It’s stifling tucked under their broadmuscular bodies, but I make no effort to move. Enjoying the soft rumblings of sleep that tumble from their parted lips, it’s not often I would describe these guys as serene, so I’ll appreciate it while it lasts.
I had pushed aside the memory of that night, unwilling to address everything I had lost, my hands tied with no way of mending what I had broken, but as I lay here between them, I realise just how much I gave up.
Cooper and Caleb had found me, wandering like a lost puppy in the woods, and taken me back to their farm, sneaking me into the barn after checking their father was asleep. I relayed everything that had happened, both in the basement at Mr Turner’s and what transpired at the Police Station. They held me and comforted me. Treated me like no-one else ever had, with consideration and the utmost care, but I could see the anger forming beneath their smiles and soft touches. Much like I had tonight, they allowed me to let all my darkness out, but I hadn’t realised back then that just because it was no longer in me, it didn’t mean the darkness didn’t still exist. I felt lighter sharing, the invisible weight of what Nathaniel had done to me lifting from my shoulders, but with each secret I spilled, the brothers’ souls grew heavier. They were internalising my pain, and it’s only so long that it can be contained.
I had woken up alone in the barn before the sun had broken the hills, the dewy grass wet on my ankles as I let my instincts lead me on a trek through the woods to find them. Finding the clearing, I step out onto the pot hole lined road, and I glanced up at the once charming three-story house that leaned a little to the left with the daisy-filled window boxes, the rainbow-painted stone pathway bleached by the hot summer sun, the black shutters in disrepair, and the rusted swing set surrounded by overgrown weeds. Myinstincts had brought me back to a home that felt more like a prison. Tassel house harboured nothing but pain and torment. My feet were moving before I could stop them, climbing the steps up to the porch and through the front door that was swaying open with the breeze, fallen leaves from the mighty oak tree littering the reception area. The house was silent, the two other children who were still living here were away at camp, and Mrs Turner had been dead for eight months now since she lost her battle with cancer. It wasn’t nearly enough of a painful ending for her in my opinion, but I took solace in the belief that her soul was rotting in hell.
A crash from upstairs echoed throughout the house. An eerie calm filled me; there was no fear or trepidation as I approached Nathaniel’s room, as though my body knew what was happening beyond the closed door. I pushed it open and stepped into the room, partially hidden by the coat stand in the corner of the attic room.
Nathaniel Turner was barely recognisable as he sat slumped and breathing heavy in a chair by the window, his face bleached red from his weeping wounds. Coop and Cal were caked in his spilt blood, their knuckles torn open as they emptied out a canister of petrol around the room. They move silently as Nathaniel protests tiredly. He’s not tied down, but he is clearly in a lot of pain, wincing every time he shifts in his seat. No one had even noticed I’d entered the room.
“You fucking slut,” Nathaniel spits, suddenly noticing and finding the energy he needs to lunge for me. I fall back against the wall and slide down it, crouching in the foetal position on the floor with my hands pulled up to protect my face, as I had done in this room so many times before.
“No more hiding, Dove,” Coop whispers as he pullsmy arms down and helps me to my feet. Caleb pummels Nathaniel on the ground, his body wracked with harsh breaths as he exerts himself.
“Never again. You’ll never fucking touch her again.”
“Go downstairs and wait for us, Dove. You don’t need to see this.” I turned to leave, realising I was happy I got to see the weak bloody mess of my foster father paying for his sins at the hands of the brothers in my honour. Glancing back at Nathaniel at the same moment Caleb’s fist connects with his face, I smile, my body light as I witness the downfall of my abuser.
Waiting on the porch, the scent of petrol clinging to the air, something told me to head back inside; call it intuition maybe, but it was so insistent, refusing to be ignored, that I barrelled into that house, and when I got back up to the second floor, my gut hollowed out. Caleb was on his knees shirtless, pressing his t-shirt against Cooper’s side, the material drenched in blood.
“He got him good. Help me get him out.” Caleb is quick to haul his brother up as he fumbles for his lighter, igniting the flame and tossing it over his shoulder into my bedroom. I notice at his feet is my suitcase. He holds it in one hand, the other holding Coop up. I slip under Coop’s other arm that dangles lifelessly at his side and try to take some of his weight. The fire moved quicker than anyone expected, the smoke starting to fill the hallway as the fizzle of soft furnishings erupted in the distance. The oil paintings Nathaniel held so dear on the walls melting, the paint running down the walls like hot wax. With hobbled steps down the stairs, the front door wide open ahead of us.
Before I know what has happened, I was waking up on the front lawn, my face nestled in the grass, the tang of blood coating my tongue. My ears rang, the roar of the fire so distant I would have believed it was miles away if I couldn’t see the flames engulfing the house with my own eyes.
The daisies wither, the white-painted woodwork on the highest part of the building charred black in places. Something had exploded and thrown us from the house. My blue dress was torn, dirty, and covered in blood, my head pounding and my wrist ravaged by a deep cut. I had minutes to decide what to do before someone noticed the flames and alerted the authorities.
“Please wake up. Please.” Caleb was out cold beside me but still breathing. I caressed his face, resting my forehead against his with my knees sinking into the muddy grass as I begged him to come back to me. Coop on his other side, his chest rising frantically as he held Caleb’s shirt to his side and cried out in pain. I could see the burnt patches of flesh littering their bodies. It took me a second to acknowledge the acrid off-meat odour of my own burnt flesh as it filled my nose, every sense on overdrive as the panic in my tense body heightened.
With little time on my side, I made the decision that would have the two people I loved most in this world hating me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CALEB
“You should be sleeping.”
She jolts in my arms, the room too dark to see anything but her fluttering lashes at the angle I’m in beneath her, moonlight creeping in through the curtains as Coop sleeps behind her, his face more serene than I’ve ever seen it before, as though just being this close to our Dove soothes all the jagged parts of him. I know because that’s exactly how I feel right now as her fingers rub little circles around the tattoos on my bare chest.
I reach over and switch on her lamp, my eyes taking a second to adjust to the light. I sigh, sated when my gaze meets hers, and she smiles up at me.
I wrap my hand around hers and squeeze it, bringing it up to plant a soft kiss across her knuckles. Laying her arm back on my chest, I rub my thumb over the raised warrior wound on her cheek, the scar small but jagged.
“You could get this removed. They have ways now.” She snaps her head away from me, her hand flying up to coverher scar, as though she is guarding something precious.“Tell me, Dove.” I order, losing the battle to be soft with her, the bubble of anger simmering inside me when she keeps things from me.
“When I remember that night, when you were taken from me…” She stutters a little, a harsh panting breath clawing at her throat, her mind seeming to reel over how to say it. “It’s the only reminder I had left of you guys. As the years passed, the memories of you dimmed. The damage to my skin was all I had to remind myself that you were real.”
My heart aches at her admission as I coax her face towards me with a finger hooked under her chin. I plant a tentative kiss on the raised scar. There is a misplaced apology in the connection, for the part I played in her getting it and for being one of the reasons she still has it. To carry around a daily reminder of what happened just to wade through the shit for the smallest scrap of comfort.
I should have done better by her.
As though we’ve opened something up in her, Ebony continues to talk, the sorrow heavy in every panting breath.
“I didn’t know what else to do. They would have killed you both.” She wipes away the tear that has escaped, her voice meek as she says it. “I’d rather have lived with you hating me and known that you were both alive out there somewhere, than have you being dead and discarded in some wood chipper.”
“I think our anger was always a smokescreen for the loss we felt—the loss of you and the future we thought wecould have.” I try to settle her, knowing she needs my softness right now.
She doesn’t respond with words, but I can feel the thump of her heart relax and how she holds onto me a little tighter, and that’s a good enough response for me. Our Dove doesn’t realise how easy it is to love her; even blinded by the need for revenge, somewhere in me, I think I always knew I loved the bones of her.
