Chapter 20
Katelyn
A rumbling gently shakes my limbs, and I open my eyes to orange plastic seats and a puddle of iced coffee running over the tiles toward my feet.
I blink, and register the pain in my neck, my chest, my arms, and my legs.
I keep blinking to free my mind of the web it’s trapped in.
Every part of me aches like I’ve got the flu.
I sit up slowly, and the world swims a little as my vision goes blurry. I look down and see my brother's hand on my arm. Instead of reassurance, it makes my very blood run cold.
“Henry?” I say groggily.
I remember him surprising me in my kitchen, holding the biggest knife we have to my throat and forcing me to drink a cloudy glass of water. My brother drugged and kidnapped me.
His hand tightens around my wrist, already covered in angry red marks.
“Henry?” I try to lift my head all the way up, and he smashes it back down so my cheekbone meets his shoulder with a force that will surely leave a bruise. “Are we on the subway?”
“I had to get you out of there now he’s back. He’ll try to take you from me like he did before, and I had to stop him before he separated us forever.”
“Who? Heath? Or are you talking about Eddie?”
“Heath. Eddie’s dead,” Henry slurs like he’s drunk.
The horror comes back in a heartbeat. I remember Heath blowing Eddie’s head off through the fog in my mind.
Eddie’s dead. One of my worst tormentors—gone.
But Henry’s still here, and now he has me alone.
I don’t know what his intentions are, but they cannot possibly be good.
He’ll rape and kill me to keep me from Heath.
“Are we on the subway?” I ask again.
“He’s stolen everything from me, my father, my sister, my home. He’s taken it all,” Henry mutters.
“Are we going to the city?” I adjust my eyes and look out the windows. The train runs above ground, and we’re outside. It’s still dark, but I have no idea how much time has passed since Heath kissed me goodbye. There isn’t another soul on this train to witness my demise.
“He took everything, so it’s only fair I take something from him. Just like Mom, Peggy didn’t know how to swim,” Henry muses.
I sit up straight and grab the locket sitting below my clavicle.
Peggy, Heath’s mother. She was so kind to me, so generous with her time and affection after I lost my mother.
I only have warm memories of the woman who appeared out of the blue one day with a suitcase and a young Heath at her side, holding his hand.
This is my son Heath, Katelyn. I hope the two of you can get along. You’re exactly the same age.
Heath and Peggy were a welcome respite from my sometimes-distant father and Henry, who was always so hard on me.
At certain points in my life, I’d wondered if Henry had anything to do with my mother’s drowning, but I always took Peggy’s death at face value.
I’d believed none of us were home when she fell from the top of the grand staircase at Wainscott Hollow and broke her neck.
I wonder if an autopsy was performed. I do remember they couldn’t figure out why she’d been out swimming in her work uniform.
Peggy’s death was eerily similar to Mother’s.
We always believed the story that our mother had walked into the waves. I always believed the story. She was a melancholic person, and subject to bouts of serious depression. I look at Henry’s white-knuckled hand biting into my wrist and become overwhelmed by a wave of nausea.
If I want the truth, I need to be brave. If I want to get out of this alive, I need to be smart.
“Did you kill Peggy, too, like you did Mom? The same way?” I try to make my voice steady, cheerful even. Henry has always thrived off of my fear of him. It makes him meaner, more vicious. My terror elevates his pleasure in torturing me.
“Sure, it was the easiest thing to do, force them into the water, let the waves do the rest.”
“But I thought Peggy fell.” Without flinching, I grasp and hold the locket on my neck.
“Some fisherman was out there, and I didn’t need a witness, so I tried to make it look like I was saving her.
Had to drag her back into Wainscott Hollow.
But when I got her back, she started choking up sea water like she wasn’t all the way dead.
So I had to drag her up to the top of the stairs, and boom!
Hence the broken neck. If we couldn’t have a mother, it wasn’t fair that he did. ”
We didn’t have a mother because he’d already killed her.
I shudder and say nothing, horrified by the mere fact that my body is touching his. Henry is as sick as he is repulsive.
“I don’t know why I have to do all the work in this family while you get to lay around like a damsel in distress.
I’m doing all the heavy lifting, and you still got the nerve to let Heath get away with trying to destroy us.
Both of you would be homeless and broke if it weren’t for me.
How’d you think you got your inheritance?
Dad would have never left you anything if he knew you were shelling out pussy to your own brother. ”
Rage floods my veins like a rushing river, and my hands ball into fists. “You’re one to talk, Henry. At least Heath and I aren’t blood-related.”
“Semantics, my dear sister. Whores love cock, no matter who’s it is,” he says cavalierly.
I hate him. I hate him with every ounce of my being. He raped me and wants to pretend it didn’t ruin me, didn’t traumatize me beyond measure.
“You are even more delusional than I thought, Henry.”
“Oh, look, we’re here!”
The train screeches to a halt at the Coney Island stop.
Fairgrounds? A spot our mother forbade us from visiting as children no matter how much we begged, citing general seediness and drunks to pacify our curiosity.
Over the years, the excuses ranged from broken glass on the beaches to malfunctioning rides.
Dad called it a haven for drug addicts and homeless people.
It was Heath who assured me Coney Island was a fun place with rides next to the ocean, a boardwalk, and even an aquarium.
He’d gone multiple times as a kid. What the hell does Henry want with this place?
The park is closed at this hour. Maybe he wants to drown me on a beach far away from Wainscott Hollow.
He’s killed everyone I’ve ever loved, and he’ll take me next.
He yanks me to standing and pulls me off the train. Shoves me from behind on the exit stairs, and I luckily grab the handrail to keep myself from falling on my face.
“I want you to fuck me on the beach, like you used to do for Heath back in the day. All romantic and shit. I know you whores go gaga for a romantic romp on the beach.”
Vomit and terror compete for space in the back of my throat. The station is completely deserted as is the dark street below. As we descend, my hope of a stranger intervening decreases. No one’s around, and if they are out at this hour, it’s because they’re not behaving either.
Underneath the elevated train, a few people mill about, but they’re down on their luck and not quite the type I’d hope would help out.
Two homeless old men huddle by a barrel, warming their hands over a fire.
A young girl on the corner in an impossibly short skirt lifts it to display her ass to the errant car driving by.
An addict injects himself on the very last step and nods out, and keels over before we even reach him.
“This is going to be nice. A little sibling bonding time. I haven’t gotten my dick sucked in ages. Or even ass-fucked anyone since the last time you let me.”
Let him? I fought him tooth and nail every second.
Henry yanks my arms behind me and holds both my wrists together, then extracts and ejects a switchblade that gleams under the street light.
“Don’t try to run or fight it cause I’ll slit your fucking throat in a heartbeat, you worthless cum dump.
I’m going to take my time and enjoy this, and if you run, it’s curtains, bitch.
No one will hear your screams out there by the ocean, and I plan on making you scream, beg for your life, and prove that you love me.
You’re mine, Kat. Nothing’s gonna change that. ”
I stop, lean over the curb of the sidewalk, and retch into the street, unloading what little I had to eat today and probably the pills Henry gave me crushed up in a drink.
“Oh, you’re gonna puke more when I shove my cock as far down your throat as I can.
I cannot wait to make that sloppy ass jiggle like jello again.
You’re such a nasty cow, it’s a wonder your brothers can even get hard for you.
Those lard thighs and that meaty pussy, you’re fucking disgusting and lucky that I fuck you.
Nobody wants to stick their dick in an ugly obese piggy, so you should beg me for it, Kat.
You should thank me for making the time to share my cum with you. ”
I gag, but nothing comes up this time. Terror runs through my nervous system like a live wire.
Henry jerks to a stop and rummages around in the backpack he’s got slung over one shoulder, producing handcuffs, which he slaps onto our wrists, effectively binding us together.
Then extracts a bottle of vodka, which he uncaps and guzzles like water.
He’s so foul, so revolting that I lean over and dry heave, my stomach with nothing left to give.
“I’m gonna disinfect your dirty cunt with vodka because knowing you, you already let that dirty thief in.
Whores can’t keep their legs from spreading for any cock they see.
In fact, if there happen to be any guys down by the boardwalk, I’m gonna let them take a ride on your fat ass after I’m finished with you.
And Mom always said the rides down here were no fun.
She couldn’t even imagine how wrong she was. Rest in peace, you fucking bitch.”
My heart hurts with each devastating word he says.
We pass a scary-looking homeless man with missing teeth, matted hair, and clothes shredded into dirty rags. He grins at us as he lights a discarded cigarette, the flame briefly illuminating his horrible face.
“You feeling frisky, dude? You want to take a ride on this chubby Wonder Wheel? Or just stick your cock in her mouth and take a piss if you feel like it,” Henry gloats.
The man warbles at us in another language.
I yank Henry toward me by the cuff and march even harder in the direction of the beach.
“What’s wrong, Kitty Kat? Wasn’t your type?”
“I just want to get this over with,” I growl at him.
My hope is that he’ll continue to guzzle and imbibe so much that he passes out eventually, as tame as a sleepy kitten.
It’s happened so many times before, it’s part of the reason I let my guard down around him in the first place.
Henry is meaner when he’s drunk but harmless when he blacks out.
I hope the timing is right. Maybe I can escape and let his passed-out ass drown in the waves like he did to everyone else in my life.
I can’t let my mind absorb the idea that Henry killed our father.
If that’s true, not only is he a rapist, but he’s a fucking serial killer.
He drags me up a pavement-covered ramp, passing the giant sleeping rides.
I bet this place is cheerful in the sunshine, but now it’s quiet and dormant.
In the light of the moon, it looks like a haunted nightmare.
I’d imagined coming here someday with Heath, having fun in the sun together.
Under our feet, we step over a faded, hand painted-mural of a clown pointing toward the rides.
“Luna Park this way!” the lettering reads.
I slide my phone out of my pocket with my free hand, point the camera down, and take a picture. I stagger and almost slip before Henry yanks me upright again. Without moving my lips, I pray silently that the picture took.
Maybe if they know where he killed me, they’ll be able to recover my body and bury me next to my one true love in the graveyard at Wainscott Hollow.