“Will that be enough?”
“We won’t know until you try.” I lean forward, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Tell me what happened, babe.”
She drops her hand to her lap, and I thread my fingers in hers again. “Mom wasn’t always a bad mom, but after my dad was killed in action overseas, she changed. She was heartbroken and incapable of looking after me. I was only six, but I had to grow up fast. We’d been living in a house the military provided, so we had to move. I know it wasn’t her fault, but she took me away from everyone and everything I knew and loved. I had no friends at my new school, and I was bullied because Mom was such a drunken mess. Then she met Bob.” Her face contorts into a grimace, and she clenches her jaw tight.
“Your stepdad?”
She nods. “He was nice, at first. Brought Mom flowers, brought me candy, whenever he came for dinner. Joked around with me, and he put a smile back on Mom’s face. I didn’t want a replacement Dad, but things were better for a while. However, it all changed after he moved in, and especially after they got married. Then he showed his true colors.”
A tear trickles down her cheek, and I smooth it away with my thumb.
“He was a pimp, and he got my mom addicted to drugs and coaxed her into prostitution. I was too young to know exactly what was going on at first. All I knew was that something wasn’t right. All these strange men coming and going from my house scared me. When I was thirteen, one of the boys in school propositioned me. He said he wanted to know if I was as good a fuck as my mom.”
My heart hurts for her, and I squeeze her hand tight.
“He took great pleasure in telling me how his dad had paid for her to take his virginity. He wasfourteen, Ryder. Fourteen.” She shakes her head. “I was sickened, but I didn’t deny it, because everything slotted into place. I confronted her when I got home, and she belittled me. After that, she made no attempts to hide anything. Assholes were constantly in my house doing drugs, getting drunk, throwing parties, and fucking my mom and other women.”
Tears cascade down her face, and I wish I could take her pain away. “When I came home the day of my fifteenth birthday, Bob was waiting for me; said he had a birthday surprise lined up.” Her eyes burn with anger. “His present was to force me to watch three guys fucking my mom while she was coked out of her head. He watched me the whole time, grinning as I trembled in fear and disgust.”
My stomach lurches unsteadily as I guess where this story might be going.
“He told me my present was the fact he would allow me to wait until I was sixteen before I joined the family business. He said he’d let me live under his roof for free if I watched and learned.”
Her lower lip wobbles. “I ran away that night, but he found me sleeping rough under the bridge two nights later and dragged me back. He beat me black and blue and said if I tried that again he’d kill me. He told me I belonged to him and to get used to it.”
“Shit, Zeta.” I gently lean in and hug her, careful not to press against her stomach. “I’m so sorry you had to live with that.” I understand what it’s like, more than she realizes. “Didn’t you have any other family you could turn to?”
She rests her head on my shoulder. “Mom’s parents died in a car accident when she was twenty, and my dad’s parents are old, and they live in Florida. I hadn’t seen them in years, and I didn’t feel I could approach them with this. The only one was my mom’s younger sister, but they’d had a big falling-out when I was a toddler, and I didn’t know her at all. All I knew was she worked overseas, and her name was Jillian Roberts. There was no one. I was completely alone.”
She looks off into space, and I can only begin to imagine the horrors toying with her mind. She shakes herself out of it a few minutes later, continuing. “I threw myself into school and my studies because it was the only way I could avoid the horrors that played on repeat in my mind. Every day, I was forced to watch and listen to mom as she fucked an endless stream of different guys. And they leered after me, some of them tried to touch me, but Bob always kicked them out. I was under no illusion. I knew he wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of his heart, and that terrified me.”
I’m struggling to keep my emotions in check listening to her. I hate that she grew up like that. That she’s been deprived of love. It’s no wonder we felt such a strong connection to one another the first time we met. We have so many similar experiences. I run my fingers through her hair, pressing a kiss atop her head. I just want to bundle her up and protect her from all the evil in the world, but I know I’m too late.
She’s already seen more than her fair share.
She places her hand against my chest, peering into my eyes as she continues explaining. “I couldn’t eat for weeks in the run-up to my sixteenth birthday, and I thought about running away again, but I had nowhere to go, and I knew there was a chance he’d make good on his threat to kill me, so I felt trapped. I pleaded with Mom. Begged her to leave him, but I didn’t even know if she heard me. She lived in a permanent drugged-up state, and I had given up all hope.”
I stroke her cheek, needing to touch her, to comfort her.
“But he didn’t come near me, and as weeks turned into months, I gradually started to relax. He still made me watch, and I knew it was only a reprieve, but I took the wins where I could. I signed up for self-defense classes after school, and I also fitted a lock on the back of my bedroom door because, more and more, assholes were wandering into my room while I was sleeping.”
A shudder works its way through her, and her face twists in pain. I feel sick to my stomach at the thought of what she’s remembering, and I want to pound my fist into those skeezy bastards for daring to make her feel unsafe in her own home.
Shaking the memories aside, she rests her head against my shoulder again, loosely draping her arms around my waist. She’s trembling against me, and I can almost smell her anxiety scenting the air. I run my hand up and down her back. “You don’t have to go on if it’s too painful.”
She clings to me, and I close my eyes, savoring the feel of her body warming mine.
“It all came to a head that night,” she whispers, pulling back and eyeballing me. “I woke in the middle of the night to a strange man running his hands up and down my bare legs.” She squeezes her eyes shut, and she’s shaking all over. I hug her to me again. “My stepdad was in the corner of the room, and he said it was time to give up my V-card. That he’d auctioned my virginity to the highest bidder, and this man was here to claim what was his.”
A piercing sob flies out of her mouth, and I hold her closer, scarcely able to breathe for fear of what she’s going to say next.
“He was disgusting, Ryder. At least forty, overweight and ugly, with a combover and bad breath. He was completely naked, stroking his cock and licking his lips as he tried to pull me down the bed to him. I kicked at him and screamed at the top of my lungs. Bob grabbed me by the hair and slapped me so hard in the face I almost blacked out. He ripped my clothes off and pinned my arms down. I was screaming for help, crying for my mother, begging her to rescue me, even if I knew it was futile. But then she was there, standing in the busted doorway, holding a knife, and shouting at them to leave me alone.”
Her sobs transform to full-blown crying, and Powell comes over, alerted by her distress.
“I’m okay,” she tells her. “I promise. I just… This is hard to relive, but I want Ryder to know.”
She nods, silently filling a paper cup with water and handing it to her. Powell’s eyes meet mine as Zeta takes sips, and I see nothing but compassion there. She’s the only guard who has ever shown me any kindness, the only one who has looked out for me, the only one willing to look beyond my crimes and see something more. “Thank you,” I mouth at her over Zeta’s head, and she nods before returning to her seat and her iPod.
