27. Korine
27
KORINE
Ken drives us home in a silence that’s as suffocating as it is disturbing. We sit still, by all outside appearances, calm and composed. On the inside it couldn’t be more of a different story. My throat’s closing up, my thoughts a scattered mess of concerns about Mama and dread over where this moment is going.
Ken’s zen-like demeanor terrifies me more than his rage-fueled behavior. He drives us like we’re still living under the veil of a happy marriage. I’m his wife and he’s my husband. We’re out for a scenic drive around the neighborhood like any other couple.
Never mind the black, festering rot that’s truly our relationship—keeping up appearances, pretending otherwise works fine enough.
We pull into the drive next to his squad car. The engine powers off and he unlocks the door with a slow turn of his head at me. His eyes vacant pools of apathy, he warns me to stay where I am.
“Unless you want to come to regret it,” he says. “But you seem to be doing a lot of that these days.”
“Ken…” I swallow, trying to sound calm. “I’m not coming inside with you.”
His lips spread into a wide, toothy smile. Still lacking the real touch of human emotion. “There’s no choice in the matter, Kor. What do you think you’re about to do? Run away for help? Go ahead.”
He reaches across my lap to push the passenger side door open. I catch a whiff of liquor on his breath. The sour smell roils the contents of my stomach even more.
“Run, Kor,” he challenges. “Run away. See if you don’t wind up with a bullet in the spine. Or maybe I’ll just mow you down as you try to run. Do you want to find out how far I’ll go? What I’m willing to do? Either you’re my wife or you’re not making it out alive. Are you clear on your options?”
My voice escapes me. Any sense of daring and nerve fractures. I remain where I am and give a pitiful shake of my head. It would only be a fifteen foot sprint to the next-door neighbors. Ken would take a fraction of that time to take aim and squeeze his trigger. Am I willing to call his bluff?
As he wrenches me from the Escalade, gripping my arm and walking me at his side, I find any healing, any progress I’ve made melts away. Maybe the progress wasn’t progress at all—maybe it was wishful thinking that lasted a couple months ’til my real life came crashing back in a tidal wave of violence.
Escape was never an option. It was always some untenable pie-in-the-sky delusion.
When I married Ken, I took a vow that was ’til death. He’s making me keep that promise even if it’ll destroy the both of us in the process.
We walk up the front path leading into the large home he bought brand new, a home many in town fawn over due to its endless curb appeal. Yet the only thing I can think about as I look up at the shuttered windows and perfect lawn surrounding the property is that I’m entering a prison that’s pretty on the outside and unbearably hideous on the inside.
Another reflection of who Ken and I are together. Ugly, hidden rot no one would ever know about.
The door slams shut and I flinch. Ken gathers my wrists in one of his hands and slaps a pair of handcuffs around them. At the shock on my face, he shows more teeth in his grin.
“New rules,” he says. “There’s going to be a lot of them going forward. I see now that I gave you way too much freedom before. All of that’s done, Kor.”
“Ken,” I say, my voice sedated with a forced calm. One slip up away from shaking. “I’m not staying. You can’t hold me hostage here.”
“Hostage? You’re my wife . This is your home .”
“We’re getting a divorce. It’ll be finalized soon?—”
“ENOUGH!” he barks, and I flinch again. His grip squeezes tight on my upper arm as he rushes me down the hall, his breaths suddenly heaving. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. I let you get too damn comfortable thinking you can say and do whatever you wanted. The buck stops here. No more.”
“You’re hurting me,” I gasp out only for him to clench my arm harder. I’m dragged and tugged along, tripping over my feet and jerked around.
“Ground rule number one, these stay on at all times.” Ken shakes my bound wrists so that the metal cuffs clang into each other. “I’ll unlock you at a few select times throughout the day, like when you’re permitted to use the bathroom and when I need you to do something like cook my meals. But don’t think for a second you’ll be unsupervised. That’s ground rule number two. Ground rule number three, no phone, no internet, no TV, no kind of contact with the outside world. You won’t even be leaving the house anymore. Except when with me . For things like appearances at precinct events.
“Rule number four, that little bank account I let you have? No more. Kiss the credit card I let you carry goodbye. Anything of yours—your ID, your passport, any other docs—will stay locked up for safekeeping. Rule five, I don’t want to hear that voice of yours unless I speak to you first . Keep your fucking mouth shut. Is that understood?”
Listening to him rattle off rules, each one growing more extreme than its predecessor, I can’t even find the strength to push back. Another spate of terror has numbed me to the bone as I realize he’s insane. He’s serious .
He’s crossed over from cruel abuse to outright psychotic torment.
“And if I want to fuck you, I’ll fuck you,” he growls into my ear. “No more of that not in the mood shit you used to try to pull. And if I want to fuck some other bitch, I’ll fuck her too. I’m not sneaking around anymore to spare your little feelings. I’ll fuck her right in front of you. Right in our bed. What are you going to do about it, huh, Kor? Nothing!”
He wrings my arm to demonstrate how little I can do—he has me stumbling, once again jostled in whichever way he wants like I’m some rag doll at his mercy. But there’s also a hint of challenge in his question; he wants me to push back and be defiant so he can smash me to pieces.
We’ve played this game many times before.
There’s no winning. The rules are conditional. Always in his favor. If I revolt, then it’s considered provoking his temper. In his eyes it’s justification for his physical abuse. Compliance pisses him off in a different way during moments where I don’t give him the reaction he’s searching for.
There’s no winning no matter what I do or how I react to him.
When I remain silent, he pushes things a step further. Shoving me forward into the kitchen, he finishes telling me the rest of what’ll be different now.
“Your mother and her health coverage? Done,” he says. “I spoiled you two rotten. I paid thousands of dollars for her healthcare to keep that old bat alive. For you to betray me the first chance you get thinking that shitstain of a biker was going to be able to take care of you. You thought you’d get away with being his whore and it’d all work out for you? I was a fool. No more of that.”
“Leave my mother out of this!”
“Your mother’s lucky to be alive! After today, she might not be. It wouldn’t matter either way.”
“Stay away from her…”
“It was surprisingly easy to pull off,” he boasts. “All I had to do was have a friend give her the wrong medicine. She’s so fucking senile, so fucking stupid, she didn’t even know the difference?—”
It’s the night I left him all over again. It’s him triggering something inside of me until the pressure’s too great and it bursts free.
“STAY AWAY FROM HER!”
I don’t know what it is beyond sheer delirious fury that propels me forward. Sheer frustration at the circumstance and my sudden captivity.
I throw myself at him with my bound hands clawing at his face and neck and every other part of him within reach. My nails do some damage—they slice into his skin and leave hideous red welts and scratch marks to his grunts of pain.
He staggers several steps back trying to fend me off. My nails sink into his cheek and draw blood that makes him howl. He slams a brutal fist straight into my stomach once and then twice for double damage, ripping any air from me and sending me crashing to my knees. I cough and curl up, feeling like my insides have been dislodged from their proper place.
No more than a second later, his knee collides with my jaw. Hard and merciless. A blow designed to cause excruciating pain. My body jerks beyond my control, my limbs folding. The axis point of the kitchen feels like it’s tilting. The room streaks by me then blinks out into a black cloak of nothing.
The next time I’m opening my eyes, I’m lying twisted on the kitchen floor. I’m bleeding, throbbing, aching, in so much pain I can’t even bring myself to move. My jaw feels fused shut and the tissue guarding my liver—my fucking liver —feels like it’s been shredded.
I force a cough and wince at the deep twinge of pain that follows.
I think… I need emergency medical treatment…
Something’s wrong. The punches to the stomach have caused real damage. Worse than usual. Maybe my body’s finally decided it can’t take anymore.
Ken’s nowhere in sight. The kitchen’s empty. The house is eerily silent.
Where he’s gone after knocking me out remains a mystery; it wouldn’t be the first time he’s left me unconscious on the floor. I’d have found it stranger if he stayed to check on me.
Out of the loud stillness comes the slow pad of footsteps. These much lighter and cautious than what belongs to Ken.
It can’t be. There’s no way someone’s?—
“Help,” I croak, my insides tender, my jaw throbbing. Barely above a whisper, the most I can manage. “Please… if you’re… there… help.”
The footsteps change course. They travel from farther down the hall toward the kitchen. Whoever it is has heard me; they’re coming to peek into the room.
“Help,” I gasp again. A shriveled kernel of hope comes to life that this person has wandered into the house somehow and is on the verge of saving me.
My entire face has puffed up from Ken’s knee; I recognize this without seeing myself in the mirror. I’ve had enough injuries throughout our marriage to tell by how my eye sockets ache and my lids won’t open all the way. Still, I struggle to glance over in the kitchen doorway, hoping to make eye contact with whoever the person is.
Intense confusion leaves me speechless of even another croak. It goes on for another few seconds as I lay broken on the floor and the woman in the doorway stares at me like she’s come across something… inconvenient .
“Help,” I sputter feebly, hoping maybe… just maybe…
Janessa tilts her head to the side, her features sharp. She’s clutching her purse to her shoulder, dressed in her scrubs. “What did you do to him? Where did he go?”
Oh no…
“Please,” I mutter. “Help me.”
“Kenny! Are you here?”
She pivots on her heel, her dark chocolate hair flipping, and rushes off to another part of the house.
The tiny kernel of hope disintegrates into dust watching her walk away in search of him. A wave of icy dread washes over me as I realize how Ken sabotaged Mama. Janessa had mentioned she was seeing someone new weeks ago at the holiday event at the Steel Saloon. Ken’s always entertained other women…
I close my eyes and finally let myself break. A hoarse cry warbles out of me, tears stinging. There’s no use fighting; no use hoping.
Mama could be dying and I’m lying here beaten on the floor, handcuffed and captive by a man who refuses to let me go. He’ll kill me first.
My mind travels backward in time to that quiet afternoon where he’d turned up with a flower and put a smile on my face. Once upon a time, the memory seemed too good to be true. Many years later, I now know that it was.
Instead of smile back, I should’ve screamed. I should’ve run far, far away. If I’d known how he’d destroy me…
Ken’s shouting interrupts my trip down memory lane. He’s yelling from upstairs.
At Janessa.
“You stupid bitch!” he barks. “I told you to tell no one about it!”
“But Kenny?—”
“Shut up!”
His feet pound above my head and then migrate across the second floor ’til he’s emerging from the staircase and storming into the kitchen. He’s fuming, his nostrils flared and jaw squared.
“Get up!” he yells at me, then nudges my leg with his boot. “Hurry up or I’ll make you hurry up!”
I scramble to move against the deep aches and pains of my battered body. Janessa’s in the background with tears streaking her face, rambling her way through a long, contrived apology.
“I said hurry up,” Ken snarls when I don’t move fast enough. He grips me by the back of my neck and rushes me forward to my pained whimpers.
It hurts to walk. It hurts to breathe. I feel dizzy and like I’ll collapse any second.
He rushes me upstairs, then shoves me inside our master bedroom where he locks me in. Unable to support myself, I crumple to the ground in a heap by the door. It’s as I slip between consciousness and unconsciousness that I realize Ken’s standing on the other side. A phone’s ringing and he growls something at Janessa about her fuck up.
“Why the fuck would you tell him you’re involved?”
“I felt terrible. I couldn’t stand keeping it from him?—”
“I said shut the fuck up! He’s calling her phone now!”
Ken ignores Janessa’s cries of apology and answers. His infuriated tone only intensifies as he speaks to the other person on the line, revealing it must be Blake. They share a tense exchange as I listen from the other side of the door, half passed out on the floor.
“We’ll see about that,” Ken growls. “It’s about time we handle this. Come alone.”
My heart shrinks, like it’ll die out if it shrivels up any more.
No… Blake… it’s a trap…