Chapter 20 #2
“It’s okay,” I stopped her spluttering. They’d both been preached at and taught. More questions rolled around in my head.
Then Margaret opened her mouth to spout some more churchy nonsense, and I held my hand up to stop her. She bit back her words and seethed instead.
In the uncomfortable silence, while all our minds whirred, we could hear movement elsewhere in the house. A shower running, pots and pans clanking. The murmur of a voice, maybe on the phone, maybe from a radio.
Amaryllis whimpered and clasped her hand to her mouth.
She’d been in this place a few days, almost a week, I guessed, but right now seemed like she’d just stepped foot inside.
As she welcomed us in, there’d been a warmth, but it was shuttered away now.
Probably because we were frosty right back.
She looked on the verge of a panic attack out of nowhere, taking unsteady, shallow breaths.
Margaret only rolled her eyes and shuffled away from our scared sister.
“Amy,” I said, using the nickname I knew she didn’t hear often. Nicknames were gauche, after all. I stepped closer and fell to my knees, reaching for her hands, holding them in her lap. “We’re safe here. You realize that. Why the panic?”
Margaret scoffed, and my eyes darted to her in anger, finding her scowl deeper.
“What? Margaret. What?” I asked, still gripping Amy’s hand. She gave mine a tiny squeeze.
“What makes you so sure we’re safe here? What makes you think this isn’t bad?” Margaret questioned, crossing her arms over her chest. “Away from the church, from the—”
I cut her off. “Don’t even go there again.
You know nothing of the church.” Images flashed through my head of everything that had happened in the name of Rafael and their messed up cult of a church.
Again, she brought it up again. The pain.
The grief and injury. She had no idea. None.
But I didn’t tell her that. I didn’t lose my temper because she was only sixteen.
Amy was only seventeen. We were damn near children. We all needed to heal. Learn normal.
None of us knew what it was like to be normal.
I certainly didn’t, wouldn’t ever, because I was in love with my brother and would never stop.
Even now, I craved him. If he were here, I’d be braver.
He bolstered me. But this wasn’t good enough.
I had to be brave on my own to get through this.
I’d asked for it, had to follow my ass through.
“I know all I need to,” Margaret continued. “I saw. I was with Rafael. He told me.”
My gut clenched at the idea of her with him. With my evil husband and his desires, his urges and his men. I didn’t like her, not one bit, but she was still my sister. No, she was still a woman. A person. No one should exist near a man like that. Be under his thumb in any way.
I had to take another steadying breath, bracing myself for my next question.
“Did he do anything to you?” I asked, voice low, dropping Amy’s hand and leaning back, terrified to hear the answer. I was shaking, my veins vibrating, making my skin tingle and my eyesight wavy… Margaret and I didn’t get along, but I—
Margaret looked at me for a few moments, fire behind her eyes. “No,” she replied, almost seeming disappointed. “Of course not. That wouldn’t be proper while he’s married to you. He’s a… he’s a proper man.”
I tipped my head back and burst into loud, bitter laughter, before standing, unable to be still.
“You’re also a child,” I emphasized, ignoring the roll of her eyes.
“And he is an adult man, a full grown, well into his adulthood, man. An evil man who hurts women. He was not proper with me for even a single second of our time together.”
“Well, maybe you weren’t good enough!” Margaret stated, standing up too, breathing through her nose like a bull. Fists clenched. “Maybe they made the wrong choice by giving him you. I would be perfect for him. For all of them!”
Amy began to cry, soft sobs slipping from her as I stepped closer to Margaret.
“I wasn’t good enough for him,” I said, trying and failing to keep my voice calm. “He’s not something you can be good for. He has no good, Margaret. Only evil.” I lifted my top to show them the scars across my stomach. “Evil.”
Amy cried harder at the sight. Margaret’s eyes dropped down then back up, her jaw clenching, muscles tensing.
I turned with my top still raised. “Evil,” I said again. “And it’s like that over my entire body.” I didn’t tell them that the wounds were replaced with those from Theo, that the cuts they saw came from him too, and those were precious. That was just for us.
Most of Rafe’s cuts were internal, anyway.
“You want to look like this?” I asked Margaret.
She sniffed, haughty priss again. “If that’s what he wishes…” But I could see the doubt. That first glimmer of hope that I might be able to break down her barrier.
“Margaret,” I sighed. She looked at me. “Do me a favor and shut the bloody hell up and sit down.”
I wanted to run, to flee this reality, this conversation. I hadn’t even told Theo everything. But I couldn’t have Margaret thinking there was a single decent bone in Rafe’s body. No. No bloody way.
So, I took a big breath and opened my mouth.
Everything he’d done spilled from me. All of it.
From the wedding night, all the way through to the last moments we shared together, when he had me tied up in that cabin hours deep into the most awful abuse.
I shared it all, Charlie’s involvement, the way Gabe had betrayed me, manipulated me.
Every cut. Every bruise. Tears flowed down my cheeks, dripped onto my shirt and soaked through to my skin, but I didn’t stop talking.
Even as it burned, even when my voice wavered and images so horrifying, the memories of pain so deep, ripped through me.
At some point, Amy moved, coming to my side and guiding me to sit back down.
Her eyebrows were scrunched together, her bottom lip between her teeth.
Red eyed, like me. And she listened, she nodded her head and rubbed my back as I told them everything that went on in that house. Everything Margaret thought was proper.
When I finished, the tension was heavy, with only the sound of Amy and me sniffing back our tears. For at least a full minute, anyway. Then Margaret opened her mouth.
“And why should we believe all that? You married him, Violet. You had the honor of joining the church right at the top.” Margaret looked at me, and I met her eyes. A flicker of something behind them told me I might be getting to her, that there might be a crack forming in her armor. I clung to it.
“Why would I flee him, Margaret?” I asked, voice breaking. I was so damn tired. “Why would I hide? Escape the second I could?”
“Because you don’t—” Margaret started.
“Because he hurt me so bad I could barely walk, Margaret.” I stood up, making Amy squeak with how suddenly I moved.
Margaret tried to pull away, but I grabbed her chin, forcing her eyes on me.
She closed them, squeezed. “I have the scars to prove it. You wanna see them again? You want them on you? Give it a few months and he’ll take you on, mark you up like he did me. ”
“Look at them, Margaret,” Amy muttered, but Margaret shook her head, fighting her way out of my hold. I didn’t want to hurt her, so I let her go, even though she was hurting my heart.
I breathed through my nose and took a step away. Theo. I needed Theo.
It always came back to him. To the comfort he gave me. Even now, when the strong emotions I was feeling weren’t fear or grief, but anger, rage bubbling in my gut. He would calm me. Soothe me.
I’d tried hard enough. I’d told them my truth, my reality. It was up to my sisters to choose how to proceed with it.
“I’m going,” I said to them, giving Amy’s hand a comforting squeeze before sliding out of the bedroom.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t understand how deep this ran, how far down the rabbit hole others could fall.
To want him, the life he’d forced upon me until I wanted to die instead… madness. Insanity.
That was all this life was.
“No, don’t go!” Margaret jumped up, and for a stupid moment, I thought she was about to bend, to tell me she believed me, that she agreed.
But I wasn’t so lucky.
She walked up to me, stopping close, a look of pain across her pretty face. Then she slapped me.
“You deserved it all,” she growled. “You should have done what he wanted, then none of it would have happened.”
She slapped me again.