“He just told me it was nothing for me to worry about, so I didn’t.” He shrugs, looking innocent and reminding me of the version of him I thought I loved.
Ew… I feel ill.
“What did your old man do when he discovered it and your mum gone?” Brody asks. “Did he call anyone?”
“Not that I know of.” He shakes his head. “I know he was worried about her. Muttered something about not wanting to dob her in, and as fucked up as he is, he loved her. He wanted to protect her. I know he was messed up with all the incest stuff, but he was a good man.”
I scoff. “He wasn’t a good man, Daniel. He was evil, and I killed him.”
I watch his reaction, but he simply nods. “I know.”
“You don’t care?” I ask, and he shakes his head.
“Nothing I can do about it now.” He shrugs, and the fact that he doesn’t seem to care pisses me off.
Why isn’t he crying? Screaming abuse at me for taking away his dad forever?
This won’t do at all.
“I can still hear his screams,” I snarl, curling my lip as I glare at Daniel, finally seeing a flicker of pain in his eyes. “Reliving them helps me fall asleep at night.”
“What’s wrong with you?” he cries loudly as a sob lurches from his throat.
“Nothing is wrong with me, Daniel. My eyes are wide open now. I’m finally who I’m meant to be.”
“This isn’t you,” Daniel seethes. “You’re a sweet girl. A mother. You have a baby to worry about now. Mothers don’t act like this!”
“And fathers don’t push the mother of their child in the hopes they will both die!” I scream, lurching forward, and loving how he flinches back.
My hand cracks across his face, and the sound echoes in the small space.
“She might not be mine!” Daniel cries.
“But what if she is? How will you walk away from that?” I fist the front of his grotty shirt, snarling in his face.
“I-I-I don’t know!” he yells. “Maybe I can be a good dad to her.”
I shove back from him, needing the space because the urge to kill him is so close to the surface that I know I won’t be able to talk myself down off that ledge if I get much closer.
“You? Be a good dad to her?” I laugh manically. “Let’s think about that for a moment, shall we?”
I start pacing in front of him, feeling Brody close by, but not looking to see exactly where he is, because my attention needs to be honed in on my cousin right now.
“Imagine Bobbiisyours,” I say. “Imagine she brings home a boyfriend when she’s seventeen. Imagine he coaxes her in and then betrays her by RAPING HER!” I scream, and his flinch is so satisfying, I almost start laughing again.
“Imagine he invites his friends to rape her too… whilehewatches,” I hiss, balling my fists, and fighting every instinct in me from finding a weapon and ending him right now.
“Imagine them tying her to a table, spreading her legs so wide she’s practically doing the splits, even though she’s not a FUCKING BALLERINA!” I have no control as my mind goes back to that place. The feeling of the ropes burning into my wrists and ankles. The agonising burn of my muscles as they protested against the unnatural stretch. The feeling of wishing I would just die, right then and there, so it would all just stop.
I can feel my fists hitting his face. I watch as he takes each hit, not cowering away, like he deserves the pain of each blow.
“Imagine her young, inexperienced body, open and exposed to them, while one fucks her painfully deep and hard, and another shoves his fingers inside her arse so brutally, she can feel his nails SCRATCHING INSIDE HER!”
I fist his hair, slamming his head back against the concrete wall, and still, he doesn’t fight me.
“Abbey!” I hear someone yell, but it’s distant. Not really here because I’m somewhere else.
I’m back there. On that day.
