CHAPTER 11
CARA
My eyes shot open, fear and adrenaline rushing through me in equal measure at the feel of a large hand slamming down hard over my mouth and pressing me violently into the mattress. I flailed to grab the hand over my mouth and push it away, but the grip was strong.
“Don’t fight it, Cara bear,” A deep voice whispered, and the smell of whiskey and cheap cigarettes wafted over me as tears filled my eyes. “You know you can’t win,”
I knew alright. I knew only too well, but it didn’t stop me from hitting out, nipping, and scratching with every bit of strength I had in me, at the arm holding me down. I twisted and turned my body, and kicked my legs frantically, but found no purchase. It was too dark to see where I was even aiming. So dark. This was why I hated the dark. Before I went to sleep, I had left on the small battery powered camping lantern, which I’d found in the garage the day after we moved into that horrid place, but now it was off and there was just the terror of dark shadows, and the looming figure over me.
The backhand came from nowhere, striking me hard across my face and leaving me feeling foggy, my vision blurred as my face throbbed.
“I said don’t fight it!” the voice hissed closer to my ear now. I tried to make my arms move to push him away, but nothing happened and my head hurt too much to think straight.
As he moved his hand beneath the thin blanket that covered me, I wished his hit had knocked me out cold. That had happened before, not with Sean – my Mum’s current boyfriend, who was in my room for the sixth night in the two weeks we had been there - but in other places. The men would get angry when I fought and hit me too hard, or some just liked to hit me, or throw me around. That had resulted in me ending up unconscious, more than once. Different boyfriends of my mother’s, different states and cities, and places, but always the same sick, perverted, violent men.
It was easier when I was knocked out. It was easier to wake to the pain, but for it all to be over, than to have to find a place to hide within my mind, and find a way to make myself go there while it all happened.
“Stop!” I slurred as I weakly lifted my arm and tried to push Sean away, but it was useless. Fighting was always useless.
I must have closed my eyes in an effort to block out what I knew was to come, but a different, but equally terrifying voice had me snapping them open again.
“Keep still if you want to keep both fucking eyes.” A sharp blade was held right before my right eye and I gasped as I fought not to flinch.
I was older now, in the parking lot atJewels, Mr. Clean Cut looming over me this time.
Different city, but always the same men. Evil. I knew it too well. No one should know evil as intimately as I did, I was sure.
“NO!” I cried as he set down the knife at his side, then started to unbuckle his belt, a hungry and twisted look all over his face, that I also knew way too well. “Don’t do this!” I begged. “Please…I….I’ll go with you. Don’t do this!”
But nothing changed. It all played out just as it had. My blinding terror and agonised screams. There was no mercy. I was just a weak, small, and easy target to monsters. That was what my life had proven to me again and again. I had worked so hard to be stronger, better, but this day, this monster, he proved it wasn’t enough.
Desperate screams ripped from me as I lay helpless, over powered and alone, just as I always had been.
I tore myself from the nightmare and sat up, sweat covering my whole body and sticking my clothes to my skin, my breathing panicked and way too fast. I glanced around and realised I was still in the living room where I had fallen asleep after my earlier meltdown. Now there I sat having another.I was so fucked up.
Cal was asleep on the sofa beside me, still passed out cold. I was just grateful I hadn’t screamed aloud and woken him. I sat up slowly, not wanting to disturb Cal now either. Thankfully, he didn’t even stir.
I still felt shaky, sweaty, and out of breath when I got to my feet, but I was steady so I slipped from the living room and headed down the hall towards the stairs down to the basement level.
I was feeling twitchy and antsy after that nightmare. I hated the way I had felt both of those times I had been forced to relive – helpless and weak. I never wanted to feel that way again. I had already spent so many years of my life being dragged into traumatic situations I was powerless to escape, or even try to fight. That was what had driven me to learn to defend myself in the first place. I was so tired of being a victim, and terrified of allowing it to happen again.
Right then, as I made my way into the gym and closed the door behind me, all I could think was I needed to work harder and get stronger. I was small and light, but I could be faster, and I could learn new techniques that would use my flaws to my advantage, surely? I had to try. Inside I felt so broken. I just needed the ability to at least appear strong from the outside.
I stripped off the multiple layers of the guys clothes, which Cal had found for me the night before, until I stood in nothing but my leggings and a t shirt. I didn’t even know what time it was, or where any of the others in the house were. Right then, all I could focus on was doing something to make myself stop feeling so low and vulnerable. The heavy bag was calling my name.
I knew I should find gloves, or at least take the time to wrap my hands, as Hilt had taught me to do years earlier, but I was too worked up and emotional to spare the time. Instead I just started throwing punches, as hard and as fast as I possibly could.
Images of so many faces flashed through my mind unbidden as I lashed out at the bag again and again, fighting with every blow to rid myself of the fear and anger that was overwhelming me following the nightmare and all that had caused it. Tears trickled down my cheeks, and they only fueled my rage. I didn’t want to fucking cry! I didn’t want to be weak! But I felt it. More than thatactually. I felt broken, and it was terrifying, because I’d never truly allowed myself to admit to such truths before. I hadn’t had the luxury of admitting to myself, and especially not anyone else, that I was anything less than surviving.
I beat that bag until my hands hurt too much to hit it any longer, but it hadn’t been enough, so I backed up and started kicking it, throwing out every kick Hilt had taught me when he trained me in some mixed martial arts. More angry tears fell in tandem with my enraged, frustrated growls when my steadiness let me down and I found I couldn’t stay upright enough to keep kicking without something to hold on to for balance.
An anguished cry came from me as I fell into the bag and gripped onto it to keep myself upright. I smashed my fist into the side of it a few more times, but stopped when the pain was too much.
As I sank to the mat on the ground beneath me, I knew I’d achieved nothing. If anything I had just proven to myself how weak I truly was. I was even angrier and more worked up than I had been when the nightmare woke me, and now I was physically exhausted too, which just added to the feeling of hopelessness.
Something was wrong with me and I knew it. Maybe it was depression, or maybe all that had happened had made the anxiety, which I had lived with for so long, so much worse than I had ever known. Maybe finding the body of my Mum, followed by the attack atJewels, and all the shitty things I’d faced since, had me losing my marbles completely. I didn’t know. I couldn’t label what was wrong with me, but I knew that something was.
I needed to find a way to fix it and get a grip on myself again. I needed to be able to find my strength, because I already knewthere was no way I could go on as I was. The person I had become wasn’t the person I was or wanted to be.
