Chapter 15 #4
She’d done this yesterday apparently, and yesterday’s walk back was hard for the small animal. Woodrow wanted to keep a watch over her, so he snuck her into his room, keeping her there until the early hours of this morning when he carried her back to her den. That was his excuse, this time.
“Did you see her last night?” Nessie asked, looking up to his tall height, swinging her hand in his, not noticing the seriousness on his face.
Woodrow’s eyes blinked twice—his silent way of saying yes. His throat was a little sore today, lingering pains from Ville’s abuse.
He adjusted his discomfort. “I saw her this morning. We need to head back. Daddy is usually out and about by now. I don’t want him to find her if she's ventured to the house.”
Nessie answered silently with a head bob, then followed him through the trees.
It was a silent journey back; the only sound was the rustle of fabric as the breeze caught Nessie’s dress when she got bored and finally decided to run ahead.
Woodrow couldn't run—not for more than a few minutes—unless he was powered by the rage of the alter who thought nothing of pain. It was something he explained when I first met him, asking if he wanted to join me on my morning stretch. He didn’t want to say no, so he’d tagged along, dropping back shortly after and continuously throughout.
It hurt him, his throat feeling tighter when he was out of breath.
He couldn't run, but his pace was quicker today, and he was already breathing heavy when the house came into view for him.
Woodrow
Please, God. . . my silent words left my system but they didn’t escort my nerves. I had a bad feeling. The worst.
My father’s presence was getting bigger and bigger as we moved closer—his image and his invasion in my mind. I could hear his hate, words he’d previously said were blasting in my mind. Words he'd shouted when he found out I'd helped the deer he’d shot.
I felt the need to escape, but the smell of fresh daisies kept me grounded, kept me tied to my body. . . to Jolie. The scent was her—fresh and floral and beautiful.
Then, I saw her on the porch. . . pretty in that floral dress, hands moving to the hem as it tickled the thickness of her thighs. She was getting some air. Anyone around my mother for that long would need to do the same.
“I can't find her,” I told her, all my worry expressed through my louder tone. I had to adjust the smarting it caused with careful fingertips.
“Jolie,” my mother’s cold voice screeched, the sound making me shudder to the point I feared once my cringing stilled, someone else would be sitting on the surface.
“What is it?” Jolie’s voice echoed from the porch; both voices fuzzed by the wind that had picked up from nowhere.
My mother could be seen through the glass door, hobbling towards it, her bad makeup looking darker as she limped into the sunlight.
She'd glanced at me for only a moment, and I felt her lack of forgiveness.
For what, I wasn't sure. Stabbing her in the leg? Or, for being born? She hated me for both, equally.
“Sorry, the kitchen was a little stuffy. I needed a little air.” That was Jolie's polite way of saying, it smelled like shit, due to whatever my father had festering in the basement. Her eyes moved back to me. “I'm sure she'll pop up.”
“Who?” my mother quizzed. Her black-rimmed eyes met Jolie’s stare.
“Nessie.” I was the one to lie, saving Jolie the hassle. But I knew she’d have done the same.
“Don’t worry about Vanessa. She’s fine. She followed Ville into his shed; she likes to watch him work some days.” My mother's eyes were still on Jolie.
I watched for a minute as Jolie paced towards the house, her fast legs moving slowly, like she was walking to her death. It didn’t feel right—the slowness. So many mornings, I watched her whizz around the house like she was a damn DC character.
She was quick. . . so, why was she moving so slowly? Because she was walking hand in hand with trepidation. Her trust in both of my parents, gone.
She slipped through the smashed glass door that my mother’s impatient hand held open, the wooden one behind already open.
My mother followed her, leaving me with nothing but a hateful glare.
I barely heard Jolie’s voice as she gave words to my mother, slipping through the door. “Woodrow really is sorry.” Her tone told me she believed that.
“Oh, I’m sure he is.” I heard the sarcasm drip from my mother’s tongue and drop onto the floor that she’d probably have Jolie clean later. “Don’t believe all a man tells you, Jolie. Most of them lie. Continuously.”
The door squealed as it closed behind them, echoing the pain inside me. Pain for Jolie and all she’d gone through in these past few weeks. Including what I’d put her through. Pain for myself. I hated the self-pity I occasionally felt, but I couldn’t instantly dismiss it.
Noises blew through the wind as my mother's voice faded to nothing. I heard stress, I heard fear, I heard my name.
I took that as my cue to leave, shooting off in the direction of the red building to the rear of the house. A tatty, old shed, decorated in invisible stains of sweat from when my father built it 3 years ago.
The paintwork was peeling in the sun, looking even worse than it did only weeks ago. I pushed the closed door, this one silent, allowing my entry without being noticed.
Cigar smoke seeped into my lungs instantly. This place always stank of it. I ignored it. The screams ahead had my feet moving through the muddy ground quickly.
They weren’t Nessie’s, but I could hear her sadness as she pleaded to my father’s deaf ears.
“Daddy, please. Don’t, please.”
Cries of distress filled the air, replacing my recent memories of her and her delicate squeak, abstracting them forever.
My pet.
She was suffering, and I fucking hated it.
I hated that she was being hurt.
My father stood above a water-filled barrel, his arms wet to the elbows, where his sleeves were rolled up.
And my Bonny was clutched between all his fingers. Her brown tail was darker, heavier, like her wet body, pulling her down into the barrel, even as my father let her go.
Her little claws scratched at the wooden rim. My father watched with amusement on his face, a smile on his thin lips, and hate clouding his cold eyes. A storm was brewing inside him.
I stepped forward, meeting him with pleading eyes. A desperate squeak guided my glare back to the barrel, and black beady eyes called out to me, begging for my help as Bonny scurried to the surface before sinking again.
I pushed around him—the monster in my way. My arms out, ready to clutch her small body from the water. Clutch her from the cause of her distress.
But I never got to her.
An arm locked around my throat and squeezed, paralyzing me and cementing me to the ground.
My heart told me to proceed, to fight, risk my life for hers.
But it was like my father read my mind—monsters had that ability.
His arm locked tighter.
I saw fucking stars, millions of them, as a cloud of black descended over my fogging vision.
I had to step back into the death grip preventing me from breaking free. But the grip didn’t ease, like a noose, it became tighter. And my pet’s squeals of dread grew louder and louder, until they blurred with the sound of my pounding heart as every dying pulse echoed in my ears.
“No! Don’t do this!” I tried to scream, but it came out with little sound. “I’m begging you, please.” I panted, trying to pull his arm from around my throat. Kicking and thrashing as I tried to free myself from his suffocating grip to get to Bonny.
A heavy thump blew into the side of my head. Then another. Then another. Then another. And I went down, my body falling to the ground that was all too eager to catch me.
I couldn’t see, my face swelling around my eyes. A migraine came to life instantly. I was sick and crouched over myself, but I still tried to get up.
Another blow from a heavy boot hit my ribs, steel toes bruising me.
“Every time I think we are moving in the right direction, you let me down again. We don't have pets in the house, Woodrow.”
“Daddy, stop!” Nessie screamed, standing frozen in a puddle of urine. Her fear reminded me of Jolie. . . another of my girls I'd fucking failed. Another who my father enjoyed watching suffer.
My fingers pressed into the mud, trying to lift myself up for the second time, but with little vision, it was fucking hard. I didn’t anticipate the second kick to my already bruised ribs from my father’s giant foot.
“Daddy, no! Stop hurting him. Stop hurting them both!” Nessie couldn't move. Fear's grip was too strong.
My father’s arms wrapped around my throat, positioning my head in line with the barrel. Everything around me—Nessie, the tools lining the wooden walls—all became a blur.
I choked on air, inhaling and suffocating on what I’d been denied as my Bonny—the small creature that I loved so much—choked on water, unable to continue her struggle to get out of the big wooden barrel.
Bubbles rose to the surface. I listened to the gentle pop until my father's ominous laugh blasted through the air.
He let go of me, his feet stomping proudly to the barrel, mud from his shoes kicking back at my face.
His hands dipped into the water, squeezing something behind the wooden panels, and as I struggled to get to my feet, my little pet ceased making any sound.
“Daddy, please! Stop, please!”
“One more word, Ness, and you’ll be staying with me tonight!” his cruel inflection threatened, making me fear what the fuck was meant to happen here tonight.
A crack sounded, and I couldn't tell if it was Bonny's neck, my heart, or both.
And, with that, I was back on my knees, bones clicking and my jeans—that I’d been ordered to put on because my pants looked unpresentable for guests—dirtying on impact.
Completely beaten down, tears rushed down my face.
My little sister slumped to her knees, too, her defeat dirtying her pretty floral dress.
“Get up off the fucking ground, you little brat. You get that dress dirty, and I’ll have to take it off. Trust me, you won’t want that if you have to stay here,” my father chirped around the cigar in his mouth.
Nessie had no idea what he meant.
And I couldn’t even fucking listen to him. I couldn’t fucking look at him, not while his hairy arms still held the body of my lifeless pet, burying her in her watery grave.
I turned my head, slowly, but I fucking did it, and I didn't care about the pain it caused, because I was already fucking numb.
A twisted smile was on his face as he stomped the cigar beneath a big black boot. I didn’t even have to see it with my blurred vision to know it was there. His grin grew, larger and larger, dozens of teeth on display. His morning snacks wedged in the gaps.
“Fucking weak.” He snorted, laughing at the tears that rolled from my eyes as he pulled Bonny by the ears, lifeless and floppy, from the water.
He stepped forward, acting the big man as he kicked more dirt in my face. His foot stopped centimeters from my nose. I didn’t flinch. It wouldn’t have been the first time for him to break it.
Bonny’s eyes, frozen and fixed on me as he moved around me, shifting himself to the doors. He threw her out into the field—a small feast for the vultures.
He turned back, moving quickly to Nessie, still slumped in the mud. The shed had no flooring; it was his fucking fault that she was dirty.
He yanked her up, his giant hand tight around her little throat, squeezing until she wheezed. The panic in her voice as she begged him to stop had me up from the ground. Her little legs kicked, trying to gain freedom. Her hands held onto him as she stared at his angry face with fear and confusion.
I rallied at him and hit him in the side of the head. I hit him again and again and again with a tight fist before he even let her drop. She landed awkwardly on her ankle, letting out a shriek. Landing in more mud.
I kicked him and kicked him, each one, harder than the last.
Nessie didn’t scream for me to stop, she stayed frozen on the floor, eyes wide.
He rolled over, his eyes on her, “Stop, Woodrow. Or it’ll be her who suffers when you finally do. I’m happy to keep her here tonight.” He laughed, his words bringing my actions to a halt.
I drifted back, plucking Nessie from the ground.
She clung to me, holding on tightly with her tiny hands.
Her fingers knocked my throat on accident, but I was too swollen there to even feel it.
She apologized instantly. My hands rubbed over her back as she quivered in my arms, telling her she was safe. . . that her apology was unneeded.
My father got up, that smirk still on his face. He took a single step towards us.
“Stay the fuck away from us.” I stepped back, Nessie’s grip tightened on me.
He raised his hands in surrender. “You make sure you keep all this quiet, Ness. Momma doesn’t need to know our secrets; I wouldn’t want her mad at me for making you girls late.” He winked at my sister, who refused to look at him. “Right, I have a body to attend to.”
I knew he meant Bonny. He strode out the door, wiping the blood from his face. I’d burst his skin in a single gash.
I followed him to the door. “Where are you taking her?” I choked out the words, rushing into his shadow.
“None of your fucking business!” He slammed the door in my face.
I heard him lock it from the outside.
I could feel coldness creeping over me. I could feel the loss. . . of Bonny, and of myself, as I became distant within my own body.
I banged the door, keeping Nessie close. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. Not stopping.
Alters clutched at my conscious, offering me an escape. But I held on to my mobility, trying desperately to remain myself. My original self. The host.
“Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, please,” Nessie pleaded. “Woodrow, I need you to stay.”
I didn't want to scare Nessie more than she already was. I didn't want her looking for her own mental escape when this building offered her nothing more while she was trapped inside with me.
I fought with everything I had to stay present, hearing nothing but noise in my head, swirling with her words.
Her little hands grasped my swollen face, careful not to hurt me, and held me in my place.
Held me in the moment, pushing my alters deeper inside me as we stared at each other’s pained expressions.