Chapter 36 You’re Here Now
You’re Here Now
RIPLEY
Preacher and Raphael are in the barn, prepping it for officer McKinney’s arrival.
The plan hasn’t really changed: we pretend I’m Preacher’s unwilling captive that he’s prepared to trade, Wren waits in the wings to take out any backup, and when the cop lets down his guard, we strike.
I want to be excited about this kill, to be feeling that familiar tingle that comes along with the thrill, but instead I only feel…
Dread.
I groan, taking a sip of my coffee as I watch the horses graze off in the field. I was never really a morning person growing up, didn’t care about nature or the outdoors, too busy trying to figure out my own shit to realize there was a whole big world out there, but these days—
Behind me, the back door creaks, and I hear the sound of boots thumping against the porch.
I keep my gaze fixed on the horses, trying my best to ignore her until she’s so close that my skin bristles.
She lights a cigarette, taking a long drag before passing it to me.
I don’t usually partake, but it would be rude not to accept a peace offering.
“You were the last person I expected to see when I walked in here,” she murmurs, softly blowing delicate white ribbons of smoke from her mouth.
I hate this fucking guilt. I hate the way it gnaws and tears at you, piece by piece, because it’s proof that you have some kind of moral compass.
Unfortunately, Wren was right. I did leave her with that monster.
When you’re in survival mode, all you can do is tell yourself to keep going; looking back is a death sentence.
“That makes two of us.”
She sighs, tentatively placing a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m just here to say I’m sorry for punching you. I was surprised, that’s all.”
I shrug her arm off, a bit more aggressively than I intended, and reach up reflexively to feel my jaw. It’s still pretty tender.
“It’s fine. I’ve had worse.”
“Gabriel?”
I nod, trying to ignore the shame clawing at the back of my neck.
“Jesus,” she mutters, shaking her head. “I guess I was right about him, even at 13—”
“I don’t need a fucking lecture.”
“That’s great because I’m not giving one,” Wren grumbles, snatching back the cigarette. “But hey, if that’s not a topic you’re psyched for, can we talk about how you wound up with my ex-husband’s freak of a brother instead.”
I have an instinctive desire to set her straight, tell her she’s wrong about him, but… Well, he does make stuff out of human skin. You don’t really get freakier than that.
“Believe me, I don’t know how I ended up here either.”
I steal a glance as she taps the ash from her cigarette onto the railing, and it’s immediately clear she’s struggling to keep from hitting me all over again. Maybe it’s time to be a little less difficult.
“Fine, don’t tell me. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, you were always so secretive when we were kids. I felt like you were a ghost that just haunted the second floor.” She lets out a breath. “Some nights, I could hear you crying up there.”
I sigh, not sure I want to be doing this, but doing it all the same.
We each spent a lot of time alone in our own rooms, even from a young age when you might expect sisters to be bonding and spending time together. I didn’t really think much of it at the time, but Papa was the one who always insisted that we sleep separately.
“Yeah. I’m sure you could. So when did he start with you?”
Her shoulders slump and her back rounds. I can see the lines of shame that have been carved into her ache as she takes in my words.
“The same fucking day you left.” Her voice is shaky, but she’s fighting to keep herself together as she speaks.
“I tried to fight back, but he choked me until I was unconscious. I woke up with blood between my legs. At first, I thought I was dying or something, but he was just… rough. It went on like that all the way right up until the cops finally picked him up. Child porn charges. Never even found out who tipped them off, but I’m thankful. ”
I swallow the vomit in the back of my throat. I have so many questions for her, I don’t know where to start.
“The day he got arrested, I ran out of that hell hole with everything I had shoved into a backpack. Later on I heard everyone who knew him was completely shocked. What a fucking joke.”
“How old were you?”
“By then, twenty I think? I needed money, so I started working at a biker bar out in Cold Lake. Got close with the founder and some other members. I knew they were bad news, but I guess I got lucky. They took me under their wing and taught me everything I needed to know. It sounds crazy, but I built a whole new family; eventually started my own club, and, well, here we are.”
Growing up, Wren was always the better out of the two of us. Kinder, more empathetic, more human. She was a sensitive kid, always so deeply moved by art, music, movies, all of it. I was jealous that I couldn’t relate; I could never conceptualize that stuff the same way she could.
“So what happened with your face? You had two eyes when I left that house, unless my memory's failing me.”
“I still have two eyes, bitch.” She smirks, pointing at her milky-white eye. “One of them just doesn’t work so well anymore. It’s actually how Raph and I met.”
My anger is quick to rise; I have half a mind to walk out to the barn and toss this hot coffee right in that asshole’s face.
“Down, girl,” Wren chuckles, clearly seeing the shift in my expression. “Although, it’s nice to see you caring about something.”
“You want me to relax after he did that?”
“He didn’t do anything. Hell, it’s not even that interesting a story.
I was working a double, and there was this creepy dude at the end of the bar.
Only words he spoke to me were ‘another one,’ so, of course, I did what I was told and served him right up until last-call.
Outside, when I was walking back to my car, he ambushed me.
Hit me in the face with the bottle and tried to drag me back to his truck.
I remember thinking that was it, but the next thing I knew I was down in the gravel, and he was next to me, life drained out of his eyes in a couple seconds flat.
Someone had stabbed him in the back of the neck. ”
“Jesus, Raph killed him?”
“I guess he’d been watching us, and he decided to stick around in case the guy tried anything.
Anyway, he took me home, patched me up, and as a thank you, I fucked him on my bathroom counter.
It’s not exactly a normal meet cute, but I guess it’s kind of hard not to fall for a man after he saves your life. ”
“Normal’s overrated.”
Wren smiles at me. It’s a little tense, and a lot awkward, but I’ll take it.
“I’m sorry I left you there.”
There was no going back once the abuse had started, but it doesn’t make it any better. I drag in a breath, readying myself to complete the apology, but she cuts me off.
“You were dealing with your own shit, with Gabe and all that, right?”
“Yeah he… he broke me down. Not that I wasn’t already broken, but I guess he saw something easy to manipulate, and jammed his hooks in me.
He told me he had people outside the house watching, and if I ever left him, they’d find me, bring me back, and he’d torture me.
Or kill me. Or any number of other things.
I still don’t know if that was a lie or not. ”
Abuse shrinks you, all the way down to a microscopic level.
After a while, no matter where you are at the start, you begin to really, honestly, believe the things they say.
Gabriel told me I was hideous, that I was nothing without him, and like clockwork I found myself echoing those thoughts whenever I looked in the mirror.
But it wasn’t just the fear. I stayed with him because I told myself that if I ever managed to be perfect, he’d stop, and he’d finally, truly, love me.
Every day he didn’t, I could see more of the light leave my eyes.
“But you’re here now, so… did you run?”
“Actually, I made his chest look like ground-fucking-hamburger.” I shiver as that familiar tingle in my jaw returns. “And then I took his fucking tongue. Haven’t heard any complaints since.”
I don’t know what I expected, maybe for her to be horrified? to be afraid of me? But she just nods, stonefaced.
“So I guess that’s what you and Preacher have in common.”
I know I’m supposed to be more careful than this, even with someone I called family, but the excitement of having another person who I can talk to, who might, I dunno, understand? It’s overwhelming.
“What about you, Wren? Have you… killed anyone?”
She blinks, less dazed and more amused by my abruptness.
“No, not yet at least. I’ve shot some men in the shoulder, leg, a couple in the ass.
I even stabbed a guy right through his hand once, but I’ve never taken the plunge.
Never needed to, I guess.” She takes a sip of her coffee, shifting nervously on the spot before she leans in toward me.
“Hey so since we’re doing this whole sisterly bonding thing again, can I ask you something? ”
I nod. We never really got the chance to really be sisters when we were kids. I suppose now’s the time to start.
“You said you enjoyed killing Gabriel, but… did you plan it?”
A smile comes to my lips, just from the memory.
“Planning it all out, running it through my head over and over and over, that was the only thing that kept me going. I’d lose entire days on it, and end up completely stuck in those thoughts, just like I did whenever I got obsessed with something when we were kids.”
Wren turns her head, and I follow her gaze as she stares out at the horses, tracking a tawny colored foal clumsily galloping around her mother. I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure she’s the one Preacher named Buttons.
“They all look so free, don’t they?”