Picking up the axe, I haul in a breath as I heave it up to my shoulder then bring it down with all my weight into the mattress. It snags on a spring, and I have to pull so hard to release the axe that I almost fall on my ass.
Decimating the mattress takes longer than the bed frame, but Tommy is right: every stroke is therapeutic. I keep going until I’m breathing hard and my arms are burning, until I have blisters on my fingers and palms, until sweat is pouring down my back.
The fabric of the mattress doesn’t rip the way I want it to once I’ve destroyed the structure, and Tommy silently hands me a pair of heavy shears. I take them and set to work, stabbing and ripping through the fabric over and over and over until my hands are bleeding.
When I’ve reduced the mattress to a pile of springs and frayed, stained bits of fabric, I drop to my knees in the middle of the mess, exhausted.
I wait for the tears to come, the panic, the nausea. But it doesn’t happen, none of it.
Tommy has been standing a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest, watching me the whole time. He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything until I look at him, heaving in breaths.
He takes a step forward and holds his hand out to me. It takes me a minute to rise, but I do it, taking his hand and allowing him to help me as I navigate through the chaos and make my way back to him.
When I reach him, I turn and stare at the pile of debris, no longer recognizable as a bed. No longer recognizable as a memory.
I lean my head against his shoulder as we survey my work. He reaches into his pocket and holds something out to me. A pack of matches. I take it from him.
The match lights easily, small and bright. I squat down, holding it to a piece of the wood, then flick it into the pile. Picking up another splintered piece of the bed frame, I hold it to the flame until it lights, then hold that piece to a pile of fabric until the fire is burning hot and tall.
The wood hisses, then cracks and pops like gunfire as it burns, and the fabric and springs release a black smoke that stings my nose. Tommy stands by my side, silent, as we watch the thing that scarred my life turn into smoke and ash.
Until the flames shrink and the smoke thins, we don’t speak. Tommy slips an arm around my shoulders, and I lean into him until the sparks blow against our faces. My breathing is slower now, the raw edge of rage worn down to a hot calm. I don’t feel peaceful, but I do feel stronger. Ready.
“I don’t want to watch the videos,” I say firmly. “I want you to tell me about them.”
He sucks in a breath. “There’s not much to tell. They didn’t show much. Each one was pretty much the same.”
“How do you know they were different videos then?”
He grimaces, and I realize that I’m asking him to relive his trauma while he helps me with mine. I grip his hand.
“Details. The color of the fucker’s pants changed. The angle was slightly different. The sound would be louder or softer.”
“How many were there?”
He shuts his eyes for a long second. “Twenty-two.”
“So you didn’t get one everyday then?”
He shakes his head. “It started a couple of weeks after they took you, then ended a few weeks before I found you.”
“Did they ever show me? I mean, beyond my—where he was—” I let the sentence trail off. He knows what I mean.
He doesn’t answer for a moment, and I look up at him. The pain on his face breaks my heart. So he doesn’t have to see me when he says the words, I step in front of him and pull his arms around me, leaning my head back against his chest.
His voice is hoarse when he speaks. “Yes. They showed your face a couple of times. The camera panned up your body and stayed on your face in one. In another, he was standing by your face. Another time, you weren’t the focus, but the camera angle shifted, and you were in the frame. Every time, your eyes were closed. You looked like you were asleep.”
I’m quiet for a moment, staring at the fire. “There was sound?”
“On some.”
“Did you ever—could you hear me on any of them?”
He huffs out a breath. “Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. “A couple of times I could hear you moaning. One time—” his arms tighten around me, “one time, you said my name. It wassoft, hard to hear, hard to understand, but I amplified the audio until I could make it out.”
I nod. “Every time I closed my eyes, I was with you.”
Resting his forehead on the top of my head, he breathes me in. “I’m so sorry I didn’t stay with you at the church, baby. None of that should have happened. Not a single minute of it.”
