Chapter Thirty-Two
Quinn - Present Day
My mind is mangled. My head hurts. I dreamt that Harley came to save me. I can smell leather and smoke. But not Harley’s kind of smoke. Cigarette smoke. And petrol. My eyes won’t open. They’re so heavy. Maybe I just need to rest a little bit more.
I’m sitting on the sofa editing videos for my secret social media account when there’s a knock at the door. Mum is out with Eric, and Dad is at work. Maybe they forgot their keys.
I open the door, and I’m greeted by my brother’s best friend, Keelan. He’s a breath of fresh air. Someone I have a lot of time for and someone I wish would see me as more than his best friend’s big sister. But, alas, that has never happened.
“Hi! What a nice surprise! What are you doing here?” I ask him.
His face is somber and panic sets in. “What happened? Is it my parents? Are they okay? Where is Eric? What did he do to them?”
“They’re fine, Quinn.” His tone is sad. His shoulders are hunched over.
“Then why do you look so sad?”
“Quinn. I have something to tell you. And it’s gonna hurt like hell, but you deserve to know the truth.”
“Okay, come in.”
I pull the door wider to let him through, closing it behind me, and lead him into the living room.
“You’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
“I found something on Eric’s laptop. Something bad. But before I tell you, did you know he and Millie are together?”
“My Millie?” I laugh because that’s fucking ridiculous.
“Yes, Quinn. I saw them together on video.”
“What do you mean on video?” He shuffles on the sofa, clearly uncomfortable as he wrings his hands and cracks his knuckles.
“Keelan, just spit it out.”
“There was a video, Quinn. Well, lots of videos. Videos with you in them.”
“Me? Doing what?” I’m so confused. Why would Eric have videos of me? He fucking hates me.
“I don’t know how to say this, so please forgive me. But they were raping you, Quinn.”
I sit there, stunned. “Raping me? What? I’ve never been raped.”
“Quinn, I saw it happen.”
“You watched a video of me being raped? By who?” I don’t even know what to feel. I want to laugh in his face at the ridiculousness. But something tells me he’s telling the truth.
“I didn’t watch it all. I wouldn’t do that to you. I skipped through the video thinking it was a video of him and Millie having sex and then saw it was you.”
“Wait, why is Millie on a video of me being raped?” I ask. My eyes are filling with tears, my skin is crawling with fear, my body is in full fight-or-flight mode and totally geared to flight.
“She—” He hangs his head. “She was holding you down, Quinn.”
I jump up from the sofa. “Why are you lying? Why would you say such nasty things?” My best friend would never do something so vile.
“Quinn, I would never lie to you about something like this. Please, sit down, and I’ll tell you everything.
My body is numb. I sit back down on the sofa, and he pulls out his phone.
“You brought it with you?” I ask incredulously.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me if I didn’t have it to show you. But before I show it to you, I need to tell you something else.”
Nausea rolls in my stomach and shoots up my throat. I grab the glass of water in front of me and gulp down a mouthful, trying to stave it off.
“You’re right, I don’t believe you. But what could possibly be worse than you saying my best friend held me down while I was raped?”
“The people who raped you. Quinn, it was Eric and Dane.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I splutter. “Y-y-ou’re telling me that I was raped by my brother and his best friend?”
Tears pool in his eyes and overflow onto his cheeks.
“Yes. Quinn. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. If I’d have known, I’d have stopped it.”
“How many?”
“Huh?” He looks at me, confused.
“How many videos were there?”
“Four.”
“All from the same night?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “You were wearing something different in each one.”
I’m dumbfounded. But I need to say it out loud to believe it could possibly be real. “So what you’re telling me is that my brother and his best friend, with the help of MY best friend, have raped me on four different occasions?”
“At least, yes.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because there was a password-protected folder I couldn’t get into.”
“Show me.”
“Quinn, please. You don’t want to watch this, I promise you.”
“If I don’t watch it, I’ll spend the rest of my life thinking what if.”
He sits next to me and turns his phone around. He presses play. And the anger that floods my veins is incomprehensible. It’s like being violated; but this time you know about it. This time, you have the power to stop and start the video.
Tears stream down my face as I watch my best friend hold my hands down while my brother and Dane use various objects littered around the garage to penetrate me.
Spanners of different sizes. Wrenches as well.
They even pull up the car clamps to try and keep me open as they assault me.
But the grand finale is when Dane drops his trousers and assaults me himself.
I stop and rewind, watching over and over as she laughs at the things they’re doing and calls me a ‘fucking slut’.
She spits in my face, cutting at me with a penknife as I lie there unconscious, obviously drugged. Eric says, “Looks like all of those prescription meds have been useful for once.” Dane laughs as he slams his dick into me until he clearly orgasms, and then Eric takes over.
I don’t realise I’m hyperventilating until Keelan takes the phone from me and tries to encourage me to breathe.
There had been mornings where I’d woken up and felt sore, or had cuts and bruises across my body, and no idea how they got there.
But when I would point them out, everyone would tell me I’d had an episode, and that’s where they came from.
Why would I question them? They’re my family, and it had become a pattern of mine.
Self-harm, forget, promise never to do it again, and then start the cycle all over again.
There was no reason for me to question them.
I lean back against the sofa, my energy depleted from the crying. Keelan sits back next to me. “What do you want to do?” he asks.
“What can I do?”
“You could report them. We have the proof.”
“You know that would never work. I’d just be isolated and left to fend for myself whilst my parents took his side.”
“You could bide your time and get your own revenge.”
“I think you’re confusing me with someone else, Kee. I can barely function, let alone act out an elaborate revenge plan on the rapists I’m supposed to know nothing about.”
“Are you okay?” he asks, his knuckles brushing against my thigh.
“Do you know the funniest thing? The worst thing about what I just watched is that she was there. I don’t know how to explain it. For my entire life I expected Eric to do something like this. Maybe I should be thankful it was me and no one else.”
“Are you insane? Of course you shouldn’t be thankful. No one deserves to go through something like this. Besides, if you think about it, he probably has done it to others. His history is very telling.”
“Is there a date on the video?”
Keelan pulls the video back up and looks at the details. “This one was from two weeks ago.”
I stand up and pace, doing laps of the living room like my life depends on it—because right now, it does.
I open my mouth to say something but run to the bathroom before throwing up into the toilet.
Keelan appears behind me. He stands there with his hands tucked into his pockets.
He looks uncomfortable. Like he has no idea what to do with himself.
“Are you ok, Quinn? What can I do?”
The front door opens, and I hear my mum and Eric. I flush the toilet and quickly check my appearance in the mirror. Sweeping my fingers under my eyes to rid myself of the mascara streaks and splashing my face with cold water, I turn to Keelan.
“Keep your mouth shut. That’s what you can do for me.”
“But what about making sure he faces the consequences?”
“Oh, he will. Don’t you worry. I’ve spent my whole life afraid of him. Minimising my every movement for fear of what he would do to me if I was confrontational. No more. When I’m finished with him, meek little Quinn will be unrecognisable, and Eric will be dead.”
Keelan’s eyes go wide. But just as my mother and brother walk through the door into the kitchen, he nods his head and takes a step back before whispering, “Whatever you need to do, do. I’ll keep the video safe. He deserves this and more.”
“What the fuck are you doing talking to my sister?” Eric's voice grates on me more than usual. It takes everything in me not to scream in his face, pummel him with my fists and grab the nearest knife before plunging it through his throat. The rage bubbling inside of me is something I’ve never experienced.
I’m usually the quiet girl. The girl that will sit there and take blow after blow, sometimes offering a sarcastic and sassy response.
Is this how everyone else feels when they learn they’ve been raped?
I’ve watched countless TV shows and read hundreds of books, and when it happens in those, the victims don’t react this way.
They either hide away from the experience or report the person to the authorities. Why am I not doing that?
Why is the first thought running through my mind to murder my abuser? To see his dick and balls nailed to the wall or displayed on a shelf for all to see.
I refuse to be his victim.
My only option is to become a survivor. And the only way that can happen is when he dies at my hand.
I bolt upright and scream. I scream and scream and scream until big strong hands grab hold of my shoulders and shake me. “Magpie,” I scream and scream some more. Cries ring through my ears that sound so unlike me. It’s like I’m expelling a demon from my soul.
My shoulders are shaken a little harder. “Magpie. Open your eyes.”
“Wait, wha—” I open my eyes, and the light blinds me. My body aches. But the moment my eyes land on Harley, it all but disappears. I touch his face. Softly, like I’m scared if I make contact he’ll disappear. Like he’s a figment of my imagination.
“You came for me.” He nods.
“I did more than that, Little Magpie. I came for you, and I stole you away forever.” His words don’t register for a second. I take in my surroundings and realise I’m no longer in the facility.
“Where am I?”
My sobs recommence, and he comes and sits next to me, bundles me into a hug and leans back with my head on his chest. “Somewhere safe. It’s okay. Let it all out.”
“I’m so tired. But I’m so happy to see you. I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I told you to think of a safe word, didn't I? What does a safe word mean?”
“It means you drop everything and come for me.”
“Exactly, Little Magpie. Exactly. Now get some rest. We’ve got lots of work to do, and there are some people here that are really excited to meet you.”
“I think I remember.”
“Remember what?”
“I think I remember where it all began and why I’ve been losing gaps in time. And it’s not my fault. It wasn’t something I was doing to myself.” I cry from sheer relief.
I snuggle into him as he strokes my hair and shushes in my ear. My eyes are drooping within minutes.
“Bones?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Thank you for saving me.”
“Anytime, Little Magpie. You say the safe word, and I’ll burn the world to find you.”