Chapter 2
RAELYNN
Muffled voices.
That was the first thing Rae heard as she started to wake up. She didn’t know what they were saying, but she heard several different pitches from people talking. Where was she? What happened?
Groaning, she moved her head to the left and took a deep breath in.
Her body was aching even worse than it had been before.
But she knew this was how it went. She always felt worse after a beating, before things started to get better.
Rae just needed to make sure she survived the next couple of days, and everything would go smoothly afterward.
Raelynn moved her arm so she could tuck it under herself as she tried to move, but a voice stopped her.
“Don’t… too much… IV… hand… don’t… ripped out,” a deep but gentle voice told her. “You’re… medicine… high fever… infection. But… safe.”
Why did that voice sound so familiar?
Everything came rushing back to her. She had heard somebody call her name after she’d talked to Echo and passed out. Who’d caught her? Who’d called out her name?
Rae opened her eyes to a very dark room. Her breathing started to pick up as her eyes bounced from one person to another, not being able to make out who they were or whether they had any connections to her captor. All she knew was she needed to leave.
“You’re okay,” the person said again, and her eyes flew across the room to the person standing right next to her.
Butch.
Butch was actually standing right in front of her, or to the side of the bed where she was currently lying. Her gaze moved to her hands to an IV sticking in the back of her hand.
Rae had never been good with needles, and the thought of getting stuck with one was making her nauseous.
“…okay,” Butch said, grabbing her hand.
“I need to leave,” she quickly replied.
She shouldn’t be here. She was trying to stay away from Butch. Rae should never have gone to the bus station. She should have found a motel to stay in overnight and then found someone who could drive her out west. She had tried her best to stay away from Butch after attempting to see him.
“You’re not…. stay… bed… tell… happened. Who did this to you?” He asked as he gently squeezed her hand.
She shook her head and groaned again as it protested.
“Don’t… head… much… hurt,” another person said.
Her breathing started to race as she looked at everyone in the room.
They were already staring back at her. Why were they all in here?
She didn’t even know any of them besides Butch.
All she wanted to do right now was cuddle up in his arms to try to calm herself down.
But she couldn’t allow herself to get attached to him.
Not when she was trying to get away from him and find some town or city she could disappear in.
“I need to leave,” she desperately said as she yanked her hand out of Butch’s. “I need to leave before he finds me. I should never have come here. All of you are now in danger. Please let me leave before anything bad happens.”
Rae grabbed her shirt right above her chest as she leaned forward and sucked in an inhale. The room was starting to spin, and her lungs were begging her to take a deep breath, but she couldn’t. The panic was seizing every part of her body as everyone stared at her.
“Everyone… out!” Butch yelled. “Now!”
She heard muffled sounds as she assumed the people had left, but it didn’t help ease the panic inside her.
She was going to die. She was going to get everyone else killed if she didn’t leave right now, and she didn’t want that on her conscience.
She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if anything happened to these people.
Rae swung her legs off the bed, pushing through the dizziness that assaulted her. But Butch was still in front of her.
Worry, anger, and happiness swirled inside her as she looked at his thighs. She never thought she was going to see Butch again, let alone talk to him. But things would never go back to what they were in high school. So much had changed.
“Rae,” Butch said.
“I need to go.” She spoke before he could say anything else.
Tears rolled down her face. She didn’t want to go, but she needed to. If he found her, then everybody who was near her would be dead.
“…Stay,” Butch said.
Her eyebrows bunched together as she looked up at him. “Move. I need to go.”
Butch grabbed her face, his hands covering her ears. Panic sliced through her as his mouth started to move, but she couldn’t hear a word he was saying.
Rae tried to read his lips, but with how dark it was, she couldn’t make out a single word. The past three years had been hard for Rae, but she had been able to determine a couple of words by reading people’s lips when she couldn’t rely on her left ear.
But having both ears covered, even lip-reading wouldn’t be able to help her.
Butch continued to talk, and Rae clawed at his hands, trying to get them off her. Edmund did the same thing whenever he wanted to play a sick joke on her. When he wanted to torture her and show her that she was nothing.
“Please,” she choked out. “Let my face go.”
He immediately let her go, and she took a heaving breath in, trying to calm down the anxiety inside of her. Flashbacks of Edmund putting things over her ears so she couldn’t hear anything. The things he would do to her to keep her always on guard and expecting the worst.
Butch grabbed her hand and placed it on his chest, right over his heart. She could feel every single time he took a breath, and she tried to match it.
“Good girl… Well,” he said.
Tears ran down her face as she stared at him. Would he mind that something had changed drastically with her?
“…lynn.” Her eyes moved to his mouth.
Frustration grew in her as he talked, but she couldn’t hear full sentences.
This was how her life had been for the past three years.
Rae was full of frustration as her life had drastically changed, and there was nothing she could do about it to make it better.
Edmund wasn’t going to pay for any procedure she needed, and she didn’t have any money right now.
“How…hear… Rae?” Butch said. “…Fairy?”
She closed her eyes and hung her head in defeat. She needed to leave before he found out. Before things got worse, and bad things started to happen. But she wanted to hear his voice call her his nickname he’d come with when they first met. One she had desperately hated back then, but loved now.
It wouldn’t be fair for Butch to have to deal with her. To either never have her understand him, or him always having to write things down so she could fully understand. It was exhausting, and she didn’t want him to have to go through it.
Rae also didn’t want to find out whether his personality was going to change or not. Would he turn out to be just like Edmund and get angry when she didn’t understand? Or would he be compassionate and want to help her?
She hadn’t seen him in years… Since she was eighteen. A lot could have happened and changed since then, and she didn’t want to find out whether he was different from how she remembered him.
Blinding lights turned on, making Raelynn whimper and close her eyes. Too many things were going on, and she was getting very overwhelmed. Fingers gently touched her shoulders, and with her right hand, she held it above her eyes so she could look up at Butch.
“Everything… okay,” he said. “Doctor…”
But she didn’t catch anything else. Her eyes moved across the room to find someone standing behind her. When had he gotten there, or had he never left?
His mouth started to move, but Raelynn couldn’t pay attention or make anything out. She was never this bad, but waking up exhausted must be playing into why she was having much more difficulty than before.
Rae looked at Butch, who was already staring at her, his eyebrows drawn up as if he was waiting for her to reply. His hands started to move, and she knew what he was doing.
Sign language.
But Rae didn’t know any sign language. She had tried looking up some videos whenever Edmund wasn’t home, but he had quickly found out and changed all the passwords to every electronic device so she wouldn’t be able to do anything or learn anything.
Edmund wanted her as helpless as possible, so she would always rely on him and never leave.
Raelynn stared at him with a blank face as he moved his hands. She didn’t know he had learned sign language. He definitely didn’t know it when they were in high school, so why did he know it now? It didn’t take him long to realize that she knew no sign language. Which meant he knew her secret.
“How?” he asked and pointed to his ear.
She gripped the sheets as tightly as she could and shook her head. “I need to go. I need to leave. You need to let me leave.”
Butch shook his head and pointed to his ear again. “Tell… Want… know.”
“Then can I leave?” she asked.
If she had to tell him in order to leave, that was what she was going to do.
It wasn’t like he was going to keep her here after he realized that he wouldn’t be able to communicate with her easily.
Edmund had reminded her that no one from her past or future life would ever want her once they found out how damaged she was.
But he would always want her. Always take care of her as long as she stayed in his house and complied with his every single rule and command.
But it was no way for somebody to live because there was no way she would be able to follow all the commands and rules he had when she couldn’t hear half of them, and he wouldn’t write them anywhere.
The number of times she had been beaten because she couldn’t hear him, and the sickening smile that would spread across his face.
No.
She was never going to do something like that again. And she didn’t want to stay with Butch and find out that he or any of his friends were the same as him. There were a lot more of them here, which meant she wasn’t going to survive one night if they all came at her or took turns.
Raelynn had been scarred too many times in the past eight years. She knew better than anyone else not to trust people, even if she had known them for years and years. People could change in a split second, and she didn’t want her memory of Butch to be ruined.
She could hear mumbles but couldn’t make out any words. All of a sudden, a piece of paper was thrust in front of her face, and she gingerly took it, her eyes tracking over the words.
What’s wrong? The doctor said you just have a minor infection and fever.
Her eyebrows drew together as she looked up at Butch. He didn’t know? But she swore she heard him say something about hearing and if she could. Her gaze connected with his, and he smiled at her, the same smile she had seen eight years ago before he’d left and promised he would be back for her.
Such a lie.
Not once did he visit during the year she had been at their parents’ house while she finished up her senior year of high school.
He raised an eyebrow, almost expecting her to give him an answer. Tears dripped down her face as she looked at him.
“Nothing is wrong with me,” she whispered. If he didn’t know then, she wasn’t going to tell him. “I need to go. Please, let me go.”
Butch shook his head and took the piece of paper, writing once again.
The doctor has been asking you questions. Can you answer them?
Her head flew over to where the doctor was standing. He had been asking her questions? The doctor handed her a second piece of paper.
You are deaf. Fully or partially?
She squeezed her eyes shut. It wasn’t a question of whether she was deaf or not. The doctor already knew.
“Fully in my right ear,” she found herself saying. “I’m fully deaf in my right ear and can hear some in my left ear. It’s normally better than this.”
Rae snuck a glance at Butch, whose mouth was hanging open as he stared at her. So much for trying to keep it from him.