15. Chapter 15 - Kip
Chapter 15 - Kip
The Others
W hile watching Hadley tell her story, so much anger filled me I almost broke the glass of the mirror and every other surface in the room multiple times. So much anger flowed through my body while watching her tell those sons of bitches what happened to her.
When she said that Boyd had been there while she was held captive and that she had forced herself to remain silent to save his life, I felt an immense sense of pride and an overwhelming love for her flooding over me. She had been incredibly brave and strong the entire time she was there and again while being questioned.
She was everything I’d convinced myself she wasn’t. When I’d found her inside of my late kid’s room, I thought her to be the most selfish person I’d ever met. That she couldn’t even wait for me to tell her about them, and instead had forced my hand and found out herself. But instead of being selfish, she was the most caring person I’d ever met, living her life in selflessness every step of the way.
I hadn’t been ready to unbox their memories from where I’d kept them locked up in my heart for so long, because that would mean they were really gone and that they were a part of my past, not my present or my future.
But I could see how it would be okay. They made me the man I had become when I was their father and Hadley was with me now that they weren’t, to make me live true to what they’d made me, to hold me accountable and responsible for my actions. Which I’d tried doing after I realized I’d acted harshly and unjustly to her out of anger and pain. But by then she was slipping through my fingers as her own memories and past threatened to swallow her whole.
She didn’t know it, but she had stopped directly in front of me on the other side of the mirror when she’d stared at her reflection, and having her so close yet so far from me and the protection of my arms, nearly killed me. I’d wanted to reach through the window and hold her and be her strength through it all .
Even if I was speculative about his relationship with her, I was glad she had Tim with her.
There was one thing I had learned during my brief time with Hadley.
To know her was to love her.
I knew he cherished her, even if it was just in an endearing friendship way. But I was glad for his friendship with her.
She collapsed to the floor after giving all she had left to give, and Tim called for it to be enough for today. I wanted to burst through the door and pick her up into my arms and carry her the entire way back to my house and take care of her.
But she stopped us all in our tracks.
“That’s enough of my story. But if I don’t keep going, who’s going to tell the stories of the other girls?”
What?
Other girls?
The agent asked what we all wondered. “What are you talking about? What other girls?” Harvey said as she walked over closer and squatted down to be eye level with her like being closer would give her a better understanding.
Tim looked from her back to Hadley, trying to figure it out too. My sweet bambina just opened her eyes slowly. “The other girls he kidnapped, raped, murdered, and buried. The girls from homeless shelters across the country where he graciously volunteered.” She said bitterly, “The other girls like me that had no one to report them missing or care if they were ever heard from again. The ones that had no one in the entire world to care. What about them?”
Harvey shook her head in disbelief as her mouth hung open, speechless as to what to say.
“You never found the cell, did you?” Hadley asked.
Harvey just shook her head in question again, still speechless.
Hadley’s eyebrows pinched together in disbelief. “The room in the basement where he kept us. One at a time over the years. The one with the iron cell in the corner and all of the sick tools he used to torture us with. The one where he videoed all the pain he inflicted on us with a camera just like that one.” She jutted her chin towards the camera mounted in the room’s corner, recording her interrogation .
“We never found a basement entrance. W-we turned that place upside down.” Harvey stuttered in disbelief. Sheriff Boyd stood up and walked closer as well.
“It’s in the wall behind the bookshelf. Like in some mystery movie, the secret passageway in the bookshelf.” Hadley said as she rolled her eyes at the memory. “He was so proud of his little secret lair beneath his home. He mocked me about entertaining church members and community leaders upstairs and breaking little girls downstairs.”
“Will you show us?” Agent Harvey asked even though her face and tone gave away the fact that it was above and beyond what Hadley needed to do. They had already treated her like a prisoner and then interrogated her, forcing her to re-experience the hell she had survived.
“What?” Hadley gasped in astonishment.
I had heard enough; I needed to get to her. Leaving the room, ignoring the warnings of the agents in there with me, I opened the door to the interrogation room without knocking.
Everyone turned to look at me, not expecting someone to just barge in. But they obviously didn’t know me or understand what I’d do for the scared and injured woman in the corner on the floor.
“Hell no, she won’t go with you there,” I answered for her as I maneuvered through the people milling around to get to my girl.
“I don’t want to go back there, Kip.” Hadley cried, looking up at me from the floor where she was still curled around herself, and I could see the fear in her fiery green eyes as tears still pooled in them. “They can’t make me go back. Please.” She begged hauntingly.
“You don’t have to go back, baby. Not a chance in hell are you going back to that place.” I squatted down in front of her, pulled her tiny body into my arms, and breathed her in. She clung to me like a lifeline and I reveled in having her in my arms again. She was safe in my arms.
“Hadley, I’d like for you to reconsider. Beyond helping us get every piece of evidence that we obviously missed, it could be therapeutic for you to put it all to rest. Knowing that we discovered and told every single thing that happened to you at the hands of Peter Daniels - even validated it. It might help you heal.” Agent Harvey prodded from behind me, her tone gentle but firm.
As Hadley pulled back from my arms, her gaze locked with mine, searching for something. I tried to relax my features when I saw the trepidation on hers. She searched my face for an answer, but I didn’t want to make her do something one way or another. It had to be her decision.
“I need some air.” She whispered to me. I nodded quickly before standing, helping her to her feet with my arms still wrapped around her.
“Where can she get some air that isn’t crawling with the media?” I asked Boyd.
He turned and opened the door, motioning for us to follow him. “There’s a courtyard out back that is surrounded by the building, it should be empty.”
We didn’t wait to ask the agent for permission as I led Hadley out under the bulk of my arm around her shoulders.
We stepped outside into the barren courtyard before I felt her take a deep breath again as the door shut behind us, leaving us in icy silence. The temperature was just above freezing, and Hadley wore only a short-sleeved shirt, so I shed my jacket and wrapped it around her as I pulled her into my chest, resting my chin on her head.
“How can you stand to touch me knowing everything now?” Her voice was so full of self-contempt, and I ground my teeth to quiet the scream that wanted to rip from my throat to the skies in agony.
Agony for her.
I leaned back and slid my fingers under her chin, physically forcing her head back to look up at me. She closed her eyes and her nostrils fluttered in time with her lips as she fought to keep her composure. Tears broke free from the corners of her eyes and her forehead wrinkled as she lost her hold on the pain.
As I slid my hands under her legs, lifting her up, her legs instinctively wrapped around my waist, and I walked towards a chair positioned next to an abandoned ashtray on the wall. I sat down and wrapped my arms around her tiny body and held her tight as she shook with sobs against my chest.
First, I kissed her hair and her forehead, then I slid my hands under the warmth of my jacket around her shoulders and let them feel the softness of her skin under her own shirt as I pulled her impossibly close .
“Because I love you, Hadley.” I felt her body stiffen as I said those words to her, but I didn’t pull away or let her shrink in on herself any more than she already was. “You are so incredible, and I love every single thing about you, including your scars baby. None of this changes that for me.”
She tilted her head, and I felt her warm lips against my neck as she sniffled. “I don’t understand how you’re not repulsed by me,” She leaned back and looked at me. “ I’m repulsed by me!”
“Nothing changed from this morning to right now for me, except now I have the answers I so desperately wanted from you for weeks. But how I feel about you sexually hasn’t changed. You didn’t choose any of it, you didn’t allow any of it to happen to you, Hadley. You’re a survivor, and I’m so fucking proud to even be in your presence.”
I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers, leaving the contact light because I could feel how on edge she was already, and I knew even though she was afraid I’d be repulsed by her body, she was raw from telling everyone of her horrors. And I didn’t want to add to any pain.
She leaned her head to the side and deepened the kiss, letting her fingers tangle in the fabric of my shirt and pull me closer to her as my tongue pushed into her mouth.
I moaned when I tasted her for the first time all day and cupped the side of her face with my hand as I kissed her with everything I had.
I knew words were going to fall flat for a while with her, and that I had to use my actions to prove to her she was still desirable and still wanted by me.
“Do you mean it?” She asked, pulling back, and laying her forehead against mine, still keeping her eyes closed.
“Every word.” I kissed her nose and took a deep breath, filling my lungs with her scent.
“Even the ones of love?”
I smiled and let her feel the smile on my lips as I pushed them to hers again, softly. “Especially those.”
“What about everything that happened before Mike got there though, I still don’t know what happened to your family and—”
I silenced her with a finger on her lips and she finally opened her eyes and looked into mine. “When you have room in your heart for that story, I’ll tell you every single part of it. I don’t want any more secrets or lies between us, baby. But I want to help you through this right now in any way that I can. We can talk about all of that later. ”
She took a deep breath, and I could see the fatigue in her muscles, even as she slid her palms flat against my stomach and chest and groaned when my body reacted the way it always did when she was in my arms.
“I’m sorry, I can’t help it when you’re touching me like this,” I whispered to her lips before leaning in and taking a drink from them again.
She smiled against them before pulling back again.
I stayed silent and let her mind work out what it needed to in silent support.
“I think I have to go with them back to that prison. But I really don’t know if I’m strong enough to.” She whispered finally.
“If you let me, I’ll be strong for you. I’ll be right there with you the whole time, if that’s what you want.”
“I’m not sure if I want you to see it either, though. It would be unbearable if you saw everything and then—” She paused and shuddered, “didn’t want me anymore. I wouldn’t be able to stand it.”
“That will not happen, baby. I’m in this. Headfirst. Unapologetically. Without reservation.”
She looked me deep in the eyes and the outdoor lights made her eyes glow with golden fire as she tried to find the lie in my words, but there were none .
Finally, she just nodded her head and sighed, “Then I guess I’d rather just get it over with and then we can go back—” She broke off at the end.
“Home.” I finished for her. “I want you to come back home with me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Without reservation. Remember.”
She leaned forward again and let her lips brush over mine softly, “I love you.” She whispered. “I don’t know why I had to endure such hell to find such peace with you, but I won’t say I’m not glad to be where I am right now, regardless of how I got here.”
“I could say the same exact thing, Hadley, the same fucking thing.”
The door to the courtyard opened up and Boyd popped his head out, “Uh- sorry to interrupt, but we’re getting ready to go if you’d like to go with us.”
“Now or never Bambina.”