Crumbling Walls (Jack and Emily #1) (19 page)

Chapter 15

Emily began stirring just before midnight, waking up slowly, not sure of where she was, what time it was or even what day. Sitting up, she felt every muscle in her body scream from what she vaguely recalled as hours of vomiting. Once her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she saw a figure lying on the couch. “Jack?”

Elizabeth sat up almost immediately, “Em? You all right?”

Still more than half-asleep, she asked again, “Jack?”

“No hon, it’s Elizabeth.” Getting off the couch, she came over and sat on the mattress, “Do you remember me being here?”

Racking her brain, which also hurt, “Not really.” It was also in this split second that she realized Elizabeth was in her house, “Did my mom come home from work yet?”

“Emily …”

“No, she said she’d be …” trailing off when she caught the look on Elizabeth’s face, “I mean, she told me …”

Putting a hand on Emily’s cheek, “Please, you don’t have to lie anymore.”

The tears she’d been holding in since her first lie to Elizabeth welled up and spilled over in a torrent. Curling into a ball, she rested her head on Elizabeth’s lap and sobbed like a small child.

She calmed a while later and, sitting back up, began apologizing profusely, for everything she hadn’t said in the last six months and for the river of snot leaking out her nose. Standing unsteadily, she pointed towards the bathroom, “I’ll be back in a second.”

“Take your time.”

While Emily was occupied, Elizabeth stripped the bed and put the other set of clean sheets on. Once that was back in order, she walked to the bathroom door and knocked lightly, “Are you hungry?”

Coming out of the bathroom just then, Emily smoothed back the hair she’d just put in a long braid that fell down her back, “I don’t know. I might be.”

With a smile, “Well, I made you some Jell-O and some pasta. I didn’t know which would sit best for you.”

“You cooked?”

“Yeah, I’ve been here for a good 15 hours or so. I got hungry a few times.”

Glancing over at the clock radio by the mattress, “It’s almost midnight?”

With a nod, Elizabeth headed towards the fridge, “Why don’t you sit down and you can start with some Jell-O and move on from there.”

Between the trips to the couch, the crying and the puking, Emily was more than ready to shut her eyes again, which she did, until Elizabeth showed up with a bowl of strawberry Jell-O, causing her stomach to growl. Taking the spoon, “Maybe I’m hungrier than I thought.”

Elizabeth sat down next to her and watched in silence as she slowly swallowed the entire serving. “More?”

Shaking her head, “No, I don’t want to push it.”

“Well, then, would you like to go back to sleep? You look completely beat.”

Instead, she rolled her head to the right to face her, “Why haven’t you asked?”

“Because I think you’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

“What if I was ready now?”

Elizabeth took in her sunken eyes and pale skin, her limp body and her chapped lips, then asked cautiously, “How long have you been alone?”

The minute Emily heard the question however, her heart froze and she just sat there, eyes shut. She sat for so long in fact, that Elizabeth thought she had fallen asleep and was about to cover her with the blanket, when, “I’ve been on my own since February 29, three years ago. I moved in here March 24 of the same year.”

“You’ve been on your own since you were 13?” She didn’t even try to keep the shock from her voice, “Oh my god.”

Giving her a detached look, she stood and reached for the bottom of her shirt and, hesitating, pulled it over her head. Elizabeth watched her swallow hard before she slowly turned around, “Would you have stayed any longer?”

Even in the dim glow of the night lights, Elizabeth could see the criss-crossing pattern of scars and burns. She had honestly thought nothing was worse than the ones her husband had, but his paled in comparison.

Emily stood there shivering in fear as she heard Elizabeth get up from the couch and stop behind her. Gently reaching around her, Elizabeth coaxed her arms in the air and slipped the shirt back over her head. Smoothing the back down, she then wrapped her arms around the girl, trying desperately to hug away her past.

After a few moments, Emily stepped forward out of Elizabeth’s grip and turned, “You’re the first person to see me like that.”

“Jack?”

Emily shook her head, “No.” A lone tear escaped and her voice cracked, “I’ve been too afraid to tell him.”

“Do you think he won’t like you after?”

“How could he?”

“He still loves his dad.”

She finally looked Elizabeth in the eye, “I’m damaged goods though. Will will always be his dad but I’ll be the girl who …” She couldn’t get any further with the statement and she shut her mouth up tight, a sob caught in her throat. Elizabeth moved towards her once again but Emily skirted backwards, “No.”

“Emily …”

Suddenly the words came tumbling out, “I’ll always be the girl who got traded out in exchange for a bag of heroin and a fifth.”

Her stomach already turning, “What?”

Yelling in no more than a whisper, “My father gave me to his friend in order to get what he wanted!” She dropped to the mattress and curled, her arms wrapped around her knees. Putting her head on her arms, the world disappeared and she was back in that dingy living room.

▪▪▪

(February 29, 3 years earlier)

“No.”

“You gonna say no to me? No way in hell do you say no to me!”

She knew it was coming and prayed it would be over fast. But as with any terror in the world, it seemed to drag on for days, everything moving in slow motion, the pain shaking her to her core.

Hoping he wouldn’t actually carry out what he said, she laid quietly on the floor, blood soaking the shirt he had made her take off, then threw back on top of her when he was finished, her back and chest bruised and bleeding.

Sometimes, if she pretended to pass out, he’d drag her to her room and leave her there. She usually did end up falling asleep at some point, but only after she’d arranged herself so her feet were against the slightly open door. That way, if he tried to come back in, the pressure on her bare feet would wake her up.

This time was different, however. She heard him laughing above her somewhere. Heard the chortling she knew never led to good things.

Grabbing her by the back of the hair, he pulled her to her feet and shoved her forward into her room and kept shoving, until she stumbled and fell on the bed. “Stay here.”

The stinging of the newest layer of cuts on her back didn’t really allow her to move much anyway so she remained there, face down on her blanket, praying with all her might that someone, anyone would come and save her.

As the front door opened, she thought that maybe, maybe, maybe, it was the help she’d been silently screaming for.

The footsteps came closer and she heard the bedroom door creak open, “Just turn her over and remember, regardless, I get what’s mine.”

The man with him snorted a laugh, “I ain’t gonna be disappointed. Never had one this young before.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her father settle into the chair in the corner, his gun sitting clearly on his knee, “I’ll keep her in line.”

▪▪▪

It was over almost before it had begun and both left the room, talking about whatever, her father busily weighing the bag in his hand, satisfied that it should last him quite a while.

Once she heard the front door shut, she stood, beyond pain, beyond embarrassment, beyond anger … she felt nothing and realized for the first time that she was nothing.

Blindly fumbling into the bathroom, she cleaned up as best she could, then returned to her room. Ignoring the bloody sheets, both from her back and from what had just happened, she silently shut the door and moved to the other side of the bed. Prying up a floorboard with her nails, she pulled out the Ziploc bags she had stored there.

Money. Money she had been lifting from her father's wallet, drawers, nightstand, coat pockets, dirty clothes, for years. A dollar here, a lone five there, on the rare occasion, a ten, but that was always pushing it. Most of the time she left the tens alone because he might remember a bill that large. But a twenty?!? Oh she prayed she'd never find a twenty, or anything higher really, because she didn't know if she'd have the strength not to take it. 

The man was pure evil in her opinion, but his one saving grace, if she was generous enough to call it that, was that he always carried change in his pants pockets, which tended to fall out when he collapsed in a drunken, drug-addled haze on either the couch or the floor. She only saved the quarters though, knowing that leaving some behind would keep his suspicions of her away.

She hid her collections under a loose board in her room, one that ran beside a joist in the floor and had not been nailed down properly when the house was built. She'd found it on accident one day when she was nine, lying on the floor and trying to ignore the burning fire in her ribs from his shoes. She absently picked at the seams in the floor and discovered one of the boards moved.

It was the next day that she began her collection. She didn't have any idea at the time why she began collecting the money, but something told her that she had found the hidden spot for a reason and she had better put it to good use.

Now it made sense. Not bothering to count either the paper or coin money, she shoved both bags into her backpack, along with a pair of jeans, some socks that didn’t match, two shirts, the penknife she’d taken from a gas station some years before and a small, wool blanket she had found in the neighbors’ trash one early morning.

Getting dressed in her remaining pair of jeans and her last semi-clean t-shirt, she shoved her feet in her shoes. Going into the living room, she set her bag by the door and started towards the kitchen.

Now, the thing was, she could have sworn she was alone. He always made noise, never having learned how to move quietly. She could, for the most part, always tell where he was in the house. Not this time however, as she walked smack into him standing silently at the counter.

He’d already started a fresh line and combined with the giant gulps of whiskey he was swallowing, she could already see that he was way beyond buzzed. Turning towards her, he grabbed her faster than she could turn away, “Who said you could come in here?”

Not giving her any time to answer, he had her twisted around and leaned back over the counter, “Next time, act like you enjoy it …” he fumbled around and digging in the drawer, came up with a paring knife. Pushing her shirt up, “Nasty business, but I never asked for you anyway. I might as well get some use out of you.”

He dragged the knife from her collar bone diagonally down her chest, at first not pushing, then finding some perverse pleasure in it, forcing the knife down just a bit to puncture the skin.

She bit her lip to keep from crying out and, as he slowly carved the line, she felt a hot anger building in her stomach. It moved through her body like fire and, before she knew what she was doing, she kicked him hard.

He stumbled back and she rammed him with all her might in the stomach, sending him flying backwards and sideways. He tripped over one of the kitchen chairs and disappeared down the basement stairs.

She stood, terrified at what had just happened, then, as her mind began to turn, she walked over to the door and saw him piled at the bottom of the steps, his body contorted at severe angles.

As she slowly pulled the door shut, the shaft of light from the top of the stairs shrank, until the only thing illuminated were the two fingers of his left hand.

The door clicked shut a moment later, plunging him into complete darkness and for the first time, showing her the light.