by Sian Rosé
“One huge, colossal, fuck-tonne of an error.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
Spring, 2000
“Do you think they’d still send me to juvey?”
Minnie blinked thoughtfully up at the familiar dark abyss of ceiling that hung suffocatingly low above them. She ran her hands over the warm swell of her rounded stomach and felt her lip curl involuntary upwards in one corner as a tiny baby kick poked one of her palms.
The two of them sat, flat on their backs, legs balanced up against the wall. Ronnie’s skinny arm was draped over her shoulders, his protruding rib cage sticking not-unpleasantly into the side of her pregnant torso.
“Surely not,” Minnie replied with a shake of the head.
“Maybe it’s like GTA,” Ronnie mused. Even in the gloom they’d grown so used to, Minnie could hear in his voice that he was smiling as he said it. “Where after a certain amount of time, the cops just leave you to it and stop looking for you.”
A small, half-sad breath of laughter came from Minnie’s chest. It had felt like an eternity since the two of them had spent weekends together at Ronnie’s house in the living room, fighting over the game console. Ronnie was a control freak. Minnie had never been as good at the games, and it seemed to physically pain him to watch her play.
Things used to be so simple.
“No…” said Ronnie quickly, sensing the melancholy shift in the atmosphere between them. “I’ll go to the nuthouse, won’t I?” he sniffed. It was supposed to be a funny joke. Ironic because the two teenagers had both learned that there would be no escape. Not even to a prison cell or a grim, eerie asylum for the insane.
As days, and weeks, and months had passed, the young couple had adapted. The part of Minnie’s brain that had always marvelled at human biology and neuroscience, though forced down and dulled by the trauma, found it incredible that they were still alive. And not only that but there’d been times when they’d shared jokes. When they’d cuddled. When they’d laughed about old times.
They’d even had that beautiful moment where Ronnie had felt the baby kick for the first time. Despite their aching limbs, they’d both leaped up and danced, giggling manically like a pair of lunatics.
Amazing what the human machine is capable of.
The abuse, although still awful and dreaded, somehow just became another given of life. Like homework or laundry. An unpleasant occurrence that simply had to be done.
It wasn’t as though either of them had a choice.
Minnie still pretended she could make her soul slip out of the shell of her body when it was happening. She’d close her eyes and envision a small, ghostly version of herself standing up, taking her unborn child by the hand and floating upwards through the ceiling of whatever horrible place she’d been brought to.
When it hurt, or when there was shouting, or when there was… more than one of them… she’d force music into her head as well. It didn’t matter what song, anything. Some jazzy pop number from the radio or a classical piece she’d learned at school. Anything to drown them out. Anything to protect her baby from them.
For Ronnie, it was different.
After the incident with Sir Walsh, he must have gone back to his sick pervert club and spread the word because all of a sudden, there was more call for his services. At some points, Nick the skinhead was dragging Ronnie from the dark, grimy cell more than he was dragging Minnie.
It wasn’t always just sex, either.
Each time, he’d either be force-fed drugs and alcohol and then escorted off in a car to someplace or either pulled back upstairs to the same awful bedroom. It was along the landing from where Minnie was being held, so Ronnie always tried his best to be quiet so that she would not hear his suffering.
The room was painted a sickly orange colour; its ceiling stained a grim, brownish-yellow with cigarette smoke. No carpet covered the dusty floorboards, and cracks in the skirting boards meant that the ground was always dusty, covered in plaster debris. In the room, the air was stagnant; it smelled of something old and rotting. One corner held a cheap pine dresser filled with nothing but wire coat hangers, and another had a large bed frame, a stained mattress on top of it. Thick, heavy crimson curtains always hung over the single window, and Ronnie had never had the opportunity to go over to it and look out.
Some men, who paid Steve for an hour or two with Ronnie, would beat him. Sometimes, there was nothing sexual about the exchange. They just wanted a punching bag to kick around.
One of the worst times was an occasion where Ronnie had been taken away to someplace. He’d been too drunk to even notice where he was, the drug-infused fug in his head too heavy for him to even open his eyelids.
When he’d finally been conscious enough to realise what was happening, he had been awoken to a circle of men around him, each wielding various instruments of torture. They’d hit him, over and over, until blood poured from his mouth and his eyelids were so swollen that he could no longer see.
It was, Ronnie thought, a good job that the room where Steve kept him with Minnie was so dark. He knew how frightening he must have been to look at.
But still, they adapted. Minnie and Ronnie clung desperately to the moments between appointments, where it was just the two of them huddled in one dark, filthy corner. Sometimes they’d talk. Other times they’d just lay there in silence, daydreaming about how perfect things used to be. And, as time wore on, and as hard as the two teenagers tried to keep on brave faces, there was no denying the silent, troubling presence that lingered over them.
Neither wanted to say the words; in case somehow this would make it more real. As if their quietness would keep the inevitable looming tragedy at bay.
What would happen when the baby was born?
Chapter Forty
2019
A crimson red film of anger tinted Zach’s vision as he marched about the clearing in the woods; a menacing grin spread across his face; his brows furrowed deeply as he glared back at the terrified, wide eyes looking back at him.
Their stupid, pathetic faces were everywhere. It was amazing, Zach thought, the power that holding a firearm could give you. No more shots had even been fired; all he, his brother, and father had had to do was shout a bit, wave the gun around threateningly, and the job was a done deal.
They’d successfully coerced every ugly, weak fucker into a bind. Some were lying with their hands tied behind their backs on the floor, glistening, tear-stained faces peering up from the ground. Every so often, Lloyd, who was guarding them, would tread hard on their backs, cracking their spines, reminding them the deepness of the shit they were in.
Some had been tied to tree trunks. There simply hadn’t been enough rope for all of them, and so quite a few had just had their throats cut and were leaking black-red blood out onto the mud.
Despite her injuries (which had been so catastrophically awful that Zach had barely even been able to look at her), Stella had taken great delight in pointing out the ring leader.
Neil.
Zach and Ronnie had worked quickly to roughly replace him so that he was suspended from the branch where Stella had previously been dangling. The stupid bastard was quivering and crying, his pitiful whines echoing through the wood. Every so often, Flo would poke his exposed, fatty flesh with the point of a bread knife, reminding him that he was required to shut the fuck up.
His naked, fat rolls of flab were disgusting to look at. Just the sight of him made Zach’s stomach churn. But Ronnie had insisted that he be treated exactly the same as Stella. He needed to get exactly what was coming to him.
Watery-eyed, Minnie was squatting in the corner by a tree, dressing some of the gnarlier wounds that streaked poor Stella’s flesh. She was dressed now, but there was no concealing the stripped vulnerability reflected in the teenager’s eyes. Her slender body sat upright, the pit bull, Thumper, sitting calmly at her side. With all things considered, the dog had an extremely good temperament and hadn’t even batted an eyelid when his owner had had his fa
ce caved in.
“Let’s get you back to the RV,” Minnie was saying softly, as Stella winced at the pressure being applied to one of the burns. Immediately, she shook her head with such vigour that it made Minnie flinch.
“And miss this?” Stella asked, nodding her head towards Neil’s grotesque figure dangling like the corpse of a dead pig. “Fuck no.” Her eyes were dark and gleaming with venom and hatred. Minnie didn’t know whether to be proud of her daughter’s strength or devastated that she’d ever had to know such pain.
Neil choked back another wail and shouted across the clearing at Ronnie, who was standing alone for a moment, puffing thoughtfully on a cigarette that he’d stolen from Neil’s pocket.
“Let me go,” Neil shouted, his voice a heavy, broken croak. “Let me go now, or my dad’s gonna fuck you up. And my brother, and my uncle, and my…” his words were cut short, replaced by a blood-curdling shriek of pain as Flo plunged the knife into his hairy armpit. His head fell back, eyes bulging from their sockets as the agony wracked his body.
Ronnie licked his lips. He tossed the cigarette carelessly to the side so that its orange tip landed with a soft fizz on one of the other gang member’s backs. The boy screeched in response.
Moving slowly forwards, Ronnie breathed out and looked up at the sky. By that time, the day was beginning to darken. The hours had slipped past at the speed of light. Time certainly had flown. So much for laying low and having time to chill out.
“Listen,” Ronnie said, his pupils settling on Neil’s blotchy face. “Your dad, nor anybody else for that matter, is going to fuck me up…” he paused, then laughed. “And I mean, I don’t know who the fuck gave you all this confidence… you said you were going to fuck my daughter up, and now look at the state of you…” he reached out and smacked Neil’s damp, glistening cheek.
Neil’s lips quivered, and his cheeks flushed red. He shook his head madly, “what? You think people aren’t going to come looking for us?” he croaked, his words tinged with doubt. “Our people look out for our own…” he added weakly.
At that, Ronnie nodded and feigned a sympathetic smile. His dark hair was tousled, his grey eyes still and intense. From across the clearing, Minnie stared at him in awe, a shiver of electricity running up and down her spine as she took him in. He was just so effortlessly sexy.
“I don’t doubt that, Neil,” Ronnie agreed, “I mean, you lot screw your own sisters after all. Nobody can fault your people for not being… close-knit.”
Teeth clenching, Neil’s eyes crinkled around the edges as he glared furiously back at Ronnie.
“But, you see,” the man continued pleasantly, “I burned your little gypsy village down to the fucking ground. So your whole family is now dead.”
“What? No…”
“Oh yes,” laughed Ronnie gleefully, “I killed every last one of them. Like pouring fire on an anthill it was. Isn’t that right, kids?” he turned to Flo, Lloyd, and Zach in turn, each of whom responded with an enthusiastic nod.
“Figured we may as well. Funny story actually, we were supposed to be not attracting attention to ourselves, but things got out of hand. Like you say, if we hadn’t, no doubt they’d all come along with their pitchforks and try to fuck up our little party here.”
Neil shook his head, his moist lips parting slightly as he stared disbelievingly back at Ronnie. Above him, the weight of his body made the branch creak.
“But…” he croaked, swallowing back a lump of despair that congealed in the back of his throat. “But… the children? My kids…” his pupils flitted questioningly at his captors.
Ronnie’s lips curled upwards in a nasty smirk. He moved his head closer to Neil, cold eyes glazing over as he fixed him with a hard, unforgiving gaze.
“Your kids,” he whispered so quietly that Neil felt the words on his cheek rather than heard them. “Are dead.”
A long, low wail of agony flooded from the young man. His head fell forwards, and a devastating rasp quickly followed, his shoulders rising and tensing as his entire skeleton became rigid with grief.
Satisfaction; the sweet, pleasurable rush of revenge sped through Ronnie’s veins like a refreshing stream of bubbling water on a hot day. He grinned wide; so that the man almost appeared manic, exposing all of his teeth.
“Do you know why they’re dead, Neil?” Ronnie asked, his eyes gleaming at the sight of his enemy suffering in the worst way imaginable. “Hey? You know why I burned your fucking kids alive?” he prompted, smacking Neil around the face as he sobbed uncontrollably. “Come on, smart guy!” he spat, a disgusting glob of his spittle landing in a grotesque paste on Neil’s blotchy nose.
“WHY DID I KILL YOUR INNOCENT CHILDREN?”
“BECAUSE YOU’RE A SICK CUNT!” screamed Neil, writhing and convulsing, frantically jigging his naked body so that he swung madly from the branch; the boughs of the tree creaking loudly in protest.
Raising his eyebrows and sighing, Ronnie tutted and crossed his arms. He took a step backwards, “you know, we didn’t mind your kind. Could’ve been mates. If only you hadn’t kidnapped my daughter, strung her up naked, and beat the shit out of her…” for the first time that afternoon, with a heavy, sinking feeling in his chest, Ronnie glanced over towards Stella. At the sight of her battered skin; and the deadened look behind his little girl’s eyes, fresh rage boiled beneath inside his veins.
Along with it, there was a wave of shame. Out of all four of his children, Ronnie had always found it the most difficult to bond with Stella. He knew the reasons why, and he felt even more ashamed that they mattered to him.
It wasn’t Stella’s fault, after all.
Nor was it his or Minnie’s.
Regardless of blood- Stella was Minnie’s, and therefore she was also his. He’d been the one to bring her into the world, gently pulling her out from between Minnie’s legs in a hot, slippery rush all those years ago. He’d raised her this entire time.
He was her father.
Even if it was another man’s- a vile cretin’s- DNA that flowed through her. Even if she was the living product of rape.
He was her father.
It was his job to love and protect her at whatever cost.
So how the fuck had he allowed this to happen?
In one long, shared glance, unspoken words passed between father and daughter.
Quietly, she stood up and gingerly walked towards the hanging body, fire dancing behind her pupils; flames of anger growing taller by the second. She stopped at his side, her torso rigid as her lips twisted into a scowl of fury.
All eyes were upon her as she swallowed, and delved into her pocket, and held up a long, pale brown stick.
Neil winced and began to thrash wildly, screeching and begging.
Watching him squeal was like taking a hit of pure ecstasy.
In one swift movement, Stella walked around to Neil’s backside, and with a grimace, quickly parted his buttocks and slid the thick girth of the dog treat into his stinking arse hole. Neil screamed like he’d been shot. Stella punched him hard in the back before shoving the dog treat further up into the despicable man’s anus.
“Shut the fuck up,” she yelled, her voice so hard and so hard that it even made Ronnie flinch.
Clearing her throat, Stella stood back. She produced another dog treat from her pocket, then waved it up in the air whilst whistling. “Thumper! Oh, Thumper!” she trilled with delight before tossing the treat into the dusty space beneath where Neil’s body hung.
As if she had always been the dog’s trainer, he obediently sat up and charged enthusiastically towards the dog treat, which he gobbled up quickly, then pause as his nostrils flexed.
Neil screamed again, kicking out his legs, hitting the dog on its muzzle in the process.
Thumper, apparently, did not like this.
Immediately, the pleasant, mild-mannered dog that had sat so faithfully beside Stella just moments ago burst into action. He snarled, flecks of spit erupting from his snapping jaws and bloo
d red gums, clearly antagonised. After a few short moments of biting air, the dog finally caught a thick chunk of the flesh on Neil’s buttocks, sharpened teeth sinking into the muscle.
“FUCK!” screamed Neil, his face flushing red as the dog tore the first layer of tissue from his backside.
“NO!” he cried out as the dog continued to attack, clearly enjoying the taste of his meat.
Stella smiled, relishing the gore. A sigh of satisfaction escaped her lips as she savoured the blood-soaked scene unfolding, the pure joy of watching her attacker be literally eaten alive by an angry pitbull. Bliss.
Ronnie stepped towards his daughter and touched her arm.
“I’m sorry this had to happen to you,” he whispered.
She didn’t reply.
Simply shrugged and didn’t meet his eye.
“Stella- what do you want to do about the others?” Lloyd asked, calling out over the sea of sobbing, horrified bodies that still lay in front of him.
Her eyes remained fixed tightly on Neil.
“Dad said it’s a party, right? Well, let’s just enjoy it. Kill the motherfuckers however you want. Make it as bloody, nasty… and slow, as slow possible.”
Chapter Forty-one
Spring, 2000
One morning, after a long, fitful night of broken sleep, the door to the windowless room creaked open. Minnie startled upright and instinctively held onto the bulge of her belly. As if right on schedule, she felt another intense tightening in her abdomen. Not painful, just intense. She reached out and grabbed Ronnie’s hand, squeezing his clammy palm into hers. This had become a sort of ritual that the pair did, each time one of them was about to be whisked away into a deeper ebb of hell.
This time, as she had suspected, it was her.
That morning, it was Steve who came in. He didn’t grab her or drag her; instead just stood by the doorway and beckoned her into the darkness with one stubby finger. She obeyed, without question, hauling her heavy body to her feet and waddling over to him as quickly as she could. As she went, she heard Ronnie murmur quietly behind her, stirring in his sleep.