Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
FRANCESCA
I wake before my alarm the next morning, confused to find myself naked under the covers when I always sleep in a long t-shirt. I stretch my legs and feel an unfamiliar ache.
Then I sit bolt upright.
Kincaid.
I jump out of bed, dragging on a sweater and jeans. Even before I poke my head out of the bedroom, I know he’s gone. I sense his absence more keenly than I felt his presence yesterday, when I first arrived home.
When I enter the kitchen, there’s a note pinned under a fridge magnet.
See you in school, Freckles. Don’t make me come find you.
I screw it into a ball and toss it in the rubbish bin. It only gives me an hour to work out a plan, and there isn’t a single coherent thought in my head.
To chase away the fog, I make coffee, but it doesn’t help. I don’t know what to do, how to feel. My brain is numb and my hands and feet tingle.
Calm down. Think!
But that’s easier said than done.
I gulp the hot drink, then make another and drain it just as quickly. The sticky stinging sensation between my thighs drives me towards the bathroom and a hot shower, scrubbing myself until I’m red, swimming in déjà vu.
The water runs cold before I step out of the cubicle, still dazed. The world feels just out of reach.
When I go to the bathroom, wincing at the tenderness, I recall Kincaid babbling about filling me with cum and my mind snaps into focus.
I’m only eighteen.
I can’t have a baby.
And I especially can’t have a baby with an utter madman.
Rushing to my mother’s deserted bedroom, I check through her drawers, searching for birth control pills, knowing she always had spare in her bag, in the car.
One accidental pregnancy ruined her life. She wasn’t about to risk another.
In her bedside cabinet, I find condoms, lube, and an old vibrator with the rechargeable port rusted into uselessness. The drawers on the opposite side hold a stash of old cards I’d made for birthdays, mother’s days, Easter.
They’re tatty, but they’re keepsakes, made with every ounce of my childhood love.
My mother took a three-quarters-used tub of Vaseline when she left, but not these.
A surge of grief holds me in position, scraping all the good thoughts from my head until my mind is raw. I still don’t want to accept she ran away and left me stranded. I can’t handle what that says about me.
But for the first time, a jolt of deep anger cuts through the sludge of my emotions.
I’m not the one who chose a control freak for a partner. Nor am I responsible for the hours of torture the man put me through each week, kneeling in a corner, facing the wall, or worse. My joints filling with broken glass while she sat back, keeping quiet.
Not wanting to rock the boat.
Not wanting him to turn that quiet and controlled fury on her.
Nothing I ever did was good enough. Nothing matched to his idealised concept of a ‘good daughter.’ Not even when he stripped my life bare.
No friends. No parties. No internet. No phone. No boys. No dates. No life.
The man turned me into the school pariah, leaving me without any social network to call upon for help. He isolated me until the kids who laughed and called me a freak were right.
I am a freak.
A clueless freak without any ability to judge what is and isn’t normal.
No wonder Kincaid helped himself. If my own mother can’t see my worth, why would the school psychopath be compelled to treat me like a person?
I shove the drawer closed and stand, moving to escape the memories.
In the wardrobe, I strike it lucky with an old duffel bag. There’s a morning-after tablet, and a crumpled foil of Panadol. I swallow both, fingers crossed they’ll work, and text the local sexual wellbeing clinic to schedule an appointment.
An auto-text confirms me into their next available slot, on Thursday, during fourth period. I can drive there during lunch and should be finished in time for my final class.
Back in the kitchen, I put the kettle on to boil again, my gaze coming to rest on a fruit knife beside the sink. My dull eyes stare at its sharp blade until I pick it up. It’s small and the faux wooden handle is splitting from use.
It fits perfectly in my hand and the blade is long enough to pierce Kincaid’s heart if I stab it straight into his chest.
A few practice thrusts bring me my first smile of the morning. I try various positions in my clothing, but there’s no easy way to disguise it on my person. My throat closes as I imagine trying to fish it from my kilt pocket while adrenaline screams through my veins.
Instead, I go into my bedroom and stash it under the pillow. A drawer would be safer, but I know how quickly he can physically overwhelm me. Better to have it as close as possible.
Encouraged, I try to think of other ways to resist the future Kincaid has planned. If only I hadn’t sent the five thousand to have the freezer removed, I could run. Take my chance up in Auckland. Lose myself in the country’s largest city where nobody knows me.
A nice idea… until the police search the garage and splash my photo across the TV news and internet.
My breath catches in my throat.
The appointment.
No.
No. No. No.
I dig out my phone and check my messages, already knowing there won’t be anything because the dark web guy said he wouldn’t contact me again.
He told me flat out that if I messed this up, there wouldn’t be another chance.
Five thousand dollars along with the trouble I landed myself in because of it—gone. Wasted.
With my heart pumping, I make myself walk to the garage, hoping against hope that when I pull open the door, the chest freezer will have been taken, despite the warning.
But it’s there. The power light glowing orange. Everything still piled on top.
I sink to the floor, back propped against the wall, and hope drains from my body until I’m too empty to even cry.
While Kincaid was amusing himself at my expense, the narrow window for removal came and went.
It’s all been for nothing.
* * *
It’s only the thought of the knife nestled under my pillow that gives me the courage to leave for school. And it takes so much courage. I’m sure everyone can see there’s something wrong with me. A glowing stamp of victimhood on my forehead.
For the first five minutes, I hover outside the doors leading to my locker, sneaking occasional glances into the hallway. Not wanting to venture inside until I know Kincaid isn’t lurking in wait.
I’m so inwardly focused I lose track of my surroundings until a heavy finger taps on my shoulder. “Waiting for someone?”
I lurch forward, then wrap my arms across my chest before turning. Kincaid has one eyebrow raised, a smirk gracing his lips, and I force my gaze down to the ground. He touches my shoulder again, and it’s light enough that I barely feel it. I still jump, rattled, tugging at my hair until the pain soothes the worst of my anxiety.
“Hey,” he says, sounding concerned as he steers me into a recess beside the entrance doors, away from prying eyes. “Cool it with the nerves, I’m not gonna hurt you.”
I give a despairing laugh. “No, you’ll leave that to your uncle.”
“How about you relax, and I’ll put in a good word?” Before I can protest, his arms envelop me in a bear hug, large palm stroking my back. “Shh,” he says as I whimper. “You can react however you want at home, but not here, okay?”
I go limp, waiting for him to release me. When he does, he adjusts my clothing and my hair, reclipping the pin in my fringe, tucking loose strands back into their bun, tugging the collar of my blouse until it’s symmetrical.
“That’s better. You look almost normal.” He chuckles, bending so the reverberations sink into the side of my scalp, setting my scalp buzzing.
Whatever equilibrium I achieved this morning is gone. I don’t know how to talk to this sexy, teasing giant.
When I glance around, students are looking our way. Maybe not openly, but they peer from their peripheral vision or sweep their eyes across. From their posture, I can tell which pairs and groups are whispering about us.
I can’t stand this sensation. Their focus. I’m unused to being the centre of everyone’s gossip. Ignored by everyone around me for so long, I don’t have the skillset to navigate the opposite.
“Are you coming inside?”
He guides me with a light hand on my lower back, standing by my locker while I grab what I need for my first few classes.
When I shut it, he leans in until my nostrils fill with his sultry spicy scent, head awash with everything he’s done. Everything he might still do. One hand rests on my shoulder and the other fishes in his jacket pocket, pulling out a jewellery box and thrusting it at me with an uncharacteristic lack of grace. “I went shopping last week and got you this.”
Last week. Back when I thought returning the shirt and phone meant we were done. I stare at the black velvet box, my skin buzzing.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Kincaid stares at me expectantly, a flash of vulnerability in his eyes.
Steeling myself, I gently flip up the hinged lid.
Inside is a bracelet. A ladybug pendant strung onto a delicate chain of white gold. The insect is fashioned from gemstones, rubies and onyx, with tiny diamonds for eyes.
I hold it up to the light, watching it catch and refract the rays, the shape and colour matching my favourite hairpins.
Sparkling. Beautiful.
A piece of jewellery I would happily select for myself if I were uber-wealthy.
“Here,” Kincaid says, balancing the books on top of the lockers to take it from my loose fingers. “Let me help you.”
The gold is chilly against my wrist but warms by the time he gets the tiny clasp fastened, inserting his brutish fingertip beneath the chain to check it’s not too tight.
“Should I take the box?”
I shake my head, snapping the lid closed with a satisfying clunk and storing it in my pocket. When I move my hand, the bracelet shifts on my wrist, and I grow hot at the thought I might lose the gift. It must be worth a fortune.
He rests his free hand lightly between my shoulder blades, giving me a small push to get me walking.
My mind is in freefall.
Kincaid has oscillated between kind and merciless, manipulating me for the better part of a fortnight. He’s twisted me inside out, knowing my body better than I do. Yet out of everything, the jewellery unsettles me the most.
If it were something else, a tennis bracelet, a chunky gold bangle, something nondescript , plucked from a jeweller’s shelf with expense the only guide, that would be one thing.
But this is personal. This is something he selected based on the scant details he knows about me.
Coming from anyone else in any other circumstance, I would love to receive such a thoughtful present, but from the boy who seeks to control my every move?
It makes me want to cry.