Chapter 26
KANE
Imanage to provide Rowan with the most entertainment to ensure Kid stays with me. By the end of the week, he’s opening up more. He’s even stopped asking to be picked up. Instead, he’ll jump on me.
It’s the middle of the night and I haven’t been able to find a signal anywhere in the room since the first call with Niko.
Rowan has been busy with something else so we only leave the room to eat or attend his fucked parties, which have changed from rape to a more palatable violence, but I can still smell the blood on my skin after scrubbing my body.
Kid’s cheek is pressed to his shoulder as he lays on his back. He never untucks the sheets, so his little body is stuck between them and the thin mattress. He’s sleeping peacefully, unlike the other nights, so I silently walk into the bathroom, making sure the door doesn’t slam as I close it.
When I’m alone without any chance of being disturbed, I close the toilet lid, eager to get a hit of my addiction as I sit down, unclipping my phone case.
There, resting on the back of the black glass, is my silver escape.
I can see my eyes in the shiny surface as I tilt my phone to fully take the case off, catching my smile in the reflection.
I’m smiling at the sight of a razor blade.
But it’s my savior.
I rest my ankle on my knee, roll up the hem of my pants, and the first cut is pure fucking adrenaline.
The memories are muted on the second cut—physically drawing a pause button on my skin.
I can breathe without the sounds of my own choking echoing in my ears.
I’m not a victim who couldn’t help themselves.
I get lost in the euphoria until my white sock begins to turn red from soaking up the memories and mental anguish bleeding away.
Whoever said two wrongs don’t make a right was a liar. Pain replaces pain. Like will always replace like.
The difference is, I choose this pain. I control it. I decide where it is.
When my leg goes numb, pins and needles shooting up into my thigh, I return my foot to the floor then unzip my pants, pushing them down my thighs as I pick a new spot.
No one would ever look too closely to be able to see the old scars on the inside of my thighs.
Not under the dark smattering of hair. There it is, the perfect canvas for me to have my escape without anyone knowing how weak I am or what I need to be able to breathe.
Euphoria replaces the pain at the first deep scratch of the blade sinking into my unmarred skin. There’s a split second where it doesn’t bleed as I mark a line. I’m rewarded as it turns red in small dots at first. They grow, carrying out more pain.
I jump as the door handle rattles. My phone clatters, sliding across to the other side of the bathroom as I kick my foot against the door.
“Kane?” Kid croaks, sleepily.
“Give me a second, I’m just pissing.”
“Okay, I thought you left.”
“I drank too much water earlier. Do you need the toilet?”
“No, it’s okay.”
Fuck, my case is cracked and the clips have snapped on one side. Kid has been taking his pick of the clothes in the bag, so there’s nowhere to hide the blade to prevent him hurting himself. The thought of pushing it down the drain makes my hand tremble.
I search the walls of the bathroom for anything to help, then stop on the rectangular sink, resting on a flat sheet of metal.
There isn’t a shelf to put the blade on, but there’s a small gap between the sink and the frame.
A gap the blade will fit in. Running the water to stop him from hearing anything, I delicately push it between the screws keeping the basin in place.
It fits perfectly, but I snap my phone case in half to use the flat plastic to check I can still access it.
Relief courses through me when I manage to slide it out.
I quickly place it back in the gap then fix my clothes, wipe any errant drops of blood, pick up my phone, and wash my hands, fearful of any signs of what I’ve been doing.
When I go back out, Kid is in bed, blankly staring up at the ceiling.
“What’s wrong?” I kneel at his side.
“Sometimes I miss Xanthe and Jasper,” he whispers.
“I miss Delilah too,” I weakly admit as I lay on the floor beside his bed, folding my arm under my head to act as a pillow against the hard floor.
The sting of my pants touching the fresh cuts eases some of the pain of being here.
Kid chases the rest away as his hand falls over the edge of the bed.
His little face is next as he stretches out, reaching for my hand.
My arm is at an awkward angle as I hold his hand, waiting for him to fall asleep again.
“Does Delilah teach you things like Xanthe and Jasper?” he whispers.
“Yeah, she’s taught me a lot.”
“Like butterflies?” he asks. “Jasper said butterflies are special. They live two times. One time, they’re dirty and they crawl through mud. The other time, they’re pretty and they can fly away.”
“He’s right, Kid. They start as caterpillars.”
He chews on his lip as he thinks. His long dark lashes cover his pupils while he looks down, staring at a point on the fleece blanket as I wait for whatever he’s going to say.
It takes a while, but he looks up with so much longing in his eyes as he asks, “Can I be a butterfly?”
“Yeah,” I whisper, throat constricting. “You can be a butterfly.”
An insect is a sign of hope for him. An insect who started in the dirt like all he’s ever known.
I open the camera on my phone, sliding through the frames for one with butterflies then turn the screen so he can see his face around them. His smile is wider than it’s ever been, barely rounding the apples of his cheeks as he shyly rubs his cheek against his shoulder. “Butterflies.”
“And you,” I say softly.
“Kid and butterflies,” he whispers back in awe.
“Do you want me to take your picture with the butterflies?”
He gets even shyer as he softly nods, rubbing his cheek against the thin pillow.
The screen lighting up is pitch-black in comparison to the joy in his eyes as I slowly press the shutter.
I bring up the last photo so he can look at it, and he gently traces the wings of the digital butterfly on the frame around his face.
The tip of his finger moves around the peach edges on the outside of the top of the wings, then over the deep red it blends into, around the bright green edge and down to the bright blue scaled pattern at the bottom of the wings tailing into green.
“I want to be that one,” he declares gently.
He grows in confidence, attempting to touch the insect.
It moves the image across the screen to one where I have my arm wrapped around Delilah while she sits between my thighs on the sofa in Montana.
Even when I was pretending to be Asher, steeped in hate for her, I looked at her with nothing other than devotion.
“Is Delilah like Xanthe?” Kid asks as I swipe the photo back to his own face.
“No, she’s my wife. Xanthe is your friend.”
He stops looking at the screen and I lock it to preserve the battery as he fills with questions. “What’s a wife?”
“Someone you love,” I say easily.
In the time I’ve been around him I’ve learnt when he goes quiet he’s thinking, so I hold his hand. He turns on his back. He must be tired.
We’ll both get out of here, then we’ll get Delilah and find our baby. We’ll all be fucked up, but we’ll resemble a family who will be there for each other. Me, Delilah, and our kids.
“Kane?” he asks without moving.
“Yeah?”
“What’s love?”
“Love is—” Pain. “—caring about someone, keeping your promises. You never want them to be hurt or to feel bad, so you’ll do anything to make them better.”
His hand becomes lax in mine as he sleepily mumbles, “Like you do for me?”
“Yeah, Kid.” I trace his knuckles with my thumb. “I love you.”
The small LED light above the door flashes orange. I stare at it. It’s only ever turned white to signal it’s time to eat. Slowly sitting up, I check Kid is asleep as I place his hand on the bed.
Soft clicks sound.
I plant my feet as I straighten my spine to block anyone getting close to the bed.
But when the door opens, it’s Lennox who stands on the other side. His eyes dip down, his lips slowly lifting a fraction in the corners as he looks at Kid’s sleeping form.
“He’ll be safe,” he whispers. “You’ve been asked for.”
Kid told me the nights he’s given to Lennox, they play games and he has to jump on the bed until he’s tired. It doesn’t take a genius to understand why my uncle tells him to.
I still hesitate until he lifts his phone, showing me he’s disabled any other access for the locks.
“Little shadow,” he says in an attempt to get me to move. I walk forward but he gestures to my boots as he whispers, “Put them on here. Don’t wake him.”
Grabbing the boots, I follow him out into the hallway and watch him engage the locks on the door, then wait for them to click into place to put on the boots.
As I stand on one leg to lace my boot, the hem of my pants pulls up, revealing the blood staining my sock.
I shamefully brush my wrist against the hem so it rolls down without making it obvious.
When I switch legs, I catch Lennox staring at me.
He knows I’m weak.
He’s going to ask questions, making it clear I’m broken. Worst of all, a victim.
I hold my breath, waiting for it to be addressed as my skin becomes uncomfortable to be in.
The longer the silence drags, the louder the little whisper in the back of my head grows, hoping it could change things if someone knows.
It’s smothered in shame, stamped out, shouted over because the fear of losing control over my own body is greater than any hope I could have.
I don’t know whether to be grateful or disappointed when he grips my shoulder, squeezing once, but he doesn’t bring it up.
The hallway is weird as fuck. The smooth, polished concrete hides the way the floor tilts and the width of the walls alternate. It’s like a carnival attraction built with the singular purpose of causing confusion.
We reach another steel door bigger than the others, resembling a vault with the large circular handle in the middle of it.
He passes me a pair of black gloves then puts on his own pair before he disengages the electronic lock.
The putrid and thick smell coming out of the room turns my stomach as soon as he opens the door.
I bury my nose in my shoulder as we walk towards a small puddle of congealed liquid staining the concrete corner. When I turn to look at my uncle, it gets worse. The couple I brought here are chained to the wall. Naked.
They’ve been here for months with grime, dirt, and filth on them as their heads limply hang forward and a thick metal collar sits around their necks with chains feeding into the wall.
“What the fuck?” I breathe out, afraid of pulling the stench into my lungs.
Lennox turns without any reaction to our surroundings, he calmly says, “Not now. Hold his arm.” He gestures to the man.
I sheepishly go to the other side of the man, holding his bicep and forearm as Lennox does the same on the other side. Still no fucking reaction, but I ask, “Are they dead?”
“Unfortunately, they’re cursed with life,” he says, barely moving his lips.
I don’t have an issue with crime since it was the only thing I could do after leaving prison.
The irony isn’t lost on me that being sentenced for a crime I didn’t commit made me into a criminal.
It doesn’t mean I lack morals. There’s something deeply disturbing about restraining someone’s unconscious naked body to a wall.
The cuffs click into place around the man’s ankles and wrists, then Lennox feeds the chain through a hole in the wall so the collar pulls his head back.
When he takes his phone from his pocket, I grab his wrist to stop him violating them any further.
His eyes are even icier as he looks at my gloved hand then flicks back up to my face.
“Don’t,” I say. “They don’t need to have evidence of it.”
He clicks on something, opening the same scrambled lines he used at Helene’s. How much surveillance is too much? There has to be a limit, some semblance of privacy around these fuckers.
I let go of his wrist as he softly says, “You are being tested. Don’t try to hold on to your humanity or it will be taken from you. Violently.”
I watch him step back to restrain the woman to the wall, gentler now.
When he has her wrists in the cuffs, he holds the back of her head as he feeds the chain through the hole in the wall.
I just stand there, useless while he moves around me, leaving the room only to come back a moment later with a bag of what looks like sand and a leather case.
He tears a hole in the corner of the bag, covering the puddles.
“What are you doing?” I ask stupidly when he opens the leather case, taking out a barber kit.
“Fixing them.” He gently lifts the man’s chin with two fingers so his head is leaning against the wall. “Come here.”
The buzz of the trimmer is comforting, a sound I recognize when everything else is alien. Lennox begins trimming the man’s facial hair, using the buzzing to hide his whisper. “Time stands still here. It’s another way Rowan shows his power. Don’t ask questions and don’t argue, little shadow.”
“This is fucked up though,” I hiss.
No fucking response.
So I ask, “How can I leave? I need to get back to Delilah.”
“You are being tested.” He pauses his grooming to look at me. “What are you struggling to understand?”
“All of it?”
“I thought you were intelligent,” he mutters. “You can’t leave until you prove yourself. I’ll check on her.”