Faithless (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (52 page)

Deafening silence rings in my ears. All I hear is the pound of my heart in my ears
and the rage flowing in my veins.

“I’
m sure it was a VOTE!” I scream in their faces. “I’m sure nowhere in the vote was rape, humiliation, torture- the vote was just death. My daddy died quick. This was days on days on days of maltreatment. That is not justice! That is evil!”

Something snaps inside of me
, something that kept me in one piece. I’m not bent. I’m not fractured. I’m not broken. I’m unleashed.

“Lara Simpson was my daddy’s wife. She was Fate’s Momma. She wasn’t nice to me but she wasn’t mean either. She deserved respect
because she was human. What my father did at Mitchell’s request twisted a religious woman. AND. SHE. DESERVED. RESPECT!”

With no outlet- no way
to unleash the agony, the fury that floods my veins, I snap. The coffee table is overturned. I kick the legs until they break. I pick a table leg up and wield it as a weapon. I demolish anything in my path with the piece of wood. The satisfying crunch of the wood hitting objects reverberates up my arm and sings in my blood.

“I did the right thing… Someone needs to do the right thing. Someone needs to keep you all honest,”
I scream as I take out the decorative lamp on the end table- the force propels the shade to smack the wall, knocking several picture frames down. “That someone will be ME!” I scream, pointing at my chest with the table leg. “I don’t care how many of you evil bastards I have to kill in the process of cleansing!”

I crawl on top of the kitchen table
, and drag a chair with me. I demolish the wooden chair with my bare hands. I’m bleeding- seeing the red rush down my wrists is a release. I can breathe easier without that suffocating pressure inside my veins.

I sit in the center of the table with ruination all around me.
“Why?” I ask in a childlike voice as I finger a piece of glass from the broken centerpiece. “Why do men think they can do that? Why do they always use their dick to break women? A few inches of flesh can ruin us. Why can’t we be respected and trusted and cherished and loved as if we are equal? Why do men think we are just an extension of them? Why do they think we can’t live without them? I wasn’t born just to satisfy a man and create children. There must be a greater purpose to life than to find a dick that will protect me from the rest of the dicks.”

I draw the shard of glass
across my forearm. The slice is hot, the jagged edge pulling at my flesh. My eyes flutter shut as an erotic hiss spills from between my parted lips from the sweet release. Blood freely flows from the cut across my tattoo of Wil’s teeth marks. I wish I felt as free as my blood. 

Arms surround me from behind, trying to bind me. I rear backward, drawing my legs up, and try to flip out of Grant’s arms. “DON’T TOUCH ME!” I scream
as Grant gingerly flicks the glass from my fingertips. Stanton grabs my ankles while Grant restrains my arms to my chest with an iron grip.

I see Lara bound on that bed, rope digging into her fragile wrists and ankles and a soun
d pours out my throat that holds the familiarity of death- a death wail. I writhe and flail. Pieces of broken glass and wood cut me from where it’s trapped between me and the tabletop.

“Don’t touch me,” I keen. “You’re all tainted by
her
. Every man in my life is tainted by
her
. I just want to be around people who aren’t controlled by Mitchell Meyers and have never fallen under Gwendolyn Meyers’ spell,” I sob the words. “Everyone I care about has either been fucked by my mother or birthed by my mother.”

“Shh…” Grant soothingly whispers in my ear. “You’re okay, Faith.”

Hearing that name breaks something integral within me. Stanton anticipates what that word will do to me after how I reacted last night. But it hurts so much worse this time- the guilt. The loss of what might have been- what could have been- what should have been. I see an alternative life, where Lara adopted Fate and Faith, and raised them as her own alongside a very proud Thomas. Stan’s hands leave my ankles allowing me to curl into a ball against Grant’s chest. I cry, choking on my tears.

“”My momma, my daddy, my sisters and brothers, my guardian, my friends, my family- they are all under
their
spell. Every time I’ve had sex was because
she
wanted it to happen. My mother’s blood taints my veins. Her touch taints my friends. It’s always about Gwen. No one cares about me- they just use me to get to her,” I keen. “
He
was what I wanted. I wanted one thing just for myself. Was I too selfish to believe I deserved more than what I got, or was I just too stupid to believe that I wasn’t worthless?”

I close my eyes
, breathless from my outburst. I finally notice the rhythmic movement of walking. The sound of a tap spilling water has my eyes flying open. Stanton is filling his big bathtub with warm water while Grant holds me to his chest.

A hand tugs on my pajama pants. “No,”
I weakly protest, “you’ll see me.”

“I’ve seen plenty of naked girls
. I’ve bathed my daughter with you in the room,” Stanton gruffly says. “Just breathe.”

I feel humiliated as Stanton undress
es me as if I were a small child. The tinkling of broken glass hitting the tile floor is loud- it puts an explanation point on my tantrum. I don’t know if I should be humiliated or not anymore. I don’t know what is right or wrong. If I thought murder was the right solution, then everything I think is skewed.

My ears hear nothing except for the constant stream of water, even though I know Grant is rambling in my ear about this or that of little consequence. Stanton is less coddling. He takes no liberties as he pulls me from Grant arms and settles me into the scalding water. I hiss, surprised that I feel any sensation since I’
m numb to my core.

I’m efficiently scrubbed with rough hands that touch me gently. Stanton offers me no sympathy. I watch his face as he is extra mean with my wounds. No pity, no disappointment, no judgment, and it makes me feel clearer headed.

“I’m not sorry,” I whisper to them both, Stanton using tweezers to yank glass slivers and wood splinters from the soles of my feet as Grant washes my hair. They touch me as a child. There is no sexuality- no male or female- it is men and child.

“I suppose that it better than the alternative,” Stanton huffs out. “I suppose that Wil passed this message on to you yesterday afternoon,” he angrily says. Hearing
his
name makes me feel so many things- I want to be sick, cry, and wince- simultaneously.

“I guess
you never thought to come to Grant and me. A grown woman would’ve gotten help and not sought redemption. A grown woman would’ve trusted us, because we’re here for you now as we’ve been here for you in the past. A grown woman would’ve questioned the motives of The Meyers’ enforcer that keeps shredding her heart. But, Syn, what you keep forgetting, is that you aren’t a grown woman. You are a child, and it’s my job to raise you into a woman,” Stanton says, the first sign of emotion threading his voice.

“I was the child of a vicious bastard. He hurt my mother and he hurt me. When he h
urt Caleb, he ceased to breathe.” The look in Stanton’s eye screams that this is the first time he’s admitted to taking the life of his father, his elder- it wasn’t natural causes. “I understand. I’ve been there, and I didn’t want you to go through the aftermath… and there will be an aftermath, even if you feel that it was justified and right. Once a life has been taken, it fundamentally changes you. There is no going back. My moral compass is skewed. The teenage Stanton would’ve never wanted to be the thirty-year-old drug lord, murderer, thief, and criminal. But that Stanton didn’t understand the game.”

Grant sits quietly on the tile floor, watching Stanton search me for more splinters and slivers. His eyes are glistening with tears of anguish. We’re striking a chord within him. I’d rather hear about Grant and Stanton’s demons than acknowledge my own.

Stanton works with a thoughtful expression on his face, as if he’s sorting through thoughts, choosing what to voice. “First, I want to say that I do not see women in that light. As a father of a daughter and a member of the game, I’ve worked for almost eight years to protect Bianca from that fate. I agreed to the betrothal knowing I would have eighteen years to find a way out. It guaranteed that she was safe from all other plays until she reached adulthood. Bianca will be a child. I have no wife, mistress, or girlfriend. I raise my child. I seek release in private with monetary compensation. The only person that I allowed into my heart shredded it. I could be bitter and a woman hater, but I’m not. I’ve been hard on you, but not because you are a girl. It’s because you are a
girl
- a child,” he stresses. 

“I-”

“Don’t,” Stanton barks. “I don’t want to hear about how you’ve had to live and how hard it is to deal with finally being treated your age. You’re a badass murderess now, girl- you can deal with my rules,” Stanton taunts and I actually laugh.

“Oh fuck!” spills from my mouth as I dunk my head under the water. I stay under, contemplating life and death as my lungs expel bubbles. Grant’s hand grips a fist of my hair and makes me resurface.

Stanton gives me a knowing look. “That last comment during your rampage was telling… and I know how you feel there, too,” Stanton says without humor. “I guess the secret is out. You somehow found out Wil was given to your mother,” Stanton spits as if the words are acid on his tongue.

“While I was releasing my momma from the torture they put her through, my grandfather slept peacefully as my partner was screwing my mother,” I glacially say, but the words belie the tears skating down my cheeks. “I saw,” I breathe. “I saw them together
moments after… after I ended my momma’s life.”

Saying it out loud makes it real. I want to open a vein and bleed out, fill this tub with my lifeblood as a sacrifice for my sins.

Grant’s pained expression scares me, but it’s Stanton’s that strengthens me. I see no judgment or pity, just understanding. He’s been where I am, and I want to be where he is now. He’s living his life on his own rules. That thought fortifies me. I could be Stanton in fourteen years. Stan’s the top of his family with his child and brother safe from the game- the creator of his own destiny.

“Can the enforcers and h
eirs call a meeting and a vote?” spills from my mouth before the thought fully forms.

“Yes,” Grant and St
anton say at the same time. Both share a look that’s a mix of confusion and curiosity.

“As the h
eir of The Meyers and The Simpson, I call a meeting. We’re having a vote!”

~Chapter Forty-Three~

Calmness settles over me as I wait. I thought the scene of the meeting was rather fitting- The Simpson residence on Crestview Drive. I use the foyer. In a large arch, Grant placed chairs for all those in attendance.
I silently stand in the center of the arch, every eye on me. Even standing to their sitting, we are eye-level. I just couldn’t sit and allow them to be above me, try to intimidate me.

I ignore
d every person as they filed in. I didn’t meet their curious gazes, and it’s not out of shame. They won’t offer me respect, so I don’t feel the need to return any. All are in attendance, with the exception of minors and the initiates that don’t know they are being played. Grant came clean to Roman after my bath- The Whittenhower finally has an enforcer. We postponed the meeting until nightfall, giving the Las Vegas members the opportunity to join us.

Mitchell, Gwen,
Raymond and Wil.
Henry, Boyd, Sam and Gretchen.
Grant and Roman.
Stanton.
Pearl, Ezra, Patrick and Roarke.
Pierre, Olivia, Devlin and Jon.
Fate and Kristal.
Anthony and Vance.

An inner-confidence radiates
from deep within me. I didn’t dress up. I came as myself: pale, black-clothed, tattooed and pierced, and battered and bruised on the inside and out- and pissed the fuck off. I allow my pain to show… and my determination. 

My eyes finally light on someone- Fate. Hate her as I might, she is my sister. Mom
ma raised her as her own. This morning my sister lost her mother at her sister’s hand. Fate looks fragile, and I made her look like that. I have a promise to keep, and I’ll damned well keep it.

“Sister,” I hoarsely say, hesitantly approaching her. Shock flashes across her face that I
actually acknowledge her. “My apologies on Momma and what you are about to hear. Your pain is my pain- we bleed the same blood.”

I walk backward to the center of the arch, never taking my gaze from my sister. I am without disguise this evening. No contacts covering my true gaze and
my protective clothing that always covers me to my wrists and neck is gone. I wear a tank top that reveals all my pain in the form of my inked artwork and a myriad of bruises and wounds.