by Chloe Walsh
I didn’t want to give her back.
Something inside of me told me that if I did, she would return with another bruise.
At least if I kept her with me, she would be safe.
There was something very fucked up about her life.
Something that made me want to snatch her away and take her with me, wherever that may be.
I wasn’t stupid.
I knew someone had put those marks on her face.
And her thighs.
And her arms.
And I was fairly fucking sure that if I stripped the girl bare, I would find plenty more.
I didn’t know what was happening, or who was bullying her, but I would figure it out.
Straight out asking her was out of the question, though.
She was so goddamned guarded that it was almost impossible to penetrate the walls she built up around herself.
I thought I might be doing a good job, but if I pushed too hard too fast then she would retreat back in her shell.
I wanted to smash that fucking shell and the bastards responsible for making her hide there in the first place.
She was lovely.
Fucking lovely.
She didn’t need to be hiding any of her shine behind those bleeding shutters.
Shannon shivered then and the movement distracted me.
It was gone ten at night and she hadn't opened her eyes once since falling asleep earlier this afternoon.
"Shh," I whispered when she whimpered in her sleep.
I didn’t even try and stop myself from stroking her hair.
I was beyond help when it came to her.
I was beyond fucking stopping.
Everything inside of me was shifting, honing in on this tiny girl.
Nuzzling her cheek against my thigh, Shannon nestled closer, curling up in the smallest ball I'd ever seen a person her age contort their body into.
Like the obsessive freak I was, I allowed my gaze to land on her bruised cheekbone for the millionth time tonight.
I knew I shouldn’t look at it.
It made my body thrum with rage.
And still, I couldn’t stop myself.
I stared at the mark on her face until I was sufficiently filled with enough anger to take down an entire village, and then I turned my attention to the bruises on her thighs.
My phone vibrated in my pocket then, and the sensation pulled me from my murderous thoughts.
Pulling my phone out, I stared at the screen, not recognizing the number flashing in front of my eyes.
Careful not to wake Shannon, I slid out from beneath her and waited for her to settle back down.
Pulling off my hoodie, I draped it over her bare legs and then slipped out of the room to take the call.
"Yeah?" I said when I was standing in the hallway.
"How's she doing?" Joey Lynch's voice came down the line.
"She's asleep," I replied, keeping my tone low because if she woke up and asked to go home, I honestly didn’t know what I would do. I couldn’t refuse her, but I certainly didn’t want to. "She's been out all day."
"Good," he replied with a sigh. "She needed it."
"What's going on, Lynch?" Moving for the front door, I yanked it open and stepped into the cold, night air. "The fuck's happening to your sister?"
"I already told you," he snapped. "Ask her."
"I'm asking you," I snarled.
"I'll be at yours in five minutes," was all Joey replied before cutting the call and leaving me as clueless as ever.
Furious and at a complete loss, I paced the hallway, knowing that I needed to get a handle on myself, but not finding the restraint to do so.
Exactly five minutes later, a small knock came from the other side of my front door.
Like the raging lunatic I was, I was standing there waiting for him.
Yanking the door open, I opened my mouth, ready to lose my shit on Joey Lynch, when Shannon's voice came from behind me.
"Joe?" she said in a sleepy voice as she hovered in the living room doorway.
I moved to go to her, to tell her to go to my room and stay there, but her brother intercepted her before I could.
"It's time to go, Shan," Joey announced.
"It is?" Her eyes widened in panic for the briefest moment before switching to resignation. "Okay."
"Yeah." He exhaled a heavy breath. "Mam needs a hand with the kids."
"She can stay," I hurried to say. I looked to Shannon and added, "You can stay."
"No, we need to go," Joey stated as he wrapped a protective arm around Shannon's shoulder and walked her out of my house. "Thanks for your help, Kavanagh."
Agitated, I followed after them both.
"Thanks, Johnny," Shannon whispered, looking back at me with sad eyes as her brother led her outside. "For everything."
"Shannon, you don’t have to –"
"Come on, Shan," Joey interrupted me by saying. "We need to get home."
"Is Mam okay?" Shannon asked when her brother walked her around to the passenger side and pulled open the door.
"She'll be fine," Joey told her. "But we need to go home."
I had no fucking clue why my legs moved me towards the passenger side of the car, but that's what happened.
Feeling helpless, I watched as her brother bundled her into the passenger seat before rounding the car to the driver's side.
"Bye Johnny," Shannon whispered as Joey started the engine.
She moved to close the car door, but my hand snaked out, stopping her from closing it.
She looked up at me with those big, blue eyes.
Stay.
Stay with me, Shannon.
I can keep you safe...
"Bye, Shannon," I told her instead, and with a reluctance that bordered on regret, I closed the door.
The tires of her brother's car skidded with the force he tore out of my driveway.
Standing in the pouring rain, I watched him take her away from me.
39
Bad news and worse news
Shannon
"Are you feeling it, too?" Joey bit out, hands gripping the wheel with such force it turned his knuckles white, as we drove away from Johnny Kavanagh's house.
"Feeling what?" I strangled out.
Joey looked me dead in the eye and made me feel a little less alone in my disgrace when he said, "Relief?"
I nodded, hating myself for even thinking it, but I felt it.
And so did he.
"Is she okay?" I croaked out, when words found me again.
Joey nodded stiffly. "Supposed to be."
"Is that what happened?" I whispered, feeling tears prickle my eyes as disgust and self-hatred took over. "Was she in the hospital all weekend and we didn’t know?"
Again, my brother nodded stiffly.
"Oh, Joey," I sobbed. "She was alone."
"She had him," Joey bit out, jaw clenched. "He was with her, and he is home now."
"What are we going to do?" I asked, needing him to have the answers I didn’t. "Joe?"
"I don’t know," he finally choked out, voice cracking. "I don’t know what to do anymore, Shannon."
"It's okay," I forced myself to say. "You don’t have to know. You're only eighteen."
"I can't be there, Shan," he finally said, face awash with guilt. "I can't live like this anymore."
"I know," I breathed, feeling faint hearing those words come out of his mouth.
I'd heard those words before.
From Darren.
"I think we should consider what Aoife said," Joey added, voice thick with emotion.
"What about what Aoife said?" I choked out, horrified.
"Calling this in."
"You must be joking," I deadpanned.
Joey looked at me with guilty eyes but he didn’t respond.
"I am not going into care," I spat, feeling betrayed. "You're fine. You'll get to live your own life and walk away. I will be put in a home!"
"Shannon, she was
talking to me last night about my future, and she made a lot of sense–"
"Your future," I deadpanned.
Joey groaned loudly. "Not just me, Shannon. All of us –"
"I can't believe you would even think it after what happened to Darren!" I screamed, losing all grasp on my emotions. "How could you think about doing that to us, Joey?"
My father terrorized me.
He battered me.
I lived in constant fear.
But he never touched me like that.
He never raped me.
Which is exactly what happened to Darren repeatedly for months and months, over and over until they almost killed him.
I read the reports years after it happened.
I knew all about the surgeries he had to have to repair the damage those bastards caused him.
And now Joey was contemplating risking that?
Go back.
Turn the car around and go back to him.
Go back to Johnny.
Tell him.
Tell him and let him help you.
He told you he would.
No, you idiot, he can't help you.
No one can.
Your own brother's giving up on you!
"If you want to go then go!" I screamed as hot tears poured down my cheeks. "Go off and leave us. Go be with Aoife and have a wonderful life together. I'll protect the boys."
"You can't even protect yourself! " Joey roared. "I'm doing that, Shannon. Me. I'm the one trying to soften the fucking blows and they just keep coming.
"Then maybe you and Dad will both get lucky and he'll finish me off the next time," I hissed as a huge sob racked through me. "It'll save you the worry, and him the energy."
"Don’t fucking say that, Shannon!" Joey bellowed, slamming his hand on the steering wheel.
"Why not?" I strangled out between gasps. "It's the truth."
"Shannon, breathe," Joey commanded in a softer tone as he reached over and rubbed my back. "Take a breath."
I couldn’t.
I could not fucking breathe.
Leaning forward, I desperately tried to drag air into my lungs.
"Good girl," Joey coaxed as he steered with one hand and rubbed my back with the other. "Nice and slow."
By the time we made it back to the house, I had managed to calm myself down to the point where I could actually drag air into my lungs.
For several minutes, we just sat outside the house, staring at our father's car parked in the driveway.
I did not want to go into that house.
And neither did Joey.
We were both completely screwed.
No, you're screwed. He'll be fine…
"Shannon?" Joey's voice broke through my thoughts.
I didn’t look at him.
I didn’t respond either.
"Are you listening to me?" he asked.
I nodded weakly, keeping my eyes trained on the car.
"The next time he puts his hands on you, I want you to fight back."
I stiffened.
"Are you listening to me?"
I nodded.
"If he touches you again, Shannon, then I want you to grab the sharpest knife you can, and I want you to plunge it into his heart."
Sniffling, I turned to look at him. "You're not coming back, are you?"
Joey just stared at me, eyes filled with tears. "I can't," he whispered as a tear rolled down his cheek. "If I go back inside that house, I'll kill them both."
I watched his face, registered the truth he was telling me, and then I unfastened my seatbelt and opened the door.
"Goodbye, Joey," I whispered numbly, and then I climbed out and walked inside.
40
Lines and Bulldozers
Johnny
I was in a horrible mood on Monday morning that was partially propelled by the god-awful pain I was in, but mostly attributed to the fact that I hadn't closed an eye last night.
All night, I had tossed and turned over Shannon.
All bleeding night, I laid awake with only my regrets to keep me company – and that bleeding picture from the paper.
I should have stopped her.
I shouldn’t have let him take her.
Why, I had no bleeding clue, but there was a voice inside my head screaming at me to protect her.
I wanted to.
I just didn’t know what I needed to protect her from.
Or who.
I was completely fucking clueless, armed and ready to go to war for a girl I didn’t know, against an enemy no one would tell me about.
Jesus, I was so fucked in the head from her.
It was getting out of hand.
She was disrupting my perfectly content way of life, and I didn’t fucking know how to cope with it.
The girl fucked with my head and made me weak and swayable.
It wasn’t right, and she had no business coming into my life at this pivotal point.
She was like a tornado I never saw coming.
The one problem I didn’t foresee when making my plans.
The one person who could fracture all my hard work.
And the most nerve-wrecking thing about it all was that I liked it.
I liked the fact that she was turning my life on its axis and encouraging never seen before notions and feelings inside of me, and then I hated that I liked it.
I was thoroughly addicted to every single thing about the girl and it had nothing to do with the physical – and the physical was pretty fucking perfect.
Most importantly, she didn't look at me like I was a meal ticket.
She looked right through all the bullshit.
Seeing me.
Seeing only me.
And that made me want to move some shit around and place her slap bang in the middle of my world.
I knew I needed to get a fucking handle on myself.
Except I couldn’t.
Because she was addictive.
And I was obsessed.
I'd lost count of the number of lads I'd played rugby with down through the seasons that had dropped out or lost form over a girl.
I couldn’t afford to let that happen to me.
There was too much at stake.
Everything was at stake.
Before Shannon, I never had any problem concentrating.
Before her, I had never been uncertain about a thing.
I knew exactly who I was, where I had come from, and where I was going.
And now?
Now I was a mess.
I didn’t need this.
I didn’t need this fucking stress.
I had fitness exams in less than three weeks' time that I needed to focus on.
Exams that if I didn’t pass, put my whole future in jeopardy.
That's what I needed to be focusing on.
My career.
Not a girl.
By the time I made it to school, I was distracted, off balance, and freaking the fuck out.
There was something very wrong with me and I needed an immediate intervention.
"I need a favor," were the first words that came out of my mouth when I found Gibsie outside the woodwork room before first class. "Seriously!" Exhaling a harsh breath, I shoved him down the hallway towards the fifth-year common area. "You need to help me."
"Okay, but I have class in two minutes," Gibsie complained, shuffling along in front of me.
"So have I, Gibs," I snapped, steering him into the, thankfully, empty common room. "Double accounting with Moggy Dan. But this is far more urgent than me balancing spreadsheets and you designing a fucking coffee table for your Ma."
"Alright, lad, relax," he coaxed. Shaking out of his hold, he walked over to one of tables and pulled out a chair. Dropping his bag on the floor, he sat down and faced me. "I'm all ears."
Slamming the door closed behind us, I grabbed a leather armchair and shoved it against the door before dropping into the chair.
"You were right, Gibs," I groan
ed. "I'm so screwed."
"I am?" His brows shot up in surprise. "About what?" Before I had a chance to respond, his eyes widened in comical awareness. "About you fucking yourself?" Or at least, it would have been comical if it wasn’t so fucking depressing. "Holy shit, Johnny. You haven't or you can't?"
"I tried, I failed, I haven't tried since, so now I'm fairly sure I can't," I decided to throw out there.
There was no goddamn point in trying to evade the question.
He wasn’t going to let it go, and I had bigger issues right now than my temperamental testosterone.
"How long has it been?"
"Before Christmas," I quickly replied before saying, "but that's not the problem here."
"Jesus, Kav, I'd say that's a very big problem, lad." Gibsie let out a low whistle. "Have you tried lube?"
"What – no! Stop talking about my dick," I barked, then ran a frustrated hand through my hair. "It's her, man. You were right. I am completely fucked in the head, and I need you to stop me from doing something stupid with that girl."
"Which girl?"
"Which girl do you think, asshole?" I snarled. "Shannon."
"Oh, that girl." Gibsie chuckled. "The resurrectionator."
"Stop laughing. It's not funny. I need your help," I snapped, flustered. "And resurrectionator is not a word."
"Yes, it is," Gibsie challenged. "Jesus was resurrected. It was a resurrection performed by God: the resurrectionator. Similar to Shannon: the resurrectionator of your bollocks that day outside the P.E hall." Snickering, he added in a deep voice, "She shall appear and he shall arise."
"Which made God a resurrectionist and/or a resurrector," I growled. "Nowhere in the English language was he called a bleeding resurrectionator."
"I'm talking about the bible, not the dictionary."
"You're talking out of your hole," I countered.
"The terminator is called the fucking terminator, asshole," Gibsie shot back. "Not the bloody terminist."
"Terminist," I mused. "Another word that's not a word."
"Well, resurrectionator is a word."
"No, it bleeding well isn’t." I shook my head, aggravated. "It's not phonetically or grammatically correct."
"Grammatically correct?" Gibsie balked at me. "Look at you, Mister Higher-Level English, thinking you know everything with your Great Gatsby and Shakespeare. Well, not this time." He tapped his temple. "This time, I'm the smart one."