He throws himself back against the wall, pain reverberating up my spine and my grip of him loosening as my limbs untangle from his torso on impact. I fall to the ground with a loud thud. Crawling across the floor, my back pressed up against the brick hearth I watch as he sways on the spot, his palm latched around his throat—his face a ghostly white shade as blood seeps out between his fingers, that pristine shirt of his soaked crimson. A fucking glorious sight that has me grinning wide as I stagger to my feet. I’m revelling in his downfall so much that I don’t see the sneaky right hook that takes me by surprise, the crack of my other cheek as knuckles split bone ringing in my ears—yet another injury I’ll add to the stupidly long list. My smile never wavers though, even slumped on the ground and at my captor’s mercy, I feel victorious. My vision may be blurry, but I fight against the pull of unconsciousness as I get a front row viewing of Matthew’s panic as it blooms like ink on parchment in his beady eyes. His grip around his throat loosens, death ebbing closer as the trickle of blood continues to pump out of his wounds onto the ground like a leaky hose that has run out of pressure. For as long as I live, I will find comfort in the vacant stare of this man’s wide eyes. May he burn in hell for the rest of eternity.
Pacing back and forth, my foster father seems unfazed by his dead nephew sprawled out on the ground at his feet.
“Now, now, little Ebony. That wasn’t very nice, was it?” He tilts his head and levels the barrel of his gun at my face.
I play with the idea that it is likely his question is rhetorical because as he lingers closer to the guys, I know it will be them who takes the brunt of his anger. He may want to ruin me, but it’s clear he doesn’t want to kill me—not yet anyway. I don’t think he would hesitate to obliterate me emotionally by hurting Cooper and Caleb though. They are just pawns in this crazy back-and-forth game of his.
“What a spitfire you are. I was sure the system would have broken you, but here you are, still fighting till the bitter end. If you will just accept?—”
“Accept?” I cut him off. “Accept what—this? You? I would rather die than be yours.”
“Tenacious.” I shiver at the word as he says it so fondly. “I think I might enjoy breaking you in again.” He grins. Making sure our gazes are locked as I wince and pull myself up to sit. It’s harder to breathe like this with the broken ribs I’m sure are currently trying to impale vital organs, but laying at his feet feels too much like bowing down to him. “Tenacious but naive,” he titters, pulling Caleb’s knife from his pocket, extending the blade and running his thumb over it to test its sharpness, the light blinding as it catches on the steel. He doesn’t hesitate as he swings out and sticks Caleb with it in his gut.
“Fucker!” Cooper kicks out wildly—his chains thrashing as he tries and fails to get to Nathaniel.
He answers Cooper with another jab in warning to Caleb’s other side.
I rise to rush at him, not thinking it all the waythrough and coming up short when the bloody knife clatters to the floor and his hand wraps around my throat. There’s no playfulness in the harsh squeeze of his grip. My lungs burn, my mouth dry as he backs me up against the surgeon’s table near the roaring fire.
“They took so much joy out of teaching me a lesson. Hollering between punches that I deserved to die for what I did to you, when all I really did was try and love you. But you’re unloveable little Ebony - weak, damaged, a stain of an existence.” I listen to his one man show holding back the laughter - this fucker has no hold over me anymore and if being loved by him is what keeps me alive, I’d rather be dead.
“If I’m so fucking unloveable, why have you gone through all this?”
“Punishing you - for the duration of the life I deem fit to allow you to live - theres nothing I want more than that. Now, naughty girls must be punished, otherwise they’ll never learn.” he titters like he’s reading it from a new parent self help manual.
The smart arse retort I have ready to throw at him dies on my lips when I watch as Nathaniel kicks the chair out from under Caleb, the scream that stutters from my lungs is a harrowing slice against my soul as my world darkens around it’s edges. His grip tightens around my throat and i whimper, clawing at his arms to break free.
“Please, take me, anything you want.” I cry out, my voice broken against his grip. I mean every word as I plead with the madman that just continues to smile cruelly. I watch Caleb hang there, my heart in pieces—eyes widewith panic as I try to think of something I can bargain with.
Caleb’s hands are shackled to the chains driven into the concrete, he can’t lift them high enough to fight against the rope strangling him.
I put everything I have into pushing myself against Nathaniel, anything to get to Caleb. He presses his finger against the trigger, the wild shot whistling past my cheek, but I refuse to stop fighting him, knowing each second is a second too long for Caleb. We crash into the surgeon’s table. Instruments clattering, dirty scalpels and a bent pickaxe, metal tinkering on tile as they clatter to the ground. He’s faster than me, stronger than me. He slams my face into the cold steel, yanking my arm up behind me at an unnatural angle. I cry out when he tugs at my clothes. I can’t stop the whimpering cries that fall from my lips as he pulls down my underwear with my leggings. Frustration heavy in the brutal way he handles me.
Across the room, Cooper is screaming, thrashing against his restraints, trying to get to his brother, desperate to get to me as our eyes meet. Torn between the two people he loves most. Caleb’s legs kick helplessly as the noose tightens, his eyes rolling back, searching for air, for footing, for a chance at life, as the world around him dims.
Nathaniel fumbles with his belt and I plead with my teenage self that cowers away, my strength depleting as memories from my childhood attack me anew.
“You’re going to learn to behave. Look at him.” He screams down into my ear. Twisting my face so all I can see is Caleb struggling to hold onto conciousness. He pins medown with his forearm pressed into my spine, cackling wildly at our expense.
His dirty cigar tainted breaths are ragged against my neck as he pulls on his flacid cock against my bare backside. Through teary eyes I see my bag, spilled open like a gutted animal on the table and I reach out for it, ignoring the white hot slice of pain that reverberates up my spine as my torso twists to its limit. I grab the pepper spray Caroline gave me, twist against him and shove it in his face, unloading with a war cry that reverberates through my entire body.
Stumbling, crying out like a wounded animal, he staggers backward, clawing at his eyes as his trousers fall down around his knees. The pulley holding the guys up jerks, the ropes slackening as Caleb’s body sags and falls to the floor with an ominous crack.
Nathaniel turns, partially blind and enraged, he throws himself on top of me again. His face is a mask of scars and tears and hate. He slams a fist into my cheek in a bid to subdue me, trying to break me, but I refuse to fall, I wont let him break me. He’s on top of me again, the animal inside him refusing to be bested.
“I’m gonna make this hurt, bitch. You won’t walk right for a month.”
So this is how we die? We had a good run.
I close my eyes and accept my fate, oddly serene with my choice to fade away and block out what he’s doing to me; praying for death is a comfort I hadn’t expected.
The weight on top of me lifts as my eyes filled with tears flutter open.
“She was never yours.” Coop stands tall behindNathaniel as he twists his head and breaks his neck, letting his body slump to the ground unceremoniously, my life coming full circle as the man who brought me so much pain lays dead in a heap beside me. I rise on shaky legs and throw my arms around Cooper’s neck as he pulls up my leggings to cover me. I sob, drowning in the comfort of his scent with every greedy inhale as the adrenaline softens and my emotions fight for the limelight.
“Caleb.”I rasp out his name.
Knowing I need to be with his brother, Coop reluctantly lets me go. I stumble like a newborn deer over to Caleb who is unresponsive on the ground.
