Chapter Twenty-Six #2
It didn’t matter how much I hit, writhed, scratched, slapped. He was stronger. And his sick desires made him doubly so. He was planning on taking what he wanted no matter how many times I lashed out, no matter how many times I said no.
Then, like an angry god, my father’s voice hollered so loud I swear the room shook.
“What the fuck !”
Then he was rushing across the room, grabbing Blake by the back of the neck and dragging him off me.
I was vaguely aware of the sounds of bones hitting flesh as I righted myself, curled up tightly on my side, and dragged the blankets over my head.
Because despite it all, I’d be damned if I let Lance see me cry. But there was nothing I could do to stop it as my mind raced.
With the almosts.
The what-ifs.
The “my first time being close with a guy wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“I’ll kill you. Do you fucking hear me?” my father screamed. “You so much as walk down this block again, and I will slit your fucking throat. Do you hear me?”
There was a garbled answer, then a shuffle of feet.
The door slammed hard.
Then my father’s weight was pressing into the bed, and his hand was reaching out to pull the covers away from my head.
“I tried to fight him,” I whimpered.
“I know you did, baby girl, I know you did.”
“I almost got away,” I added, sniffling hard. “But Lance was holding the door closed.”
I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen the look on his face right then. It was the face of a man who’d killed people, who was contemplating doing it again.
“He what?” he hissed.
“He pushed him in here, and then he held the door closed.”
“Why would he do that?” my father asked, confused because of how much I’d kept from him.
So the rest spilled out of me then, words tumbling over one another, useless tears starting and stopping over and over.
“Is that so?” my father asked, sucking in a slow breath. “Well, you’ll never have to see him again.”
He’d been right about that. Lance was gone that night, and he never came back.
As for us, we packed up and moved, since my father didn’t want me anywhere near Blake or that group of friends ever again.
As for me, I went through a paranoid phase, expecting every guy who looked twice at me to want to hurt me.
So I did the only rational thing I could think of: I made myself as unappealing as possible.
I dressed in long-sleeve black clothes year-round.
I put on heavy makeup. I practically growled at people if they tried to talk to me.
Eventually, I moved past it, opened up again. I found a boy my age who I really liked and who really liked me. And he showed me how things were supposed to be.
And then I stopped thinking about my step-cousin entirely.
Until, of course, he showed up again.
It was the damn pickles.
None of the deliberate clues he left would have had me connecting the dots.
But the Lance I knew hated pickles. He used to wrinkle his nose whenever I ordered extra.
“Try,” he scoffed. “I have been training ever since your father kicked me out onto the streets. Over nothing.”
“Nothing? You held the door closed while your friend tried to rape me, you fucking asshole.”
“God, don’t be dramatic. That wasn’t what was happening?”
“No? Because I had scrape marks down my hips and thighs from where he’d pulled my pants down for weeks. I had bruises on my chest from him pawing at me.”
There was a flicker then, just the slightest hint of uncertainty. Like maybe for all these years, he had himself convinced that I’d fabricated a story just to get him out of the house because I hated him so much.
I hadn’t seen where Lance was when my father stormed into the room and started beating Blake bloody.
My best guess was, like the chickenshit he was, he heard my dad coming and ran.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I think you do. You want some more proof? I looked into Blake a few years back. He’s been accused of rape four times. Once against his little sister’s best friend.”
Another flash.
Not quite regret. He probably had too much lingering resentment about losing the father figure and lifestyle he’d learned to love. But it was a hint of humanity. I could work with that.
“I never understood why you hated me so much. Before you even knew me.”
“You were always showing me up.”
“I was just being who I was. It’s not my fault I had fifteen more years of training than you did. Maybe if you weren’t such an utter dick to me, I might have had a chance to tell you how impressive it was how quickly you picked up on it all. Even while refusing my help.
“But, no. You had to be small and petty and jealous. And you know what, that would have been fine if you were younger. Or for just a few weeks, I knew how bad it was growing up with your mother. But you were almost an adult acting like a petulant child. And you only got worse over time.
“You’re lucky you lasted as long as you did.
If I told my father any one of those things you said or did to me, he would have had you packed up and on your mom’s doorstep before you could try to come up with an excuse.
So you can thank me for the months of stability and attention you got because I didn’t sell you out.
“And if you want someone to blame for how things turned out, all you have to do is look in a mirror. You have no one to blame but yourself for being shitty to me, for almost getting me raped, for forcing my father to choose between us.”
“He chose wrong.”
“No, he didn’t. You weren’t safe to have around. You were everything my father had been training me to protect myself against. He made the only choice he could.”
“He could have given me another chance.”
“You had a lot of chances to stop being shitty to me, Lance. It’s your own fault that you didn’t take any of them.”
“I was a kid still.”
“And I wasn’t? I wasn’t an innocent fifteen-year-old trapped in a bedroom with an older boy who wanted to hurt me? The youth card doesn’t work when it comes to shit like that, Lance.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You knew enough to hold the door.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“I begged you to open it.”
“I don’t… I don’t remember that.”
“Well, I did. I remembered it enough to have nightmares for a year. To be terrified of every boy or man I came across. So you can’t waltz in here years later playing the fucking victim. That’s not how this works.
“And now, now , you not only made me your victim once, but twice.” I paused, exhaling hard. “How long have you been stalking me?”
“Stalking is a strong word.”
“When you’ve been following me and trying to murder me? No, it’s not.”
“I’ve kept an eye on both of you for years.”
“That’s really fucking creepy, Lance.” How many times when I got that little prickle at the back of my neck that made me feel like I wasn’t alone, or that someone was watching me, was actually him?
“So, why did you shoot up my place if your endgame was to kidnap me for some ridiculous childhood revenge?”
“I wanted to kill you then. But when you came out, I got another idea.”
“How’d you find me at the safe house?”
“I had a tracker on your car.”
“No, you didn’t. I had it checked.”
“Not recently. But back when you bought the safe house, I did. Figured that was where you went. Didn’t know you’d have that biker with you. I guess it worked out for me that he was so fucking inept.”
A movement behind him had me straightening. The smile that tugged at my lips had Lance frowning.
“Not that fucking inept,” Caymen said before tackling Lance to the ground.