Devin-2 (5 page)

“Yes, she’ll be fine. She skipped breakfast and this is her first win.” Ronnie had heard this same line repeated half a dozen times since she had sat down abruptly and was not any happier about it now than the first time.

Devin was on his knees in front of her. She was sure his suit, now dusty from the floor, cost more than all the clothes she owned, and some of the other things she had as well. But she had to admit, the purple of his tie was really beautiful with the lavender shirt and gray suit. Then she remembered that she hated him.

“Will you stop telling people that? It is not my first win. I didn’t win anything. He screwed up and got caught. How is that a win? He lost his job.”

“In the event that you missed that in one of your classes, that’s what you are going to be doing for a living. Finding a way to prove that people screwed up and catch them at it. How are you feeling?” He pressed her head down again when she started to say something—probably for the best since she was pretty sure it was not going to be all that nice. She stayed there.

When she looked up again, he was very close to her face. Very close. His breath felt warm on her cheeks and he smelled so good. Her mouth was simultaneously watering and dry and she wanted to press her mouth to his desperately.

When he started moving toward her, she licked her lips and felt her eyes flutter, wanting to close against the overwhelming feelings rushing her. His groan and quick flick of his tongue over her mouth had her reaching out to touch him—to pull him closer or to hang on, she was not sure. His cell phone chirping at that moment startled them both.

Pulling back slightly, he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled it out, and groaned again at whoever it was. Somehow, this groan did not do to her what his other had done.

“Let me call you back,” he said into the phone and started to put it away, but stopped when the voice at the other end yelled.

“Wait, I have that information on that waitress. If you’re smart, and I know you are, you’ll avoid her like she’s diseased. Her past is checkered and she has a family that makes Charles Manson look saintly. She’s trouble, buddy.” Having heard the man at the other end, Ronnie pulled away from Devin and sat up. Her head was spinning, and she needed to get away. She stood up, moved to the table, and began to gather her things.

She had almost kissed the man.

Devin flushed and did not say anything for long moments. She was not sure if he was listening to more information or not because she could no longer hear the man at the other end.

“Yes. She’s right here and, yes, I believe she heard you. Thanks.” Another long pause and Devin hung up. He did not move from the floor, but regarded her from where he sat.

“I’m sorry you had to hear—”

“I have to go, Mr. Grant. I have a class this evening, and then I have to find…”

“Veronica, you work for me now. I’m sorry for what my brother Nicky said, but you can’t have expected me to hire you without a background check and a thorough investigation. I have a reputation to maintain and a business to keep running.”

“I didn’t ask you to hire me. I never...I’m sure once you read the rest of his file on me, you’ll change your mind anyway. I’m going...I have things to do.

After reading my checkered past and my Mansonlike lifestyle, I’m sure there isn’t a judge in the world who would hold you to the agreement you signed.

Your secretary has my number if there is anything in there you can’t understand.”

She left the courtroom and was out on the front steps before she stared running. Ronnie could hear him yelling for her, but she did not know how much longer she could hold on to her tears and, if he caught her, she was done for. She was in the car and had it started before the floodgates opened and she started sobbing.

Ronnie had no idea how she made it home. Once she had gotten the car to start, the slot where the key went too blurry from her tears to get it the first time, she drove on automatic. Her family was all she could think of. Her family had fucked her again.

Ronnie had not seen most of them for years, probably ten or so. Her father would catch her off guard once in a while in the past and knock her around and take whatever money she had on her. She tended to avoid him and would hide if she saw any of them.

Thankfully, when she got to the house, both Ben and Austin were gone. The note on the table left for her said that they had gone to the store to get the things needed for Thanksgiving. She had forgotten about the holiday, which was in four days, and then she had the dinner thing on Saturday to go to with Austin as his “date.”

Leaving a scribbled note to not wake her—she was really tired—she went to her room, stripped down, and climbed into bed. She thought she would toss and turn, but she laid her head down and went to sleep immediately.

The dream started where it always did. It was not really a dream, but a memory. When she had been younger, she had it nightly, waking up anyone that was near with her screams. That was how she had met Austin; he had heard her screaming one night while she hid behind a dumpster as he left the loft where he worked. He had taken her home with him and he and Ben had been her saviors since. She had been eight years old.

As she faded into the memory and her thoughts and feelings, her body tensed and she began fighting the blankets. She was on the floor near the door with her one blanket and no pillow as it usually was in this memory, just like she’d been so many nights all those years ago.

He was at them again, her father, the nasty bastard. And they loved it.

Ronnie at six wished they would go to his bedroom to have the sex, and not right there in front of her or behind her, as was the case this night. Holly and Margo, her beautiful identical twin younger sisters, were their father’s lovers. They were five. He had been “breaking them into the saddle” since the day they could satisfy him, which was nearly from the time they came home from the hospital at birth.

She knew as sure as she could breathe that it was sick and perverted. She tried telling someone about it once, but that had earned her a broken arm, six neat stitches in the back of her head, and a mighty headache to go with her troubles when her father had found out. She did not have to be told to shut up twice, thank you very much.

Holly was on the floor between his legs, and Margo was there as well, but to the side. He was panting and encouraging them, training them on the best way to pleasure him. She had her back to them, but she knew that they knew she was awake.

It would be over soon. Ronnie knew the signs, even if she never participated.

Yelling out his completion, he looked over to his oldest child. With a slapped at Ronnie’s shoulder to have her turn toward him, he said, “Tomorrow. Tomorrow, you are going to get broken in. I may have to put a bag over your ugly fucking head, but that will be my Christmas gift to you. So, be ready, or else.” Terrified, Ronnie remembered she could only stare at him. And continued to while Holly and Margo cleaned him up and he left the room.

Ronnie laid there for the rest of the night after her sisters had gone to their separate beds. Beyond shocked, she knew that at any moment he would make good on his promise and come for her. Even now she knew she never once closed her eyes that night as she waited in terror for him to come for her.

Her father always told her what he thought of her looks. She was nothing like the twins. Her hair was a dull, curly blonde, eyes purple like bruises, while they were blonde and blue eyed. Her father’s perfect little girls. Oh God, what was she going to do? She had thought.

Christmas morning dawned beautifully. The sun came in through the kitchen window to find Ronnie standing on a stool making pancakes at the big ancient stove. They were fluffy and light, and crispy around the edges. She knew better than to make anything but perfect pancakes, or anything she had to cook for them for that matter. The rest of the family was in the living room, opening gifts around the big decorated tree, with the exception of her mother who was still in bed, drinking her Christmas away. Squeals of delight could be heard from the girls when they opened yet another gift.

Ronnie loved the music they played. But terror had kept a tight control of her enjoyment of the music. She had learned the hard way that if she showed any kind of enjoyment over anything, she would be denied it and hurt in the process.

Ronnie’s enjoyment of anything had been a good source of pain and punishment from her father. He enjoyed hurting her any way he could and denying her something too…well, it was all the better, he’d told her often enough.

Once they were finished with their gifts, they came tromping into the kitchen to be served. And she did serve them too, carting food back and forth—drinks, syrup, and whatever else they needed. She would not be allowed to eat until her chores were done. But by then she was too exhausted to care to fix her anything so she usually ate a raw potato or a slice of bread to keep her from starving. Most nights she went to bed hungry more often than not, just too exhausted to do more than to strip down and collapse on her pallet on the floor.

As everyone was having their breakfast, Ronnie went into the living room to clear up the pretty papers and bows from their gifts. While finishing up, her father, Albert Frey, came into the living room to put his boots on. She was glad to see him going out; maybe he would forget about what he had said. She hoped that he would anyway.

He watched her for a few minutes, not saying a word to her. As he watched her, she tried to make herself as small as possible. He loved the terror he could see coming from her, and she had always been afraid of him. Small wonder the way he treated her. But this, this was a new terror of him, and he was enjoying it.

She knew; she could see it in his eyes. His next statement made her realize that her hopes of him forgetting were all in vain.

“You remember what I told you? Last night, about you being broken in?” He barked it at her as a question.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. I’m going into town for an hour. When I get back, I’ll get this over with, so I want you to be ready, hear me?”

“Why, sir? Why would you bother with me? I’m not good enough, nor pretty either.” The moment the words left her mouth, she knew it had been a mistake.

He had backhanded her across the face so fast she had no time to brace for it and she ended up five feet from where she had been kneeling before the family tree. Pain ricocheted through her from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet. She made not a sound, for that would earn her another slap, harder than the first. She lay there feeling the blood trickle from her lip, not wiping it away no matter how badly she wanted to.

“You don’t tell me what I’m gonna do, you hear me, bitch? I’m the man of this house. I make the decisions concerning all of you. You will do what I tell you when I tell you or else. You hear me?” The kick to her ribs was vicious and hard; air puffed through her lips and she felt the tears roll down her face.

“Yes, sir.” She was whimpering now, not able to stop herself. More blood oozed from her nose and her lip and she was finding it difficult to breathe normally. She knew that this excited him, too, and tried to back as far away as she could from him.

He stood up, towering over her. He was a big man, at six-four and two hundred and twenty pounds, and his hands were like slabs of meat, big and hard. When he drew back his foot to kick her again, she heard Holly yell for him from the kitchen and he stopped.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” her father said between clenched teeth. “You will be ready, girl, or else. If I have to hunt you down, and make no mistake, because hunt you I will, I’ll as soon kill you and be done with it. Hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” she whimpered again.

He left. And as soon as the door closed behind him, Ronnie put plan “b” into action. She actually had a plan “a,” but she knew that was a pipe dream, as she was only six, had no job, was not able to drive, and without any money, she would not get very far before he found her again and beat her worse for her troubles.

She hobbled up to her parents’ room holding her side and trying not to get her blood on the wall as she held onto it to stay upright. She knew there would have been no chance of waking her mother up, not that she would do a damned thing about anything anyways. It was past noon, and the two six packs of beer that Ronnie had already taken up to her mother would have her feeling nothing by now. Pulling out the bottom drawer of the dresser in her parents’ room, she pulled out what she needed and left again, not even trying to be quiet in the room.

Downstairs, Ronnie ushered her sisters to the new television and found them something they wanted to watch. She told them that she was going to clean the bathroom and she was using bleach. She knew that they would not have come in there for anything. They did not want to ruin their pretty clothes. Neither of them mentioned the blood on Ronnie’s face, nor did they act as if they cared, which Ronnie knew they didn’t.

Knowing that her time was very limited, Ronnie went to the half bath, spreading clean towels around the floor. Taking off her bloodied shirt and pants, she folded them neatly and set them aside on the toilet seat. Standing in her panties and semi-clean t-shirt, she pulled out the thirty-eight special she had gotten from her parents’ bottom drawer. She knew how to use it, as she had looked it up in the library, and made sure that there was at least one bullet in the chamber. It was almost too heavy for her little hand, but she was desperate.

Then, without another single thought, she pointed the pistol to her temple and pulled the trigger.

There was a bump to her shoulder, and a searing pain in her head. These two things registered instantaneous. Pain was not anything she had expected. She had thought that, as a dead person, she would be, well, dead and without pain.

She also felt her forehead hit the small sink on her way to the floor. There had been a smile on her face; she knew this. She had felt at peace for the first time in her very young life. Peace and happiness at leaving behind the world that had done all that it could to make life so miserable for her short time on this earth.