27. Beyond the Will to Fight
Chapter twenty-seven
Beyond the Will to Fight
NOAH
Ijiggled the key into the door with the utmost care, jerking at every little noise that came from the lock as it clicked open.
The house was dark, as I assumed it would be at this hour.
I was hoping to reach my room before running into Damian, which I knew for a fact would be boiling with anger by the time he reached me.
As I climbed up the steps, I prayed that Damian would have cooled down in the hours I had been absent from home, but then remembered a certain phone call that most likely kept him heated the whole day.
I glided to my room door with perfect silence, and turned the handle slowly, entering and tossing my house keys in the direction of my dresser.
I continued on to the bathroom but stopped halfway there, a sickening feeling forming deep within me.
The keys had not hit their destination.
Instead of the normal clatter of the metal clashing with the rich colored mahogany, I heard only the familiar echo of quiet around me.
I knew that solid objects didn’t just vanish in thin air, so when I turned to flick the light switch on, I wasn’t surprised when I was halted with a hand on my shoulder.
“So where were you?” David’s deep voice questioned, a sharp tinkling sound filling my ears as he twirled the keys around his finger by the key chain loop.
I stood stock still. “I was at the movies.”
“Hmm,” David’s hand slipped to my neck and then past my shoulders to the small of my back. My muscles tensed up uncomfortably from the contact. David stepped in front of me, and although he was still shielded by the dimness of the room, I knew he was smiling by his tone. “Sounds like fun.”
I said nothing.
“Did you have fun, Noah?”
I wet my chapped lips with a swish of my tongue, filling in the cracks and soothing the ache momentarily. The sweat was beginning to form down the crease in my back where David’s hand remained. “Not really.” I answered with a whisper.
My vision blurred when David threw me forward, and despite me throwing my hands out to break my fall, my face came in contact with the hard corner of my dresser.
My first instinct was to cover the wound from any other harm, but a warm flow of blood froze my hand in its tracks.
I didn’t know how large the gash was, only that it lay directly beneath my right eye, and it was gushing. I couldn’t see straight.
I tried pushing myself up from the ground but was ripped from the spot on the floor before I could get my footing. David shoved me back into the wall. I coughed and tried to regain breath that wasn’t there, my head lolling to the side from the dizziness of the first impact.
“Bitch,” I spat out, uncaring to filter myself longer.
I was hurting. I gripped the arms that pinned me so tightly to the wall and tried to use my weight to force him back.
The attempt was futile, and I was spun around, my face smashing into the wall this time, leaving dark streaks against the paint.
David pulled my arms back behind me, and crossed them, rendering me stuck and helpless, like a fucking hogtied animal.
“I love it when you try to fight me,” David hissed, his face resting gently on my shoulder. “You were never as strong as your brother.”
My air supply was cut in half from the closeness of David combined with my position of being pressed into the wall.
I gasped in twice, wincing from the searing pain under my eye.
The blood fled from the wound and dripped down my face.
In the dark, the crimson fluid seemed almost black as it rolled down my skin, the flow only pausing when it reached my parted lips, where I could taste at the corners of my mouth as it continued past. I felt like retching.
“What do you want?” I asked, my whole body rocking with shivers.
“Noah, dear Noah,” David began, “As you know, I am a changed man.”
I kept my mouth shut from the vile insults that bubbled up in my throat. There is a time for everything, my mind reminded me. For the first time, I bit my tongue.
“And I am,” David continued. His tone seemed a bit surprised. I assumed that he was shocked at my silence to his “changed man” comment. Normally, my comeback would have been swift.
“I need you to understand something,” David cooed into my ear, and I found myself pressing closer to the wall to escape his beer stained breath.
“You’ve been such a little shit lately. Your mom has been all worked up about your choices and your fucking detox. She’s so fucking concerned about you, that she doesn’t even give me the time of day.”
My eyes widened.
David’s voice dropped to a dead whisper. “And you’re about to pay for her selfishness.”
It wasn’t like I didn’t struggle.
“Damian!” I screamed. I refused to stay still in the monster’s grasp. I bucked backwards against him, wrestling against the strength of his arms. “Mom!”
David chuckled, holding me back like it was nothing. “You really shouldn’t have left like that today. Damian was so worried about you. You can’t blame him for leaving the house to search for his lost, little brother. You didn’t answer any of his messages.”
Hell.
It meant many things.
”I have changed,” David repeated, exhaling harshly. This game of cat and mouse excited him—and I was the fucking mouse, wriggling in the trap, pinned beneath the claws.
“I’ve gotten better,” he said with a light laugh.
Mentally, I was already back in the room where it first occurred. I was so small.
Hell could be a place of punishment for the wicked and evil.
My lip quivered.
It was chaos.
“Would you like to know how?”
Confusion.
David pressed his weight into me, taking one of his hands away from my arms to undo his pants, the quiet sound of his zipper coming down caused me to flinch.
The definition of absolute torment and misery.
I tried my best not to get stuck there. In the past. I was stronger now.
I wasn’t nine. I could take David if I had to.
I could outsmart him. I examined my surroundings with what I could make out in the darkness.
I tried to keep my nerves in check. Escaping through the bedroom door wasn’t going to happen, because David was standing adjacent to it, and reaching it would be nearly impossible.
If I wanted to get out of his grasp, I would have to use my wisdom.
“You don’t want me David,” I said calmly. “I’m not the same little child you used before. Things have changed. You won’t enjoy it. Just let me go, and we don’t have to speak of it again.”
My words were rewarded with another slam into the wall. The room spun.
“As long as you scream,” David purred, one of his hands finding my belt. “I guarantee that I’ll enjoy it.”
He tore the leather away from my pants, making me cringe. The thick denim dropped a bit past my hips without any effort due to my earlier encounter with Silas.
“Well, now,” David chuckled, noticing. “Having some fun were you? Fucking slut. You’re just like your mother.”
I stopped myself from cursing the bastard out.
David knew I was sensitive about my mother.
There was no one in the world I loved more than her.
He was testing me. Once again, I repressed my trenchant thoughts, allowing the sense of revenge to steady the rage in my mind.
David would not get away with the despicable things he had done. I would make sure of that.
But first, I had to save myself.
“This is your last chance,” I swallowed. “To rethink your actions.”
David had to be loving this. I waited until one of his hands began reaching around me, to pull the pants the rest of the way down. “Or what?”
With enough force, I threw my body back, enough to loosen David’s grip. Using all of my strength, I retracted my arm and landed an elbow into his chest. Simultaneously, I pushed off the wall with my other arm, gaining enough momentum to cause him to lose his balance and stumble back.
I didn’t hesitate.
I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and hurried for the door.
Adrenaline pumping, I ran down the hallway, turning corners I knew so well.
Everything was pitch black, but I knew my way to the stairs.
My only source of light was from my phone and I quickly unlocked it.
Damian’s speed dial was three, and I pushed it, about to put an end to this nightmare.
Before I could put the phone to my ear, I was body slammed to the ground.
I watched in horror as the phone tumbled down the stairs, taking with it my means of help, and light.
A cold hand fisted in my hair and hauled me upwards from my position on my stomach. I resisted the urge to cry out in agony, knowing for a fact that there was much more agony to come.
“Let me go!” My throat burned from the strength and volume of my scream.
David was laughing maniacally as he dragged me back down the hall and into my room by the roots of my hair.
I thrashed and kicked, but my feet were only met with air, and each movement only caused me more pain.
I grasped onto his wrists, fearing he would scalp me.
I dug my nails into him, raking at his skin, marking him.
David threw me onto the bed, and I rolled off of it with a speed I didn’t know I had. I was on the floor now, desperately trying to crawl to salvation.
I knew that there was no more running.
I felt around under my bed for the metal box, inching it forward so that I could flip the top open. My arm strained to reach it. David had climbed on top of me from behind, and roughly yanked down my jeans and boxers together.
I couldn’t see the box, but I could feel it.
I was touching the lid. I cursed as David gripped tightly onto my shoulders, corrupting my ability to reach further.
To my dismay, I found that I was only able to push the lid up slightly, incapable of grasping what was inside.
The box—my retribution—was at my fingertips, but I could do nothing more than graze it with my hand.