28. Kinleigh
TWENTY-EIGHT
KINLEIGH
PRESENT.
He made it.
Those three words loop my brain on ticker tape as I tune out the chaos around me.
He.
Made.
It.
A little smile even curls my lips as I repeat them internally, knowing that whatever happens now, Colton made it out.
Which means those women are going to be safe, too.
Hooking his hand through the necklace, he grabs the ring, yanking it so hard the chain snaps. It was foolish of me to put it on. When I went downstairs at two in the morning, and found his bed empty and the shackles in a cut heap on the floor, I fell to my knees and I wept.
And as I wiped my tears, something from under the pillow caught my eye.
He took the syringes of sedatives and the bolt cutters, and left me the necklace. The promise ring.
Foolishly, I knew when my father discovered Colton was free, I’d be the one to pay the price. He’d accuse me of it, and I hadn’t even planned on lying but more so, staying silent.
It’s kind of my thing.
He stares down at the broken piece of my love in his palm, his eyes staying on it for an uncomfortable amount of time. When his eyes rise, they’re unlike anything I’ve seen before. The pupils are so full, the irises are all but gone, darkness dripping from them, melting over the rest of his features. Flat lips and a tight jaw are his usual, but this morning, a new evil lurks inside him. I feel it in his gaze, the way it smothers my breathing and stifles my thoughts.
The necklace and ring fall to the floor as he turns, storming out of my room and down the stairs in a matter of seconds.
I sit up in bed, looking around my room for something, anything, but only a moment goes by before the truth finds me.
I’m alone.
I have no weapons.
And even if I did, I can never overpower him. Ever.
I hear the cellar door hit the wall down in the kitchen. Garrison isn’t my ally, that much is certain, and I don’t even know if he is my uncle. I open my mouth to call for him, but I won’t give my father the satisfaction of hearing my voice ever again. I won’t give him the gift of my obvious panic and my blatant fear. He’d like it too much.
Instead of running off, I bring my legs to my chest, hold myself, and rock. I rock in my bed and I wait.
When he returns a minute later, it’s clear he did not rush up here.
His nostrils aren’t flaring, his chest isn’t heaving, but his eyes are still full of destruction, deranged and detached. With the heel of his boot, he closes the door then pinches the top of his hat, carefully setting it atop my dresser. He plucks his handkerchief from his pocket, using it to dust particles from the rim.
“They told me the felt would be high maintenance,” he says of the hat, even bending at the waist to bring his face nearer to it, making sure every spec of dust is eliminated. “I said, I can deal with high maintenance as long as it looks nice.”
He shoves his handkerchief back into his pants pocket and brings his hands to his waist. My stomach clenches angrily at the fact that he’s going to rape me and he’s going to kill me, and the last thing I have to see is him.
“Kind of like you, huh? Women are high maintenance but I convinced myself that I could make you different.” He sits on the end of the bed, removing his boots one at a time. “But you’re hell-bent on defying me, and this time, you aren’t just hurting me,” he says, a sadistic smile on his lips as he unbuttons his chambray long-sleeved work shirt. When he stands again, he takes his belt off, laying it delicately across the bed.
Sweat bubbles up on my skin, and an involuntary shudder traverses my shoulders, leaving my spine weak and wobbly, my stomach uneasy.
“You’re hurting the business. And see, we can’t do that. We can’t mess with business.”
I squeeze my eyes closed when he yanks the belt from the bed, his other hand likely holding his penis now. His groans confirm my assumption and it begins.
The belt stings on the first few passes, more than normal, I think. By the fifth and sixth, I know he’s broken the skin on the back of my legs and lower back. Hot liquid trickles down my sides, and I know that’s my blood. He breaks my nose when I don’t open my eyes, and tells me if I shut them again, he’ll rip them out.
I keep them open. I want so badly to defy him, but if Colton ever finds my body, I can’t have the last time he sees me be that horrific.
I watch him curse but I can’t truly decipher the meaning of anything he’s saying. Not anymore. I slipped into a deeper headspace, one I’ve tried to find for years during his attacks. A place where I’m able to turn off my mind’s connection to my body, and just tread water until it’s over.
I’m there now, and the ironic thing about it is I found it too late.
He’s going to kill me. Not only can I see it in his eyes and feel it with every violent thrust of his groin, but then he presses his lips to my ear. His words are a promise, his tone full of malice. “I know you can hear me, you little cunt, so hear this: I’m gonna kill you . And I’m gonna leave you in your boyfriend's cellar, because I’m nothing if not poetic.”
Sweat drips onto my nose and cheeks from above, and it takes all my remaining strength not to vomit in response. Keeping my eyes open, I defy him by looking up, tilting my head into the pillow as far as it will reach until my eyes come to the dried, preserved dandelion chain swinging from the framed Principal’s Honor Roll.
Each thrust of his body into mine, the bed hits the wall with a memorable thud that I think I’d hear in my nightmares if I lived another day. The chain silently hits the glass framed achievement over and over as he thrusts and thrusts.
I’ve always loved dandelions. I used to tell Colton that tying them together to make a necklace was good luck, because the flowers are good luck. I believed that once you made a wish on it, if the wish came true, the flower would grow back, yellow and vibrant.
A necklace made out of dreams that came true. To me that meant there were lots of happy people around, with all their life’s wishes in their hands, like gold. It seemed so perfect.
Some of the tiny, preserved petals can’t take the steady force, and they slowly float down, landing on the pillow around me. I turn my face, catching one with my tongue, and pull it into my mouth before he notices. I keep it there, a secret for me, a taste of the dreams of mine that have died in this room.
The world closes in a bit as the barrage of fists come to my skull, under my ribs, and to my chest. I see Colton in the tall grass, on his back, his cheeks red from riding us around the pasture on his horse. His big fingers are fumbling with a chain of dandelions, and though I can’t hear him, he mouths, I love you .
“He made it,” I whisper, causing my father to freeze over me. I turn my beaten face, one of my eyes already swollen closed, and whisper those three words again, letting a smile lift my lips. “He made it.”
I move the small dandelion petal around in my mouth while Forrest drives his gun up my ass, promising me it’s loaded. My dreams may never have come true, my time with Colton cut far too short. But he made it, and because of him, those women and children will make it, too. The entire operation will end. And Forrest will get locked up.
At some point, Forrest tires, his breathing heavy and labored. My ass throbs from the sodomy but I keep my eyes on the chain of dandelions. If I don’t get to be with Colton, if my last moments are in this prison, I’ll at least be looking at something that reminds me of him.
The last way I defy Forrest.
And it is. Because what I hear next is the clicking of a gun’s slide, followed by a bullet dropping into the chamber.
But it’s okay.
Because he made it.