Devil May Care: Boxed Set (97 page)

My head hurt. The inside of my eyelids felt like sandpaper, scratching and burning against my eyeballs. I fought between blinking them open to clear out some of the lingering sand and clenching them tighter so that the peeking sun I could feel against the skin of my eyelids would be kept at bay. I sensed that it would make my already throbbing headache worse. It was beating like a heart, pounding like I’d just had a pint of whiskey to myself the previous night. At first, I wasn’t sure why. I was lying down and the bed beneath me was soft, forgiving and—

The man grinned at me, not as malicious as Stitches, but just as eager. His expression was a mask of lust, but not that delightful, edible lust that I saw shine in Johnny’s eyes before he took me until I screamed. No, this was different. This lust was as much for the violence as it was for my body.

I couldn’t let this happen.

I watched as the man began to undo his belt buckle. I realized that beneath his jeans there was already a bulge, telling me that he wouldn’t need any time to get ready for me.

My eyes shot open and I shivered as memories began to wash over me, terrible, awful things that I would carry the rest of my life. Panic swept me, terrible and uncontrollable. I needed out of this bed. I needed away from these blankets.
I needed out!

I tried to sit up, tugging the thick blankets off of me, tearing at them as though they were restraints holding me down. I felt nauseous, sick to my stomach. My body was cold and sweating at the same time and I just wanted to throw up, like that might get rid of the awful things that had to have been done for me. That I hadn’t even been awake for.

Tears pricked at my eyes. I tried to blink them away, but they spilled down over my cheeks as images and memories, fuzzy from whatever Stitches had given me, flashed vividly through my mind. I couldn’t shake them.

I was in the midst of a panicked, desperate search for a way out when I felt a pinch in my arm. I whirled around to see Stitches had come up behind me. He was grinning and held an empty syringe in his hand.

“I changed my mind,” he said easily. “I figured I’d do you this small mercy. Besides, I can’t have you trying to run away, now can I?” He pointed to the camera then. “Don’t forget to give me the money shot.”

I wanted to hit him. I wanted to fight. I wanted to run. I wanted to be anywhere but here.

              But I couldn’t do anything.

I began to sob in earnest. Heavy, thick sobs escaped my throat, building up in my chest until they crawled out like tiny beasts desperate to reach the surface. I tried not to think of that small room—

The bed I was on was a prop. It was slid up against a wall that looked like it was completely unnecessary, also a prop made specifically for use with the bed and nothing more. There were probably support beams behind it since it didn’t look to be attached to anything.

In front of the bed was a camera…

The lights had been dimmed except for the large spotlights that illuminated my half-naked body to all of those terrible, degrading bastards. I clutched at my chest as I struggled to breathe. It only got worse as I remembered the man. That awful, awful man...

The last thing I could distinguish clearly was that large man leaning over me, grinning at me. His face was distorted already, my vision blurring. He said to me, “I’d shake your hand or something first before I use you up, but I don’t like soft touching.”

I let out another sob that was more like a cry, a plaintive wail that was less a call for help and more a pathetic admission of guilt. I’d been violated and I couldn’t even remember all of it. I’d been forced into… I’d been made to… And they had it on film. Those bastards
had it on film!

What would I do when Johnny found out?

I stopped, frozen by a fresh bout of terror. What if Johnny found out? How would I explain all of this to him? How I hadn’t even fought it? Oh, sure, I’d been drugged there at the end, but what about the time leading up to it? Stitches had thrown that lacy negligee and I’d just put it on for him! For
them
. Three of them. I’d stood there in that cage, knowing full well they were watching me, and taken off my clothes for them. That made me a willing participant, didn’t it?

And even if it didn’t, what did it matter? I was ruined. I was a piece of shit. There wasn’t
nothing
worthwhile left of me, and as soon as Johnny saw that tape, he’d know it was the truth.

I tugged at the shirt that was pulled over me—who had put me in a shirt?—and used it to cover my mouth as I sobbed into it.

My vision was blurry and I was sobbing so hard that I didn’t even notice that I wasn’t the only one crying. When I took in a shuddering breath, I finally noticed it. It made me stop—was someone else here?

Now that I wasn’t crying anymore, I started noticing a lot of things. Like how I was in my room, back home. And the shirt I was wearing? It was mine, given to me in high school by Johnny. It was my absolute favorite, worn so often that it was incredibly thin and soft. The bed I was sitting on was my own, the one I shared with Johnny.

The door to the bedroom was half closed, open just enough that a stream of light shone in through the hall. That was where the crying was coming from and now that I was listening to it I realized it sounded familiar. It took me only a second to place why: the crying was my mother.

Sliding out of bed, my head still pounded but everything else seemed fine, I made my way over to the door. I carefully pushed it open and was rewarded with a strange sight. My mother sat on the top steps of the staircase, head in her hands, sobbing to the point of hysteria. Next to her sat Worm, who was awkwardly patting at her back and murmuring unimportant things in a soft, sweet voice.

I stared at them for a long time, trying to figure out what was going on, but then Worm stiffened. He seemed to have noticed the silence coming from my room, a strong contrast to the noise that must have been coming from it only moments before. He looked over his shoulder and when he saw me, there was a mixture of emotions plastered on his squishy face. He looked sad, sympathetic maybe, and a little embarrassed.

I had a thought that I wasn’t very comfortable with: had Worm put me in this shirt?

After a moment, Worm tapped my mother on her shoulder and whispered something to her. She stopped crying almost instantly, only sniffling a few times to get it under control, then she stood and turned to face me.

“Oh, Charlotte, baby,” she muttered, her hand going to cover her mouth. Her eyes were red, bloodshot, and her hair was a mess. She’d been crying for a while now.

I bit my lip. For a moment the feelings of worthlessness and despair flooded me again, making me want to turn away from her, but then she came to me. She wrapped her arms around me and I held her tightly.

Worm, who seemed very uncomfortable, cleared his throat quickly and said, “I’ll go make some coffee.” He disappeared down the stairs. After a moment, I could hear some clanking around in the kitchen.

Returning my attention to my mother, I opened my mouth to try and explain. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that, but I felt like she needed to know. But before I got a word out, she smiled at me softly.

“Let’s sit down. I think… I think we have a lot to talk about.”

I nodded and let her lead me back into the bedroom. We didn’t sit on the bed, because I wasn’t good with that just then. Instead, we both took seats on the floor, our backs pressed against the edge of the bed. I leaned my head against her shoulder and let my eyes slide closed. But that was quickly a mistake. Images of what happened with the Berserkers flooded my mind, and I immediately opened my eyes again. I fixed my gaze on the window instead. Light had been trickling in for a while now, the heat from the pooling sunshine better than anything else had been today.

After a long pause of silence between us, my mother spoke again. “I know,” she whispered, sounding softer than I’d heard her for a while. “I know what you’re going through and I know it seems impossible to deal with right now, but I want you to know how
strong
you are. You… you’ll be okay.”

I frowned deeply. “What do you mean, Mom? What were you told? Who… who else knows?” I asked the last part in a barely audible whisper, certain that I didn’t want to know the answer to it, but sure also that it was something that I
needed
to hear.

Mom shook her head. “Don’t worry about that now. What matters is that you’re safe.”

“
Mom.”
I fixed her with a hard look, as hard as I could muster, willing her to just tell me. Finally, it worked. She sighed heavily, clearly unhappy, but she admitted what was going on.

“Years ago… back when Johnny was still trying to convince your daddy that he was good enough for you and Specter was his right-hand man, something… something terrible happened. Something I co-couldn’t stop. I tried, please, but… but I was powerless.”

I was frozen in my seat, realizing that what she was beginning to tell me was not about who knew what had happened to me at all. Instead, she was telling me a deep, dark secret that she hadn’t shared before. A secret that… was just like mine.

“The first time wasn’t by choice,” she said, her voice quiet and timid, like she was waiting for reprimand. “I hadn’t wanted to, but he’d slipped me something. I was—I was half awake for it. But that didn’t matter, because my… my body responded. I might as well have just told him yes for all the difference my
consent
did.”

I cringed at her words. I tried not to think of how similar they were to my own experience, my own hazy memories of the night. I tried not to think of how awful she felt and I tried not to think about that small part of me that was furious with her for cheating on my father.

I knew it wasn’t her fault any more than it had been her choice, but there was still that part of me that thought of my daddy and remembered him so fondly, remembered his loyalty and thought that he deserved better than that.

What was worse was that I was pretty sure the reason I was feeling that way was because of my own personal disgust. In my mind,
I
had been a cheater when I let… when that happened to me. How would Johnny ever forgive me?

I remained silent, listening to my mother’s story, trying to find a way to forgive her and me both.

“I didn’t know that he’d been
filming
,” she said, choking on the word. “But he had been. And he had a copy of the tape. He used it to blackmail me.” She clenched her eyes shut tightly and I prayed silently to myself that Stitches wouldn’t use
my
tape the same way. “He threatened to show the tape to your father. It would have destroyed him. So I did as Stitches said. When he asked me to sleep with him again—I didn’t say no. And when he asked me to sleep with another man, another Berserker, I didn’t say no. Not even when Stitches told me to do it with this guy while he watched…”

Tears were streaming down her cheeks now, but they were silent tears. She spoke as though she were numb, her words pouring forth on their own accord as opposed to any will of her own.

“You have to believe me.” The plea was empty, as though it were impossible for anyone to believe her. “I didn’t want to do it, not any of it, but that tape would have killed your father. It would have eaten him up inside and he would have tried to kill Stitches, and God, I wanted him to. But Adam’s best days were behind him. Stitches was young and ruthless. Adam never would have won and Stitches wouldn’t have made it a fair fight, anyway.”

I listened to her numbly, trying to sort through the things that slowly tore my insides apart, devouring my heart and soul until there was almost nothing left of me at all. I pictured Dad, angry, angrier than I’d ever seen him, but would it have been towards my mother or towards the men who did that to her?

I didn’t know, because Johnny’s face was overlaid atop my father’s and I couldn’t figure out which way Johnny would look at me when he found out.

My mom sucked in a shuddering breath, then finished her story. “But Adam found out. Stitches sent him a copy of the tape, just for spite. After I’d given him
everything
, he still did it, because he’d figured it out, too. That your father couldn’t handle it. If I had known—” Mom broke off for a moment, trying to tame her tears and her ragged breathing, blinking rapidly to clear her eyes. When she spoke again, it was in a barely restrained voice. “If I had known it would have killed him, I never would have done it. Not any of it.”