One Hundred & Thirty-Six Scars (The Devil's Own, #1) (4 page)

I was four when my father started his assaults on me.
Four.
My mother left when I was a baby and I’ve not known her since. My father—Donald—was my very own devil, and the apartment we lived in was my very own hell. As I got older, the assaults became more forceful, more violent. The day he took my virginity was the day he began a new game that he liked to play. I thought of killing him in his sleep more times than I could count, but that wasn’t who I wanted to be.

“Meadow!” Donald yelled from down our tiny hallway in our run-down apartment. The walls were peeling from age and the early morning train that would zoom past my bedroom window every hour. Hot water was a luxury that we could not afford, and our power would run out at least twice a month. He never paid for it unless he really needed it.

“Meadow, get the fuck in here!” he repeated from the living room, his voice blaring through my walls, sending shivers down my spine. I gulped, clutching the 9 mm Glock in my hand with a single tear rolling down my cheek. The heavy footsteps rattled the thin walls, and I quickly pushed the gun under my mattress. Rubbing my tears away, I stood from my bed and straightened my attire.

“Sorry, I fell asleep,” I said to him as he swung my door open, smashing the back of it against the wall. I flinched at the sudden crack from the door knob splitting the wall open.

“You fell asleep?” he questioned with a laugh. His gray hair was short and his skinny frame still the same. He was frail, his skin scaling in flakes with stains of yellow seeping into it. I bet if I wanted to, I could kick his ass. But deep down, I was a slave to my abuser. I was terrified of him. School was my only out, but even there I’d get picked on. Friends were out of the question for me and my raggy clothes which only made people repel away from me. The girls would laugh at me and the boys would gag at my mere existence. I didn’t mind, I would live through their snide remarks for the rest of my life if it meant I never had to see Donald, even if it was only seven hours a day.

He walked up to me, a loud slap sounding around the room at the same time my cheek stung from the impact. My malnourished body hit the spring mattress in my room and I clutched my cheek with my hand.

“Get up you little bitch, we need to go to the store! You’re not leaving my sight.” He gripped onto my long unkempt hair, yanking the oily mess so roughly, the sting of my hair being pulled out sounded around my scalp. I kept quiet and never spoke. I did what I did every time something like this happened—I went to my happy place. That place is filled with red roses and the ocean, where I have a shack on the beach that I could go to sleep every night with the sound of waves crashing against the sand and the air so thick with salt it would make my eyes sting. The grip around my neck snapped me back to reality. He picked me up off the bed by my neck and laughed, throwing me back down to the ground.

Beginning to walk out, he turned toward me. “Get up little bitch, we are going out.”

After doing some grocery shopping, which consisted of baked beans and bread, we walked up the stairs to our room. The apartment complex we lived in was one big half-way house for the homeless. The outside walls are so badly damaged that the plumbing tubes were falling out of them. Betsy, the landlady, was one scary woman who you do not want chasing you down for rent. You heard gunshots throughout the night, screaming babies and arguing, but this was all I’d ever known because we’d lived there all my life.

Following closely behind Donald, I was clutching the plastic bags in my hand as we walked up the concrete stairs to our apartment. There were four other rooms on our level and there was only one other woman who lived next door, but someone moved into the room next to us a few weeks ago. I’d never seen him, though. I only knew that he lived there because I saw a bag sitting outside his door with his clothes in it.

Donald pushed open the door and I followed in behind him. Closing the door with my feet, I placed the plastic bags on the mustard colored yellow kitchen table.

“Meadow,” his voice slid through my ears like a string of dirty slime. Shivers broke out over my skin, slipping down my spine.

“Yes?” I answered, letting the soft plastic bag slide off my fingers.

“Come here, little bitch. Come fix Daddy up.” The bile rose up my throat, clogging my breathing pipe, causing all vocal cords to snap closed.

“Meadow!” he screamed. “I’m not going to tell you again!” My heart dropped as a sob slid out of my lips.

One more time.

One more time.

I chanted as my heavy feet slid across the wooden floor of our apartment, taking me to my worst nightmare.

This was it.
After he finished this time, I was going to blow my brains all over his bedroom walls—I was done. The best I could do for now, was rest in that fact.

Reaching the living room, his rough chuckles sounded from the worn brown sofa, its actual color not brown. It once was white, but all the dirt and vile things that have happened on there has obviously taken its toll. Swallowing down the vomit that was about to surface in my mouth, leaving a sting of nasty tasting syrup on my tonsils, I carried on.

He took hold of my wrist as I entered the living room, wrapping his hand around it like an animal trapping, and tugging me down onto the sofa. I gave up pleading him to stop a long time ago, I learned over time that he relished in my begging. It only intensified the assault. It was best for me to go to my happy place and now rest in the fact that this was the last time. His dirt stained hands and fingernails slid down my front, gripping roughly onto my bra and tearing it off in one quick movement. I closed my eyes as a single tear trickled down my cheek. He moved his hands down to my front, unbuttoning my loose jeans and pulling them down roughly, yanking my legs in the process. I learned at a young age to never wear a dress. I’ve always lived in jeans and T-shirts. There was no way I was giving him anything to look at. My body convulsed in anger and hurt but most of all, I shielded myself with the numbness you obtain only by being put through the same ordeal numerous times. I’d never been with another man, nor was I ever interested. I can’t imagine the day where I would class sex as a pleasurable act.

His hot stale breath stuck to my skin like poison air brushing over me in hot waves. His sticky tongue slid out of his mouth and across my neck as his hand began rifling around in his pocket. My panicking quickened in the knowledge of what was about to happen. Pushing his cracked, cigarette stenching mouth over mine, his tongue pushed its way through my tightly sealed lips leaving the tangy residue of his saliva lingering on my tongue. The cold metal of his switch blade pushes up against my thigh, ready to slice another cut and the blood to trickle over my other one hundred and thirty-six scars. He liked to do it every time he raped me, starting it the day he stole my virginity at the tender age of twelve. One hundred and thirty-six times he had raped me. One hundred and thirty-six times he had scarred my skin to match the ones already embedded in my soul. With my chest heaving, and tears descending faster, I clamped my eyes shut again, taking me to my happy place.

Red roses…

Crashing waves…

Bungalow on the beach...

The dark shadow that his body held over my shut lids now shone with light. The heaviness of his body pushing mine down into the sofa had now evaporated, and the air was mild and fresh again, no longer poisoned with dirt and vile.

The sounding of a fist connecting with skin shocked me awake as I shot up off the ratty sofa to see a large—no not large—massive frame of a man standing over Donald. His elbow swinging back before his fist crashed into Donald’s face again and again. I gasped out in shock, my feet rushing me to the wooden front door where I slammed it shut, sliding the heavy metal lock closed.

I brought my attention back to the man who was beating on Donald. He was dressed in a dark hoodie with dark loose fitting jeans that were held up with a spiky belt. His hoodie was pulled over his head, and his shoulders were as one could only describe as monstrous. My words faltered at the sound of bones cracking.

“Stop,” I said, reaching my hand out toward the man.

His head turned over his shoulder. “I’ve been watching you,” he began. “For the past few weeks, I’ve heard your screams and I’ve heard your sobbing through these walls. How long has he been doing this?” he asked, his voice dark.

“I—I—uh,” I stuttered, covering my front with my hands and pulling my shirt down in an attempt to cover myself.

“Just tell me. Be honest with me,” he demanded, keeping his head turned over his shoulder.

This was the first time I’d spoken about what went on between these walls. But because this man already knew, it didn’t seem as hard as I thought, I opened to him like the Red Sea.

“Since I was four, but he didn’t rape me until I was twelve. I don’t know why he waited until I was twelve,” I whispered.

Silence.
The air thickened with anger, hot molten anger that was vibrating off him in waves. He walked to me, took hold of the throw blanket that was on the sofa and covered me before he walked back to Donald.

“Let me finish him,” he growled, turning his head back down to the lifeless body on the ground.

I could’ve pretended that I needed to think about this, but I didn’t. This man had stolen every single part of me. If there was one thing I would never give him, though, it was my wrath. I would never let him steal away my grace, no matter how haunted that grace may have become.

I ran my fingers through my hair, the greasy, matted mess leaving a residue behind on my fingers. I didn’t care how dirty I looked. “Okay.”

And with that, he knelt down to Donald, gripped his face with his hands and with one
snap
he dropped Donald’s limp head and lifeless body onto the worn vinyl floor. My breath hitched for a second and although I’d just witnessed a death, a murder—I felt relief.

Walking to me with his face still covered slightly by the hoodie, he pulled out some keys from his pocket. “Go to my room. Don’t talk to anyone. Go there now. Do you understand?” I didn’t answer, I was still partially in shock from what I’d just witnessed. To my shock, was a tidal wave of relief that was waiting to come crashing over me.

“Can I see you?” I asked, swallowing down the lump which had formed in my throat.

The shadow caused by his hoodie accentuated his strong jaw. His large rough hands reached up to the rim of his hoodie, grasping the material with his fingers. I watched carefully as he lowered it over his head to lay around his neck.

He was younger than what I would have guessed. I thought for sure by the size of him he would be well over thirty, but he had to be only around six years older than I was. His eyes were dark, like marbles from a deep orbit shaded by dark eyelashes. His hair in a military cut and the soft olive skin that framed his face had not one defect.

He’s beautiful
, I thought to myself.

When he moved his head sideways to look at Donald’s form lying on the ground, his hoodie moved and revealed a hint of his neck where a long slash appeared, it looked as though it ran from behind his right ear right across his neck. I didn’t get a good look at it, and I sure as hell don’t want to ask about it. He just killed someone, I won’t be the one asking questions right now.

“You need to go.
Now.
I’ll need to wait until it’s dark out before moving the body, but you need to go next door and wait for me.”

“How old are you?” I whispered.

He stilled. “What? Why?”

“Because your body seems older, but your face looks… young.”

“I’m twenty-one.” He pushed the cold metal keys into the palm of my hand. “Now, go!” I winced at his commanding voice, but turned in my footsteps and walked toward the door anyway. Grasping the handle in my hand, I paused, glancing over my shoulder to him. His hoodie was back on his head.

“Thank you,” I said briefly before walking out of the door. I reached his door, slid the key in and turned it open, quickly walking in and slamming it shut behind me.

One hundred and thirty-six scars—that was the most Donald would ever get out of me.

And with that, the tidal wave of relief flushed over me as my legs gave way, dropping me onto the floor. They’re waves that I would ride for an eternity. Physically, I was free. However, under my tainted soul was still the girl rocking in a corner with shackles tied around her ankles, praying for God to save her. God never came, though. Instead, he sent a dark knight.