8. Mina
Chapter eight
I wake up feeling warm and comfortable, but my body still hurts. I look around and see all the guys are still here with me, making me smile.
Dom, noticing I’m awake, helps sit me up and turns me in his lap so my back is against his chest again. He must be tired of sitting with me, but I’m not going to waste my voice on complaining right now.
Everyone notices my movement and puts away their phones quietly.
“How are you feeling, Sugar?” Tucker asks, coming to sit on the side of my bed, brushing a stray hair out of my face. I worry it’s greasy as I haven’t cleaned myself in two weeks. I must look and smell terrible.
“Sore,” I whisper, my voice still raspy. Ben comes to sit on my other side and holds a straw to my lips, which I take eagerly.
“I’m glad to see you’re awake, Mina, because I have some news I wanted to share when we were all together,” Ben says to me, before he looks around the room.
“What is it? Tell me it’s good news, I can’t take any more bad news,” Max groans.
“I… I’m not sure. I think it is, but only Mina can be the judge of that.” I swallow the lump in my throat, afraid of what he has to tell me. I nod, to let him know I’m ready to hear it, whatever it is. Tucker takes my left ha nd, carefully avoiding my finger, and gently rubs my wrist and arm, while Dom hugs me to him and Ben takes my right hand with his.
“Mina, I looked up your name and the birthday you gave me. Through some digging, I… I found you. Mina Stevens, born May 13, 2004 in Waco, Texas. Your father filed a missing persons report for you when you were six. It was assumed your mother ran away with you.”
Holy moly. That is not what I expected—or remembered. It doesn’t match my last conversation with him, but now I wonder how accurately I remember something that happened so long ago when I was only six.
“He—he left me,” I whisper, unable to hold in the tears as Dom wraps his arms tighter around me, nuzzling my neck with his face.
“What do you mean?” Jasper asks from where he stands at my left side with his hand on my shoulder.
“He—he—” I start coughing and Ben offers me the straw again. Max, who stands beside him, takes it from him to help me drink, while Ben pulls out his phone and offers it to me with the text to speech app opened up. Dom holds it for me while I regain my composure. Atlas and Gideon sit at the foot of my bed, each gently rubbing a foot through the blanket. They’re all touching me in some way, offering me help and their support, and it means the world to me.
I’ve never had anybody care for me like this, not since my dad was around.
I shift my attention to Ben’s phone and type out what I want to say.
“He told me he had to leave, but would be back for me soon, then we could be together. Just the two of us. But he never came back. I thought he abandoned me. My mother always said it was my fault he left.”
Ben shakes his head sadly. “I don’t think that’s what happened. It looks like he was in a rehab facility for alcoholism for about six months. When he got out, you were gone. That’s when he filed the report.”
Alcoholism? I don’t remember him drinking or acting drunk. He was always just my dad, playing games with me and reading me stories, cuddling me to sleep at night. “I don’t understand,” I type into the phone.
“Well, if you want, you could ask him,” Jasper says, and I look at him with wide eyes.
“He’s alive?” I rasp out in my own voice. For some reason, I always imagined he was dead, otherwise, why hadn’t he come for me?
He nods and Ben continues. “Yep. It seems he spent years looking for any trace of you. I’m not sure where he is right now, but I found a few links online that I can use to trace him down if you ever want to try to meet him.”
“Think about it—you don’t have to make any decisions now, Kitten,” Dom whispers in my ear, and I nod.
“Alright, how about a change in subject?” Gideon asks.
“Yeah, like how you can speak? Or why you couldn’t?” Max blurts out, only to grunt as Atlas whacks him in the chest.
“What?” he says, rubbing his chest with a grimace. “We all want to know!”
This is part of my story I was planning on sharing with them anyway, so I decide to type it out and get it out of the way. So far, nothing I have said has pushed them away, hopefully this wouldn’t either. They didn’t believe my dad leaving was my fault… and maybe they’re right .
“After my dad left, my mother started to change. It was small things at first, like locking me in my room for the smallest reason or sending me to bed with no dinner. It didn’t take long before it became more physical.”
The app speaks my words as I motion to Max for another drink. Laying it out like this is hard, but I need them to know.
“That’s when my mother started hurting me. It began with small shoves and light smacks to the back of my head. But pretty quickly, it escalated to her hitting me. And it just got worse and worse as time went on. And if I ever fought back, it got so much worse.”
I pause to take another drink while the app reads it out loud and I watch their faces darken with anger the more they hear.
“When I started asking to go to school, she implied I was four years younger than I really was. But I wasn’t stupid. I knew how old I was and I knew my birthday. When I turned ten, and she claimed I was six, I told her even six-year-olds get to go to school.”
I clutch my throat, thinking about the next part of my story. “That’s when she decided to pour bleach down my throat for speaking against her. It was one of the worst feelings I can ever remember. I vomited for hours, and I’m not even sure how I survived it. She threatened worse if I ever spoke again. So, I didn’t.”
As my words are spoken by the app, I glance at them all. Their faces show varying degrees of anger and sadness. I take another deep breath before finishing this part of the story.
“I tried to speak a few times in the early years, but it always resulted in me throwing up, so I thought maybe something was damaged permanently. Until now.”
“You haven’t spoken in eleven years because of her?” Atlas growls.
I nod.
“Where—where is she?” I ask the question that’s been bugging me since I woke up. They told me nobody has seen her, but I have to ask again, worried she’ll come to finish the job.
“We don’t know. She left after attacking you and hasn’t returned since. Jeff was arrested because he was in your home when we found you. But the police need to confirm he’s innocent of anything before they release him. Are you saying he hasn’t harmed you at all?” Gideon asks gently.
I turn to the phone and type my answer. “I wouldn’t say that, but he wasn’t in the basement when this happened. ” I gesture to my body.
“What did he do?” Atlas growls.
I glance at Jasper, remembering the morning he found me sitting outside, crying. It was the day I met the rest of these guys.
“The day I met you.” The app speaks as I point to Atlas, Ben, and Dom.
Jasper speaks, filling in the next part. “Max and I found you sitting against the fence, crying. What did he do, Angel?”
“He cornered me and tried to touch me. My mother came in and stopped him, and I ran out of the house. That’s when you found me.”
“Malishka.” I look at Atlas again.
“Your arm?” he asks, looking both angry and scared of the answer.
I bite my lip and look down. Dom places his fingers under my chin and lifts my gaze back to Atlas as he whispers, “be a good girl and answer him.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, then type my response. “I was a few minutes late getting home from school. She was mad. She had Jeff hold me down on the counter, in my underwear, while she used a…” I hit the speak button, feeling queasy about typing the last word.
“Used what, Malishka? Tell me,” Atlas says, his voice almost a whisper .
A wine bottle opener. One of those corkscrew ones. Dom sucks in a sharp breath behind me before I press speak, obviously reading over my shoulder.
“What? What did she type?” Tucker asks anxiously. I can’t do it, it feels like too much, so I appreciate when Dom raises his finger to press speak himself.
I watch Atlas as he listens, his eyes grow comically wide, simmering with anger.
“She… She twisted it in?” he asks, grinding his teeth.
I nod right before Max groans, “I’m gonna be sick.” I watch him run into the bathroom and shut the door.
Atlas grips my foot more firmly as he stares at me. “We’re going to protect you now, Malishka. Nothing like that will ever happen to you again. Do you understand?”
I nod, giving him a sad smile.
Wanting to change the subject, I ask a new question. “When can you take me home?”
“I like that you’re already referring to it as your home,” Dom whispers in my ear before placing a kiss right below it, making my breath hitch at the tingly sensation that runs through my body. Luckily, Tucker distracts me from embarrassing myself by answering my question.
“As soon as the doctor releases you. Your hand and stomach are the parts he’s the most worried about. He should be in soon to check on you, and finally tell us all what’s going on,” Tucker tells me, rubbing my arm gently.
I move my hands to my stomach. “S-she did it on purpose,” I whisper.
“Did what?” Dom asks in my ear.
I use my right hand to point to my left ring finger, then my stomach .
“Can I—”
“We don’t know anything yet,” Jasper answers my unspoken question.
“The doctor did x-rays and ultrasounds two days ago. He’s going to give you the update as soon as he comes in,” Gideon tells me, and I nod in understanding.
Dom kisses my head before speaking. “Mina, tell me something. Has Jeff been moving around with you and your mom? How long have you known him?”
I type out my response and press speak. “I met him just after we moved here.”
The guys exchange confused glances, so I type something else.
“I guess it’s possible he’s been around longer since I was always kept in the basement.”