Chapter 28 #2
Cried for me.
Her lips and skin were dry. And her shoulders much narrower than before.
I scanned lower, taking in the limp she walked with, thanks to the dislocation in her knee and the purple and black shades surrounding the break.
Her hands moved, neither of them hiding her intimate areas, but protecting a bump.
Her stomach was bigger, while the rest of her was smaller.
My mouth dropped, and I stumbled over Nessie to get to her.
“Oh, shit. Jolie. . .”
The second I touched her, I wrapped her tightly in my hold. My breath, warm against her cheek, and she leaned into it, eager to rid her body of the chills she was wracked with.
She smelled like she hadn't bathed in months, and maybe she hadn't.
But that didn't stop my hands rushing over her skin, into her hair, touching everything. Hers, reached for me, her fingers tightening on my t-shirt.
“Woodrow. Oh, my God. I missed you. I missed you, so much.”
Nessie careened to us, the glass slipping through her fingers. Chocolate milk and glass threw themselves into the space of the room.
Nessie’s lips parted, but it was my mother I heard. Her hateful voice blasted through the house like lightening. “What the fuck was that!” Her feet rushed down the steps, swallowing the distance quicker than I'd ever known her to move.
“Oh, God. I need to leave. I need to leave. We need to go now.” Jolie tried to hobble towards the back door, pulling me along with her.
It must have taken her ages to get up the damn stairs, and I felt like the monster, who my father had convinced us kids lived in that basement, as I tried to push her back into it.
I couldn’t let her reach the door. I knew my father was still out there—the real monster.
“Not that way,” I tried to think of alternate options but nothing came. So, I continued shoving her back towards the basement.
“No. No, no, no,” she pleaded, her cold fingers reaching for my face. “Please, no. I can't go back down there.”
“Just for a second, I promise. I know where you are now. Just one second.”
She was about to argue once more, and I was about to ignore her because I thought my way gave us higher odds of getting her out safely.
But our time was up.
“Momma.” Nessie alerted us to the presence of my mother, standing in the doorway, her head close to a chip in the woodwork that I never remembered being there before.
I turned around, concealing Jolie behind me.
Her fingers locked on my shoulders, her heartbreak and fear loud and clear as she whispered, “Don't put yourself in danger for me.
I'm never getting out of here.” Her dry pout pressed a kiss against the back of my neck, and her words pushed a knife into my heart.
I welcomed it, ignoring her demands, as she had mine, because I'd happily die here today, if it meant her freedom.
“I spilled chocolate milk, Momma, and I broke the glass.” Nessie ran up to my mother, her sticky fingers pulling at my mother's blouse.
Something that would usually annoy her. But it didn't today, because she didn't give my sister a second of her time.
Her eyes, wide and furious, never left me and the girl I kept protected behind me.
“What have you done?” I shouldn't have fucking asked, because she'd never deem me worthy of an answer. “Why was she down in that basement?”
“Ville!” she screamed. “Ville!” Louder and louder, she got, repeating my father's name.
Jolie's nails dug into my flesh, her fear spewing through her mouth, so fast, I couldn't understand it.
The back door swung wide, the glass cracking as the door bounced off the wall.
My father stood in the entranceway, the heavy blade of the axe over his shoulder.
His expression was hard like stone. He had no compassion or worry for my mother’s tone, and I couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing.
I swallowed hard, ignoring the sneer my mother delivered in return.
Jolie nuzzled in close, her fingers wandering to my neck, her touch featherlight and comforting to me.
My body sandwiched Jolie's to the doorframe, the roundness of her stomach keeping us from being flush.
“Why the fuck were you brats in the basement?” my father demanded.
“I heard a noise. I found her down there.” I lied, not wanting my parents—who had been, by the looks of things, holding Jolie captive and torturing her for months—to know she’d found the strength to climb the stairs.
Because if they knew that, they'd find a way to take it away. The broken leg wasn’t a strong enough method of keeping her bound. . . but it was too much for me to handle. I shuddered, thinking of what else they’d do.
“Please, don't send her away again, Momma!” Nessie yipped. “I missed her a whole lot.”
“Shut. Up. And. Stop. Nagging. Me.” My mother assisted Nessie to another part of the kitchen with a brutal shove. She fell back and hit the floor, her palms crunching down on the broken shards of glass. She let out a squeal that echoed through the house.
“Get up to your room,” my mother said coldly.
Nessie didn't move; she just continued to sit amongst the mess and cry. Her pretty pink dress was ruined by the milk on the floor and the blood on her hands, as she tried to clean herself up.
“Up to your room!” I'd never seen my mother this way with Nessie. So angry and closed off from their emotional bond.
Momma stepped from the doorway, giving Nessie the chance to run before my father dragged her from the room by her limbs.
But she wasn’t quick enough.
He clutched her tiny bicep and delivered a threat that she would have been all too happy to run from. “Get out of here, you little brat. You'll be punished later.”
He dropped her in the hallway and she bolted up the stairs, her feet pounding in sync with my heart.
There were no knives close enough to reach, and no weapon in sight that could compete with an axe.
I wanted to rush for the door, but how could I leave Nessie behind?
I couldn't.
And how would Jolie keep up?
She wouldn’t.
We were trapped here. Cornered.
“Dad. . .” I tried to reason as he stepped towards us.
He threw the axe out the door, and I felt a minor relief.
I shuffled us away from the broken door, to the herb closet and the protection it offered against us falling down the stairs to the basement.
“Let me take Jolie to get cleaned up. She needs to wash. I can take care of Nessie, too. You don’t have to do anything.”
A billowing laugh set my hackles on edge.
“The last time you washed her didn't turn out so well. Look at that pretty face now.”
“Not how I'd describe it. Not that she was ever a thing of beauty.” My mother's sniggers and her heavily-lined eyes moved to Jolie.
The comment had Jolie's head dipping, her insecurities encouraging her to hide away.
“Don't do that.” My falsified bargaining stopped instantly. “Don't you dare try to break her down that way. A few scars don't change the fact that she's beautiful.”
A high-pitched laugh derided me. My mother's ugly bare feet brought her closer, just like my father's big boots.
They were zoning in on us, like wolves, packing together.
“She was never beautiful, Woodrow.”
“Don't make this worse for yourself, kid,” my father warned me.
But what choice did I really have?
I whirled around, Jolie's hands staying on me the whole time, until her fingers locked around the back of my neck.
The look in her sad eyes as they cried silent tears, told me she trusted me.
My fingers pressed into her hips, holding her against me, taking the weight off her leg while trying not to hurt her growing stomach.
There was a baby in there. Was it mine? Was it from the assault?
I couldn't think about any of that right now.
Keeping Jolie in my grip, I barreled backwards into my mother's skinny frame, knocking her into the wooden table and then to the floor.
She soon felt Nessie's pain when the glass embedded her skin.
Hopefully, she'd feel guilt for ignoring Nessie’s cries, too.
I pushed Jolie to the door, encouraging the hop, skip, and jump she did, as she tried to get away.
I got in my father's way, taking a swing at him as he ran for my girl.
A darker shade of red stained his already crimson cheeks, and the alcohol in his system allowed my effort to sway him.
“You'll be sorry, kid. I guarantee it,” he slurred.
I pushed him back, needing to create a distance between him and Jolie. My useless mother encouraged his actions from the floor, like some kind of twisted cheerleader.
My efforts didn’t deter my father for long. He was too big, too strong, and the lack of muscle I had barely subdued him for a second.
“Let her go. Please, just let her go.”
The sound of Jolie picking my father's truck keys from the hook echoed louder than it should have.
“You can punish me, in any way. Just let her go. I'll do whatever you want.”
“What we want, you ungrateful little brat, is for her to have been an opening for you. A way into this industry. And a way to control your fucked-up moods. So, you would be able to step into your father's shoes and walk beside him.” My mother rolled her eyes, always knowing their failed plans wouldn’t work, but confirming that she was as awful as I always thought she was.
“Industry? Abusing women? I don't want that. I don't want to be a monster!”
“You were born a fucking monster, Woodrow. Embrace it!” My mother was fuming. The steam from her anger created a toxic smog in the room. “You already agreed to this.”
“No, I didn’t. I would never.”
“Your angry little friend seemed quite excited by the idea!”
Hell, they’d asked Hell. Asked Hell to use her in the worst possible ways. And he’d fucking agreed.
“You don’t run things by him! I’m the host!”
My mother laughed again, saying nothing more than, “You’re fucking crazy.”
My father's hands, tightening around my throat, gripped my attention. His anger lifted me into the air. Artex pierced my scalp, as I hit my head on the dated ceiling, but I could feel nothing but the closing of my throat.