by Imogen Wells
“That many you can’t even remember, wow. That’s impressive work for only a few weeks, hey, Kasey?” A hand trails up my back, gripping my neck. “You made me wait longer than you’ve known that cunt Hawkins.” The whoosh of the belt as it flies through the air is the only warning I get before it strikes the back of my legs. My body lurches forward, and my legs lift from the ground putting pressure on my shoulders, that causes more pain to ripple through me. I scream internally, grinding my teeth together to keep from letting it break free. “But no matter, I’ve heard he has a taste for whores, seen it myself. Does he know you’re a whore, Kasey?” He strikes me again with the belt, in the same fucking place, and it burns. Oh, my god, it burns. Sweat beads on the back of my neck as I try to control the pain. “Answer me, cunt!” he roars, striking me a third time.
“I’m not a whore,” I grit out between panting breaths.
“Wrong. Fucking. Answer.” Each word is punctuated with another strike, this time to my back. Sean has released my neck, and with each hit my back arches, pulling at my wrists and shoulders. “You are a whore. You’re my whore and guess what?” he whispers in my ear. “He knows all about it.” He roars with laughter as he lands another blow to my back.
My heart sinks. Sean must be lying because there’s no way Ryder knows. I scramble to understand how that could be true as my body and brain drown in pain from Sean’s blows. That last strike split the skin as blood begins to run down my back beneath my dress, and as if he knows, Sean tears the back of my dress open. I hear him hum out his satisfaction at his work, and the tiny beads of sweat that formed on my neck, roll down my back. As they reach the welts in my skin, mixing with the blood there, they sting like a bitch.
“What’s the matter, Kasey, don’t you believe me?” he sings, loving what he’s doing to me. “Lincoln, would you do the honours, please.”
Raising my head, I watch Lincoln fiddle with a phone as he walks closer to me. Then Ryder’s voice fills the room.
“Cam’s broken, Sully, she’s a fucking whore. You’ve seen her file. Fuck, she’s just a job.”
Thirty-Four
Camryn
The pain on my back fades to nothingness as Ryder’s words play out. Time seems to standstill, and his words are all I can hear as the room and everyone in it continue around me in slow motion. I can hear laughter, but it sounds far away.
I drop my head to my chest as the first tear begins to fall, and I curse myself for opening my heart to another man.
My body becomes limp, and I don’t even flinch as Sean takes up lashing my back again. I’m numb. I’m broken.
Lincoln plays the recording on repeat, but I don’t need it. It’s etched into my brain.
Men begin to move around the room, and I can faintly hear screaming. A hand brushes up my arm, but I barely feel it, continuing its path to my shoulder. I think it’s Sean, but I don’t know. The hand moves to my breast, squeezing painfully as another hand trails up my thigh.
“Cam’s broken, Sully, she’s a fucking whore. You’ve seen her file. Fuck, she’s just a job.”
“Cam’s broken, Sully, she’s a fucking whore. You’ve seen her file. Fuck, she’s just a job.”
Over and over, Ryder’s voice fills the room, drowning out the laughter, the chatter, the screams and grunts and groans of pleasure. It would normally make me sick, but I don’t think anything can make me feel sicker than I already do. How could he?
I always knew that my past would stop any man from loving me. Sean was right all along, I’m nothing but a whore. He’ll make me his wife, only in name and on paper, then he’ll turn me into his incubator, and he won’t stop till I give him the heir he so desperately wants.
As Ryder’s words continue to play, I notice the slight pause between some of the words, and as I listen harder, I notice a small, barely audible click after some of the words too. It could be nothing but during my journalism degree we had a guy on the course that could edit recordings, and I remember him mentioning this as a sign of an edited recording. Poorly edited at that. If Sean has been listening into Ryder’s conversations, and he’s gone to these lengths, which I don’t doubt for a second knowing what I do about him now, then he must be worried.
Sean’s goal has always been to break me, isolate me from others, friends and family, and if he knows I care about Ryder then he would do anything to make me believe that I’m nothing but a fuck to him.
Bolstered by the notion that this is Sean’s way of breaking me, I snap out of it as the hand trailing my thigh reaches the edge of my knickers. My stomach turns over as fingers reach beneath my underwear, and I let out a snarl as anger overrides any other emotion right now. I wish I had my hands free so I could pound my fists into Sean’s face.
Sean steps back, cracking me across the face. My head whips to the side, and as I turn back to face him, the coppery tang of blood fills my mouth. Reaching up, Sean begins to undo the wrist cuffs. As he undoes the last one, my legs give way beneath me, and I collapse into his arms.
The scent that once made my heart flutter, now has me heaving as bile rises up my throat. My arms hang limp at my side, pins and needles prick at my skin as the blood rushes back into them, and my shoulders throb their relief.
“Me and you are going to have some fun in private,” he murmurs in my ear, as he begins to carry me away. Fear skitters over me, but I turn it to rage, focusing every drop onto Sean.
We pass Tammy, who is laying on the floor while a man pounds into her prone body from above. She isn’t moving anymore, and I don’t know if she’s passed out, or if she’s dead. There’s blood on the floor next to her head, and I pray that she’s just knocked out. Given what she’s no doubt been through, I wonder if she would prefer to never wake up. If I hadn’t had Faye I would have wished for the same, and for a long time after her death, that’s exactly what I prayed for.
Sean pulls me through the door at the back of the room, and my eyes catch on Russ watching us with a look of hunger before the door closes behind me.
I was right about this being a church as the hall we are going down has several smaller prayer rooms leading off it. Sean pulls me into a room on the left at the end of the hall, throwing me to the floor and slamming the door shut.
I scramble back to the far wall, and when the cold, rough brick makes contact with the raw skin of my back, white-hot pain radiates down my spine. I bite my lip to keep the scream contained and more blood fills my mouth.
Sean stands in front of the door, his eyes are black, soulless pits that burn with the fires of hell, and a cruel smirk crosses his face at my obvious pain.
“I love to see the pain in your eyes, it makes my dick so hard. Hmmm.” He stalks towards me. “I’m going to wipe the memory of that cunt Hawkins from your mind and body.”
“What happened to you?” I ask, hoping to distract him. It’s something I’ve never asked him, and if I make it out of this alive, I feel like I need to understand what went wrong.
“This is me, Kasey. It’s always been me. You were just too stupidly in love with me, and that’s exactly how it was meant to be. Things would have been different if you had done as you were told, and I would never have had to teach you a lesson. Of course, giving me a daughter instead of the son I deserved pissed me off immensely.”
“How the fuck is that my fault? You don’t get to pick and choose the sex of a baby, Sean,” I snap back at him. My anger at his ridiculous notion I had a say in the sex of our child has my nostrils flaring, and my fists clenching at my sides.
“Of course it fucking is!” he bellows, as he begins pacing the floor. “What the fuck was I meant to do with another whore, whining and moaning and making my life a misery. I can’t even fuck her. Well, I could have, I guess. Who knows what might have happened as she got older,” he says, with a shrug, like what he just said isn’t the sickest thing ever. A visible shudder runs through me, heart breaking as I thank the stars that Faye is not here, and he can’t hurt her. Internally I fall apart, but o
utwardly I keep it together as best I can.
“I wanted to kill you when you told me, to slit you open and cut out that bitch growing inside you. I remember beating you that night, it was heaven until I realised that you and she had survived. But then Douglas showed me a better way. He made me an offer that would secure my position when he retired and Daniel took over. A mutually satisfactory joining of our two families. Daniel likes them young, it never really interested me, but each to their own, and Douglas told me Daniel took a liking to our Faye. When Faye turned sixteen, she was to become his wife, and I would become Daniel’s second, while you, in the meantime, were to provide me with an heir. But that never happened did it, Kasey?”
Oh, shit. He knows about the implant.
After Faye was born, I vowed I would never bring another child into that life. At first, I was able to sneak a prescription of the pill, but Sean almost found them one day, after that I couldn’t take the risk. Then when Tyler came and I started to trust him, he and mum were able to get me to a doctor who gave me the implant. Holy shit. Mike, Dr Wallis, is the doctor, but that means—my thoughts are cut off as Sean starts talking again.
“You can’t pull the wool over my eyes, Kasey. I know all about your little trip to the doctor behind my back. I always knew I should have gotten rid of your mother sooner. Another sneaky, interfering fucking whore. When I discovered what you’d done, I decided to find my heir elsewhere and get rid of you at the same time. It was meant to be so perfect. I would get my heir, and you and your mother would be long gone because I knew you’d cause trouble over Faye’s marriage. Then you went and fucked that up too. Destroying all my perfectly laid plans.”
I’m so shocked that I don’t see him move till the last minute, landing a hit to my head. The action causes me to fall to the side, my back scrapes along the wall, and combined with the painful hit forces a scream to burst from my lungs.
“It was you? Oh my god, oh my god. It was you.” I push myself upright, then use the wall to steady me as I climb to my feet. I know I’ve torn my back up even more, but I don’t fucking care. “You killed my mum and your own daughter. For what? Money and power?” I surge forward, poking my finger in his chest as a rage so savage consumes me. Sean’s eyes widen as I get up his face. “You sick fucking bastard!” I spit, then I fly at him. Caught off guard, I manage to land a couple of blows to his head and face that has his nose spurting blood. A few droplets land on me, and the demon I’ve kept caged for so long is let loose.
I reign blow after blow down on the man that has destroyed my life. Beaten me, raped me and allowed his friends to watch or join in, isolated me from everyone I know and taken the most precious thing I had left away from me too. Ripped my heart and soul out by murdering my mum and daughter all for money and power.
We grapple for a couple of minutes, but once Sean’s shock wears off, he overpowers me. Tackling me to the ground, I land awkwardly shoulder first and hear a pop, and then blinding pain. I already know I’ve dislocated my shoulder, again. After the first time the nurse warned me it can happen easier a second time, she wasn’t fucking wrong, but it’s a fucking shame the same can’t be said about the pain.
Sean rolls me so I’m on my back and with only one arm, it’s not difficult for him to subdue me. Realising I’m at a disadvantage brings a smile to his face. A wicked, cruel smile. Using his weight and one hand to restrain me, he pulls a blade from the sheath on his leg. It’s his favourite, and the one responsible for the scars I wear on my body. The white bone handled hunting knife used to be his father’s and became Sean’s after his father was murdered. The day he told me that story I should have known the type of man I was in love with.
He places the blade against the jack hammering pulse in my neck and pushes just enough to prick the skin. Blood still drips from his nose, and it makes me smile. I let him see it too because I have nothing to lose now. He’s going to kill me anyway.
“What the fuck are you smiling about, bitch?” I let out a laugh. “You think you can attack me, run away from me, fuck someone else. And not just some random bloke, oh no, you had to pick the fucker that has caused me no end of problems over the last three years,” he sneers, teeth gritted as his eyes blaze with rage.
I don’t understand where Sean’s hatred for Ryder comes from, and Sean must see the confusion on my face.
“You don’t know, do you?” He lets out a crazed chuckle. “Oh, this is just priceless. Your precious fuck buddy and his friends have been trying to put me away for the last three years. Even managed to plant one of their own in my ranks.” I raise my brows at that, and Sean continues like this is the best story he’s ever told. “That’s right, Kasey. Your little friend Tyler, the devious fucker, squealed like a fucking pig while I gutted him. It was almost as good as when you scream, but not quite, and I’ve missed those sounds.” He leans forward licking up the side of my face, and as I try to turn my head the knife digs in further. I feel a warm trickle of blood as it tracks down my neck. I close my eyes, blocking out the smell of his foul breath and instead fill my mind with thoughts of my mum, Faye, Jamie and even Ryder.
Despite the pain in my heart, I still want him, but that can never happen now. I know the recording of him was likely edited so it appeared he said those things, but he must have said those words at some point just in a different context. And he knows everything. Shame washes over me at that thought and tears prick at the corner of my eyes, but I won’t give Sean the satisfaction.
Swallowing back the pain, the tears and shame for another time, I spit in Sean’s face. “You make me sick.” I watch as my saliva runs down his face before mixing with the blood from his nose, and his face turns red as the vein at his temple pulses with anger. “What kind of man kills his own daughter? You’re not a man, you’re a fucking joke. A pathetic excuse for a human being and people like you should be drowned at birth.” The fire in my gut, and the hatred for this man rushes forward.
Shouting and hollering comes from outside the door distracting Sean, and in that split second, I take the only chance I’m going to get. Ignoring the pain, I buck my hips just as the door to the room flies open. It’s enough to knock Sean off balance and in turn releasing my good arm. With my now free hand, I grip his hand holding the knife, and with every ounce of pain, anger, fear and shame, I twist his hand round and shove upwards as he looks towards the door. As if in slow motion, the knife plunges into his neck.
Instantly, his other hand comes up to the knife now sticking out of his neck, and his head swings back to me. Blood gushes from the wound, and a horrid gurgling sound rises up from Sean’s throat as his eyes settle on me. When he tries to talk, blood spurts from his mouth spraying me in tiny droplets as his throat fills with blood, and he begins to choke. Drowning in his own blood.
The black of his eyes begins to clear, and I’m met with the dark brown ones I fell in love with all those years ago. As his skin begins to pale, he falls backwards. I pull my legs clear, and then he drops to his side as blood pools beneath him.
Movement at the door has me lifting my head, and there stands Ryder with blood splattering his face and clothes. His hands are clenched tight, and his nostrils flare as he takes in the sight before him.
A rasping from the floor in front of me has me looking back to Sean, and the pool of blood on the floor creeps across the tiles like the evil that lived in him is searching for a new host. I watch as Sean’s breathing becomes shallow, and his eyes glaze over before the light in them fades altogether as he takes his last breath. Lifeless eyes now stare back at me, and I release the breath I didn’t even know I was holding.
Relief. Such beautiful relief surges through me knowing he can never harm me again. Knowing that he can never hurt another person. That I got justice for my mum and Faye. I killed him, and I don’t feel even the tiniest bit of remorse for his loss of life. I have no idea what that says about me, and I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day with that knowledge.
Someone crouches down in
front of me, and as a hand comes out to stroke my cheek, I flinch and scramble backwards away from the touch. I pull my knees up to my chest, wrapping my one good arm round them.
“Cam, it’s me, Ryder. It’s okay, you’re safe now.” His deep voice washes over me, calming my raw nerves and slowing my frantically beating heart. I know it’s him, my body knows it’s him, but my mind struggles to catch up with the rest of me. I have never feared this man, never worried that he would lay a hand on me in anger, only with passion, but my heart is fractured at his deception.
I look up at him, his beautiful blue eyes are a swirling storm that speak of his restrained anger, but I can see pain too. And I don’t understand that.
He drops to his knees, resting his hands in his lap so I can see them. My body is screaming at me. Pain. Fear. Shame and guilt, but the overriding emotion is the need to crawl into his lap and let him hold me and bathe in his warmth and love. It may not be real, or true but it’s what I need to feel right now, and I give in to it. Scrambling to my knees, I shuffle towards him as his eyes track me wearily, and I cautiously climb into his lap when I reach him. Ryder’s arms hesitantly wrap around me, and I relax into him.
After a few seconds, Ryder’s fingers brush over my cheek, pushing back hair from my face. “Cam. We need to get you to a hospital.” I wince as his hand glances across the slashes on my back and every injured part of me makes itself known as the adrenaline wears off.
Keeping my head buried in his chest and my eyes away from his penetrating gaze, I give the gentlest of nods.
Careful to avoid my shoulder and back as much as possible, Ryder scoops me up into his arms, stepping past Sean’s body on the floor as we leave the room.
Thirty-Five
Blue
When we crash through the doors of the small church hall, the team takes down the men that are still here, while I scan the room for Cam. Not seeing her anywhere, my chest hurts at the thought we are too late.