Prologue
CASSIDY
AGED FOURTEEN YEARS OLD …
“You little bitch!” He slaps me hard across the face, but I don’t feel it; his violent hand has become second nature to me. “You tried to run! I knew it.”
His grip on my hair tightens, but I know he’ll ease up soon.
He once pulled some out, then used the belt on the soles of my feet for making him be too rough with me.
He loves my hair, says it’s what draws him to me, and knowing that, it’ll be the first thing I change when I get away from him.
He keeps the strands of hair on the lone dresser in the bedroom, a cruel torment and a reminder not to spill sugar on the table.
It goes everywhere and creates too much of a mess, one he can’t handle.
What he doesn’t know is Noah accidentally knocked the spoon from my hand, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
It’s what babies do when they’re inquisitive; they want to put everything in their mouths.
What I’m truly worried about is when Noah becomes a toddler and is hard to control the way Benjamin demands.
It’s utterly terrifying; he barely tolerates him now.
That’s the reason I tried to run today, and even though deep in my heart I knew it was futile, I had to try for my little boy, and for my mama too.
He throws me on the bed like a doll, and the mattress squeaks, making my stomach clench at the familiar sound. His rough hand wrenches my head back, elongating my throat, and the sneer of contempt on his lips tells me this punishment is going to be a tough one to come back from.
My small hands claw at his arm, and he laughs, then he drops me to the sheets before attaching my wrists to the metal cuffs that bite into my skin.
“Please, Benjamin. I’m sorry.”
He takes my other wrist, and I panic further when I consider I might not be able to feed Noah for hours.
“I’m sorry!”
A smile dances on his lips, and I despise how much he enjoys my anguish, but in this moment, I’d drop down on the floor to do anything for him, to stop him from hurting Noah.
“Please,” I say again as he clicks the cuff in place.
He steps back until he’s at the end of the bed, a proud smile slithering onto his face, and I swallow hard, knowing what’s coming.
He tugs his belt out of his pants, but unlike other times, he doesn’t move to unbutton them.
This time, he simply stands there, taking me in, and that has me even more nervous.
“You’re going to pay so badly for trying to leave me, Hayley.”
A sob bubbles in my chest at what he could mean. Surely, he couldn’t hurt me more than he has already.
“Spread them, little bitch. This is only the start.”
I shut my eyes and do as he asks, praying with all my heart that someone will rescue me and my baby. That someone will love us, protect us from the evil in this world, and deliver me the strength I need to endure it.
He plugs in the television, and hope springs within me. We finally have a TV; after being without one for so long, I almost forgot they existed.
When he settles on the sofa beside me, I smile in his direction and practically bounce on the spot.
He’s been so nice to me this past week; it was unexpected but welcome, especially after the brutal rapes and punishment I endured for trying to run.
But now he’s purchased a TV, knowing how much I crave normality.
It’s like he’s trying to make amends, and hope blooms in my chest. Maybe he’ll be gentler. Maybe there’s hope for him yet.
I stare at the TV and nibble on my lip, trying not to giggle from excitement. The TV even looks like the one we had when I was little. There are even little scratch marks on the corner like Lulu, my cat, created while trying to fight with a feline on the screen.
My smile grows as he sits down beside me, and I give him my attention. The sound of a commercial plays on TV, but I can’t take my eyes off him. I want to crawl into his lap and wrap my arms around his neck the way he likes me to. To thank him for this gift.
“Watch the television.” He points to the screen, and I nod like the adhering girl he commands me to be.
I shouldn’t have angered him a couple of weeks ago. At this moment, I’m not sure why I ever did. Not when he does these random acts of kindness that I want to see more of.
The moment I turn my head toward the television, something familiar on the screen catches my eye. I see past the news reporter to the house in the background. The house I now only see in my dreams.
My breath hitches and my blood curdles, turning to ice as I listen intently.
The words cause my world to shatter to smithereens, destroying the beacon of light I always clung to in the darkest of days.
Destroying everything.
I can’t breathe.
“Cassandra Jones, aged thirty-six, was found deceased in what appears to be an armed robbery gone wrong. The police are looking at all known criminals in the area.” The sound of my blood pumping in my ears makes it difficult to listen, but it reminds me I’m very much alive and this living hell is my new nightmare.
His fingers play with the strands of my blonde hair, and prickles wash over my skin, but I make no move to shrug them off because the fallout would last for hours.
“Deceased means dead,” he says, with a smile in his tone.
I flinch and sense him watching for a further reaction, but he won’t get one.
Not because I refuse, but because I’m simply too stunned.
My head is spinning. My body floating.
A whimper forms in my throat as her bright-green eyes stare back at me.
The ones that softened as she pushed the hair from my face, that brightened when I made her smile, and filled me with love, giving me the strength to continue living this nightmare, knowing I would see her again one day.
My mommy.
I blink at the screen.
Maybe this is fake? Maybe Benjamin orchestrated all of this to hurt me, to get me to comply and never try to leave him again.
It just can’t be her.
She wouldn’t leave me.
She wouldn’t.
The reporter continues. “The only item reported missing is a television from the living room. You may remember Cassandra from …”
I’m fully aware of what he’s going to say next; I don’t need to hear it.
My world seems like it’s come to an end.
She was my light at the edge of the darkness, guiding me home, waiting for me.
The sound I’ve been holding in bubbles out of me.
The television is from my home; he took it. He hurt her because of me.
Oh God, I did this.
I want to scream, I want to wail, I want my mama to understand how sorry I am.
“There, there, don’t cry. You just need to remember you have other reasons to be a good girl for me now, isn’t that right?” He brushes the wetness from my cheeks, but I remain motionless, staring at the television, wishing with all my heart I could have seen her again.
Just one more time.
To hug her and smell her perfume, letting it tickle my nostrils, to feel her giggle against me as she strokes my back in a soothing motion only mamas know how to do.
“Be a good girl for me,” he whispers, his hand creeping up my thigh, and the familiar dread swells in my stomach.