Chapter 8 Cade
Cade
It goes on for hours until we’re both spent and numb. When we’re empty of all fluids, I get a break, but they force Clara to continue. The first time my cock refused to rise, they strapped me to a chair and forced me to watch as Hannidy took her.
Then they sicced her on me again.
When I can’t keep it up, Culver takes over.
Though he fails miserably with his stub of a cock.
The Clara I know shines through at that moment, but her taunting results in her first beating of the night.
My intervention gets me my third. Thankfully, no one shoots me or breaks any more bones, but I can’t walk. I can hardly move.
Ramirez is the last to take his turn on her, and it’s the most brutal of the two. Every hole she has, he takes with ferocity. Wet or dry, he rips Clara in two, throwing her on the ground beside me when he’s finally finished with her.
My eyes are swollen shut, but I don’t need my vision to understand what he’s doing to me. Hot globs of come splatter across my face, followed by the heavy wetness of his spit. “Hope you had a good time tonight, champ!”
The three of them leave us soiled on the ground, the door slamming shut on their boisterous laughter. With them gone and silence finally setting in, the smells hit me. Blood, sweat, and come suffocate my already strangled airways, but I can’t escape them.
In all the time I’ve been here, I thought I had gotten accustomed to the irony aroma, but this… this is different. The metal in the air reminds me of rusted poles or freshly cut copper, but with my eyes closed, I can imagine a much grislier scene.
Before my sight went blank, all I saw was Clara, her body still, lying sprawled on the cold ground.
Her body was a shattered version of itself, displaying all sorts of evidence of the savage beating she had endured.
Visions of her swollen and misshapen face assault the dark spots behind my eyes.
Spit and blood streaked across her flesh.
Her eyes were barely open, and she had a dazed, distant stare.
With a strangled gasp splitting my lips wide, I compel my eyes to open. It isn’t much. With the swelling, I can barely get a slit, but it’s enough to take in the room’s emptiness and my friend lying beside me.
“C-Clara?” I can barely recognize my own voice.
It’s never been so unsteady and strained.
“Cl-Clara?” With great effort, I roll onto my side, using my only functioning arm to push myself onto my knees.
There’s so much pain radiating throughout every part of my body that I barely register my ankle ballooning when I sit on my heels. “Clara?”
Fear begins bubbling in my gut when I’m met with no response.
Taking in Clara’s still form, I wait to see her chest rising and falling, but my gaze keeps flitting back to her face.
Her lips are completely busted open, the end result of being savagely torn apart by fists and teeth.
A dark red pool of blood seeps from her mouth, staining her ivory skin to the carpet beneath them.
As I look around, blood speckles everywhere.
It has spread across the floor, slick and glistening, pooling around both of us in a deep, inky maroon stain, as if the ground itself is absorbing the brutality that just occurred.
The metallic scent of blood continues to fill the air, piercing and overpowering, a pungent reminder of the violence we continue to endure.
The once-peaceful room I was so shocked to come into is now marked with the evidence of broken objects, overturned furniture, and ruined clothing.
The silence in the room quickly becomes suffocating, but the sound of labored, shallow breathing, escaping from Clara’s chest, breaks the anxiety wrapping around my throat.
“Ca-Ca-Cade.”
“He-Hey! Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay!” I speak in rapid, relieved gasps while she struggles to remain conscious.
“You’re okay! You’re okay!” I can’t stop fucking repeating it.
Whether it's for her or me, I’m unsure, but they are the only words that my mind will allow me to speak.
They become a sort of mantra for me, a motivational tactic.
“You’re okay.” It becomes a goal, a promise I intend to keep.
Gritting my teeth, I wrap my good arm around the back of Clara’s neck and attempt to throw her limp body over my shoulder.
It doesn’t work the first few times. Growing unsteady and weak, with sweat mingling with the blood in my eyes, I hunch over and try again.
“It’s okay! It’s okay!” I quickly wheeze when Clara releases a whimpering groan, but I’m finally successful.
It's okay.
It’s okay.
It’s okay. This time, I repeat it internally, building myself up to stand on my shattered ankle to get Clara into the bedroom.
One.
Two.
Three— “Fuck!” I shout in one long, drawn-out growl, falling back onto my knees the second I put any pressure on my leg.
The sweat is pouring down my face now, but after a few more failed attempts, I take my first successful step toward the door on the right.
Each step in the endless hallway feels like a mile-long hike.
“We’re almost there.” It sounds like a lie, but eventually, the door is right before me.
Fighting the tingles in my fingers, I turn the knob and stumble into the bare bedroom. The space is pretty small, so luckily, when I fall, we land directly on the bed. Clara and I moan in agony, but when I roll off her and lie by her side, at least we have something somewhat comforting beneath us.
Darkness dances around the edges of my vision, not threatening but warning me I’m about to pass out. Before I do, though, I turn away, shame coiling around my heart for what I’ve done.
The room smells of piss and blood when I crack open my eyes, but I’m shrouded in darkness with no sense of time. The last thing I remember is facing away from Clara, but now I lie directly on my back, agony keeping me motionless.
Without turning my neck, I eye the space beside me, sensing its emptiness before confirming. Opening my mouth, I intend to call out Clara’s name, but the only sound that emerges is a guttural, choppy croak, full of dry air and dust.
They’ve come back for her, is the first thought that’s entered my mind. They’ve come back for her and left me here to rot in my own piss and shit, covered in the blood and cum they left on me.
I’m going to die.
The air is thick with a sense of finality, as though the room itself is holding its breath, waiting for something that may never come.
The light is nonexistent, but still, there are long shadows that seem to stretch over the entirety of the room, amplifying the severity of my end.
Everything about this moment feels heavy, cold, and alien, as if time itself has come to a standstill.
With the pain surrounding my body and the shit I’ve done and am forced to live with, dying doesn’t seem so bad. Maybe it’s a mercy that they left me in here. Perhaps it’s a gift. I smile, somewhat glad that my life will be over.
And then the door opens.
“Cade?”
Clara’s voice, though strained, is a jolt back into reality.
Looking much more alive than I last remember, she sits beside me on the bed; her ruined dress hanging off her battered body.
The swelling around her face has worsened, with wounds appearing black on her porcelain skin, but her eyes are open and somehow shining like I always remembered. “Cade?”
Closing my eyes, I turn away from her. Tears bead behind my eyelids and break free from the corners when I whisper, “I am so sorry, Clara.” My apology will never make up for what I did to her.
There are scars inside her now because I put them there.
I did! She is my best friend, and I fucking hurt her. “I’m so sorry…”
I wouldn’t be surprised if she added to my beating, if she dug her nails into my eyes and ripped them from my skull the same way I ripped pieces of her away. I hope she does. I deserve worse. Instead, I feel her hand press against mine, fingers curling inside my palm.
“They would’ve killed you, Cade.”
I know. “They should have.”
Her fist flies into my shoulder, the broken one.
“Fuck!”
“You fucking dick! Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that!”
“Look what I did!” I roar with a splitting voice, tears breaking up my words. “Look what I did to you!”
“Do you think you’re the first guy they’ve had me fuck?
” she asks, disgust lacing her tone. “You’re not!
You’re not even close! I thought when they dragged me out of my cell that they were going to stick me with another fat, old, greasy fucker, but no!
It was you! Out of everyone,” she pauses, catching her breath, “I’m so fucking glad it was you, Cade. ”
Blinking away the tears welling in her eyes, Clara takes a deep inhale. “Okay. Come on. We gotta get you cleaned. You’re starting to smell like a dead person.”
“I feel like a dead person,” I groan as I take her helpful hand to get into a sitting position. When I’m up and slowly getting to my feet, Clara gently places her hand on my lower back for stability. “If only we were so lucky.”
We take a leisurely, almost painfully slow pace to the bathroom, where Clara has already taken the initiative to fill the bathtub halfway. “Do you need help?” She asks when we stand before it, watching my steadiness and strength.
“I think I’m okay. Thanks.” I know it’s a lie. Besides the shattered bones in my body, I can feel my muscles threatening to crumble, but I need a moment to myself where I don’t have to look at the broken pieces between us.
“Okay,” she says softly, “I’m going to see if I can find your clothes.”
Before she walks out the door, I call out after her, hysteria almost in my tone. “Can you see if my knife is out there?” Did they take it? “I think I dropped it somewhere near the chair.”
“Yeah. I’ll see if it’s out there.”
And then she’s gone, leaving me in the thick silence.
Before my strength can give out completely, I carefully throw my broken leg over the rim, cautiously easing myself beneath the water.
I breathe through the hot temperature, hissing when it seeps into my open wounds.
The sting is brutal for the first minute or so, but eventually, I find some comfort in it—at least enough to relax.
Water drops from the faucet fall into the full tub, matching the struggling beat of my heart.
It becomes harder to breathe when the once-clear liquid muddies with blood and gore, turning a disgusting shade of brown.
Again, I’m surrounded and swimming in the evidence of violence, Clara’s and my own.
When I can feel the tempo in my throat, closing my airways, I sag my head back and rest it against the edge of the porcelain.
Here, I pretend I’m safe—that I’m back on my uncle’s farm, bathing in the same basins the cows drink out of. I pretend I can feel them all around me, watching me with their big, black eyes. Funny enough, that’s what I miss the most—the comfort of creatures that actually loved me.
When the tears swell, growing heavy enough on my lashes to fall, I sink beneath the murky water.
Now, I don’t have to feel it.
Now, I can’t pretend.
When I emerge, limping from the bathroom, a skimpy towel wrapped around my waist, I find Clara on her knees, banging violently on the door.
Beside her, my clothes are folded, my knife resting on top.
I would be lying to myself if I said that didn’t bring me a sense of happiness, a relief—a sudden burst of rage and determination.
With tear-burned vision and unbearable pain in every section of my body, I stagger to my belongings, throwing everything on as quickly as I can to tuck the blade against me. When the cold, crusted metal presses against my skin, I can breathe a little easier.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to get someone's attention!” she snaps. “Hello! Hello! Please! We need food! First aid! Please! Someone! Anyone!” I watch her struggle with the confinement, yanking, banging, and beating on the knob until she spends all her energy.
When she exhales her final, exhausted “Please,” I step forward, knife in hand.
“Back up,” I command, falling into the space beside her.
Sticking the tip of the blade inside the keyhole, I work on shimmying the lock open.
You have to be careful and listen for the soft click, but Clara interrupts my silence.
“What are you doing?”
Isn’t it obvious? “I’m going to get us out of here.”
I expect to feel her excitement and adrenaline, but instead, terror consumes her. “No!” she shouts, yanking on my hand to drag us both onto the floor. She pulls hard enough to pop my shoulder, jostling the fragmented pieces of bone.
Augh! “Fuck! Clara!” I roar, writhing in pain on the floor. “What the fuck?!”
“You can’t try to break us out of here!”
“Why the fuck not?!” I shout, panting, while my arm begins to fall numb. When some of the feeling comes back with little pinpricks and violent throbbing, I move toward the door, only to be thrown back to the ground. “Clara! What the fuck?!”
“You can’t try to leave, Cade!”
“Why the fuck not?!”
“Because they’ll kill you!” she cries. Real cries.
Not just tears fall down her swollen face, but sobs that rack her entire body.
“They’ll kill you, and then I’ll be alone!
I’ll be stuck here alone with men who can’t wait to hurt me!
At least with you here, I’ll…” have a piece of home.
She sees the understanding enter my eyes and pleads even softer.
“Please, Cade… don’t give them a reason to take you away. I won’t survive it.”
Other than the animals, Clara is the closest thing I have to family. She’s the only one who’s ever really cared. So when she implores me to stop—when she begs me to stay—there’s nothing I can say but “Okay.”
For days—three, four, I don’t know—Clara and I rot in this room.
Water was no issue. We resorted to drinking straight from the tub.
It worked, so we didn’t give a shit, but eventually the hunger started gnawing away at us.
After tearing the room apart, Clara found a rotten packet of peanuts beneath the bar.
They were old and shriveled, some of them fuzzy and green with mold.
Still, we devoured all we could. After that, I found that eating the fibers from the carpet wasn’t so bad.
At least when our stomachs started to swell, we weren’t hungry anymore.
“Cade?” Clara whispers. Exhaustion, starvation, and the poor ability to heal leave us weak, barely able to keep our eyes open.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to die here.”
Lying beside her on the thin mattress, I look at her and mumble, “You won’t. I promise.”