by Jamie Canosa
Oh God, they did.
My stomach heaved and I tasted vomit at the back of my throat. Every rock and stick and piece of bark on the ground dug into my back as I was crushed beneath his weight. I could feel every last ridge and whirl of his fingerprints imprinting on my hips, my thighs.
My legs were useless, pinned beneath his lower body. I couldn’t stop him when he wedged a knee between them and pried them apart. I couldn’t stop him when he shoved the hem of my shirt up to bare my breasts and cover my face. Red lace distorted my vision and blocked my airway, and I couldn’t stop him.
I couldn’t stop him . . .
Pain splintered my mind and I screamed and screamed and screamed. But no one heard me.
“Ophelia!”
Someone was coming. Someone heard me. But it was too late. They were too—
“Fi, wake up. Ophelia!”
The pain. Oh God, the pain. It was too—
My entire body jolted and my eyes snapped open.
I could see? I could see. And I could breathe. I drew in deep lungful’s of oxygen, nearly choking on the abundance. Slowly my pulse eased from a sprint to a steady jog. My brain began to clear. It was dark, but I could tell I wasn’t lying on the ground. And I was fully clothed, warm and cozy. But I wasn’t alone.
“Fi?”
A shadowy figure loomed over me, propped up on one elbow. My heart tripped over itself and I gasped.
“Sparrow?”
“S-Sawyer?” My brain was beginning to catch up.
Nightmare. Another damn nightmare. The same damn nightmare I’d had for years. I thought when I went away to college they’d stop, and for a while they did. Not anymore.
“I’m here.” A feather light touch caressed the back of my hand. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” My throat ached, but that could have been from the cold air. “Just a bad dream. Sorry I woke you.”
His touch returned and when I didn’t pull away, he took my hand, his thumb swiping idly over my clammy skin.
“Who hurt you, Sparrow?” His voice was soft, but the raging storm had weakened to a rain shower pinging off the tin roof.
“I . . .” How could he even ask me that? “No one.” I tugged my hand away. “No one hurt me. Besides you.”
My words hit their mark and he flinched. I didn’t feel the satisfaction I thought I would, however. Instead it was guilt that crept up on me. Planting my hands on the cot, I pushed myself up to sitting. I needed space. Cool air brushed over my shoulders as the blanket fell away. Sawyer moved out of my way, shifting around until we found ourselves seated face-to-face in the dark.
He gave me a minute—room to breathe—but he refused to be dissuaded. “Somebody hurt you. Before we came along. Something happened to you. What was it? Who was it?”
“I can’t. I . . . can’t.” Don’t say a word.
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Can’t. I can’t.” Negative publicity. Don’t create a scandal. “If people knew . . .” Whore. Liar. Slut. “What would they say?”
“I know what I’d say.” Sawyer waited until I risked a peek at him before continuing. Something dark and altogether terrifying flashed in his eyes. “I’d say give me his damn name because I’d like nothing more than to teach him some fucking manners. Make him sorry he ever laid eyes on you.”
“No. You wouldn’t. Not if you knew the whole story.” Tears clogged my throat. It was my fault. All my fault. If they knew . . .
“Why don’t you try me?” Patience was a steady presence, pulsing around him.
Don’t talk about it. Don’t make a scene. Forget it ever happened.
“Fi, I’m guilty of kidnapping, extortion, holding you against your will, and probably a hundred other things . . . I’m hardly in a place to judge.”
That was . . . true. And the words were right there, on the tip of my tongue, begging to break free as they had for the past three years. This was my one chance to let them out.
“Christ, Sparrow.” Sawyer’s whispered words washed over me. He tipped his head sideways as his lips tugged downward. “It’s like I’m watching you trapped in this cage, beating your wings against the bars, desperate for someone to open them and set you free. But what you don’t realize is that the only person who can do that . . . is you.”
My heart turned over painfully in my chest. He was right. I was trapped. Trapped in the past. Trapped by my family. Trapped by my secrets. I didn’t want to be trapped anymore. But opening that cage meant more than letting me out. It meant letting everything else in. Letting him in.
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
“Did you know that the sparrow is one of the most aggressive birds in the world? They may be small, but they overtake the nests of other birds all the time. Sparrows are fighters. Don’t stop fighting, Fi.”
Don’t stop fighting. Don’t stop fighting what? My parents? My upbringing? My sordid history? Him? I fought every day. I was so damn tired of fighting. Maybe . . . just this once . . . I didn’t have to fight.
“I . . . I w-was sixteen.” The words stuck in my throat, years of conditioning warring to keep them locked away.
In the stripe of moonlight coming through the planks on the wall, I saw Sawyer’s face harden and the fingers resting on his knee strain toward me. “What happened?”
“I went to this party with my friends. A high school party. This guy’s parents were out of town for the weekend and he . . .” Not the point. “Some of the guys from the football team were there. The kind of guys every girl in school swooned over. One of them started talking to me and I thought . . . I thought he liked me. I didn’t . . .” So naïve. “He asked me to go for a walk with him. There was this really pretty pond at the back of the property. We went out there and talked. He stole a bottle of something from the liquor cabinet and he kept refilling my cup.” God, I was such a fool.
Choking down the fear and the shame and the memories was harder than I could have imagined.
“I wasn’t drunk, I swear. I didn’t do anything—”
“I believe you.” Sawyer’s words took my breath away. I blinked at him in awe.
He believed me? No one believed me. Not even my own parents. They said no one would believe I was sober. That I hadn’t come on to those boys.
“What happened next?” His hand slid a little closer, close enough that the tips of his fingers brushed the back of my hand. Surprisingly the contact didn’t make me squeamish. It almost felt . . . comforting.
“We were sitting on the ground talking when . . . when his friends showed up.” They materialized from the shadows like a pack of hungry wolves. I was surrounded before I even knew they were there.
“His friends?” Sawyer’s hand balled into a tight fist, leaving mine feeling cold. “How many?”
I tried to focus on the facts to keep the terror of what came next at bay. “There were six of them in total.”
Twelve eyes, twelve hands, six sets of lips, six . . . I shied away from that thought.
“Jesus Christ.” Sawyer looked like he was about to puke. Or put a hole through the wall. Or both. “Fi, did . . .? Did they . . .?”
It lasted so long. So long. Days. Weeks. Years. I couldn’t understand why the sun never came up. I fought them. Hard. But after a while . . . I just lay there. And cried.
My throat closed. Tears sprang to my eyes. I couldn’t do this. The shaking in my hands traveled through my entire body. I couldn’t live through that awful night again. My parents were right. I needed to forget it. I needed it to go away. To pretend it never happened.
“It’s okay.” A warm hand encompassed mine and squeezed. “It’s alright. You don’t have to say anymore.”
But I had to tell someone. I had to get it out. I’d been keeping it locked inside of me for years. Letting it corrode me from the inside out.
The comforter bunched between us as Sawyer scooted closer. He was the last person on Earth I should have been drawing strength from, but that was where I
found it.
“They tied my hands with a belt.” I could still feel the cold leather around my wrists. It made my skin crawl. “Took turns pinning me to the ground. I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t—”
“Breathe, Sparrow. Deep breaths.” Warmth seeped into my face and I realized Sawyer was cupping my cheek, watching me carefully. I sucked air greedily. “Good girl. There you go.”
“They . . . they t-touched me. And kissed me. They . . . they . . .” I lived with the memory every single day, but letting it out, saying the word, it was so damn hard. “They r-raped me. And they laughed. They made jokes and laughed at me the whole time it was happening.”
I could still hear them. Their voices, their laughter haunted me night after night. Shallow breaths sawed in and out of my lungs, but it wasn’t enough. The room swam in and out of focus. I thought I was past the panic attacks, but apparently not.
“Keep breathing. I’m right here. Keep breathing, Fi. Deep breaths. You’re okay.” I couldn’t see his face clearly, but Sawyer’s voice sounded strained to the breaking point.
It took a few tries to follow his orders, but I managed to get my lungs to open up, to get the oxygen to go deeper, and the fuzziness receded.
Sawyer’s arm was wrapped around my back, pinning me to his side, but I felt no desire to pull away. Instead I leaned into him, into his warmth, his comfort, his understanding, his acceptance. There was a part of my mind screaming at the stupidity of it, reminding me of who he was and where we were, but the rest of me was firmly entrenched in the past and he was my anchor, keeping me from drowning in it.
“It’s over.” Fingers threaded through my hair, combing it in long, soothing strokes down my back. “You survived. You’re so strong.”
My cheeks felt chapped from the combination of tears and cold as I swiped at them with the sleeve of my shirt.
Sawyer’s chest pressed into mine on a deep breath and I swear his voice turned to a growl. “Please tell me those sons of bitches are rotting behind bars somewhere. Otherwise, I’m about to be. For murder.”
It was sick and twisted that his vicious threat brought me more relief than anything. “They’re not.”
His arms clenched around me and I burrowed deeper into the hard planes of his chest, choosing for just this minute to forget who he was and accept what he was offering. “Explain. Now.”
“I never pressed charges.”
In one swift move, I was shoved away from my only source of comfort to find Sawyer staring at me in bewilderment. “You never told anyone about this?”
The tang of copper flooded my mouth and I realized I’d bitten my tongue hard enough to draw blood. “I told my parents that night.”
“And they didn’t call the police?”
“No.” I thought they would. I thought my mother would hold me in her arms and tell me that everything would be okay. That they’d take me to a doctor and hold my hand while I filed a report. That we’d face it together. I was a fool. “They said . . . They said no one would believe me. Those boys that attacked me, they were the most popular boys in town. All of them had girlfriends. They didn’t need to force someone.” My fingers traced the seashells on the bedspread as I drew a steadying breath, releasing it slowly. “I snuck out of the house to go to that party. I was wearing this slutty little skirt my mother never would have let me leave the house in. And I’d been drinking. I—”
“You’re telling me your parents said this was your fault?” The storm had passed, but Sawyer’s voice boomed like thunder.
“No. No one’s fault. Just . . .”
“That you were asking for it.” His eyes flashed with something more terrifying than I’d seen from him before. “Bastard. His daughter is gang raped and he talks her out of reporting it.”
His venomous assessment caused me to flinch and he pulled me back into his arms. I went willingly. “You don’t understand. It was only a few weeks before a big stockholders meeting and I was—”
“Sixteen. You were sixteen-fucking-years-old, Fi. You were a child who was brutally attacked. Nothing about that night was your fault.” His throat bobbed on a hard swallow. “Just like now. None of this is your fault, either. You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t cause it. You don’t deserve it. Do you hear me?”
I heard him and, rationally, I knew it was the truth. They hadn’t chosen me at random. I wasn’t targeted because of the party I was at, or the amount I’d had to drink, or the dress I was wearing. This was all happening because of something my father had done that I still didn’t fully understand. In some ways, it was reassuring to know that I didn’t need to shoulder the guilt of the things that had happened to me. In other ways, it was terrifying. Because if I wasn’t the problem . . . then how could I ever hope to fix it?
Chapter 11
~Sawyer~
*7 years ago*
“Higher!”
I laughed at Sylvie’s squeals of delight as I grabbed hold of the ropes and rushed forward, ducking beneath the swing and pushing her as high as my fingertips could stretch.
“Christ, Sawyer, are you trying to send her into orbit? That’s high enough.”
“Higher! Higher!” Sylvie cried, and I knew she was doing it just to get a rise out of her brother.
She got it.
“I said enough.” He scowled first at her and then at me, making it clear my part in this hadn’t gone unnoticed. “It looks like it’s going to start raining soon anyway.”
“Who cares?” Sylvie leaned as far back as her short arms would allow, eyes closed, long blonde hair streaming behind her as she flew like an angel toward the heavens.
The heavy, dark clouds looming overhead guaranteed Frank was right, but I understood her reluctance to let the moment go. It was our one chance—our one week each year at the beginning of summer vacation—to taste the freedom of normalcy. To let go of the constant stress and fear and pain. And we all wanted to make every moment of it count.
The first sign of the incoming deluge was the metallic pinging of rain hitting the tin roof of the stables. The steady beating took on a deeper pitch as it raced across the pasture and I tugged the old swing to a stop to help Sylvie jump off.
“Run!” She bolted toward the closest building. Being small was a disadvantage to her in many ways, but not when it came to speed. She was halfway across the grassy field, arms flung high, before Frank and I even started running.
We burst into the stables, clothes plastered to our bodies, panting for breath, and laughing so hard I doubted we’d ever be able to catch it. Sylvie took the hem of her oversized tee and wrung it out, creating a puddle around her feet. I planted my hand against the wall outside the tack room and caught myself eyeing the strip of pale skin above her waistline.
“We should go.” Frank shook his head, spraying Sylvie with raindrops. “Grandad will get worried if we don’t come back to the house soon.”
“Not yet.” Sylvie retreated, wandering farther along the alley toward a stall where a big gray mare had poked her head over the door to investigate our intrusion. She held her hand out long enough for the horse to get her scent and then ran it up her neck to scratch behind her ears. “Please? Just a little longer?”
Frank glanced my way. We both shared her reluctance to leave. Back at the house we’d be expected to start packing. Our week—our break from reality—was over. Tonight Mr. Varis would come to take us home. If it was anything like the past, he’d have a week’s worth of pent up aggression to unleash.
“That’s a good girl. Such a good girl, Stardust.” Sylvie leaned in, pressing her forehead to the horse’s neck.
Her name was actually Mildred, but Sylvie hated it. Said a beautiful horse like that deserved a beautiful name, so at age six she’d renamed the horse Stardust, claiming that she could wish on her and all of her dreams would come true. Every year before we left, she’d go to that horse’s stall and shut her eyes. It wasn’t a mystery what she was wishing for. I’d yet to see it come tru
e.
“Come on.” Frank grabbed my arm and tugged. “I want to show you something.”
I shot another glance at Sylvie, where she was nuzzling the horse’s fur, before following Frank into the tack room. It smelled of sweat and leather. I inhaled deeply, letting the calm that the strange combination brought me take root. Saddles were piled along the back wall. Bridles, harnesses, lead lines all dangled from pegs. I knew how to use it all. Grandad made sure we were capable around the horses from the time we were five. I ran my fingers over the worn, buttery leather of the nearest saddle, while Frank rooted around on the floor in the corner.
“What are you looking for?”
“This.” He waved me over without looking up. “Come here.”
I stood behind him, peering over his shoulder at . . . the floor. “What?”
Frank dug his fingers into the crease between two boards and wiggled until one of them popped loose. Inside was a metal Ninja Turtles lunch box covered in rust and dirt. I ignored the million and one questions I had and watched him pry the lid off.
My mouth dropped open. “What is that?”
“Money.”
I could see that. Tens, twenties, fifties all stacked in neat little piles. There had to be close to a thousand dollars in there. “Where did you get it?”
“I’ve been saving it for years. Most of it I took from Dad when he wasn’t paying attention.” A cold smile cut across Frank’s face. “There’s seven-hundred and sixty-eight dollars in here.”
“What’s it for?” When you’re sixteen, seven-hundred and sixty-eight dollars seems like a fortune.
“Us.” Frank started repacking the cash in the box. “This is our escape, Sawyer. You, me, and Sylvie. As soon as we have enough, we’ll take it and go.”
“When?” I itched to take it and run now. All three of us. We could build a life out of that. Couldn’t we?
“I don’t know. We need more.”
“Then why show me? Why now?”
“In case.” He snapped the lid and lowered the box out of sight, sliding the floorboard back into place.
“In case what, Frank?” I thought I knew where he was going with this and I didn’t like it.