2
With my head resting on top of my folded arms that lie on the mattress, I stare up at my father, asleep. If I couldn’t see the steady, barely-there rise and fall of his chest, I’d have thought him dead.
It’s not long now… That thought alone has dread sinking deep into my bones and tears prickling my eyes.
He grows weaker by the day, the skin hanging loosely from his bones, his eyes sunken in and his cheeks hollowed. The cancer is slowly sucking all the life out of him and it won’t stop until there’s nothing left for it to feed on.
If I stare at him for long enough, he doesn’t look like my father, not the man I remember from my childhood. Strong, energetic, fun. Now he’s sullen, weak…Dying.
A cough has my eyes lifting to find my dad’s half-open peering down at me. “You d—don’t have to watch over me, sweetheart. I’m not going anyw—where just yet,” he says breathlessly, his voice weak and hoarse, barely a whisper.
Since his stroke a while back, his words come slower to him now, and he stumbles over them sometimes. Pair that with the fact he’s barely eaten in weeks and he doesn’t have any energy anymore, just another perk of living with terminal cancer.
“I don’t want to leave you.” My chin trembles.
Most of the time I’m able to school my features, force a smile and put on a brave face. But when he’s asleep or not looking, I break down into an uncontrollable sob I can’t contain. It’s taking all my strength to remain strong, but it’s so hard when the inevitable looms like a dark cloud above us.
My dad’s dying, and it’s killing me too. I hate seeing him like this. This isn’t how I want to remember him. I want to remember the good times, the happy times.
A tear escapes and my father reaches for my hand, giving it a weak squeeze. “Don’t… cry sweetheart.”
“I can’t help it. I don’t want you to go.” My voice cracks and I rise from my chair and drape my arms around him, my tears soaking into his shirt. “I’m scared, Daddy.”
I don’t usually call him by that name, I grew out of that when I hit puberty, but now it never felt more appropriate.
His bony arm goes around me. “I know you are, and for a w—while, I was too. But… I’ve made peace with it now. I love you, my precious girl, please remember that.”
I sniff and hold him tighter. “I love you too. So much.”
“You are bold, it is one of the m—many things I adore about you, Sierra. You… take what you want and speak your m—mind.” He coughs, a deep dry cough and he winces like it’s painful. “You are brave, and I need you to be just that for me, and for your b—brothers. And above all y—you are so beautiful, just like your m—mother…”
Drip… Drip… Drip…The repetitive sound snaps me back to my bleak reality.
There’s a tap leaking somewhere in the cold, dank, empty room I’ve been living in for the past however many days I’ve been down here.
That sound was irritating at first, an incessant noise that had me wanting to tear my hair out from the root, but it’s a sound that has become a strange comfort to me. Without it, there would be nothing but silence, nothing but my own thoughts to torment me, as if my captors haven’t done enough of that already.
I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think I’m in a basement of some kind. I remember being carried down a flight of stairs before being dumped in here like some kind of animal.
There are no windows. No daylight, only darkness. In here, there’s no day or night, no way of telling the time or how many days I’ve been stuck in his hellhole. The days and nights all blur into one, stretching on forever with no end in sight, like a dark narrow tunnel without the light at the end.
I was never afraid of the dark until I was brought here, I was never that kid who was scared of the imaginary monster hiding in my closet or under my bed. I wasn’t really afraid of anything. But here, in this room, with a single dim light bulb that flickers in the corner, the monsters lurk in the shadows. Only those monsters aren’t in my head, they’re real.
They touch me. Hurt me. Violate me.
They touch me in places reserved for the man I one day fall in love with, if that will ever happen to me now. They hurt me in ways I never thought possible and they laugh as I scream and writhe in agony. They use my body for their sick, twisted pleasure, finding new and exciting ways to inflict pain on me.
To belittle me. Degrade me. Break me.
There’s no point fighting back, I already tried that at the beginning and I ended up with a sharp kick to the stomach, a split lip and a swollen eye.
I made a pact with myself the first time they forced themselves on me. I vowed that they’d never break me. They could do whatever they wanted to my body, but they’d never break my resolve, never dim my spirit or steal my strength.
But it gets harder and harder as the days stretch on and I grow weaker.
I’m tired. Hungry. Thirsty. Dirty.
I lie completely bare on the soiled mattress beneath me, my naked body crusted with dried blood and dirt. My skin sticky with sweat, cum, and piss that’s not even my own. I’m rotting in filth, the stench alone enough to make me vomit—If I had anything in my stomach to bring back up, that is.
I’m allowed one wash a week, and when I say wash, I mean no soap to help get me clean, just a bucket of ice cold water to use while one of the men who hold me here watches with sick satisfaction. There’s no privacy here, no room for self-consciousness about my body and no way to keep your dignity intact.
Footsteps approach and I get ready for what comes next. What always comes next. My hands wrap around the chain that binds my wrists to the hook in the wall, bracing myself.
It’s Austin. I know it. I recognise his footsteps. His strides are set further apart than the others, slower and more collected than the other men who work for him.
The heavy door creaks open, and I have to squint against the bright light that floods in, stinging the backs of my eyes. His tall frame is silhouetted against the light and my stomach sinks.
The cool draft against my naked body makes me shiver and I draw my knees up to my chest against the cold. At first I was ashamed of my nakedness, on display for the predators that drool over my decaying body, but I’m too exhausted.
“Hello, Sierra.” Austin is the only one who uses my name rather than the derogatory names his men call me. If I didn’t know him for the bastard he is, he could almost be attractive. In certain lighting he looks like Ryan Gosling, only a little taller.
His shoes click with each step before he crouches down in front of me, his shiny dress shoes and pressed trousers in line with my face. He reaches out and sweeps my hair from my face and I shrink away from his touch.
“I think your brothers liked our little video. You’re so beautiful, Sierra, you belong in front of the camera. You were made for it.”
It’s almost as if he’s praising me.
“Despite what you might think, I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but you can blame your brothers for that. They stole away my only family, I’m just returning the favour.”
“Why don’t you just kill me?” My voice is hoarse, barely a whisper that passes my dry, cracked lips.
“Wouldn’t that be a waste? No, I don’t want to kill you, Sierra. I have a much better plan in store for you.” The tone of his voice sends tremors wracking through me, the thought of what these plans entail shaking me to my core.
“Please just kill me,” I mumble.
“I can’t do that. You’re much too beautiful to end up a corpse.” He trails his fingers down my cheek and I flinch from his touch. “I know you hate me, Sierra, and despite what you may believe, I don’t want to hurt you…”
Yeah, right, you sadistic bastard.
“I want your piece of shit brothers to be the ones to suffer, and you’re my sure-fire way of making that happen.”
“But… Why?” Since I’ve been here, he’s never once spoken to me. Not unless you count all the derogatory, disgusting things he grunts when he…
I can’t even bring myself to say it.
Austin rises to his feet and drags a metal chair from the other side of the room, the feet scraping across the rough cement floor and places it in front of me. He takes a seat and leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
“Let me tell you a little story,” he begins, clearing his throat. “I once had a brother. A half-brother, but a brother all the same. We had the same drugged-up, two-bit whore of a mother who cared more about a hit than her own children. When my brother and I were kids we were taken into care. We were torn apart and we never saw each other again until I tracked him down nine years ago.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see his fists clench as he speaks.
“My foster family weren’t much of an improvement. He was an abusive piece of shit who used me as his personal punching bag, and she was weak and worthless, never once raised a finger to help me. When I turned eighteen I was out of there, and I changed my name legally. The old me no longer existed. I didn’t want to be connected to that fucking bitch of a mother or my foster parents. There’s nothing now to tie me to that life, except for my brother, the only person who mattered to me. And then your fucking brothers murdered him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Sierra. You know exactly who I’m talking about.”
Oh my God…“B—Bryce?”
“Bingo.”
“W—Why me?”
“I was there at your birthday party, and you looked good enough to eat in that pretty white dress you had on. But you were too heavily guarded, always being watched, so instead I turned my focus on Rafe’s girl, the redhead. But it got boring, so then I figured, why fuck with just one brother when I could fuck with them both? That’s where you come in Sierra. You are my way to make them both pay.”
“What makes you think they’ll care?” I ask.
“If there’s one thing I know about your fucking family, is that loyalty is president. You stick together, and to some degree I admire that, but it provides me with the perfect way to enact revenge.”
He stands and drags the chair back to where it was and heads for the door, but stops and turns back to me.
“I don’t plan on killing you, Sierra, that was never my intention. You will see your brothers again, but you won’t be the same girl they remember before you left. They will see exactly what I’m capable of and they’ll have to live with that guilt every time they look at you. But you know, it’s almost a pity, I would’ve loved to keep you all for myself. Under different circumstances, I could’ve grow to care for you, shame you bear a name that I despise.” And with that, the thick heavy door slams closed and I’m left with silence once again as the echo of the door closing fades into nothing.
I curl into myself and cry, but there’s no tears, no moisture left in my spent body to produce even a single one.
I lie and wonder what they’re all going through. I know they’re searching for me, it’s like I can feel it. I think about Gage, wracked with worry, spiralling as every lead turns up nothing. Not a trace. I worry about Rafe doing something stupid and reckless without thinking it through. I think of Della and Reese, my best friends, and my heart clenches at the thought of them hurting.
And then there’s Alec… A small smile pulls at my dry lips as I picture him in my mind. My friend. My protector.
My whole heart.
I can imagine he’s somehow blaming himself for my kidnapping. He has this unhealthy habit of taking responsibility for things that are out of his control, and this is no exception. He must be out of his mind, and all I want to do is hold him, comfort him and reassure him that I’m okay.
Well, maybe not okay. But I’m alive, at least—For now.
Bold. Brave. Beautiful…I repeat my father’s words, hoping I can be all of those things and stay strong enough to get through this.