ARROGANT BRIT (A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE) (56 page)

Chapter 30

Angel

I’m not sure how long my
stepfather had been abusing me. The time prior to the accident was a complete
blur, and probably always would be. When I first saw Roger in my hospital room
afterwards, I didn’t know who he was…

…But I knew that I was very
afraid.

I was high on morphine the
first night he came to my bedside, my mind firmly half in and half out of this
world. It would be weeks before I could talk, and months before I’d take my
first walk across the hospital room. Maybe he thought I was damaged forever…
Maybe he thought I wouldn’t remember, or that I didn’t realize what was
happening to me. The sick fuck thought he could get away with it.

The bastard did what evil
men always do.

He took advantage.

Thank god that I was in a
moderately monitored hospital room. Nurses were in and out, keeping a lazy eye
on me but never around enough to rattle his confidence. Still, I knew that if
I’d gone into outpatient care at home, he probably would have been far more
dangerous.

But that still didn’t stop
him from doing what he could get away with. He
saw
me. He sometimes took
pictures
of me. He
touched
me, splintering my
fragile, drugged mind into shattered, dirty pieces.

My memories didn’t ever
really come back, and I know it’s because of
him.
My bastard stepfather descended upon me while my brain was
trying to put everything back together. If I hadn’t been so focused on
forgetting what he was doing to me, maybe I would have pulled my former life
back... but while the memories were gone, so too were most of the nights that
he came to visit me, his mind sick with desire.

He didn’t leave marks. No
tell-tale hickies pocked my skin, and no scratches or obvious signs of abuse
were left for the right nurse to discover.

I kept quiet. I was too
weak. When I started to show signs of life, he made one thing very clear. If I
told anyone about our
relationship
,
he’d kill me.

The safety of the hospital
couldn’t last forever. Roger made it crystal clear how much my medical bills
cost this family, and how I was going to repay the debt…

However, I got a lucky
break.

At the time, Roger worked as
a roundabout on a freighter. The life was rough, paid very well, and took him
away for small stretches: three weeks on, one week off. It just so happened
that my first night back coincided with an off-season shift too lucrative for
him to pass up, and so he couldn’t bring his sexual tension with me to its
inevitable conclusion.

Mom kept me on my anxiety
medication. She told me that I babbled “nonsense” about abuse while I was
under, but I couldn’t blame her for not taking me seriously. After all, people
say crazy stuff under medication… even if sometimes it’s dangerously true.

From the beginning, I
started fighting the effects the drugs had on me. In brief moments of clarity,
I knew that the clock was ticking, and I’d have no strength to fight him when
he finally came back for me. By the time his last week was almost over, my
strength was enough that I could concentrate… and I knew what I had to do.

While Mom was gone, driving
hours away to the docks to pick him back up, I sprang into action. I’d packed
my breakaway bag, snuck into her room and stole away my identification and my
prescription refill – just in case.

I abandoned that place in
the dead of night. With my anxiety temporarily out of the picture, thanks to
the drugs, I could pull back some of my former memories. There was a place, in
the back of my head, somewhere safe and secure… a place called Riverton.
Somehow, I knew that there was refuge there, and from that I could figure the
rest out along the way.

I hitchhiked towards it,
eventually coming across Old Greg. He seemed startled to see such a young girl
on the road in the night, but something in the old man endeared him to me.
While he treated me to late dinner at a diner, I broke down in tears, leaving
out most of the details.

I didn’t tell him I had been
sexually abused.

But I told him that I had
been in an accident, that I couldn’t remember much of who I was, and that my
family was dangerous. That I would
die
before
I let myself go back there.

He
took pity on me, putting me up in his bar…

Old Greg would be so angry
if he knew I came back here, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of looking
him in the eye after the way I’d left. He was so kind to me… Kinder than I ever
deserved. Maybe I’d head out there in a few weeks once I’d settled in. He
deserved an apology.

“You going to eat, or just
sit there thinking?”

Mom had brought me a bowl of
chips and some ranch dressing. I hadn’t so much as touched it since I’d come to
the table.

“Go ahead and eat up,” Mom smiled. “After you’re done,
go pretty yourself up, company’s coming.”

That pit came back into my stomach.
I’d been worried about that all afternoon… it had been a festering feeling,
eating away inside me.

But I knew better than to
cross Mom.

She had taken me back in.

She had given me a roof, and
food.

Well
… I
looked down at the plate.
Some food.

“Hurry up in there,” mom
shouted.

“Okay, Mom,” I answered,
forcing a cheerful smile across my face.

“Thanks a ton, Hon,” she
answered.

After that, I was left in
the quiet.

The crunching of the chips
shattered the silence with every crispy bite. Agonizing, piercing chomps
controlled my attention, ringing out in the quiet like a rhythmic, mounting
growl of danger.

When I was done, I set the
dish in the sink and found Mom. She was sitting in a recliner, watching some
old silent film on the living room TV.

“Over there,” she motioned
with a wrist.

I followed her gesture and
lifted a package off of an end table. It wasn’t particularly large or heavy,
but it seemed ominous to me.

“Bring that over here.”

I did as I was told.

Mom raised her saggy arm,
muted the television, and turned to face me.

“Open it up.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What’s not to understand? I
got you a present.”

I wasn’t sure how to
respond.

So I nodded, pulling the
tape off the box and opening it up. Turning it over, a small orange bottle fell
into my hand.

“See there? Momma’s gonna
take care of you doll. I got you your medicine.”

I turned the bottle over,
eyeing the little pink pills inside. I hadn’t seen these things in years.

“I know how anxious you get…
The depression. All those panic attacks? You’ve been so high strung since you
came back, dear.”

“I don’t like the way these
things make me feel, mom. They make me a zombie.”

“I don’t want any back talk.
We have company tonight and you’re going to be on your best behavior. You take
two of those or you can get out,” she said, pointing toward the door.

Chapter 31

Trent

The address wasn’t in
Riverton – it was hours and hours away, another quiet spot called Point’s
Hallow.

My cell signal was
shit
out here. When I finally arrived at
the village, I accidentally crossed a small bridge and passed the entire place
up, expecting to find it just beyond the next bend. It was only after fifteen
minutes of nothingness, driving through trees and wilderness, that I realized
I’d probably missed the place altogether.

Turning around in the fading
light of day, I backtracked to the bridge. Standing guard at this side,
apparently marking the edge of Point’s Hallow, was a seafood restaurant. With
nothing else in sight, it commanded the eye from its perch, raised on stilts
over the river. Painted along the side was the name:
Jack’s.

Some
landmark
, I thought to myself.

Back across the bridge, I
investigated. None of the roads were marked, making my job tougher than it
needed to be. The population couldn’t have been any more than maybe eighty or a
hundred people, judging by the sparse houses. Almost nobody was around, and I
didn’t want to start banging on doorknobs…

The single person I saw
wandering about, a woman in smeared overalls with ratty hair, looked at me
suspiciously as I pulled up and flicked up my helmet visor.

“Is this
Point’s Hallow?
”

“Who’s askin’?”

“I’m looking for a girl.
Name of Angel.”

“Angel?” She laughed,
exposing a few missing teeth. This place was
seriously
in the sticks. “You must be a friend of hers!” She was
suddenly suspicious again, eying me strangely. “
Are
you a friend of hers?”

“I am,” I confirmed
confidently.

The woman peered at me a
moment longer, and then nodded. “Good. Yeah, she’s here. Got back into town a
few days ago. You know where to find her?”

“Willow Grove Drive,” I told
her.

“Yep! That’s it, her and her
parents…you know how to find it?, don’t’cha?”

“I’m from out of town,” I
bluntly explained.

“Right,” she cackled, sizing
me up on the motorcycle. “Might’ve noticed by now, they ain’t no street signs…
No fancy
gee pee usss
for us folks in
Point’s Hallow, we don’t need ‘em… anyway, here’s what you do…”

She rattled off directions,
involving a handful of turns that apparently centered on particular trees and
piles of scrap. “You got that?”

“I do. You’re really helping
me out here.”

“Great. Tell ‘er that
‘Tricia said ‘hi!’”

“You’ve got it, ma’am,” I
nodded.

She positively swooned as I
kicked back into gear and drove towards the house.

Her
parents.

Old Greg had said she was in
danger. He’d spent a few minutes telling me what a piece of shit Angel’s
stepfather Roger was before hurrying me down the road.

But maybe he wasn’t the only
piece of shit in this town.

I paused, letting the engine
rumble as it idled between my thighs.

My thoughts reflected back
to what Old Greg had said. Sure, I’d known a lot of that myself, but it was
easy for me to justify how I treated people. When someone
else
explained it, someone who barely knew me…it sent a shiver up
my spine.

You
take what you think belongs to you.

You
don’t accept ‘no.’

You
CAN’T accept ‘no.’

I shook my head.

This wasn’t my decision. It
was hers.

I shuddered.

No.
Extenuating circumstances.

My asshole of a manager sent
her away. He filled her head with complete bullshit. She never would have left
it I was there. I needed to let her know how I felt.

And if she didn’t want to
come with me, I’d leave her… Once I knew she was safe and sound back at Old
Greg’s bar, away from the danger.

With a heavy heart, I
continued on my way. Tricia’s directions had been a little on the bizarre side,
but she led me the right way. After a couple of turns, I spotted the silent
tire swing, dangling from a tree in the front yard.

I remembered Old Greg’s
words from before, when he’d given me the address:
If you pass the tree with the old tire swing, you’ve gone too far.

A dirt road was to my side,
heading into the trees. I turned onto it, driving as quietly as possible
through the shadows until I saw it.

It was just as Old Greg had
said.

The green house was in even
worse shape than the Riverton bar.
 
A window was busted out; the roof was caving in from a fallen branch.
With the sun set and the shadows growing, the place looked like it had come
straight out of a horror film.

Angel’s
HERE?

My shaken confidence
exploded into a blaze of conviction.

No
, I
thought to myself.

This
isn’t good enough for her.

No
matter what happens…

I killed the engine and
kicked down the stand, parking next to an old truck on the edge of the street.

She
deserves better than this.

And
I’m gonna give it to her.

Every step I took towards
the front door, my fresh insecurities burned away. With each heavy stride forward,
my doubts, my fears, everything inside that told me that I might
not
be good enough for her faded away.

It all burned to ash in my
throat, and the ash blew away in the wind.
Here
I am, filthy and contorted king that I am, ready to make a change.

I raised my fist to knock at
the door.

That’s when I heard my Angel
scream.