29. Riley
RILEY
“Idon’t want to talk about that day.” Dread floods me from head to toe.
“Tough.”
“No.” I shake my head, my fingers digging into the mattress, seeking anchor. “I won’t.”
“Riley.” The warning is unmistakable in his voice, all the more potent because it is almost imperceptible—he knows he doesn’t have to raise his voice or threaten me for me to get terrified so fast it’s like the flick of a switch.
“What the fuck would you want to know that you don’t know already?”
“I want to know everything.”
“What do you mean, everything?” I scoff, but whatever it is I’m seeing in his expression makes me relent. “What, you want to know it was pissing outside and my clothes were soaked through?”
“Yes. Every. Thing.”
I shake my head in resignation more than in refusal. “Fine. It was pissing down. I had no umbrella. My hair was all wet and plastered to my face, and my clothes were soaked through.”
“I think we already established that.”
I take a deep breath. Memories start rushing in.
Despite the ongoing pretence of a free press, reporters associated with the resistance began dying in accidents or disappearing after Rift Day.
Not in any numbers noticeable to the general public, but enough to alarm those of us remaining.
I was far too prominent to harm directly without raising too many questions. But my parents and siblings were not.
“I’d just moved my family to a smaller city that was a bit more under the radar. I started using our old apartment as kind of a studio and a place to crash when I didn’t fancy going home.”
It’s strange how it’s both hard and easy to remember what the city looked like back then. It hadn’t been remodelled yet; the old concrete housing blocks were still intact.
“It wasn’t smart being there alone, but ... my family life was ... suffocating at that time. So that’s where I was that day. I’d taken some shots on my analogue and was developing the negs when I heard the main door bang. I went into the main living area. And he was there.”
“Volker?” Aron asks, rubbing his clenched jaw.
I nod curtly.
“Yes. Him and his three bodyguards.” I take a shaky breath and say the next part in a mechanical, flat tone of voice with my eyes closed.
“I screamed. No one said a word. The bodyguards grabbed me, took all my clothes off and tied my hands behind my back. They hauled me to the bedroom and threw me naked over the footboard of the bed. They tied my legs to the planks to make them stay wide apart.”
Whatever it was that I was expecting to see in Aron’s face—outrage, or even some basic compassion—it isn’t there. His eyes are dark, lifeless, and unreadable, his mouth a thin line that gives nothing away.
“If you were picturing me at a table with Volker, both of us evil, cackling and eating caviar or whatever, then I’m sorry to disappoint. The day I sold my soul, my ass was up in the air, I was crying into the stinky old mattress, and Volker wasn’t looking at my face when we had that conversation.”
This time, I get a sharp exhale out of him, the sound strained but also relieved in a destructive kind of way—like letting go of something that he needs but it’s too hard to hold on to.
“Volker then told me that he had a proposition for me, and that he had already spoken to my parents, and they agreed. He didn’t phrase it as a question.
” I continue, the memory of the mattress’s stink sharp in my nose, phantom restraints cutting into my skin.
“He spoke as if what I thought or wanted wasn’t important.
My parents agreed, and that’s all that mattered, and besides, they were already packing for their move to the Oceanics in exchange for my cooperation.
” I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood to stop the sob clawing up my throat.
“I didn’t believe him at first. But then ...
he called them, and put the phone to my ear. ”
A grunt with a subtle shake of the head.
“My mum was crying, and my dad was already drunk. They both begged me to do whatever Volker wanted. Actually begged me. I could hear my siblings’ voices from the next room. Excited, relieved, happy. It didn’t feel like I had any choice at all.”
“What happened next?”
“I think you can imagine.” I grimace, staring at the floor, tracing a spiderweb of scratches with my gaze.
“Tell me,” he commands, grim and determined.
“Aron ... no,” I protest, everything inside me twisting and coiling.
“I said, tell me everything.”
“Aron, please.”
The only reply I get is ominous silence.
I know it’s pointless; he will get the answer out of me.
I feel bitter anger welling in the corners of my eyes, but I also find a strange kind of liberation in having no choice but to talk about it.
I’ve never told anyone before, not even Corrado.
But because I have to talk about it now, I find that I finally can.
I wrap my arms around myself, swaying lightly. “He started fucking me. It was my first time.”
Fragmented memories flood my mind: the searing burn as he entered me, the way I shook, his hands gripping my flesh. I chase them out.
“It was like his dick was covered in sandpaper. It hurt so bad. But the worst of it was his complaining. Saying how I felt all wrong on the inside, that I was deformed, and that was why it hurt. He was too convincing, acting confused, then almost concerned, and then just ... repulsed. Like I was revolting.”
I can’t escape the recollection of the shame and panic rising through me.
I never could. But I plough on in a shaking voice.
“I shouldn’t have believed him. But I ...
well, I was eighteen. I didn’t get my period until very late, and then whenever I did, it was strong and painful as hell.
And as you know, I had never managed to make myself come with my fingers ...
” I pause to take a deep, steadying breath.
“All that’s to say, I had feared there was something different about me, something wrong.
Maybe all young women think that. His eldest daughter Daria is only a year older, so perhaps he got the idea from her somehow.
I don’t know.” My hands grow clammy, and I rub them together.
“What I do know is that him tapping into that fear like that, confirming it? It fucking broke me on the spot.”
A low growl rumbles deep within Aron’s chest. Even though I know how pathetic that is, I find myself desiring his touch, the comfort of his arm around my shoulders, the consolation of his hand on my knee.
“He pulled out and said it wouldn’t work.
He acted like the deal was off and he was going to walk out.
He kept repeating that my parents and siblings would be very disappointed, but that there was nothing he could do.
I was in a state. I couldn’t think clearly.
I made it so easy for him to get into my head.
I don’t know how I could have believed him. ”
“It wouldn’t have made a difference, even if you hadn’t,” Aron murmurs.
“It would have to me! But I panicked. I let him play me. I begged him.” The words feel like razors in my mouth. “I begged to try again, promising I would do better. That’s when he suggested that he could try to fuck me in the ass instead, like he was doing me a favour.”
I only get a grunt in response, a brief, pitiless reaction to my words. Not that I think I deserve much better than that.
“I agreed. I fucking thanked him. He used a bit of his own spit to make it go in easier, but ... it was the worst pain of my life. I thought I was going to die. He kept saying that I was defective as a woman, that I was worthless. That hurt too.”
To stop tears from flooding my eyes, I bite the inside of my cheek.
My mouth fills up with copper. “When he finally finished, he left it up to two of his guards to untie me. The next day was my first public appearance in Everrise in that mustard yellow uniform you like so much. The only thing I remember about it is that Daria Volker put salt in my coffee right after meeting me that day.”
I laugh feebly. Aron doesn’t. I finally chance a look at him, to find him studying me with his usual intensity. Unbidden, his earlier words about the Retrogrades echo in my ears, growing louder until they drown out the phantom sound of my cries, Volker’s wheezing grunts, his insults.
No man is here because he has no other choice.
“I would have accepted anyway,” I admit, my voice steadier.
“Even if he hadn’t done what he did, I would have said yes—for my family.
My ... my father couldn’t get a job. Not trustworthy enough for academia.
He mostly blamed me and what I did. He wasn’t coping well with depending on me for money.
I had to get them away. I would have agreed to anything. ”
Something searing lingers in Aron’s timbre when he demands, “Did he ever do it again?”
I let air escape slowly through my puckered lips before replying cautiously, “Not exactly. I think he would have. He made ... remarks. But two weeks later, I got ambushed by a drunk soldier on a job. I was ... drunk myself and not as careful as I normally would have been. Volker wouldn’t touch me again after that.
Talk about silver linings.” I shoot a furtive, sarcastic smile in his direction, but he doesn’t return it.
“Still, he’s kept insisting on seeing me, every so often. Taking me out for meals and for horse races in the capital. Sometimes, even dress shopping. It was creepy. He kept calling me his princess. I hope I never have to hear that again.”
Aron scoffs—the sound dark and humourless. His balled fists are resting on his knees, knuckles white.
“I ... tried it twice voluntarily. I had no interest in either of the guys. I just wanted to see if it was any better when I agreed to it. It wasn’t.”
Not until you, I nearly add, but I bite my lip to stop the words. Perhaps I’ll say them one day. But not until I find a way to explain—to myself, at least—why something completely wrong feels so right.
“Say something,” I urge Aron when the silence that stretches between us grows oppressive. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I’d like to cut Volker’s dick off, shove it down his throat and make him choke on it,” he responds gruffly and my heart flutters.
“I doubt that’d be technically feasible. It’s too small,” I remark, and we both chuckle.
“Well, I could make him eat it,” he suggests. “No less satisfying and technically very feasible.”
“It is a tempting thought,” I allow, keeping my tone conversational.
“Do you have a better one? What would you do to him?”
“Nothing,” I reply simply.
His eyes widen. “Why the fuck not? Why not give him what he deserves?”
He stares at me open-mouthed, and I can’t resist a small, smug smile.
“Oh, but I would be doing exactly that. It was on that same day, when I was taking a bath to wash the blood off, that I decided what Volker would and would not get from me. I decided he wouldn’t get my fear.
He wouldn’t get my fury. He wouldn’t get my hatred.
He wouldn’t get my nightmares. He would get exactly what he deserved from me. Nothing.”