife chained to the butcher block island. All the utensils were made of thick, recyclable plastic, which we washed and reused.

  My cleaning had also left me empty handed; nothing in the house to use as a weapon, and not even a house phone to call on for help.

  I rarely saw all three men together like that first time. It was as if they were on their own schedules and had lives away from the cabin.

  As far as outside went, the house was in the middle of the woods, nothing around but an old rundown barn at the bottom of the hill; no other houses in sight. I found this out after a failed attempt at running away. The damn collar around my neck wouldn’t let me get too far.

  The first time, I think I made it nearly a mile before I was left thrashing and convulsing on a bed of dead leaves, covered in my own urine. Tormentor found me, but my nightmare wasn’t over for the night, and by morning, I’d wished for death. It never came. After that night, I tried to…behave… biding my time.

  I needed to learn as much as I could.

  Like the fact the children called all three men Dad. Through my observations, I knew Hope, my doppelganger, was the oldest at nine, followed by Aaron (Wicked Boy), Joy, Faith, Gideon, the Twins (Charity and Chastity), and lastly Raphael, Coach Carson’s son. They were unlike any children I had ever been around. Their days were spent indoors, prisoners in this cabin, and they didn’t even know it.

  They seemed oddly subdued for children. It was only when Coach Carson was around, did they seem more relaxed. I even heard them laugh and play around. Once, I had seen Coach Carson sneaking them candy bars. He freely gave them hugs and praised them, but he still hadn’t earned my forgiveness. After all, I wouldn’t have been in this situation if it weren’t for him. Even though he hadn’t touched me or punished me, he was still guilty in my eyes. I was just glad that the children got some…attention.

  Boyd seemed to terrify them with his quick temper. I had seen him lash out at them several times, and each time, I’d ended up punished. I couldn’t stand by as he struck out at them with his open palms to the face or when he took a wooden spoon to five-year-old Gideon’s head. Gideon’s father was Tormentor, of that I had no doubt, but the boy didn’t deserve the wrath of Boyd, not over a spilled glass of water during lunch one day.

  Tormentor seemed to garner a fearful respect from the children. He didn’t hit them or yell at them, but he was firm and strict. His only…softness appeared to be directed toward the Twins, and recently, Claire.

  Claire had seemed resigned to her fate. Overnight, she became subservient. She was like a treasured pet to them. She regularly cleaned now because her cooking skills had left a lot to be desired. She took care of the children and had been moved from the box beside mine.

  Her collar had been removed, and she slept upstairs now, while my place of rest was still a four-by-four box that was three feet in height.

  It became evident that this was the fate they wanted me to resign myself to. This time I had to fight fate. I couldn’t end up like Claire. Sometimes the men took her to her bedroom, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that they were all…raping her. Even if she had consented to it, she was fourteen. She had only capitulated out of fear.

  The first time I saw Coach Carson take her to the room, I went ballistic and was forced into an ice bath by Tormentor. After that, I didn’t think I would ever feel warm again.

  It frightened me to see the lifelessness in Claire’s eyes. Since I’d arrived, she had yet to sneer or mock me. She was a shell of her old self. I’d much rather she hated me than see her like she was now.

  Claire and I were rarely left alone, and when I tried to talk, to her to pick her mind for more information, see how she was doing, she refused to speak to me. But I could see the distress in her eyes. Eventually, the anxiety seemed to morph into acceptance. She almost seemed eager to please the men, almost loving and submissive toward Tormentor.

  The longer I stayed here, the more I realized the importance of getting out of here. The problem was, I couldn’t leave by myself. I needed to take Claire and the children with me. Well, all the children, save the wicked boy, Aaron. He had the same mean streak as his father Boyd. He seemed to especially love tormenting the girls, and he was sneaky about it.

  I had caught Aaron this morning pinning down Charity− the shyest of the twins. He had pulled down her underwear and began to undress her. It sickened me, knowing that was a learned behavior. He must have seen one of the men do that and thought it was acceptable behavior.

  Aaron was the only one Boyd had never lashed out at. If anything, Boyd seemed to take sadistic enjoyment in the petite boy’s mean streak. Aaron might have been the oldest boy, but he was a lot smaller than Hope, Joy, and even six-year-old Faith. But as I knew from before, he was surprisingly robust, and he used that to his advantage.

  “What did you do this time?” Coach Carson asked as he stood over me.

  I looked up from where Boyd had left me strung up between two trees. Fall had arrived with full force. It was cooler out now, somewhere in the low fifties.

  Boyd had hosed me down with cold water, then dragged me out to the trees outside. I was shaken and weak. I had no idea when I’d last eaten. And every time I did eat, some kind of punishment was administered, and I’d get sick. In my constant state of anxiety, I only managed a few bites of food here and there.

  Boyd seemed the most impatient to break me. So far, he was the only one to grope and touch me. I knew it was only a matter of time before he’d take it further. Somehow, I thought his fear of Tormentor was what stopped him from doing so.

  I knew Tormentor wanted me to resign myself to my fate. He wanted me to come to them willingly. He probably believed brainwashing me enough would make me accept his affection, that by then, it wouldn’t be rape.

  I looked through the slit of my right eye. Boyd had rained down punches on me when I’d yanked Aaron off Charity. My eye was now almost swollen shut. Admittedly, I had hit Aaron first, but I would do it all over again, which said a lot. I had never struck a child in my life, and had never wanted to until that morning.

  “What did you do?” Coach Carson repeated.

  If Coach was here, then Boyd must have been at work. He only came here after school or practice. Boyd always disappeared after the sun went down. I’d heard him whining the other day about stocking shelves, and figured he worked at a store or warehouse. I had no clue what Tormentor did for a living.

  The sight of Coach Carson made me angry. He was going about his days and nights like usual, seeing my guys as if he had no clue where I was. Did he continue to give his motivational talks to Zane and Crew? I knew they had to have been off their games with me gone. They wouldn’t have quit, it wasn’t in them, but they wouldn’t be themselves. Of that, I was confident.

  “I smacked Aaron when he wouldn’t listen to me.” The unbidden response flew from my swollen lip.

  “Why did you hit him?” He frowned as if surprised by my actions.

  I had an irrational urge to laugh. This was the first conversation we’d had since he’d abducted me, and he was asking me about punishing a child, after all the punishments
I’ve had to endure?

  “Why did you take me?” I sob finally. “How could you do this to me? To Crew and Zane? They respect you. How could you do this to Kyler? He told me how you took him to physical therapy for months in high school. He told me you were more a father to him than his own father had been! How can you do this to Lochlann? I know you wrote a character letter for him so he could get the children. They trusted you! I trusted you.”

  He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “We needed to save you like we saved Ava.”

  “I didn’t need to be saved!” I cried. I hated showing him my vulnerability, and I hated giving him my tears, but I was so, so close to breaking. “And where is Ava now, Coach? What did you do to her? Did you break her like you did Claire?”

  He turned away, but I screamed at him.

  “Look at me! Look. At. Me. I have been beaten, tortured, and shocked. I have been naked since I got here. This isn’t saving me! You guys are raping Claire. She’s only fourteen. Did you violate Ava, too? I know those are her children! Where is she? Did she outlast her usefulness, so you what, you killed her? Are you trying to replace her with Claire? With me? I have news for you, Coach Carson,” I hissed, “I will die before I give in like they have. I will not become another broodmare for your stables.”

  “You needed saving!” he nearly roared out. “Claire loves us, and we love her. Love has no age. You don’t realize what could’ve happened to you. You are so young. All of you girls were so free with spreading your thighs to the wrong type of men. It was only a matter of time before one of those men was the wrong man, and do you know where that would have left you? It would have left you for dead. Just take care of the children and us, and we will take care of you. We will love you. We will protect you from those men.”

  Looking into his eyes, I saw the first signs of instability. He truly believed what he was saying. He truly thought he had saved me from…death. Something or someone made him think that he was doing good by taking us.

  “I may be young, but I am far from sheltered. I know what life is really like,” I nearly yelled. “The only men I have spread my legs for have been for men that I have loved!” I paused, struck with the realization. “They would never hurt me, never. If anything, they saved me from men like Boyd and Tormentor. They kept me from a stepfather that liked to hit the bottle as much as he enjoyed hitting my mother and me. They took me in and cared for me when my mother left me for another man. I didn’t need saving by you, they already did!”

  I heard clapping, and I stiffened as Tormentor rounded the corner of the house.

  “Beautiful speech, Ava. However, you still don’t get it, do you? You don’t realize no one can take care of you like we can.”

  I began to shake uncontrollably. He still terrified me the most. All his sickness was locked in tight. Boyd wanted me because I reminded him of Ava. Coach Carson wanted to save me from some imagined cruelty. But this… man? I didn’t know why he wanted me. Yet.

  “Why is she tied up?” Tormentor asked Coach Carson.

  I nearly laughed. He had struck me, shocked me, bathed me in ice water, locked me in a wooden crate at night in a damp, musty basement, but yet he seemed…perturbed that I was tied up in the back yard, my hair still dripping from when Boyd had hosed me down. Seriously?

  Coach Carson dropped his gaze. He, too, was subservient to this man. It was in Coach’s body language, in his speech. “She says Boyd is punishing her for disciplining Aaron.”

  “Why did you discipline Aaron, Ava, and what did you do?” Tormentor frowned.

  For a split second, I contemplated not answering him, but I knew that little shit needed to be stopped before he really hurt one of the girls. “He pushed Charity down to the ground and then ripped her underwear off. He was trying to take his pants off too, and he was thrusting himself at her.” I heard Tormentor hiss in anger and saw Coach stiffen.

  I continued. “You guys think you’re saving me?” I snorted. “How about you keep your sexual deviancies from your…son. The moment he realizes what a boner is, where it goes, he’ll be raping his own sister. Maybe it’s a learned behavior, though, since the only women you can get in your life are ones you take against their—”

  I felt the backhanded slap on my mouth and tasted the blood as my lips split open once more.

  “Bring me the boy.” For the first time ever, I heard the anger in Tormentor’s voice. “Bring my Charity, too.”

  I had tried to push him, defied him, and never once had I ever heard anger.

  Something in me broke, and I started laughing. Once again, I was begging for death. I didn’t want to leave the guys, but I couldn’t continue to live like this. I was so weak I couldn’t even protect myself from Boyd. An eight-year-old, for Pete’s sake, was able to overpower me after I’d struck him.

  I knew I had lost an alarming amount of weight. I could see my ribs individually, and it hurt to lay on my back because my spine was so bony. The one time I caught a reflection of myself was from the toaster. My eyes had looked too big for my face, and my cheeks were sunken in. And to top it all off, I couldn’t remember the last time I peed, or had a bowel movement, for that matter.

  I felt my legs being released from the shackles moments before my arms dropped. A million needle-like sensations pierced my skin at once, as the blood returned to my extremities. I screamed out in pain. But this time when I collapsed, I was caught.

  I was too tired to fight the arms that went around me. I was cradled into a chest. Taking a deep breath in, I smelled something…nice. Something spicy with undertones of vanilla. How could someone so evil look and smell so good?

  “Stop fighting, my little ballerina,” he murmured in my ear. “Let me take care of you. Let me love you.”

  I didn’t want him to love me—my heart belonged to six other men. It sickened me that he knew I was a dancer. He knew so much about me, but I didn’t know anything about him.

  His words were soothing as he stroked my hair softly. My mind was screaming in panic, but my body was so…needy. I had been denied gentle touch for too long.

  I suddenly felt him stiffen, but I was in a land between reality and limbo. I wasn’t asleep but not entirely awake, either.

  “Come here, my Charity,” he crooned softly.

  “Yes, Papa,” I heard her murmur moments later.

  Only the Twins deviated from calling the men anything but Dad, calling this man Papa instead.

  “Did Aaron do something to you this afternoon? Did he hurt you?” he asked gently.

  I heard a sharp intake of breath before my head lolled to the side. I was now sitting in Tormentor’s lap as Charity stood in front of us. He had one hand holding her tiny hand. Behind them was a grim-faced Coach, who was holding the shoulders of a wide-eyed, scared Aaron.

  Charity looked worriedly over her shoulder before she bit her lips. Tears entered her eyes as she shook her head swiftly. Tormentor and Coach’s eyes were trained on the little girl. They didn’t see the smirk on the little prick’s face.

  “Don’t lie to your Papa,” I slurred. “He cannot protect you if you lie.”

  This man was sick. This man was evil. However, I knew this man loved the little girl in front of me. My concern and fear for the child outweighed the burning hatred I felt for the man.

  “Are you lying, my Charity, my little flower?” he inquired with just a faint touch of steel.

  “Yes, Papa,” she sobbed. “Aaron pushed me. Aaron said he was going to show me he was my master. To be a good little girl and take care of him.”

  I grimaced. I didn’t even hear the wicked boy say that.

  I felt Tormentor stiffen once more, then his teeth gnashed together. He feigned a smile. “Good girl. Now go inside and play with your brothers and sisters.”

  “Okay, Papa.”

  I was beyond shocked when she skipped forward and kissed his cheek. That was the first time I had seen the children affectionate towards him.

  She turned and walked back to the cabin. As so
on as she went inside, Tormentor stood, with me still in his arms.

  “What did you do to your sister?” he asked Aaron with deadly quietness.

  “Nothing,” Aaron replied, slightly defiant.

  With a quickness and barely any jostling on his part, Tormentor backhanded the boy. “Don’t lie to me,” he said through clenched teeth. “You do not hit your brothers or sisters. You take care of them. You are the oldest boy. That is your job. If I ever hear about you touching your sisters in a sexual manner ever again, I will show you who the ‘Master’ is. Where did this master word come from?” He barely covered his sneer at the word.

  Aaron fell to the ground and cried as he held his cheek. “Dad says it all the time with… Mom,” he sobbed.

  If I had anything left in my stomach, I would have lost it. It didn’t take me long to realize that the dad he was referring to was Boyd. I had no clue what “mom” he was talking about, though. That was another piece of the puzzle I hadn’t put together yet. I knew not all the children had the same mother—they were way too close in age. Plus, I had heard Hope reference Aaron’s mom before. Hope barely tolerated the younger boy, hardly a sisterly way to act.

  “You went upstairs? You know you can only enter with permission,” Coach Carson said with a frown.

  There were five rooms in the house. The boys’ and girls’ rooms were housed on the main floor. I was warned never to go upstairs. There were three more rooms up in the loft, one of them was the room I had woken up in. It was also where the men took Claire when they wanted to have sex.

  “Dad says I’m going to be a man soon,” Aaron cried. “He wanted me to see how to treat a woman. He said a real man is the master of his woman…and he let me watch him with our new mom.”

  I looked to the men as they exchanged a look. Both seemed unhappy by Aaron’s words.

  Turning my head again, I dry heaved.

  “Put him in the outhouse tonight,” Tormentor clipped out. “Maybe he’ll learn not to hurt his sisters by the morning.”