Sins of the Father (2 page)

She flashed a smile and wiggled her fingers at the guy in the backward cap and tank top still waiting for her by the DJ.

Emerald’s jaw tightened and he shook his head. “You’re in no condition to drive, anyway. I’ll take her home.”

“What about Lisa?” Getting into a car with some guy whose name I didn’t even know, while drunk, didn’t sound like a brilliant idea. In fact, it was probably an excellent example of what
not
to do for the next year’s safety seminar. “We planned to split a cab.”

“Don’t worry about me.” A sly grin curled her bright red lips as she slipped into the crush of bodies and I knew I wouldn’t be seeing her—or the other half of my cab fare—until at least tomorrow. 

I was stuck. It was either trust Emerald—the guy who had already come to my rescue once that evening—to take me home to my fuzzy pajamas and warm bed or stick around in a house full of drunken idiots to wait for a better option to present itself.
Not likely.

“You sure you don’t mind?” The nip in the air helped clear my head as we walked along the car-lined street to where a black, two-door something-or-other was parked. It looked sporty, but that’s where my knowledge of cars ended. “I don’t live far.”

“No. Get in.” He opened the door for me, and I thought,
chivalry really isn’t dead,
as he lowered me into the bucket seat.

The radio hummed, filling the dead air between us. My parents were wealthy, which meant I had ‘friends’—money can buy just about anything—but social skills had never come easily to me. I considered asking his name, but what was the point? He’d be gone in about three minutes and I’d probably never see him again. I didn’t plan on attending any more frat parties for . . .
ever
. Saving my thanks for when he dropped me off, I chewed quietly on the corner of my broken thumbnail, watching streetlights blur by. It wasn’t until we missed my turn that I realized I hadn’t given him any directions.

“Oh, hey, sorry. That was my street back—” I shifted to point him in the opposite direction. That’s when I noticed the white cloth in his hand. And the look in his eye.

My stomach bottomed out. His hand flew up to cover my nose and mouth with the cloth. A sickly-sweet scent invaded my airway. With each panicked gasp, I grew woozier and my struggles died off before they even got started.

In the last moments before consciousness slipped away, my gaze connected with his and I swore I heard him say, “I’m sorry.”

Chapter 2

~Sawyer~

*14 years ago*

My cheek stunk like a hive of angry wasps.

“Get your ass up, boy. At least pretend to be a man.”

I staggered to my feet and pushed back my shoulders, fighting the urge to cower before the beast of a man towering over my nine-year-old stature.

“Do you think this is fun for me? Do you think I want to work hard all day and then have to discipline your sorry ass, too?”

“No, Dad. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Shut up, you sniveling worm. Maybe if you’d learn a thing or two I wouldn’t have to keep teaching you the same damn lessons. Go fetch my belt. We’ll see if we can make it stick this time.”

I wasn’t even sure what lesson I was supposed to be learning. The one about not complaining about things like being cold? Or the one about not asking for things like a pen to do my homework with? Or maybe it was the one about how I wasn’t supposed to exist at all.  

The worn brown leather dangled from the bedpost, an ever-present reminder of what awaited should I screw up one of my many ‘lessons’. Something I did more often than not. My trembling fingers ran over the buttery material. How could something so soft hurt so badly?

On the far side of the room, my father’s closet stood open, the darkness beckoning me.
Come inside and disappear.
I’d already learned the hard way that it was a false promise. Hiding would only ensure I went hungry. For a week the last time.

“Hands against the wall.”

Begging would only add more lashes. To ‘toughen me up’. I pressed my hands to the yellowing wall and curved my back, bowing my head and hunching my shoulders to protect my face.

“Don’t you move.”

The whistle of the belt cut through the air and I braced for impact. Stiffening my muscles only made the pain that much worse, but it couldn’t be avoided.

Whack.

Fire erupted across my shoulder blades. I jerked and bit down on my tongue.

Whack. Whack.

The copper tang of blood coated my mouth.

Whack.

I gasped and shuddered as the burn spread, devouring my back from shoulder to waist.

Whack. Whack. Whack.

My eyes squeezed tight, but not against the urge to cry. That urge had been trained from me before I was out of diapers.
Real men don’t cry.
And if there was one thing my father was determined to do, it was make me a
real
man. Just like him.

Whack.

A strangled sound choked its way up my throat and I pressed my forehead against the wall as the room was starting to spin.

Whack. Whack.

I couldn’t feel my legs, my arms, the wall . . . anything holding me up. All I felt was the pain.

Whack.

I sagged, my shoulder bumping against the wall.

Whack.

My father grunted. Vomit crept up the back of my throat.

Whack.

My knees gave out, surrendering their battle with gravity, and the floor rushed up to meet me as everything faded to black.

*Present day*

I slowed until the only other car on the road passed me before pulling into the gas station off Route 9. The sound of the girl’s soft breathing filled the car. Frequent glances in the rearview assured me she hadn’t moved from where I laid her across the backseat as we made our detour. Loose gravel crunched beneath the tires and pinged the undercarriage.

The white stucco siding was cracked and the S and R of ‘Gas Mart’ were missing along with all of the pumps. A lone blue minivan looked out of place parked in the shadows. As I pulled up behind it the driver’s door swung open.

“You get her?” Frank cupped his hand against my window, pressing his face into the glass.

“I said I’d handle it, didn’t I?”

Something about the way he was leering at her while she was unconscious rubbed me the wrong way. I disengaged the power locks and tugged the handle, nearly hitting him in the face with the door. Frank took a step back to give me room, only now
I
was the one doing the leering.
Dammit all to hell.

Fiery red curls fell in waves over her shoulder. Smokey eyelids twitched in restless sleep and I couldn’t help wondering what it was she dreamed about. If I’d already come to infect her nightmares.

She was lighter than she looked. Average size for a girl, but her weight felt almost insubstantial in my arms as I transferred her to the waiting vehicle. Frank rooted through an old duffle bag as I rearranged her limbs, tucking her arm beneath her head on the torn and faded bench seat.

“Move.” He elbowed me out of the way.

The headlights of my car were muted through the tinted windows, but they provided enough light for me to see the syringe in his hand. “What the hell is that for?”

“To make sure she doesn’t wake up on the way. Relax, we give it to the animals at the clinic all the time. She’ll be fine.”

A clear liquid sloshed beneath the plunger. “Are you sure you got the dosage right? You’re not a vet, Frank.”

“No, I’m a tech, the one who gives all the damn injections. There’s enough in here for a friggin’ poodle. I told you,
relax.
I know what I’m doing.”

Relax, my ass.
“I hit her with the chloroform. We really don’t need to—”

Patience expired, Frank bent over me to stab the needle into the girl’s arm. A small, scared whimper squeezed past her pinched lips, but otherwise she didn’t stir.

“Dammit, Frank, I said we didn’t need that.”

“It’s done.” He dumped the used needle in a shopping bag and tossed it out the door. “We’d better get on the road. Stash your car and let’s go.”

The harsh clank of metal filled the humid night air as Frank pulled a pair of handcuffs from his seemingly requisite bag of crazy.

“Don’t you think that’s overkill? Where the hell did you even get this shit? The girl’s already drugged, in a moving vehicle, with both of us.”

“The wonders of online shopping. Can’t be too safe.”

He leaned in, but I snagged his wrist before he could reach her. “I think you can. Just leave her.”

His eyes narrowed, engaging me in a classic Frank-style stare down. It wasn’t often that I held my ground with him, but on this I did. The girl was going to wake up scared and confused, she didn’t need to be sore as well. Frank conceded with a huff and tossed the cuffs back in the bag.

Her dress was beginning to creep up her thighs, so I snagged my jacket from the front seat and draped it over her waist. Silky hair slid through my fingers as I combed it from her face.

“I am sorry you got dragged into this.” I didn’t know if she could hear me. I was certain she wouldn’t believe me even if she could. But I
needed
her to trust me. It was the only way any of us were making it through this.

After stashing my car in the back of the lot of a twenty-four-hour department store, I hopped into the passenger seat of the van, beside Frank, to find the girl exactly as I’d left her—lying across the bench seat with a seatbelt looped awkwardly around her waist to keep her from falling.

An hour-and-a-half into the drive I couldn’t take Frank’s skull-splitting, bass-heavy hard rock station anymore. I flipped through the presets until I found the one I’d confiscated. The soothing twang of old-school country guitar filled the vehicle and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Not this crap again,” Frank groaned.

“I like this crap.” Empty fields silhouetted by moonlight blurred by outside my window.

Frank really thought this through, I had to give him that much. This place was
made
for privacy. Old back roads with no streetlamps and no traffic. The kind of place I’d take my car and really open her up, see what she could do. But not tonight. Tonight we went exactly the speed limit. Every once in a while a house popped up on the flat landscape and I strained for a closer look. No cars, no lights, no toys in the yards or curtains in the windows. One had a ‘For Sale’ sign out front. The others looked like a strong wind could knock them over. The recession hit this area hard. Farms folded right-and-left. People were driven into the city in search of jobs. It was a ghost town.

The ground changed from smooth to rutted as we turned onto a long, winding dirt drive. The shitty shocks had me bouncing in the seat as I twisted to make sure the girl was staying put. Her hair had fallen into her face again, but otherwise she looked fine.

We jostled along the dirt road past a three-story yellow house with red shutters and trim. The paint was peeling in places, but it was in much better condition than the surrounding properties. Frank made sure of it.

About a quarter mile behind the house stood a long, single-story, wooden structure. Bits and pieces of fencing could still be seen through the overgrown, grassy fields surrounding it. It was remarkable how quickly nature could reclaim a place.

We rolled up outside the building and I studied the oversized, sliding door.

“The stables?” I didn’t have to ask why.

“A light in the house would be visible from the road.” That was
not
why. “Everything’s already inside.”

“Alright, man.” I looked over the girl again and was suddenly overcome by a wave of exhaustion. It had been a hell of a night. “I’ll get her inside. You go back for the car and make contact.”

“I know the plan. It’s
my
plan,” Frank grumbled.

“Just making sure we stick to it.” The ‘plan’ sucked as it was. I wasn’t prepared to handle any deviations. And Frank could be a bit . . . unpredictable.

Cradling the girl in my arms, I angled her out of the van, trying not to bang her against the door. Wind roamed freely over the flat landscape, tossing her hair and bringing out goosebumps up and down her arms. I cradled her closer.

“Here. Use these.” Frank dropped the cuffs onto her stomach. “I’m not fucking around. If the rich bitch—”

“I’ve got her.” I bit back the urge to tell him she wasn’t a bitch. Quite the opposite, in fact. She hadn’t even let me hit that douchebag back at the party. I almost wished she was. A spoiled brat would have been a lot easier to deal with than this wide-eyed, quiet little bird. “I’ll use your stupid cuffs, just go. Let’s get this shit over with.”