Chapter 5
Phoenix
By one am, the bar is nearly empty; only a few of the hard-core regulars are left, drinking the last dregs of their beer and laughing over shit that isn’t funny unless you’re feeling drunk and disorderly. I help Aiden wipe down the last of the dirty glasses before going to stack the stools on top of the tables. These mundane tasks are calming me after everything, just like they always do. It reminds me of helping Dad at the end of the night, listening to him chuckling along with the regulars even though half the time, they’d stopped making sense. I’m not like that, never have been. I’ve purposefully made people wary of me; it’s just easier to not have to think of conversation when you’d rather block everyone out.
Just as one of the aforementioned regulars hobbles over to the door to go, he waves at me, to which I wordlessly wave back and laugh under my breath over his ridiculous behavior. He’s old enough to know better, but then again, he’s also old enough not to give a shit either. He exits the door and almost bumps into a face I haven’t seen in nearly a month.
“Well, well, well, look who’s finally decided to come back from ‘trying to find himself’ in Europe!” I smirk, walking over to slap Jake on the back as he meanders through the bar with a massive backpack and a cheeky grin all over his face. “Aren’t you supposed to come back from holiday more tanned than when you left?”
“I ended my travels in England, and we live in the middle of the desert, Phoenix,” he huffs as he throws his bag onto the ground with a heavy thud, “do the Math!”
“Good to see you, Cuz,” I chuckle, “glad you didn’t get murdered on the road. Though, I’m sure you got into other kinds of trouble?” He just smiles a little wickedly before helping himself to a drink behind the bar. “I’ve left your room, so if it’s a pigsty, it’s all on you.”
“Marvellous,” he says with a grimace and then grabs a second glass of water to down while Aiden chuckles at the two of us. “What’s up, Aid? What’s got you so damn tickled?”
“Nothing much, just the two of you.” He smiles with a crinkling around his eyes. Jake slaps his hand on Aiden’s back as my regular barman grins at me. “You look like the mirror image of each other, just he’s packing more muscle.”
“Hey, I’m just as beefy as that asshole!” Jake retorts, trying to look affronted. “I just hide it a little more than he does.”
“Whatever,” I huff and continue stacking stools back on top of the tables. “Oh, don’t go inside of Lou’s old room, there’s a girl in there.”
“Oh?” Jake says suggestively and with a mischievous smile. “Why is she not in your bed with you?”
“Because she isn’t a conquest,” I reply, though I have slept with her like some sort of fucking randy mutt. “She’s someone I’m looking after, a…job with a slightly altered outcome.”
“Sounds interesting, what’s her name?”
“Why do you wanna know?” I reply, sounding stubborn. His reaction is a little strange and I want to know where he’s going with his line of questioning.
“Can you believe this asshole?” he says to Aiden with a smug smirk and his thumb pointing my way. “Getting all possessive and shit!”
Aiden chuckles but chooses to remain looking firmly at the glass he’s cleaning, shaking his head as if to tell Jake he refuses to get involved in our argument.
“Not at all, but you can ask her in the morning yourself…asshole!” I quirk my lips at him, giving the smallest smile as I turn back to clean the bar. I hear him laughing at me before shuffling off out back.
“So, what are you going to do with said young lady, Boss?” Aiden breaks the silence of sweeping and grabs my attention with his gruff, loaded question.
“Not sure yet, Aid, but don’t mention her name to anyone else,” I tell him, now wearing a serious expression, “if anyone asks, tell them her name is…Grace.”
“Sure,” he replies with a shrug and returns to cleaning glasses.
_____
When the bar is cleaned, I slink off back to go to bed, having already said goodbye to Aiden. I walk toward my room, an almost empty room, bar a few pictures of the people who mean the most to me - Dad, Mom, and me posing with Louisa on her wedding day. However, my thoughts of a cozy bed for one are pushed aside when I see Lou’s door slightly ajar. I instantly rush over to look inside, just to make sure Jess is alright in there.
To my relief, she is sound asleep in the bed, wearing nothing but a vest top and her long, dark hair lying out like a fan across her pillow. Her skin almost blends into the white linen, while her brow remains furrowed with anxiety. I wonder if she always sleeps like this; her dreams must be full of fear, with her always wondering if she’ll ever escape her past. I can relate to that. A lot.
I must watch her for nearly half an hour. She doesn’t move an awful lot; she’s still in the exact same position as I found her in. Apart from the odd twitch of her eyebrows, she remains as still as a statue. The clock in the living room quietly signals the new hour, and I realize how long I’ve been standing here staring at her, so much so, I slap myself around the face a little. I then tell myself to get to fucking bed before I pass out in the corridor, only to turn around and find Jake watching me with a strange expression on his face. His arms are folded, his jaw tight, and he seems almost suspicious of me, much like I was with Lou’s husband when they first got together.
“You ok, Phoenix?” he eventually mumbles through his teeth. “You look lost.”
“Just checking on our house guest, why?” I stand up tall and cross my arms, as though I’m the mirror image of him. It’s true we look like one another, being related and all we would, but I’ve never seen him looking so confrontational against me.
“No reason,” he eventually says at the same time as he turns back around to go inside Dad’s old room. “See you in the morning, Phoenix.”
“Yeah, ok,” I mutter back, lost for words over his strange behavior.
_____
Jessie
When I wake, I am completely disorientated. I end up screaming bloody murder because it feels like I’m right back in that basement, feeling dirty and frightened, just waiting for him to come back. Once I’m mentally back inside the room, one that’s equally as alien to me as that basement was, I begin to remember all that has occurred in the last forty-eight hours. It doesn’t put me much more at ease. Though at least this room is above ground, the walls are white and clean, and I can hear the sound of birds singing instead of the knocking of old water pipes.
Before I can even take note of the cold sweat running down my back, my door bursts open and the man who I gave my virginity to comes rushing inside with a look that is ready to kill. His presence only has me crawling up the bed in abject fear with my fingers lacing through my knotty hair. All I can do is close my eyes tightly and let my body tremble because it no longer knows what else to do.
Warren walks slowly toward the bed, his arms stretched out before him, trying to get closer to me, the wild animal who is about to bolt.
“Jess,” he says cautiously, “it’s ok, it’s ok, you don’t need to be scared, it’s alright!”
“Bullshit!” I shout. Only it doesn’t come out as a shout, it comes out as barely more than a whisper; nothing seems to be working as it should be.
“Hey, Jess, hey, look, I’m not going to hurt you. I took you to make sure nothing would happen to you, I promise,” he rushes out, but at least keeping well back.
Before I can respond, or he can get any closer, someone else bursts inside of the room, someone as nearly as big as Warren. However, this man doesn’t stop at my door, he doesn’t show the same restraint that Warren does. Instead, he throws his arms around me and pulls me in close to him, all the while shushing me in a calming way and stroking my hair down my back.
“Jess, it’s ok, I’m here,” he says in a voice I never thought I’d hear in the open again. “Trust me, baby, it’s ok. He won’t ever get to you…ever. I made sure of it, Jess.”
I screw my face up in complete shock, half wondering if this is all a weird dream, but when I eventually pull back and look into his eyes, I can see it is him.
“Jake?” I whisper, leaving my mouth gaping open, and my brow furrowed in confusion, much like Warren’s expression. Jake smiles softly, still stroking my hair down my back. “What are you doing here?”
_____
Niamh (Jessie), 11
Past
I must have fallen asleep somewhere along the way, exhausted by the adrenaline that has been coursing through my veins at a vast rate of knots. Now that I’m awake again, it’s pitch-black outside, and we seem to be traveling through a small hamlet of houses. There’s a dark outline of trees all around us and only the moon to shed any kind of luminosity. It sounds like there’s gravel underneath the tires and the three small buildings that we appear to be pulling up to are just as dark as the woods all around us.
Realizing we are coming to a stop, my adrenaline kicks in again, pumping through me so hard, I release an involuntary gasp.
“Oh, hey, sweety, good news,” my abductor says to me through the rear-view mirror, “we’re home!”
“Home?” I manage to ask breathily, my voice shaking so violently, he turns around with concern.
“Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart, I’m gonna take care of you. I gotta tell you, there isn’t a chance in hell I’d let you walk back home in the pouring rain by yourself. It’s a good thing I came by. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever let something as precious as you out of my sight at all!”
I shut my eyes tightly over what he just said before looking around, desperate to find some other form of life, but there’s literally nothing. There isn’t even a rustle of leaves or a hoot of an owl. Perhaps I’ve already died, and this is some weird kind of purgatory.
Once the car rolls to a complete stop, I lean back into the seat and remain rigid, as still as a statue. I hold my breath, watching as he carefully unfastens his seatbelt, removes his driving glasses, and carefully places them in a specific pocket of the car, switches off the Sat Nav, pushes the sun visor up, and presses the button to unlock the doors. Everything is done with complete precision, without any hint of urgency; all of his actions are meticulously planned without fault, and it only makes him all the more eerie.
When he eventually disembarks from the car, slowly making his way over to my side of the vehicle, I consider trying to bolt for it. However, my body refuses to play ball, so I remain fixed in stunned horror. Even when he opens the door, leans over to unfasten my belt, and holds his hand out for me to take, I cannot move. He smiles, then takes my hand and pulls my arm so I am forced to follow.
“I know you’re nervous, sweety, but your brother’s going to be so pleased to finally meet you,” he says with his syrupy voice and parental smile, “it’s all he can talk about!”
I try to imagine this ‘brother’ he keeps talking about, picturing some middle-aged man who is going to do horrible things to me. Or perhaps he’s not even real at all, just some figment of this crazy man’s imagination. I remember Tammy’s brothers showing us an R-rated movie once, full of blood, guts, and other horrible things, including children like me being murdered and then coming back from the dead. I feel like I’m about to reenact that film in real life, only it won’t be special effects, but actual blood spurting from my veins.
I say nothing, for I couldn’t even if I tried, especially when he practically drags me across the stones and into the house that’s sitting in the middle of the other two. It’s only when we’re up close, I notice the properties look derelict, lifeless, and no doubt completely empty. I really am alone out here with this psycho and possibly some other monster.
The door creaks open like any good horror film door would, and he turns on the light to reveal…a normal house. It shocks me at first to see plain white rooms with soft furnishings, magazines, and even fresh flowers on the table. I half expected the place to look like the interior of an abattoir or the house from that horror film I was forced to watch, complete with splatters of blood up the wall. However, this place looks like the inside of a house from one of Mom’s ‘Beautiful Homes’ magazines.
“Come on, sweetheart, this way,” he says as he leads me through the living room, along a corridor, and to a door that he has to unlock.
Once it swings open, I notice it’s much darker than the rest of the house, and being that it leads to an old staircase, I realize it’s actually the entrance to the basement. The walls are concrete grey, with pipes running around the perimeter, and the rickety wooden staircase is nothing short of a cliché from an old movie when I walk down behind him.
“Hey, Jake, look who I’ve brought home for you!” he calls across the room, where I see a double bed, a small lamp, tiny windows, and various appliances dotted around the place. However, the weirdest thing I spot is a boy, a teenager who should probably be in high school. He suddenly stands up, running his hand through his hair with a pale complexion that doesn’t seem natural to him. In fact, he looks just as scared as I am. Has he been taken too?
When we finally come face-to-face on an even level, we both eye one another with caution, all the while Daddy flusters about trying to pick up pieces of what I assume is Jake’s clothing off the floor, tutting as he does so.
“You could have tidied up for your sister coming, son,” he says with a smile on his face, “you guys are going to have to share a room down here together.”
At his words, I feel my eyes bulge in terror, and I begin trembling, but when I look back at Jake, he closes his mouth and subtly shakes his head at me, warning me to not say anything. When I stare into his eyes, I sense a softness that I often see when I look at my dad. It puts me a fraction at ease, right up until Daddy pulls me up alongside him again, hugging my much smaller body squeezed against his side.
“It’s been a long day, sweety, so I suggest you get some rest. I’ll get you some new clothes in the morning and we can all sit down together for a family lunch. How does that sound?”
I make no noise at all, just remain rigid inside of his grip. Jake looks worried by my lack of response so jumps in before Daddy notices my absolute terror.
“Y-yeah, sounds good, Dad,” Jake stutters uncomfortably, “I’ll look after Sis, and we’ll see you in the morning.”
“Wonderful. I tell you, you both make me so proud.” Daddy beams down at us, almost with tears in his eyes. “See you tomorrow, guys.”
Jake’s eyes widen at me, prompting me to give him a response before something horrible happens.
“Goodnight,” I manage to whisper, desperate for him to leave before my tears betray me.
Neither Jake nor I move while we listen to him walk back across the floor, up the rickety stairs, and finally open and close the door behind him. Only then does Jake look back down at me, still cautious, still unsure as to how to best respond to the shivering wreck before him.
It takes about ten seconds of us staring at one another before I finally erupt into sobbing and wailing in front of this stranger, letting it all out before I implode. At first, he hangs back, just watching with confusion marring his soft eyes. But when I show no signs of stopping, he eventually throws his arms around my back and pulls me in close, comforting me with soft shushing sounds like my mom does. It only makes me cry harder.
“Hey, hey, what’s your name?” I say nothing, just keep crying against his t-shirt. “That’s ok, my name’s Jake, I’m fifteen, don’t have any brothers or sisters, but once had a dog called Mutt,” he laughs awkwardly. “He was a real stinker of a dog, but I loved him. I took him swimming once, but he ended up half drowning, so I had to wade out and rescue him all the while he scratched me to pieces. Stupid dog. Do you have any pets?”
My crying has died down a little and I shake my head to answer his question. Dad’s allergic to animals so I had to make do with Stanley. I wish Stanley would show himself now, even just for a moment to give me hope. But he doesn’t. Like hope, he’s not real.
“That’s too bad, they can be your best friend, you know?” he says with a smile in his voice. I wonder if he’s getting as much comfort from this as I am. He can’t have had anyone other than the monster upstairs to talk to.
“I-I had a pet dragon once,” I whisper through my sobs, “his name was Stanley.”
“A dragon?! Wow, that’s cool,” he says, and I feel him nodding against me. “Never heard of anyone owning a pet dragon before. How big was he?”
“I don’t know, he never let me see him, he was too shy. He lived in a cave. Mom and I would go looking for scales so we could make wishes,” I reply on another whimper because I mentioned my mother, who must have realized by now that I’ve gone missing. He holds me a little tighter and tries to soothe me again. “N-Niamh,” I say through a sob.
“Niamh?” he asks.
“My name is Niamh,” I tell him.
“Hi, Niamh, you’ve got a great name.”
“Did he take you too?” I ask and look up into his eyes, although he appears a little blurry through my tears. He just shakes his head with a sad smile on his face. “Is he your dad?”
“Of sorts,” he replies rather cryptically, which doesn’t really reassure me.
“Is he going to hurt me, Jake?” I ask in barely more than a whisper.
“No,” he replies almost instantly, “but if we don’t do as he says, he will hurt the ones we care about most.” I screw my face up tight, getting ready to cry again. But he pulls me in close to comfort me before I’ve even started. “Don’t worry, Niamh, I’m going to look after you and I won’t let him hurt you…ever!”
“I wanna go home!” I wail over his shoulder.
“I know, and one day I promise you, you will,” he says with what sounds like determination in his voice. “One way or another, I’ll get you home, I promise.”