Within seconds, his address is entered into my GPS. I close my eyes and slam my head back against the leather seat, taking several deep breaths that do little to calm my nerves. The tires crunch over the gravel driveway when I pull off from Tom’s shithole of a house. I watch that little blue arrow on the navigation screen draw closer and closer to where Lila is. This was my sole purpose. Finding Lila was how I justified every fucking sin I’ve made, day in and day out for the past six months. And here it is, my resolution. I will find the man who bought her. I will find her, and I can turn these sons of bitches in, and Ava… Ava… My throat tightens in a panic because what will I do with her?
I’ll take her with me. Is that wrong? Would it be wrong of me to take her with me? I feel things for her—there is a comfort with her I’ve never experienced, something so right and natural. And I fear if I actually let myself see it, I’d find I’m in love with her or that I’ve gone fucking batshit crazy.
I floor the accelerator, going wide-open down the old country road. And within ten minutes I’m pulling onto a long, winding driveway. The house is a large Victorian manner with an Aston Martin parked in front of impressive landscaping. There must be at least forty windows and only one is lit up.
I grab the revolver from the glove box and step out of the car, being careful to close the door quietly. My heart bangs against my ribcage as I grapple with the thought of what I’m about to do. I don’t mind killing. It’s the thought that I’m about to save her that has me on edge, because what if I fuck up? I have no plan and although that should make me precautious, it doesn’t. Sometimes anger and revenge work better than any rational plan could ever hope to work.
I stay close to the manicured bushes lining the front of the house, then quietly tiptoe up the stone steps to the stained glass door. The door doesn’t budge when I pull on the handle. Exhaling, I drag my hand through my hair, searching for something to break the glass door with. Next to the entrance is a large cement planter housing a wilting bay tree. Pebbles are scattered around the trunk, and there, sticking out like a sore thumb is a large, plastic rock hide-a-key. I can’t help but smirk as I take the key from it and toss it back into the planter. A soft click of the latch and the door silently swings open into a large, marble foyer with a grand piano at the base of the winding staircase.
It’s eerily quiet and even though I attempt to be discreet, the heel of my boots echo up into the pitched ceiling. I cock the gun. That click reverberates around the room, the sound causing a sick grin to twist my lips. There have been plenty of people whose lives I have fantasized about taking, but this faceless man—I have dreamed of taking his life then Earl’s for far too many nights. I want this. I need this like I need the fucking air I’m breathing. Retribution.
Once I’ve climbed the stairs, I head to the side of the house where I saw the lit window. I take a right and creep down the long hallway past room after room, and at the very end I see a cracked door, the light streaming out into the hallway. A deep sob flows into the hall, followed by a man’s voice pleading with God. I stop right outside the door and press my back to the wall, gun raised.
“Why?” he cries. “I loved you. I loved you!”
I sidestep a little closer to the doorway. Through the cracked opening I can just make out a large four-poster bed topped with thick blankets, and there beside it kneels the motherfucker who has had my sister for the past seven months. My hand shakes, my finger twitching over the trigger. I watch as he reaches up and takes a hand into his, kissing the back of it gently.
“I loved you…” he says again, shaking his head and crying.
Sweat beads my brow line and I struggle to catch an even breath. I want to slaughter him. I want to crucify him.
He nuzzles her hand again and that’s when I notice something’s not right. Suddenly, the rage building in my chest dissipates, fear and apprehension quickly replacing it. I kick the door open and the man jumps, his bloodshot eyes darting over to me and the raised gun. He looks broken, desperate, and instead of reacting, he simply turns his attention back to the bed, bringing a pale hand up to his face and rubbing his cheek over the fingers. My gaze swings to the bed. My knees threaten to buckle. My heart holds back several beats before going into a full on sprint.
Lila is in the middle of the bed. Half of her skull is blown to bits, blood and brain matter splattered over the white linen sheets and back of the wooden headboard. All this time, and I was maybe an hour too fucking late. One goddamn hour.
I want to fall apart, drop to my knees and scream, but I don’t. Instead, I keep my gaze locked on the lifeless body of my little sister, tears blurring my vision as I raise the gun and press it against the man’s temple. He doesn’t move or make a sound, and I say nothing, just pull the trigger. A loud bang breaks the sound of silence followed by a distinct thud as his body hits the hardwood floor. Closing my eyes and inhaling, I drop my chin to my chest.
“I’m sorry, Lila.” I barely manage the words as I open my eyes and step over his body to the edge of the bed. I grab her hand. Finding it is still warm causes my stomach to turn and I choke back a sob. There’s a 45 still gripped in her other hand.
Lila was taken, yes. She was taken off the streets and stripped of what little self she had. Sold to this man who, so it seems, may have actually loved her. Large diamond rings adorn her fingers, a Tiffany’s necklace hangs around her blood-soaked neck. This life—well, it seems like the kind any girl would gladly accept, especially one who had lost everything, who had been reduced to fucking men to support a habit. Yet, Lila chose to kill herself. She was a prisoner to drugs and to the streets and still had the will to survive, but here, surrounded with all this, she chose to end her life.
And why?
Because love is not something you can fake. It is not something that should be manipulated. And being forced to believe you love someone you don’t, I guess that’s enough to drive anyone insane. I don’t know how long I stand here, holding her hand and crying, accepting that I failed her. But eventually, I let her hand fall to the bed and leave, driving in silence back to the house.
I will not fail Ava.
I can’t sleep. My mind travels into those dark places, wondering if today is the day I’ll die. My cuticles are bleeding from where I’ve picked at them. I listen to the noise upstairs. It sounds like there are more than just Earl and Max up there. There are a lot of footsteps and I can hear the faint hum of music. I listen as the footsteps cross the floor, watching the ceiling and trying to imagine where exactly they are above me. They disappear and I swallow. They are no longer in the room above me, which means they may be coming down the—
The sound of voices in the outside room forces my heart into a sprint. They’re all deep. Men. It really is a terrible feeling—waiting. Playing the horrible thoughts over and over in your mind. I swear, I keep thinking I see shadows, but there are no windows. So I know that can’t be right.
At times I feel like I can’t breathe.
Sometimes I scream for no reason other than to just break the silence. You’d be surprised that silence actually does have a sound. And I think it is the loudest, most unbearable sound I’ve ever been forced to endure.
After a while, you start to actually think you hear yourself thinking, the noise of your own breathing makes you want to scream. And then I realize…there is a radio. Funny how conditioned I’ve become to think there is only silence when Max is not with me. I’m reaching over to turn the radio on when the lock slides out of place and adrenaline jolts through my body.
Earl steps in, followed by Bubba and some other middle-aged, pudgy man with straggly pieces of red hair combed over his balding head. Earl lifts a finger at me. “There she is. She’s a purdy little thing.”
Bubba snorts in a laugh and the other man waddles into the room, slamming the door closed. “And fucking Max’s got a hard-on for her.” Bubba laughs.
“Hell,” the redhead says, spitting dip on the floor, “I gots one right here just looking
at her.”
“Fuck her if you want,” Earl says. “Just give me an ounce and we’ll call it even.”
No. No. No! I scream inside my head. On the outside I remain unflinching, praying to God if I don’t fight, if I don’t let him see the fear threatening to pour off me in waves, maybe he’ll lose interest.
“Ai’ght,” the nameless hick says, digging in his pocket and pulling out a baggie with white rocks in it. Both Earl and Bubba snicker and open the door.
“I’mma lock ya in,” Earl says. “I’ll be out here when you’re done. Just don’t kill her; all that matters is she stay alive. Fuck her up as much as you want.”
The door slams closed behind them. The lock slides in place. And that disgusting man is already wiggling his pants down.
I hate him. I hate every last one of them.
Do I fight? Why make it worse on myself?
I lie back on the bed, angry with myself for being so weak, but is it weak or is it a will to survive against all odds? Is this weak of me to take it, or is it a strength to accept that nothing I do will stop this? He was just told not to kill me, so I can’t hope for that. No, if I fight, he will hurt me, but not end me. It will make it worse, so I make peace with the fact that love is a lie, that all people are cruel and terrible, and that I—just like I was told when I was nine years old by the man who destroyed me, shoved me into the darkness—I am unworthy of love.
The second he grabs my thighs and forces them apart, I close my eyes and turn my face to the side to try and avoid the rancid smell of his breath. Just like I did all those years ago, I pretend this is not me. Time and time again, I used to sing songs in my head, sometimes screaming them out loud to drown out my cries. But that won’t work now, because as a child you aren’t able to actually comprehend what is happening, at least not the first few times. There is a buffer of innocence that protects you, where you think surely this can’t be what is happening because people are not this evil. But each time you are forced into this position, that innocence is stripped.
I was stripped—and when it was finally all scraped away, that was when I realized how terrible it all really was. I have no innocence to protect me here, so I pretend this is some terrible movie where all you can do is see the poor girl in a dark room, hear her stifled cries and the vile grunts of the piece of shit doing his business on top of her.
Over the course of my life I have learned that if you tell yourself something enough times, you will start to believe it, so I tell myself I’m in hell. Hell. Because then I could comprehend why all of this is happening to me. Everything fades to black and I will my mind to forget everything. But I know I won’t…
He climbs on top of me. My heart is hammering too hard, adrenaline too high. And turns out, old habits are hard to break, so I sing. I sing “Unsteady” to myself because it makes me think of Max, and I cry like the weak victim I am, wondering what in the fucking hell is wrong with me. What is so wrong with me that things like this keep happening to me?
I ignore it all. Somehow, I ignore it all. And when he’s finished, his disgusting sweat dripping onto my bare flesh, he pushes off of me. He hitches his pants back around his waist, then slaps me hard across the face. “I came in you.” He laughs.
And I’m sucked right back into this horrid nightmare. Everything inside of me shakes, my stomach turns and twists, flips and winds in on itself before I sit up and vomit on the floor. My stomach keeps lurching, and I heave again. I can’t get the feel of him off of me—out of me. I try scratching at my skin over and over, and it takes a minute for me to realize I’m screaming. I hate myself. I hate him. I hate every-fucking-thing. I just want to die.
The man knocks on the door. “Let me out. I’m finished with her…” He glances over his shoulder at me. “For now at least. I’ll come back for that again. An ounce ain’t shit for pussy like that.” He smiles and his rotted teeth make my stomach turn again. He bangs over the door once again. “Earl? Bubba? Let me out now, guys. I’m done I said.”
There’s no sound.
“Aw, hell.” His fist bangs over the door again and again. And I find myself searching the room for something I can kill him with. I just want to kill him. I want to watch him bleed. I want him to cry. But there is nothing. Not one damn thing.
The lock slides open and I yank the covers over my lap in a pathetic attempt to cover myself up. He tore my clothes off of me so they are now useless. But the door doesn’t slowly creak open, it bangs against the wall with a loud thud.
Max rushes in, his face red and fists clenched. He takes one fleeting glance at me before he grabs the man around the throat, picking him up and pinning him against the wall. He leans in to his face. “I’m going to fucking kill you, you worthless piece of fucking shit.”
The man scratches at Max’s hand to no avail. Max uses his free hand to punch him in the face before he releases him. His body crumples to the floor and Max kicks him. The man blocks his face with his hand, flinching when Max squats in front of him.
“Tell her you’re sorry,” Max says in a growl.
“Sorry, I’m sorry.” His tone is thick with fear and it makes me smile.
Without another word, Max reaches inside his pocket. I barely see the glint of the blade before he plunges it into the side of the man’s flabby neck. Blood spurts out, spraying both Max and the wall behind him with crimson drops. The man clutches his neck, eyes wide as he falls on to his side, gasping. A gurgled noise fills the air, and although I want to look away, I can’t. I watch him bleed. I watch the blood shooting out from his neck with each beat of his heart. I watch it puddle on the floor under him, and I’m happy. I’m happy he’s dead because he is a bad person.
Max stands and turns to look at me, his face and chest covered in blood splatter. His brow furrows with concern as he quickly approaches the bed where I’m huddled against the wall.
“Fuck,” he shouts, dragging his hands through his hair. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” He paces for a second, the bloody knife still clutched in his hand. “He fucking…” He hurls the knife across the room and drops to a knee, grabbing onto me and dragging me against his chest. His hold on me is so tight, and I can’t help but find comfort in his embrace. It’s not until I throw my arms around his shoulders that I notice I’ve clawed at my skin to the point of drawing blood. I just wanted the feel of that man’s touch gone from me. I just want it gone. I close my eyes and shake my head.
“This was not supposed to happen,” he says, his voice low. He holds me closer and rubs his hand over my bare back. “Fuck.”
Opening my eyes, I stare over his shoulder, my gaze locked on the man’s lifeless body in a heap on the floor. My brain attempts to make sense of this all. It wants to forget the feeling of that man on me. It’s screaming at me to get away from the one holding me. Max is angry and remorseful. He is bad, but he is good. I know it makes no sense and my mind keeps repeating to let go of him. To get away. To hate him because that would be right. But my heart…my heart is telling me to cling onto him with everything I have because when in hell, the only person who can hand over the key is the devil.
Slowly, the tunnel vision dissipates. My heart is still clanging against my chest like it’s going to break out at any moment. I can’t catch a good breath. I am coming down from blind rage. When I came into the house. Earl and Bubba were smoking crack by the back door, and I panicked because Jeb wasn’t with them. His ratty-ass truck was parked outside, but he wasn’t with them. The second I got to the foot of those cellar steps, I heard him and I nearly had a coronary right there and then. And just that thought sends my pulse into another unbearable sprint.
Ava buries her face in my shoulder, and I rub my hand over her back. I swallow. I try my damnedest to calm myself down before I say anything to her. Hell, I am trying to figure out what to do now because this game has shifted. Lila is dead. I have no purpose here any longer with the exception of Ava. I care about her, I can’t deny that. And all I can think about is putting a bullet in both Earl�
�s and Bubba’s heads right now for letting that piece of shit in here. Closing my eyes, I rest my chin on the top of her head. There is a certain comfort I find with her, from her scent, and I take all this in in an attempt to calm myself down for her.
“Come on, darlin’,” I say, slipping my arms beneath her knees. I pick her up and cradle her.
There’s blood coating the inside of her thighs and my jaw tightens, my teeth grinding against each other. I grab the blanket from the bed and cover her up, exhaling to keep myself from losing it as I head toward the door. When I glance at Jeb’s body in the corner, that white-hot rage nearly consumes me again.
“Where are you taking me?” she asks. The fear in her voice breaks me away from the cycle of anger, tossing me directly into a wave of guilt.
“To get you cleaned up.” I throw the door open and head up the stairs.
The entire way up, she stares at me. I kick the door to the kitchen open and it slams against the wall. Earl and Bubba are still standing by the open screen door smoking a pipe. Earl’s eyes drift from me to Ava before he peers back toward the stairs to the cellar. Ava buries her head in my shoulder. I can’t look at him because I will kill him if I do. And I will not do that in front of her. Not again.
I don’t say a word before heading into the foyer and up the stairs to the bathroom. My shirt is soaked with her tears by the time I get to the top of the stairwell. My throat tightens and heat washes over my skin. Nothing will ever take this away. Nothing will ever chase away the monsters that will live in the recesses of her mind when this is all over, but the one thing I can do is change the path this shit-storm is on.
I set her on the edge of the tub and turn the taps, warming the water before I plug the drain. She’s shaking, still sobbing. I turn to her and rub my hands over her arms. “Look at me, dear,” I say calmly.
She doesn’t budge.
“Ava. Please. Look at me.”
She lifts her chin and the desolation in her eyes nearly breaks me in half. This is too much. Lila. This…I take a deep breath and bite down on the inside of my cheek. “We’re going to clean you up, and then…” I swallow because I haven’t exactly figured everything out yet. “We’re leaving.”
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