18. Arlo
“Where did you go?”
“From heaven to hell,” I answer honestly. We’re sitting in my Victor still in the dark garage. The dreary day peeks in from behind. She’s canceled her next appointment, and I feel like shit. It wasn’t supposed to go this way.
It’s better than it had been going, complete radio silence from her end. At least I got to see her and talk to her. Hell in a handbasket, I touched her, and she touched me. And then, I freaked the fuck out.
“Arlo?”
She breathes my name, and it soothes enough of my ruffled edges that I finally look at her, tucked into the seat next to me. Her skirt is back around her ankles, and I’d like to rip it off and burrow between her legs.
“Yes, Hailey?”
Her hand opens between us, and she looks at it, then back at me. I place my right hand in hers without pause. It brings a smile to her face. That smile, it’s fuel to my cold, dead heart.
“Say red if you want me to stop.” She folds all my fingers down, except for the middle one, and lifts it to her mouth. Her lips part, and I’m welcomed into her warm, wet heat.
My cock goes hard, not that it fully died down from earlier, even with the certain bruise on my ass. I’ve never felt anything as good as my siren.
She swirls her tongue around my finger, then sucks it off as she pulls it from her mouth, cleaning herself off me. “Tell me about hell.”
“There you go with that positive association again.”
“And this time, I’m not charging you.” Her wink is adorable.
“I don’t want you to shrink me. Even if you’re not charging me.”
“I’m not shrinking you.” Her head shakes, and her stunning red hair is wild, flowing down her back and over her breasts. I love it. “I’d never suck my cum off a client’s finger.”
“Fair enough.” She sets my hand on the console and eases back onto her side of the car, giving me room. “I was told my parents were both only children. After the accident, I learned that I had an uncle in the UK. The British bastard.”
She shifts to face me, leaning her back onto the far edge of the seat and the door. It’s official. I can never sell this car now. She’s marked it, and me, while she was at it.
“He was my father’s half brother. Same mother, different fathers. My father was awesome. His was an abusive piece of shit, who raised an abusive piece of shit.” I draw a deep breath and slowly exhale. “He showed up after the funeral, packed me up with one suitcase and Pepper, and took me to a run-down family home on the outskirts of Banbury, Nowhere, UK.
“I was thirteen, almost fourteen, with no family and no friends, with nothing familiar except my dead mom’s dog.” I shrug. “Would’ve been all right, if not a little withdrawn. Would’ve been good, if he’d only taken everything my family owned and sold it to line his pockets. Would’ve been fine, if he’d only taken out his anger over his shitty investments on me.”
I tap my thigh three times, and then the other one. I wiggle my toes. I am here. With Hailey. I am here. In my adult body.
He is not.
She doesn’t tell me it’s okay to stop. She doesn’t ask me to take her home. She doesn’t rush me. My siren simply lets me be whoever it is that I am.
“The very first night, after supper with this stranger in his home, he socked me in the gut. It was the cheapest shot of all time. I vomited my meal all over the floor. He shoved me into it, ripped my pants down, and raped me one week after everyone close to me had died. Then he made me clean it up. Everything while he watched. My vomit. My blood. His semen.”
I strangle the steering wheel for just a second, wishing it was his neck.
“He locked me in a room on the third floor with bars on the windows. Still, I tried flipping the lights on and off until the sun came up, crying into Pepper’s neck. By the time he let me out, I’d convinced myself it was all a bad dream. That it hadn’t happened, but it did again that evening, only I didn’t vomit because I hadn’t eaten. That night I left the light on. I clung to Pepper and waved at the window until my arms cramped, and then waved some more. There was no one to see me. We were too far away from another house. No one was coming to the rescue.”
When I chance a look at Hailey, her cheeks are soaked with tears, but her gaze is resolute. She nods for me to continue.
“The third day, I formulated a plan of escape. Stab him and run, run as far and as long as it takes. I grabbed the knife, shoved it into his belly, and ran. I made it to the door before I heard the yelp. He had Pepper by the neck. He said if I ran, he’d kill her. He said if I ran, they’d just bring me back to him. He said if I told anyone, they would never believe a sad kid who just lost anyone who ever loved him.”
I’m not a crier. I haven’t cried since I left that fucking hellhole of a country. I didn’t think I could anymore, but hot tears roll down my cheeks.
“I should have turned the knob and run. If I had, at least Pepper’s death would’ve been quick, and I would have been free.”
“You stayed for Pepper.” She sniffles.
“Yeah, and he used her against me for months, kicking her, choking her, stepping on her toes, threatening to do all manner of horrendous things to her if I got out of hand.”
I think about that perfect and sorry fur-ball more than I consciously think about the sack of shit in that stack of shit house.
“What happened to Pepper?” I hadn’t realized I’d gone quiet for some time.
I slap the tears from my face, turn to look my siren in the eye and admit—not my most dangerous secret, but my most horrifying one.
“I killed her.”
Hailey is the only person I’ve ever told. I never expected to tell anyone. Not ever. But I’d imagined telling someone a thousand times through the years. In each imagining, I’d spill my guts and they’d scream or weep or look at me like the devil incarnate.
My siren’s chin rises. Her jaw firms and her tears cease. “Good.”
The hinge of my jaw opens and then closes without a sound. My heart, which had been waiting to scatter the last of its pieces into my guts, firms.
“You gave Pepper mercy, a mercy you couldn’t give yourself. You took control in the only way you could in a fucking horrific situation.”
“He hadn’t hurt her in two days. She wasn’t hurting for once. She was happy for a minute,” I argue.
“But you knew it wouldn’t last. You knew he would hurt her again and worse.”
“I did it fast. I don’t think she felt more than a second, but then I…I was completely alone.”
Punching things is my usual outlet, but I couldn’t lift my arms right now even to defend myself. I feel as though I weigh more than this car. My shoulders hunch, and sobs wrack my body. They shake me from the very depths of my blackened soul and rip their way out in an animalistic ruckus.
“Cry,” she encourages. “I’m going to touch you, and I want you to keep crying.”
Hailey hooks a hand gently around my nape. She guides my head to the crook of her shoulder. Her tears fall on my face, and mine fall on her jacket.
“Good,” she assures. “Cry. You were alone. You were hurt terribly.” Her finger smooths down my cheek. “You may still hurt, but you are not alone.”